In Splendore Lucis Vestrae: reflexões sobre a verdade e a universidade a partir de R. Rorty e B. Lonergan

One of the greatest challenges facing universities today comes not from outside, but from within their walls. What is the purpose and function of the university? Will it still be the search for truth and social justice? Jonathan Haidt does not think so. Given the continued rethinking of these two concepts and with a growing incompatibility between them, universities seem to have nothing left but to choose one of them and consequently reject the another. Although I understand Haidt’s argument, and share many of his concerns, in this text I will argue that instead of a resigned acceptance of the gap, we must fight for its closure or reduction. To this end, I will start from the reflections of Richard Rorty, for whom the gap seems obvious and opts for freedom and social justice, which contrast Bernard Lonergan’s ideas, for whom the integrality of the human being cannot exist in the dissociation of these two values.