Knowledge Its Own End

One of my central questions is “How is liberal education relevant in our world of action?”  I wanted to answer this by looking at how I can make a lasting, positive difference through a life of intellectual learning.  But Newman prompted me to look first at a non-utilitarian angle: knowledge as an end in itself.

Why would I study knowledge just to have knowledge?  In Discourses V-VII, Newman’s two main points are 1) liberal knowledge is a good in itself and needs no other commendation; and 2) liberal knowledge is useful to the individual and society.
The first point is the subject of Discourse V: Knowledge is its own reward, “sufficient to rest in and pursue for its own sake” (78). Education is not utilitarian job training; it is something deeper.  Since this point is hard to wrap my mind around, I list Newman’s supporting arguments below:

• It’s not a new concept.  That liberal learning is inherently valuable has been “the common judgment of philosophers and the ordinary feeling of mankind for ages” (78). For example, Cicero makes the following argument:  After our physical and familial duties are provided for, we are next attracted to “the search for truth.  Accordingly, as soon as we escape from the pressure of necessary cares, forthwith we desire to see, to hear, and to learn; and consider the knowledge of what is hidden or is wonderful a condition of our happiness.”

• Refinement and enlargement of mind, or intellectual cultivation, result from liberal learning.  Liberal knowledge is not learned for an exam and then forgotten.  Rather, “it is an acquired illumination, it is a habit, a personal possession, and an inward endowment” (85).  This illumination comes from philosophical knowledge, i.e. knowledge acted upon by reason and concerned with general ideas, as opposed to mechanical knowledge, i.e. very specific, utility-focused know-how. 

• Liberal education is an unchanging principle that will stay as constant as human nature.  Because of the constitution of the human mind, we are satisfying a direct need of our nature in the very acquisition of liberal knowledge (78). 

• Our nature depends on external aids to reach its potential, and knowledge is the principal aid.  “Every thing has its own perfection,” writes Newman, and each thing’s “best” is worth pursuing. Why do we adorn our lawns with flowers?  Or decorate our homes?  After all, “beauty leads to nothing beyond itself,” but we value it nonetheless.  We recognize physical beauty, and even beauty of our moral being, i.e. virtue.  Likewise, there is a beauty, or perfection, of the intellect.  The intellect should strive toward perfection, as well.  The idea that we are reaching toward ideal perfection is an Aristotelian concept.  Aristotle wrote that all objects and people have a telos, or end: the perfect development of the object/person.  “We perfect our nature…by adding to it what is more than nature, and directing it towards aims higher than its own,” concludes Newman (93).  Education is the “more than nature” ingredient that moves us toward our telos.  Liberal education is to the mind what light, colors, and composition are to a beautiful painting, like this one by Monet.

So, intellectual cultivation—or liberal education—is an end in itself, as witnessed by the concept’s longevity and the inherent delightfulness of learning.  I have experienced this delight: in the past, I dismissed it as lagniappe, not quite a reason to devote my life to learning.  If I listen to Aristotle, though, that delight is an indication of human nature developing toward the highest intellectual potential.  Further, liberal learning is “the search for truth.”  To grasp truth and develop beauty of mind—if that’s not a significant objective, I don’t know what is.

After dwelling on the inherent qualities of liberal knowledge, I must bring in Newman’s second point: liberal knowledge is useful.  Sure, it doesn’t have to be useful, but liberal knowledge is a good, and “the good is always useful” (124).  To choose one way of articulating the concept, liberal education is an atmosphere of intellectual cooperation among learned men, in which the student learns the great outlines and principles of knowledge.  Though the student pursues in-depth only a few areas of learning, his professors and his knowledge of the intellectual tradition guide him in understanding the whole picture.  He develops a “philosophical habit” and a cultivated mind that fit him for any role.  The greatest practical result is a general culture of mind that prepares a person for any calling, and which has been a characteristic of virtually every great man.