In his essay, The First Liberal Art, David Mulroy says the liberal arts make students better learners not better speakers. For Mulroy, pragmatism is built upon the liberal arts, and I like this far better than the inverse.
Indeed, I would rather sit down and discuss philosophy, religion, culture, etc than the how-to's of chicken genocide for mass consumption or the how-to's to the extraction of precious resources for the greatest profit-margin on a balance sheet.
I, too, like Mulroy believe that "perfection" of any discipline can be reached through the synergy of the liberal arts with pragmatics. If the liberal arts make us better thinkers, then no matter what discipline we drift toward, we can excel in said discipline if we use the tenets from the liberal arts. And, that is the case the higher up the food chain a person reaches in the job market, no matter what field they enter.
For example, consider a sales associate at Wal-Mart. Their primary role is greet, scan, pack, exchange money, and express gratitude, low, low thinking skills right? I mean where are you gonna use liberal arts there. Now, let's look at the assistant manager of Wal-mart. He's got to coordinate, judge, prioritize, based upon employee quotas. Then we can include the manager of the whole store. He's got to be creative, motivational, and a thinker, which sounds a lot like the liberal arts.
And, while advances in technology will always be linear and static, the thinking that goes behind them are fluid and organic. So, with that being said, any one can be taught practical sciences, but not many people can connect them to humanity.
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6 comments:
I don't get the title. A little help?
It was Isocrates (4th century BCE orator), who said the liberal arts “do not by themselves make students better speakers or counselors, just eumathesteroi, “better learners.” I believe Mulroy endorses this view.
I'm not sure Mulroy would agree with you that "pragmatism is built upon the liberal arts," if you mean that you learn the liberal arts first and then you apply them pragmatically.
First of all, you have to acknowledge the difference Mulroy says there is between ancient and modern notions of what "liberal arts" means. The ancient, Aristotelian notion of the liberal arts focuses on their pragmatic value, according to Mulroy.
One more question: where would you put grammar on the pragmatic science/liberal arts spectrum?
it seems to me that mulroy does believe that liberal arts are not the only means by which an individual becomes a better learner, but by the same token he does point to the idea that they aid in this area.
I can't remember why I entitled the way I did, sorry.
I would put grammar on the pragmatic science level, and I'll answer your second question, later after I have developed my argument better.
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