Conditions and Directions for the Modern Transformation of Liberal Arts Education (LAE) －Conceptual and Historical Approaches

Abstract

To search for sustainable general education, the principles and content aspects of general education need to be reestablished. The former is a matter of securing the identity of general education amid the rapid changes of the times, whereas the latter solves the issue of the inherent educational matter (i.e., what to teach) from a productive perspective. In addition, the historicity of general education should be fully exposed to explain these two tasks. Exposing the historicity of general education refers to finding a future-oriented form of general education by accurately tracing changes in its history rather than adopting the monumental attitude of trying to establish a prototype of general education and reproduce it.The goal of this study is to investigate the conditions and directions of the modern transformation of liberal arts education (LAE) by examining the changes in the general education content due to the internal factor of the differentiation of the academic landscape and the external factor of social changes. More specifically, this study will investigate the elements of the trivium and the quadrivium that can be applied to the current general education curriculum through conceptual and historical approaches to the traditional trivium and quadrivium curriculum of LAE.First, this study will show that LAE encourages free decision-making, realizes universal values and the meaning of emancipation, and realizes freedom while teaching and learning through the conceptual analysis of liberty and arts. This study will also embody the form of LEA, which is effective even in the process of academic differentiation, by emphasizing the importance of understanding arts from the perspective of competence and integrated principles that constitute the arts. Next, this study will demonstrate that the transition of LAE is the history of the creative tension of humanity and scientific character (Wissenschaftlichkeit)―that is, the history of development through mutual, rather than unilateral, stimulation―through a historical review of LAE.In conclusion, this study will present the spirit of the trivium and quadrivium that is effective in the modern context and the trivium and quadrivium curriculum from an integrated perspective. Naturally, for this attempt to have significance as an advanced attempt at the general education level, connections with the following two issues should be considered. One is the issue of how the traditional LAE can be reformed in the current undergraduate educational environment, and the other is the relationship of general education with competency-based education and major education. Considering these connections, this study will search for the possibility of sustainable general education at the content level.