Are the liberal arts necessary for the Christian? How did St. Augustine simultaneously embody and critique liberal learning? In this conversation, Prof. Tom Harmon, a scholar of St. Augustine, takes up the Bishop of Hippo’s vision of liberal education from a variety of perspectives. If Augustine were rewriting the “Allegory of the Cave,” how would his account be different? Along the way he also considers the difference between Cicero’s and Augustine’s vision of oratory, the role of the Platonists in Augustine’s conversion, and the temptation to pride that is an occupational hazard for Christian academics.

Links of Potential Interest:

Peter Brown,  Augustine of Hippo: A Biography

Marshall McLuhan, The Medium and the Light: Reflections on Religion

Works by Augustine:  

Confessions

On Christian Teaching (De Doctrina Christiana)

The Augustine Catechism: Enchiridion

On the Happy Life

Tractates on the Gospel of John