Winter 2002

Part 3 - The intellectual life

(Originally published in the Winter 2002 edition of GONZAGA, the alumni publication.)

In three of the last four issues of GONZAGA, I addressed two of the four pillars of Jesuit education: the first pillar, our five mission areas (faith, ethics, justice, service, and leadership) and the second pillar, which is dedicated to the humanities. In this issue I will take up the third pillar: mental acuity, academic professionalism, and the intellectual life. In the next issue I will take up the fourth and final pillar, a campus environment leading toward the recognition of the intrinsic dignity of self and others, and through this, the development of the whole person.

I have already written about "mental acuity" in the April 2000 issue. I will briefly summarize what I mentioned there and then move to the areas of academic professionalism and the intellectual life.

I looked at mental acuity through three well-known Jesuit aphorisms:

"All opinions are not equal from the vantage point of logic and completeness."

"Never deny, seldom affirm, always distinguish."

"There are far more errors of omission than commission."

I also discussed 10 categories of cultural discourse which act as intellectual road maps for students to obtain the highest viewpoints on happiness, truth, ethics, suffering, God, freedom, love, personhood, rights, and the common good.

As one integrates these central insights into one's thinking, one can detect an accelerated development of creativity, effectiveness toward the common good, and leadership ability. As a result, critical thinking, reading comprehension, and rhetorical and writing skills naturally develop. Sentences become clearer and more complex, and the ability to analyze difficult problems and ideas becomes more incisive. These fundamental skills underlie all other courses in the specific professions (law, the natural and social sciences, social sciences, business, engineering, education, etc.).

Mental acuity enhances academic professionalism. The habits of checking for logical rigor, completeness of evidence, and clarity of expression allow students the intellectual acuity and freedom to be outstanding analyzers, synthesizers, and communicators.

Students may not remember all the formal rules of logic, the 10 higher viewpoints, and the rules of clear oral and written expression, but the study and practice of these habits in one class after another seems to shape conscious and unconscious thinking processes.

I have heard from many graduates, working with colleagues from universities like Harvard, Stanford and Cambridge, that their fundamental training in the above areas gave them better depth and breadth of thought. They were called upon more frequently than their colleagues to sit on ethics boards, create new systems, take the initiative on creative projects, and represent their fellow professionals. In short, their mental acuity helped them to be better professionals and better leaders for the common good.

Jesuit education is not concerned solely with mental acuity and academic professionalism. It desires to open its students to the "intellectual life," to a deep appreciation of the great questions, ideas, ideals, and systems of thought, which have animated human aspirations for centuries. More than a "deep appreciation," Jesuit education sets out to cause a love of the intellectual life. A love, giving rise to passion, inspiration, and the drive for ever greater and deeper good. But more than this, love of the intellectual life helps students to appreciate every facet of their existence more deeply: individual people, society, culture, cosmos, and God. This love, then, lies at the source of freedom, creativity, appreciation, aspiration, ideal, and even prayer.

Our faculty understand the depth, beauty and importance of this intellectual life, and so, open not simply their course content, but also their minds and hearts to the students. With rigor and humor, mentation and passion, insistence and love, discipline and freedom, they inspire, inform, cajole and engage students in the spirit of reason and wisdom.

Medieval philosophers recognize the distinction between ratio (reason) and intellectus (contemplation). Ratio is active knowledge acquired by the sweat of one's brow. It is the gathering of evidence, the application of strict method, the use of logic, and the qualification of conclusions. In contrast, intellectus is passive. It is the contemplation of goodness itself, justice itself, beauty itself, love itself, and being itself. This contemplation feeds the soul not with facts and acquired knowledge, but with appreciation, depth, civility, the sublime, and even the divine. Our faculty open the way to ratio liberating intellectus and intellectus liberating ratio. This is the epitome of Jesuit education.

Mental acuity, academic professionalism, and the intellectual life (the third pillar), interact with the other three pillars of Jesuit education. The well-disciplined, creative mind transforms the five mission areas (the first pillar) and the humanities (the second pillar) into leadership for the common good. It enables students to communicate, apply, and actualize their ideals in a real world constituted by real diversity and finite resources. This too, is the epitome of Jesuit education.