Donald N. Levine. (2006). Powers of the Mind: The Reinvention of Liberal Learning in America

Donald N. Levine. (2006). Powers of Mind: The Reinvention of Liberal Learning in America. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 299 pages. ISBN 10:0-226-47552-0; ISBN 13:978-0-226-47553-0 (cloth) In response to the decline of vision of liberal learning as training ground for mature human beings and informed citizens (p. 3), Levine proposes that we examine the repertoire of experiments in liberal learning undertaken in first part of twentieth (4), and in particular to take those occurring at University of Chicago as exemplary, as a source of inspirational and as a model of ways in which local institutional traditions can be drawn on to inspire practice (p. 5). Levine begins by surveying history of liberal learning, its origins as method for creating civilized cultural elite, its medieval and modern development, and its decline under impact of scholarly specialization and growing emphasis on developing individuated autonomous persons. His use of social theorists such as Simmel, Durkheim, and Weber gives this account bite such endeavors typically lack, but it is only fifteen pages long, far too sketchy to do more than tantalize. The heart of Levine's book, comprising over half its length, is story about University of Chicago's undergraduate College, its various experiments from College's creation in 1890 to present in fashioning an undergraduate liberal arts curriculum. Well-known leaders such as presidents Harper and Hutchins and philosophers Dewey and Adler are given their due, but three professors who were also deans are featured: Richard McKeon, with his emphasis on intellectual schemata; Joseph Schwab, with his focus on teaching; and Robert Redfield, with his concern for study of civilizational differences and global understanding. The value of Levine's account is its concreteness. He provides what amounts to case studies of specific individuals at work in specific contexts, creating workable programs. Levine can be criticized in his story-telling for focusing too much on committee battles and other bureaucratic issues, but by doing so he underscores importance in curricular innovation of persons who not only have creative ideas but are also cunningly pragmatic in bringing them to realization and in constantly adapting and readapting them to changing circumstances. Those who pick up Levine's book because of its title will have read two-thirds of it without encountering more than passing references to of mind. In last section of his book, Levine finally approaches this topic by identifying fourfold schema of what he calls contested principles that educators have in when devising educational forms to promote generality, i.e., liberal learning (p. 177). He discusses three of them only briefly--emphasis on the character of learner, on the universe of things to be known, and on the common heritage of humanity--and then focuses on fourth principle, which emphasizes disciplines of knowing and creating, that promote ... all fundamental rather than restricting attention to some particular set of skills (p. 178). These fundamental skills, it turns out, are eight of mind which Levine derives from McKeon and which he suggests are twenty-first century successors to seven liberal arts identified by medieval trivium and quadrivium. Four of powers have to do with prehending: audiovisual powers; kinesthetic powers; powers to interpret, analyze, and apply verbal texts; powers to understanding natural and cultural worlds. …

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