MODULE OUTLINE
Modern Liberal Arts
University of Winchester
Semester 1 2015
LA 1001a Freedom is to Learn
Thursdays 09.00 in MB2
Nigel Tubbs
Module Learning Outcomes
Demonstrate engagement with texts and ideas relevant to the tradition of Liberal Arts education
Demonstrate reflection on experiences and the wider contexts in which they take place
Communicate experiences of texts and ideas as appropriate
Show knowledge and understanding of specialist terminology
Demonstrate requisite research skills in gathering, summarizing and presenting evidence including proficiency in referencing and academic conventions
Weekly seminars
‘He who still doubts has not yet learnt enough, yet we doubt as long as we live; and so as long as we live we should learn’ (Ficino, M. (1997) Meditations on the Soul, Rochester: Inner Traditions.)
‘To know oneself is to contradict oneself’ (Hyppolite, J. (1952/1997) Logic and Existence, New York, SUNY).
‘we badly need someone to teach us the art of learning with difficulty’ (Rousseau, J.J. (2000) Emile, London, Dent, p. 167)
‘it is difficulty which makes us prize things’ (Montaigne, M. (2003) The Complete Essays, London, Penguin, II. 15, p. 696)
‘I can surrender to doubt and to my master-form, which is ignorance’ (Montaigne, M. (2003) The Complete Essays, London, Penguin, I.50, p. 338)
The Freedom is to Learn modules are the core modules that run through the three years of the degree. The title is suggestive of something carried by the term ‘modern’ in the name of the Programme.
There will be much more to be said about this, but for now, remember it is important that you treat all the material you read in each of your MLA modules as relevant to all MLA modules. Think of year 1 as a whole year of learning, not necessarily divided into modules, and think of each year as part of the whole degree. In time we will reward essays which are able to bring material in from different modules.
So, don’t get rid of anything, especially the reading packs! You will need some of them later in the degree! And NOTE: the first essay is due in Thursday of week 3 Thursday October 8th!! No panicking… I’ll help…
Outline
In this we are looking at some aspects of the origin of liberal arts education in Antiquity. But before that our Introductory session asks a strange question: what is the meaning of ‘beginning’? This is related to a second question: what is learning?
One of the main books we will read, and return to often throughout the three years is Plato’s Republic. If you can get a copy of your own that will help, and they are available cheaply second hand at Amazon, and at ABE books. We will look at more modern writers in the last few weeks of the module.
SEMESTER 1 (w/b 21st September)
Week 1 What is Learning? (Schön)
Reading: Schön, D. (1987) Educating the Reflective Practitioner, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 82-95.
T.S. Eliot The Four Quartets,
http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/datasets/full-text-of-ts-eliots-four-quarte/versions/1.txt
Wider reading Try Plato’s Alcibiades I on knowing, and teaching… (which many doubt is by Plato, but it still makes a reasonably straightforward Introduction to some of Socrates’ main ideas on learning which we explore next week).
Prologue, Henry V, Shakespeare
Week 2 What is Learning? (Socrates)
Reading Plato, (1987) The Trial and Death of Socrates, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, trans. G.M.A. Grube (available at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/apology.html ).
Pascal, B. (1966) Pensées, London Penguin, pp. 51-2.
Wider reading Wilkins, E.G. (1917/2013) ‘Know Thyself’ in Greek and Latin Literature, Delhi: Isha Books, chapter 5.
Plato, (1997) The Sophist, in Plato Complete Works, ed. J.M. Cooper, 230a-e, pp. 250-1.
Plato, (1997) Theaetetus, in Plato Complete Works, ed. J.M. Cooper,149-151d, pp. 167-8.
St Paul, I Corinthians, 8: 2.
Erasmus, D. (2001) The Adages of Erasmus, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, III.iii.1, pp. 242-4.
Stone, I. (1988) The Trial of Socrates, London: Jonathan Cape.
Hogan, P. (1995) The Custody and Courtship of Experience, Blackrock, The Columba Press.
Popper, K. (1962) The Open Society and its Enemies, London: Routledge.
Hegel, G.W.F. (1974) Lectures on the History of Philosophy vol. 1, New Jersey: Humanities Press.
Kierkegaard, S. (1989) The Concept of Irony, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Augustine, (1972) City of God, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 301-2.
Hadot, P. (2002) What is Ancient Philosophy?, Cambridge, Mass., Belknap Press, Harvard UP.
Video on Jaques Louis-David ‘Death of Socrates’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKhfFBbVtFg&feature=youtu.be
Reading for later in the degree on not-knowing:
Cusanus, N. (2007) Of Learned Ignorance, Oregon, Wipf & Stock.
Petrarch, ‘On His Own Ignorance and That Of Many Others’ in Cassirer, E., Kristeller, P.O., & Randall Jnr, J.H. (1948) The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, pp. 49-133.
Montaigne, M. (2003) ‘An Apology for Raymond Sebond’, in The Complete Essays, London, Penguin, pp. 489-683.
Pascal, B. (1966) Pensées, London Penguin.
Kierkegaard, S. (1989) The Concept of Irony, Princeton University Press.
Assessment 1
What do Socrates and Schön believe is the relation between education and doubt?
(1,500 words max; due Thursday week 3, 8th October, given in to Catherine before 3.30pm)
Week 3 Human culture (Jaeger)
Reading Jaeger, W. (1973) Paideia The Ideals of Greek Culture, vol. I, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. xxii-xxv, 280, 286-314.
Halevi, J. (1964) The Kuzari, New York, Schocken Books, p. 124 (written 1130-40 CE)
Wider reading try Hadot, P. (2002) What is Ancient Philosophy?, Cambridge, Mass., Belknap Press, Harvard UP (for everything from Socrates to Aristotle).
Week 4 Rhetoric (Isocrates)
Reading Jaeger, W. (1986) Paideia The Ideals of Greek Culture, vol. III, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 46-9, 61-3, 89.
Isocrates, ‘Panegyricus’ in Isocrates with an English Translation in three volumes, by George Norlin, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1980; 47-50.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0144%3Aspeech%3D4%3Asection%3D47
Isocrates, ‘Nicocles or the Cyprians,’ in Isocrates with an English Translation in three volumes, by George Norlin, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1980, 1-9.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0144%3Aspeech%3D3
Isocrates, ‘Antodosis,’ in Isocrates with an English Translation in three volumes, by George Norlin, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1929, vol. II, pp. 327-9.
Cicero, (1967) De Oratore Books 1 & 2, trans. E.W Sutton, London: Heinemann, i.71-8, ii. 5-7.
Montaigne. M (2003) The Complete Essays, London, Penguin, I. 51. ‘On The Vanity Of Words’, pp. 341-344.
(See also Plato, Phaedrus, 270-1; Plato, The Sophist, 231-235; and Plato, Gorgias.)
Week 5 Philosophy (Plato’s Republic)
Reading Plato, (1992) The Republic, London: Dent.
(available at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.8.vii.html).
Week 6 Philosophy (Plato’s Republic)
Reading Plato, (1992) The Republic, London: Dent.
(available at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.8.vii.html).
Week 7 Philosophy (Plato’s Republic)
Reading Plato, (1992) The Republic, London: Dent.
(available at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.8.vii.html).
Week 8 The Liberal Arts Tradition
Reading Kimball, B.A. (1986) Orators and Philosophers, a history of the idea of liberal education, New York: Teachers College Press, chapter II.
Cicero, (1945) Tusculan Disputations, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, I. i-iv, pp. 3-11, & II, i-iii, pp. 149-153.
Plato, Phaedo, 79-84c, in Plato Complete Works, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Co, 1997.
Week 9 First principles: Aristotle and Kant
‘a principle cast into a good mind bears fruit’ (Pascal, B. (1966) Pensées, London Penguin, p. 247)
Reading Plato, (1997) Phaedrus, in Plato Complete Works, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing, p524 (§ 245)
Aristotle (vol. 1) Physics, I.1. 184a10-15 (p. 315); II.3. 194b17-23 (p. 332); VIII.5. 256a12-256b3 (p. 428); VII.1. 242a50-4 (p. 408); III.4. 203b 6-15 (p. 347); Fragment 12 (vol. 2), p. 2392, in Aristotle, (1984), The Complete Works of Aristotle, vols 1 & 2, ed. J.Barnes, Princeton UP.
R. Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes vol. 2, trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff & D. Murdoch, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 29.
Kant, I. (1990) ‘What is Enlightenment?’ in Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, New York: Macmillan Press.
Kant, I. (1956) Critique of Practical Reason, (London, Macmillan), pp. 30-5, 57, and Conclusion.
Kant, I. (1990) Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, New York: Macmillan Press, pp. 29-33, 38, 44-57.
Kant, I. (1991) Kant, Political Writings, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), ed. Hans Reiss, pp. 64-72.
Week 10 market freedom (Adam Smith)
Reading Smith, A. (1958) The Wealth of Nations, London, Dent, Book V, article II, pp. 245-271.
Week 11 Kant in action: taxation and education
Reading Lecture notes
Wider Reading Brighouse, H. (2002) ‘A Modest Defence of School Choice’ Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 653-659.
Tooley, J. (2003) ‘Why Harry Brighouse is Nearly Right about the Privatisation of Education’ Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 37, No. 3, pp. 440-447.
Cox, C.B. & Boyson, R. (eds.) (1977) Black Paper London, Temple Smith, pp.8-9.
Davies, M. and Edwards, G. (2001) ‘Will the Curriculum Caterpillar Ever Learn to Fly?’ in Mike Fielding (ed.) Taking Education Really Seriously: Four Years Hard Labour, London, RoutledgeFalmer, pp. 96-107.
Lawton, D. (1994) The Tory Mind on Education, London: Falmer Press.
Williams, R. (2000) Lost Icons, London: Morehouse Publishing.
Week 12 Seminar voice: Presentations
These will be split across week 12; some will be in LA 1001a, some in LA 1002 on Friday. Make sure you know your time and place…
Assessment
Assessment 1: (50%) What do Socrates and Schön believe is the relation between education and doubt? (1,500 words max; due Thursday week 3, 8th October, given in to Catherine in the office, before 3.30pm)
Assessment 2: (50%) Seminar Voice presentations in week 12: details given in seminars.
Use Harvard Referencing
We attempt always to return work within 3 working weeks (15 days working days).
MODERN LIBERAL ARTS MARK SCHEMEWe want you to be very clear about how we will mark your work and that means you must know with each assessment what you are expected to do. We hope that this does not mean you will feel that you have to write to a formula. We are trying to build in considerable freedom to your assessments; but as the term ‘liberal arts’ conveys, in every freedom there is a discipline, and in every discipline there is a freedom; together, we hope, they constitute the struggle of learning.
There are (often but not always) two types of essays in MLA: the first assessment title in a module will most often be set by the tutor and will be restricted to texts explored in the first weeks. The second assessment title can be tutor-led, or chosen from a list of titles, or can be negotiated individually; this varies according to the tutor and the module. This assignment can explore wider issues, employ wider reading, or explore a single issue in depth. Students will bear some responsibility for the references consulted in the second essay, increasing through years 1, 2 and 3.
Tutor-set assessments (disciplina) / Student/tutor-set assessments (libertas)1st module essay
Marks for
· depth of understanding specialist terminology
· depth of understanding of set texts
· depth of understanding of ideas/concepts
· evidence by quotation
· answering the question
· correct referencing
· word limit / 2nd module essay
Marks for
· depth of understanding of texts
· depth of understanding and application of ideas/concepts
· evidence-based critical arguments
· depth/breadth of reading (depending on the question)
· answering your own question
· correct referencing
· word limit
Note the difference between essays 1 and 2: the first one is marked only on your understanding of texts; the second one is marked on understanding, on your own reading, and your emerging critical voice. Be careful here; being critical does not mean just giving your opinions. It means making a case based on evidence from your reading, using ideas and concepts from texts. It does not mean you have to fight for one side of an argument or another… ambivalence will be treated with great respect. But for every essay, remember this: if we (and you) get the title right, then by answering the question you will be doing exactly what is required. Over years 1, 2 and 3 the levels of your work are raised by using increasingly challenging texts, ideas, concepts and writers, and by the way you are able to employ ideas, concepts and writers from other modules across the degree in increasingly sophisticated ways.
For all essays, then
Depending on the question you will need to
· Demonstrate reflection on module material and the wider contexts from across the degree which might impact upon it
· Communicate experiences of texts and ideas as appropriate
· Show knowledge and understanding of specialist terminology
· Demonstrate requisite research skills in gathering, summarizing and presenting evidence including proficiency in referencing and academic conventions.
For essay 1
Depending on the question you will need to
· Show careful reading of primary sources
· Show a knowledge of theoretical perspectives and/or works
· Show an understanding of abstract concepts and ideas within theoretical perspectives
· Show an ability to work with theorists and their concepts in various forms of assessment as appropriate
· Show evidence of engagement with texts and ideas concerned with issues raised in the module.
For essay 2
Depending on the question you will need to
· Show an ability to employ theorists critically in relation to issues
· Show an ability to use concepts as critical tools in discussing issues and questions as appropriate
· Show an ability to employ theoretical perspectives as critical tools
· Therein, to develop a critical voice informed and deepened by appropriate use of theory as critique.
· Sustain a critical relationship to ideas related to the module
It is often hard to explain in generic terms how any particular essay could have been improved. But, cautiously, we can say the following:
In general,
a 3rd (40-49%) may have ignored the question, may have not given much evidence of reading, may have clumsy sentence structure, but will still have made a bona fide attempt at the work.
a 2.2 (50-59%) will have provided evidence of reading, quotations where appropriate, clear sentence structure, attended to the question or title, but not related the material in ways which synthesise more developed and complex thinking.