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...a traditional liberal arts education is, by definition, not intended to prepare students for a specific vocation. Rather, the critical thinking, civic and hi

...a traditional liberal arts education is, by definition, not intended to prepare students for a specific vocation. Rather, the critical thinking, civic and historical knowledge and ethical reasoning... It strikes me as obvious that critical thinking ability is best trained with math. Civic and historical knowledge can be learned much like any specific skill can. So it wood seem the humanities are a very round about way of teaching critical thinking. But I think the last paragraph strikes at a core truth rarely spoken out loud: That may be unfortunate but inevitable, Mr. Kronman said. The essence of a humanities education — reading the great literary and philosophical works and coming “to grips with the question of what living is for” — may become “a great luxury that many cannot afford.” Within the above paragraph is the hard truth that a humanities education is most often a way to show off class and breeding. Class and breeding are highly correlated with wealth.

evgen 17y ago
> It strikes me as obvious that critical thinking ability is best trained with math. Writing a cogent and convincing argument is not a problem that can be solved with linear algebra. Ethics is not the differential equations of competing interests. That you would consider a good math education to be a core component of critical thinking appears to serve as an example proof of why engineers are poorly trained in critical thinking skills.
- biohacker42 17y ago
  Proving a mathematical theorem is the kind of absolute proof no amount of cogent and convincing arguing will ever touch. Ethics is a set of rules, critically occupied with filtering out simple egoistic urges from greater human goals. I think you're confusing critical thinking with empathy and emotional insight. To understand humans, you have to understand our emotions and that requires empathy. Combine empathy with critical thinking and you can have insights about our emotional lives. Engineers are not poorly trained in critical thinking skills, quite the opposite. Some engineers are very empathic people. A few seem to posses a distinct lack of empathy and little intuition as to how other feel. But those individuals are rare and not confined to engineering. Convincing arguments depend on who you're trying to convince, know your audience. The same argument won't convince engineers and astrologists. Any good engineer has excellent communication skills, they wouldn't be a good engineer otherwise. And cogent convincing arguments are an intimate part of every engineer's life. The study of math, physics, logic, will greatly improve your ability to come up with convincing arguments.
  - evgen 17y ago
    > The study of math, physics, logic, will greatly improve your ability to come up with convincing arguments. As will the study of history, philosophy, rhetoric, and psychology. Let's be honest here. Physics has no place in that list, logic is a subset of math, and a strong case could be made that math is just applied philosophy/epistemology (and the reverse is also true.) There is a reason that math is considered a liberal art and not an engineering discipline... There is a difference between real "higher math" and the applied math that engineering students learn as a part of their vocational training. The former is useful for enhancing critical thinking, the latter is not.
- phicou 17y ago
  And math, real math, is not about the mindless execution of predefined algorithms such as linear algebra. It is about understanding those algorithms, using higher-order logic to understand what is universally true, conditionally true, and so forth.

evgen 17y ago

> It strikes me as obvious that critical thinking ability is best trained with math. Writing a cogent and convincing argument is not a problem that can be solved with linear algebra. Ethics is not the differential equations of competing interests. That you would consider a good math education to be a core component of critical thinking appears to serve as an example proof of why engineers are poorly trained in critical thinking skills.

biohacker42 17y ago
Proving a mathematical theorem is the kind of absolute proof no amount of cogent and convincing arguing will ever touch. Ethics is a set of rules, critically occupied with filtering out simple egoistic urges from greater human goals. I think you're confusing critical thinking with empathy and emotional insight. To understand humans, you have to understand our emotions and that requires empathy. Combine empathy with critical thinking and you can have insights about our emotional lives. Engineers are not poorly trained in critical thinking skills, quite the opposite. Some engineers are very empathic people. A few seem to posses a distinct lack of empathy and little intuition as to how other feel. But those individuals are rare and not confined to engineering. Convincing arguments depend on who you're trying to convince, know your audience. The same argument won't convince engineers and astrologists. Any good engineer has excellent communication skills, they wouldn't be a good engineer otherwise. And cogent convincing arguments are an intimate part of every engineer's life. The study of math, physics, logic, will greatly improve your ability to come up with convincing arguments.
- evgen 17y ago
  > The study of math, physics, logic, will greatly improve your ability to come up with convincing arguments. As will the study of history, philosophy, rhetoric, and psychology. Let's be honest here. Physics has no place in that list, logic is a subset of math, and a strong case could be made that math is just applied philosophy/epistemology (and the reverse is also true.) There is a reason that math is considered a liberal art and not an engineering discipline... There is a difference between real "higher math" and the applied math that engineering students learn as a part of their vocational training. The former is useful for enhancing critical thinking, the latter is not.
phicou 17y ago
And math, real math, is not about the mindless execution of predefined algorithms such as linear algebra. It is about understanding those algorithms, using higher-order logic to understand what is universally true, conditionally true, and so forth.