The Trivium Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric, And The Nature Of Language

What makes good language? Samuel Coleridge, English poet and literary critic, said that prose — written or spoken language — is “words in their best order.” The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric, by Sister Miriam Joseph, a student of Mortimer J Adler, is a book about the fundamental components of communication and thinking.

Studying the trivium has an effect on the mind that remains throughout a persons life. In your work, your family, your teachings, and any type of effort that involves other people, the use of logic, grammar, and rhetoric amplifies the communication and thinking that you do. The study of liberal arts is, as billionaire Carl Icahn puts it, a framework for thinking.

Liberal Arts

The Liberal Arts is broken up into seven branches. Three of the branches are the trivium: logic, grammar, and rhetoric. And the four other branches are the quadrivium: arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy. The trivium is for the mind and the quadrivium is for matter.

In the Trivium, logic is the art of thinking, grammar is the art of inventing and combining symbols, and rhetoric is the art of communication. In the Quadrivium arithmetic is the theory of numbers and music is the application of the theory of numbers; geometry is the theory of space and astronomy is the application of the theory of space.

What I found peculiar about this is the inclusion of mathematics in the liberal arts. I recently found out that Steve Jobs had said that “I view Computer Science as a liberal art.” There is a lot of discussion in the education industry about the low supply of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) students leaving college. And an effort to put more focus on less teaching of the liberal arts and more on STEM. Imagine if people viewed mathematics and computer science — ways of thinking — as liberal arts instead.

Studying the liberal arts gives you a framework for clearly thinking and breakdown down problems — the primary job of a software engineer. Billionaire Carl Icahn attributed his approach to the finance world from the way he was taught to think at Princeton — a school that prides itself on the liberal arts.

Communication and Education

The Trivium governs the components of communication: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Communication is essential to education. Teaching and being taught revolve around the four components. And so understanding the principals of logic, grammar, and rhetoric actually gived you the skills to be a better teacher and student. Similar to how a child can speak without knowing grammar, people can be good communicators without knowing the rules of logic and rhetoric. Yet knowing the principals of the trivium allow you to make greater use of the language to enhance teaching — speaking and writing — and being taught — reading and listening.

When it comes to ambiguity, understanding the rules of logic, grammar, and rhetoric is where the Trivium shines. Nothing hurts education more than ambiguous communication. A teacher who cannot explain a concept correctly, or a book that spends 10 pages talking about an idea that would take a good writer a page to convey.

Learning is a lifetime endeavor. The greatest minds and most successful people all share the common trait of continuous learning. A 60 year old billionaire taking a course is not a strange thing. Studying the Trivium is in essence a framework for thinking that can be applied to all facets of life, most importantly in education and learning.

Originally published at seekingintellect.com on January 5, 2015. Subscribe to the Seeking Intellect Newsletter