I believe that from the title this will be about the importance of liberal arts to students’s development and well-roundedness. It is pretty well known how important liberal arts are, as they teach students to formulate their own thoughts and stimulate creativity. The liberal arts, I think, are the subjects such as english, music and philosophy that are not simply following some instructions or doing the same formulas.

What Are the Liberal Arts?: The liberal arts have a couple different common definitions with the most broad essentially meaning all that encounters knowledge and learning and the most narrow essentially meaning no maths or sciences but everything else. Scheuer explains how the liberal arts is somewhat of a misleading title however at the very core it makes some sense. He says, “Free minds are flexible minds, trained to recognize that many areas of inquiry are interconnected and many disciplinary boundaries are porous”. I feel like free minds by definition are not trained, they follow no rules nor do they obey any boundaries. So I agree they can see beyond whats black and white, but they do so innately, without the shaping and forming of anyone else’s hands.

Why Do We Need the Liberal Arts?: What is said is that the liberal arts prepare and teach students how to be the best citizens they can be. There are three levels; one teaching civic duty, one teaching economic awareness and the final teaching cultural citizenship. Scheuer says, “The overall goal is to foster vibrant and prosperous communities with broad and deep participation, in public conversations marked by fairness, inclusion, and (where critical thinking comes in) intellectual rigor”. I have some qualms with this statement. We live in America… we are founded on the very basis of factions and separation of groups. We have never been one sole unit and I cannot see how we ever will be with how people are still being taught regardless of what the intentions of the liberal arts are.

What Is Critical Thinking?: This part of the text attempts to explain what critical thinking is however critical thinking is somewhat of an enigma. There is no way to fully explain such an ever changing and developing phenomenon. The best way Scheuer explained it was, “whereas philosophy is about thought in general, critical thinking is about my thinking or yours or someone else’s in the here and now”. I wonder if that means that philosophy and critical thinking are mutually exclusive?

The Importance of Critical Inquiry: This explains that without critical thinking we would not have the country we have today. It discusses how language is a barrier and an aid to critical inquiry. Scheuer says, “‘Mere” linguistic problems, it turns out, are philosophical problems—they are problems about meaning, knowledge, reality, and our minds, not just about words…”. I wonder if by saying that he means that the problem lies within formulating such complex thoughts into coherent sentences that others can understand.