In the early days of Western philosophy, the academic discipline in which I am trained, the wise person was an all-rounder. To be knowledgeable meant to have a 360-degree vision of reality, nature and human life. It is for this reason that ancient Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle wrote on such a wide variety of disciplines, such as ethics, politics, metaphysics, epistemology, zoology, logic, aesthetics and rhetoric.
Being all-rounded for the ancient Greeks meant being an excellent human, whereby excellence (arete) pertained to different spheres of life: bodily/physical, psychological/ethical and cognitive/intellectual. Ancient Greeks prided themselves in being ‘amateurs’, a term which may now be considered derogatory in the era of hyper-specialisation.
In today’s knowledge economy, specialisation is necessary for the development of knowledge; but this should not come at the expense of interdisciplinary dialogue. Moreover, it is regrettable when different academic disciplines are treated unequally. In many funding schemes, the criteria, implicitly or explicitly, favour specific academic disciplines due to the emphasis being on how the research in question contributes directly to the country’s economic development.
With such criteria, many valuable academic disciplines in the humanities end up being under-represented or score lower. The truth is that not that such disciplines are without value, but that the system by which value is ascribed needs revision.
It is why the revisions to the Endeavour Scholarship Scheme regulations a few years ago are to be welcomed. The addition of humanities subject areas such as philosophy, sociology, history, anthropology and the languages as ‘priority areas’ is a positive one.
The way the humanities are valued speaks volumes about that society
The way the humanities are valued speaks volumes about that society. The valuing of the arts, history, literature, critical theory and knowledge of human cultures defines a society’s concern with cultivating critical and sensible minds enriched with skills that can contribute, directly or indirectly, to the flourishing of societies.
A mutually reinforcing relationship between the sciences and the arts is, in fact, crucial in enabling humanity to deal with the most challenging global realities of our time: climate change, political polarisations, governance and migration issues.
The Endeavour Scholarship Scheme, which is financed by national funds, partially funded my doctoral studies on trauma. While rooted in philosophy as a discipline, my interest in trauma led me to consider the topic from different disciplinary outlooks, such as psychology and sociology.
For example, I was interested in questions such as: How do traumatised individuals narrate their experiences? How does the current psychological knowledge describe traumatic experiences? And, in a more socio-political vein: How do norms, power relations and social prejudices affect the way individuals narrate traumatic experiences?
This inter-disciplinary concern with trauma narratives led me to consider two domains in which further studies can be done, particularly in the Maltese context: firstly, how sexual trauma is narrated in courts; and, secondly, how trauma is narrated in the asylum-seeking process.
Both domains bring together different discourses and institutions, namely medical, legal and political ones. Both domains elicit important questions on how trauma survivors are treated in society, and whether institutions that come into contact with trauma survivors are adequately responding to the needs and claims of such individuals.
In the same way that I benefitted from the Endeavour Scholarship Scheme, I hope it is maintained and further developed to continue supporting high-quality research in its diversity.
Kurt Borg, PhD in Philosophy, funded by the Endeavour Scholarship Scheme (Category B)