ABSTRACT
The term “liberal” in Plato’s account could plausibly refer to a particular freedom of the mind (the eye of the soul) rather than freedom in the political, economic or social realms (in fact, those deemed fit for liberal education were then bound to civic duty in their roles as guardians of the polis rather than living a life of total individualistic freedom). This chapter explores the relationship between established concepts of liberal education and disciplinary knowledge as conceptualised in recent social realist theory. The argument is that disciplinary knowledge, which needs to incorporate the arts, engenders a form of self-reflexivity far readily available in every day knowledge; and that this self-reflexivity is required in a model of classical liberal citizenship which is predicated on values of autonomy, truth and freedom of thought.
