Richard John Neuhaus on the Task of the University

A prominent professor at an Ivy League school recently wrote on the op-ed page of the New York Times that he tells his students that, "if they are not more confused and uncertain at the end of my courses than they were at the beginning, I have been a failure." Imagine that: a well-credentialed and tenured grown-up whose purpose in life is to increase confusion and uncertainty in the minds of undergraduates.

It seems to me that the great majority of young people entering college are sufficiently confused and uncertain as it is. The idea that it is the task of the university to debunk the certitudes and orthodoxies of young people is quite wrongheaded—unless, of course, one means by certitudes and orthodoxies the intellectual incoherence and mindless relativism that the young imbibe from the general culture. The task of the university is to form and inform minds by arousing curiosity about, as Matthew Arnold put it, the best that has been thought and said. The goal of the Christian university is to arouse and direct such curiosity about the unparalleled synthesis of Athens and Jerusalem, of faith and reason, that is the Christian intellectual tradition. Faith and reason, John Paul said in his encyclical Fides et Ratio, are the two wings by which the mind rises toward wisdom. The goal of the Christian university is wisdom. This is as true of those parts of the university that are most in danger of becoming merely trade schools as it is of the humanities and arts.

(Richard John Neuhaus, "A University of a Particular Kind," First Things [April 2007]: 31-5, at 33)

J. J. C. Smart on Obfuscation

I have argued that activities which most of us would regard as "philosophical" occur in mathematical physics. Since mathematical physics is generally regarded as a highly respectable subject, this suggests that philosophy is a respectable subject. However, when we look at the profession of philosophy itself, we may begin to doubt this supposed respectability. This is because there do not seem to be any agreed standards in philosophy. Consider the writings of a certain sort of phenomenologist or existentialist. To many philosophers, including myself, they seem to be not only incomprehensible but to be utter bosh. Whether such writings really are bosh or not, it does seem to be an empirical fact that there are groups within the philosophy profession between whom dialogue does not seem to be possible. It almost seems, sometimes, that though phenomenologists, existentialists, and a certain sort of Thomist are interested in concepts, their interest is often not so much to clarify concepts as to muddy them up.

(J. J. C. Smart, "My Semantic Ascents and Descents," chap. 2 in The Owl of Minerva: Philosophers on Philosophy, ed. Charles J. Bontempo and S. Jack Odell [New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1975], 57-72, at 59)

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Vice President Dick Cheney’s refusal to be bound by this administration’s own directives regarding classified information (“Agency Is Target in Cheney Fight on Secrecy Data,” front page, June 22) illustrates his disregard for basic democratic principles.

In a democracy, power is held by and exercised on behalf of the people, but ironically, it is for precisely this reason that in a democratic society there is rule by law, not by men and women.

Mr. Cheney’s sophistic argument that his office is unique, and therefore falls outside the oversight of the National Archives, demonstrates that despite all those nice things it has said about fostering democracy abroad, the administration’s real position is that Caesar’s word is law.

Marc Joseph
Oakland, Calif., June 22, 2007
The writer is a professor of American philosophy and political theory at Mills College.

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Thomas L. Friedman (“A Boycott Built on Bias,” column, June 17) says the British University and College Union’s proposed academic boycott of Israeli universities is based on false logic and motivated by anti-Semitism.

As many of the U.C.U.’s own members have publicly stated, such a boycott would also be a dangerous attack on academic freedom.

In the sphere of higher education, the appraisal of any professor at any institution should be based not on political arguments but on academic criteria—whether that professor is an effective teacher whose scholarly research is deemed by peers to make an important contribution to a field of study.

Moreover, the integrity of any college or university depends on the unquestioned ability of the scholars based there to engage in the full, free and responsible exchange of theories and ideas internationally with the colleagues in their discipline, and on campus with the students in their classroom.

Judith Shapiro
President, Barnard College
New York, June 19, 2007

Karl R. Popper (1902-1994) on the Aim of Philosophy

All philosophy must start from the dubious and often pernicious views of uncritical common sense. Its aim is enlightened critical, common sense: a view nearer to the truth, and with a less pernicious influence on human life.

(Karl R. Popper, "How I See Philosophy," chap. 1 in The Owl of Minerva: Philosophers on Philosophy, ed. Charles J. Bontempo and S. Jack Odell [New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1975], 41-55, at 48)

Karl R. Popper (1902-1994) on the Philosophers' Disease

[L]et us look at the case for the prosecution against philosophy. Many philosophers, and among them some of the greatest, have not done too well. Even Plato, the greatest, deepest, and most gifted of all philosophers, had an outlook on human life which I find repulsive and indeed horrifying. Yet he was not only a great philosopher and the founder of the greatest professional school of philosophy, but a great and inspired poet; and he wrote, among other beautiful works, The Apology of Socrates.

What ailed him, and so many professional philosophers after him, was that, in stark contrast to Socrates, he believed in the élite: in the Kingdom of Philosophy. While Socrates demanded that the statesman should be wise, that is, aware of how little he knows, Plato demanded that the wise, the learned philosophers, should be absolute rulers. Ever since Plato, megalomania has been the philosophers' most widespread occupational disease.

(Karl R. Popper, "How I See Philosophy," chap. 1 in The Owl of Minerva: Philosophers on Philosophy, ed. Charles J. Bontempo and S. Jack Odell [New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1975], 41-55, at 43)

Richard Rorty (1931-2007)

The author of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), which, according to its publisher, “hit the philosophical world like a bombshell," is dead. See here. For a summary of Rorty's philosophical work, see here. For an essay by Rorty (on terrorism), see here.

Department Graduates Receive Latin Honors

The Department of Philosophy and Humanities at UT Arlington is justifiably proud of its undergraduate philosophy majors. Of the seven seniors graduating in May, four graduated with Latin honors:

• Nathan Jeremy Aquino (pictured with Department Chair, Denny Bradshaw) - Summa Cum Laude. Mr. Aquino had a second major in Political Science.
• Aaron R. May - Summa Cum Laude.
• Meredith Autumn Schroeder - Summa Cum Laude. Ms. Schroeder was also an Honors College graduate.
• Ravenna E. Romack - Cum Laude.

Also graduating in May were philosophy majors Ryan Keith Cannon, Amanda Doak, and Joshua Regan Usry.