A Historical Approach to establishing Liberal Arts and Sciences(LAS) as transdisciplinary and practical science －A Study on the Possiblity and Condition for Academic Identity Establishment of Liberal Arts

The present study examines the possibility of liberal arts as science through academic reflection on liberal arts education. Academic reflection is a work that closely investigates conditions and targets that can be established as a discipline, the methods of academic research, and the attitude of the investigator who conducts research. The reason for using the word “liberal arts and sciences” instead of “liberal arts education” is to determine whether the inherent limitation of the word “education” in academic classification can be overcome. The reality of liberal arts education is that it is positioned at the bottom of the social science field despite its nature of encompassing the achievements of fundamental studies. This must be the main reason for the classification of the term “education” as a sub-field of pedagogy among the social sciences. In this regard, the name “liberal arts and sciences(LAS),” which includes education and research, can be considered as an experimental attempt to reestablish the status of liberal arts education.The present study examines the possibility of the academic establishment of liberal arts, and it investigates the definition and function of LAS. Considering that liberal arts were developed in a relationship of integration, opposition, and conflict with philosophy and humanities in the process of developing the Western academic disciplines, this study will focus on explaining the relationship with philosophy and humanities in determining the identity and function of LAS. First, the present study will examine the possibility of establishing LAS as a meta-science in analogy with philosophy while tracing the identity crisis of philosophy that emerged in the process of academic differentiation. Moreover, the background and reasons for LAS to assume the function of the “cultivation of the whole man” of the classical humanities will be derived. Lastly, this study will examine attitudes among people who teach and conduct research in the field of humanities while judging the appearance of LAS as an ideal type. Through this, it will be emphasized that LAS should provide an understanding and interpretation of human beings and the world by using the academic achievements of the empirical sciences as academic targets again, and play the role of the practical sciences through the connection between the academic world and life-world.