The Circle of the Disciplines:  Newman’s Vision of the Integration of Knowledge and the Catholic University (David P. Deavel) 

In this dicussion with David Deavel, we take up Newman’s ‘Circle of Sciences,’ including the ways in which we bring together old and new disciplines as well as theoretical and applied disciplines in the contemporary university.  But what of research?  And what of the roles of philosophy and theology? Deavel disabuses us of misunderstandings surrounding Newman’s understanding of the place of research in the university and clarifies the essential work of theology and philosophy in ordering the Circle and the larger university.

Links of potential interest:

“25 Years: Logos and My Catholic Life”

Solzhenitsyn and American Culture: The Russian Soul in the West

David Deavel at the Imaginative Conservative

Newman, The Idea of University

Paul Shrimpton, The 'Making of Men'. The Idea and Reality of Newman's university in Oxford and Dublin

Christopher O. Blum, “The Promise of Newman’s Collegiate Ideal”

David Fleischacker, “The Place of Modern Scientific Research in the University According to John Henry Newman” 

In this conversation with David Deavel, we take up Newman’s understanding of liberal learning, including the role of interpersonal dialogue, Newman’s distinction between the university principle and the collegiate principle, and common misunderstandings of Newman’s Idea of a University.  Finally, we consider the relation between the Catholic university and the Church and the role of ‘letters’ in forming the imagination of undergraduates.

Links of potential interest:

“25 Years: Logos and My Catholic Life”

Solzhenitsyn and American Culture: The Russian Soul in the West

David Deavel at the Imaginative Conservative:

Trouble with a capital ‘T’

Newman, The Idea of University

Newman, The Grammar of Assent

Paul Shrimpton, The 'Making of Men'. The Idea and Reality of Newman's university in Oxford and Dublin

Christopher O. Blum, “The Promise of Newman’s Collegiate Ideal”

In this conversation with Randy Smith, we consider the role of wonder in liberal learning as well as the challenges and the joys of being an interdisciplinary scholar.  We also explore the distinction between wonder, curiosity (curiositas), and a well ordered desire for knowledge (studiositas) as well as the proper ordering of the disciplines—the humanities, mathematics, and the sciences—within the university.

Links of potential interest:

⁠⁠Bonaventure, Reduction of the Arts to Theology⁠⁠

⁠⁠Bonaventure, The Journey of the Mind to God⁠⁠

⁠⁠Bonaventure, Collations on the Hexaemeron⁠⁠

⁠⁠Randy Smith, From Here to Eternity: Reflections on Death, Immortality, and the Resurrection of the Body⁠⁠

 ⁠⁠Randy Smith, Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide⁠⁠

⁠⁠Randy Smith, Aquinas, Bonaventure, and the Scholastic Culture of Medieval Paris: Preaching, Prologues, and Biblical Commentary⁠⁠

⁠⁠Christopher O. Blum, “Intellectual Charity”⁠⁠

⁠⁠Benedict XVI, “Address to Catholic Educators”⁠⁠

Are the subjects at a university determined by the market and student demand?  And is the order between them a bit like the ingredients in a jambalaya?  At most universities, the answer to both questions is probably ‘yes.’  But at a Catholic university it should be different and in way that is a great good for the students.  In this lively conversation with Randy Smith, we  discuss how Bonaventure’s thought can help us coherently order the disciplines within a Catholic University.  We consider Bonaventure’s sources (particularly Hugh of St. Victor) and his contemporary Thomas Aquinas.  And all of this leads to a consideration of the relation between the non-theological disciplines—including the applied disciplines—and theology.  

Links of potential interest:

Bonaventure, Reduction of the Arts to Theology

Bonaventure, Journey of the Mind into God

Bonaventure, Collations on the Hexaemeron

Randy Smith, From Here to Eternity: Reflections on Death, Immortality, and the Resurrection of the Body

Randy Smith, Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide

Randy Smith, Aquinas, Bonaventure, and the Scholastic Culture of Medieval Paris: Preaching, Prologues, and Biblical Commentary

⁠Randy Smith’s writings at The Catholic Thing⁠

Christopher O. Blum, “Intellectual Charity”

Benedict XVI, “Address to Catholic Educators”

In this conversation we discuss the origins of the Center for Thomistic Studies within the context of the Thomistic revival and take up again the question of how one could, following Thomas, order the relation between the disciplines within the university.  This time the conversation looks to the particular roles of philosophy and theology in relation to each other and in relation to the seven liberal arts.

Links of potential interest:

Center for Thomistic Studies

Brian Carl’s ‘Academia’ page

Aquinas 101 

More Cowbell

Newman famously suggested that the disciplines, or parts of human knowledge, within a university should be complete and coherently ordered.  Before turning to Newman in a future conversation, we speak first with Brian Carl about St. Thomas’s understanding of what it means for something to be a ‘body of knowledge’ and how these bodies might be organized within a university.  Should bodies of knowledge be distinguished by what they study, by their end, or by their methods (or some combination of these)?   How does the traditional ordering of the liberal arts fit within or alongside the Aristotelian ‘division of the scientiae? And what did we lose at the birth of modernity when the priority theoretical knowledge over practical knowledge was reversed?

Links of potential interest:

Thomas Aquinas, The Division and Methods of the Sciences

The Center for Thomistic Studies at the University of St. Thomas

Brian Carl’s ‘Academia’ page

Ernest Fortin, The Birth of Philosophic Christianity: Studies in Early Christian and Medieval Thought

In this conversation with Michael Boler, we learn about how we might follow the Greeks in undertaking an integrated and embodied approach to liberal education.  How is liberal education an agon, a struggle, and a "return to the real"?  Why did the Greeks emphasize individual physical training (as opposed to team sports)?  Why do philosophy students smoke so much?  Why is a good teacher so important? How did we become "cacti in a sea of dopamine?" These and other questions animate our conversation.

Honors Program, the University of Saint Thomas

Michael Boler, An Introduction to Classical and New Testament Greek: A Unified Approach

Michael Boler, “Screwtape’s Remedy for Love: C.S. Lewis and Ovid.”

Michael Boler, with Felisa V. Reynolds, “Aristotle and Zazie.”

Michael Boler, “The Violence of Autonomy: The Significance of Matthew 11:12 in Flannery O’Connor’s The Violent Bear It Away”

In this conversation with Michael Boler, we learn about his intellectual journey as a “late bloomer,” the dynamics and pitfalls of a great books approach to education, and the joys and challenges of teaching students in our own age.  Along the way we consider the virtues of intellectual humility, wonder, and the importance of the perennial questions.  And in an age in which higher education has become captive to values foreign to it, we consider why an apparently inefficient approach to learning might have the most permanent consequences.

Honors Program, the University of Saint Thomas

Michael Boler, An Introduction to Classical and New Testament Greek: A Unified Approach

Michael Boler, “Screwtape’s Remedy for Love: C.S. Lewis and Ovid.”

Michael Boler, with Felisa V. Reynolds, “Aristotle and Zazie.”

Michael Boler, “The Violence of Autonomy: The Significance of Matthew 11:12 in Flannery O’Connor’s The Violent Bear It Away”

In this rich conversation,  Elizabeth Corey introduces us to the thought of Michael Oakeshott and what we can learn from him about being human and the practice of liberal education.  Oakeshott’s unique voice is needed more than ever and touches not only the life of liberal learning but on almost every sphere of human flourishing.

Elizabeth Corey, Michael Oakeshott on Religion, Aesthetics, and Politics

Elizabeth Corey, “Michael Oakeshott’s Conservative Disposition”

Elizabeth Corey, “No Happy Harmony”

A.G. Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods

Pieper, Leisure the Basis of Culture

John Paul II, Laborem exercens

In this wide ranging conversation with Elizabeth Corey, we take up the fundamental question that has animated this podcast series: What is liberal learning? Along the way we consider the challenges faced by those who would liberally educate students today (including our brightest students), the higher purposes of liberal education, and consider liberal education's future.  We also reflect on how liberal education can inform our approach to work, how the life of the academic and liberal education might become illiberal (while looking liberal from the outside), and the conditions—particularly the habits of reading and mind—that are necessary for liberal education to take place.

Elizabeth Corey, Michael Oakeshott on Religion, Aesthetics, and Politics

Elizabeth Corey, “Michael Oakeshott’s Conservative Disposition”

Elizabeth Corey, “No Happy Harmony”

A.G. Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods

Pieper, Leisure the Basis of Culture

John Paul II, Laborem exercens