The Trivium Method
Where Knowledge, Understanding and Wisdom Begin
For if you [the rulers] suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them,
what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves [and outlaws] and then punish them.
Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), water damage restoration St. Paul MN
It's called a "liberal education" because if you have one, you're free.
Started July 10, 2010 - this website is a constant work in progress.
Contents
Introduction
The trivium method is a system of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. Based on the principles of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, it is the core foundation of all learning. There is hardly any situation in life where the trivium method can't be applied to derive certainty, and to gain understanding of the truth. The method was taught in the ancient mystery schools and was employed for the study of philosophy, math and other sciences. The trivium method was essential in their study of learning, forming their basis of critical thinking.
Topics coming to this site:
·
· Classical education
· The True Definition of Liberal
· The Seven Liberal Arts
· Pythagorean, right-angled triangle
· Five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell
· Knowing
· Grammar, logic, rhetoric
· Dialectic
· Hegelian dialectic
· Shophism
· Logical fallacies
· Plato's allegory of the cave
· Paradox
· Phonics
· Quadrivium
· Golden proportion
· Aristotle
· The School House
· Prussian Education
· Philosophy
· Kabbalah
· Does the Trivium or "classical education" belong to Christianity or any other religion?
· Who Developed the Trivium
· The Trivium's foundation in pagan origins
· The Sophists - Making the Trivium "trivial".
· Sophists - Why it's not cool to be "sophisticated" any more.
· The Trivium Meme - One Mind at a Time.
· The Trivium - Can critical thinking save humanity? It may be our only chance.
· Other Topics:
· John of Salisbury's Metalogicon
· Sister Miriam Joseph's The Trivium
· Dorothy Sayers' The Lost Tools of Learning
The Trivium
: [1] General Grammar,[2] Formal Logic,[3] Classical Rhetoric
The Trivium (which pertains to Mind)- the elementary three.
[1] GRAMMAR (discovering and ordering facts of reality comprises basic, systematic Knowledge)- not only the rules developed and applied to the ordering of word/concepts for verbal expression and communication, but our first contact with conscious order as such. This is the initial, self-conscious technique used in properly (discursively or sequentially) organizing a body of knowledge from raw, factual data for the purpose of gaining understanding (through logic) and; thus, also organizing the individual human mind. It is the foundation upon which all other "methods of organization and order" are built. Special grammar properly relates words to other words within a specified language like English, Russian, or Latin. General grammar relates words to objective reality in any language and applies to all subjects as the first set of building blocks to integrated or fully mindful, objective knowledge. A body of knowledge which has been gathered and arranged under the rules of general grammar can now be subjected to logic for full understanding, which, emphatically, is a separate intellectual procedure.
[2] LOGIC (developing the faculty of reason in establishing valid [i.e., non-contradictory] relationships among facts yields basic, systematic Understanding)
it is a guide for thinking correctly; thinking without contradiction. More concisely, it is the art of non-contradictory identification. The work of logic is proof. Proof consists of establishing the truth and validity of a concept or proposition in correspondence with objective, factual reality by following a self-consistent chain of higher-level thought back down to foundational, primary concepts or axioms (i.e., Existence, Consciousness, and Causality). It is a means of keeping us in touch and grounded to objective reality in our search for valid knowledge and understanding. Logic brings the rhythm of the subjective thoughts of the mind, and the subsequent actions of the body, into harmony with the rhythm of the objective universe.
This is the intended tone of the entire letter: to amicably synchronize individual mental processes, and their attendant actions, with the processes of our surrounding natural, factual existence over the period of a lifetime.
[3] RHETORIC (applying knowledge and understanding expressively comprises Wisdom or, in other words, it is systematically useable knowledge and understanding)-
to explore and find the proper choice of methods for cogently expressing the conclusions of grammar and logic on a subject in writing and/or oral argumentation (oratory). The annunciation of those conclusions is called a statement of rationale, the set of instructions deduced from the rationale for the purpose of application (of those conclusions) in the real world is called a statement of protocols.
The Trivium Method with Gene Odening, Gnostic Media Podcast episode #049
http://gnosticmedia.podomatic.com/enclosure/2009-10-25T22_26_49-07_00.mp3
General Grammar
Audio: Dr. Michael Labossiere, Gnostic Media Podcast episode #063
http://gnosticmedia.podomatic.com/enclosure/2010-01-31T23_49_08-08_00.mp3Logical Fallacies: (http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/)
Audio: Dr. Michael Labossiere, Gnostic Media Podcast episode #062
http://gnosticmedia.podomatic.com/enclosure/2010-01-25T09_41_32-08_00.mp3
The Great Conversation:
Audio: Peace Revolution episode #001
http://gnosticmedia.podomatic.com/enclosure/2009-12-17T23_47_55-08_00.mp3
The Million Dollar Education:
Audio: Peace Revolution episode #002
http://gnosticmedia.podomatic.com/enclosure/2010-01-21T10_26_22-08_00.mp3
The Quadrivium
: [4] Arithmetic,[5] Geometry,[6] Music, and [7] Astronomy.
The Quadrivium (which pertains to Matter & Quantity)- the advanced four.
[4] MATHEMATICS- number in itself, which is a pure abstraction; that is, outside of
space and time.
[5] GEOMETRY-
number in space.
[6] MUSIC OR HARMONIC THEORY-
number in time.
[7] ASTRONOMY-
number in space and time.
a. Number
b. Geometry
c. Harmonics
d. Cosmology
The Quadrivium with Gene Odening, Gnostic Media Podcast episode #050
http://gnosticmedia.podomatic.com/enclosure/2009-11-01T23_11_48-08_00.mp3
General Audio
John Taylor Gatto - Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1
John Taylor Gatto - Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2
Podcasts:
School Sucks podcast with Brett Veinotte
http://schoolsucks.podomatic.com/
General Video
The Trivium & Quadrivium with Gene Odening - video
John Taylor Gatto - Underground History of Education
Bibliography
Bortins, Leigh A., The Core, Teaching Your Child the Foundations of Classical Education, Macmilian, 2010. ISBN: 978-0-230-10035-0
Cothran, Martin, Classical Rhetoric with Aristotle, Order here
Fuller, R. Buckminster, The Critical Path, St. Martin's Press, 1981. ISBN: 978-0312174910
Gatto, John Taylor, The Underground History of American Education, 2002. Read online
Hart, Randall, The Trivium of Classical Education: Historical Development, Decline in the 20th Century and Resurgence in Recent Decades, July 2004. Download
Joseph, Sister Miriam, The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, And Rhetoric, Paul Dry Books, 1937/2002. ISBN: 978-0967967509
John of Salisbury, The Metalogicon: A Twelfth-Century Defense of the Verbal and Logical Arts of The Trivium, Trans. by Daniel D. McGarry, Paul Dry Books, 2009
Moore, Terrence, The Classical Trivium Remains the Best Course of Learning, October 2003. Read online
Peikoff, Dr. Leonard, Introduction to Logic, audio, Order here
Sayers, Dorothy, The Lost Tools of Learning, 1943, Oxford. download
Sieden, Lloyd Steven, Buckminster Fuller's Universe, Basic Books, 2000. ISBN: 978-0738203799
Additional books on the Trivium and Quadrivium may be located here.