Leisure, freedom, and liberal education

Educational Theory

Volumn 56, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 121-136

  Gary, Kevin ^a  

^a GOSHEN COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 65249147278     PISSN: 00132004     EISSN: 17415446     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-5446.2006.00007.x     Document Type: Article

References (33)

1. James O. Freedman, Liberal Education and the Public Interest (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2003), 56.
2. For a thorough account of the contemporary justifications given for a liberal education, see Bruce Kimball's Philosophers and Orators: A History of the Idea of Liberal Education (New York: Teachers College Press, 1986), 158-241.
3. Perhaps this critique could be directed at Aristotle's understanding of leisure. The specific understanding of leisure explored in this essay, however, is the monastic leisure of the Middle Ages, which did not seek to maintain a privileged space for an elite few but offered a way of freedom open to anyone.
4. Josef Pieper, Leisure, the Basis of Culture (South Bend, Indiana: Saint Augustine's Press, 1998), 68.
5. Ibid., 4. Though Pieper made this observation in 1948, it is perhaps more applicable today.
6. Abraham Heschel, Man Is Not Alone (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1977), 36.
7. Mark Schwehn, Exiles from Eden (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 9-10.
8. What "critical thinking" means can certainly be disputed. Here, I am specifically referring to critical thinking that, with its penchant for fostering an aggressive, skeptical, questioning bent of mind, tends to problematize situations as it seeks new understanding.
9. Bruce Kimball, Philosophers and Orators: A History of the Idea of Liberal Education (New York: Teachers College Press, 1986), 37.
10. Ibid., 18.
11. Ibid., 35.
12. Schwehn, Exiles from Eden, 9-10.
13. Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1995), 265.
14. Hadot's notion, "philosophy as a way of life," I use interchangeably with the phrase, "liberal education as a way life." While Hadot's understanding of the practice of philosophy certainly precedes the developing traditions of liberal education previously outlined, it definitely inspires and informs the oratorical tradition. Moreover, as will be demonstrated, the practice of liberal education inspired by Socrates and that embodied by monks in theMiddle Ages was constituted by Hadot's philosophy as a way life.
15. Ibid., 270.
16. Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture (New York: Fordham University Press, 1982), 19. This work will be cited as LL in the text for all subsequent references.
17. On the rabbinic tradition of midrash, see Gerry Bruns, "The Hermeneutics of Midrash," in Hermeneutics: Ancient and Modern (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 104-123.
18. Alven Neiman, "Self Examination, Philosophical Education and Spirituality," Journal of Philosophy of Education 34, no. 4 (2000): 579.
19. Bernard of Clairvaux, Bernard of Clairvaux: Essential Writings, ed. Dennis Tamburello, O.F.M. (New York: Crossroad, 2000), 104.
20. Pieper's simple attribution of discursive thinking to Kant is, as one anonymous reviewer of this essay noted, overstated. The history and rise of critical, discursive thinking certainly could include a whole slew of thinkers. Nevertheless, I think it is correct to say that a critical, scientific approach is dominant today, and, for the purposes of delineating the nature of leisure, Pieper's explication of Kant serves as a useful foil for distinguishing what leisure is.
21. In turning to epistemology, I am aware of the pragmatic critique forwarded by Dewey and Rorty that sees this turn as an evasive move to avoid addressing contemporary problems. Nevertheless, while Dewey and Rorty steer clear of epistemological quicksand, they do have an epistemology that informs how they see and attempt to solve contemporary problems. While I acknowledge the potential diversionary tendency of epistemological analysis, I make the case that one's (implicit) epistemology does inform and in some cases impair how one sees and addresses particular problems.
22. Heschel, Man Is Not Alone, 11.
23. Ibid., 38.
24. Ibid., 22.
25. This criticism bears greater attention than can be given here. I am aware of this issue and intend to develop a fuller response that traces the strong historical ties between mysticism, or spiritual practice, and prophecy, or action for social change. On this point, see Grace Jentzen's essay, "Disrupting the Sacred: Religion and Gender in the City," in Mysticism and Social Transformation, ed. Janet Ruffing (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2001), 29-44.
26. I am especially grateful to Alven Neiman for pointing me to the relevant insights of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov and Mahatma Gandhi's Hind Swaraj discussed in this section. Dostoevsky and Gandhi underline the connection between leisure and authentic freedom.
27. Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), 313-314.
28. M.K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj and Other Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 28.
29. Ibid., 73.
30. Ibid., 42-43.
31. Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1981), 10.
32. Ibid., 11.
33. For an excellent account of Etty Hillesum's practice, see Alven Neiman, "Self Examination, Philosophical Education and Spirituality," Journal of Philosophy of Education 34, no. 4 (2000): 584-588.