Classical Education
Transcript: The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education That's my title! The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education -Kevin Clark and Ravi Scott Jain "Grounded in Piety, Governed by Theology." Piety “...piety signifies the duty, love, and respect owed to God, parents, and communal authorities past and present. It connotes the cultivation of faithfulness in relationships and commitment to one’s tradition as historically situated in place and time.” "The training of bodies and the tuning of hearts." Gymnastic and Mus(e)ic -Plato, Rebublic, III. "Gymnastic as well as music should begin in the early years; the training in it should be careful and should continue through life." -Clark and Jain, The Liberal Arts Tradition "Education is not merely an intellectual affair... because human beings are not merely minds...A full curriculum must cultivate the whole person, soul and body." "The Tools by Which Knowledge is Fashioned" The Seven Liberal Arts Imitation vs. Art. vs. Science St. Thomas Aquinas "Even in speculative matters, there is something in the way of work; e.g., the making of a syllogism, or a fitting speech, or the work of counting and measuring. Hence, whatever habits are ordained to suchlike works of the speculative reason, are by a kind of comparison called arts indeed, but liberal arts..." Trivium Quadrivium Language Arts Mathematical Arts Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric “In their most basic sense, grammar has to do with understanding language, dialectic with dialogic reasoning, and rhetoric with the artful composition of texts, written and spoken.” Trivium: The Three Ways "I fear that we are not getting rid of God because we still believe in Grammar." -Nietzche Grammar: The Art of Understanding Language Dialectic: The Art of Reasoning "Now, the art of rhetoric being available for the enforcing either of truth or falsehood, who will dare to say that truth...is to take its stand unarmed against falsehood? -St. Augustine Rhetoric: The Artful Communication of the Truth "Movere, docere, delectare." -Cicero Ethos, pathos, logos. -Aristotle Quadrivium: The Four Ways "Plato believed that the study of mathematics leads the mind toward pure reason and cultivates the true love of wisdom (the origin of the term philosophy). By training one's thoughts on the perfections of mathematics, the mind learns to transcend the level of changing opinions to identify objective truth." -Clark and Jain, The Liberal Arts Tradition Arithmetic: The Study of Discrete Quantity at Rest "Let none but Geometers enter here." -Inscription above the door to Plato's Academy Geometry: The Study of Continuous Quantity At Rest "Astronomy was the best example of a mathematical system devised to contain a vast amount of observational data." Astronomy: The Study of Continuous Quantity in Motion "For the ancients, the liberal art of music was a serious and sacramental reality." Clark and Jain, The Liberal Arts Tradition Music: The Study of Discrete Quantity in Motion "It is time that the West once again had a vision for the whole of reality, in which God, His image, and His creation are the interpenetrating centers." -Clark and Jain, The Liberal Arts Tradition Philosophy: The Love of Wisdom -Metaphysics -Moral Philosophy -Natural Philosophy Theology: The Queen of Sciences, The Science of Divine Revelation