Comments on: Dilettantism and Salvation

By: Glen Henshaw

Glen Henshaw — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 14:30:04 +0000

Nate, I think what you’re pointing out here isn’t a problem with liberal education. It runs much deeper — the problem is that with the explosion of human knowledge of the last few hundred years, it is almost impossible to gain an education that is both deep and broad. I took the opposite path from you: I became very specialized in one specific field. Yes, that does give me some of the “arcane knowledge” you refer to. But it also meant that I had to forgo classes in literature, history, philosophy, language, and even sciences other than my specific field. The last history class I took was as a senior in HS. That is a lack I feel very deeply, because it’s very difficult to understand the world without knowing something about those subjects. As a consequence, at this late date I find myself trying to gain a liberal education on my own, in my spare time. Perhaps I’ll be done before I die. But probably not. So maybe LDS theology gives us both a way out.

By: Ben Huff

Ben Huff — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 21:35:20 +0000

Boyd, thanks for that link! A very interesting and thoughtful and ambitious talk! It’s interesting how Holland underscores the importance of integration of human knowledge as a whole, of getting a sense of the whole into which all truth fits. It’s interesting, too, how this goal is one a number of people at Notre Dame feel strongly about. I agree it is about as important a goal for a university as anything. The tough question is how to go about it. Once upon a time, philosophy was the discipline most of all that tried to build these integrative perspectives on human knowledge. However, lately I’m not sure there are many philosophy programs that take this as a goal. Philosophy seems to be more just another narrow specialization. Of course, there are specific questions unique to philosophy that need to be approached this way. There is an important value to philosophy as another specialization. And the task of integration is much more challenging now that there is so much more knowledge represented in the university, which that integration will clearly have to take into account. Of course, there was always a lot of knowledge on the earth that wasn’t integrated into the overarching views of, say, Greeks or Europeans, but it was easier to shrug a lot of it off because poeple from China and India and Mesopotamia weren’t teaching at the Greek or European universities. It’s hard to believe now that a single person could build a credible overarching view. Yet perhaps this is because we haven’t been trying consistently. It would certainly require some teamwork. And it would require a community that all agree more or less on certain key points like whether there is a God, and some standards about how humans should live probably.

By: Ben Huff

Ben Huff — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 21:20:14 +0000

Weston, I think you’re right that the right minor could serve quite well the purpose I have in mind, and that this would be especially straightforward in math. The goal I have in mind is not just that liberal arts folk know more in general, but that they know more about what knowledge is like, how it is obtained and how its limitations work. In math, theorems and their proofs are such a big part of what is going on in so many classes, that I agree a minor could easily be enough. If I thought about it, I might find this is more true in other disciplines than I was thinking. Still, I would have to look carefully at what coutns as a minor in various fields before I would be confident, and I think too often it would be possible to get a minor by taking a smattering of courses that didn’t necessarily accomplish what I have in mind.

By: Stephan

Stephan — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 18:32:17 +0000

Education, to me, is learning something new all the time.
If you live is a town of any size, there is a library nearby, go there and make use of it. Even if all you do is go into the stacks and pluck a book out at random on a subject you know nothing about and read it all the way through.

You don’t have to have a teacher in front of you to learn something. It is much easier and more fun if you try to figure it out yourself or with the help of a friend or three.

Too many people think that a diploma is the end, it is only the beginning, you now know enough to be dangerous but hardly useful.

Some people sip from the fount of knowledge,
others just gargle and spit,
few drink deep,
and I want the firehose!

By: john fowles

john fowles — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 17:43:52 +0000

Jonathan, excellent. Great reply. I like the 2005 formulation much better. And I know I deserving a bit of that finger waving (hopefully not the middle finger!).

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 09:58:21 +0000

May I quote from Nabokov’s novel Bend Sinister? The speaker is the main character, Professor Adam Krug:

“I esteem my colleagues as I do my own self. I esteem them for two things: because they are able to find perfect felicity in specialized knowledge and because they are not apt to commit physical murder.” Dr. Alexander mistook this for one of the obscure quips which, he had been told, Adam Krug liked to indulge in and laughed cautiously.

(Make of it what you will.)

By: Weston C

Weston C — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 06:51:34 +0000

Absolutely. Thatâ€™s why I would recommend a full major (not just a minor or GE distribution) in another field for those in liberal arts disciplines.

Depending on its structure, a minor might well suffice. I actually completed the Discrete Math program at BYU, and found that outside of the core classes (more or less what one would cover in a obtaining a minor), we were doing surveys of a given sub-discipline of math. We used the same basic skills that were developed and refined from the logic, calculus/analysis , linear algebra, and abstract algebra classes, just over different problem domains. Not to say the domain specific knowledge wasn’t useful, just that I think a Math minor could serve as preparation for any specific knowledge domain as well as a Math major could.

By: Justin

Justin — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 06:40:53 +0000

While I think that the problems discussed above are more with the student than with the discipline, and that a dedicated student can develop her or his mind and critical thinking skills reading novels (ok, maybe poems) or philosophers as working through number theory, there is a liberal arts canard that I have real trouble with: the idea that the humanities is a fundamentally more moral and humane way to spend one’s energies.

I remember one of my professors citing (probably another professor’s) statement that one would have difficulty being “fully human” without having read a certain novel (human read here as a good thing, even in an LDS context). While I agree that the novel in question certainly helped me along the path I hope I’m treading toward charity, the reading in and of itself did not make me a more charitable person.

The humanities is often touted as the One True Way to empathy, understanding, and compassion. Coming to terms with the fact that none of my reading inherently improved me was a bitter pill.

By: Boyd

Boyd — Sat, 08 Jan 2005 18:19:39 +0000

Here’s what Elder Holland has to say about liberal educations, specifically at BYU:
A School in Zion.

By: Jack

Jack — Sat, 08 Jan 2005 18:17:38 +0000

What with half the world’s poulation working from sun up to sun down in a rice field it’s nice to know there’s an eternity in which they may catch up on the knowledge of what makes the world go ’round.