cultivatorarchivist reviewed The Trivium : The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric on + 16 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
"the essential characteristic of the liberal arts is that they are immanent or intransitive activities."
This is one of the most profound and difficult books I've ever had the joy of reading. There is an old saying that goes something like, "well, he must truly be a genius because I can't make a word of what he's saying." Nowadays that saying is used sarcastically, but it really does apply to this book and its topic. The trivium constitutes the crown of liberal arts, of higher learning. It once was the requirement of all college students to possess a fundamental grasp of the trivium, along with the quadrivium which make the whole of the liberal arts. No longer. Now "liberal arts" denotes some vague study and acquisition of knowledge which presumably makes a round individual. The fact that most college students have never heard of the trivium speaks about higher education's current hollow state.
The trivium connotes classical education, and that is largely the reason why it seems like an antiquated fossil. That also makes the trivium seem like studying it nowadays is a useless pursuit. Both views are erroneous. for one, the trivium constitutes the topics of logic, grammar and rhetoric. Now those three terms much like everything else associated with the trivium denoted something more than what they do today. This narrow view reflects our narrow understanding of knowledge and its use. The reason these branches of knowledge aren't studied to the degree they once were is because the foundation system of philosophy supporting the whole thing. The trivium goes back to the time of Aristotle and his "invention" of grammar; it even goes before then since rhetoric and logic predate Aristotle. But he is the first philosopher to systematize the three into a cohesive whole. Then the aristotelians expanded on it, leading to the trivium we have today. Part of the reason it seems an obsolete topic is because Aristotle and his philosophy is challenged by many modern philosophers who would love nothing more than to do away with the darn ole thing.
Choice is a curious thing. I say this because the intellectual, and spiritual, choices each of us make will lock us down on specific topics and intellectual pursuits for life. For example, if you're say an atheist it is highly unlikely you're ever going to bother with the trivium. Why? Many reasons. I could here try to delineate the whole of philosophy and its historical progression from the time of Aristotle to the time of today, explaining how a branch of knowledge belongs to a certain kind of individual. But Bertrand Russel did a much better job than I ever could. What is important is that while the whole of liberal arts, here defined as the trivium and quadrivium, once belonged to western culture as a whole, it eventually became almost the whole possession of Roman Catholicism.
I wrote these series of paragraphs to try to explain why the book The Trivium could not be written by anyone else but a Catholic nun, more or less. Sister Miriam Joseph is her name. Actually that is not entirely true. Mortimer Adler is the one who launched a Western culture "revival" of sorts. Sister Joseph was his pupil. Anyway, leave it to a bunch of Catholic monks and nuns to preserve antiquated knowledge. But to Sister Miriam Joseph the trvium was something very much alive, and if this book is any indication, her grasp of the trivium was, and is, something to behold. I enjoy reading this book because it allows me to see how fundamentally poor my grasp of the English language is. And every chance I get I pour through its pages so I can understand the language, and myself, a little more.
This is one of the most profound and difficult books I've ever had the joy of reading. There is an old saying that goes something like, "well, he must truly be a genius because I can't make a word of what he's saying." Nowadays that saying is used sarcastically, but it really does apply to this book and its topic. The trivium constitutes the crown of liberal arts, of higher learning. It once was the requirement of all college students to possess a fundamental grasp of the trivium, along with the quadrivium which make the whole of the liberal arts. No longer. Now "liberal arts" denotes some vague study and acquisition of knowledge which presumably makes a round individual. The fact that most college students have never heard of the trivium speaks about higher education's current hollow state.
The trivium connotes classical education, and that is largely the reason why it seems like an antiquated fossil. That also makes the trivium seem like studying it nowadays is a useless pursuit. Both views are erroneous. for one, the trivium constitutes the topics of logic, grammar and rhetoric. Now those three terms much like everything else associated with the trivium denoted something more than what they do today. This narrow view reflects our narrow understanding of knowledge and its use. The reason these branches of knowledge aren't studied to the degree they once were is because the foundation system of philosophy supporting the whole thing. The trivium goes back to the time of Aristotle and his "invention" of grammar; it even goes before then since rhetoric and logic predate Aristotle. But he is the first philosopher to systematize the three into a cohesive whole. Then the aristotelians expanded on it, leading to the trivium we have today. Part of the reason it seems an obsolete topic is because Aristotle and his philosophy is challenged by many modern philosophers who would love nothing more than to do away with the darn ole thing.
Choice is a curious thing. I say this because the intellectual, and spiritual, choices each of us make will lock us down on specific topics and intellectual pursuits for life. For example, if you're say an atheist it is highly unlikely you're ever going to bother with the trivium. Why? Many reasons. I could here try to delineate the whole of philosophy and its historical progression from the time of Aristotle to the time of today, explaining how a branch of knowledge belongs to a certain kind of individual. But Bertrand Russel did a much better job than I ever could. What is important is that while the whole of liberal arts, here defined as the trivium and quadrivium, once belonged to western culture as a whole, it eventually became almost the whole possession of Roman Catholicism.
I wrote these series of paragraphs to try to explain why the book The Trivium could not be written by anyone else but a Catholic nun, more or less. Sister Miriam Joseph is her name. Actually that is not entirely true. Mortimer Adler is the one who launched a Western culture "revival" of sorts. Sister Joseph was his pupil. Anyway, leave it to a bunch of Catholic monks and nuns to preserve antiquated knowledge. But to Sister Miriam Joseph the trvium was something very much alive, and if this book is any indication, her grasp of the trivium was, and is, something to behold. I enjoy reading this book because it allows me to see how fundamentally poor my grasp of the English language is. And every chance I get I pour through its pages so I can understand the language, and myself, a little more.
