Aristotle opens his Metaphysics with the famous line, “All men by nature desire to know.” What better teleological hope could a classical educator adopt than this? Of course, we will adopt it in the context of the necessary confession that ultimately, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Christ (Col. 2:3) – but still, in terms of what kind of creature the human being is, surely Aristotle the pagan has precisely hit the God-made nail with the God-made hammer. All human beings by nature desire to know.”

But several important questions immediately arise, not just for specifically classical educators, but for anyone, really, pursuing education in the mode of the the Liberal Arts (whether the old or modern idea of such).

First, arising directly from Aristotle’s discussion, what content do all men by nature want to know?

Second, also arising from that milieu, what does it mean and entail to say that they by nature want to know content?

And third, arising directly from the fact that contemporary classical / Liberal Arts education is being done within the vastly different cultural context of an aspiration for universal literacy driving the production of a public mass culture, who exactly should be expected to thoroughly profit from exposure to such an education?

Allow me to briefly (I hope!) expand on each of these questions in subsequent entries.