WRITING SAMPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Vocation in Science: situating a myth and its profession.!

The case of a Latin American values in science !1

!!

Juan Andrs Queijo Olano!

Universidad de la Repblica, Uruguay!

Grupo de Estudos sociais e conceituais de Cincia, Tecnologia e Sociedade, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil!

!!Abstract!

The present work would like to resume the intellectual environment of German thought at the

time that Weber gave his conference about science as a vocation. Analyzing that would give a

clear identification of how this vocation ideal worked at the first century of the creation of modern

university, and in which philosophical bases was settled: what I would like to show is that the idea

of vocation in science, could not be think as individual. Scientific vocation is always a social issue.

This thesis not only would bring a new perspective of the consequences of that classical text,

relying the paper of context in the analysis, it also could help in answering about how this

vocational idea worked in Latin America. !

!

Key words: Vocation, Science, Max Weber, Latin American University !

!!!!!

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- This conference was presented in the 26th Baltic Conference of History of Science: Science as 1a Profession. on 22th of august of 2014.

This article begins with the analysis of Webers thought, the university of his age and the

notion of vocation. The reason why starting with these three aspects and why are there important

in the actual melieu of science as a profession, would be revealed at the end of this article. In the

perspective adopted, for truly understanding the idea of vocation it is imperative to recognize the

context of where the science takes place as well as the values involved in it. This simple idea may

lead to the first thesis of this article: there is no isolated or individual vocation. Vocation in science

always has to be related with contexts and institutions that promote or denied the advance of

scientific knowledge; and as will be seeing, vocation in science should not be analyzed since 19th

century without the presence of institutions of higher education.!

!In general terms, since 1800 the universities were the place where was monopolized most of

the demand of scientific vocation in societies. In the analysis of the Latin American University

presented in this work, appears the idea that the rol of scientific vocation on Latin American

universities has to be more related with the relevance of this institutions on the former nations, and

the project they developed. In other terms, scientific vocation it is not always about science (and

the traditional values associated, like truth, progress or pure knowledge). The case of Latin

American Universities could be a good example to think vocation more as a social matter.!

!Max Webers context since the appearance of Humboldts University!

Lets start with Weber and his time. It is well known that his writings about politics and science

as a vocation arrived in the latter part of his life, at a moment when Weber was living under an

intense illness which will leave him at his death in 14th of June of 1920. Three years before, at

Munchens University, the german sociologist made two conferences that would be discussed

several times in the future by critics and academics.!

!Max Webers life took place int he context of Germans unification. Since the beginning of 19th

Century, the country started a radical transformation on his educational system. This

transformation could be resumed in two aspects, that directly refers to educations institutionallity:

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in one hand, the creation of the new Ministry of Education, that reveals the importance of the issue

on this changing scenario; on the other hand, a rebuilt model for Universities that gave a new

social function to these institutions: universities became the formal instrument for the learning of

science in that period. Both aspects ought their development to the figure of Wilhelm Von

Humboldt, creator of the modern model of university allowing to achieve systematization on

educatives careers by performing a gymnastic(in Scheliermachers use of gimnasium) in

sciences on younger students, and by legitimating that exercise in a former career of scientist (the

man of science).!

!In 1808, after a long stay in France, Wilhelm Von Humboldt returns to his country when

Prussian Empire had recently lost the battle of Jena in hands of Napoleons army. Prussia was

destroyed and needy of management and thats when Humboldt accepts the position of chief of

ecclesiastic and educative affairs in the Ministry of Interior. Both the History of Science and of

Universities, often dates and recognizes the creation of modern university int the foundation of

Universtity of Berlin (Regg: 2004, Graham; 2005; Buarque: 1994). That university model supply a

long scholastics educational tradition initiated in the XII century; although many of recent studies

perceived a linear continuity in the universities of Middle Ages and Modernity. For example, the

historian Edward Grant recognizes that the!

roots of modern science were planted in the ancient and medieval worlds long before the

Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. [Grant: 1996]!

!being the development of the universities one of those roots that allowed the possible

transformations that derived in the revolution of the sciences. In Graham Gordons opinion, there

are four elements that identifies the old regime of university, characteristic of the Middle Ages: !

First, a major rationale for the mediaeval university was the provision of a general, liberal

education, not simply for its own sake or for some strictly utilitarian end, but as a foundation

for citizenship at large and for training in the professions of law, medicine and divinity.

Second, the mediaeval university was home to the scholar, the simple inquirer after truth,

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and was committed to the promotion of what we might call the spirit of truth. Third, its core

concerns what ought to be taught, what was worth studying and what counted as mastery

of a subjectwere conducted in relative autonomy by a community of scholars modeled on

a monastic community, and sometimes identical with it. (Traditional academic dress is a

modification of monastic garb.) This community determined the curriculum of study, awarded

degrees and established chairs of instruction (or their equivalent). Fourth, in the service of its

activities it collected, preserved and made available, the materials of learning, most notably

in the form of a library of course, but also in the creation and maintenance of buildings,

fellowships and scholarships. What has been called the modern university did not

essentially deviate from this idea. It simply loosened the ties with church and theology, and

added experimental science to its activities.[Graham: 2005, p. 152].!

!The most important modification of modern university it seems to be its transformation in

relation with the assumptions that hold the same institution in the Middle Ages, that is, the relation

with christian religion as a base of all knowledge activity. This idea will be supersede by the

utilization of experimental science as a judge in the tribunal of rationality, which became the new

assumption for the modern university. Of course, this changes required a new rol for the state in

the lost of power that suffer the ecclesiastic institution. Was during the XIX century that the budgets

for education -where university was included- begun to be stable. This also was a hubomldtian

battle in the center of prusian government.!

The ministerial administration decided on the type and composition of the whole higher

education of the country, as was the case in Spain or Italy after unification; it governed

access to the universities, and controlled their curricula and exams. It provided the

universities with modern buildings and laboratories, as the French Government did after the

defeat of 1871 which a large section of public opinion attributed to the superiority of higher

education in Germany. [Regg: 2004, p. 7]!

!The modern university, in what will be called in the future as the academic revolution,

introduce in its functions, and with closeness to the teaching activity, the new practice of

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experimental research. In this aspect it is very suggestive the book of the irish cardinal John Henry

Newman, named The idea of a University (created from the speeches that he gave in 1854 when

he was named chairman of the Catholic University of Dublin), when he exposes the central

problem for the new universities that included experimental sciences in his core: !

The view taken of a University in these Discourses is the following: That it is a place of

teaching universal knowledge. This implies that its object is, on the one hand, intellectual,

not moral; and, on the other, that it is the diffusion and extension of knowledge rather than

the advancement. If its object were scientific and philosophical discovery, I do not see why a

University should have students; if religious training, I do not see how it can be the seat of

literature and science. [Newman: 1873, p. 67]. !

!There is a dichotomy in the idea presented by Newman. He assumes that both functions,

teaching and research, ought to be separated and with no connection one to another. Therefore,

they should be in different institutions. This politics perspective about University it is less

ideological than pragmatic: what it is in discussion seems to be the incompatibility of two models of

work with knowledge. While teaching is thought as a transmission of knowledge, researching is

associated with discovery. Many assumptions rest on this affirmations, but Newman seems to be

aware of that!

To discover and to teach are distinct functions; they are also distinct gifts, and are not

commonly found united in the same person. He, too, who spends his day in dispensing his

existing knowledge to all comers is unlikely to have either leisure or energy to acquire new.

The common sense of mankind has associated the search after truth with seclusion and

quiet. [Newman: 1873, p. 73]. !

!Although its seems to be some similarities with Humboldts ideas -at least we could say

that both of them attend the relation between teaching and researching-, their programs are clearly

not the same. Humboldt gives to scientific creation a special place in universities, of course, but he

always thought as complementary practice of the teaching function. !

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Von Humboldts conception of the university was that of a community of scholars devoted to

intellectual inquiry entirely for its own sake, without any requirement that their studies be

practical or profitable. This was more than an idea, in fact, since he had the opportunity to

found just such an institution in the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin () it is important

to see that the Humboldtian conception of the community of scholars engaged in pure

inquiry for its own sake was a novelty. Though the two are often conflated it is not to be

confused with the mediaeval university model that preceded it. [Gordon: 2005, p. 17].!

The relevance of Humboldts project was to show the most profound deficiency of medieval

university, that is: dispersion of knowledge, lack of accumulation and none creation of systematic

knowledge. The presence of religion in the pursue of knowledge retries the idea of collaboration for

the sake of humanity. There is no nanos gigantum humeris insidentes while all the attention its put

into God. The revolution of modernity allowed to build new universities that set up the idea of

vocation for knowledge, for the sake of humanity. Only a new university could be the responsable

for lead the project of modernity: not only transmit the old knowledge, but also create new one at

the same time; therein lies the new scientific vocation.!

!The scientific vocation construction in Germany!

The intellectual biography of Max Weber, realized by Fritz Ringer, represents one of the most

important studies made about the german thinker. Part of this work would help to present some

notion about scientific vocation in Weber.!

!With the development of the modern university, that is, the expansion of the experience

created in Berlin across the European map, also appeared new versions of the philosophical

problems in it. If the teaching-as-transmission; research-as-discovery was the main problem of

the new modern university of 1800; in the birth of the 20th century this problema became a political

-institutional problem, related with the pursue of universities. In a very schematic form, it could say

that the main problem in Webers time was to defined the pursue of science between two big aims:

science is about instrumental utilities or science is about knowledge of reality.!7

!This dilema had direct relation with universities and the main interest about Webers Science

as a vocation is to show that classic german idea of vocation it was being threatened by a new

model of university, the american university. We could express that difference, roughly, saying that

one side represents an encyclopedic formation, representing the traditional idea of universitas. The

other side, the instrumental side of this dichotomy, takes the formation of the person as a way to

bring practice utility to the humanity.!

!It wont be wrong to say that the 19th century shows a great development of high superior

educational system, in which Ringer recognizes three phases: !

1. An early industrial phase lasted until about 1860 or 1870; in this period, there were few if

any connections between higher education and economic system. Industrial technology

was still too simple to require the formal acquisition of highly specialized skills. The

social function of postelementary education was thus to train theologians, the

traditionally learned or liberal professions, high civil servants, and secondary and

university teachers. (Ringer: 2000, p. 46).!

2. A second, high industrial from the 1860s to the 1920s. During this six decades, the

traditional schools and universities found themselves confronted by a group of younger

rivals, whose curricular emphases were relatively modern or practical. Examples are

secondary schools that taught the natural sciences and modern languages, and a range

of higher technical institutes and commercial schools. This modern sector of the

educational system apparently enjoyed a positive relationship to the advancing industrial

an unprecedented degree, it recruited its students from the commercial and industrial

middle classes. This development brought about a moderate increase in secondary and

university -level enrollments per age group, along with the incongruities and ideological

tensions mentioned above. (Ringer: 2000, p. 47).!

3. A third, late industrial phase continues to this days () This period brought stepwise

reductions in the curricular and institutional barriers that had long separated the various

branches of the education systems. The more recent, modern educational tracks and

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institutions have gained increasing recognition, and even the old divide between primary

and secondary schooling has to some extent been breached () Especially since the

1920s, an unprecedented increase in the inclusiveness of secondary and tertiary

education can be observed. (Ringer: 2000, p. 47).!

!This division allows to bring context to the values around the educational institutions in his

early relation with industrial world. It was only at the time when Webers gives his talk about

scientific vocation that the relation between university and industry was serious. Without this

context it wouldnt be entirely right to make an interpretation about the meaning of Webers

expression, scientific vocation. The vindication of this term in the beginning of the 20th century has

relation with the status that science became to occupy in the industrial era. Against the utilitarian

idea of knowledge, the tradition of German education brings the concept of Bildung:!

The radical renovation of the universities in Prussia and in other German states during the

decades around 1800 assigned an especially important place to the faculties of "philosophy,"

as against the professional faculties. The reform movement was inspired by the new

German Idealist philosophy, but also by a neo-humanist enthusiasm for classical Greece,

and by the ideal of Bildung, meaning education in the sense of self-cultivation. According to

this ideal, the learner's interpretive or "hermeneutic" interaction with venerated texts, chiefly

those of classical antiquity, enhanced his whole personality. This view informed the ideology

of the Bildungsbirgertum, the German educated upper middle class. (Ringer: 2004, p. 8)!

!The idea of the cultivation of the self, for his humanity, has of course a kind of semblance with

the religious discourse. Its not coincidence that both set of beliefs, the religious and the scientific,

claim for there followers to have a vocational attitude. The new context of german science only

could grew from a positive epistemic valorization of self cultivation of the person. This elite

valorization of the self, is the same kind of valorization that guided education from the greeks: if it

was a vindication of a human condition, we must realized that this vindication was a typical product

of bourgeois claims.!

!9

The Steven Shapins book about the construction of scientific profession and the moral

justification in bourgeois society, could be read in the same sense:!

From the early modern period through much of the nineteenth and even early twentieth

century, there were three major bases for conceiving of the natural philosopher, or scientist,

as morally superior to other sort of people. The first was a conception of the referent of

scientific knowledge: what kind of entity did you know when you knew abut Nature? The

second concerned views about the character or quality of scientific knowledge and the

methods by which that knowledge was secured. And the third flowed from appreciations of

what sort of people, and in what circumstances, pursued scientific knowledge. Knowing

about Nature considered as Divine Creation is quite different enterprise from knowing about

nature as chance concatenation of atoms. (Shapin: 2008, p. 24)!

!The iniciation in the study of Nature was conceived for persons like Newton, Descartes,

Herschel, Boyle or Priestley as a work which aims to reach the gratification of divine

comprehension of The Creation. !

Given Nature so conceived as an object of inquiry, one might legitimately expect those who

studied it to be better than other people. This is the referent of scientific knowledge, that can

make sense of the notion () that the point of philosophy () might be a better manner of

living in the world: moral, not just material, utility. (Shapin: 2008, p. 24)!

!To be a scientific, then, its to be a better person. Not for the benefits that science could bring,

but for be chosen to an activity grater than every person. This metaphysical basement, this

religious sense in the idea of science is what Weber tries to mitigate. Knowing the mystic charisma

that envolved scientific activity, he wanted to put in the more natural and materialistic words the

real significance of doing science. He recognizes the real danger for the German science if it

persist in understand the scientific practice in the old aristocratic way; while the world became to

recognize the birth of new approaches to knowledge that were realized in american universities. !

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Then, we could see two forms of analyzing scientific vocation in Weber. The first one refers to

the literal notion of vocation in the formation of the scientific, where he specially distinguish

between german education from americans.!

In our time, the internal situation, in contrast to the organization of science as a vocation, is

first of all conditioned by the facts that science has entered a phase of specialization

previously unknown and that this will forever remain the case. Not only externally, but

inwardly, matters stand at a point where the individual can acquire the sure consciousness

of achieving something truly perfect in the field of science only in case he is a strict

specialist. [Weber: 1946]!

!One of the most provocative thoughts that Weber left is the notion that specialization is the

institutional condition to understand the vocation in the scientific practice in our time!

A really definitive and good accomplishment is today always a specialized accomplishment.

[Weber: 1946]!

!This last sentence goes in the counter idea of the integrative and humanist notion that was

promoted from the academic tradition of Bildung. According to Weber -but maybe against his own

will- the development of institutions of education should find its way in the american universitys

model that started to appear in German at his time. Those thoughts may suggest one thing: the

industries needs forced to create new technical institutions of higher education that

complemented the labor of universities; but a question arise, had the modern university made a

serious transformation on the way he works? Of course there is a transformation when the

laboratory started to work at the very core of Universities, but it might seem that was a latter

phenomenon, disciplinary specialization, which made possible the real humboldtian project: to joint

teaching ad research. The specialization its not a direct consequence of the development of the

union between teaching and research. As a particular phenomenon developed in american

universities, it must be seen as a more complex process: for example, for a correct description of

this process it is necessary take on account the influence that made the mccarthyism in the

transformation of universities, and its pure scientific spirit [Jacoby: 1987]. This point its not 11

included here, but the grown of specialization in academic studies has a direct relation with

authoritarian systems of government.!

!A second way to think Webers scientific vocation, will leave us to a more profound

philosophical reflection. If the scientists vocation beholds linked in a material sense to a crescent

specialization process, and we said that this process its a consequence of the progress of

intelectual rationalism of Occident, it wont seem weird asking about the final meaning of scientific

vocation itself.!

Has progress as such a recognizable meaning that goes beyond the technical, so that to

serve it is a meaningful vocation? The question must be raised. But this is no longer merely

the question of man's calling for science, hence, the problem of what science as a vocation

means to its devoted disciples. To raise this question is to ask for the vocation of science

within the total life of humanity. What is the value of science? [Weber: 1946]!

!Paradoxically, Webers question seems to be much more close to those questions raised up

from a traditional idea of science, derived from a Bildungs conception of formation. The question

presented by Weber has a paralyzing effect: it is not easy to answer it. The problem may rise in the

fact that the new science of those years, in his way to specialization, has no time to answer these

kind of tedious questions (or simply they are not part of her mettier anymore). Weber is conscious

about the importance of the question and its consequences: if he rejected the traditional humanist

education of the person that was promoted in the german modern university, it is -in part- because

he recognizes that the question should always be part of the development of science. As a never-

ending question, it must be raised up always for those who develop science. If intellectuals are out

of the map, philosophers thinks this is a political problem, politics leave this unfruitful things to

academics, and scientist are too busy in their production: the problem arrises when a society does

not discuss the value of sceince. Quoting Tostoi, Weber adds!

Science is meaningless because it gives no answer to our question, the only question

important for us: "What shall we do and how shall we live? [Weber: 1946]!

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!!The Latin America University and its vocation !2

As it were described, the modern german university showed the similarities and differences

with his past model, the medieval university; but also some continuity with his future, the american

university. Weber understood the idea of scientific vocation when he analyzed the context of

german university, what allowed us to conclude that Webers writing about vocation was an alert to

german old bildungs education system. In a provocative way, we could say that autonomous

development of science has forgotten to answer the tolstonian question.!

!As it has been tried with the analysis of German University, it is propose now to elaborate a

similar analysis of the scientific vocation in the Latin American University. By defining the context of

most important Latin America States University, we would like to begin to study the conditions for

the creation for a scientific vocation in Latin America. To talk about a Latin American University

has the same problem than talking about European University. To sticking to the geographical

definition leaves the mere idea of a continental university useless. Besides that, theres a belief

that relevant characteristics could define a new kind of University, an institution created and

developed by his own needs and resources, and the grew in a very dissimilar way that the old

european model and the new american university.!

!The first universities were installed in Latin America a few decades after Columbus discovery.

Without entering in details about this period, it could be said that two models of european university

were in dispute, and both were installed in the continent. The first one, close to ecclesiastic power

and managed by the convent-university idea, was inspired in the Univeristy of Alcal de Henares.

The other one, much closer to monarchic power, were the service was more focused in the people

and not in God, has its more pure manifestation in the Salamancas University. Although this last

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- This part of the article owns big part of its analysis to La universidad latinoamericana del futuro [Arocena & Sutz; 22000]

model made a major penetration in the continent, It seems difficult to establish that this fact made

influence in the independence movements of the nations. !

Colonial university was an institution with a very precarious function, with big problems to get

good levels professors, with almost no scientific activity and no much students. However,

not only offered universitys formation for a several number of persons, but also gave the

preparation for younger students from 12 to 17 years, that after that didnt follow their

studies but became school teachers, priests or states clerk: From its establishment, the

university played in Amrica a crucial paper in the social, political and cultural struggle for

hegemony, shaping one part of the superiors elites and, at the time, a significative number

of middle and inferiors intellectuals, when the society -because of its own estructure- kept

away from the world of production and diffusion of techniques (Brunner, 1990; 16) [quoted

in Arocena, Sutz; 2000, p. 17-18]!

!It was not until the XIX century that the ancient model of colonial university in Latin America

passed through several transformations, developed into a model that will start to depend directly

from govern and will have a crucial job in the education of the nations. It grew a new idea of

university, the national university, or republican (Arocena, Sutz; 2000, p. 19), with the clear aim

to take control of public education, and shape the leaders elites for the future societies. Then, it is

no by chance that this latin american model of university focused his institutional vocation in the

shaping and the developing of disciplines like law or medicine. !

() Higher education in Latin America, from the beginning, was defined almost ever as a

synonym of education for the professions. In this sense, some quality has always be

preserved on the best schools of engineering, medicine; it was more a factor of resistance to

the natives innovations from the new social groups that desire a more attainable education,

to open new disciplines and the attempts for mobility that proceed from governments and

reformers movements [sic] [Swchwartzman; 1996, p. 31]!

!What it could be see, then, is that the new republican model will will outlining not only the

destiny of a modern latin american university; it will be tracing something much particular and

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unique, his solid vocation for the education related with society needs. This could be, in fact, the

main characteristic of latin american university, that can be distinguish from another model. And of

course, this peculiarity will be manifested explicitly when the Reform of Latin American Universitys

movement landed in the higher educations institutions.!

!Vocation, in this context, it is not an utopian value of an intellectual group; it should be thought

as a pack of politics decisions that promote the development of certain disciplines instead of

others, and that allowed the growth of an universitys autonomy. This autonomy was reflected in

the decisions that gave a professional profile for the students formation, with the final aim of

shaping an intellectual leader class to direct the nation. The dark part of this story is that this

professional university was very weak in the development of nature sciences and experimental

knowledge. And this is no irrelevant: to have almost no experience in the natural sciences

disciplines it also means not to have shaped a kind of peculiar student, an academic student. The

very general case in latin americans universities was that of an student that use the institution to

get some knowledge, but when finish his studies he leaves for never going back. In a more general

sense, university was thinking as a tool for professions and no as a goal for itself. That also

explains why latin american universities took so long to develop a scientific activity, and thats why

nowadays this is still the most important problem of latin american higher institutions. !

The main consequence of the great proximity between universities and power maybe was

the intense politicization of students and universitys professors, that made very common the

confrontation between govern elites and academic elites, and develop an unusual form of

universitys autonomy. At the time when the modernizing projects were put aside for

governments, this projects were taken by academics counter-elites that developed and

rehearsed the oratory and the militant practice that will lead them to power in the future.

[Swchwartzman; 1996, p. 33]!

!In this scenario was born the University Reform Movement (MRU, in spanish), that will end the

consolidation of this peculiar model of university, the Latin American University. This movement

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started in 1908 (with the First International Congress of Americans Students), and get formally

presented in Crdoba, Argentina, in 1918 (with the pronunciation of the Manifest Liminar of

Crdoba). Despite of being born in Argentina, it is a truly latin american process because it

reached to assimilate the demands of different countries in the continent and transform that

demands in concrete claims. This unification of universities in the continent was, mainly, the

unification of the sutdents movement. This movement was so strong that achieved some

important (and distinctive) goals that added new peculiarity to the university; in example, the

students -since then- are part of the council of decisions in the universitys govern. Uruguay was

the first country in having the co-governed council in his University, in 1908.!

This new goals not only made possible a new model of university, with an active participation

of students, with a strong tendency to serve the nations needs; it also reaffirm the identity of the

latin american students movement as a political actor. This movement remains until today, as

were showed with the reform of the education in Chile, in 2010, promoted mainly by the students

attainment. This particular case showed not only the public power of the students between the

actors around the universities system. It also made clear that in Latin America, the students

movement is a continental movement (with the singular exception of Brasil, the first students

movement was formed in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador,

Guatemala, Paraguay and Uruguay).!

!The book of Darcy Ribeiro, La Universidad Latinoamericana (1971), shows in detail how was

the conformation of this MRUs process. For the purpose of delimitating a particular vocation for

the Latin American case, it is important just to mention a few of them: participation of students in

universitys government; autonomy of the university from States power; a free higher education;

defense of Nation and democracy; professors freedom; elections of universitys authorities with

representation of students, professors and graduates.!

!During the 20th century, it will become more evident that the inner transformations in the

universities would be useless without a bigger transformation in the continent. In other words, the

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transformation of universities must be thought with the transformation of society, and in general

terms, of Latin America. Arocena and Sutz called to this passage of the process, the second

period of the MRU:!

The ideological and political impact of the MRU did not limit his action to the countries or

regions where the universitys internal and external dynamics helped to propitiate and

support the student insurgence; it also extend its action trough the continent, because the

anti-oligarchy movement, with great differences in time and contents, was going strong in all

Latin America since the beginning decades of XX century. Without reducing its

heterogeneity, this movement started its consolidation with the transit from the period of

outward growth, in a farm-export base, to the inwards growth based on the

industrialization and related with expansion of public services, the urban middle-classes and

the laborer movements ideology. It is often said that, in the second period, certain ordinary

angles -economics, politics, ideologic- became more noticeable in the irreductible latin

american diversity. One of this angles was constituted for the consolidation of a universitys

personality modeled, in a very significance way, by the MRU.!

() The Reform overflowed its original scenario and contribute -in very different ways- to

expand, from a particular angle and without loosing the diversity, the expression, in singular,

of Latin American University. In simplify terms, it could be seen as the encounter of an

academic revolution, represented in the Hispanic University, with a great social change

dynamics that, in a way or another, involved all the continent.!

The key idea of this revolution may be resume as it follows: it was about the democratization

of the university to use it as a tool for the democratization of Society. [Arocena, Sutz; 2000,

p. 36, 37]!

!!!The scientific development in Latin America!

The situation of the Science in Latin America is the situation of the Science in higher education

s institutions, and, in a particular sense, in the public universities. Arocena and Sutz quoted the

next information from Orlando Albornoz:!

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from the 5438 institutions of higher education that exists in the 19 countries of the region 812

are universities; and of this 812 probably only 45 are cognitive spaces, if it is followed the

norm of institutions open to scientific research and to critics as an academic criteria!

!This number has a stronger representations in those public higher educations institutions,

because the offer of private education it has never been the main source of the development of

science in Latin America. The private education has mainly focus its labor in educate persons for

the market needs, and never had the intention of made expensive investment for the development

of certain scientific disciplines. In short, an analysis of the situation of science in Latin America

cannot escape from the study of the development of science in the public universities. Only looking

directly on universities one could find the reason about why the scientific development shows

serious difficulties to grow. And the main problem that one could see is that the science developed

in universities in Latin America took a parallel road with respect the society. Thats interesting

because the autonomy, that was a fundamental value for european science, when was pursued in

the Latin American context did not add much benefit to the sciences results. As the brazilian

physicist said !

If one of the biggest universities in Latin America would close, the economic system of that

country will not suffer any change [Leite Lopes; 1969, p. 32]!

!More precisely, it could be said that the problem of latin american science did not depended on

the technical or technological infrastructure of universities, but on the fact that the estructures of

production did not have direct relation with the knowledge produced in the academy. This has been

a constant that, beyond political solutions implemented, can be still recognized in Latin American

societies since more than five decades. This means that, even when a welfare period, the science

developed in universities could not make an influence on societies to support that development.

The social impact of latin america science used to be, and still is, very poor.!

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The system exists whit the universities without having a relation with them. The scientist that

were educated in universities dont have the opportunity of use in the industry what they

learned there. (Tnnermann: 1983, p. 351)!

!This diagnosis has a relation with scientific vocation in Latin America. The original vocation

that the universities in this continent pursued to educate an elite class that could serve better the

nation. Thats why the best governors of Latin American Nations were lawyers or doctors; because

that was the first needs of a former nation. During the 20th century, became imperative the

development of science, as a way to scape from the dependence generated from the Development

countries. But the problem was that the sciences developed in the universities, did not reach the

that aim of contribute to the betterment of the nation. !

!Vocation: beyond the person!

Understanding scientific vocation implies something more than knowing the personal

motivations from which some individuals choose an activity for their lives. Etymologically, the word

vocation derives from the latin vocare, a word that usually referred to a call for choosing an

ecclesiastic life. As in Gospel of Matthew (22:14), science has always worked by the spirit of

vocation: "For many are called, but few are chosen. This might also suppose that for the few are

chosen, many are discarded. Then, vocation is, first of all, a selective activity. First was God that

selects they chosen ones; and in Modern Era, it is Science that makes that selection. But of

course Science is not God, so there must be someone who has been doing the selection process. I

would like to think that this someone is the scientific community, on the shelter of University. A

scientific vocation might include, of course, a personal choice; but before that, includes an

institutional policy of selection. In this sense, vocation is not an inner call: its an institutional policy

of selection, an institutional vocation for elites.!

!

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This is something that Wilhelm von Humboldt had clear. In many parts of his writing about

higher education and scientific institutions in Germany, he recognizes some kind of spiritual veil in

the scientific activity that should be kept safe from State interference:!

Not only can be damaging for the essence of the thing [that is, science] the way how

the State acquired this forms and mediums, but also if the circumstance itself of this

external forms and mediums were given for an completely strange reason this would

always and necessarily work in a damaging way, making descending the spiritual and

elevated to the inferior reality of material [Humboldt: 1959]!

!In the final pages of his writing, Weber shows how this selective action behind vocation had

turned in the context of american universities. One of the real problems with the new vocation in a

capitalist era, is that is money who mades the selection of the chosen ones. !

!And what about Latin American University? Vocation of Latin American University was though

as a tool for the nation development. That was, historically, its main vocation. But the development

of science in this latin american universities, never achieved this original motivation. As far has

repeated european or american model of science, latin american science works in a vocation from

other latitude, and thats why it had not been a successful tool for development of the nations.!

!What shall we do and how shall we live?. The destiny of Latin American University seems to

be marked for this tolstoian question. The answer to the question for the propose of doing science

it cannot be universal. In Latin America, this answer as always been about the search of tools for

the development of needed nations. That is the main question for our nations in Latin America: In

which way can we transform our universities into a tool that could make of them a reasonable

answer for the tolstoian question, in a democratic and pluralistic way, with an equal vocation? How

can we develop science that allowed us to live better in a more fair region? The main challenge for

actual universities in Latin America it is to collaborate in the construction of a new model of

development, in which science has to take a crucial role. !

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!This must be the latin american scientific vocation.!

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