By Lee Trepanier, Aug 11, 2009 in Musings, Pedagogy and Teaching
Josef Pieper believes that the cult, as the ritual of public sacrifice, is the primary source of our independence and freedom, with leisure, as the basis of culture, defined as our fundamental relationship to reality as a type of philosophical act, where we learn to see how worthy certain aspects of reality are and therefore require a celebration of them in divine worship. This philosophical act is to participate in reality as it unveils itself to us and is characterized by enthusiasm and freedom. The reason why philosophy is regarded as the most free of the liberal arts is because it is the farthest removed from utilitarian concerns. As the most theoretical of disciplines, philosophy looks at reality purely receptively, i.e., completely untouched by practical concerns, and becomes integrated into the common good of society.
This particular conception of philosophy leads to a particular conception of the education that is liberal in nature. By liberal, we mean an education with a view to the whole of life that is non-utilitarian so that that we realize our intellectual and spiritual nature. Unlike vocational education, which seeks to fit students into a particular function in the economy, liberal education lasts an entire person’s lifetime. The liberally educated person does not become obsolete as certain training and technology becomes less valuable over time. The benefits of liberal education continue to accrue throughout one’s lifetime as long as one lives a life of leisure.
Leisure is the philosophical act that provides us the opportunity to learn. As Aristotle states:
Nature herself, as has often been said, requires that we should be able not only to work well, but to use leisure well; for, as I must repeat once and again, the first principle of all action is leisure . . . It is clear, then, that there are branches of learning and education which we must study with a view to the enjoyment of leisure, and these are to be valued for their own sake (Politics, VIII.3).
To enjoy leisure properly is to become liberally educated: to study things for their own sake. Liberal education therefore is not definable in terms of a particular subject; rather, it is an approach to learning—and more broadly an approach to reality—that defines liberal education. Whether we study something for its own sake or for utilitarian ends, whether we begin from wonder or from doubt, whether we end in hope or despair, determines the character of the education we pursue.
Now, to study something for its own sake means to study something as it reveals itself to us as we participate in the process of learning. The end of liberal education is not utility, be it economic, political, or even pedagogical. The purpose of liberal education is to engage in the philosophical act as we participate in a reality about which we contemplate. It is not the mastery and transmission of particular bodies of knowledge. Knowledge is the byproduct rather than the objective of liberal education. Learning becomes derailed when pedantic know-it-alls are produced rather than eager students opened to the mysteries of reality, or when the outcomes of education are assessed mathematically rather than evaluated prudentially. The pedantic approach to education seeks a mastery of material instead of an openness to a process the end of which no one knows.
