{"id":85,"date":"2018-05-12T15:58:37","date_gmt":"2018-05-12T19:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/?p=85"},"modified":"2018-05-12T16:40:27","modified_gmt":"2018-05-12T20:40:27","slug":"where-is-knowing-going","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/2018\/05\/12\/where-is-knowing-going\/","title":{"rendered":"Where is Knowing Going?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Haughey, J. C. (2009).\u00a0Where is knowing going? The horizons of the knowing subject<\/em><\/a>. Washington, D.C: Georgetown University Press.<\/p>\n

\"\"The opening to the preface — \u201cthis study is addressed to those who are educated enough to wonder if they are really educated\u201d — seems directed to those of us struggling to familiarize ourselves with the Catholic intellectual tradition\u00a0 It is largely a positive book, seeing much good in the faculty already in place.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The book is particularly helpful for our Praxis community as it draws heavily on the writings of Bernard Lonergan. For example, Haughey notes that an important function of education is \u201cto bring others to horizons they would not be able to attain themselves \u2026 to be agent of the intellectual conversion of individuals and societies\u201d (p.25).<\/p>\n

An important theme of the book is that many university faculty are independently working to integrate knowledge and education in the (small c) catholic tradition. Haughey speaks of three vital elements, \u201cfaith, hope and love\u201d which characterize these efforts (p. 24), whether the faculty who hold them are religious or not.\u00a0 This counters trends toward egotism and competition, which fragment the disciplines and work against building a learning community.\u00a0 Their efforts need the support of their parent institutions in order to flourish; they are often an unappreciated resource.<\/p>\n

Haughey stresses \u201chospitality\u201d \u2013 being open to embracing data, the work of colleagues and the ideas of \u201cthe other\u201d regardless of their faith (or lack thereof).\u00a0 He notes three problems that work against hospitality.\u00a0 The first is institutional practices that reward specialized individual research and achievement, insist on a multitude of business like meetings and administrative tasks, and do not emphasize connecting the disciplines or \u201cinterest in and care for \u2026 professional colleagues (p.30).\u00a0 If faculty are \u201cburrowed deep in their specializations\u201d without interest in or connection to their colleagues, they are modeling for students a \u201ckind of individual careerism [and a] culture of autonomy and learning for the sake of self-advancement.\u00a0 If we are isolated individuals, we teach students to be isolated individuals\u201d (p.30).\u00a0 The second is technology, especially in regard to the internet and its lack of face-to-face communication, and the third is a lack of value placed on engagement with colleagues and students.<\/p>\n

Haughey notes that the Catholic Church often also suffers a lack of hospitality toward others, to the detriment of attaining a unity and wholeness in knowledge, meaning and what is good.\u00a0 He sees Second Vatican Council and Gaudium et spes<\/em> (1965) as \u201cthe collective efforts of the drive of catholicity, superseding what the Church had fractured or suppressed by its narrowness of vision in previous centuries\u201d (p.52). \u00a0In a word, \u201chospitality\u201d. Yet universities continued to move toward more and more specialization.\u00a0 He relates an incident where a hospitalized friend was \u201cvisited daily by six different specialists\u201d, each of which had \u201cspent years of training becoming more and more knowledgeable about less and less .. they were attentive to her symptoms, but their knowledge of these symptoms did not help her broken self to become whole\u201d (p.53).\u00a0 Sadly, I am sure many of us can relate to this experience.\u00a0 Haughey relates this to Lonergan\u2019s contention that \u201clooking at reality does not produce knowledge of reality\u201d \u2013 in this case the \u201cexperts\u201d saw the patient only \u201cthrough the prism of their own specialties\u201d (p. 53).\u00a0 This is the problem when universities and faculty are overspecialized; Haughey asks \u201cwhat would it look like if faculty were inspired to work more closely together [toward the common good] without losing their depth of knowledge in diverse fields of study\u201d (p. 53)<\/p>\n

Haughey sees a danger in allowing Catholic doctrine alone to dictate the \u201cpraxis\u201d of a university, noting that \u201cdoctrines are starting points \u2026 invitations to belief and contemplation\u201d (p. 54-55), but he stresses the importance of understanding the unity of Christ, emphasizing His humanity as well as divinity.\u00a0 He sees a parallel here between the unity of reason and faith that is essential for a Catholic university.\u00a0 The section \u201cIs there a Doctrine in the house\u201d (p. 55-57) deserves careful reading,<\/p>\n

Haughey stresses the importance of differentiating between the Catholic intellectual tradition (primarily a learning tradition involving all disciplines, though with theology being the most important) and the \u201cSacred Tradition\u201d of the Catholic Church, the doctrinal component (p. 64).\u00a0 Failing to make this distinction between two related traditions leads to confusion, e.g. whether a Catholic university is \u201ctoo Catholic, or not Catholic enough\u201d (p. 64) and tension between school and church authorities, especially in regard to academic freedom.\u00a0 This dialectic should be \u201ca creative <\/em>tension between the [Catholic] tradition\u2019s authoritative side and its intellectual side\u201d (p. 67, italics mine); a Catholic university is \u201can enterprise in understanding that is linked to a faith tradition [a place where] where faith and understanding are seeking each other (p. 69).<\/strong><\/p>\n

The goal of \u201ceducating the whole person\u201d (common to most universities) requires attention to \u201cfour realms of meaning: common sense, theory, interiority and transcendence\u201d (p. 84). Interiority is not limited to \u201ccritical thinking\u201d, it includes an understanding of our own cognitive processes and desires to understand the meaning of the good.\u00a0 Transcendence includes overcoming bias and developing morality.\u00a0 Catholic education should be open to the role of transcendence in all faith traditions, which is a challenge to \u201cmake a home for all faiths in its schools, while giving priority to its own faith contents\u201d, but also an opportunity to respect the transcendent meanings of other faiths (p. 84).<\/p>\n

Many writers have deplored the \u201ccommercialization\u201d and \u201ceconomic determinism\u201d of higher education, but Haughey puts this in memorable terms:<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably the most immediate threat to the integrity of contemporary Catholic higher education \u2013 or any higher education for that matter \u2013 is not secularization of anti-Catholicism, but the reduction of the purpose of learning to earning\u201d (p. 85).<\/p>\n

Seeing education as \u201cpreparation for employment springs from the bias of common sense\u201d, necessary in practical terms but a problem when \u201cpracticality, utility and impatience for results\u201d dominate at the expense of \u201cwonder or interest in the world\u201d (p. 85).\u00a0 A similar \u201ccommon sense bias\u201d operates when faculty publish for the sake of self-advancement (Haughey does not address the institutional bias that requires <\/em>faculty to continually publish, but this would also be a bias).<\/p>\n

Haughey summarizes the Dimensions of the Catholic intellectual tradition, noting that a university is \u201cnurtured by those who are committed, in both their research and teaching, to competence in their disciplines, right reasoning, objectivity and the common good\u201d (p.88-89).\u00a0 Catholics and non-Catholics alike can contribute to the tradition, but Haughey emphasizes linking reason and faith, and reiterates the need for \u201cfaith, hope and love\u201d: faith that their efforts are worthwhile, hope that they will make a positive difference, and love for their subject and students.\u00a0 In an extended metaphor, he likens the work of these educators to the yeast in dough that allows bread to rise.\u00a0 But the yeast can be \u201ccorrupted by biases\u201d (many \u201cisms\u201d; laziness, self-interest etc.)\u00a0 A potential bias in Catholicism is to simply \u201cparrot\u201d doctrine rather than appropriate it after careful questioning and reasoning so that the tradition can develop and evolve, \u201caccumulating more and more insight into truth as it learns from many sources\u201d (p.97). Another example of expanding horizons.<\/p>\n

The examples of Maximus the Confessor, Teilhard de Chardin and Karl Rahner are a study in themselves, and there is a great deal more that could be said about this book, including Haughey\u2019s section on the commonality of worship (chapter 9), but in the interest of keeping these notes relatively brief I will conclude here with a quotation from the \u201cafterword\u201d (but also noting the valuable Appendixes, especially Appendix D, which brings home the positive orientation of the book).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe human vocation is to know the real, and not from the stooped over, narrow perspective from which we all too often look out at the world.\u00a0 The vocation of the educator is the same, to free students from a narrowness and enable them to be beholders of what is worthy of their attention \u2026 A good education helps one learn to pay attention to that which is of worth\u201d (p. 149-50).<\/p>\n

Questions<\/h4>\n
    \n
  1. How can we encourage greater communication among faculty from different disciplines, regardless of their faith tradition?<\/li>\n
  2. Haughey suggests inviting faculty to a symposium that asks \u201cdoes the way you go about conceiving your classes, syllabi, and research connect with the Catholic intellectual tradition\u2019s ways of linking reason to faith?\u201d How would we answer that?\u00a0 How would we conceive this as an open discussion?<\/li>\n
  3. He speaks a great deal about \u201chospitality\u201d \u2013 to colleagues, students, other faiths and \u201cthe other\u201d generally. For example, encouraging all to attend Mass in common worship on campus. What do we think about this?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Haughey, J. C. (2009).\u00a0Where is knowing going? The horizons of the knowing subject. Washington, D.C: Georgetown University Press. The opening to the preface — \u201cthis study is addressed to those who are educated enough to wonder if they are really educated\u201d — seems directed to those of us struggling to familiarize ourselves with the Catholic … Continue reading “Where is Knowing Going?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholic-higher-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions\/109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}