The story in today's NY Times about Islamic fanatics terrorizing professors at the University of the Punjab, Pakistan's leading institution of higher education, led me to look up the University's Department of Philosophy. The faculty profiles are interesting--where there isn't a short introductory profile or "message", click on the CV--many of the CVs contain narratives but the faculty member's work and interests. Here, by way of example, is the "message" from the Chair of the Department:
Unlike the positivistic-scientific methodological principles of knowledge and development which display murderous cultural arrogance and cognitive disrespect for people, a number of renowned scholars and writers have begun to understand what traditional wisdom has always known, namely, that holistic posture must be founded on reverence for the universe and for living beings within it. This means in effect that a metaphysical world-view and teleological resolutions of life are not to be taken as a challenge to the technology and progress necessary to cope with the continuation of the developmental impulse.
I have to say this sounds oddly like Bruce Wilshire!
UPDATE: My friend Nadeem Hussain, a philosopher at Stanford who is part-Pakistani and has spent considerable time there, writes:
Just thought I'd point out that the Pakistani intelligentsia, intellectual elite, ruling class etc. do not have much respect for Punjab University in general. There once was a time, but that was long ago.
LUMS is really the only university with a humanities program that is at all respected. Their philosophy page is here.
None of this is to endorse the terrorizing of professors anywhere of course!!
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