The unity of the liberal arts and the university

pp. 274-293

in: Edward Ballard, Philosophy and the liberal arts, Berlin, Springer, 1989

Abstract

Phenomenology has led philosophers back to experience, to the phenomena as they are, as to the text which is to be read or composed at every moment and turning of life. Indeed we ourselves exist and act within this text. The liberal arts are the means for reading this text, for changing it, and for rendering it more human. We are those characters in the book of nature who read that book by the instrumentality of those arts. Among the things which we find in that book and must, therefore, read, are those arts themselves. This essay is intended to contribute to the understanding of those arts, and not altogether incidentally, to an understanding of the institution where these arts are best taught and often practiced: the university. In this essay, therefore, I consider the problem of the unity of the university; then the unity of the liberal arts, and finally the way the unity of these arts can contribute to the unity and strength of their guardian institution.