Inside the Liberal Arts: Critical Thinking and Citizenship - Paperback

by Jeffrey Scheuer (Author)

Inside the Liberal Arts accomplishes two ambitious goals at once, and shows why they are inseparable: It explains the nature and purpose of liberal learning - to produce critical thinkers and well-rounded democratic citizens - and offers a probing, accessible guided tour of critical thinking, emphasizing the analytic skills that form the intellectual core of all higher education. Becoming better critical thinkers doesn't mean we have to become philosophers. As users of language, Scheuer explains, we're already philosophers. Advanced critical thinking simply makes us better philosophers - and better learners and citizens. In lucid and often witty prose, Scheuer guides us through the moral and conceptual heart of the liberal education ideal. In an era when colleges and universities are struggling to convey the value of that ideal to students and parents, Inside the Liberal Arts will be a lasting aid to intellectual excellence, and a benchmark for understanding what it means to be an educated citizen.

Author Biography

Jeffrey S. Scheuer is the author of two previous books on media and politics, The Sound Bite Society: How Television Helps the Right and Hurts the Left (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1999; Routledge, 2001), a Choice "Outstanding Academic Title," and The Big Picture: Why Democracies Need Journalistic Excellence (Routledge, 2007). He lives in New York City and West Tisbury, Mass.