The Value of the Arts Within a Liberal Arts Education: Skills for the Workplace and the World

2018 ◽  
pp. 125-141
Author(s):  
Ilene Lieberman ◽  
Mara Parker
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Arts Education ◽  
Liberal Arts Education ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The World

The Erosion of Humanitas

Worldview ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 17 (7) ◽  
pp. 34-39
Author(s):  
Clyde A. Holbrook
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Arts Education ◽  
Liberal Arts Education ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
Social Differences ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
The Ideal

The role of higher education is crucial in a world that seems torn apart by cultural, economic, political and social differences, and yet is, at the same time, ever more closely drawn together by technology, travel, social and economic needs. Higher education offers no panacea for the disunity of this complex and confusing world. It should, however, contribute to a kind of understanding that spans the differences among the people of the world, or at least those within one country. In this connection liberal arts education is today in jeopardy, unsure of its competence to serve the ideal of humanitas that at one time was conceded to be both the stable ground and the ever elusive goal of higher education.

Education and Plato's Parable of the Cave

1996 ◽  
Vol 178 (3) ◽  
pp. 49-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Losin
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Development ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Arts Education ◽  
Early Education ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Liberal Arts Education ◽  
The World ◽  
The Human Condition

Plato's image of the cave in Republic Book VII is offered as “an analogy for the human condition—for our education or lack of it.” He tells us explicitly how to unpack some of its details: the cave is the region accessible to sight or perception; the world outside and above the cave is the intelligible region accessible not to perception but to reasoning; the upward journey out of the cave into daylight is the soul's ascent to the intelligible realm. The educator's task is a matter of turning souls around rather than introducing “knowledge into a soul which doesn't have it.” Such reorienting of souls has affective or desiderative dimensions as well as cognitive ones. Early education in mousikê and gymnastikê rechannels desire, wakes up the spirited part of the child's nature and enables it to work together with reason, imbuing the soul with that order and grace necessary for later cognitive development. Book VII outlines a curriculum to free the soul of the things that turn its sight downward and to reorient it towards the truth. Its outlines are Pythagorean, but it is Plato who most compellingly established the curriculum that still forms the basis for much liberal arts education.

Education and Plato's Parable of the Cave

1997 ◽  
Vol 179 (3) ◽  
pp. 49-65
Author(s):  
Peter Losin
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Development ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Arts Education ◽  
Early Education ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Liberal Arts Education ◽  
The World ◽  
The Human Condition

Plato's image of the cave in Republic Book VII is offered as “an analogy for the human condition—for our education or lack of it.” He tells us explicitly how to unpack some of its details: the cave is the region accessible to sight or perception; the world outside and above the cave is the intelligible region accessible not to perception but to reasoning; the upward journey out of the cave into daylight is the soul's ascent to the intelligible realm. The educator's task is a matter of turning souls around rather than introducing “knowledge into a soul which doesn't have it.” Such reorienting of souls has affective or desiderative dimensions as well as cognitive ones. Early education in mousikê and gymnastikê rechannels desire, wakes up the spirited part of the child's nature and enables it to work together with reason, imbuing the soul with that order and grace necessary for later cognitive development. Book VII outlines a curriculum to free the soul of the things that turn its sight downward and to reorient it towards the truth. Its outlines are Pythagorean, but it is Plato who most compellingly established the curriculum that still forms the basis for much liberal arts education.

Cultural Institutions, Theatre and Humanistic Liberal Education

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 152-171
Author(s):  
J. Scott Lee ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Education ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Arts Education ◽  
Political Freedom ◽  
Intellectual Freedom ◽  
Cultural Institutions ◽  
Liberal Arts Education ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
The Arts

The purported crisis and opportunity in liberal education may be approached via a reconsideration of the arts in liberal arts education. The advantage of such a view is that proponents of humanistic liberal education could speak in their own terms, while incorporating in a systematic way studies of ancient and modern liberal arts, addressing public questions of the value and substance of a liberal education. A plausible issue for consideration is whether the “arts” can address a crisis, its purported causes and solutions, and the key role the humanities may have in building a renewed liberal arts education. At stake in the classroom is the realization of the possibilities, the intellectual freedom, which humans make for themselves in artistic making. This freedom differs from, but is complementary to, political freedom, the loadstone of standard liberal education defenses, because it is based in innovations and inventions of the arts and sciences, not in constitutions or politics of democracy.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document