Reflection on the June 2017 Summer Seminar

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Our summer session was held in the Neubauer Collegeium at the University of Chicago.

Cabrini Pak was a participant at our June 2017 summer seminar, “Virtue, Happiness, & Self-Transcendence” at the University of Chicago, and wrote this reflection piece based on the 5-day experience. Pak is a PhD Candidate in Religion & Culture at and Teaching Fellow, The Tim and Steph Busch School of Business and Economics, at the Catholic University of America.

 

There were just over two dozen of us “youngster” scholars, mingled with about half dozen seasoned scholars, and we spent one week together discussing some deep questions about the human person and how one can (or already does) strive towards the “good.” Several disciplines were represented, falling into the larger categories of philosophy, psychology, theology, ethics, and religion and culture. This unique experience, made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation, and co-sponsored by the Hyde Park Institute, brought together people from all over the world: Canada, Germany, Italy, Nigeria, the Philippines, Portugal, and the United States. The expert speakers in our group included a psychologist, a theologian, and a number of philosophers.

 

The first day required a massive readjustment on my part in listening to people speak and use their different vocabularies. I often found myself having to ask what a person meant by simple words, words that we use in everyday life but can take on different meaning in the academic milieu – “know,” “good,” “love,” “habit,” “value,” and “incurable.” By the end of the week I felt as if I had learned four different languages. Although all the talks were delivered in American English, the nuances of meaning attached to certain words in the different disciplines reflected very different styles of communication, and perhaps even different ways of knowing things.

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Talbot Brewer, Cabrini Pak, Anselm Mueller, at the 2017 Summer Seminar.

I found the discussions inside and outside the formal seminar setting both energizing and draining. They were energizing because we all seemed to have some deep concerns in common, like what it means for human beings to thrive or how happiness in the human life can be achieved, and yet had such different perspectives on how this could or should be accomplished. Debating these differences gave me much to think about. These same discussions were also draining because I was well outside my comfort zone, both as a 95th percentile introvert who requires long periods of silence and solitude, and as a religion and culture scholar from a distinctly Catholic tradition. I had to make my personal boundaries more porous and be willing to temporarily let go of the sharply defined conceptual boundaries of my discipline. In the end, four lessons remained for me as I strive to pursue a more holistic understanding of human flourishing and a practical, communicable, understanding of a “common good” that local communities can strive for.

Continue to break down interdisciplinary and cultural barriers

Often, especially in the academy, disciplines remain siloed and people do not reach out beyond their home disciplines to discuss the “tough questions” that affect us all. Cultural divides, like those between communities of different faiths, linguistic origins, ethnicities, and social class, can also erect barriers to common understanding and meaningful collaboration. I learned this week how important it is to reach out beyond my own discipline and to the fringes of my cultural horizons in order realize a larger-scale vision of a common good that allows for the fullest development of all.

Find a common vocabulary

Words mean something. Sometimes the same word means very different things to different people, depending on where they come from how they use that word in a variety of contexts. Scholars, when dialoguing with other scholars from very different fields, will need to establish some kind of consensus on a basic vocabulary that they can agree upon in order to produce insights that would be valuable to their respective fields. In my case, I have already I identified a subset of words that can be included and need to be collaboratively defined better in discussions around a “common good” – transcendence, virtue, generativity, the “good life”, the ultimate good(s), truth, happiness, joy, human dignity, rights and responsibilities, personal concerns, friendship, telos, and of course, common good.

Expand analysis beyond the individual

Much of what we talked about at the seminar revolved around a specific unit of observation: the individual human being. His or her personal context was examined, whether it was about transcendence, virtue, generatively, telos, or some other factor. My theological interest in realizing a “common good” in a Catholic sense requires me to look not only at the implications for a single human life, but also at the implications for couples, friends, families, communities, cities, countries, and the world as a whole. Things get more complicated when you go from looking at one human being to looking at two human beings, in for example, in the dynamics of friendship. Tensions or dialectics within and between each person must be harmonized in order for the “good” to be realized optimally for both. They get even more complicated when you start looking at group dynamics. I will need to be attentive to the proper extensions of our conversations during this seminar to more communal concepts like solidarity, compassion, subsidiarity, and shared concerns.

Co-author works using above three principles

I tend to agree with Dr. Candace Vogler’s idea that it’s important to “get a kind of deep integration between people working in very different disciplines without relegating their work to the margins of less widely read, explicitly interdisciplinary publications.”[1] I also believe that co-authoring works between scholars of different disciplines, perhaps placing the work within a home discipline publication, could potentially bear much fruit in advancing our understanding. That said, there may also be a benefit to relaxing the borders of the bounded disciplinary journal’s sandbox and sending out a few tendrils to promising interdisciplinary journals. When aligned with the above three principles, perhaps some good fruit will come of such collaborative endeavors.

In the end, I am very grateful to have had this opportunity to gather with such special people in a way that promoted my development both as a scholar and as one in service to a much larger and more diverse community. Thanks to all who made this experience possible, especially the John Templeton Foundation, the Hyde Park Institute, and Candace Vogler, Jennifer Frey, Valerie Wallace, and Jaime Hovey of the project Virtue, Happiness, & the Meaning of Life. You have given me a gift that I will continue to unwrap over the years to come.

[1] Courtney C.W. Guerra, “Scholarship of Self-Transcendence: Candace Vogler leads a search for the meaning of life,” Tableau (Spring 2007), accessed June 27, 2017, https://tableau.uchicago.edu/articles/2017/05/scholarship-self-transcendence.

Photos of our June 2017 Working Group Meeting

Twenty of our scholars met in Chicago for their final working group meeting to discuss their work in progress with each other across the disciplines of psychology, theology, and philosophy.

Find more photos on our Flickr page.

 

 

More photos from this session can be found on our Flickr page.

 

VIDEO: Fr. Stephen Brock, “Aquinas and the Life of the Mind”

Philosopher Stephen Brock gave the talk “Aquinas and the Life of the Mind” on Friday, May 12, 2017 at the University of Chicago.

Saint Thomas Aquinas regards mind, or intellect, as a form of life. It is even the most perfect form, he says, because it carries the power of free choice. Yet we may wonder how free he thinks we really are. For he insists that our mind’s life depends, intimately, on a cause outside itself. But on his view, freedom of choice would not even make sense without this cause; and our lives are fullest, and freest, when we focus more on it than on ourselves. This is to follow the mind’s deepest urge, which is toward that rather neglected virtue called wisdom.

Stephen Brock (Pontifical University of Santa Croce) is Professor of Medieval Philosophy, Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome. He earned a B.A. in Philosophy at the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto. Brock writes widely on Thomas Aquinas and action theory, ethics, and metaphysics. He is the author of The Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas. A Sketch (Wipf & Stock, 2015) and Action & Conduct: Thomas Aquinas and the Theory of Action (T&T Clark, 1998). Fr. Brock is the 2017 Visiting Scholar with Virtue, Happiness, & the Meaning of Life.

Group Photo and Last Day of the Summer Seminar “Virtue, Happiness, and Self-Transcendence”

“I feel very fortunate to have listened to and engaged with such gifted people from so many places…”

“I’m having a great fascinating time and I’ve heard attendees from all perspectives/traditions express how appreciative they are of getting this opportunity to have a respectful interdisciplinary discussion on these topics.”

We feel the same, and grateful for the comments already coming our way from our fabulous participants.

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From left: Madison Gilbertson, Carissa Phillips-Garrett, Sarah Ann Bixler, Cabrini Pak, Dan McAdams, Andrea Yetzer, Candace Vogler, Jennifer Rothschild, Ellen Dulaney, Anselm Mueller, Samantha Mendez, David McPherson, Joseph Stenberg, Fr. Steve Brock, Andrew Flynn, Jennifer A. Frey, James Dominic Rooney, Jane Klinger, Molly Ogunyemi, Tim Reilly, Craig Iffland, Marta Faria, Elise Murray, Andrew Christy, Alberto Arruda, Sanaz Talaifar, Theresa Smart, Maureen Bielinski, Samuel Baker, Jaime Hovey, Tal Brewer, Anne Jeffrey.

Today’s sessions are Jennifer Frey on Happiness and Candace Vogler on Happiness and Social Life; follow along with our live-tweeting from @UChiVirtue.

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Below is a sampling from yesterday’s sessions with Fr Stephen Brock on Aquinas and the Law and Dan McAdams on Generativity.

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Live-tweeting our Summer Seminar “Virtue, Happiness, and Self-Transcendence” – days 3 and 4

Our Summer Session participants have been discussing research and application in the areas of philosophy, psychology, and theology – we’re live-tweeting from @UChiVirtue #vhml17.

Talbot Brewer, Dan McAdams, Jennifer A. Frey, and Fr. Stephen Brock have been leading discussions.

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Interview with Craig Iffland, Summer Session Participant

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This post is part of a series of interviews with our incoming class for the “Virtue, Happiness, & Self-Transcendence” 2017 Summer Seminar. Craig Iffland is a John Templeton Fellow at the University of Notre Dame Center for Theology, Science, and Human Flourishing. Valerie Wallace is Associate Director, Communications, for Virtue, Happiness, & the Meaning of Life.

Valerie Wallace: Where are you from?

Craig Iffland: I’m from Centreville, Virginia, which is a small suburb about thirty minutes outside Washington D.C.

VW: Tell me about your research.

CI: I work in fundamental moral theology. My dissertation focuses on the intersection between law, sin, and obligation in Thomas Aquinas, paying particular attention to his conception of law as a measure and rule. My aim in so doing is to bring some conceptual clarity to debates over exceptionless moral rules, particularly among contemporary moral theologians. As those debates also turn on questions of intention and action, I have had an abiding interest in the thought of Elizabeth Anscombe. As a John Templeton Fellow at the University of Notre Dame Center for Theology, Science, and Human Flourishing, I’ve also had the opportunity to do quite a bit of interdisciplinary research on social cognition, particularly in the area of collective intentionality.

VW: What are you most looking forward to about this summer’s seminar?

CI: First, learning from an incredible roster of faculty for this year’s seminar. In particular, I’m excited to get some class time with Talbot Brewer since I never had a class with him during my undergraduate years at the University of Virginia. Second, conversations with my fellow students, particularly those working in psychology. I’ve found that engagement with those working in the sciences really help me to sharpen my own views about the underlying capacities that enable and help shape moral discourse.

VW: What are your non-academic interests?

CI: I’m really into movies. My favorite director is Quentin Tarantino. I run a little “film forum” once a month for students at Notre Dame, usually focusing on a common theme or genre (e.g., the “Western”). I like travelling, meeting new people, and making new friends. The place that has the felt the most “home away from home” is Johannesburg, South Africa, where I spent the past two summers doing research.