On Being Scholarly

The keynote address for incoming doctoral students at Freed-Hardeman University, titled On Being Scholarly, was delivered by Dr. Shawn D. Mathis, PhD, on May 13, 2018, in Henderson, TN.

You are a scholar; these are your fellows.

Individually, you are scholars. A scholar is one given to serious academic inquiry. I confer upon you today the name, scholar. Embrace this designation. You are embarking upon what is at times calm waters, at others a tumultuous storm, risking the danger of finding yourself deep in the academic ocean, seeking safety in and from your thoughts. These next few years are destined to be among the most formative seasons of your life.

Collectively, these are your Fellows. They are your cohort of doctoral students who are embarking on this journey with you. You share the same stage of academic pursuit, beginning together today. As Director of Capstone Projects, I will walk with you from this first day until the last, when you are conferred the degree, Doctor of Behavioral Health.

What is being scholarly? These are the first moments of our conversation, which will remain with us from this day, this month, and the months and years to come, etching themselves into our memories each day. This conversation will endure until your viva voce (oral examination) when you successfully present and defend your work before your examining committee. When you depart Freed-Hardeman University as a Doctor of Behavioral Health, we look forward to meeting you again on the public square of academic excellence in your post-doctoral professional life.

Let us begin by picking up the intellectual chisel to begin forming the granite of your mind.

Vernacular (non-literary) language is the native dialect of people in a country or region. Vernacular is common language. Koine (common) Greek is the vernacular Greek in which the New Testament was written. In our context, this is not the form of writing engaged in the scholarly endeavor.

Literary language is the language used in formal or artistic writing. In certain contexts, such as religious practice, this takes the form of liturgical writing. In our context, literary language refers to academic, scholarly writing. The language of academic writing is literary as opposed to the vernacular language of the day.

Let us now travel back in time to the classical writers of antiquity, including Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, Jerome, Clement of Alexandria, and John of Salisbury. Authors of the Middle Ages until this present day, Bowsky, Braudel, Lane, Francis Bacon, Steiner, and Flannery O’Connor. The intellectual architects of the past provide a glimpse of “on being scholarly.”

The Theban Plays of Sophocles, “I realize that to see into any man’s soul and test the mettle of his thought and judgment, you have to observe him in action discharging the duties of high office” (Antigone, 9).

To engage in doctoral study is to see into the depths of your own soul. You and I begin a conversation that will endure from this day until you are awarded the Doctor of Behavioral Health. The discipline of scholarship tests the mettle of your thought and judgment. The fabric of your intellect is the structure of your thought. Judgment is applied thought.

The Latin term “scholar” is schola. In Old English, the term evolved to “schoolchild” and “school.” Today, a scholar is a distinguished academic. Scholarship is learning at the highest levels of academe. Being scholarly is characterized by a commitment to serious academic study.

You are observed in action as you fulfill the work at each step along the way. From George Steiner in Lessons of the Masters, we learn of the master’s power to exploit his student’s dependence and vulnerability; the complementary threat of subversion and betrayal of the mentor by his pupil; the reciprocal exchange of trust and love; and of learning and instruction between master and disciple.

“But what about when he does nothing else and never communes with a Muse? Even if there was some love of learning in his soul, because it never tastes of any kind of learning or investigation nor partakes in speech or the rest of music, doesn’t it become weak, deaf, and blind because it isn’t awakened or trained and its perceptions aren’t purified?” (Plato, The Republic, 90).

The love of learning exists in varying degrees depending on the mindset of the individual. This love of learning requires an on-purpose fermentation of the mind. Exercise the mind. Learning impacts the soul. To fully engage the mind to full capacity is the humane. To be “humane” is to maximize the capacity of your mind to its fullest ability.

Even if there is some love of learning in the soul, yet it never tastes of any learning; never tastes of any kind of investigation; never partakes in speech; never partakes in the rest of music, then the soul becomes weak, deaf, and blind because the mind was not awakened, trained, and perceptions purified.

Meno is one of the earlier Platonic dialogues, the so-called Socratic, which seek to define ethical terms (Plato, Meno, 1). Plato prepared the foundation for a conversation model of instruction. The Platonic dialogues are referred to as the Socratic model. The Socratic model was initially engaged to define ethical terms.

The modern “ethic” is the science of morals. The philology (structure, historical development, and relationships of language) of “ethic” includes the Greek ethos. Socrates succinctly describes his methods of instruction: “I shall do nothing more than ask questions and not teach him. Watch whether you find me teaching and explaining things to him instead of asking for his opinion” (Plato, Meno, 17).

Our scholarly work is a series of well-placed, carefully crafted questions. Although I may express certain opinions, those opinions are crafted to engage your mind and invite your opinion. Ask good questions. Ask better questions. Ask the questions that matter most. Our work together is a series of questions that lead to more questions.

“…the unexamined life is not worth living for a human being…” (Plato, Apology of Socrates, 92).

To “examine” is to thoroughly investigate. The act of academic rigor is a scholarly investigation. Plato comments on the idea of intellectual freedom in its highest form: freedom from unexamined assumptions. The human being at the full capacity of mind is the humane being. The examined life free of biased assumptions is the humane being.

“And, men of Athens, I do very much beg and beseech this of you: if you hear me speaking in my defense with the same speeches I am accustomed to speak both in the marketplace at the money-tables, where many of you have heard me, and elsewhere, do not wonder or make a disturbance because of this” (Plato, Apology of Socrates, 64).

Socrates was accused of misguiding youthful minds. Due to this accusation, he was put on trial for his supposed actions. All Socrates was required to do was to recant—or undermine—all that he had stood for in his life. That for which he stood was the integrity of his search for truth. He did not believe he had breached this trust. To refuse to recant was a death sentence for the sage thinker.

The term “defense” is the apologia. This is the English word, “apology” or “apologetic.” The idea of this term is the reasoned argument of defense. Socrates stated that he spoke in a reasoned defense with the same speech.

Socrates admits that he uses the same speeches in the open marketplace as he does elsewhere. There is no variance in his speech because he seeks the truth. Socrates was not a man who spoke in one direction in one setting and another direction in another setting. He has reasoned through what he thinks and communicates in integrity from that foundation. Ideas developed in the depth of study become the premise upon which all that is spoken resides.

Frederic C. Lane, renowned scholar of the Venetian Republic, was respected for his depth of scholarship. Fernand Braudel wrote, “The lesson that Frederic Lane teaches others, entirely by virtue of having imposed it on himself, is that of the irreplaceable value of painstaking work and of honest and exact scholarship. This is an old lesson, which of course will not surprise us since it is ever that of historical scholarship, but here it is applied to an object quite out of the ordinary.”

“Frederic Lane, whoever ceases to ask himself questions about the useful bearing of historical perspectives on the economy of the present, is not among those who wish to burn up the road and to deliver hasty judgments. His admirable integrity guards him from this at each step of his way. Work with a magnifying glass: then it is permitted to lift up one’s sight. Whenever he chooses to do this, the sympathetic and attentive eyes of Frederic Lane see far into the distance.”

Dr. William Bowsky wrote in 1958 regarding a quoted work in his article entitled Florence and Henry of Luxemburg, “This book should be used with caution as its scholarly technique is at times questionable…” (195).

Socrates demanded academic integrity through scholarly rigor in his own work. He chose to die rather than recant his own conviction of his studied conclusions. Dr. Lane employed the discipline of careful scholarship before he would allow his work to be made ready for public review. Dr. Bowsky advises caution regarding a supposed scholar whose “scholarly technique” is called into question.

“For example, those who delight in practicing geometry become skilled geometers and grasp each particular better, and in the same way, lovers of music, lovers of house building, and each of the rest advance their respective work because they delight in it. The pleasures help increase the activities, and things that help increase something are proper to it; but when things differ in form, what is proper to them also differs in form” (Nicomachean Ethics, 219).

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics speaks of those who delight in practicing geometry. Two thousand three hundred years ago, the idea of the practitioner was applauded as the path to advancement. Those who practice become skilled at their work. It is the acquisition of skill that makes the practitioner better able to grasp the details (i.e., particulars).

The practitioner is the skilled professional. The thinker is the scholar. The practitioner-scholar is the goal of the professional doctorate. As you do the work of the scholar (the literature review) and the work of the practitioner (the qualitative research project), you become the professional doctor.

“For the more pleasant activity dislodges the less pleasant one; and if it differs greatly in point of pleasure, it does this all the more, such that one ceases to be engaged in the other activity at all” (Nicomachean Ethics, 219).

“The intellect is the most excellent of the things in us, and the things with which the intellect is concerned are the most excellent of the things that can be known” (Nicomachean Ethics, 224).

Cato, “Read much but having read keep reading much” (John of Salisbury, 271).

Read. Think. Write.

“Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man” (Francis Bacon).

Reading makes the mind full as opposed to an empty mind. Recall that to be human is to exist; to be humane is to engage the mind to the fullest capacity. Conversation makes the interaction of one human with another a well-rounded person able to think on their proverbial feet. Writing makes one think. Writing compels one to engage what has been read and what has been said. Writing defines the mind.

Flannery O’Connor, “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”

“The very rudiments and first beginnings of knowledge sound differently in the mouth of an educated man and of an uneducated man” (Jerome, 212).

Exegesis: “Rudiment” is the elementary; the first principles of a subject. “Beginning” is that point in time when knowledge begins; the origin. “Knowledge” is from gnosis, which means understanding of a subject. “Educated” and “uneducated” is the distinction of one who is literate, learned, or tutored.

Exposition: Jerome argues that the distinction between the educated man and the uneducated man is seen at the very foundation of knowledge: the starting point in time (beginning) and the most elementary principles of a subject.

“So here I affirm that the expert is the one who brings everything to bear on the truth. He culls whatever is useful from mathematics, fine arts, literary studies, and, of course, philosophy, and protects the faith from all attacks” (Clement of Alexandria, 171).

“The expert” is one who has authoritative knowledge; a scholar. Clement’s “expert” is without question Jerome’s “educated man” as compared to the “uneducated man.” A scholar pulls all thought together from many fields of thought, thus confirming truth. The scholar “culls” (or collects) the useful from a large volume of information. Thus, truth protects faith from all attacks from untruth. The pursuit of truth is a fundamental principle of scholarly inquiry; A equals A.

“For with the truth, all the given facts harmonize; but with what is false, the truth soon hits a wrong note” (Nicomachean Ethics, 14).

Aristotle taught the foundational premise that A equals A. There is no contradiction in truth, only a seeming contradiction founded on a false premise. Facts harmonize with truth; however, dissonance occurs with false-premise approaches to truth. Dissonance is a lack of harmony among musical notes.

Your literature review is a search for what is the standard “truth” among the academic community. Your qualitative research project will challenge the given truth on the problem you choose to help solve.