Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by eimrine 1489 days ago
> Mediaeval History, French Literature and (arguably) Architecture are examples of liberal arts.

Wait a minute, what of 7 liberal arts are History and Literature in? I can not see any place for that in both Trivium and Quadrivium.

1 comments

Trivium and Quadrivium aren't really liberal arts, at least not any more. Trivium was logic, grammar and rhetoric - the basics for understanding and making arguments; quadrivium was music, astronomy, geometry and arithmetic - the "proper" subjects that one might want to argue about.

I'd be inclined to count astronomy, geometry and arithmetic as STEM subjects, rather than liberal arts. But I don't think trivium and quadrivium have been a thing since the Middle Ages, and I'm sure that's not what the author was referring to.