The Great Conversation: The Substance of a Liberal Education

Preface

In the preface, Hutchins communicates why The Great Books of the Western World project was undertaken, and he defends the selection of books in the set. Concerned about the decline of Western Civilization, Hutchins and the editors of the Great Books set believe that reading and understanding the great books will show the origins of our most serious difficulties. The Advisory Board chose the works included in the GBWW because they believe that they contributed in an important way to the Great Conversation. 

The Great Conversation

The Tradition of the West

In the Tradition of the West, Hutchins defines the tradition of Western Civilization as "the Great Conversation that began in the dawn of history and that continues to the present day". He argues that the dialogue itself, the exchange of ideas, is the ideal to which Western civilization moves. Hutchins emphasizes the fact that the books included in this set have long been central in the liberal education of the West, "the education that men acquired as an end in itself, for no other purpose than that it would help them be men, to lead human lives, and better lives than they would otherwise be able to lead".  What does liberal education seek to do? To recognize basic problems, to understand the distinction and interrelation of subject matter, and to comprehend the ideas related to these problems. "The liberally educated man has a mind that can operate well in all fields".  The method of liberal education is the liberal arts. 

Modern Times

In the Modern Times essay, Hutchins first criticizes the exclusion of the Great Books from modern American educational curriculum due to what he claims is the elites' idea that due to the democratization of education and the unique set of problems that faces modern society, a liberal Great Books education would be insufficient. He argues against economic and sociological determinism by citing the universality of the problems of modern society and by claiming that "we need all the help we can get". He then moves on to criticize what much of modern education has become: social adjustment and vocational training. Hutchins believes that the path modern education has taken is due to a misinterpretation of John Dewey's educational philosophy. He first clears up misconceptions about and misapplications of Dewey's philosophy, and then he proceeds to argue against Dewey's philosophy itself by citing modern man's need to understand the true problems of his work, which could be realized by understanding the ideas present in the Great Books.  

Education and Economics

Hutchins starts this essay with the assumption that liberal education is the best education, and he then asks if this type of education is possible for everybody. He spends the rest of the essay arguing that, while the economies of some countries currently prevent their populations from pursuing a liberal education for the majority of their populations, in the United States, due to the automation of labor, we do have the time and the leisure to pursue a liberal education. According to Hutchins, if the mass of people can not pursue a liberal education to their intellectual inability, then they should be stripped of their role in democracy. Since this option is essentially out of the picture and because the educational system is how a society reproduces itself, modern, economically prosperous countries like the United States should state that their ideal is a liberal education and pursue it.  

The Disappearance of Liberal Education

I have suggested that the kind of education that will develop the requisite intelligence for democratic citizenship is liberal education, education through great books and the liberal arts, a kind of education that has all but disappeared from the schools, colleges, and universities of the United States. Why did this education disappear? ... I attribute this phenomenon to two factors, internal decay and external confusion.

The internal decay that Hutchins refers to here is the decay of the institutions that provided our founding fathers with a liberal education. The classics became the domain of scholars, as teachers demanded they be read in the original Latin and Greek. This led to students having barely any familiarity with the ideas in the classics by the time they left school. 

The external confusion refers to the belief that, due to the rise of experimental science, industrialization and specialization, the liberal education of the great books was outdated. Because the authors of the Great Books did not deal with their material as a science - or as a modern social scientist might - then their works and the ideas in them were considered outdated, representing little but "prejudice or guesswork":

Specialization, experimental science, technology, and industrialization were new. Great books and the liberal arts were identified in the public mind with dead languages, arid routines, and an archaic, prescientific past.

Hutchins argues that without a common language, i.e. the Great Conversation, the increase in technology and mass communication threatens us and our ability to build community.

Experimental Science

Can questions only be answered by empirical methods of science? Are we to trust Hume when he says in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding that:

When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume ... let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

The Great Conversation contains both sides of the issue that has had the most critical bearing on the significance Great Conversation and liberal education. What is meant by science and the scientific method? In the Great Books of the Western World, we can appreciate the development of science and note the limitations of the empirical methods and mourn the errors that the misapplication has caused. 

Education for All

Can everyone receive a liberal education through the great books? According to Hutchins and the early success of the general public in digesting the Great Books curriculum, a great many people are able to comprehend the Great Books. In this essay, Hutchins argues in favor of the Great Books curriculum, and he emphasizes the need for a similar curriculum for society based around the Great Books so that we can conversate. 

The Education of Adults

Continued growth is essential to intellectual life. For our educational institutions to adopt a liberal education, the liberal education must first be appreciated by the adult population. The big questions - "What is our destiny? What is a good life? How can we achieve a good society? What can we learn to guide us through the mazes of the future from history, philosophy, literature, and the fine arts?" - can only be answered by the liberal arts, not the experimental sciences, so it is important that the adult population understand what wisdom we have regarding these topics.