Universities should teach students to “die” intellectually, questioning their beliefs and ideas in Socratic dialogues, Cornel West and Robert P. George, two well-known professors and intellectuals, told an audience Thursday at the University of Virginia’s Old Cabell Hall.
The UVA250 Presents event, “Disagree. Discuss. Understand,” complemented state events celebrating the United States’ 250th anniversary. The Office of the President, UVA250, the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, the UVA Office of Engagement, the Karsh Institute of Democracy and the UVA Miller Center of Public Affairs sponsored the event.
“We think UVA is pretty uniquely positioned to celebrate that, as we are the only university founded by Founding Father Thomas Jefferson,” University President Scott S. Beardsley told the audience. “Jefferson wrote that the difference of opinion leads to inquiry, and inquiry leads to truth. These two men come from very different walks of life and very different perspectives, so how do they teach people to talk about things across differences? They use the Socratic method, which is something I’m very familiar with.”
Moderator Jacqueline Arthur-Montagne, the John L. Nau III Assistant Professor of the History and Principles of Democracy, looks on as Robert P. George responds to a question from the audience. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)
Jacqueline Arthur-Montagne, the John L. Nau III Assistant Professor of the History and Principles of Democracy, moderated a conversation in which George and West emphasized that seeking the truth requires admitting the possibility of being wrong.
“We tell each student, ‘When you come in our class, you have come here to learn how to die,’ Because to learn how to die, you must have the courage to critically examine yourself,” said West, the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary and professor emeritus at Princeton University. “That’s a form of death that allows for rebirth, revitalization, regeneration, to grow by letting something go.”
George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, agreed. “We all know the brute fact of our fallibility. We all know that right now, like everybody else on the face of the globe, we have some ideas in our heads that are false, that are incorrect, that aren’t right,” he said.
“But it’s one thing to acknowledge that fact, and it’s another thing to deeply understand it, to grasp its existential significance and meaning, and to embrace that,” George said. “If we fail to take on board – deeply, existentially – the reality of human fallibility, our own fallibility, we’re never going to learn anything. We will simply be reinforcing what we already believe.”
