Liberal Arts
Meaning and Etymology
Liberal Arts – College or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general intellectual capacities, in contrast to a professional, vocational, or technical curriculum. In Classical antiquity, the term designated the education proper to a freeman (Latin liber, ÒfreeÓ) as opposed to a slave. In the medieval Western university, the seven liberal arts were grammar, rhetoric, and logic (the trivium[1]) and geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy (the quadrivium). In modern colleges and universities, the liberal arts include the study of literature, languages, philosophy, history, mathematics, and science.[2] The study of the trivium led to the Bachelor of Arts degree, and the quadrivium to the Master of Arts.[3] Further study, of course, leads to the Ph.D., which abbreviates Doctor of Philosophy.
Art – from ars (L), professional, artistic, or technical skill, craftsmanship, artificial methods, human ingenuity, artificiality, crafty action, trick, stratagem, craftiness, guile, personal characteristic or quality, systematic body of knowledge and practical techniques, magic, one of the fine or liberal arts, profession, craft, trade, task, pursuit, artistic achievement or performance, artistic design or representation, work of art, device, contrivance, rules or principles of an art, treatise, method, system, procedure, principle of classification.[4]
Bachelor – from bacheler (OF via unclear L origin), a young knight, not old enough, or having too few vassals, to display his own banner, and who therefore followed the banner of another; a novice in arms; yeoman; inexperienced person; one who has taken the first or lowest degree at a university, who is not yet a master of the Arts.[5]
Master – from magister (L, via magis, more), master, chief, head.[6]
Doctor – from doctor (L, via docere, to teach), teacher; one who, by reason of his skill in any branch of knowledge, is competent to teach it, or whose attainments entitle him to express an authoritative opinion; an eminently learned man.[7]
Philosophy – from philosophia (G), love of wisdom or knowledge
[1] Yes, this is the origin of our word, trivial.
[2] Liberal Arts (2006). In Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Chicago, IL: Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved August 25, 2009, from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/ebconcise/liberal_arts
[3] Liberal Arts (2008). In The Columbia Encyclopedia. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Retrieved August 25, 2009, from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/columency/liberal_arts
[4] Art (2009). Oxford English Dictionary Online. Retrieved from OED online database.
[5] Bachelor (1989). Oxford English Dictionary Online. Retrieved from OED online database.
[6] Master (2009). Oxford English Dictionary Online. Retrieved from OED online database.
[7] Doctor (1989). Oxford English Dictionary Online. Retrieved from OED online database.