1. IAU Durban Conference, August 20-25, 2000
11th General Conference: Universities as Gateway to the Future
Plenary Panel I
David Scott
Chancellor, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, U.S.A.
Introduction
Yesterday, we were reminded, once again, that universities have been in existence over 1,000 years.
You would think that, by now, we would have got it right, but apparently not. And, this Meeting, and
many other discussions that go on around the world today in universities and in other organizations,
are really how to perfect the idea of a university that has been evolving for over 1,000 years.
In my view, I think that the values and priorities of universities have evolved over these 1,000 years. I
think that, although it has been interpreted differently at different times, the quantity that has remained
most constant is the purpose of a university. I would like to describe the purpose of the university,
which I think is implicit in many things that our Speakers said yesterday. This purpose would be to
create ever more complete and integrative human beings and, through them, make a better and a wiser
world. But, we have approached that differently over the centuries. In fact, speaking microscopically,
one could say that for the first 500 years of universities there was an approach to knowledge, which is
very different from the approach today. It was an approach to knowledge that was based on faith, on
received knowledge, on absolute knowledge.
The second 500 years was very different. It was an approach to knowledge based on reason, rather
than faith that took place during, in the western world at least, the enlightenment. What should the
next 500 years be. Probably the next 50 years, the second 50 years of IAU and it is probably not an
approach that is based on faith and not an approach that is based entirely on reason, but a combination
of the two. Because an approach that is based on reason is an approach based on absolute truth, which
is different from received knowledge, but based on absolute truth and, I think as we heard yesterday,
universities really are no longer involved, if we admit it, and not involved with absolute truth. In the
second half of this Century, they have become involved with relative truth, where there are many
truths, depending on the discipline.
Fragmentation and Synthesis
Our two speakers yesterday, finding common ground between the two, both quoted Ilya Prigorgine.
One said from Prigorgine, that today we have a mosaic of fragmented disciplines. That is depressing,
but it is also encouraging, because it is a mosaic. The idea of a mosaic holds out the possibility of a
larger pattern, of a larger connection or a new integration of these fragmented disciplines, of all of
these relative truths. I believe in all of the words that people have said here and elsewhere. In fact,
today the world does stand at a special phase of transformation again where humanity is gathering on
the world stage for a new climactic synthesis. Fragmentation in a way was necessary in order to
reconnect at a higher level. The second quotation from Prigorgine was that science, which in fact has
dominated a great deal of the rational, reasoned approach to knowledge for the last several hundred
years, should recognize itself as an integral part of the culture. In other words, science has to unfreeze
its approach. As science unfreezes, as the totally reasoned rational approach to knowledge unfreezes,
so will other approaches to knowledge.
Consequences of the Rational Approach vs. Values
As a result of the reasoned, rational approach to knowledge, universities have organized themselves in
a very definite way. Universities by a large deal with facts. And, from these facts, they develop
theories and from these theories, they apply them to the world of experience to make a better world.
But, there is another world, based on values. Values are really more the territory of governments and
politicians perhaps. These values lead to policies, not theories. Such policies are applied to experience
to make a better world. But, there is only one world in the end. The enlightenment and the reasoned
approach and absolute truth approach to knowledge have rigidly divided these two worlds, almost to
the extreme of saying that, in order to make a better world, universities must exclude the world from
the database. Not literally the data, but one must not allow the messiness of the world to encroach on
the research agenda of the university. As long as we hold to that rigid division, all of the words that we

2. say, and some of the words that we heard yesterday, about what has to remain constant in universities
and what values have to remain constant, while at the same time saying that the university has to
become more engaged with society, as long as we hold the world of values and facts, the world of
policies and theories, rigidly separated, we will not be able to create integrated human beings. We will
not be able to create a better and a wiser world as fast as we need to. What we are beginning to see, is
some loosening and some freezing of these rigid boundaries, whether in the disciplines, or in the
approach to knowledge.
The Living Machine
These transformations will have very profound effects on universities. Because of science and because
of the enlightenment from the 17th Century onwards, there is an approach to knowledge and an
approach to education, which really is based on preparing people to work in machines, to work in
organizations, which are viewed as machines, as hierarchical machines.
This was an idea embedded in modern science from the 17th Century, that the universe could largely
be interpreted as a machine and we had all to fit into it. Modern science, I am a scientist myself, in this
Century moved on to say that the world is not a machine. It is in fact a web of highly interconnected
strands. What the new approach to knowledge must be evolving from faith, to reason, to an integrative
approach, the new approach to knowledge must be to prepare people to live and work in a living,
breathing organism, not a hierarchical machine. If we do that, all other troubles will fall away. We will
enter a new phase and a hopeful phase, as our Speakers said yesterday, although it may take more than
ten years, it may take more than twenty years to do it.
This will be a unique role for universities once again. Because, as was just mentioned also by Minister
Asmal, all the other educational providers who are springing up to provide training, to provide
specialized fragmented training and education, cannot undertake this task of producing integrated,
complete, human beings through whom we will make a better and a wiser world. We have to leave
behind the idea of fragmentation and specialized training and move to this arena. Here is a bright
future ahead for universities.
Spiritual Capital
I would like to end by quoting from another Nobel Laureat, not Ilya Prigorgine, but from a recent book
by Robert Fogel, an Economist at the University of Chicago. It is alright to listen to politicians. It is
alright to listen to academics. But listen to what economists say, if you want to know the dynamics of
what is happening in the world. Fogel says in his book, entitled 'The Fourth Awakening', that the
future of society and the future of the United States' society at least, but maybe the future of all society
is based on developing spiritual capital, not material capital, not wealth, not financial, but spiritual
capital, by which, I think, one can mean confidence, hope, self-reliance, self-realisation. These are the
kinds of values with which I believe our universities should deal, in part through the educational
process. Spiritual capital - that idea is embedded in what our Speakers had to say yesterday. I select
two words from what they said. One spoke of passion. That is the evolution from reason and from
faith to passion. And, the other referred to a quotation above the portals of the University of
Heidelberg, which is dedicated to ' the living spirit.'