Pre-reading Activity: I believe this article will mainly be about the emphasis of using critical thinking. As well as how important critical thinking is when studying the liberal arts. This article will probably look at how people neglect using critical thinking when studying the liberal arts. I think liberal arts means the study of literature, writing, and psychology.
Section 1: This section mainly focused on the author giving his view and ideas about how to define the liberal arts. He even quotes a philosopher of education in saying, instead of it being a “vocational education”, “scientific education”, or a “specialist education”, it is mainly “an education based fairly and squarely on the nature of knowledge itself” (Scheuer). The author then goes onto explain the idea of the nature of knowledge, which involves philosophy. Philosophy itself is very heavily dependent upon knowledge and thinking. The author also states that there are two assumptions that relate to one another. One is about having questions to ask, the academic discipline has them and it is their way of learning. The other assumption is that these disciplines are linked together through questioning. As well as the way they think and their way of knowing
Section 2: Section 2 focused on the three dimensions. Those three dimensions are as follows, traditional civic dimension, economic citizenship, and cultural citizenship. These are the “three dimensions of ecology that are easy to identify. All three of these dimensions relate to one another. The author states that the main goal is to have a productive and lively community.
Section 3: This section focused on critical thinking, as well as compared it to the liberal arts and citizenship. All three have the fact they are not easily defined in common. The author uses a quote from Lisa Tsui, where she stated “critical thinking is a complex skill any attempt to offer a full and definitive definition of it would be futile”. Meaning there is no true way to define critical thinking. The author also mentions critical inquiry, which involves a suite of more advanced intellectual competencies. Critical inquiry is a set of navigational skills.
Section 4: Section 4 deals with the college view of the liberal arts. The college progression focuses on certain concepts, which are “truth, nature, value, casuality, complexity, morality, freedom, excellence, and as wittgenstein understood–language itself”. The author states that, “mere” linguistic problems are philosophical problems as well. They are “philosophical problems about meaning, knowledge, reality, and our minds, not just about words”. The author also explains that these concepts isn’t something easily done as they are “contestable”. These concepts are simply what students should expect to find in the terrain of the liberal arts.
