Eliminating Prejudices of the Learned

Comenius's Scientific Plan A

By John Taylor; 2009 April 28, Jamal 01, 166 BE

Being the next in a series on the contribution of Panorthosia to the principle of harmony of science and religion...

In the eleventh chapter of Panorthosia, Comenius deals with universal philosophy, the principle that in the Baha'i scheme is called Harmony of Science and Religion. The chapter is subtitled: "Concerning the New Universal Philosophy Which Will Guide the Human Mind Towards a State Of Perfection." (175)

It is ironic that the day before I started to write on this chapter an editorial appeared in the New York Times appealing for just the sort of reform in the structure and philosophy of current universities that Comenius proposes here, centuries ago. (End the University as We Know It, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/opinion/27taylor.html) Written by Mark Taylor, a professor in the Religious Studies Department of Columbia University (a school where Abdu'l-Baha gave one of his most important speeches), the article suggests that universities are training large numbers of graduate students and putting them to work doing the bulk of the institutions' teaching and research, with miniscule pay and no hope of long-term employment or of paying off their massive student loans. Meanwhile faculty members are so specialized that they have little to say to one another, much less to society at large. He uses the example of a current PhD student whose life work is on the use of footnoting in the writings of Duns Scotus. Instead, he suggests rather vaguely, the academic should be working in a cooperative web network doing interdisciplinary studies that would be of general benefit.

Comenius is much more specific in his proposed plan for change. First of all, he says, we should set the power of knowledge in the hands of the academic to work on what is being called "Plan A," stopping "business as usual," eliminating old habits, traditions and prejudices that obstruct real change and adaptation. In the Baha'i principles this is called elimination of prejudice. In essence, academe has got itself into a cruel, self-perpetuating mess by building on prejudice rather than the reality that faces us all.

In the seventeenth paragraph of this eleventh chapter Comenius asserts that the way to go about reforming this malaise is first of all to tear ourselves away from the adversarial system, our addiction to contention that has become engrained into our thinking that we are no longer aware of it.

"The ability to take a chosen topic and argue it from both sides on grounds of probability was a trick of the ancient Sophists which many people are far too eager to practise today, evidently obstructing the truth or at least doing nothing useful to promote it." (Panorthosia, Ch. 11, para 17, pp. 181-182)

Comenius then addresses the leaders of each of the three major pillars of society, science, politics and religion.

"Pray tell me, Academics all, after two thousand years of discussion about space, motion, the void, the meaning of Existence, the question whether the sky or the earth is moving, what conclusions have you every drawn?"

"Tell me, Politicians all, after so many generations of debate about the form of government that is best, most peaceful, or most likely to advance the common good, have you made any definite findings?"

"Tell me, Theologians all, after sixty generations of argument about the best ritual for worshipping the Creator, and the most direct way to Heaven, have you found any perfect and incontrovertible answer? Behold, how vain and unprofitable all your labours have been! Now is the time, I beg you, to learn some wisdom!"

These questions may not all be exactly to the point today, but the most important thing is that we should all be asking such general questions and holding leaders of thought to account for what they are doing and thinking. We cannot let specialists wander off into corners and argue with one another as isolated specialists. That is an abdication of their high responsibility to humanity and the planet. Comenius continues,

"Now you must all stop amusing yourselves and others with probabilities, knowing how to attend only to certainties, which can be confirmed by proof and demonstration to the eye. Those who indulge in disputations dispute the case for and against, and thereby go on for ever producing and multiplying controversies, creating insoluble labyrinths for the minds of men."

The solution is not to sit back and take the contention to this or that group, but to take everything and everybody into account, starting with myself and what I know. Is my knowledge based in reason, or blind tradition and other borrowings? If it fails the test then take it off the agenda and start with what will help the world in its dire crises.

"From now onwards everyone should see that his knowledge consists only of what he can prove, and furthermore that deeds follow knowledge as closely as knowledge follows proof. Gods who have not made heaven and earth must perish. Knowledge which does not produce deeds must perish. The same applies to Faith which does not operate through acts of charity, and to a Political System which fails to maintain human affairs in peace."

Mark Taylor, in the article mentioned at the start of this essay, cites Immanuel Kant, who, "in his 1798 work `The Conflict of the Faculties,' wrote that universities should `handle the entire content of learning by mass production, so to speak, by a division of labor, so that for every branch of the sciences there would be a public teacher or professor appointed as its trustee.'"

It is indeed ironic that this concept of trusteeship is what Baha'u'llah also put forward in His Tablets to the Kings, and which Comenius also advocated, as we shall see tomorrow when we move on to Plan B, the positive aspect of Comenius's plan to save the world.


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John Taylor

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