Humanities and the liberal arts

The humanities are often also labeled ‘human studies’ because of their primary concern with human life, human conduct and experience. To this extent, Socrates may be called the father of the humanities because of his shift of attention from astronomy and metaphysics to human affairs (τα ανθρώπινα) including ethics, politics and social psychology. In a way, Plato continued this shift with his emphasis on the transformational quality of genuine education, leading from random opinion to reflective insight. From Aristotle we have inherited the important division of human knowledge or inquiry into three main branches: ‘theoretical’ science, ‘practical’ inquiry, and ‘productive’ (or constructive-technical) endeavor. While, in the first type, the scientist observes and analyzes phenomena from a detached or neutral standpoint, practical inquiry requires the concrete engagement of the practitioner in human affairs (particularly on the level of ethics and politics); constructive endeavor, finally, involves the fostering of technical ‘know-how’ useful for instrumental purposes. As can readily be seen, among the three Aristotelian types, the practical branch is most closely connected with what today we call the ‘humanities’ – a fact which explains the close affiliation of many ‘humanists’ with the Aristotelian legacy.^{Footnote 2} In a way, what has happened in modern Western thought is a near reversal of the Aristotelian preference scheme, in the sense that theoretical or pure science in combination with instrumental technology have tended to sideline or smother the practical-humanist concerns.

Another term closely connected with the humanities is that of the ‘liberal arts.’ The term goes back to the school curriculum established by the Stoics during the Roman Empire – a curriculum that was continued and fleshed out during the European Middle Ages. It was customary at the time to speak of seven liberal arts, with the educational process moving through two stages: from the more elementary ‘trivium’ to the more advanced ‘quadrivium’ – a sequence reflecting distantly the Platonic idea of the transformational quality of human learning.

I am not concerned here with the details of the classical curriculum; rather I want to turn to the employed terminology. Why were the disciplines offered in the classical curriculum called ‘liberal arts’ (artes liberales)? One explanation frequently advanced is that these were disciplines fit for the education of ‘free’ citizens rather than slaves (of whom the Roman Empire had plenty). There is probably some grain of truth to this explanation – but it does not account for the persistence of the term in societies devoid of slavery or after slavery had long been abolished. Removed from narrow ideological blinders, the term in fact carries another possible and deeper meaning: the idea that the liberal arts contribute to the liberty or freedom of practitioners, to their liberation from external tutelage and the subservience to materialistic or instrumental benefits. Taken in this sense, the liberal arts clearly resonate with the non-utilitarian and ‘not-for-profit’ character of the humanities; differently put, liberty here is again an intrinsic good of the practice and not an extrinsic project or subsidiary product.

As indicated before, modern Western thought entailed a near reversal of the Greek and Roman concern with practical human affairs (τὰ ἀνθρώπινα). This is curious or surprising in view of the simultaneous ascent of ‘anthropocentrism’ in modern intellectual life. What one needs to take into account, however, is the fact that this ascent was predominantly channeled in the direction of the scientific analysis and control of ‘external’ nature and the technical utilization of this control. One of the leading figures inaugurating the modern shift was the philosopher-scientist Francis Bacon for whom all study or learning was oriented toward one goal or tangible ‘profit’: the ‘enhancement of man's estate’ and comfortable living. In his Advancement of Learning and Novum Organum, Bacon dramatically re-designed the traditional (Aristotelian) tripartition of inquiry: namely, by juxtaposting the fields of history, poetry, and scientific philosophy. While history amounted to no more than the gathering of data, and poetry to a mere flight of fancy, scientific inquiry was extolled as the only true path to knowledge proceeding through the investigation of the natural ‘laws’ of cause and effect.^{Footnote 3}

Under the impact of Bacon and his followers, the traditional domain of ‘praxis’ or practical thought was either shunted aside or – still more fatefully – was transformed into a branch of ‘theoretical’ or scientific knowledge. Thus, ethics was tendentially transformed into the study of psychic affects and aversions and thus into a corollary of empirical psychology. A similarly far-ranging change happened in the domain of ‘economics’ which, for Aristotelians, involved the contributions of the ‘household’ (οἶκóς) to the good life. Shifting again radically from praxis to theory, modern economics developed into the rational-mathematical calculation of profit in a market largely devoid of any considerations of social well-being or justice.

As one should note in fairness, however, the triumph of the Baconian system in modernity was contested all along by a counter-current or a host of voices remonstrating against the domination of theory over praxis. A particularly significant counter-trend was the current of ‘humanism’ extending from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment to the Romantic era. Among Renaissance and post-Renaissance figures special mention should be made of the Italian thinkers Mario Nizolio, Tommaso Campanella, and Giambattista Vico. In sharp contrast to Bacon, Nizolio and Campanella assigned primary significance to the fields of literature and history, treating these fields as rich storehouses of narratives and experiences in comparison with which the maxims of rational-scientific philosophy are only pale and lifeless abstractions. On the eve of the Enlightenment, Reference Vico, Gianturco and VereneVico (1990) boldly proclaimed the preeminence of historical and ‘human’ studies over other sciences, tracing this preferred status to their roots in ‘practical’ knowledge: the fact that history and social life are human activities and thus more readily intelligible (verum et factum convertuntur). A bit later, and mainly in response to the pretense of an abstract rationalism, the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder issued a plea for the study of different cultures and languages – that is, for a broad study of the ‘humanities’ – arguing that only concrete instances and practical examples could foster the desired ‘progress’ of humankind: the genuine ‘humanization’ of humanity. It was in this connection that Herder formulated the important notion of an upward formation or transformation of humanity (‘Emporbildung zur Humanität’) – a notion that can serve as a basic motto for the humanities (Reference Herder and GadamerHerder 1967; see Reference SikkaSikka 2011).^{Footnote 4}

During the subsequent two centuries, ‘positivism’ (the focus on positively useful knowledge) brought increasing pressure on all the disciplines in the ‘republic of knowledge,’ seeking to assimilate them to the model of scientific cause-effect analysis. This pressure was felt not only in ethics and economics, but also in historiography, linguistics, and even in the study of politics where public conduct was increasingly leveled into quantitative measurement. No doubt, efforts were repeatedly launched to rescue aspects of the social and human sciences from the positivist tentacles. The nineteenth century, in fact, was replete with complex classification schemes seeking to differentiate certain forms of study from the domain of strict scientific inquiry. This is not the place to recount this ongoing ‘battle of the faculties’; a few comments must suffice. One prominent and widely influential scheme was the distinction between natural sciences and ‘mental’ sciences (Naturwissenschaften vs. Geisteswissenschaften). For advocates of this scheme, the latter disciplines were anchored in insights generated by the human mind or ‘spirit’; they all dealt with phenomena available directly to humane experience and mental life. Although appealing at a first glance, this distinction was challenged and undermined, however, by the growing inroads of empirical psychology into mental processes. Another classification scheme relied on the separation between natural science and history, where the former was said to focus on general laws and the second on particular events (thus yielding a distinction between ‘nomothetic’ and ‘idiographic’ disciplines). Yet, as long as particular events were not actively interpreted and understood, historiography could not rise above empirical data-gathering (along Baconian lines).^{Footnote 5}

What emerged from these impasses, in the long run, was the realization that the ‘humanities’ could not be rescued or restored without a return to human praxis and the differentiation between two kinds of practical endeavor: the endeavor either to know and control nature or else to articulate ‘meaning’ in practical conduct.^{Footnote 6}

The humanities as practical endeavor

In late modern and recent times, the shift toward praxis – often inspired by Aristotle's legacy – was promoted by a number of philosophical orientations, including pragmatism, ordinary language philosophy, and hermeneutics. For the sake of brevity, I shall concentrate here on the latter and its leading representative, Hans-Georg Gadamer. As is well known, Gadamer's hermeneutics revolves around interpretation and ‘understanding,’ an understanding accomplished through the dialogical interchange between reader and text, between speaker and interlocutor. However, what is not always sufficiently recognized is that ‘understanding’ here is not simply a cognitive exercise, the acquisition of knowledge by a detached ‘knower,’ but always involves a practical engagement, a close embroilment of thought and praxis. As Gadamer repeatedly emphasizes, entering into dialogical exchange involves an intellectual as well as existential risk-taking: one runs the risk of falling short, of being shown to be wrong, of undergoing an experience which may transform one's life (not only change one's ‘mind’). In his Truth and Method, he frequently invokes Aeschylos's formula ‘πάθει-μάθος’ which means having learned through suffering or the ‘hard way,’ being in the grip of a learning experience which changes our existence – we might say: an experience which ‘humanizes’ us (Reference Gadamer, Weinsheimer and Marshall1989: 356–357). From this angle, learning is ‘practical’ not simply in a utilitarian or instrumental sense; nor does it involve the simple application of abstract maxims or principles to empirical situations. Rather, it means taking experience seriously as a presupposition and guidepost to knowledge and ethical conduct. In this broad sense, Gadamer can rightly be considered as an eminent mentor of the humanities.

The title of ‘mentor’ is not an arbitrary designation but follows directly from his work. An important part of Truth and Method deals with the ‘significance of the humanist tradition for the human sciences’ (or humanities). To illustrate this significance Gadamer discusses a number of prominent features (or ‘guiding ideas’) of the humanist tradition relevant for the study of the humanities. A central theme is that of ‘Bildung,’ a term which designates not simply a given empirical culture or way of life, but rather denotes a process of cultivation, a process of ‘formation’ or transformation. As Gadamer notes, the German word ‘Bildung’ derives from ‘Bild’ (image) and thus carries within it the older notion of an ‘imago Dei’ or divine image ‘in the likeness of which human beings are fashioned and which they must strive to achieve.’ Thus, what resonates in the word is not just a simple pedagogical recipe, but a complex happening which one might call ‘humanization as divinization’ (or the reverse). The most important aspect stressed by Gadamer is the fact that formation or transformation in this sense does not pursue an extrinsic profit, but carries its value within itself. ‘It is not an accident,’ he writes, ‘that Bildung in this respect resembles the Great term physis. Like nature (physis), Bildung has no goals outside itself.’ Taken in this sense, Bildung transcends the mere training of existing talents or aptitudes for occupational or career purposes. Rather, in Bildung ‘that by which and through which one is formed becomes and remains completely one's own’ (Reference Gadamer, Weinsheimer and MarshallGadamer 1989: 9–11).

In the Western humanist tradition, Bildung was not a static concept or idea, but involved itself a process of cultivation, of steady reformulation and reinterpretation. Starting from the writings of Renaissance and pietistic thinkers, the term acquired decisive accents or impulses during the Enlightenment and the ensuing period of German classical thought. Herder's contribution was previously mentioned; his immediate interlocutors were the poet Klopstock and Immanuel Kant. For Gadamer, however, a decisive reformulation derives from the work of Hegel. In his Philosophical Propaideutics and his Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel clearly insisted on the point that Bildung is not limited to the fine-tuning of existing capacities, but involves a movement of self-transgression in response to challenges. Particularly important in this context is Hegel's notion of ‘alienation,’ his insistence that learning has to proceed through otherness, that self-finding can only happen through the encounter with others and the world. In Gadamer's words: ‘The basic and correct idea is this: To recognize one's own in the alien, to become at home in it – this is the basic movement of spirit (Geist) whose essence consists only in returning to itself from and through otherness’ (Reference Gadamer, Weinsheimer and Marshall1989: 14). One can readily see how fruitful this idea was for the subsequent development of the human sciences, especially the disciplines of history, anthropology, and literature – provided these disciplines remained faithful to the humanist tradition. For, Gadamer states, ‘what properly constitutes the human studies can be grasped more readily from the tradition of Bildung than from the modern canon of natural-scientific method’ (Reference Gadamer, Weinsheimer and Marshall1989: 18).

Another important feature of the humanist tradition and the humanities is the accent on prudential ‘judgment’ (Urteil) in contradistinction from apodictic knowledge and the epistemic claims of strict science. In this respect, the Aristotelian legacy of ‘phronesis’ is decisive which involves the search for the right middle path (μεσότης) and the cultivation of the ethical ability to weigh carefully the pros and cons of a given situation. Just like the stress on formative Bildung, the notion of prudential judgment stands in opposition to, or at least modifies, the Enlightenment emphasis on universal maxims by requiring attention to particular aspects – an attention which is also characteristic of the English ‘common-law’ tradition with its reliance of concrete precedents. In Gadamer's words (Reference Gadamer, Weinsheimer and Marshall1989: 31–32): ‘Sensible reasoning here is exhibited primarily in the faculty to judge about what is right or wrong, proper or improper, fitting or unfitting. Having sound judgment in this respect does not mean the ability to subsume particular instances under universal rules, but rather the capacity to know what is really important: that is, to judge cases from a right or sound perspective.’ The latter perspective draws its inspiration from Aristotelian teachings, and not from Kantian rationalism – not even from Kant's Critique of Judgment where judging and the weighing of pros and cons remain subordinated to the rule of ‘categorical imperatives.’ From the vantage of humanism and the humanities, this kind of subordination is uncongenial and unacceptable because it involves the surrender of praxis and practical engagement in favor of abstract knowledge.

Closely connected with the role of judgment, and in many ways the pivot of humanism, is the conception of ‘common sense’ (sensus communis). As extolled in the humanist tradition, judgment is not the expression of a purely private or idiosyncratic opinion, but a faculty nurtured in a community or social context, in interaction with other members of that context. To this extent, it is a shared or ‘public’ sense – without ceasing to be amenable to ongoing revision and transformation. An early modern champion of the conception was Giambattista Vico whose defense of rhetoric and public discourse mounted a challenge to Descartes’ celebration of the isolated ‘cogito’ separated from world and society. In Gadamer's account: ‘A prominent teacher of rhetoric, Vico stands in the humanist tradition dating back to antiquity. Quite clearly, this tradition is important for the self-understanding of the humanities or human sciences.’ What Vico attempted to do was to give a new direction and a new meaning to modern education and ultimately to the Enlightenment, a direction which would grant primacy not to abstractly universal cognition, but to practical, ethically nurtured experience in a social context. To quote Gadamer again (Reference Gadamer, Weinsheimer and Marshall1989: 19–21): ‘For Vico, the wisdom of the ancients, their cultivation of prudence and eloquence, remains indispensable precisely in the face of modern science and its quantitative methodology. For, even now, the most important aspect of education is something else: namely, the cultivation of the “sensus communis” which is nurtured not by apodictic truth but by weighing the likely or probably.’ Seen from this angle, the sensus communis is not merely an individual aptitude but ‘a sense that founds community or communality (Gemeinsamkeit).’^{Footnote 7}

As can readily be seen, common sense here is not simply a set of empirical beliefs, but the emblem of an ethical quest for public virtue (in both the Aristotelian and Stoic sense). The ethical quality of the conception was clearly grasped by Lord Shaftesbury and the entire school of Scottish moralists, from Francis Hutcheson to Thomas Reid and Adam Ferguson. Here one has to take note of the difference between ethical common sense and modern ‘natural law,’ the latter entirely committed to abstract rational principles. ‘What Shaftesbury had in mind,’ Gadamer comments, ‘is not so much a universal human capacity captured by modern natural law, but rather a social virtue, a virtue of the heart more than of the head.’ In Shaftesbury's work, the notion of common sense was closely associated with the social virtue of empathy or ‘sympathy’ functioning as the foundation of his entire metaphysics and as the crucial antipode to the modern glorification of self-interest. In the hands of his followers – especially Hutcheson and Reid – the combination of common sense and sympathy was further developed and fleshed out into the theory of ‘moral sense’ which served as a vital (though ultimately sidelined) counter-current to the liberal individualism of Hobbes and John Locke. To quote Gadamer again: ‘It was in the philosophy of the Scottish moralists that ‘common sense’ acquired its truly central systematic significance – a significance which stood polemically against both rationalist metaphysics and its skeptical deconstruction, and which built its own new system on the basis of the original and ‘natural’ judgments of common sense.’ At the same time, Scottish moralists never allowed common sense to disintegrate into private preferences. In the words of Thomas Reid, its judgment ‘serves to direct us in the common affairs of life, where our reasoning faculty would leave us in the dark.’ Hence, Gadamer adds, the good sense tradition ‘not only offers a cure for the “moon-sickness” of metaphysics, but provides the basis for a moral philosophy that really does justice to social life’ (Reference Gadamer, Weinsheimer and Marshall1989: 24–25).^{Footnote 8}

The humanities and global democracy

From historical reminiscences we need to return now to our contemporary situation. As should be clear, the historical excursus was designed primarily to alert us to some key features – like Bildung, prudential judgment, and shared sensibility – without which the humanities cannot flourish at any time. In their works, people like Vico, Herder, and the Scottish moralists sought to establish a safe haven or a beachhead for human studies against the onslaught of anti-humanist tendencies in modernity. In the meantime, this onslaught has turned into something like a tsunami. Wherever one looks, in the West as well as the non-West, the humanities today find themselves on the defensive in the face of so-called ‘modernizing’ forces privileging scientific and technological advances; sometimes the defense resembles a ‘last stand’ or nearly abandoned outpost. In lieu of humanizing Bildung we have the increasing stress on career objectives; instead of the cultivation of judgment, we find utilitarian or ideological maxims; in place of common sense we have the relentless glorification of privatization and private profit. Even some of the traditional custodians of the humanities – like American liberal arts colleges – are increasingly being transformed into corporate business. In her book Not for Profit (Reference Nussbaum2010), Martha Nussbaum rightly deplores these developments. As she observes, radical educational changes are occurring today: ‘The humanities and the arts are being cut away, in both primary/secondary and college/university education, in virtually every nation of the world. Seen by policy-makers as useless frills, at a time when nations must cut away all useless things in order to stay competitive in the global market, they are rapidly losing their place in curricula, and also in the minds and hearts of parents and children’ (Reference Nussbaum2010: 2).

Nussbaum's book provides many concrete examples to back up her claim of a ‘silent crisis,’ that is, a crisis which is insidious and pervasive but not fully recognized. In her presentation, what is threatened by this crisis are not only curricula and educational institutions but rather – and this is her most provocative insight – the future of democracy in our world. Here the crucial significance of the humanities for the cultivation of practical judgment and shared sensibility comes to the fore. In her words (which deserve to be quoted in full):

Based on this insight, Nussbaum's book delineates two basic models of education, what she calls ‘education for profit’ and ‘education for democracy,’ where the former is basically geared toward economic development or growth and the second toward the fostering of humanistic ‘capabilities’ (what I prefer to call the formation or Bildung of character, good judgment and sensibility). As she writes: ‘Producing economic growth does not mean producing democracy. Nor does it mean producing a healthy, engaged, educated population in which opportunities for a good life are available to all social classes’ (Reference Nussbaum2010: 15). On the other hand, cultivation of the humanities and liberal arts – properly pruned of older elitist tendencies – can and should form the core of a contemporary ‘education for democracy’ (ibid.: 24).^{Footnote 9}

Significantly, democracy for Nussbaum is not a Western or American prerogative but a global aspiration; accordingly, education for democracy today has to have a global or cosmopolitan cast. One of the most stirring chapters in her book deals with the requisites of a genuinely cosmopolitan Bildung or the formation of ‘citizens of the world.’ Taking a leaf from Rabindranath Tagore she states that, by contrast to the earlier segregation of continents and cultures, we live today in a world where ‘people face one another across gulfs of geography, language, and nationality’; hence our problems are ‘global in scope.’ To find our way in this context we need more than ‘the thin norms of market exchange’ which are oriented toward private gain; rather, a new pedagogy is needed:

Among the pioneers of cosmopolitan pedagogy or Bildung, Nussbaum mentions above all the Indian Tagore – the founder of Visva-Bharati with its focus on liberal arts education – and the American philosopher John Dewey with his commitment to the fostering of global civility and citizenship. Contrary to some narrowly instrumentalist readings, she rightly stresses Dewey's broadly humanist outlook, an outlook which was ‘capacious and nonreductive’ and insisted on ‘human relationships rich in meaning, emotion, and curiosity.’ What these and other educational pioneers encouraged was a radical engagement with the pluralism of our world, a ‘citizen-of-the-world education’ as part and parcel of the liberal arts curriculum in schools and colleges (ibid.: 86, 91).^{Footnote 10}

Nussbaum's Not for Profit ends on a sober or sobering note – not a despairing note, but one acknowledging the challenge ahead. The ‘silent crisis’ is not going to go away by itself, but requires a courageous response. ‘If the real clash of civilizations,’ she writes, ‘is a clash within the human soul – as greed and narcissism contend against respect and love – then all modern societies are rapidly losing the battle, as they feed the forces that lead to violence and dehumanization and fail to feed the forces that lead to cultures of equality and respect’ (Reference Nussbaum2010: 143; see also Reference NussbaumNussbaum 1997; Reference BouldingBoulding 1990). So, there is a struggle going on between humanization and dehumanization.

As major resources in the struggle for humanization, the Mahatma Gandhi singled out the commitments to ahimsa (non-violence) and satyagraha (the quest for truth and goodness). In terms of its constitution, UNESCO is predicated precisely on this kind of struggle. It seems appropriate in this context to recall the opening sentence of its preamble: ‘Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.’ To which the preamble adds these statements (partially quoted before): ‘That the wide diffusion of culture and the education of humanity for justice and liberty and peace . . . constitute a sacred duty which all the nations must fulfill in a spirit of mutual assistance and concern’; and ‘that the peace must therefore be founded, if it is not to fail, upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of humankind.’ Shall we allow these statements to remain empty paper declarations?