Ah, philosophy transcends and stands at the center of the liberal arts,
holding all the rest together, as illustrated here:
www.circles-of-confusion.com/phil-lib-arts.jpg
I have no idea of how any of this was actually made into an actual
curriculum and course of study. (Well, Plato in The Republic holds off
philosophy as a study until age 30, after the rest are mastered. No idea
whether this was at all followed in his Academy.) As I said, I suspect
that the scope and borders of the traditional liberal arts were bent and
shifted as time went on. (There is a classic article by Paul Kristeller
on the shifting boundaries of the arts, rather than the liberal arts.)
For Plato astronomy is treated with mathematics; up until quite recently
science was treated as natural philosophy. I've always been amused at
what seems to be an assumption that you can pick out the metaphysical
joints of the world by looking at the listing of departments in a
college catalog.
(Should forward the above image to the provost of the college I teach at
next time he cuts philosophy courses or raises the minimum number of
students I need to allow my Philosophy and Film course to go.)
j
On 11/13/10 11:33 AM, Henry M. Taylor wrote:
> So if I get this right, there was no actual subject called philosophy in =
> its own right? It being rather divided into a number of separate =
> disciplines?
>
> Henry
>
>
>
>> I believe (not necessarily reliably) that law, medicine, and divinity =
> were organized in separate schools, or at least separate faculties, with =
> other students studying the traditional seven liberal arts organized =
> into the quadrivium and the trivium. But even if this is the case I find =
> it hard to believe that there was a lot of drift and bending about the =
> way the traditional disciplines were defined over time. Then again, I =
> remember being really surprised years ago when I read that in its early =
> days astronomical education at Harvard was pre-Copernican. Hard to grasp =
> the lags in historical developments, though I guess it shouldn't be =
> given the pre-Darwinian outlook in many contemporary school boards.
>> =20
>> I have a hunch that Perry Miller's The New England Mind would have =
> info on Harvard, though its been decades since I last read it. He places =
> a great deal of emphasis on the role of the 15th century anti-scholastic =
> classifier Petrus Ramus on the reorganization of knowledge and the =
> curriculum. (For all its age and what may have been its overly =
> intellectualized view of intellectual history, Miller suspect still well =
> worth the read, by the way. . . If I wasn't really busy -- though =
> obviously avoiding what I really should be writing -- right now just =
> writing this would tempt to pull it off the shelf for a bit.)
>> =20
>> Have a feeling that googling something like 17th century curricula =
> might get you more reliable info than you are getting here, a lot of =
> which seems to involve guesses and hunches. Me included in that.
>> =20
>> j
>> =20
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