Abellanosa: The academic life

Abellanosa: The academic life

MORE than a week ago, I joined some thirty academics in a gathering in honor of a former colleague and mentor in philosophy who passed away last year. The event came from the idea that the best way to honor a great mind is by talking about his thoughts more than his life.

Six papers were read in his honor, mostly delving into and expounding the late philosopher’s views and interpretations. A poem was also delivered in his honor. Two of his contemporaries, our senior professors, recalled their personal journeys with him. An open forum and a vibrant discussion followed. We all ended the day fulfilled and rejuvenated in our commitment to the academic life.

Academic life, and by this I mean the real and genuine academic life is one not preferred by many. When I use the word “academic” I am not just referring to being employed in the academe. Truth to tell there are many teachers who are not inclined to academic living. They are teachers by profession or perhaps by training but sadly they are doing so only for employment.

Academic life requires devotion. It is being in love with the things one believes in. Because of this an academic has the capacity to survive the worst the worst turbulence and waves in the journey. Even in the best of times, an academic life could be lonely. One would need to stand for certain beliefs and convictions hated by others. The academic knows that the world is not just what and how people see it. He knows that more than the usual interpretations of life and living, reality is something we cannot get that easily.

The academic is not the same with the religious. This is not to say that he is not religious. He is convinced instead that although belief is a shorter if not a quicker way to leap towards the truth, but such a leap does not give justice to our rational nature. He is convinced that inherent in human nature is the drive to seek and know – even though at first such attempt of seeking and knowing may not be that clear. An academic does not come up with conclusions or findings on the basis of pontifications. Mere quotations not even the citations of the greatest minds cannot be sufficient reasons to conclude that one has arrived at the truth.

Finally, an academic lives a life in pursuit of truth yet in the spirit of humility. Without humility the academic will not find what he’s looking for. He knows that human reason has limitations. To borrow the words of Immanuel Kant, he knows that his reason has this peculiar fate of “being troubled by questions it cannot ignore” simply because these are question that properly belong to reason. Nonetheless he knows that no matter what, no matter how bothered reason may be by these questions – still, it cannot answer because such questions are beyond the capacity of any man to fully grasp or fathom.

In a world that has made education a commodity, it is important to keep in mind that the genuine pursuit of truth cannot have a price tag. Of course, this would raise the eyebrows of those who think that they know better what it means to be educated. Precisely why seminars and conferences are organized here and there. But let’s admit it, we are becoming obsessed with researches no one is interested in. Universities have organized gatherings not to listen to new discoveries but to count their metrics, project their ratings, measure impacts, and tell the public that he who is marketable knows better.

Truth is sacrificed. Wisdom is a victim of our ignorance. That inability to admit that though we have our individual expertise yet at the end of the day they are not guarantees of the absolute certitudes that we dare claim to know. There is a crisis of reason. It is a manmade crisis. It is the cause of our forgetfulness of life’s fundamental questions. At stake in this forgetfulness is humanization itself.

The calling of an academic is to defend man and lead him to the fullness of humanization.

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