Scott Buchanan
Encyclopedia
Scott Milross Buchanan was an American philosopher, educator, and foundation consultant. He is best known as the founder of the Great Books
program at St. John's College
, at Annapolis, Maryland
.
Buchanan's various projects and writings may be understood as an ambitious program of social and cultural reform based on the insight that many crucial problems arise from the uncritical use of symbol
ism. In this sense, his program was similar to and competed with a number of contemporary movements such as Alfred Korzybski's
General Semantics
, Otto Neurath's
"Unity of Science" project, the semiotics
of Charles Morris
and the "orthological" projects of Charles Kay Ogden
. Buchanan collaborated with the latter effort for a number of years.
Buchanan's own program, however, differed from these generally empiricist
, positivist, or pragmatist
movements by stressing what he saw as the need for reforms in the mathematical symbolism employed in modern science
. Buchanan's first book, published in 1927, stated that science is "the greatest body of uncriticized dogma we have today" and even likened science to the "Black Arts". For the rest of his career, Buchanan pondered ways to mitigate the variety of threats to humanity that he perceived in the unmanaged and unsupervised growth of modern science and technology.
and was raised in Jeffersonville, Vermont
. He received his undergraduate degree from Amherst College
in 1916, majoring in Greek and mathematics. After serving in the Navy during the final year of World War I
, he studied philosophy at Balliol College
, Oxford
as a Rhodes scholar
between 1919 and 1921. He continued his studies in philosophy at Harvard University
and received his doctorate in 1925.
During his undergraduate years, Buchanan became personally close to Amherst's president Alexander Meiklejohn
and was strongly influenced by Meiklejohn's ideas about educational reform. This continuing interest led Buchanan in 1925 to accept a position as Assistant Director of the People's Institute, an affiliate of the Cooper Union
in New York City that was dedicated to adult education
and other forms of cultural enrichment for the city's workers and immigrants. It was there that Buchanan met Mortimer Adler
and Richard McKeon
, and the three of them conceived an ambitious program for reviving American education and democracy through mass training in the traditional liberal arts
by means of the Socratic method
and the Great Books
curriculum.
Buchanan spent the next twenty years struggling to establish an institutional base for this radical vision. Buchanan's initial efforts at the People's Institute were followed by his establishment of the Great Books
"Virginia Program" at the University of Virginia
, where Buchanan was a Professor of Philosophy between 1929 and 1936. He was then invited to the University of Chicago
by its president Robert Maynard Hutchins in order to help form a "Committee on Liberal Arts" in association with Buchanan's former People's Institute associates Adler
and McKeon
. However, this effort failed almost immediately due to philosophical differences and academic politics.
Fortunately, another opportunity quickly arose in the form of St. John's College
in Annapolis, Maryland
, a venerable institution with a heritage that reaches back to the colonial period, but which by 1936 had nevertheless lost its accreditation and was in desperate need of reorganization. In 1937, the trustees invited Buchanan and his associate Stringfellow Barr
to make a fresh start. With Barr as president and Buchanan as dean, the two men reorganized the school that year around the Great Books
"New Program". This radical new curriculum quickly achieved national fame and survives today. It is the achievement for which Buchanan is primarily remembered.
Buchanan left St. John's College
in 1947 after a successful but disillusioning legal struggle with the U.S. Navy, which had been trying to seize the St. John's
campus as part of a plan to enlarge the nearby United States Naval Academy
. After spending the next two years directing Liberal Arts, Inc.
, a failed venture to create a Great Books-based college in Massachusetts, Buchanan's democratic vision for the revival of the liberal arts
turned from the academic to the political arena. Except for a brief period in 1956 and 1957, when he was a visiting lecturer at Princeton University
and also served as chairman of the Religion and Philosophy Departments at Fisk University
, he held no more positions in academic institutions. In 1948 Buchanan worked actively in the Progressive Party
presidential campaign of Henry Wallace
, and for several years afterwards was consultant, trustee, and secretary of the Foundation for World Government. In 1957 Buchanan accepted an invitation by Robert Maynard Hutchins to become a senior fellow at Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions
, a liberal political think tank in Santa Barbara, California
. Buchanan remained at the Center for the rest of his career, and one of the projects to which he contributed was the Center's efforts to publicize the work of Jacques Ellul
in the English-speaking world.
Buchanan died in Santa Barbara
in 1968. He was survived by his widow, the former Miriam Damon Thomas, and their son Douglas.
. This work was published simultaneously in the same series with Mortimer Adler
's own first book Dialectic, and each book refers to the other. John Dewey
praised Possibility as a "significant intellectual achievement".
His second book, Poetry and Mathematics, was published in 1929 by The John Day Company. Developed from materials for Buchanan's lectures at the People's Institute, this book was recognized by Richard McKeon
, who had studied medieval philosophy under Étienne Gilson
, as a rediscovery of the medieval trivium and quadrivium
. This insight of McKeon's, wrote Buchanan in 1961, is what led to the "radical reform of teaching and learning in a small province of the modern academy" for which Buchanan is remembered today. The American philosopher Morris Cohen
praised Poetry and Mathematics as "an admirable piece of work."
Symbolic Distance in Relation to Analogy and Fiction, Buchanan's third book, appeared in London in 1932 as part of Ogden's "Psyche Miniatures" series. Part of it had been published earlier in Psyche, the journal of Ogden's Orthological Institute. Although Buchanan later claimed that this work was inspired by a year's study of the English logician George Boole, it does not mention Boole. Rather, Symbolic Distance was obviously written in collaboration with Ogden's investigation of the linguistic theories of Jeremy Bentham
, and Ogden cites Symbolic Distance in his own book Bentham's Theory of Fictions. This is the first of Buchanan's books to mention the medieval trivium and quadrivium
.
Buchanan's fourth book, The Doctrine of Signatures: A Defence of Theory in Medicine appeared in New York, in 1938, also (like Possibility) as part of Ogden's International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method. A portion of the first chapter had appeared earlier in the 1934 issue of Psyche, under the title "Introduction to Medieval Orthology".
Truth in the Sciences was completed by Buchanan in 1950 under contract to the Encyclopædia Britannica for a project that never materialized. The manuscript was published posthumously in book form by the University of Virginia
in 1972.
Buchanan's final book, Essay in Politics, was published in 1953 by the Philosophical Library in New York. Stemming from his involvement with the 1948 Wallace
campaign and later with the Foundation for World Government, Buchanan reflects on the problems of political representation and democracy that are posed by technology and industrialization. Buchanan continued to work on these ideas during his years at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions
.
Great Books
Great Books refers primarily to a group of books that tradition, and various institutions and authorities, have regarded as constituting or best expressing the foundations of Western culture ; derivatively the term also refers to a curriculum or method of education based around a list of such books...
program at St. John's College
St. John's College, U.S.
St. John's College is a liberal arts college with two U.S. campuses: one in Annapolis, Maryland and one in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Founded in 1696 as a preparatory school, King William's School, the school received a collegiate charter in 1784, making it one of the oldest institutions of higher...
, at Annapolis, Maryland
Annapolis, Maryland
Annapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland, as well as the county seat of Anne Arundel County. It had a population of 38,394 at the 2010 census and is situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east of Washington, D.C. Annapolis is...
.
Buchanan's various projects and writings may be understood as an ambitious program of social and cultural reform based on the insight that many crucial problems arise from the uncritical use of symbol
Symbol
A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...
ism. In this sense, his program was similar to and competed with a number of contemporary movements such as Alfred Korzybski's
Alfred Korzybski
Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski was a Polish-American philosopher and scientist. He is remembered for developing the theory of general semantics...
General Semantics
General Semantics
General semantics is a program begun in the 1920's that seeks to regulate the evaluative operations performed in the human brain. After partial program launches under the trial names "human engineering" and "humanology," Polish-American originator Alfred Korzybski fully launched the program as...
, Otto Neurath's
Otto Neurath
Otto Neurath was an Austrian philosopher of science, sociologist, and political economist...
"Unity of Science" project, the semiotics
Semiotics
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
of Charles Morris
Charles W. Morris
Charles W. Morris was an American semiotician and philosopher.-Background:A son of Charles William and Laura Morris, Charles William Morris was born on May 23, 1901...
and the "orthological" projects of Charles Kay Ogden
Charles Kay Ogden
Charles Kay Ogden was an English linguist, philosopher, and writer. Described as a polymath but also an eccentric and outsider, he took part in many ventures related to literature, politics, the arts and philosophy, having a broad impact particularly as an editor, translator, and activist on...
. Buchanan collaborated with the latter effort for a number of years.
Buchanan's own program, however, differed from these generally empiricist
Empiricism
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...
, positivist, or pragmatist
Pragmatism
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition centered on the linking of practice and theory. It describes a process where theory is extracted from practice, and applied back to practice to form what is called intelligent practice...
movements by stressing what he saw as the need for reforms in the mathematical symbolism employed in modern science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
. Buchanan's first book, published in 1927, stated that science is "the greatest body of uncriticized dogma we have today" and even likened science to the "Black Arts". For the rest of his career, Buchanan pondered ways to mitigate the variety of threats to humanity that he perceived in the unmanaged and unsupervised growth of modern science and technology.
Life
Buchanan was born in Sprague, WashingtonSprague, Washington
Sprague is a city in Lincoln County, Washington, United States. The population was 446 at the 2010 census. The town was plotted in 1880 and named for former American Civil War Union general John Wilson Sprague.Eugene E...
and was raised in Jeffersonville, Vermont
Jeffersonville, Vermont
Jeffersonville is a village in the town of Cambridge, Vermont, United States. The population was 568 at the 2000 census.-History:The village was originally called Cambridge Center, the name was changed to Jeffersonville in 1827 to honor Thomas Jefferson...
. He received his undergraduate degree from Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
in 1916, majoring in Greek and mathematics. After serving in the Navy during the final year of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, he studied philosophy at Balliol College
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College , founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England but founded by a family with strong Scottish connections....
, Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
as a Rhodes scholar
Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship, named after Cecil Rhodes, is an international postgraduate award for study at the University of Oxford. It was the first large-scale programme of international scholarships, and is widely considered the "world's most prestigious scholarship" by many public sources such as...
between 1919 and 1921. He continued his studies in philosophy at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and received his doctorate in 1925.
During his undergraduate years, Buchanan became personally close to Amherst's president Alexander Meiklejohn
Alexander Meiklejohn
Alexander Meiklejohn was a philosopher, university administrator, and free-speech advocate. He served as dean of Brown University and president of Amherst College.- Life and career:...
and was strongly influenced by Meiklejohn's ideas about educational reform. This continuing interest led Buchanan in 1925 to accept a position as Assistant Director of the People's Institute, an affiliate of the Cooper Union
Cooper Union
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly referred to simply as Cooper Union, is a privately funded college in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States, located at Cooper Square and Astor Place...
in New York City that was dedicated to adult education
Adult education
Adult education is the practice of teaching and educating adults. Adult education takes place in the workplace, through 'extension' school or 'school of continuing education' . Other learning places include folk high schools, community colleges, and lifelong learning centers...
and other forms of cultural enrichment for the city's workers and immigrants. It was there that Buchanan met Mortimer Adler
Mortimer Adler
Mortimer Jerome Adler was an American philosopher, educator, and popular author. As a philosopher he worked within the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions. He lived for the longest stretches in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and San Mateo, California...
and Richard McKeon
Richard McKeon
Richard McKeon was an American philosopher.-Life, times, and influences:McKeon obtained his undergraduate degree from Columbia University in 1920, graduating at the early age of 20 despite serving briefly in the U.S. Navy during the First World War...
, and the three of them conceived an ambitious program for reviving American education and democracy through mass training in the traditional liberal arts
Liberal arts
The term liberal arts refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy...
by means of the Socratic method
Socratic method
The Socratic method , named after the classical Greek philosopher Socrates, is a form of inquiry and debate between individuals with opposing viewpoints based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to illuminate ideas...
and the Great Books
Great Books
Great Books refers primarily to a group of books that tradition, and various institutions and authorities, have regarded as constituting or best expressing the foundations of Western culture ; derivatively the term also refers to a curriculum or method of education based around a list of such books...
curriculum.
Buchanan spent the next twenty years struggling to establish an institutional base for this radical vision. Buchanan's initial efforts at the People's Institute were followed by his establishment of the Great Books
Great Books
Great Books refers primarily to a group of books that tradition, and various institutions and authorities, have regarded as constituting or best expressing the foundations of Western culture ; derivatively the term also refers to a curriculum or method of education based around a list of such books...
"Virginia Program" at the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
, where Buchanan was a Professor of Philosophy between 1929 and 1936. He was then invited to the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
by its president Robert Maynard Hutchins in order to help form a "Committee on Liberal Arts" in association with Buchanan's former People's Institute associates Adler
Mortimer Adler
Mortimer Jerome Adler was an American philosopher, educator, and popular author. As a philosopher he worked within the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions. He lived for the longest stretches in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and San Mateo, California...
and McKeon
Richard McKeon
Richard McKeon was an American philosopher.-Life, times, and influences:McKeon obtained his undergraduate degree from Columbia University in 1920, graduating at the early age of 20 despite serving briefly in the U.S. Navy during the First World War...
. However, this effort failed almost immediately due to philosophical differences and academic politics.
Fortunately, another opportunity quickly arose in the form of St. John's College
St. John's College, U.S.
St. John's College is a liberal arts college with two U.S. campuses: one in Annapolis, Maryland and one in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Founded in 1696 as a preparatory school, King William's School, the school received a collegiate charter in 1784, making it one of the oldest institutions of higher...
in Annapolis, Maryland
Annapolis, Maryland
Annapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland, as well as the county seat of Anne Arundel County. It had a population of 38,394 at the 2010 census and is situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east of Washington, D.C. Annapolis is...
, a venerable institution with a heritage that reaches back to the colonial period, but which by 1936 had nevertheless lost its accreditation and was in desperate need of reorganization. In 1937, the trustees invited Buchanan and his associate Stringfellow Barr
Stringfellow Barr
Stringfellow Barr was an historian, author, and former president of St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, where he, together with Scott Buchanan, instituted the Great Books curriculum.Barr was the editor of Virginia Quarterly Review from 1931-1937...
to make a fresh start. With Barr as president and Buchanan as dean, the two men reorganized the school that year around the Great Books
Great Books
Great Books refers primarily to a group of books that tradition, and various institutions and authorities, have regarded as constituting or best expressing the foundations of Western culture ; derivatively the term also refers to a curriculum or method of education based around a list of such books...
"New Program". This radical new curriculum quickly achieved national fame and survives today. It is the achievement for which Buchanan is primarily remembered.
Buchanan left St. John's College
St. John's College, U.S.
St. John's College is a liberal arts college with two U.S. campuses: one in Annapolis, Maryland and one in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Founded in 1696 as a preparatory school, King William's School, the school received a collegiate charter in 1784, making it one of the oldest institutions of higher...
in 1947 after a successful but disillusioning legal struggle with the U.S. Navy, which had been trying to seize the St. John's
St. John's College, U.S.
St. John's College is a liberal arts college with two U.S. campuses: one in Annapolis, Maryland and one in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Founded in 1696 as a preparatory school, King William's School, the school received a collegiate charter in 1784, making it one of the oldest institutions of higher...
campus as part of a plan to enlarge the nearby United States Naval Academy
Naval Academy
-Institutions:* The United States Naval Academy* The Indian Naval Academy of India* The Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy of Bulgaria* The Imperial Japanese Naval Academy* The École Navale of France* The Britannia Royal Naval College of the United Kingdom...
. After spending the next two years directing Liberal Arts, Inc.
Liberal Arts, Inc.
Liberal Arts, Inc. was the name of an unsuccessful corporation founded in late 1946, which intended to create a Great Books-based liberal arts college in Stockbridge, Massachusetts...
, a failed venture to create a Great Books-based college in Massachusetts, Buchanan's democratic vision for the revival of the liberal arts
Liberal arts
The term liberal arts refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy...
turned from the academic to the political arena. Except for a brief period in 1956 and 1957, when he was a visiting lecturer at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
and also served as chairman of the Religion and Philosophy Departments at Fisk University
Fisk University
Fisk University is an historically black university founded in 1866 in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. The world-famous Fisk Jubilee Singers started as a group of students who performed to earn enough money to save the school at a critical time of financial shortages. They toured to raise funds to...
, he held no more positions in academic institutions. In 1948 Buchanan worked actively in the Progressive Party
Progressive Party (United States, 1948)
The United States Progressive Party of 1948 was a left-wing political party that ran former Vice President Henry A. Wallace of Iowa for president and U.S. Senator Glen H. Taylor of Idaho for vice president in 1948.-Foundation:...
presidential campaign of Henry Wallace
Henry A. Wallace
Henry Agard Wallace was the 33rd Vice President of the United States , the Secretary of Agriculture , and the Secretary of Commerce . In the 1948 presidential election, Wallace was the nominee of the Progressive Party.-Early life:Henry A...
, and for several years afterwards was consultant, trustee, and secretary of the Foundation for World Government. In 1957 Buchanan accepted an invitation by Robert Maynard Hutchins to become a senior fellow at Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions
Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions
The Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, California was an important think tank from 1959 to 1977, declining in influence thereafter. The Center held discussions in a variety of areas that it hoped would influence public deliberation...
, a liberal political think tank in Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
. Buchanan remained at the Center for the rest of his career, and one of the projects to which he contributed was the Center's efforts to publicize the work of Jacques Ellul
Jacques Ellul
Jacques Ellul was a French philosopher, law professor, sociologist, lay theologian, and Christian anarchist. He wrote several books about the "technological society" and the interaction between Christianity and politics....
in the English-speaking world.
Buchanan died in Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
in 1968. He was survived by his widow, the former Miriam Damon Thomas, and their son Douglas.
Works
Buchanan's first book was Possibility, published in 1927 as part of C. K. Ogden's The International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific MethodThe International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method
The International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method was an influential series of monographs published published 1910–1965 under the general editorship of Charles Kay Ogden. This series published some of the landmark works on psychology and philosophy, particularly the thought...
. This work was published simultaneously in the same series with Mortimer Adler
Mortimer Adler
Mortimer Jerome Adler was an American philosopher, educator, and popular author. As a philosopher he worked within the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions. He lived for the longest stretches in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and San Mateo, California...
's own first book Dialectic, and each book refers to the other. John Dewey
John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
praised Possibility as a "significant intellectual achievement".
His second book, Poetry and Mathematics, was published in 1929 by The John Day Company. Developed from materials for Buchanan's lectures at the People's Institute, this book was recognized by Richard McKeon
Richard McKeon
Richard McKeon was an American philosopher.-Life, times, and influences:McKeon obtained his undergraduate degree from Columbia University in 1920, graduating at the early age of 20 despite serving briefly in the U.S. Navy during the First World War...
, who had studied medieval philosophy under Étienne Gilson
Étienne Gilson
Étienne Gilson was a French Thomistic philosopher and historian of philosophy...
, as a rediscovery of the medieval trivium and quadrivium
Quadrivium
The quadrivium comprised the four subjects, or arts, taught in medieval universities, after teaching the trivium. The word is Latin, meaning "the four ways" , and its use for the 4 subjects has been attributed to Boethius or Cassiodorus in the 6th century...
. This insight of McKeon's, wrote Buchanan in 1961, is what led to the "radical reform of teaching and learning in a small province of the modern academy" for which Buchanan is remembered today. The American philosopher Morris Cohen
Morris Raphael Cohen
Morris Raphael Cohen was an American philosopher, lawyer and legal scholar who united pragmatism with logical positivism and linguistic analysis. He was father to Felix S. Cohen....
praised Poetry and Mathematics as "an admirable piece of work."
Symbolic Distance in Relation to Analogy and Fiction, Buchanan's third book, appeared in London in 1932 as part of Ogden's "Psyche Miniatures" series. Part of it had been published earlier in Psyche, the journal of Ogden's Orthological Institute. Although Buchanan later claimed that this work was inspired by a year's study of the English logician George Boole, it does not mention Boole. Rather, Symbolic Distance was obviously written in collaboration with Ogden's investigation of the linguistic theories of Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism...
, and Ogden cites Symbolic Distance in his own book Bentham's Theory of Fictions. This is the first of Buchanan's books to mention the medieval trivium and quadrivium
Quadrivium
The quadrivium comprised the four subjects, or arts, taught in medieval universities, after teaching the trivium. The word is Latin, meaning "the four ways" , and its use for the 4 subjects has been attributed to Boethius or Cassiodorus in the 6th century...
.
Buchanan's fourth book, The Doctrine of Signatures: A Defence of Theory in Medicine appeared in New York, in 1938, also (like Possibility) as part of Ogden's International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method. A portion of the first chapter had appeared earlier in the 1934 issue of Psyche, under the title "Introduction to Medieval Orthology".
Truth in the Sciences was completed by Buchanan in 1950 under contract to the Encyclopædia Britannica for a project that never materialized. The manuscript was published posthumously in book form by the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
in 1972.
Buchanan's final book, Essay in Politics, was published in 1953 by the Philosophical Library in New York. Stemming from his involvement with the 1948 Wallace
Henry A. Wallace
Henry Agard Wallace was the 33rd Vice President of the United States , the Secretary of Agriculture , and the Secretary of Commerce . In the 1948 presidential election, Wallace was the nominee of the Progressive Party.-Early life:Henry A...
campaign and later with the Foundation for World Government, Buchanan reflects on the problems of political representation and democracy that are posed by technology and industrialization. Buchanan continued to work on these ideas during his years at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions
Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions
The Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, California was an important think tank from 1959 to 1977, declining in influence thereafter. The Center held discussions in a variety of areas that it hoped would influence public deliberation...
.
See also
- St. John's College, U.S.St. John's College, U.S.St. John's College is a liberal arts college with two U.S. campuses: one in Annapolis, Maryland and one in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Founded in 1696 as a preparatory school, King William's School, the school received a collegiate charter in 1784, making it one of the oldest institutions of higher...
- Liberal Arts, Inc.Liberal Arts, Inc.Liberal Arts, Inc. was the name of an unsuccessful corporation founded in late 1946, which intended to create a Great Books-based liberal arts college in Stockbridge, Massachusetts...
- Center for the Study of Democratic InstitutionsCenter for the Study of Democratic InstitutionsThe Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, California was an important think tank from 1959 to 1977, declining in influence thereafter. The Center held discussions in a variety of areas that it hoped would influence public deliberation...
- Robert Maynard Hutchins
- Mortimer AdlerMortimer AdlerMortimer Jerome Adler was an American philosopher, educator, and popular author. As a philosopher he worked within the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions. He lived for the longest stretches in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and San Mateo, California...
- Alexander MeiklejohnAlexander MeiklejohnAlexander Meiklejohn was a philosopher, university administrator, and free-speech advocate. He served as dean of Brown University and president of Amherst College.- Life and career:...
- Liberal artsLiberal artsThe term liberal arts refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy...
- Trivium
- QuadriviumQuadriviumThe quadrivium comprised the four subjects, or arts, taught in medieval universities, after teaching the trivium. The word is Latin, meaning "the four ways" , and its use for the 4 subjects has been attributed to Boethius or Cassiodorus in the 6th century...
- Adult educationAdult educationAdult education is the practice of teaching and educating adults. Adult education takes place in the workplace, through 'extension' school or 'school of continuing education' . Other learning places include folk high schools, community colleges, and lifelong learning centers...
- World governmentWorld governmentWorld government is the notion of a single common political authority for all of humanity. Its modern conception is rooted in European history, particularly in the philosophy of ancient Greece, in the political formation of the Roman Empire, and in the subsequent struggle between secular authority,...
- American philosophyAmerican philosophyAmerican philosophy is the philosophical activity or output of Americans, both within the United States and abroad. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that while American philosophy lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevertheless be seen as both reflecting and...
- List of American philosophers