Full Description
What is a liberal arts education? How does it differ from other forms of learning? What are we to make of the debates that surround it? What are its place, its value, and its prospects in the contemporary world? These are questions that trouble students and their parents, educators, critics, and policy-makers, and philosophers of education--among others. Learning to Flourish offers a lucid, penetrating, philosophical exploration of liberal learning: a still-evolving tradition of theory and practice that has dominated and sustained intellectual life and learning in much of the globe for two millennia.
Daniel R. DeNicola weighs the views of both advocates and critics of the liberal arts, and interprets liberal education as aimed supremely at understanding and living a good life, as a vital tradition generating five competing but complementary paradigms that transcend theories of curriculum and pedagogy and are manifested in particular social contexts.He examines the transformative power of liberal education and its relation to such values as freedom, autonomy, and democracy, reflecting on the importance of intrinsic value and moral understanding. Finally, he considers age-old obstacles and current threats to liberal education, ultimately asserting its value for and urgent need in a global, pluralistic, technologically advanced society.
Offering a bold yet nuanced theory of liberal education, this study will be of great interest to educators as well as those specializing in Philosophy of Education.
Contents
Preface & Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: Toward a Theory of Liberal Education
1. Mixed Messages and False Starts
2. Liberal Education and Human Flourishing
Part II: Paradigms of Liberal Education
3. Transmission of Culture
4. Self-Actualization
5. Understanding the World
6. Engagement with the World
7. The Skills of Learning
Part III: The Values and Moral Aims of Liberal Education
8. Core Values of Liberal Education
9. Intrinsic Value
10.Educating a Good Person
Part IV: Obstacles, Threats, and Prospects
11. Persistent Concerns
12. Newfound Threats
13. Promise and Prospects
Bibliography
Index
