Brief reply to: Is majoring in liberal arts a mistake for students? https:/
What magisterial sounding pontification! Sadly, it’s not much different than the early philosophies of Socrates and Plato or many of the other early progenitors of the humanities and liberal arts. I get the impression that the author hasn’t read much philosophy and has not much grounding in the liberal arts. While I agree with the spirit in which the piece is written, I find it deplorable that there aren’t what should be obligatory mentions of words like trivium, quadrivium, or philosophy, but rather the corpus of work in which the author seems steeped is that of only modern day authors of popular science (Pinker, Gladwell, Kahneman, et. al.) who have some interesting viewpoints, but ones which require at least a grounding in the liberal arts to pick apart. Several times Khosla demeans the liberal arts and uses the repeated example that a reader should be able to pick apart and think critically about articles in The Economist. To do this requires a knowledge of logic and rhetoric which are two of the pillars of what? — yes, the liberal arts!
He also seems unaware of big movements within the humanities and sciences like Bill Gates and David Christian’s Big History Project which are going a long way towards providing a more balanced education in history, economics, physics, chemistry, biology and evolution. I find here, no prima facie evidence of his knowledge of Thomas Kuhn or Karl Popper, which might help win me to his argument. In all, aside from the passing references to one or two recent works, this entire argument is not much different from many that could have been written at the beginning of the industrial revolution. How blind so many must be to seemingly think there’s something new here.
Most appalling to me here is that the author doesn’t seem to give even a passing nod or small wink to C.P. Snow or “The Two Cultures” [http:/
Yes, we certainly need more emphasis on the quadrivium portion of the liberal arts, and in particular mathematics and critical thinking which seem to have been left by the wayside. It is deplorable that the highest extent of mathematics that 99% of college students are exposed to terminates in the 17th century for the most part. Sadly, many college students are left without the ability to think critically and deeply, not to mention the hordes of students in America who barely make it through high school and don’t attend college. One also only needs to skim through recent issues of Nature [http:/
Yes, we need far, far more, but alas, this poor article only touches the tip of the issue and it sadly only does so with less than half of the picture.