In a case of potentially confusing terminology, classical education is sometimes called a liberal arts education. This is confusing for a couple of reasons. Reason 1. all classical education is technically a liberal arts education, but not all programs that describe themselves as liberal arts programs are classical. This stems from Reason 2. A lot of people don't actually know what the liberal arts are. There are seven liberal arts, but in this post, I will only go over the basic definition of liberal art as a term, and I'll only go over the first three (the linguistic arts of the Trivium). We'll hit the last four next time.
The Liberal Arts
In one sense the answer to the question 'what is a liberal art?' is a relatively simple one. Liberal stems from a Latin word that means 'Free,' and Art stems from a Latin word that means something closer to the English word for 'skill' or 'skilled work.' So, a liberal art is literally a skill needed by a person to function as a free man in society. Remember from a previous post that formal education used to be reserved for society's elite. So a liberal arts education was one designed for men who were not only not slaves, but who were meant to lead their people. Over time the word 'liberal' began to be interpreted in a less literal sense, and now when people talk about the liberal arts they speak of them as the skills that a human being needs to BE truly free. So, the liberal arts over time have shifted from the skills that it was proper for freemen to learn because they were in the class of freemen, and now they are understood as disciplines that create a spiritual and mental freedom in those who study them.
So, that's what the term liberal art means and how it's generally interpreted. There's a little more to it than that, however. According to a tradition that's been handed down since the Middle Ages there are seven liberal arts divided into two categories. There are the three arts of the Trivium (tri - three, vium - way, path, road) and the four arts of the Quadrivium (quad - four, vium - way, path, road). This is kind of my take on them, but the Trivium and the Quadrivium both represent the two different kinds of language that humans use to understand reality.
The Trivium
The three arts of the Trivium are the skills that have to do with human language and our ability to communicate with one another. These arts are Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric.
Grammar
Grammar is the art of understanding how language works on a basic level. What are the parts of human language? How do we combine words to make sentences? What are the different kinds of sentences? How does word choice affect meaning? Can we put words in any order we want or is there a point where certain combinations of words destroy coherent meaning? Vocabulary. As anyone who has attempted to learn a new language knows, in order to communicate effectively a person not only needs to have a sufficient number of words from the different parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions, etc.), but needs to know how to put those words together in ways that make sense. The sentence "The black dog ate the delicious meal" does not mean the same thing as "The delicious meal ate the black dog." Grammar tells us why. Grammar also tells us why the sentence "Jack gave me a cake." does mean the same thing as "Me Jack a cake gave." Grammar, then, is the ability to understand what language truly is, its ins and outs, the way it works.
Logic
The next art of the Trivium is Logic. Logic takes language and seeks to make it say things that make
sense. Logic is where language tends to look a lot like math. Logic tells us why statements like "A tiger is a cat, but a tiger is not a cat." are nonsense. Grammatically there's nothing wrong with a sentence like that, but it breaks the logical rule of non-contradiction, which says that a statement cannot be true and false at the same time. Logic is a very rigid art. It has a lot of rules and even formulas where variables show the validity and invalidity of certain statements. For example, a classic logical argument is a modus ponens (method of affirming) which says:
p 
q
p
q
Or in language, If 'P' is true then 'Q' is also true. 'P' is in fact true, therefore 'Q' is also true. P and Q are variables. I told you it was just like math. So, we could substitute actual phrases in for the variables. For example, "If I see a cat then I will eat ice cream. I see a cat! Therefore, I will eat ice cream." Logic is incredibly dry and if it's possible even less interesting to people than grammar is, so it gets skipped a lot. I don't think it should be skipped, but I'll make an apology for logic another time. For our purposes here, Logic is the art of right thinking, its the art of sense as opposed to nonsense.
Rhetoric
On to the final member of the Trivium, the sexy one - Rhetoric! Rhetoric gets a bad rap. I mean, honestly, all of the Trivium does. grammar and logic are considered boring, and rhetoric is associated with politicians and therefore has come to be associated with lies and emptiness. That's not really what rhetoric is meant to be. rhetoric is the art of persuasion, it is the art of using language to convince
people to do, or say, or believe something. It seems obvious that rhetoric can easily be abused. However, some of the oldest defenders of rhetoric (i.e. Aristotle) made sure to insert the caveat that REAL rhetoric was concerned with persuading people to do something good or to believe something true.
Rhetoric is often considered a sort of capstone art because it is meant to combine everything one has mastered from the art of grammar and logic and use them toward the end of persuasion. The best rhetoricians are the ones who know what they want to say, who know how to say it, can say it in a way that makes good sense, and finally can say it in a way that's interesting and moving. It's the last part, interesting and moving, that's unique to rhetoric and that gives rhetoric its unique power.
Conclusion
The Trivium, then, are the human arts. They originate in our humanity, they are unique to us, and they belong to us. There is nothing in nature that can replicate these. If you want to take a theological view they stem from our participation in the image of God. God is a God of language. He gave us reason, which is unique in the natural world (reason being here identified with the ability to think about things beyond our immediate physical needs and desires, the ability to dive into the mysteries of our existence and purpose), and He gave us the ability to take what's inside our heads in all of its complexity and to place it into the heads of other people. Human language is incredible and our ability to use it is an incredible power. The story of Babel illustrates this. Human beings, using language, made themselves so powerful that God, for the sake of their salvation so that they would not orchestrate their own destruction through their hubris, had to confuse and break human language.
God speaks to us using grammar, logic, and rhetoric. By placing the story of human salvation into a human language He made it possible, through translation, for anyone to understand deep spiritual mysteries. He made His mind and heart known to us. Likewise, in His image, we use language to bear ourselves to one another. Men cannot be truly free unless they can escape from their own minds and connect with other members of their race. We do this with language, with the three arts of the Trivium. There's no denying that language as a human power is incredibly dangerous and easy to abuse, but when language is oriented toward truth, beauty, and goodness it truly shows the best of us.
Find Part Two here
Sources
If you're interested in reading more on the Liberal Arts or on the Trivium specifically I recommend the following sources (most of these can be found for free online):
- Institutes of Oratory by Quintillian. If you want to know not only what these arts are in a lot more detail, at least how they were traditionally considered, but also how they were taught you must read Qunitillian. Quintillian is still used as a model in Neo-Classical schools.
- The Marriage of Philology and Mercury by Martianus Capella. This is a fun resource because Capella explains what the arts are in an allegory. The character Philology, or the human intellectual life, marries the god Mercury. The seven Liberal Arts visit her on her wedding day to explain their gifts and to offer themselves to her as her handmaidens.
- Institutions of Divine and Secular Learning and On The Soul by Cassiodorus. This one is nice because he provides pretty small descriptions that are easy to understand.
- Etymologies by Isidore of Seville. This one is longer and more complex for those really interested in diving in.
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