‘Manifesto of the Caroline Pauwels Academy of Critical Thinking’ Caroline Pauwels Contact: pact@vub.be
Manifesto Caroline Pauwels Academy of Critical Thinking Auteur: Caroline Pauwels Contact: pact@vub.be
“Critical thinking is not blind, never a matter of course and always done with subtlety. Those who search for understanding usually raise more questions than they dispel.
We want to make a different pact, with ourselves, in which we hold all knowledge to the light and examine it for cracks, imperfections and yes, falsehoods. There is nothing divine about knowledge, it is never perfect and it is always incomplete. The house of science has been in the making for centuries.
With an academy of critical thinking Vrije Universiteit Brussel would like to convey to the broadest audience possible that doubt, uncertainty and a growing understanding are not weaknesses, but the very driver of true scientific and societal progress.
It is the only way to respond to the ever more pressing challenges that we see looming in our society, on our continent and in the world.
This is why Caroline launched the ‘The World Needs You’ platform in 2020. One of the stated ambitions is that VUB grow to become an ’urban engaged university’. Now, more than ever, the VUB aims to be a university that takes up its academic and societal responsibility, is more strongly embedded in Brussels and Europe and operates in accordance with the principles of the Enlightenment: critical thinking, free inquiry and radical humanism. To do that, the university fully endorses the six Ps: People, Peace, Prosperity, Planet, Partnership (inspired by UN sustainability principles) and Poincaré.
In her rectorship (2016-2022) Honorary VUB Rector Caroline Pauwels
worked tirelessly to lift the dialogue, interaction and connection with society to a higher level. For that reason, the new academy bears her name: the Caroline Pauwels Academy of Critical Thinking, or the PACT in short.
Faust made a pact with the devil and sold his soul for divine knowledge.
Through PACT, we would like to arrange lectures for those who ‘want to understand’, who are willing to hear others who may well be right, and who would like to become, in the Kantian tradition, free thinkers through dialogue, self-reflection and self-examination. Shining examples in the eyes of Honorary Rector Caroline Pauwels are Albert Camus, Hans Georg Gadamer and Hannah Arendt.
Arendt asks us to understand and judge for ourselves, without clinging to predefined or established categories and ideas. She calls this ‘thinking without a banister’, or thinking without a handle or anything to hold onto. With this she argues passionately the case for ‘thinking for yourself’, and differently perhaps to your friends or preconceptions.
Altogether different in his thinking to Arendt, is Hans Georg Gadamer. For Gadamer, understanding is the result of continuous dialogue. He gives particular emphasis to the importance of dialogue with a person you disagree with, because they may in fact be right. Gadamer takes a more critical view of the Enlightenment tradition.
As he sees it - and this is important for PACT - science, ethics and art are inseparable. Like science, art opens windows on the world.
Albert Camus says that art would not even exist if the world were understandable: ‘Si le monde était clair, l’art ne serait pas.’ Albert Camus is a free thinker for whom freedom always goes hand in hand with justice and equality. Camus is also an unflinching advocate of the search for knowledge and truth, even if it flies in the face of one’s own convictions or political camp.
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So too is PACT: taking the responsibility to think freely, to inquire and to speak, even if the words are not greeted with applause.
With PACT we aim to throw open the windows of thought, and the windows on the world, to let in the air. We want to give a platform to the broadest possible geographical spread of voices, and to invite scientists and thinkers from every continent, with a resolutely international perspective and with an eye to decolonisation.
With the PACT lectures we aim to gain a better understanding of the main problems facing society and the world, and, above all, to offer ideas on how these problems might be tackled. The PACT lectures are, by definition then, an alternative to overtly fatalist doom scenarios and pessimistic outlooks for the future.
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, with its sister university ULB, upholds the principle of Free Inquiry, as originally set out by the French mathematician and philosopher of science Henri Poincaré:
Thinking must never submit itself, neither to dogma, nor to a party, nor to a passion, nor to an interest, nor to a preconceived idea, nor to whatever it may be, if not to the facts themselves, because, for it, to submit would be to cease to be
In times gone by, new students and staff would sign up to this statement of principle. Over the years the practice has been abandoned. At the beginning of Caroline Pauwels’ rectorship (2016-2022) we decided to demonstrate and re-enliven our adherence to this principle in another manner. Henceforward, in our rewritten mission statement, VUB refers directly to the Enlightenment tradition in which the university places itself. We state that we will be guided by the motto scientia vincere tenebras - science will conquer the darkness - and by the belief that anyone can make a difference. It falls to each and every one of us.
For us, freedom stands for free inquiry: the rejection of any bare appeal to authority, and the guarantee of free judgement. For us, equality means equal standing and the recognition of diversity and inclusivity. Solidarity stands for our interest in the major challenges facing society and our concern for the respectful treatment of our fellows, society and the world.
The VUB’s education, research and social service provision are based on radical humanism, which, for us, translate into the principles of freedom, equality and solidarity.
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A PACT lecture offers hope. It shows that another, better approach is possible. We can change things, in the tradition of Hans Rosling and his possiblist outlook.
We wouldn’t want VUB to point an imperious finger at anyone who holds an opinion that differs from ours. Subjecting other people’s thinking to scrutiny is always easier than examining our own. Therefore, we must hold up the mirror to ourselves and question our own assumptions and attitudes. VUB philosopher of science and logician Jean Paul Van Bendegem talks about lateral thinking.
We mustn’t be afraid to criticise ‘critical thinking’. In times when opposites are magnified by social media, debate is polarised, facts appear to carry less weight and the like-minded stick together in a bubble of selfrighteousness, we need to ask what free inquiry actually means today. What are the prerequisites for free and open debate? Is all opinion of equal merit? Are we ourselves not guilty of making the facts fit the picture, to impose a given reality on others? Are there any limits to what we can say?
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