Universitas and Humanitas: A Plea for Greater Awareness of Current Challenges
| Autor | Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade |
| Ocupação do Autor | Juiz da Corte Internacional de Justiça (Haia) |
| Páginas | 325-340 |
XV
UNIVERSITAS AND HUMANITAS: A PLEA FOR GREATER
AWARENESS OF CURRENT CHALLENGES1
Summary:1I. Introducti on: Trajectory of Universities in Time. II. Education and
Specializations. III. Specializati ons and Culture. IV. Avoidance of Undue Uses of
Language and Violence. V. Education under the Impact of Mass Soci ety. VI. Inte-
gral Education: The Rejoining of Branches of Knowledge. VII. T he Legacy of U.N.
World Conferences. VIII. International Adjudication and the Right to Education. 1.
Contentious Cases. 2. Advisory Opinions. IX. Unive rsitas and Humanitas, and Free
Thinking. X. Concluding Obser vations.
I. Introduction: Trajectory of Universities in Time
It is a great honour to me to represent the International Court of Justice in this
II World Conference on the Right to and Rights in Education (Brussels, November
2012). May I start by briefly situating, in the passing of time, the evolutive concep-
tion of the Universitas, in order to appreciate it properly, in historical perspec tive. As
it came to be known, the University, in its early beginnings (XIIIth-XIVth centuries),
cultivated a knowledge regarded as revealed. The medieval, clerical, University was
thus not predisposed to questionings. These latter were only to occur with the ad-
vent of the Renaissance (XVth century), which sought to transcend classic scholastic
knowledge. The new humanist outlook (flourishing in Italy and then across
Europe) 2 lasted for some time (XVIth century). From the late XVIIth century on-
wards, the confrontation of ideas became generalized3. Later on, modern University,
attentive to the industrial revolution, came, not surprisingly, to cultivate scientific
(and technological) knowledge.
1 Conferencia magna de aber tura, proferida pelo Autor, como Representante da Corte In-
ternacional de Justiça, na sessão i naugural da I I Conferencia Mundial (das Nações Unidas)
sobre o Direito à Educação e os Direitos na Educação, realizada em Bru xelas, aos 08 de no-
vembro de 2012.
2 Cf. J. Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy [1860], N.Y., Barnes & Noble
Books, 1992 [reed.], pp. 1-341; P. Hazard, La pensée européenne au XVIIIe. siècle [1946], Paris,
Fayard, 1963 [reed.], pp. 3-469; T. Todorov, L´esprit des Lumières, Paris, Éd. R. Laffont, 2006,
pp. 7-143.
3 P. Hazard, La crise de la conscience européenn e – 1680-1715 [1935], Paris, Fayard, 2009 [reed.],
pp. 7- 421.
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ANTÔNIO AUGUSTO CANÇADO TRINDADE
In the early XVIII century, the areas of “sciences and letters” emerged, the lat-
ter concentrating on the “transcendental humanity” of human bei ngs. By the end of
the XVIIIth century and th roughout the XIXth century, scientists, grouped together
in the new departmental structures of the University, came to sustain that truth
could only be reached by empirical investigation. Humanists, in their cultivation of
general knowledge, continued to insist on the centrality of the values. Scientists, for
their part, disclosed a certain indifference to personal self-development outside
their specialization. With the emergence of new scientific knowledges, culture be-
gan to yield to techniques, and classic Universities began to find opposition in the
wider social milieux. Modern University, as it spread from the European to other
continents, came thus to host the large areas of the natural sc iences, on the one hand,
and of the humanities or arts, on the other.
In mid-XXth century, in the post-world war II period, Universities underwent
a new reform, as from an outlook of the offer of education as a social service. The
reorganization of the disciplines deepened the separation of knowledges, with the
so-called “specializations”. At the end of four decades, however, there was already
an open questioning of the assumed i nfallible authority of scientific knowledge, and
of the excesses of specializations, conducive to the commercialization of the Univer-
sities, aggravated in our days. The dissatisfactions of the new generations began to
be expressed (as in the historical demonst rations of 1968, for example).
In this age of mass “globalization”, or “globalized” massification, attention to
cultural identity, in the framework of the universality of the human kind, is regard-
ed as necessary, so that we can live in harmony in the cosmos, respecting the di ffer-
ences which conform that universality, and defend ourselves against the chaos and
the irrationality that surround us. It will never be excessive to insist on the central
role of humanities (originally, the humanitas, as in Cicero) – encompassing literature,
philosophy, history, law, language and education – within t he Universitas. This latter
is engaged in absorving the intellectual activity, the cultural legacy, which will
never be replaced by the simple preparation for professional exercise.
II. Education and Specializations
University teaching is to be attentive to education so as to awaken in the
youth of the new generations their vocation to an integral life, from the start not
limited by the vicissitudes of the entry in careers of specialized knowledge. Such
a scheme, standardized and pre-determined, tragically separates the strictly pro-
fessional from the other aspects of the life of each person, and thus does not give
a sense of accomplishment nor satisfies. The University spirit to be transmitted is
to be first to understand the world, by means of the cultivation and the transmis-
sion of culture to respond to the challenges of one‘s time, – of the time of each one,
by a personal option of life.
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