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Ron Hustwit is a professor of philosophy and a former chair of the department at The College of Wooster. He has a special interest in O.K. Bouwsma, Soren Kierkegaard and Ludwig Wittgenstein. His teaching responsibilities include ancient philosophy, logic, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of education. Before joining the faculty at Wooster in 1967, Hustwit attended Westminster College, where he received his bachelor of arts degree. He earned his master of arts degree from the University of Nebraska and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas. The author of Something About O.K. Bouwsma, Hustwit has edited five works of O.K. Bouwsma's papers: "Toward a New Sensibility," "Without Proof or Evidence," "Wittgenstein Conversations," "Bouwsma's Notes on Wittgenstein's Philosophy," and "Bouwsma's Commonplace Book." He has also written articles and papers on Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein. Hustwit is a member of the American Philosophical Association, the Ohio Philosophical Association, the Austrian Wittgenstein Society, and the Soren Kierkegaard Society. |
Liberal arts colleges have a sterling reputation for cultivating student scholars, but their overall mission is often misunderstood. Ron Hustwit, professor of philosophy at The College of Wooster, examines the liberal arts education, and tries to clarify its objectives. How would you describe a liberal arts education? A liberal arts education aims at the cultivation of excellence in judgments concerning human affairs. This intention has been recognized since the time of Aristotle who noticed that philosophy was possible only when a political economy was established and could provide leisure time for reflection. When that leisure has been provided by parents concerned to prepare their children for professional roles in society, the student, freed temporarily from the worry of "making a living," can reflect on the question of the liberal arts: What does it mean to be a particular living human being? Such philosophical reflection is distinguished sharply from acquiring the technical knowledge of the professions. "Making a living" and "making the world a better place" are both worthy goals, but for such goals as these the student needs the technical knowledge of the professions and some good luck, not a liberal arts education. What is a professional? I am using the word broadly to mean anyone who has mastery of the techniques and special knowledge to oversee some activity of importance to the maintenance of society. I mean doctors, teachers, attorneys, social workers, business and production managers, engineers, scientists, military officers, and so on. A liberal arts education does not provide the training for these specialized tasks, but is propaeduetic to that further training. What is the curriculum of a typical liberal arts education? If the aim of a liberal arts education is to cultivate excellence in judgments in human affairs, then knowledge and understanding of the human world is the central and orienting point of such an education. While differences in what humans know about their world appear over time, there is surprising agreement in the sorts of studies that ought to make up the curriculum. There is agreement that language studies, logic, and mathematics are to be included, because the person trained in these disciplines comes to some understanding of how the human mind works. There is agreement that music, graphic arts, and literature are to be included because the study of these artifacts is an expression of the human condition. There is agreement that historical studies are to be included in the curriculum, for many reasons, but most significantly that they help us to understand and gain perspectives on ourselves as human beings. There is agreement that the natural sciences should be included, because they give us knowledge of what to expect from the natural world and how to bake bread and make wine. There is agreement that one cannot understand one's cultural roots without understanding one's religious legacy. And, finally, philosophy, the arch-discipline, is agreed to be essential to the liberal arts curriculum, not merely because of its near synonymity with liberal arts, but because it is reflective on the presuppositions of the knowledge of the other studies of the human condition. What are the advantages of a liberal arts education? One advantage is that it is foundational for the professional training that enables a young person to manage some aspect of society. The critical skills of intelligent reading, writing, calculating, gaining perspective, and, in short, making excellent judgments are fundamental to practicing a profession. Of course, these qualities of mind are valuable beyond the professions. Any occupation, not to mention citizen and parent, will be better at his or her respective tasks, having acquired them. A second, always understated advantage, is the enjoyment attendant upon the new and enlarged experiences in the life of the mind. A student arrives having been fed on the pabulum of television and leaves having dined on Epicurean cuisine: music, poetry, scientific discovery, politics, philosophy. This is a larger, more beautiful, more wonder-filled, and thereby more enjoyable world than a life starved of these foods. There are, of course, many more advantages than these. How have liberal arts colleges kept pace with the changing needs of today's students? In the most important sense of "student needs," they do not change. While knowledge in various fields changes and grows, the human condition, like the speed of light, remains a constant - only the weapons change from Homer's Iliad to Willa Cather's One of Ours, the humans are the same. In another less interesting sense, technology's advances require the mastery of other more basic technologies. The ability to operate a computer, for example, is now as basic to accessing information as was the card catalogue to my generation. What does the future hold for liberal arts colleges? Liberal arts colleges like The College of Wooster have staying power, but in their present manifestation they must ward off two significant, threatening forces: relevance and rising costs. Relevance - the need to show that all subjects studied must have a known use or "payoff," - will, if unchecked, eliminate everything from art to science in the curriculum, not to mention understanding for its own sake. The other threat - the exponentially increasing costs of buildings, equipment, and research - drives tuition up and college presidents on endless trips to raise the endowment. Yet parents make sacrifices, college presidents make successful trips, and the students are able to make music, and plays, read Dante and Dickens, and prod the lives of long dead micro-organisms trapped in fossils. So, I see the liberal arts college persisting in some form with civilization. In fact, I cannot imagine what civilization would be without some institution whose task it was to sustain inquiry into the human condition and prepare its children for that civilization's form of life. |
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| Last updated: January 10, 2006 · For more information, contact John Finn | ||
