Dayon kamo

By Dr. Clement C. Camposano

To the incoming freshmen,

DAYON KAMO…

By this, I don’t simply wish to welcome you to this academic institution that has produced many of the country’s top leaders and exemplary professionals. Rather, I wish to introduce you to what might be described as UPV’s institutional culture.

Culture need no longer be understood as a singular and static “way of life”. Indeed, there is no singular and static “way of life” in this University. This is a place defined by plurality and diversity, and by fluidity — a place where different views of the world contend and clash, as if in a never-ending dance.

If there is one thing I know that each and everyone of you will experience, it is this: Your assumptions and presumptions about a great many things will be challenged, disrupted even. They will either be unsettled or overturned.

In a few short years, you will not be the same person. A new version of you will emerge, forged in the white heat of your struggles. You may still keep some of your strongly held beliefs, but not after these have been tested — not necessarily in a debate, but perhaps in the awareness of other possibilities.

A broader intellectual horizon awaits. You will discover something new about the world and about yourselves.

You will be initiated into the rigors of research, and into the intriguing world of the natural and physical sciences. Your minds will behold the elegance of mathematics. The social sciences and humanities will impress upon you the unvarnished and entangled complexities of life.

You will see far and wide. But only because, as Newton (1676) himself admitted, you stand on the shoulders of giants.

To thrive, and not merely survive, in this new environment you will need the companionship of intellectual humility. For the one thing that will guarantee enrichment is accepting that you do not know quite enough.

It is this acknowledgment of ignorance that is at the heart of good science, driving the steady accumulation of knowledge. Be humble then, but in equal measure be bold, and be brave!

Heed the call of Kant (1784): Sapere aude! Dare to know! Learn to be intellectually independent, free yourselves from the fetters of dogma and dogmatic thought, master the art of critical thinking.

Be wary of those who traffic in dogma by passing them off as critical thought. There are ideologies aplenty, each offering a different version of social reality. Each purveying its brand of criticism. Summon them all to the bar of reason and rigorous scrutiny. Be generous with your questions.

Critical thinking is not an article of fashion, to be worn like a mark of distinction. It is a mode of engagement, a way to encounter the world around you. It is knowledge, skill, habit, and disposition — all rolled into one.

A critical mind is one that is hard to please. Exacting, inquisitive, sceptical, and disciplined in the use of evidence. It is at home with abstractions and potently imaginative, capable of envisioning various possibilities. It is a mind reflexively aware of itself and its proclivities.

For this reason, academic freedom is central to our enterprise. Only an environment where scholars, professors, and researchers enjoy the utmost latitude in disseminating and discussing ideas can nurture truly critical minds.

In such an environment we hope to cultivate the powers of the intellect. This is the reason we resist undue interference in our affairs. But this is also why we strive to keep our campuses free of political dogmatism of whatever shade.

There are no sacred cattle here. No idea, no theory, no worldview, no philosophical system, and certainly no ideology is exempt from interrogation.

You may challenge, you may interrogate, you may attempt to disprove, you may debate. You may disagree and you may argue to your hearts’ content. We insist, however, that you do so fully aware that your liberties end where the rights of others begin.

In the end, it is only when we enact our freedoms with due regard for our duty to safeguard those of others that liberty is best secured and, indeed, nourished.

I say all these only because I have faith in you and in your ability to honor this institution, and what it represents. I am confident that beneath your burning desire to personally succeed and prevail lurks what Lincoln (1861) called “the better angels of [your] nature”.

I see good sons and daughters that have made it this far, and are eager to go further. You are the future and you are capable of achieving great things, not only for your loved ones but also for our country.

Mabuhay ang mga bagong isko at iska!

(The author is the Chancellor of the University of the Philippines-Visayas)