Is Eco the Czech Derrida?

In 1992 the University of Cambridge decided to award Jacques Derrida, the famous French philosopher, a honorary degree. A letter of protest followed. It was written by Barry Smith then editor of the journal Monist and it was signed by philosophers from all around the world. Among those who signed the letter were Willard van Orman Quine and Wolfgang Röd. The letter and a subsequent discussion epitomize one of the key issues in the twentieth century philosophy - a rift between analytic and continental philosophy.

After all the University of Cambridge decided to award Derrida the degree. But even if Derrida had not received the degree, the debate can be understood as a stimulating and interesting lesson in philosophy. It is not without interest that John R. Searle, a longstanding opponent of Derrida (e.g. their disagreement over the interpretation of Austin’s speech acts or over the importance of writer’s intentions), did not sign the letter of protest.

Something seemingly similar happened two weeks ago in Prague. A couple of departments from the Charles University and one department from the Czech Academy of Sciences proposed Umberto Eco, the foremost Italian literary theorist, historian, philosopher and novelist, to be awarded a honorary degree. In a subsequent secret vote of university’s academic council only 16 out of 46 councillors voted for the proposal. Of course, the University’s academic council can turn down any proposal. But what is striking were the reasons that later appeared in a council’s report: “Without any doubt, Eco is a prominent figure,” but “he is not an academic and he has not got any interdisciplinary interests.” (some information in Czech can be found here and here).

This is a striking nonsense and it nicely represents the philistinism of Czech academia. Czech academics like to make decisions but they are completely uninformed at the same time. For them Eco is just the famous Italian writer and the author of The Name of the Rose or Prague Cemetery (many Czechs like the fact that a famous foreign author uses the adjective ‘Czech’ in a book title and therefore make their small country famous). But Eco is also the author of A Theory of Semiotics or The Limits of Interpretation that were also translated into Czech.

It is even more striking that in the same country an academic has recently been appointed as a professor in social and cultural anthropology despite the fact that the academic has not got any education in the field of anthropology. The only one who protested against the appointment was the president of the Czech Republic who has the ceremonial duty to appoint professors. But president’s reasons were more than ridiculous - the candidate was criticised for his participation in the Prague Gay Pride Parade. Czech academics protested that president’s decision went against academic freedom. The president later backed out and the candidate was later appointed.

In Derrida’s case you may either agree with Derrida’s critics or with his supporters, and you can have very good reasons for either. But good reasons is not what counts in the Czech academia - what really counts is ignorance and illiteracy - two main pillars of Czech academic freedom.

Pictures used

http://blogimg.radikal.com.tr/Blogs/2012/12/22/umberto-eco1-C363-0D9A-1FE9.jpg