CAMPUS

Re: Wisdom vs. Knowledge

Paul, you raise some great points. “There are many people who have not had a college education who are very wise, and vice versa. So the question we need to address is: Do we go to a university to become wise?” I don’t have an answer to your question as of now, but I do have one comment: just because some people go to a university and aren’t wise does not mean that wisdom cannot be the purpose of a university. It would just mean sometimes universities fail. Similarly, just because some people are wise without having attended university could simply mean that sometimes universities are not needed. So I don’t know if your point gets us anywhere.

“I did not mean to suggest that professors should play the devil’s advocate all the time and try to remain neutral in what they present. I think it is important that they have firm convictions and let the students know where they stand. I just want to emphasize, as perhaps Leo Strauss would, the importance of reading texts esoterically-assuming the author has something important and insightful to say.” I’m glad we agree on this. That was what I hoped you were trying to say, which is why I used the example of a Thomist teaching Kant.

However, I disagree when you say that the Jesuits added something to the mission of a university. I would argue they maintained something most universities lost. If we look at where universities came from, we see they built up around the cathedral schools and were always attached to religion. Not only that, but the Church viewed them as part of the divine commission to go and teach all nations and baptize. This is merely a historical question, one to which I do not know the answer, but how familiar was Cardinal Newman with secular universities? Were most universities in his day still tied to an ecclesial establishment? Even our great universities like Harvard and Yale were religious. So religious, in fact, that Yale is a response to Harvard’s loss of religious heritage. Now, they’ve lost that character, so we know that institutions do change, but was Newman only thinking in terms of religious institutions to begin with?