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Liberal Arts » Liberal Arts

Liberal Arts

At its root, “liberal” means “noble” and “free.”  Whereas individuals are born with a natural, inalienable right to liberty, the third pillar, the Liberal Arts, are concerned with the arts of cultivated liberty for both individuals and societies. They are the arts an individual must develop to become liberated from ignorance and ennobled to dignified and virtuous thinking and acting. They are also the societal arts of cultivating liberty and progress through noble citizenship, good governance, and freedom of exchange of goods and services and of ideas through the Great Conversation.

 

Since ancient times, individual liberty was cultivated through the development of the abilities to learn truth, to reason soundly, and to express truth eloquently through the Trivium—Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric—followed by higher arts including the Quadrivium—Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy. These traditional liberal arts expand innate faculties to pursue truth through participating in the Great Conversation. They liberate a person to discover and understand things as they truly are. Cultivating wisdom and virtue to act on that knowledge ultimately ennobles an individual to love and serve.

 

Grammar encompasses the building principles of communication and knowledge that are necessary for effective thinking. Learning the grammar of a content area increases the power to obtain knowledge. Logic develops the ability to judge soundly and to derive new ideas that are demonstrably true based on what is already known. Rhetoric is the art of beautiful and effective discourse. Excellent rhetoric depends on a virtuous liberal artist eloquently using grammar and logic to participate in edifying dialogue and to inspire the hearts and minds of a listener toward that which is noble—the true, the good, and the beautiful.

 

Additionally, the liberal arts encompass the arts necessary to coordinate the efforts of individuals to perpetuate a civil and free society through good governance. Cultivation of such arts are necessary to preserve the natural rights of all. The liberal arts of cultivating societal liberty must be developed in each generation: “[T]he qualifications for self-government in society are not innate. They are the result of habit and long training.”[1] Therefore:

Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. Aristotle speaks plainly to this purpose, saying, “the institution of youth should be accommodated to that form of government under which they live; forasmuch as it makes exceedingly for the preservation of the present government, whatsoever it be.”[2]

Furthermore, the founders saw the liberating effect of freedom of exchange in society. They chose a commercial society as they understood that free markets and entrepreneurship temporally and economically liberate society to prosper and progress. Societal liberal arts are also cultivated through free exchange of ideas; as liberally educated individuals advance their disciplines through participation in the Great Conversation, their society is liberated and ennobled in its collective discovery and application of truth.

 

In sum, humans are born with innate worth. They become liberated as they cultivate their potential through the liberal arts. The liberal arts put them in command of their faculties and leads them to nobility through knowing truth and practicing virtue and wisdom. Nobility is manifested by a free and virtuous people as they share their developed talents through service in causes greater than self.

 

[1] Thomas Jefferson, “From Thomas Jefferson to Edward Everett,” March 27, 1824.

[2] John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Vol. 6: Defense of the Constitution IV (Philadelphia: Budd and Bartram, March 22, 1778), Chapter 3.