Academic Freedom

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Academic Freedom

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Overview

• Seeking the truth
• Academic Freedom
• Enemies of Academic Freedom
• Group Discussion

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Seeking the Truth

• University is there to help the discovery,
  preservation and dissemination of truth
• What is truth?
• Facts, principles, theorems and cause effects
• Does the professor know all the truth?
• How to find out truth?
• Is it easy to find out the truth?

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Center Sun or Earth Copernicus vs. Aristotle
February 19, 1473 May 24, 1543
http//www.blupete.com/Literature/Biographies/Sci
ence/Copernicus.htm
384 BC March 7, 322 BC
To establish the truth of an assertion is to try
to disprove it. Great man makes big mistakes too.
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Academic Freedom

• Opportunity to hold opinions based on the best
  evidence one has and to speak those opinions
  without fear of reprisal
• Try to find evidence for your ideas
• Discuss your ideas with others
• Add to the body of knowledge we have for truth.

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Meaning of Academic Freedom

• Open discussion
• Group discussion, conference etc
• Liberty to read and debate
• Archive of historical studies, such journals,
  conference proceedings and books
• Defend new views and reinterpret or criticize old
  ones in an open forum.

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Enabling Academic Freedom

• A community of open and intelligent individuals
  who recognize that in principle every legitimate
  question deservers an answer, and the answer must
  withstand criticism
• A community make truth its common purpose, and
  free and open discussion the means to it.

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Enemies of Academic Freedom

• Internal Enemies
• Fear
• Sheer laziness
• Undue respect for tradition
• External Enemies
• Shouts down a discussion participant
• Deny admission of people with unorthodox views

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno
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The monument to Bruno in the place he was
executed, Campo de' Fiori in Rome.

• In Rome he was imprisoned for six years before he
  was tried, lastly in the Tower of Nona. He tried
  in vain to obtain an audience with Pope Clement
  VIII, hoping to make peace with the Church
  through a partial recantation. His trial, when it
  finally occurred was overseen by the inquisitor,
  Cardinal Saint Robert Bellarmine, who demanded a
  full recantation, which Bruno refused.
  Consequently, he was declared a heretic and
  handed over to secular authorities on January 8,
  1600 and burned at the stake on February 17 1600
  in Campo de' Fiori, a popular Roman square. Since
  1889, there has been a monument to Bruno on the
  site of his execution.
• Although the actual charge against Bruno was
  docetism, adherence to the doctrine that Jesus
  did not actually have a physical body and that
  his physical presence was an illusion, the world
  of science has long claimed Bruno as a martyr.
  Like Galileo Galilei, his Copernicanism was a
  factor in his heresy trial. Unlike Galileo, some
  of his theological beliefs were also a factor.
  Also, unlike Galileo, he refused to renounce his
  beliefs.
• At his trial, he said Perhaps you, my judges,
  pronounce this sentence against me with greater
  fear than I receive it. Not long after, he was
  brought to the Campo de' Fiori, his tongue in a
  gag, and burned alive.
• All his works were placed on the Index Librorum
  Prohibitorum in 1603. Four hundred years after
  his execution, official expression of "profound
  sorrow" and acknowledgement of error at Bruno's
  condemnation to death was made, during the papacy
  of John Paul II

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Lets enjoy the freedom

• What is the benefit of academic freedom to the
  advancement our knowledge to truth?
• Why the surest way to establish the truth of an
  assertion is to try to disprove it? How can
  this relate to our studies?