Talk:Liberal arts education

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“Mathematics, Geometry”

I might be wrong here, but isn’t the term “Arithmetic” better suited? 141.179.80.215 (talk) 12:06, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Formal Sciences and Natural Sciences are taught within a Liberal Arts Education Framework; Liberal Arts is not synonymous with Humanities and/or Social Sciences

IP sock of Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Hoaeter The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

According to the sources cited, the "formal sciences" which includes "logic, mathematics, statistics, computer science" among others is taught as part of a liberal arts education framework in all universities, at least in North America were all accredited universities follow a liberal arts education framework and where most liberal arts-style education is most taught in the world.

If you have problems with the scholarly consensus definition of liberal arts education (which is also known as the " arts and sciences" at most universities) which includes the natural sciences and formal sciences along side the humanities, social sciences, and creative arts, go to the talk page to air out your objections to scholarly consensus. And stop deleting sourced material.

Here is the breakdown of all the sub-categories of Liberal arts education (if you want sources go to the article) --

The modern use of the term liberal arts consists of four areas: the natural sciences, social sciences formal sciences, and humanities. Academic areas that are associated with the term liberal arts include:

• Natural science
  • Life sciences (biology, ecology, neuroscience, etc.)
  • Physical science (physics, astronomy, chemistry, geology, physical geography, etc.)
• Formal science (Logic, mathematics, statistics, computer science, etc.)
• Social science (anthropology, economics, human geography, linguistics, political science, jurisprudence, psychology, sociology, etc.)
• Humanities
  • Investigative and systematized humanities (philosophy, history, etc.)
  • Language arts (literature, language education, writing, oratory, rhetoric, poetry, etc.)
  • Creative arts and fine arts
    • Performing arts (theater, music, dance, etc.)
    • Visual arts (painting, sculpture, photography, filmmaking, etc.)

See revision of https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Liberal_arts_education&oldid=1166135278 because someone keeps deleting not only the information stated there but also the sources that backs up the text.

66.44.114.72 (talk) 15:16, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Your edits are not supported by sourcing - you cannot simply change the article to your personal beliefs about the subject. Substituting 'formal science' for the 'arts' as one of the main areas of a liberal arts education is simply disconnected from reality. - MrOllie (talk) 15:30, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Look, I'm not substituting the term "arts" for "formal sciences," the term "arts" identified in this context with the terms "creative arts" or "fine arts" is redundant because the "creative arts" are a tertiary sub-category of humanities the same exact way "life sciences" and "physical science" are tertiary sub-categories of natural sciences. If for example, if the text instead of saying "liberal arts consists of ... the natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities" it says 'liberal arts consists of ... the natural sciences, life sciences, physical science, social sciences, arts, logic, mathematics, statistics, computer science, language arts, filming, and humanities" I would follow the same logic as before, remove the redundancies and concisely write 'liberal arts consists of four areas: the natural sciences, social sciences formal sciences, and humanities' where the term "humanities" is already inclusive of the "arts" which is a factual statement in line with the sources already cited in the text and scholarly consensus. 66.44.114.72 (talk) 15:39, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

This is all WP:NOR. Removing 'arts' because you personally think it is redundant is the problem, as is adding 'formal science' because of the way you personally categorize things. MrOllie (talk) 15:45, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Speaking of redundancy, though, please stop bloating the article lead with unnecessary trivia. It is supposed to be short and simple, we don't need to list every variant of post-secondary educational institution. MrOllie (talk) 15:52, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Here is a quote from a sources if you can't find this out yourself (https://www.topuniversities.com/blog/what-liberal-arts-education):

What is Liberal Arts Education? -- By Hasna Haidar

"What is liberal arts education today?

So, in a modern context, what is a liberal arts education? There are now many subjects that fall within the broad scope of the category; a typical liberal arts degree program is interdisciplinary, covering topics within the humanities, as well as social, natural and formal sciences. There are differences in the particular subjects included in liberal arts degree programs at different institutions. However, the liberal arts spectrum is generally accepted as covering the following fields:

* Humanities – includes art, literature, linguistics, philosophy, religion, ethics, modern foreign languages, music, theater, speech, classical languages (Latin/Greek) etc.

* Social sciences – includes history, psychology, law, sociology, politics, gender studies, anthropology, economics, geography, business informatics, etc.

* Natural sciences – includes astronomy, biology, chemistry, physics, botany, archaeology, zoology, geology, Earth sciences, etc.

* Formal sciences – includes mathematics, logic, statistics, etc."

66.44.114.72 (talk) 15:54, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

You should have a read of WP:RS. A blog on 'topuniversities.com' is not going to help you here. MrOllie (talk) 15:55, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

"Today liberal arts include humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and formal sciences. When its historical roots are traced, it is found that the liberal arts were the oldest higher" -

This is From "Liberal Arts Education: Imparting Intellectual Vision" by Samhita K of Jain University-Bangalore in the International Journal of Scientific Research Engineering & Technology (IJSRET), ISSN 2278 – 0882 (Volume 7, Issue 9, September 2018) - Link: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Samhita-Krishnaswamy/publication/328381909_Liberal_Arts_Education_Imparting_Intellectual_Vision/links/5bc99081a6fdcc03c793afa8/Liberal-Arts-Education-Imparting-Intellectual-Vision.pdf .

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.44.114.72 (talk) 16:01, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Nor is a well-known predatory journal. MrOllie (talk) 16:04, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

More sources incoming:

• Appalachian State University (26 June 2017). "What is Arts and Sciences?". What is Arts and Sciences?. https://cas.appstate.edu/about/what-arts-and-sciences
• "About the College of Arts & Sciences". American University. https://www.american.edu/cas/about/
• Cornell University - "Home | The College of Arts & Sciences". https://as.cornell.edu/
• What Does Liberal Arts Mean? - Princeton University. https://admission.princeton.edu/academics/what-does-liberal-arts-mean
• Quote: "The typical liberal arts subjects are on the broad scope of the category including the humanities, as well as social, natural, and formal sciences." - Journal of Literature and Art Studies [Volume 9, Number 8, August 2019 (Serial Number 93)] - Link: https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/61351717/Journal_of_Literature_and_Art_Studies_Vol.9_Issue_8_August_201920191127-94353-skwckh-libre.pdf?1574845191=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DJournal_of_Literature_and_Art_Studies_Vo.pdf&Expires=1689786676&Signature=GEV9HFgHg4SxzF1ySj0gYmX6o~tOhnFSB3BB9DgIBY7DW76EaHYDg5jZZSZmIJfV7jRoLlzLZtAAuBQRS77WmZOnlrwsox4nLULMlPE2C-nzhl2RrTdWQYeflyjvkOZ4~E2QoskolLptv13H-v3G1yYbRZMGEYDsKbUorT4qiMWrPE4M04T6i-5jbytESRQWs6wUInwp9~vQH4ixsjpqpbTpMteHX0vBtgjdtOeLw0nFCyHXMgxYatAahS80wa6YkRwhh-edk4AxfPjEh5d0bB2JsIovNt43waZX~2W46d4Q2Xa8tOjx6~znJjyNPV~bRM8nXgV8wyMk6i16ccQpPA__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA#page=116

66.44.114.72 (talk) 16:17, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

The spitefulness I just faced is just petty, are they really just going to revert the term "legal case" to "or a specific/a specific group of lawsuit(s)/court case(s)" evidenced by them in the strategic communication article saying "Dept of redundancy dep" just as a jab at me because I made sourced edits on a completely different article that didn't fit their personal beliefs. The term "legal case" is a lot better and concise relative to the phrase "or a specific/a specific group of lawsuit(s)/court case(s)". That's just unfair. [Just to be on the safe side and to give the benefit of the doubt to other, if that wasn't meant to be a spiteful jab at me over something petty and was a good faith edit, I will recant this and continue as if it never happened]. 66.44.114.72 (talk) 16:50, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

When someone is making the encyclopedia worse on one article, it is pretty standard to look at their contributions to see if they are also making it worse elsewhere. In this case I found some more stuff that needed fixing. MrOllie (talk) 17:02, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

I get that most academics count the liberal arts as encompassing the sciences as well but would it be possible to just include a side note in brackets about the fact that quite a lot of people don't consider mathematics or the sciences as liberal arts? I mean in the context of university degrees the liberal arts only seem to encompass history, literature, writing, philosophy, sociology, psychology and maybe a few more. If the goal is to be as impartial as possible then i think this should be taken note of.

Zoology Class Exercise on Wikipedia Editing: What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?

The previous conversations that are spoken about above are related to moving this page to the Liberal Arts page as it would combine both efforts of Liberal Arts and Liberal Arts Education together. --KalebEvans (talk) 20:39, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Unsourced claim in lede

Since the late 1990s, major universities have gradually dropped the term liberal arts from their curriculum or created schools for liberal art disciplines to categorize programs outside of science and technology. Common rebrandings for liberal arts colleges and schools include: arts and social sciences, arts and sciences and humanities. The name changing at American institutions comes as the result of modern statistics suggesting a Liberal Arts degree offers graduates a considerably lower income when compared to science and technology graduates.

I have marked this as 'failed verification'. The third source the sources does contain a table indicating that the income resulting from a degree in liberal arts is somewhat lower than average (60000 vs 70000), and the second source does suggest liberal arts degrees are becoming less popular in part for financial reasons, but the overall claim that universities have been renaming liberal arts and that they have been doing it because of their reputation of producing lower incomes is not found in any of the three sources and seems to be an editor's own conclusion/opinion, aka Original Research. Since the claim is rather accusatory towards universities - essentially claiming that they are trying to deceive the public by means of renamings - and negative towards liberal arts themselves, I think it shouldn't even be kept in the lede until it is sourced; rather, it should be moved to the talk page. Even the claim that liberal arts degrees produce lower incomes, which is technically sourced, arguably shouldn't be kept, because the table itself, without comment, is no source for the notion that the difference in income is large enough to be considered an important fact worth emphasising in the lede. --Anonymous44 (talk) 00:46, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Right, I have edited the lede accordingly now. As a compromise, I have kept a sentence referring to the data in the table, but rendering the actual data instead of offering a subjective assessment based on it.--Anonymous44 (talk) 00:46, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

summary

I think you could summarize more```` Lilavcha (talk) 23:02, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

enkuklios paideia

In the section "History" it should read "enkuklios paideia" instead of "eukuklios paideia". That seems to be a mistake made from the original Greek in which the "n" looks similar to "u". Someone has then made the false analogy that "eu" in Greek means "good", leading to the translation "well-rounded" (which as a loose translation is fine). Actually, the terms comes from "Ἐν κúκλῳ παιδεúειν" [en kuklo paideuein] meaning to educate in the circle. More info: Christes, J. (. (2006). Enkyklios paideia. In Brill's New Pauly Online. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e330600 ~2026-21753-69 (talk) 08:50, 9 April 2026 (UTC)