Philosophy and the Liberal Arts
The faculty of Butler's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
(LAS) has adopted a statement of Core Values that describes the key
abilities, values and types of knowledge that we seek to develop in
graduates of our college. The goals expressed in that statement are
far reaching, but a philosophical education at Butler contributes
to the achievement of many of them.
As the Core Values statement suggests, "a liberal arts education
begins with the skills of language and thought." In philosophy,
these skills are developed through the study and application of
logic. Logic is the study of argument and inference - of properly
drawing conclusions from premises. Logic is the tool by which we
transform our experience into knowledge. Logic provides us a
reasonable basis for our judgments and actions. Logic is pursued as
a formal sub-discipline of philosophy in a course that is required
of all majors, but in truth, however, logic is taught in every
philosophy course, since all philosophy courses teach students (in
the words of the LAS values statement) " to set out a case or
hypothesis or argument" and "to evaluate the rigor of others'
arguments." More generally, because of their attention to close
reading, analytical writing and reasoned discussion, all philosophy
courses cultivate the communications skills that characterize the
liberally educated persons.
According to the Core Values statement, "Liberal arts education
is pluralistic. It is composed of many voices, each appropriate to
time and place, some discordant, none absolute." Philosophical
study truly embodies this feature of liberal education. Students
study the history of philosophy in order to hear how trenchant
thinkers of different generations can engage questions of truth and
value from such a bewildering variety of perspectives. When
students study contemporary philosophical debates, instructors push
them to engage thoughtfully, openly and critically with
philosophers with very different views.
The Core Values statement tells us that the skills
characteristic of a liberally educated person should be pursued not
just for their own sake, but "also as a preparation for the pursuit
of knowledge and the other purposes of human life." In philosophy
courses, students use their skills of thought and language to
pursue the most perennially challenging questions of which human
beings have conceived- questions about the nature and possibility
of knowledge, the origins and character of the natural and social
world, the nature of mind and its relation to the world it
perceives, and the existence and nature of the divine. And as
important as these questions are, philosophy recognizes that
ultimately it cannot limit itself to questions about what we and
the world we inhabit are like. Ultimately philosophy should help us
answer questions about value. What makes acts right? What makes
people and things beautiful? How should we structure our lives, our
communities and our governments? What gives our life meaning? And
while the pursuit of these questions is of value in itself, we
believe that disciplined philosophical reflection on these topics
is most important because it can, in the words of the Core Values
statement, "teach us to think for ourselves, to act wisely and well
in the world, [and] to undertake occupations useful to ourselves
and others."