Math, Music, Prayer
In his book Beauty for Truth’s Sake, Stratford Caldecott makes the case for the redemption of the quadrivium, the component of the seven Liberal Arts that is based on the study of numbers. Many of us are aware of the trivium, the language-focused liberal arts, consisting of grammar, logic and rhetoric. The other four arts, comprising the quadrivium, are arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music.
This year I am blessed to spend a bit more time in the classroom with students. And as I am teaching math and music, I have found myself reflecting upon my reading of Caldecott’s book.
Making the case for the historical approach to the quadrivium, Caldecott says:
“If mathematics is inherently theological, it is also mystical. Writing of the contemplative function of symbolic mathematics, Simone Weil says in her Notebooks: ‘Only such a mystical conception of mathematics as this was able to supply the degree of attention necessary in the early stages of geometry.’ As we have seen, the ‘Liberal’ Arts are precisely not ‘Servile’ Arts that can be justified in terms of their immediate practical purpose. ‘The “liberality” or “freedom” of the Liberal Arts consists in their not being disposable for purposes, that they do not need to be legitimated by a social function, by being “work”. As Josef Pieper argues, the reduction of the liberal to the servile arts would mean the proletarianization of the world. At the heart of any culture worthy of the name is not work but leisure, schole’ in Greek, a word that lies at the root of the English word ‘school.’ At its highest, leisure is contemplation. It is an activity that is its own justification, the pure expression of what it is to be human. It is what we do. The ‘purpose’ of the quadrivium was to prepare us to contemplate God in an ordered fashion, to take delight in the source of all truth, beauty, and goodness, while the purpose of the trivium was to prepare us for the quadrivium. The ‘purpose’ of the Liberal Arts is therefore to purify the soul, to discipline the attention so that it becomes capable of devotion to God; that is, prayer.”
Later on in the book Caldecott connects a few dots for us.
“The point here is simply that we are living in an era shaped by philosophical battles that most of us are unaware ever took place. The victors wrote the history books, of course, to make the outcome look inevitable…The modern person feels himself to be disengaged from the world around him, rather than intrinsically related to it (by family, tribe, birthplace, vocation, and so forth)…This is how the whole world became one gigantic market…The Enlightenment is not something you can simply unthink. So how are we to combat the negative effects of individualism, without losing the benefits of self-consciousness and rationality? The key lies, I believe, with revelation and worship. What defines secularism more than anything is an inability to pray.”
As you consider Caldecott’s words, please consider joining us for morning assembly at drop-off. We usually get started at 8:05 and sped time in scripture, song and prayer. This start to our school day sets an important precedent that extends well beyond the walls of our school.
Thank you for partnering with Knox Academy. We are committed to you.
Sincerely,
Ben McReynolds
