LEARNING FROM THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS: IMPLICATIONS FOR MODERN ACADEMIA

Dr Abin Chakraborty

Department of English
University of Calcutta, India

The remarkable Raphaelite painting of a galaxy of esteemed philosophers, scientists and artists, including some upholding quite contradictory ideas, has always been for me a paradigmatic representation of the kind of inclusive space for debate, discussion and dialogue, research conferences and by extension universities, should ideally be like.

                The first thing to note is obviously the inter-disciplinary nature of the gathering itself - you have luminaries from the fields of philosophy, mathematics, law, painting, astronomy coming together without any reference to the kind of specializing compartmentalization one still witnesses in the academia. Despite the current global vogue of inter-disciplinarity one rarely witnesses the flourishing of inter-disciplinary exchanges in universities and colleges on an everyday basis. The idealized congregation of Raphael’s painting offers a necessary corrective in that regard as it stresses the constant need for multidirectional exchanges of ideas and knowledge for the opening up new vistas. One is reminded in this context of Tagore’s famous lines where he envisions a world:

Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls

These are the ideals which research conferences should seek to emulate as they must operate as platforms where researchers, otherwise not connected, must find opportunities for sharing insights from each other’s field of work in search of innovative syntheses, leading to the formulation of new templates for knowledge production and dissemination.

The School of Athens (1509-11) by Rafael

                Such formulations necessarily require an inclusive space which tolerates dissent and contradiction. Consider for example the presence of Epicurus, whose philosophical outlook is miles apart from the kind of approach Aristotle offers in a text like The Nicomachean Ethics. The differences in the views of Plato and Aristotle, centrally placed together in the painting, are also quite well known. Despite such differences they are all placed together because a fundamental feature of western academic tradition has been the acknowledgment of contrary views and the need for debate to progress to a rationally acceptable opinion. Persistent celebration of this tradition is all the more necessary because ruling regimes around the world often seek to asphyxiate the space for dissent and contradiction and instead favour unilateral imposition of views in harmony with prevalent regimes and their interests. In India itself, Rohinton Mistry’s Such a Long Journey had to be deleted from the syllabus, historians like Romila Thapar have been called intellectual terrorists, Wendy Donniger’s book on Hindu religion has been suppressed, Satanic Verses remains banned and an essay like “Three Hundred Ramayanas”, by late A.K. Ramanujan, on the innumerable versions of Ramayana which are in circulation in India, had to be withdrawn from the syllabus. Research conferences on various issues are necessary precisely because they often serve to cultivate a spirit of dissent and engagement with contrary ideas which fosters a fruitfully argumentative academic culture, often against the vagaries of political intrusion in the academia.

                What is also remarkable about the painting is the sheer public dimension of such a gathering because despite the division of the crowd into several groups aligned by one’s discipline, the holistic image is that of men of learning coming together as part of an everpresent sense of knowledge contributing to public good. This idea is remarkably important today as the very notion of an academic as a public intellectual is severely under erasure in today’s world where academics are confining themselves more and more to esoteric ivory towers that are all too detached from ground realities. Research conferences in particular and universities in general must find ways of bridging such gaps and re-discover for themselves the public dimension of the School of Athens. In fact, it may even be argued that such an imaginary gathering of intellectuals in the painting corresponds to the formation of an incipient public sphere which, as we know, is fundamental for the development of democracy.

                However, one thing that is also seminal importance for deepening democracies is the participation of women and this is where the School of Athens falls short. Apart from a passing, almost tangential reference to Sappho, the School as such includes no other women and remains a sphere of male dominance which is quite unlike the current academic scenario. But then again, neither was it feasible for Raphael to imagine significant female involvement in dissemination of knowledge nor should we expect a painting to be a panacea. And yet, it is nevertheless true that the School of Athens does remain for modern academics a significant ideal we would do well to emulate. One only wonders if the powers that be will ever heed such a call.