UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION. Address by Mr Federico Mayor

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1 DG/95/9 Original: English/French UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION Address by Mr Federico Mayor Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at the closure of the international Study Days on 'Philosophy and Democracy in the World' UNESCO, 16 February 1995

2 DG/95/9 [The Director-General began in English] It is an interesting experience for a brain biochemist to address a distinguished gathering of philosophers. We have a common concern with the distinctive capacity of human beings to reflect and create. We attach comparable importance to fostering the ability to think, to imagine, to innovate - and to develop the symbolic powers to communicate. And we share the understanding that because education nurtures this ability it is synonymous with freedom. Yet because free thought can lead us to so many diverse conclusions that challenge what we may call the established order, philosophy very often comes to be considered as something that - although doubtless necessary - needs to be handled carefully. For example, we do not know exactly where to situate philosophy institutionally - in a body such as UNESCO or other institutions where it deserves to figure prominently because its essential concern is with capacities that distinguish humans from other living beings. Then again, philosophy can sometimes be perceived as an obstacle to the normal, routine functioning of an institution's affairs. This may explain why philosophy has not had a fixed home in UNESCO and has been placed now in one sector and now in another, before coming directly under the Directorate. Another reason might be that philosophy has an intrinsic tendency to 'wander'. Indeed, it is good that it should move through and permeate the different sectors of the Organization. That is why I am grateful to all those who have been active in convincing us - not only members of the Secretariat but also the Member States - that philosophy should be present at the very highest level in UNESCO. It is an element that must enter into decision-making. In future there must be a philosophical input in the work of an organization that has the impossible mission of building peace in the minds of men. Only if there is something of the philosopher in us will we be able to think innovatively and not become trapped in the closed circle of routine and fixed mind-sets. In this context, I should like to reveal to you that in my country those who dedicate themselves to the experimental sciences - as I do, as a biochemist - are called 'experimental barbarians'. After much thought about my own work, I arrived at the conclusion - and subsequently discovered that the philosopher Heraclitus had arrived, in much more brilliant fashion, at the same conclusion thousands of years before - that the greatest need was for experimental minds that were not barbarian, that took account of facts, figures and observations while continuing to exercise their full human capacity of reflection. In this connection, I like to recall the remark made to me by Nobel prize-winner Professor Klebs at a time when he was supervising my research on brain receptors at Oxford. Finding me - in typical Catalan fashion - working late at night on my laboratory observations, he said to me: 'Always remember, research is not only seeing what others have seen but also thinking what no one else has thought'. I have remembered. Experiment and the amassing of data is not everything: we must take our experimental findings and think about them, using our creative capacity of reflection. In this way, we can create new symbols, expressions and formulae, which may - at least for a while - provide us with a better representation than before of the reality we are trying to understand.

3 DG/95/9 - page 2 [The Director-General continued in French] Madam Chairperson, Ladies and Gentlemen, It has been a great pleasure for UNESCO to welcome you to these International Study Days, the importance of which is already clear. It gives me even greater pleasure to know that these Days have enabled us to put forward a not inconsiderable number of practical propositions, which include the creation of UNESCO Chairs in philosophy (along the lines of what is planned for Santiago in Chile, and Paris) and the implementation of new educational initiatives for adults as part of continuing education for all. You all know that I am very concerned with the practical side of international action even, and especially, intangible action - and I consider that any symposium, seminar or workshop whose 'report' finally leads to even a tiny modification of the situation on the ground, represents a great victory of the mind over universal bureaucracy. You can judge from this how carefully I shall consider what action should be taken on the requests that you have made more particularly to UNESCO, which often echo my own concerns. I am thinking, for example, of the advisability of encouraging a better understanding of the relevance of philosophy to the great issues of the present day, and of developing for this unusual subject a multiple form of teaching that includes books, distance education, audiovisual techniques and computers. I am also thinking of the need to ensure that philosophical institutions in disadvantaged countries join in the large worldwide networks, and so on. I should like to thank you sincerely for the work you have done and for your thoughts, your dialogue and your proposals. Thank you also for the Paris Declaration which, together with that of Barcelona, will be a milestone in the history of the efforts being made by UNESCO and its partners to harness intangible forces to serve human beings. I also wish to express my very sincere gratitude to each and every one of you, distinguished participants from every corner of the world, who came here to give as much as to receive. A special thank you to those who have presided over these Days at different times with enthusiasm, skill and moderation. My thanks also go - and I wish to pay a special tribute to him - to our friend Roger-Pol Droit, whom we know for his rare and perfect blend of enthusiasm, self-composure and courtesy and whom I suspect has played a decisive part in the smooth conduct of this meeting. Ladies and Gentlemen, As I said at the beginning, philosophy cannot be placed in any specific category because it is in contact with everything. We tend sometimes to limit the competence of philosophers to moral questions, to ethical and political principles, and to thinking about aesthetics. We thus tend to think that philosophy only encompasses the Good, the Just and the Beautiful. Instead, we should remember that philosophy as such has no object. It is concerned with all human actions and knowledge. The ever-renewed activity that we call philosophy consists of thinking about what people do, what they know and what they experience, and of creating concepts that make these many and varied human activities more intelligible to us. Hence, we must defend the place that philosophy occupies in education. Its presence in education and culture must be expanded; and we must Support the Paris Declaration and make it known. But this should be done - and this is a vital point that I wish to stress - without

4 DG/95/9 - page 3 distorting philosophy itself and without trying to bend it to any pre-existing project, even with the best intentions in the world. Why should philosophy, systematically and immediately, serve some purpose? In my opinion, philosophical questioning, with its freedom and its requirement of precision and consistency, is always closely tied up with the riddle of our existence, with the limits to our knowledge and with the fragile nature of our certainties. No political, religious, moral or scientific idea can be exempt from critical examination. No idea must be shielded from analysis and debate. Any defence of philosophy which forgot this fundamental point would be a kind of betrayal. We are thus faced with a paradox. On one hand, in accordance with its intellectual mission of building peace, UNESCO wishes for the teaching of philosophy to be extended to the different regions of the world and-recommends the development of new forms of philosophy education for adults, using audio-visual media and computer technology. We favour actions of this kind because we are convinced that philosophical activity, in all its forms, can make a powerful contribution to our work, particularly in the fight against intolerance, the strengthening of human rights, and the development of the mutual appreciation of cultures. On the other hand, if we consider the intrinsic autonomy of philosophy, it would be a mistake to believe, both for philosophy and for UNESCO's action, that this teaching is necessarily and immediately a means of spreading the values of tolerance, respect for others and pluralism. Since philosophy, as free thought, has no doctrine of its own, and no predetermined object, it is not 'essentially' egalitarian or democratic. Throughout history, there have been many times when philosophical thinking and democracy have been closely linked. Athens in the fifth century BC, eighteenth century France, Western Europe in 1948 and Eastern Europe since 1989, could be taken as illustrations of such moments in time. But these links between philosophy and democracy cannot be interpreted as an internal necessity of philosophical thinking. Many philosophers, from Plato to Heidegger, were not what we would call, politically and culturally, supporters of democracy. If we were not to face this reality, we would be completely deluding ourselves. And if we were to declare that Plato or Heidegger or Nietzsche were not such good philosophers as the others or should no longer be included in philosophy courses because they were not democratic thinkers, we would clearly be guilty of a monstrous absurdity. We must therefore clearly and knowingly accept this paradoxical situation. We support philosophy in the name of democracy, human rights and freedom of thought and speech, but since philosophy cannot be reduced to an ideology, it remains free in the approaches it adopts and independent in its thinking. We rapidly discover that this paradox is not really very extraordinary. It is the paradox of freedom itself. When we help human beings to be free and allow them to do what they wish, by definition we accept in advance that their actions will not necessarily be in accordance with our wishes and expectations. Clearly freedom is not risk-free. A philosopher may have ideas that are very different from our own. This does not mean the thinker should be censored or threatened. He has to be countered with appropriate arguments. Remember that Socrates was compared to a horsefly

5 DG/95/9 - page 4 an insect that stings, goads and rouses those who are often set in their ways and their comfort. Philosophy clearly exposes us to the risks and the discomforts of freedom. That is its role and its honour. It is both the exercise ground and the instrument of freedom of the mind. On these two accounts - as you rightly stress at the end of the Paris Declaration - philosophy accepts no argument of authority and can call anything into question, provided, of course, that it shows regard for the freedom and dignity of others. This freedom of tone and movement applies even to itself, and that is a characteristic that it shares with democracy. Just as democracy is the only regime which asks questions about itself and is not afraid of self-criticism, seeing in it more an opportunity for progress than a risk of decline, so philosophy is ready to criticize itself, confident that it will gain from the fullness of the debate and from doubt. This shows clearly enough how important the exercise of philosophical thinking is in people's education, something that you have rightly emphasized in the Paris Declaration. It is by learning to exercise their capacity for judgement that human beings become full citizens and play a full part in the life of their group. It is by exercising their capacity for judgement that they choose their own method of political and social organization, discover their own values and shape their own future. Philosophy teaches them to exercise that judgement. It teaches them therefore to become what they are - free beings.

UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION. Address by Mr Pederico Mayor

DG/89/3 UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION Address by Mr Pederico Mayor Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) on