Genuine Intellectuals. Academic and Social Responsibilities of Universities in Africa: Academic and Social Responsibilities of Universities in Africa

Chapter Seven - The Genuine Intellectual

85 Genuine Intellectuals: Academic and Social Responsibilities of Universities in Africa Chapter Seven The Genuine Intellectual I n philosophical jargon, a distinction is made between the formal end and the final end of any action or enterprise undertaken by a conscious agent. Here, however, to render what I am saying less esoteric or pedantic, I will simply speak of the End (for the formal end) and the Purpose (for the final end). When I speak of the end of an action, I mean the natural obvious result that that action produces, in which it terminates; the end is external, objective, independent of the intention of the doer. The purpose is the intention itself that the doer has in mind in doing what he does; it is entirely subjective. When a person sharpens a knife, for instance, the natural, inevitable outcome is that the knife gets keen, sharp. But the intentions of two chaps sharpening knives may be miles apart; the purpose of one may be to carve up wood; that of the other may be to carve up a man, to cut a throat! Thus the end of an action, done as it should, with the means that ought to be employed, is invariable; whereas the intentions of the agents may be as different, one from the other, as sculpture is from murder. What, then, is the end of University Studies? The end of University studies is twofold In the first place, university studies, correctly, diligently and thoroughly pursued, provide the student, in a specificfield , not with a formless heap of knowledge, like a random pile of stones, but with a corpus of facts and principles, a 86 Bernard Nsokika Fonlon corpus of learning, which corpus shall have been built up, scientifically and philosophically, into a coherent, integrated, organised system, like a well-built house, or, better still, like a living organism. University studies, rightly and assiduously pursued, in other words, should provide, in a given domain, the expert, the technologist, the lawyer, the man of Letters, the chap skilled in mind, and, if need be, skilled in hand. In the second place, by the prolonged, thorough, methodical that is, scientific and philosophical, exercise of his intellect on a particular field of university studies, the student should become instilled with a scientific and philosophical mind; – a mind whose natural reaction, when confronted with a phenomenon or problem, whatever it be, should be to dig to the proximate and the deep-most roots of the said problem or phenomenon; – a spirit that questions, that doubts, that searches, that inquires methodically, systematically; – a spirit that is not satisfied until it has unearthed the specific and proximate, the all-embracing and ultimate causes of things; a spirit ever thirsting for knowledge; a mind that never accepts as certain things unproved; – a mind and spirit whose watch-word is Thorough. In other words, correctly, diligently and thoroughly pursued, university studies should produce the thinker-scholar, or the individual that is more commonly referred to, in our day, as the Intellectual. Thus learning by rote, however profound the subject, can in no way be regarded as university education, properly so called. The second aspect of the End of University Studies is of the highest importance. And, this, for various reasons. Firstly, the thinker-scholar, or the scientist-philosopher, cannot seclude himself, forever, in the ivory tower of his specialisation. Life is not composed of water-tight compartments; and he will often, in private as well as in public life, come up against situations for which his particular 87 Genuine Intellectuals: Academic and Social Responsibilities of Universities in Africa field of studies offers no ready-made solutions. Indeed, it happens, very often, that fellows, after university studies, are called upon to serve in fields which have little or no bearing on what they did in college; and yet, even in this foreign field, they are expected to show proof of intellect and efficiency, by reason of their scientific and philosophical training. It is obvious then that the university man, irrespective of what his particular domain may be, will be looked up to, by virtue of his high education; indeed, it will even be incumbent on him to help to find answers to the manifold, diverse and often bailing and staggering questions that arise to confront the community in which he finds himself. This is so to the extent that Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American...