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What Does "Academic" Mean? - Two Essays on the Chances of the University Today (Paperback)
Loot Price: R258
Discovery Miles 2 580
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What Does "Academic" Mean? - Two Essays on the Chances of the University Today (Paperback)
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Loot Price R258
Discovery Miles 2 580
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What Does "Academic" Mean? focuses, in two essays, on the prospects
of contemporary universities. The term "academic" is traced back to
Plato's Academy in a grove in Athens. The Academy is isolated, far
away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Western universities
founded in the Middle Ages show continuity, via Byzantium, with
Plato's Academy. Not surprisingly, the Oxford Dictionary quoted by
Pieper defines "academic" as "Not leading to a decision;
unpractical." The preoccupation of the academic as academic is seen
by Pieper to be fundamentally theoretical, not practical. Pure
theory is that which cannot at all be pressed into service.
Clearly, many university disciplines that are richly funded by
industry and business concerns tend to be favored by university
administrations, which, intent on financial survival, frown on
"unproductive" disciplines such as pure philosophy: metaphysics
being a case in point, since it is the discipline least capable of
practical application. Pure philosophy, unlike any other
discipline, has as its "subject" the totality of being. Every other
discipline deals with a particular aspect of being - for example,
the physical, the psychological, the technical - but not the
totality. For Pieper, spirit is that which makes us open to truth -
all truth - without any need to exploit it in the concrete world.
The sciences open up more and more access to reality, more and more
for us to contemplate. They show us more of the totality, but none
of the sciences is interested in the totality as such. The
philosophy which deals with the totality and asks, with Alfred
North Whitehead, "What is it all about?" is seen by Pieper as
central to the university. Essentially, it contemplates the wonder
of being.
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