DOCSLIB.ORG

Artes Liberales the View from Here

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Artes Liberales the View from Here Artes Liberales The View from Here “After the Liberal Arts,” a talk he deliv- very undergraduate enrolled at ered at Williams in February, summed up Williams this year is a member of the extent to which American higher education has changed in recent decades a tiny, highly select minority—the with two observations: 1) Half of all E Americans now have some exposure to 3 percent of all college students in the higher education at one time or another United States who have chosen a liberal in the course of their lives; 2) For most of these people, the word “college” does not arts education over early professional connote the liberal arts. training. By Zelda Stern In the face of this movement toward greater earlier specialization in American ASIDE FROM A BRIEF SURGE closure or by merger. By 1994, of the higher education, an uncertain economy, after World War II, the proportion of 3,941 institutions of higher education in a tougher job market for college gradu- undergraduate degrees awarded each the United States, the Carnegie ates and the increasing costs of providing year in the liberal arts has been declining Foundation for the Advancement of and pursuing an education in the liberal for 100 years. At an American Council Teaching classified only 202, or about arts, some critics have charged that the of Learned Societies (ACLS) Conference 5 percent, as liberal arts colleges—that broad general education provided by a on Liberal Arts Colleges in American is, institutions awarding at least half liberal arts college is an anachronism—a Higher Education, held at Williams last their degrees in the liberal arts. luxury individuals and society no longer November, Williams President Emeritus As the higher education pie grows can afford. Francis Oakley outlined the downward larger, serving more and more people, the What is the graduate of a liberal trajectory: As recently as the mid-1950s, liberal arts slice shrinks in proportion to arts college like Williams (not to men- approximately 50 percent of all institu- the whole. Today, the most popular tion the parents who have paid for this tions of higher education in the United undergraduate major in the United education) to make of such charges? States were liberal arts. By the early States—accounting for 20 percent of all Given current economic realities, of 1970s, that share had fallen to 25 per- bachelor’s degrees awarded annually—is what use is a liberal arts education in cent. The decline in the share of student business. Another 10 percent of degrees today’s world—to the individual, to enrollments was even greater, from are conferred in education; 7 percent in society, to prospective employers? man 25 percent in the mid-1950s to 8 percent one of the health professions. Almost by the early 1970s. twice as many degrees are awarded each College: A Recent Phenomenon To some extent, the decline has not year in social work as in all foreign A little more than a century ago in simply been proportionate. Between languages and literatures combined. the United States, it was possible to 1967 and 1990, some 167 private, four- Noted author, scholar and New become a doctor, lawyer or scientist Illustrations by Whitney Sher year colleges disappeared, either by Yorker contributor Louis Menand, in without ever going to college. In the 32 | WILLIAMS ALUMNI REVIEW | WINTER 2004 WINTER 2004 | WILLIAMS ALUMNI REVIEW | 33 The term “liberal arts” connotes a certain elevation above utilitarian concerns. Yet liberal education is intensely useful. — George F.Will, Washington Post columnist 1869-70 academic year, regardless of birth, possessed technical as part of the Cold War competition for What does the increasing prevalence higher education have been those whose for example, half the stu- expertise. If a liberal arts education scientific supremacy—increased the of early specialization mean for under- faculties, facilities and resources are still dents at Harvard Law remained an optional luxury for these number of American undergraduates by graduate institutions like Williams that attracting large numbers of students— School and nearly three- people, the college would wither away; nearly 500 percent. In the 1960s alone, still do provide a liberal education? As it in other words, the strongest, best- quarters of the students at and, in fact, there was evidence in the college enrollments more than doubled. turns out, not much. While the percent- endowed, most selective private liberal Harvard Medical School 1860s, cited with alarm by educators, At the peak of this expansion, new age share of liberal arts enrollments in arts colleges and universities in the did not have undergradu- that the proportion of Americans community college campuses were relation to the growing number of total country. In the hierarchy of American ate degrees. In 1868, 19 attending college was in steep decline. opening in the United States at the rate student enrollments in institutions of higher education, liberal arts institutions of the 411 medical stu- By making college the gateway to the of one per week. In this climate of higher learning has fallen, it is not at all like Williams remain at the top. dents at the University of Michigan and professions, Eliot not only linked the growth and prosperity, the liberal arts clear that the actual number of students none of the 387 law students there held college to the rising fortunes of this new flourished. The proportion of degrees pursuing the liberal arts has declined. Philosopher or Engineer? prior degrees of any kind. Dartmouth’s class, he enabled it to preserve its anti- awarded annually in the liberal arts rose The institutions that have been able If the shift toward greater earlier Chandler Scientific School, founded in utilitarian ethos in an increasingly for the first time in a century. to survive the financial pressures brought specialization in American higher 1851, admitted students as young as 14; secular and utilitarian age. ‘The practi- This brief flowering of the liberal on by the leveling off of the college-age education has had little impact on the by 1868, the school had 104 graduates, cal spirit and the literary or scholastic arts, however, turned out to be an population and the increased costs of selective liberal arts college, what are none of whom had been to college. Until spirit are both good, but they are incom- anomaly. In the 1970s a sharp decline in 1860, Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School patible,’ [Eliot] explained in his Atlantic college-age youths and an economic had no admission requirements at all. Monthly article. ‘If commingled, they recession brought higher education This state of affairs continued until are both spoiled.’ Liberalization is the expansion to a halt. Faced with falling Origin of the “Liberal Arts” around the turn of the century, when prerequisite for specialization. It has enrollments, many colleges began to educational reformer and Harvard been the pattern in American education offer more courses with a direct lthough the business of trying to define what purpose higher President Charles William Eliot, appalled ever since.” application to work. Since then, while education should serve dates at least to Plato and Aristotle, the at what he perceived to be a lack of While a liberal arts education is still still paying lip service to the liberal arts, Aterm “liberal arts” derives from the Medieval Latin artes uniform standards in American higher the gateway to certain professions, American higher education has become liberales—artes meaning “subjects of study,” and liberales meaning education, succeeded in making an pursuit of a liberal arts degree is now far more and more professionally oriented. “proper to free persons.” In the medieval European university, “liberal undergraduate degree a prerequisite for from the norm. This fact often surprises Anthony P. Carnevale, a labor economist arts” referred to the seven branches of learning considered suitable for attending Harvard’s professional the parents and grandparents of current and vice president at the Educational freemen: grammar, logic and rhetoric (the trivium), leading to a Bachelor schools. Menand, in his talk at Williams, Williams students—those generations Testing Service in Princeton, N.J., of Arts; and arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music (the quadrivium), credited this act with reversing the who came of age during the golden era observed in an Aug. 3, 2003, New York leading to the Master of Arts. During the Renaissance, people began to course of liberal arts education. of higher education between the end of Times article, “Careers: The Undecided”: use “liberal arts” more broadly to describe studies aimed at imparting a “Eliot’s reform, once it had been World War II and the end of the Vietnam “The American higher education system general rather than a vocational or professional education. Although the widely adopted, saved the liberal arts,” War. Between 1945 and 1975, three has become the work force training liberal arts curriculum has changed, this Renaissance usage holds today. Menand said. “Eliot saw that in an phenomena—the baby boom, a long system. It doesn’t like to see itself that Liberal arts in modern colleges and universities include the study of expanding nation, social and economic period of domestic economic growth and way. It perceives itself as … provid[ing] a literature, languages, philosophy, history, mathematics and the sciences power was passing to people who, government support of higher education liberal education. It doesn’t.” (both the “hard” sciences and the social sciences). 34 | WILLIAMS ALUMNI REVIEW | WINTER 2004 WINTER 2004 | WILLIAMS ALUMNI REVIEW | 35 Note too that a faithful study of the liberal arts humanizes character and permits it not to be cruel. — Ovid, Ex Ponto, II, ix, 47 the implications for the liberal arts capable—of adapting later to the are essential to success in many profes- graduate? Does this trend and a particular needs of the professions and of sions and are often worth more to an tougher job market mean that a liberal public life, than would a person more employer than the possession of spe- arts education is less useful than it used narrowly trained—at an early age—in cific technical skills.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Summer Professional Development for Classical Liberal Arts Teachers
    Academy for Classical Teachers Summer Professional Development for Classical Liberal Arts Teachers 2020 Academy for Classical Teachers The Academy for Classical Teachers partners with the Institute for Classi- cal Education to offer online seminars and courses within the classical lib- eral arts tradition. If you are a certified teacher, course hours may be applicable toward re- quired professional development clock hours for recertification. ACT Summer Courses Online Seminars Plato’s Republic (June and July Offerings) Homer’s Iliad (July) Online Courses: Philosophy of Education: Classical Sources Symposium Follow Up: Thucydides’ Education in Virtuous Leadership The Enigma of Health: Natural Science and the Ensouled Body Quadrivium: Euclidean Geometry Questions? Reach out to [email protected] GreatHearts 4801 E. Washington Street, Suite 250 Phoenix, AZ 85034 www.greatheartsamerica.org Academy for Classical Teachers | 2020 Online Seminars Each year, the Academy for Classical Teachers offers leisurely summer seminars around classic philosophical and literary texts. This year, we are pleased to present online seminars on both Plato’s Republic and Homer’s Iliad. Cost: $125 Course Details Plato's Republic (June and July Offerings) June Seminar Plato’s Republic is without question one of the most important and influential books ever written, and it is difficult to understand Western civilization without engaging with The Re- June 8-26 public. It is beautifully written, very accessible, and it is a joy to read and discuss this book. Tues. & Thurs. This summer, members of the community will have a special opportunity for an in-depth 6 - 7:30 pm (CST) complete reading and 3-week series of Socratic seminar discussions on this seminal book.
    [Show full text]
  • The Pythagoreans in the Light and Shadows of Recent Research
    The Pythagoreans in the light and shadows of recent research PAPER PRESENTED AT THE DONNERIAN SYMPOSIUM ON MYSTICISM, SEPTEMBER 7th 1968 By HOLGER THESLEFF It has been said' that "Pythagoras casts a long shadow in the history of Greek thought". Indeed, the shadow both widens and deepens spectacularly in course of time. He has not only been considered—on disputable grounds, as we shall see as the first European mystic. No other personality of the Greco–Roman world (except Christ, and perhaps Alexander the Great) has been credited with such powers and all-round capacities. Since early Impe- rial times he has been represented as a man of divine origin, a saint, a sage, a prophet, and a great magician; a sportsman and an ascetic; a poet and prose- writer; a Dorian nationalist (though an Ionian by birth); an eminent mathe- matician, musician, astronomer, logician, rhetorician, and physician; a world-wide traveller; a founder of a religious sect, an ethical brotherhood, and a political community; a great metaphysician and teacher whose views of the universe, human society and the human soul deeply influenced not only Plato and Aristotle, but Herakleitos, Parmenides, Demokritos and, in short, all prominent thinkers; a preacher of universal tolerance, and—a good hus- band and father. There can be seen occasional signs of a revival of Pythagoreanism at least from the ist century A. D. onwards,2 and some authors of the Imperial age 1 Philip (below), p. 3. 2 If Pseudo-Pythagorica are left out of account, the activity of the Sextii in Rome during the reign of Augustus is the first manifest sign.
    [Show full text]
  • Notes: Definition and Explanation of Trivium and Quadrivium
    DEFINITION AND EXPLANATION OF TRIVIUM AND QUADRIVIUM (From the first time I taught the course--my notes) (Communication Education, Vol. 35,#2, April, 1986, 174, Teaching Critical Thinking Skills) In the Middle Ages university courses were divided into two areas, the Arts and the Sciences. These were a system of rules for generating knowledge. The seven Liberal Arts of Languages ( or Arts) and Sciences were complements, and obviously comprised a Liberal Arts education .. TRIVIUM The Languages (ARTS), or Trivium were composed of: Grammar (Latin) Logic Rhetoric These Arts were concerned with (and were to discover) the social significance of knowledge. These Arts were relatively subjective. Completion of this study led to a bachelor's degree. QUADRIVIUM The Sciences, the Quadrivium, was composed of: Arithmetic Geometry Astronomy Music The Sciences arranged knowledge into systematic bodies of information. The Sciences were relatively objective. Completion of the Quadrivium led to a master's degree (Continued Explanation of Trivium and Quadrivium) Rhetoric, chief among the courses of the Trivium, liberated students from a single view of a problem and led them to social autonomy. The divisions of classical rhetoric provide directions forteaching critical thinking skills. Peter Ramus, 1515-1572, redefined ancient discipliines: Beginning with the trivium, with the arts of discourse, Ramus defined grammar as the art of speaking well, that is of speaking correctly; dialectic as the art of reasoning well; and rhetoric as the art of the eloquent and ornate use of language. Skills arising from Invention/inventio/heuristic were insights from researched information and discovery of arguments to support the point of view espoused.
    [Show full text]
  • Spring 2016 Volume 42 Issue 3
    Spring 2016 Volume 42 Issue 3 341 David Foster Holbein and Plato on the Quadrivium 367 Nelson Lund A Woman’s Laws and a Man’s: Eros and Thumos in Rousseau’s Julie, or The New Heloise (1761) and The Deer Hunter (1978) 437 Thomas L. Pangle Socrates’s Argument for the Superiority of the Life Dedicated to Politics Review Essays: 463 Liu Xiaofeng How Philosophy Became Socratic: A Study of Plato’s “Protagoras,” “Charmides,” and “Republic” by Laurence Lampert 477 Matthew Post The Meanings of Rights: The Philosophy and Social Theory of Rights, ed. Costas Douzinas and Conor Gearty; Libertarian Philosophy in the Real World: The Politics of Natural Rights by Mark D. Friedman; The Cambridge Companion to Liberalism by Steven Wall An Exchange: 495 Tucker Landy Reply to Antoine Pageau St.-Hilaire’s Review of After Leo Strauss: New Directions in Platonic Political Philosophy 497 Antoine P. St-Hilaire Strauss’s Platonism and the Fate of Metaphysics: A Rejoinder to Tucker Landy’s Reply Book Reviews: 501 Rodrigo Chacón Arendtian Constitutionalism: Law, Politics and the Order of Freedom by Christian Volk 507 Ross J. Corbett Scripture and Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls by Alex P. Jassen 513 Bernard J. Dobski On Sovereignty and other Political Delusions by Joan Cocks; Freedom Beyond Sovereignty: Reconstructing Liberal Individualism by Sharon Krause 521 Lewis Fallis On Plato’s “Euthyphro” by Ronna Burger 525 Hannes Kerber Political Philosophy: What It Is and Why It Matters by Ronald Beiner 531 Pavlos Leonidas Western Civilization and the Academy by Bradley C. S. Watson Papadopoulos 543 Antonio Sosa Democracy in Decline? by Larry Diamond and Marc F.
    [Show full text]
  • The Liberal Arts
    The Liberal Arts Philosophia et septem artes liberales, The seven liberal arts – Picture from the Hortus deliciarum of Herrad of Landsberg (12th century) The liberal arts (Latin: artes liberales) are those subjects or skills that in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free person (a citizen) to know in order to take an active part in civic life. In Ancient Greece this included participating in public debate, defending oneself in court, serving on juries, and most importantly, military service (slaves and resident aliens were by definition excluded from the duties and responsibilities of citizenship). The aim of these studies was to produce a virtuous, knowledgeable, and articulate person. Grammar, rhetoric, and logic were the core liberal arts. During medieval times, when learning came under the purview of the Church, these subjects (called the Trivium) were extended to include the four other classical subjects of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy (which included the study of astrology). This extension was called the Quadrivium, and these well defined subjects originated during classical times. Together the Trivium and Quadrivium constituted the seven liberal arts of the medieval university curriculum. In the Renaissance, the Italian humanists, who in many respects continued the grammatical and rhetorical traditions of the Middle Ages, rechristened the old Trivium with a new and more ambitious name: Studia humanitatis, and also increased its scope. They excluded logic and added to the traditional Latin grammar
    [Show full text]
  • NCF Academic Catalog | Page 1
    NCF Academic Catalog | Page 1 [intentionally blank] NCF Academic Catalog | Page 2 Academic Catalogue 2019 – 2020 Education is the food of youth, the delight of old age, the ornament of prosperity, the refuge and comfort of adversity, and the provocation to grace in the soul. ST. AUGUSTINE physical address 136 3rd Avenue South, Franklin, TN 37064 mailing address P.O. Box 1575, Franklin, TN 37065 615-815-8360 newcollegefranklin.org NCF Academic Catalog | Page 3 AUTHORIZATION New College Franklin is authorized by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. This authorization must be renewed each year and is based on an evaluation by minimum standards concerning quality of education, ethical business practices, health and safety, and fiscal responsibility. NON-DISCRIMINATION New College Franklin admits students of any race, color and national or ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at New College Franklin. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in the administration of its educational policies, admissions policies or any other school-administered programs. FAMILY EDUCATIONAL RIGHTS AND PRIVACY ACT (FERPA) New College Franklin is committed to the privacy and confidentiality of student records. It may release financial, academic, and personal information to parents of dependent students seventeen years of age and younger without students’ consent. If students are eighteen or older and independent from their parents, they must provide written consent to the college before financial, academic, and personal information is released to the parents. College personnel may reveal generally observed public behavior to parents.
    [Show full text]
  • Pythagoras and the Early Pythagoreans
    Revista Archai E-ISSN: 1984-249X [email protected] Universidade de Brasília Brasil McKirahan, Richard ZHMUD. L. (2012). PYTHAGORAS AND THE EARLY PYTHAGOREANS. OXFORD, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Revista Archai, núm. 13, julio-diciembre, 2014, pp. 161-164 Universidade de Brasília Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=586161983019 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative desígnio 13 jul/dez 2014 resenhas ZHMUD. L. (2012). PYTHAGORAS AND THE EARLY PYTHAGOREANS. OXFORD, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS * Richard McKirahan McKIRAHAN, R. (2014). Resenha. ZHMUD, L. Pythagoras * Pomona College, and the Early Pythagoreans. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Los Angeles. With an unsurpassed command of primary ma- 2012. Pp. xxiv, 491, Archai, n. 13, jul - dez, p. 161-164 terials and meticulous scholarship Professor Zhmud DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14195/1984-249X_13_15 gives us a thorough treatment of Pythagoreanism through the fifth century, occasionally ranging into the Pythagoreans of the fourth century as well. He presents a careful treatment of the source material on Pythagoras’ life and activities, and takes up the rarely discussed problem of who are to count as Pythagoreans. He proceeds to discuss all things (allegedly) Pythagorean, including metempsycho- sis and vegetarianism, politics and the nature of Pythagorean ‘societies’, mathematici and acusma- tici, number theory and numerology, geometry and harmonics, cosmology and astronomy, (surprisingly) medicine and the life sciences, and he concludes by examining Pythagorean views on the soul and the doctrine that all is number.
    [Show full text]
  • ``Mathematics'' and ``Physics'' in the Science of Harmonics
    NISSUNA UMANA INVESTIGAZIONE SI PUO DIMANDARE VERA SCIENZIA S’ESSA NON PASSA PER LE MATEMATICHE DIMOSTRAZIONI LEONARDO DA VINCI vol. 4 no. 3-4 2016 Mathematics and Mechanics of Complex Systems STEFANO ISOLA “MATHEMATICS” AND “PHYSICS” IN THE SCIENCE OF HARMONICS msp MATHEMATICS AND MECHANICS OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS Vol. 4, No. 3-4, 2016 dx.doi.org/10.2140/memocs.2016.4.213 ∩ MM “MATHEMATICS” AND “PHYSICS” IN THE SCIENCE OF HARMONICS STEFANO ISOLA Some aspects of the role that the science of harmonics has played in the history of science are discussed in light of Russo’s investigation of the history of the concepts of “mathematics” and “physics”. 1. The rambling route of the ancient scientific method In several places in Russo’s writings on the history of science, one can find en- lightening discussions about the meanings of the concepts of “physics” and “math- ematics”, along with the particular notions of truth involved in them; see, e.g., [58, Chapter 6.6; 60, Chapter 15; 56; 57]. Both terms derive from the Greek: the original meaning of the former was the investigation of everything that lives, grows or, more generally, comes into existence, whereas the latter referred to all that is studied, thus deriving its meaning not from its content but from its method. In the Hellenistic period, the term “physics” continued to be used to indicate that sector of philosophy that addressed nature (the other sectors being ethics and logic), thus corresponding to what came to be called “natural philosophy” in modern times. On the other hand, the term “mathematics” was used to indicate all the disciplines (including geometry, arithmetic, harmonics, astronomy, optics, mechanics, hydro- statics, pneumatics, geodesy and mathematical geography) that shared the same method of investigation, based on the construction of theories by which “theorems” are proved, leaning on explicitly stated initial assumptions.
    [Show full text]
  • Leonardo Da Vinci in Raphael's School of Athens
    Journal of Humanistic Mathematics Volume 11 | Issue 2 July 2021 Leonardo da Vinci in Raphael's School of Athens Frode Sirnes Larsen UiT The Arctic University of Norway Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons, and the Mathematics Commons Recommended Citation Larsen, F. S. "Leonardo da Vinci in Raphael's School of Athens," Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Volume 11 Issue 2 (July 2021), pages 196-243. DOI: 10.5642/jhummath.202102.09 . Available at: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm/vol11/iss2/9 ©2021 by the authors. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. JHM is an open access bi-annual journal sponsored by the Claremont Center for the Mathematical Sciences and published by the Claremont Colleges Library | ISSN 2159-8118 | http://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm/ The editorial staff of JHM works hard to make sure the scholarship disseminated in JHM is accurate and upholds professional ethical guidelines. However the views and opinions expressed in each published manuscript belong exclusively to the individual contributor(s). The publisher and the editors do not endorse or accept responsibility for them. See https://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm/policies.html for more information. Leonardo da Vinci in Raphael's School of Athens Cover Page Footnote I want to thank the editors of Journal of Humanistic Mathematics and Nils Herman Hornnæss for their contributions to the writing of this article. This work is available in Journal of Humanistic Mathematics: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm/vol11/iss2/9 Leonardo da Vinci in Raphael’s School of Athens Frode Sirnes Larsen Department of Education, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, NORWAY [email protected] Abstract At the center of the School of Athens, Raphael painted Plato with a face similar to that of Leonardo da Vinci.
    [Show full text]
  • THE ORGANIZATION of KNOWLEDGE Disciplines and Practices Joan Cadden
    THE ORGANIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE Disciplines and Practices Joan Cadden Carved on the west facade of Chartres cathedral is the most familiar and durable representation of the learned disciplines in the Middle Ages: the seven liberal arts. Along with the allegorical figure of Grammar (who deploys a switch against two sleepy little boys), the six other branches of systematic knowledge appear, accompanied by their founders or main authorities – Geometry with Euclid, for example. Sculpted in the mid-twelfth century, these figures express at once the broad cultural acceptance of this particular picture of how learning was organized and also some of the problems asso- ciated with taking such cultural consensus at face value. On the one hand, the cathedral’s school, famous for its academic excellence since the early twelfth century, continued to associate the seven arts with the curriculum for beginning students – first the three verbal disciplines (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and then the four mathematical disciplines (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music) (Figure .). On the other hand, this template had never entirely fit the shape of scientific enterprises in the early Middle Ages, and, by the time the portal was carved, changes within and beyond the school were making the taxonomy obsolete. The Chartres portal to the contrary notwithstanding, medieval disciplines were not written in stone. Both the fluidity of disciplinary divisions over time and their flexibility at any given moment pose problems for constructing an overview of the borders and compartments of medieval science. By their very nature, however, these uncertainties and variabilities do provide opportunities for understanding Philippe Verdier, “L’iconographie des arts liberaux´ dans l’art du moyen ageˆ jusqu’alafinduquinzi` eme` siecle,”` in Arts lib´eraux et philosophie au moyen age:ˆ Actes du quatri`eme Congr`es International de Philosophie M´edi´evale, Universit´edeMontr´eal, Montr´eal, Canada, 27 aout–2ˆ septembre 1967 (Montreal: Institut d’Etudes´ Medi´ evales;´ Paris: Librairie Philosophique J.
    [Show full text]
  • Boethius and the Consolation of the Quadrivium
    08_546_01_Fournier.qxd 11/3/08 1:38 PM Page 1 Boethius and the Consolation of the Quadrivium MICHAEL FOURNIER Boethius’s Consolation has suffered under many criticisms. Misunder- standings about the nature of the work have either led to its neglect or helped to cultivate prejudices about its philosophical importance. The fact that the Consolation draws upon such a wealth of sources leads some to question the originality of the work, while the apparent opposition of the positions represented leads others to question its philosophical mer- its. My own view is that the Consolation uses its sources in an original way, and the diverse arguments and methods are unified in a Platonic ascent. Boethius presents a logical progression from lower forms of knowing and being to higher forms, in a way that is essential to the integration of the form and the content of the work. Scholars such as Thomas Curley and Elaine Scarry have argued for the unity and coherence of the Consolation on the basis of the formula in book 5, that things are known according to the mode of the knower and not the object known.1 The form of the Consolation reflects the var- ious modes of knowing. Sensation, imagination, reason, and intellect not only constitute the content of the various books but also give each book its formal features. Book 1 adopts the idiom of sensation, book 2 imagination, books 3 and 4 reason, and book 5 intellect. The diverse modes are related in a hierarchical order, with the lower modes con- tained within the higher.
    [Show full text]
  • Classical Quadrivium and Kepler's Harmonice Mundi
    University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 1982 Classical quadrivium and Kepler's Harmonice mundi Stephen Alan Eberhart The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Eberhart, Stephen Alan, "Classical quadrivium and Kepler's Harmonice mundi" (1982). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 1806. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/1806 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. COPYRIGHT ACT OF 1976 THIS IS AN UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPT IN WHICH COPYRIGHT SUB­ SISTS. ANY FURTHER REPRINTING OF ITS CONTENTS MUST BE APPROVED BY THE AUTHOR. MANSFIELD LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA DATE :1 1 9 8 2 THE CLASSICAL QUADRIVIUM AND KEPLER'S HARMONICE MUNDI by Stephen Alan Eberhart B.M., Oberlin Conservatory of Music, 1961 M.S., University of Washington, 1975 Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA 1982 Approved by s Chairman, Board of Examiners ci //sy - J)ate UMI Number: EP35198 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted.
    [Show full text]