Michael Oakeshott on the Tensions Between Political Theory and Practice

By |2020-08-19T13:42:20-05:00August 19th, 2020|Categories: Civilization, History, Liberal Arts, Michael Oakeshott, Political Philosophy, Politics|

Political theory sets out to consider the kind of knowledge involved in political activity and the appropriate form of education that will continue to inculcate this knowledge and the value in sustaining such knowledge to society. Political theory may not be so theoretical, after all. Within political theory, there is a pressure to operate in [...]

Why Academics Should Consider Classical Education

By |2022-09-17T18:45:17-05:00August 12th, 2020|Categories: Classical Education, Classical Learning, Education, Liberal Arts, Liberal Learning, Modernity|

Academics who are interested in understanding the world in which we live, producing good citizens, and thinking beyond their own disciplinary cage should reconsider throwing all their eggs in the university basket and give serious attention to the possibility of taking up a post in an institution of classical learning. Prior to the pandemic, the [...]

Freedom, Responsibility, and the Liberal Arts

By |2020-06-11T12:46:33-05:00June 11th, 2020|Categories: Liberal Arts, Liberal Learning, Liberalism, Liberty, Politics, St. John's College|

Pericles was proud of Athenian freedom and insisted it was worth dying for. Our ancestors shared that pride and that insistence. But they and he were proud, not of the absence of discipline or authority, but of the fact that in a society of free citizens discipline and authority are self-imposed. The other day an [...]

A Unique Liberal Learning Opportunity

By |2022-09-17T19:02:35-05:00June 1st, 2020|Categories: Education, Liberal Arts, Liberal Learning, St. John's College, W. Winston Elliott III|

Becoming educated is a process of becoming intellectually free so as to be capable of thinking for oneself, engaging in ongoing learning and inquiry, and achieving inner freedom. St. John’s College believes that the life of the mind is crucial to full human flourishing. Loyal readers of The Imaginative Conservative have been given many opportunities [...]

Why “Western Civ” Is Losing Its Appeal

By |2020-05-18T08:09:17-05:00May 17th, 2020|Categories: Books, Civilization, Classical Education, Culture, Education, Great Books, Liberal Arts, Literature, Modernity, Western Civilization, Western Tradition|

The Western canon as typically presented is increasingly unable to rally the enthusiasm even of devoted admirers of Western civilization, who recognize the commonly proffered canons as, at best, an impoverished rendition of Western culture and, at worst, a perpetuation of the very same cultural forces that are at the source of its decay. The [...]

Liberal Arts Pandemiology

By |2020-05-12T22:13:57-05:00May 13th, 2020|Categories: Coronavirus, Culture, David Deavel, Economics, Education, Liberal Arts, Liberal Learning, Politics, Senior Contributors|

Those of us who bemoan the “death of the liberal arts” do not do so simply because the jobs of professors are at stake, but because we believe that liberal learning is the only fit preparation for any portion of life—especially one that involves responsibility for the common good. Those of us who have become [...]

The Joy of the Liberal Arts in a Pandemic World

By |2020-05-04T17:39:38-05:00May 4th, 2020|Categories: Culture, Education, Gleaves Whitney, Liberal Arts, Liberal Learning|

In a crisis, it is best to balance change and continuity. The liberal arts help us do so by embracing both. On the one hand, they are the anchor-in-bedrock that conserves the best of our culture. On the other hand, they are the wind-in-the-sail that powers us to betterment. I. Accelerating Our Experience of Big [...]

Why Are the Classics Necessary?

By |2020-05-04T17:15:34-05:00May 4th, 2020|Categories: Classical Education, Classics, Liberal Arts, Literature, Timeless Essays|

Our need for the classics is intense. Yet any defense of them in our time must come from a sense of their absolute necessity—not from a desire to inculcate “cultural literacy,” or to keep alive a pastime for an elite, but to preserve the full range of hu­man sensibility. What is needed is to recap­ture [...]

Liberal Education and the Free Mind

By |2021-04-27T20:12:07-05:00April 21st, 2020|Categories: Culture, Education, Essential, Liberal Arts, Liberal Learning, St. John's College|

Liberal education has as its end the free mind, and the free mind must be its own teacher. Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Scott Buchanan as he asks a series of questions to discover the fruit, in individual character and thought, of a liberal arts education. —W. Winston Elliott [...]

Mathematics and Liberal Education

By |2020-03-03T13:23:08-06:00March 3rd, 2020|Categories: Classical Education, Education, Liberal Arts, Mathematics, St. John's College|

For most liberal arts colleges, mathematics courses are simply modern math stuck on to a “humanities” program. But if liberal education is not just meant to familiarize students with classics of the humanities, or the polish of culture, but to free the student to find the truth for himself, shouldn’t math be just as emphasized [...]

Liberal Education at the Naval Academy

By |2020-02-28T16:25:44-06:00February 28th, 2020|Categories: Classical Education, Culture, Education, Liberal Arts, Western Civilization, Western Tradition|

The Naval Academy is regarded as one of the top liberal arts colleges in the nation, and many attend for that very reason. But what if the Academy’s curriculum does not reflect a true liberal arts education, but a radical distortion of it—a falsehood? The hour is here when midshipmen candidates of the Class of [...]

Some Advice to Fellow Lovers of Liberal Learning

By |2023-05-21T11:29:10-05:00December 26th, 2019|Categories: E.B., Education, Eva Brann, In Honor of Eva Brann at 90 Series, Liberal Arts, Liberal Learning, Senior Contributors, St. John's College|

A preliminary function of a liberal education must be to serve as a purgative, a cleansing, of those who wish to be free. By its means we can cleanse ourselves of our undigested and unconscious prejudices. When it first came home to me that I would not be a tutor at the Graduate Institute in [...]

Mortimer Adler & the Context of an Educational Philosophy

By |2021-12-27T19:54:32-06:00November 28th, 2019|Categories: Books, Christine Norvell, Education, Liberal Arts, Mortimer Adler, Senior Contributors|

Robert Woods’ “Mortimer Adler: The Paideia Way of Classical Education” embodies the life and educational philosophy of one education reformer. Though intended to be informative, most chapters are akin to an educator’s devotional, leaving the teacher inspired to be a more thoughtful and focused Christian tutor. Mortimer Adler: The Paideia Way of Classical Education, by [...]

The Grace of Owing

By |2019-11-28T00:46:38-06:00November 27th, 2019|Categories: Classical Education, Education, Glenn Arbery, Liberal Arts, Senior Contributors, Thanksgiving, Wyoming Catholic College|

To be truly grateful means that one holds oneself in the grace of owing. It means alert and noble attention to the good intended by the giver. Giving thanks is such a beautifully natural gesture that it seems almost perverse to admire someone for not making it. But Dr. Samuel Johnson earns such admiration in [...]

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