The Province of the Liberal Arts

True learning does not consist solely of systematizing highly specialized observations, though this task features significantly in the natural sciences. Rather, an integrated individual learns on two levels, which can be termed the specific and the foundational. To the former province belong the natural sciences and to the latter-the liberal arts.

I have termed the liberal arts foundational precisely because they establish that general context within which the pursuit of knowledge is possible in the first place. Building a spaceship is quite a feat, but, before one even begins, one's liberal arts background should inform him that technological progress and space exploration are desirable in the first place. Writing a paper on the interactions between DNA and its packaging proteins is a mighty task, and one must first know how to write. Building a future through the achievements of the hard sciences is a heroic endeavor, and the man who undertakes it must have rational art, music, and literature to serve as his spiritual fuel, to establish a vision of the future he seeks.

Moreover, questions exist that the special sciences alone cannot answer, but on which their success depends. Do we live in an absolute reality? Are we empowered by our reason to comprehend it, or are we doomed to wander amid a state of perpetual flux? Is man to use his own autonomous judgment, or to submit unquestioningly to the pressures, regulations, and dictates of others? Moreover, what type of society is worthy of man, and what characteristics does it have? The liberal arts, through the propositions of philosophy, the characters and plots of literature, and the sense of life captured in painting and music, can provide these answers.