Caritas Veritas Symposium 2017
Clash or Conversation?:
Engaging Multiple Perspectives as a Way toward Truth
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
With the 2017 Caritas Veritas Symposium, Dominican University considers the values of caritas et veritas within the long Dominican tradition of disputatio, “a method that seeks to resolve difficult questions and controverted issues by finding the truth in each.” What role can a Dominican university play in a nation in which ideas are violently contested or facts flagrantly disregarded? What contribution can a Dominican community make to ensure that marginalized voices are heard rather than silenced? The practice of disputatio requires “a rigorous exploration of multiple ways of resolving a question… and the heritage associated with it challenges Dominican men and women of all ages to direct their talents not only to the resolution of matters of speculative interest, but also to urgent questions of justice and peace.”*
And so, all members of the Dominican University community are invited to reflect on this important question: How has your pursuit and experience of truth been enriched through serious and deliberate attention to a genuinely diverse range of alternatives? Participants are invited to share how, in their lives as students and educators, within their disciplines and professions they have pursued truth in one or more of these ways:
-
by exploring or encountering multiple and diverse responses to significant questions,
-
by considering a genuine range of ways in which knowledge itself could be understood, applied, or experienced,
-
by engaging alternative methods of analysis or discovery,
-
by attending to caritas even in disputed matters,
-
by listening deeply to stories others tell about their lives.
Questions may be directed to Claire Noonan, Vice President for Mission and Ministry, cnoonan@dom.edu or 708-524-6860.
*quotations taken from “The Dominican Charism in American Higher Education: A Vision in Service of Truth.”