To honor the occasion of Professor Herman De Dijn’s becoming emeritus, a colloquium took place at the Institute October 16 & 17, 2008 on “Spinoza and Hume on Religion”. The valedictory lecture of Professor De Dijn on "Drie Soorten van Verwondering", followed by a reception, took place October 17 in the Promotion Hall of the University (the lecture can be found on the website: www.hermandedijn.be). Professor Herman De Dijn was appointed associate professor at the Catholic University of Leuven in 1973. In 1977 he was promoted to professor and from 1979 till 2008 he was teaching at the Institute of Philosophy as a full professor. Professor Herman De Dijn has been invited to hold the Erasmus Lectureship at Harvard University (Philosophy Department) in the second semester of the academic year 2008-2009. He is to give one regular course and two public lectures about Spinoza in Harvard.

Philosophers shouldn’t cut trees. They fall off ladders and then they have to walk with crutches for months. Herman De Dijn can confirm this. The heavy rehabilitation process did not affect his spirit. He looks back with great enthusiasm at the past years, and with great energy to the future. “I am 65. Maybe nowadays it seems a relatively late age to become emeritus but it also indicates that it was good to be at the HIW, the Institute of Philosophy, where I spent many very happy years.”

“In 1971 I completed my PhD. Wylleman, who at the time was president of the Institute, advised me to go abroad for a post-doc. Servotte helped me to find a place in Cambridge (UK), ‘of all places’. In 1973 there was a job-opening in the new International Programme at the HIW.”

“I enjoyed the intellectual climate at the HIW, because anything was possible. We discussed everything and with everyone, and we flew at each other - but always in the best possible comradeship. Nowadays researchers discuss too little. And they get together less as well, but this is a different matter. I sat talking for hours with Arnold Burms, my colleague and philosophical companion, most of the time in the Gambrinus, while Jan Matterne two tables away from us prepared his TV-scenarios for Beschuldigde, Sta Op. You will find the result of our countless conversations in a book we wrote together, a bestseller for that matter, and in some articles. We did not publish because we had to, but because we had seriously thought about something which we wanted to share, in the first place with our students and colleagues.”

“We discussed almost anything, even movies and novels; as philosophers we had very broad interests, not merely limited to our area of specialization. Herman Roelants organised for many years genuinely multi-disciplinary seminars, long before the word was fashionable. This was for me immensely stimulating.”

“Things have changed a lot. Because of the scaling up, you can no longer have contact with everybody. This is the reason why many people fold back onto their own small research group and particular area of specialization, without keeping in sight more encompassing questions. Specialization is inevitable but it is not conducive to discussion across borders and therefore not to synthesis either. The consequence is that, today, also in the human sciences people only dare to say something about their limited specialization. This is certainly disastrous for philosophy.”

“And where does this come from? There are of course different causes but in the first place there is a certain undeniable pressure to publish, where journal ranking, impact-factors and so forth set the tone; even when one’s career as a whole is concerned, one only counts for as much as the whole of one’s specialised work. This system quality assessment on the basis of ‘publications in internationally ranked journals’ presupposes a conception of knowledge according to which scholars, through a solid specialization and supported by the findings of others, shift little by little the frontier of science. This is a complex debate, but such a conception of knowledge is I think inadequate for many human sciences and certainly for the greater part of the philosophical disciplines or discussions.”

“In celebration of my emeritaat I published a book, Grensovergangen (Crossing Borders) about “the humanities (Geisteswissenschaften), the university and university policy” (published by Peeters) where I deal at length with this sort of problems. I criticise the bibliometrical obsession, which in my opinion has nothing to do with the promotion of real knowledge. It is our duty, certainly as human scientists, to safeguard the authenticity of our discipline.”

“Specifically with regard to philosophy I think it should definitely continue to fulfil its critical and synthetic task and it should remain of relevance for society at large. My worries in this respect have nothing to do with the quality of my younger colleagues, but more with the climate and the system in which they will have to work and which do not provide the conditions for the kind of job philosophy, in my opinion, has to perform. I have become especially sensitive to this sort of thing since I have been vice-rector.”

“I was vice-rector for the group of Human & Social Sciences from 1995 to 2000. It was for me a completely new way of life. Work at the top can be very difficult, often at the cost of private life. I learned a lot back then, especially about how management and politics work. I have the best memories of working in a team, mainly with my colleague vice-rectors and also with ‘my’ deans and other team members. Others will have to judge my achievements. After five years, however, I decided to resign. I knew that if I did not want to lose contact myself with active philosophy for the rest of my life, I had to go back to the Institute of Philosophy. Fortunately, Rector Oosterlinck allowed me to go. The following years, including the first sabbatical year, meant for me the rediscovery of the amazing pleasure of teaching and research.”

“As a teacher of modern philosophy I wanted to understand modern times or modernity, that which makes our times modern. If I had to define the core of my own contribution, it would be my insistence upon the inescapability and the importance of tradition also in and for modern times. According to some people it is not possible to be modern without breaking away from tradition. Tradition is therefore negative, something one needs to eliminate as quickly as possible. I dispute this view. There is only progress because tradition remains, if need be on the sly, and because progress transforms itself into a tradition. One starts to discover this in various disciplines, including in economics.”

“The place of religion is a nice illustration of this point. Authors like Richard Dawkins admit, almost incensed, that there is still religion and imply by their tone that it is only a matter of time before it disappears off stage with loud applause. This vision is not correct. Religion is a natural human phenomenon with an enormous capacity for adjustment. Even in modern society very many people seem to need religion (or some or other surrogate), as also non-believing human scientists and philosophers discover these days, especially because modern politics does not seem capable of creating meaning and values.”

“As a philosopher of modernity, I consider it my task to point out that modernity and rationality have their limits. They are rooted in something they cannot bring forth by themselves. Science cannot exist or survive on its own; it cannot pull itself out of the swamp by its hair, like Baron von Münchhausen. Science is dependent on ‘strange’ things such as education, values and culture. Politics and ethics cannot be organized on a purely scientific basis. In bio-ethics, for example, some think you can solve all the problems on the basis of strictly rational principles and accurate reasoning. However, it is not evident to deduce from such principles why, for example, a dead human body deserves respect. Yet this respect is evident for everybody because it is rooted ‘in the heart’ and not so much in the ratio.”

“Politics also needs to acknowledge the limits of rationality. Those responsible for making policy often assume that one has to master, control and steer things in order to make progress possible. Yet by the nearly blind focus on progress one may bring about exactly its opposite! Therefore we tend to lose from sight that which is the basis of everything, ‘the attitudes of the heart’. These are the things you cannot manipulate or master just like that. Take for example a good neighbourhood. Does it need to be steered and commanded with regulations? No. You obviously need to make sure that garbage is collected, that there is space for children to play and that there are some trees, etc., but, apart from this, you have to have faith in human relations. Create conditions for them to flourish, and probably this will produce good results. I say ‘probably’ because there is no guarantee that a good neighbourhood will remain as such. Some things cannot be controlled or mastered directly.”

“I am an emeritus professor now, but I am not falling into the notorious black hole. I intend to continue academic teaching to a limited extent, if asked to do so. I will continue giving public lectures; I am still busy writing and I also have plans for new books. I will be shortly going to Harvard, from January until June of 2009, where I will occupy the Erasmus Lectureship. What am I going to do there? Teach a course on Spinoza, of course.

I will certainly remain active in philosophy as long as I can.”

Interviewed and reported by Ludo Meyvis
Source: Campuskrant