Franciscan University Presents “Virtue and Culture” With guest, Dr. Thomas Hibbs The Liberating Power of the Humanities By Thomas Hibbs In contemporary discussions of liberal education and the humanities, the appeal to the role of liberal education in...
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Franciscan University Presents “Virtue and Culture” With guest, Dr. Thomas Hibbs The Liberating Power of the Humanities By Thomas Hibbs In contemporary discussions of liberal education and the humanities, the appeal to the role of liberal education in inculcating useful, transferrable skills is increasingly prominent. Institutions of higher learning tout the critical thinking skills of students exposed to the humanities. Major national documents on the humanities have come to highlight these skills as well. The most recent national report, The Heart of the Matter (2013), fails to mention beauty, virtue, truth, ethics, morality, goodness, religion, justice, or wisdom, while the term skills, critical thinking and communication skills, surfaces forty times. It seems as though even the leading defenders of the humanities have caved to the increasingly instrumentalist conception of all American higher education. Another problem is that the conception of skills itself has become increasingly
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