Newman's Challenge to the Contemporary Academy

Abstract

Newman challenges the contemporary academy by raising afresh the question of what constitutes intellectual excellence. J. M. Roberts' diagnosis of the postliberal world leads to the conclusion that the very idea of intellectual excellence is being held hostage by materialism and moral disintegration. In the midst of the pluralism that this disintegration generates, the voice of libertarianism seeks to dominate the debate. It either sidesteps defining excellence, as Bill Readings observes, or it elevates individual rights over an academic freedom subordinated to the pursuit and advancement of knowledge. Newman's voice joins this pluralism, entering into a fruitful collision with it. He reminds us that intellectual excellence cannot be adequately understood without grounding it in the true and the good and considering how human rationality appropriates this ground. He reminds us that conscience links intellectual and moral excellence into an indispensable reciprocity. He reminds us that religion and theology mediate this excellence because they constitute its condition of possibility. Committed to this view of intellectual excellence, religious sponsorship sustains for posterity Newman's idea of a university, even as his idea defends reason against reduction, superstition, and hypocrisy.