The Crisis of Liberal Education in a University and the Future of the Humanities

Kim, Seong-Woo Choi, Jong-Duck

The Liberal arts does originally mean the contents and procedures of cultural education to raise the Human morality and subjectivity. The liberal education have been covered by a university since the medieval of the West, and remained the core of general education in it. Being division of labor among sciences in the seventeenth century, liberal education have been positioned as faculty of general education in the curriculum of university education. In this aspect, it is important to recognize that liberal education in a university is the universal one to aim at a human being's having the elementary morality and intelligence, for it is the kernal of liberal education to raise human morality and subjectivity by which a man acquires the value as a human being for oneself regardless of major education It is the problem that liberal education is regarded as preliminary primary subjects rather than as the position of real universal education in many universities. Besides, the logic of capitalism violates the publicity of education not only in Korean, but also in the world. In addition to the USA which represents the logic of capitalism, college liberal education is also weakening in Japan where public education is operated under the state's hegemony. And It is a mainstream of education which is the market-oriented tendency that assets that early major education be provided for short-term success. Anyway, it is not a solution, but the worsening of the education problem. The examples of it are the absence of critical thinking and the appearance of the general decline in the scholastic ability. In this situation, the humanities should be the subject of huamistic education. The culture(Bildung) as a way approaching social problems should be cultured with the insight into the human being and the nature, so that the bud of such a culture can grow up. In order to acquire not a superficial view, but a structural understanding of the society, we need profound and urgent question raising on the basis of careful learning of the classics and of diverse collection of information, not of simple erudition and not of popular interdisciplinary studies. The culture is a ability to discover and solve problems, and to plan and operate

strategies. The university student who realizes one's self, society, and nature through this culture can be an intellectual in its real sense, and have the subjective identity of one's self. The humanities which contribute to this liberal education should be one to search for human morality and subjectivity. We call this the humanistic education. Subject Sphere : Philosophy of Education, Social Philosophy Key Words : Liberal Education, Humanistic education, the humanities, morality, subjectivity