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Plato's conception of human nature
Plato's conception of human nature
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In Chapter 2 of In Defense of a Liberal Education by Fareed Zakaria titled “A Brief History of Liberal Education” Zakaria does just that he begins chapter 2 giving a history lesson on the history of liberal education. From its beginning in Ancient Greece, where lessons consisted of the studying of Homeric poetry to codes, values, and physical training. In the start, the people of Greece did not like the need for this liberal education. Zakaria talks about how Plato and Isocrates both had different outlooks on what should be taught. Plato “considered education a search for truth.” (Pg42) Where Isocrates believed that studying rhetoric, language, and morality (Pg43). Zakaria also talks about the liberal education in the Roman empire along with
The Student Guide to Liberal Learning encourages apprentices to consider the significance of what is truth? James Schall, explains the nature of the universe as an open door to seek guidance through the knowledge of the great thinkers as an attempt to better comprehend the ultimate truth of our reality as a whole, to understand how things perfectly align with each other and how to find the ultimate truth that humanity continuously seeks. Furthermore, Schall states that: “…the truth comes from reality itself, from what is. Truth is our judgment about reality.” Schall lays out the initial quest as form of “clear knowledge of truth” while he persuades to stimulate and spark the curiosity of students to seek his or her own truth of reality through a two-step process:
If they are taught correctly, liberal arts classes have the potential to help “students cross social boundaries in their imaginations. Studying a common core of learning will help orient them to common tasks as citizens; it will challenge or bolster… their views and, in any case, help them understand why not everyone in the world (or in their classroom) agrees with them,” explains Gitlin in his article “The Liberal Arts in an Age of Info-Glut.” By exposing students to this in high school, they will be more prepared when this moment occurs in their careers. I, along with many students throughout the country, have been exposed to incorrectly-taught liberal arts classes. Students taking English, for instance, must read specific novels while assessing a theme that is already pointed out to them. Then, they must answer a question that has only two answers. This type of curriculum not only eliminates the development of opinions, but it keeps the students from being exposed to most of the author's beliefs and the author’s point of view, which is the main purpose of liberal arts classes. Without this exposure, students are left incapable of working with others and accepting their opinions in order to develop solutions to
Liberal educations benefit students in the long run, long after students have paid their loans. People are able to be informed on national topic, while also being able to be self dependent. Two qualities that are essential in the modern society. I believe it is important to have such a basic understanding of education and knowledge, just like what Nussbaum agreed too in her essay. However, I also believe the curriculum should be centered around making students a better person. Institutions should try to produce good people with the right intentions instead of just focusing on testing intelligence, similar to what Cronon focused on in his essay. If we can incorporate both of these important features into our liberal education system, then and only then, will we be thriving as a society. Graduates will have a good understanding of knowledge from an array of different fields, as well as having important traits that will carry on for the rest of their
In the 1997 article, “On The Uses of a Liberal Education: As a Weapon In the Hands of the Restless Poor,” published by Harper’s Magazine, the social critic Earl Shorris described how political power could be achieved by a rather non-vocational educational discipline, the humanities. He emphasizes on how the knowledge of a liberal Education can be used as a form of weapon within the lives for the poor.
Even since I was young, I constantly prided myself in thinking in what I considered a mature and logical system. I was never captivated by the social trends that my peers always seemed to hold in high regard. I would collect and store random bits of information from the various works that I read, and then turn that information into something useful be it a story or a school assignment. I was always extremely focused on myself due to my introverted nature, but as I grew older I began to question other people, why they did certain things and why they thought the way they did. It’s a complicated thing the human mind, extremely complex and difficult to understand. Every human who has ever lived on this Earth has never been the exact same, always
But the best argument against a liberal education is perhaps the simplest. When students go to any college, they choose a major and take classes that are related to that major. However to get to those classes they have to take courses in , reading, writing, and history. I don’t think that Zakaria realises this. By the time these students graduate, they will be able to understand all of the technical aspects of their field, as well as being able to express their thoughts and ideas clearly. All of this without a traditional Liberal
What is a civic stance? Broken down into two separate words civic and stance, the word civic, according to Webster means, of or relating to a city, citizenship or civil affairs. The word stance means a way of standing. So, more or less it means the way you stand on civil affairs. The next question is what kinds of civic stances are there?
Looking at the United States in 1965, it would seem that the future of the liberal consensus was well entrenched. The anti-war movement was in full swing, civil rights were moving forward, and Johnson's Great Society was working to alleviate the plight of the poor in America. Yet, by 1968 the liberal consensus had fallen apart, which led to the triumph of conservatism with the election of President Reagan in 1980. The question must be posed, how in the course of 15 years did liberal consensus fall apart and conservatism rise to the forefront? What were the decisive factors that caused the fracturing of what seemed to be such a powerful political force? In looking at the period from 1968 to the triumph of Reagan in 1980, America was shaken to the core by the Watergate scandal, the stalling of economic growth, gas shortages, and the Vietnam War. In an era that included the amount of turbulence that the 1970's did, it is not difficult to imagine that conservatism come to power. In this paper I will analyze how the liberal consensus went from one of its high points in 1965 to one of its lows in 1968. From there I will show how conservatism rose to power by the 1980 elections. In doing so, I will look at how factors within the American economy, civil rights issues, and political workings of the United States contributed to the fracturing of the liberal consensus and the rise of conservatism.
Now, let us define liberal arts or liberal education. According to Michael Lind, liberal arts should be understood in its original sense as “elite skills” (54). We all know that liberal arts include cour...
“Hence you see why “liberal studies” are so called; it is because they are studies worthy of a free- born gentlemen. But there is only one really liberal study – that which gives a man his liberty. It is the study of wisdom”, said Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the Roman Stoic philosopher who lived during the time of Jesus Christ. Historically speaking, learning liberal arts we learn ourselves to be passionate, loyal, brave and what is more important, generous. The word “freedom” has been the fundamental component of any American Dream. Today we celebrate our nation’s independence and allowance to govern ourselves.
Mark Edmundson is an English professor at University of Virginia and has published many articles focusing on literary and cultural criticism. In one of his articles, “On the Uses of a Liberal Education”, Mark Edmundson claims his feeling of disappointment and distressed on evaluation day which required his students to rate him on scale of one to five. Even though he gets a lot of positive feedback from his students addressing him as interesting and fun, he feels uneasy in a way that education has changed into consumer-driven society. Despite of interesting and fun, he expects to hear about changes
James V. Schall’s, “A Student’s Guide to Liberal Learning” wants us to understand that the nature of the universe gives us opportunities for different things. He addresses that the universe allows us to gain new knowledge in any place that we might be. In Schall’s “A Student’s Guide to Liberal Learning,” he mentions “one that is capable of altering us to intellectual riches that are almost never found in universities or in the popular culture.” From this I understood that the universe always gives opportunities to acquire and learn new knowledge. The universe allows us to learn different things. For example, things that might be facts or simply random things that are interesting.
To get a sense of what an education was intended for we must look at the ancient Greek society. The philosophers like the Sophist, Socrates, and Plato were a major part of the Greek society and the rest of the world. Take the Sophist for example, these scholars who would, for a fee, travel to give public lectures on such subjects as math, grammar, rhetoric, ethics and science. For the citizens, lectures were not only an educational experience, it was also considered a form of ...
Most schools nowadays are more concentrated on memorizing all the facts and passing tests rather than actually learning something new and developing students’ minds. Liberal arts schools are different because they emphasis the growth of knowledge, not just for a test that determines whether “you are smart” or “you are dumb”. This is a very important asset for anthropologists, both experts and beginners, who want to study other cultures. A liberal arts education can provide a great basis for learning about other cultures because it can helps anthropologists think critically about the new community they are about to encounter for the first time.
Modern day society is engrossed in a battle for protection of individual rights and freedoms from infringement by any person, be it the government or fellow citizens. Liberalism offers a solution to this by advocating for the protection of personal freedom. As a concept and ideology in political science, liberalism is a doctrine that defines the motivation and efforts made towards the protection of the aforementioned individual freedom. In the current society, the greatest feature of liberalism is the protection of individual liberty from intrusion or violation by a government. The activities of the government have, therefore, become the core point of focus. In liberalism, advocacy for personal freedom may translate to three ideal situations, based on the role that a government plays in a person’s life. These are no role, a limited role or a relatively large role. The three make up liberalism’s rule of thumb. (Van de Haar 1). Political theorists have