What if words only referred to words? What if ultimately, we lived in a self-referential world were words circled themselves but never broke through to signal something real through them? What if they contained no real presence?
There are many who think this—the nominalists of our age. A nominalist thinks that a word like “justice” is a human convention we use to describe an idea or our collective observations. But “justice” exists in name only (hence nominalist)—there is no real justice that exists outside of human experience to which we should conform. The same is true of other words like “virtue,” “truth,” and “wisdom.”
Naturally, you can see the close relationship between nominalists and moral relativists. If truth doesn’t really exist, what obligation do I have to live one way or another? You have your truth, I have mine.
This state of linguistic and moral affairs has implications everywhere, and so it certainly does for education. It has diminished our ability to think clearly about education in two ways. First, we now employ words for, in, and about education that no longer refer to anything substantial. Our words float lightly in the air, sometime still sounding pleasant, but signally nothing in particular. Second, educators have almost universally become relativists.
Consider the words that have traditionally been used in education. Take the word “education” as our first instance. Can you offer a pithy definition or description of what education is, what it is for, and how it is oriented to a human being? Most of us will have trouble. And most of us will end up with a definition that centers on practical utility: education is the preparation for work. Put in course terms: students should get a good education, so they can get into a good college, get a good job that gets good money so they can have a good life. This is quite a distance from the classical ideals of “the good life” that used to capture the minds educated Americans.
Consider the phrase “liberal arts.” Be honest with yourself before you read on—can you name the liberal arts? The phrase is plural so there must be at least two liberal arts. How many can you name? Some will think this exercise pointless and pedantic—as the liberal arts are so 13th century. But wait, didn’t many of us study at a liberal arts college, and take a liberal arts major or minor? For those of us who did (in the 20th or 21st century), can we name a couple of the liberal arts? Many of us will answer, “Sure—English.” Wrong. “Well then history.” Wrong. “Philosophy is a liberal art!” Wrong once more.
I studied history and classics in college and I, too, failed this quiz years ago, well after finishing college and graduate school. So I have no cause for boasting. If English, history, and philosophy aren’t liberal arts, what in the world are? Before we get to answers, let me ask two follow up questions. Whatever the liberal arts are, why are they called arts? And why are they called liberal?
Let’s start with the word “education.” Education is from the Latin educatio which is related to the verb educere. Educere means “to lead out” and also contains the sense of unfolding, unpacking, developing. It was the Roman word for “leading out” or raising up a child to full maturity. It was the cultivation of human child, growing the child to cull maturity and capacity. It was not job training.
The Romans used their word educatio to translate the Greek word paideia. The Greek word paideia is related to their word for child, pais, paidos. To Greek ears, they would hear the word paideia as something like “childing”—it was the course of study (encyclopedia actually) that a child would pass through on the way to becoming a fully-developed, adult Athenian ready to vote in the Greek assembly and serve in the military.
The Romans also used another word to translate paideia at times—the Latin word humanitas. It may seem odd to us now, but humanitas was a word for education. It also referred to the full cultivation of human capacities—so that a human could do best what only humans can do.
And what is it that humans can do? Much more than simply work at a job. Educatio and humanitas (and paideia) aimed much higher than job preparation. What humans do (that no other creatures do) is communicate with words and measure with numbers. They also create and enjoy beauty. The liberal arts were the study of word and number that provided educated humans with the skill and capacity to read anything, write anything, argue cogently, persuade eloquently, and to measure, weight, assess, and ponder the natural world.
We can now name the liberal arts: grammar, logic, rhetoric (the arts of language) and arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy (the arts of mathematics). Hopefully, you are breathing easier; you have studied some of these arts! Sadly, few of us have studied them all, few of have studied some of them to mastery, and virtually no one has studied them all to mastery. It used to be that to get your magister artium (master of the arts, M.A.) you would have to be qualified to teach all seven arts.
But now why are they called arts? Today we speak commonly of academic “subjects” that can be anything whatsoever. Few of us can describe the difference between an art and science. Can you? A science is a body of knowledge in a categorized domain and that is governed by common principles or laws. Biology is the science of living things together with the laws that govern living things. Science is derived from the Latin word scientia which simply means “knowledge” and which is related to the Latin verb scire, “to know.” Science is concerned with knowledge, and gathering knowledge in various domains.
An art is concerned with making. The word is derived from the Latin ars, artis and means “art” or something made. Artists make art or artifacts. What do we make with the liberal arts? With grammar, we use words to make sentences, paragraphs, poems, and entire books—and we learn to use these words with clarity, accuracy, precision, and even brevity. With logic we use words to make arguments that express truth. With rhetoric we use words to create compelling writing and speeches that persuade others to a course of action, idea, or belief. With the mathematical arts we measure the earth, ponder it, enumerate it, and contemplate its harmony of motion and sound.
The liberal arts therefore grant us the needed skills to access the great treasury of wisdom archived (and still growing) in the greatest books written. You were partially right if you thought that English, history, or philosophy were liberal arts. They represent great domains of learning and wisdom recorded in great literature and books. The liberal arts enable us to read well and understand books from Homer to Dante, from Galen to Harvey, from Newton to Einstein. The liberal arts open up for us not only epic poetry but also astronomy, music, and the natural sciences. In fact, the liberal arts enable us to do science with excellence.
Training in these arts prepares us well for… anything. It turns out that by not focusing directly on preparation for particular jobs that the liberal arts in many ways prepare us well for all of them. Now, we bump into the reason why these arts are called liberal—they liberate. They are ideal arts for those who wish to be free, free to do what humans can do when they have mastered word and number. All of this has been nearly lost in modern K-12 education but is opened up to us again by doing a little etymology. And we’ve hardly begun. These old words for education refer to perennial realities—realities we need to be really present among us.
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I am struck by the fact that a master of arts degree used to mean that you were qualified to instruct all seven of the liberal arts! My own MA degree certainly doesn’t mean that and I doubt there are many out there who would qualify by that definition. Thank you for this beautiful and thought-provoking article.