III. General Information

Learning Objectives

Sense of Historical Development

All disciplines have a history, an understanding of which contributes to an understanding of the place each has in contemporary society. No discipline is self sufficient, and no discipline is autonomous. "Historical development" should not be narrowly construed to mean only the history of the discipline within its own limits, but efforts should be made to connect developments in the discipline to wider coeval social conditions. Students may thereby be endowed with a sense of the fundamental relativity of knowledge and understanding at any given time. This objective comports also a sense of the continuity of change (and, indeed, of discontinuities), over time. This objective may facilitate the acceptance, on the part of students, of intellectual ambiguity or uncertainty; such acceptance is a mark of depth of understanding.