CONSTANTIN RĂDULESCU-MOTRU – A FOUNDER …
CONSTANTIN RĂDULESCU-MOTRU – A FOUNDER OF THE ROMANIAN SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY
GABRIELA POHOAŢĂ(
gabriela_pohoata@
Abstract: Constantin Rădulescu-Motru was the founder of the 20-th century Romanian school of philosophy. His personality reflects a sui generis mixture of pedagogics and philosophy, a teacher of philosophy as well as a founder of a philosophical system. Therefore, his pedagogics was, rather a metaphysical one, a result of the energetic personalised reconstruction of Man, in other words an anthropological pedagogics.
Keywords: energetic personalism, psychology, pedagogics, philosophical education, Romanian culture.
The personality and philosophy of C. Rădulescu-Motru have already been the subjects of a lot of papers and articles, some characterized by scientific rigour and objectiveness; that is so because the philosopher’s and the psychologist’s open perspectives with regard to the human being, to the national features, to the social and political categories active in the modern Romania, and his entertaining skills, all these taken altogether as well as separately have left significant traces on our intellectual life.
This article intends to illustrate the pedagogical side of his personality, by proving that he is one of the most important Romanian philosophers, a founder of school and of philosophical journalism. Together with Nicolae Iorga, professor Constantin Rădulescu-Motru is, nevertheless, the most trustworthy, the most creative and original representative of the 1900’s generation.
His personality impressed through the multisided Romanian culture of the time he lived in, through the tribute paid to esthetics, pedagogics, psychology, sociology, politics, all these coming from the energetic personalised reconstruction of Man which he considers possible and which gathers all his concern under the sign of a philosophical conception with strong capacities to become operational to the national culture. He was among the first who was tempted to create a „philosophy of the Romanian people”.
Rădulescu-Motru the philosopher was present in several places: at the university, in the newspapers of the time, in public conferences, in the parliament, on the radio. He enjoyed several social positions as a professor, dean, editor-in-chief, journalist, playwright, politician, public office worker, landowner.
He studied philosophy starting from the European doctrines, considering that a Romanian philosophy could evolve only in terms of the European thinking, though at the end of the 19-th century in Romania there was a shortage of a well defined public space, of communication channels among philosophers, to say nothing about the lack of a real dialogue among subjects, a fact that Rădulescu–Motru had very well noticed. He understood the need for communicating philosophy through various channels, starting from the real philosophic production. He did not let philosophy go down to the common level, he did not let it become vulgar, he intended to create an intellectual public, recruited from all the categories of intellectual people, interested in the philosophical thinking.
There is evidence about the condition of philosophy at the end of the
19-th century and the beginning of the 20-th. C.Rădulescu-Motru himself depicts the position of the philosophy teacher on the second half of the 19-th century. The study of philosophy „was more an appendage to history and philology, as philosophy was awarded a menial rank; there was no favourable context to the philosophic thinking, and the public opinion showed a certain inhibition towards the original philosophic work. Actually, the audience did not need original works.(...). Some of them would have been disreputed, mainly the teachers, had they been awarded personal ideas. That would have meant that they did not know well the subjects they were supposed to teach. Under the cultural climate of the last 30-50 years, there were no favourable conditions to philosophic originality whatsoever”[1].
The idea was also to be found in the „Foreword” to the Energetic Personalism, in 1927, in which he noticed the lack of philosophic tradition, which prevented the philosophic innovation.
To this respect, he mentioned Titu Maiorescu and C.Dumitrescu-Iaşi, his masters, who had not written or published original philosophic works.[2]
One of the most important institutions created by this philosopher is The Romanian Association of Philosophy. Founded as The Association of Philosophic Studies, in 1910, it became The Romanian Association of Philosophy, in March 4, 1915; that body gathered all the major representatives of our philosophy in the first half of the 20-th century, and it functioned until 1944.
At meetings they debated a lot about the condition of philosophy at highschool level, and decided to organize a convention of the philosophy teachers. In February 2 over 4 1934, the first Convention of the highschool philosophy teachers, organized by the Group of the philosophy teachers, with Rădulescu-Motru presiding, took place at the Dalles Foundation. Several hundred teachers participated. On opening the Convention, C. Rădulescu-Motru, stated that its aim was to bring reasons to initiate chairs of philosophy, by assigning the convenient number of philosophy classes in schools: „ We do not ask any favor, all we ask is a full understanding.”
A major component of the organizing activity of C. Rădulescu-Motru as a school founder is made of his unforgettable papers presented in the Academy. „The Educational Role of Philosophy” held in front of the audience in February 18, 1944, stated the rationalism and the belief in the educational value of philosophy, in a moment when value had gone down and the subconscious behaviour had gone up. „Among the roles of philosophy – said Motru - the most important one is the educational one. From its origin, the philosophic thinking aimed at the Man’s perfection, in terms of conduct and mentality. Primarily philosophy was -and still is- wisdom; that is thinking and wise deed”. With that belief, and using his vast teaching expertise, Motru pleaded to the efficient teaching of philosophy to the highschool students. „The philosophy education classes – stated the thinker- do not aim at teaching the students much philosophical knowledge, their aim is to provide education, to help the students’ mind become more mature and to develop moral conduct”.[3]
,,Naturally, wrote Gh. Vlăduţescu,[4] Rădulescu-Motru dealt more specifically with pedagogics, as a teacher, a memorable teacher, though not a spectacular one. Nechifor Crainic used to say about him:” Motru’s words were not bright, sometimes his sentences seemed to flow like a little spring among stones, but beyond that one could feel a Man of culture and structure, a mentor to us all”: the real master”, “a good, lenient connoisseur of the adolescent’s psychology”, therefore “less tough and more sympathetic”, guiding the debates “with a confident, non-sophisticated manner” during the seminars. „In graduation exams, he affably evaluates candidates, asking questions not only related to topics but also for checking brain power, listening to answers attentively, kindly noticing mistakes, taming juvenile critics upsurge, and being astonishingly ashamed by the respondents’ ignorance or weakness”.[5]
He did not possess „eloquence”, but his „lectures” „were very interesting and full of cases and ideas” (I. Petrovici, University Memories). „He was extremely lenient at exams. What he wanted to find out was the student’s efficient work and dilligence” Eugeniu Speranţia, University Personalities).
„(....) His teaching reached our souls, thus becoming thinking subjects and objects”(Ion Zamfirescu, People I Met).
Yet, more than that, as any master who is a teacher, too, C.Rădulescu-Motru searched deeper into pedagogics and found out its aims and epistemology. As he himself used to state, it awarded it „a lot of thinking”, „not to collect rewards, but to recruit apostles able to spread a new faith to the people, and material and moral benefits to come out from them later”[6].
The financial crisis seriously affected not only the country but also school, and not only from the material point of view, but also in terms of system. It is still a continuation of the old condition, that is to provide general culture for only some years. „Far from being luxury, school is a must to all of us....Our contemporary world, without giving up its natural priviledges, steps forward to a new school”. Hence „each graduate....is a source of national energy”, and „a people’s energy springs from the relation between work and nature”.
His pedagogics comes out from an energetic and final metaphysics; Vasile Băncilă found out two supporting theses, one that „it does not directly adapt to the cosmical environment, but it reacts against it” and the other one „the idea of the aim” which” involves the means, that is the idea of education to reach that aim”[7]. „Trying to settle the philosophy of creating personality is not the same thing with trying to clear up the development of an educational process”. Starting from fundamentals in the metaphysics of the energetic personalism, actually an antropology, the antropological pedagogics of the philosopher finally reached the evidence of principles and means belonging to both nature of philosophy, as well as to political philosophy”.[8]
His pedagogics was, somehow, metaphysical, generated by an energetic personalist reconstruction of Man, „the greatest Motru’s concern.”
Scrutinying the sources of Rădulescu-Motru’s thinking, one should firstly remember the influence of Titu Maiorescu. Maiorescu contributed to Motru’s orientation towards the new, experimental psychology. Not only the ideas of his master, but also the direct, personal urge of the latter meant a lot to Motru’s orientation towards a new psychology, as it comes out from the letters between 1889 and 1898. On the other hand, the debates in the „Junimea” as well as Maiorescu’s philosophical conception contributed to Rădulescu-Motru’s thinking, in his trial to find a way to relate science to metaphysics. In a more concret way, his trial to surpass kantianism from the point of view of a realistic epistemology and evolutionist ontology, the wish to reconciliate the science objectivity with the truth relativity, in which one could identify the main guiding lines of Motru’s thinking, had been generated by Maiorescu’s thinking and by the debates in the „Junimea”, as the characterization of Titu Maiorescu’s thinking made by Rădulescu-Motru, in 1920. The author of The Energetic Personalism, showed the conflict between the „perspective of the objective truth”, a perspective which generated, among others, the cultural critics of Maiorescu, and the “relativity of science” and “the truth in general”, as a “source of Maiorescu’s thinking”.
„The Kantian relativism related to Herbert Spencer’s evolutionism meant a more complete and real concern to Maiorescu, stated Motru.[9]
Last but not least, Motru was to reconsider, mainly in the first part of his activity, Maiorescu’s theory of „groundless forms”, thus generating a new conception of „Junimea”, in a larger concept of the philosophy of culture.[10]
The Kantian philosophy was a starting point for Motru, and, at the same time, the field for a several decades concern. In philosophy, the influence of Wundt involved the subject and the method of philosophy. With Wundt, philosophy should be based on the results of specific sciences; between philosophy and science there is no difference from the principles point of view, as philosophy surpasses the specific sciences through confruntation and general results. Wundt’s trial to rebuild metaphysics on inductive bases could influence Motru’s accomplishment, sinergetically with Titu Maiorescu’s orientation. The psychologism of the German thinker, his way to consider the logical, epistemological, cultural matters as belonging to psychology, also influenced C.Rădulescu-Motru in a certain way.[11]
Constantin Rădulescu-Motru is also remarkable through his numberless values, all used to the spiritual upgrading of the Romanian people. He was both an outstanding philosopher and psychologist, who studied in Germany and France, becoming well known there, a politician and a leader of some institutions; he was the President of the Romanian Academy between 1938-1940, he founded the Association of Philosophical Studies in 1910, which later became the Romanian Philosophy Association, as mentioned above. Different from Titu Maiorescu, his master, he understood that philosophy ought to be present in the public arena too, not only in University, thus showing the Romanians’ competence to the philosophical thinking.
The philosopher had an intense activity as a lecturer in the public space, proved by his lectures held between 1910-1912. At the Atheneum Hall, on the 9-th of May, 1910 on the lecture dedicated to the celebration organized by the Cultural Club Association, C.Radulescu- Motru spoke about the so-called inferiority of women, denounced by the feminist movement. Feminists mistook in upholding the idea about the equal competition between man and woman. Women were not created to accomplish the same social functions like men. That does not mean that the man has superior attributes than the woman, as each sex has its own specific attributes. Inferiority levels could be discussed only between unnecessary functions. The woman is dominated by the maternal instinct and, from here, her intimate life is much closer to the human species life and much more conservative. The man represents the elements of variability in the inner evolution of species. In school, there is no training with a view to the woman’s inner particuliarities (C. Rădulescu-Motru, 1910).
In the second half of June 1912, C. Rădulescu-Motru delivered 14 lecturs on psychology, applied to the pedagogical practice, for the kindergarten staff; there participated 170 pedagogues who gathered at the Elena Doamna Asylum.
Constantin Rădulescu-Motru, the founder of the philosophical reviews in Romania, followed the German and French models he had got familiar with during his study times. He wrote:[12] „At the age of 25-30, my works are essays, or they are trials motivated by external situations (...). The age between 30-40 years was the time for me to orientate in Romanian politics and culture.
Between 1900 and 1916 two series of the „New Romanian Review” were issued, a magazine I lead and in which I publish a lot of articles with various political, cultural topics, as well as literary matters. In 1904, when the „New Romanian Review” was ceased, I wrote the „Romanian Culture and Politicianism”; since I was 40 years old, my work in philosophy became more specific, due to the „Studies of Philosophy”, a review still issued nowadays under the title of the „Review of Philosophy”. In the first years of „ Studies of Philosophy”, there were published „The Power of the Soul” (1908) and „Elements of Metaphysics” (1912). After 50 years, I dare give my works a systemic character”[13].
It is out of question not mentioning Rădulescu-Motru’s creative dimension of his personality evident through the numerous publications that he initiated and guided, in the fields of both philosophy and psychology. Also, this activity did not involve only his own reviews, as the Romanian philosopher’s numerous works were present in national and in foreign reviews as well.
He very much believed in the educational role of the Romanian philosophy and he considered that through publications and the position of the philosophy and pedagogy teachers trained in the western countries, the spirit of the European philosophy would penetrate our country.
Though a contemporary with those that had highly represented the Romanian university forum starting with Titu Maiorescu, his master,
C. Rădulescu-Motru was, from 1897 till 1941 one of those teachers who left his mark on the soul of several generations that attended his courses and seminars either before or after the first world war. As Ion Zamfirescu, one of his students showed, C. Rădulescu-Motru had “between the two world wars, an influence as characteristic and telling as the one of the previous generation, felt at the beginning of the century. No effects, no gorgeousness, impressions or momentary judgements; no features to raise admiration and immediate adhesion; no rhetoric or other sort of expression to charm our outward; there are other really speaking elements. It namely is the thinking personality of the teacher: his calm grandeur, in its timeless permanence, in its deep captivation. This thinking was shown to us in stages: from step to step, without spectacular leaps or discrepancies, like in a natural development and organic integration. Briefly: not on the spot, but in time. This was the rhythm in which we relied to C.Rădulescu-Motru, and we gathered around him, long after the study years. In his position of President of the Association of Philosophy, and of a leader of the review, he was a good, lenient manager to our first journalistic or oral activities”[14].
Immanuel Kant, the philosopher who influenced Rădulescu-Motru, differenciates between the philosopher and the teacher of philosophy[15], but the Romanian thinker contradicts the Kantian remark, happily gathering the two-fold faces of his personality. To this respect, Mircea Vulcănescu showed in one moving articles of his, published in the „Cuvântul” newspaper (year VIII, November 7, 1932, p. 2), when the master celebrated thirty five years of activity at the University: „Professor Rădulescu –Motru means two things in the Romanian cultural life: An intellectual attitude and a philosophical system”.
Nicolae Bagdasar made a real portrait of professor C.Rădulescu-Motru. Here are just some aspects we considered essential to draw the psycho-moral traces of that genuine master of philosophy, the one who transformed philosophy in more than a university subject, a way to raise the Romanians’ consciousness, a kind of paideia in Plato’s philosophical acceptance, a way to educate the Romanian nature.”
,,His course was full of substance... due to his dilligence and hardwork in preparing his courses, C. Rădulescu-Motru was one of the few professors who could competently teach more philosophical subjects. Very well trained and always in pace with the up –to- date research, C.Rădulescu-Motru was not at all pedant, he did not boast on his knowledge, rendering the latest ideas in a natural way, leaving himself aside, as if he wanted to say: ”It is not big deal to get it, anybody may approach it”[16]. He was much too specialised, which made him avoid to impress through his knowledge.....For any matter he used to give a bibliography of the most important works, without boasting on it, as other teachers did. He was affable and friendly with his students, giving them his time, staying at their disposal with the needed information. In seminars he did not interrupt the speakers, even if they were much far from the matter – which usually happens- showing full understanding for their juvenile audacity, letting them also say shocking things than intimidate and demotivate them. In the end, he calmly and nicely showed how the matters had to be solved, by encouraging and handling gently the situations. He delivered his courses and held his seminars with extreme dilligence. As a deputy or a senator, he never put off his classes, although the sessions of the Deputies and Senate took place in the afternoons when he happened to have classes. And when in force majeure he could not come, he used to ask a university assistant to replace him or he rescheduled his classes. In his life, professor’s duty played the first role; he always was first a professor; all the other things came second. He showed the same dilligence not only in courses and seminars, but also in reading and evaluating the seminar works, half term exam papers, graduation theses. He read and marked papers himself, not like other professors who let their assistants to deal and evaluate them”[17]. We have also to mention that C.Rădulescu-Motru was Mircea Eliade’s professor, too. In his memoirs, Mircea Eliade wrote about C.Rădulescu-Motru’s personality[18]; he had been his professor at the Faculty of Philology and Philosophy, and one of the members of the Commission with which he passed his graduation thesis, together with P.P.Negulescu and D.Gusti, in 1928. Mircea Eliade remebers him as follows:
,,I remember Rădulescu-Motru’s first lectures. He was about 60 years by then, but he looked much older. His voice was low, he could hardly see, he could hardly walk, leaning upon his cane, and he would not recognize the faces, or remember the names. Several years later, after an operation, he was completely revigorated. When I came back from India, in 1932, I went to see him, and he looked ten years younger.”[19]
No doubt, his confessions are guiding points for the portrait of one of the greatest masters of philosophy of the Romanian people. The role played by C.Rădulescu-Motru in the Romanian culture for spreading the philosophical knowledge and for developing the interest in philosophy was, nevertheless, essential.
A very great and sound thinker, a prestigious authority in teaching, founder of specialism and cultural reviews, a worthy supporter of all the philosophical and spiritual initiatives, C.Rădulescu-Motru is the most distinguished figure of the Romanian thinking. That is why V.Băncilă rightly stated [20] that Mr. Motru was „a real pedagogue of the Romanian ethnic energy”, while his doctrine was „a social pedagogy”[21].
He did not remain unique only because he had bright disciples, as those already mentioned, but he understood the educational role of philosophy and he was concerned about its status in the education curricula, at both secondary and university levels. He was convinced that the study of philosophy was the most accomplished form of education for his people, as there was no other superior way to raise the Romanians’ consciousness. That is why, to him philosophy meant more than a curriculum subject, and C.Rădulescu-Motru means to us, Romanians, one of our greatest masters of pedagogy ever.
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( Senior lecturer, Ph.D – „Dimitrie Cantemir” Christian University, Bucharest.
[1] Rădulescu-Motru, C., „Confessions, „in the volume issued by Valeriu and Sanda Râpeanu, Minerva Publishing House,1990, p.64-70.
[2] Rădulescu-Motru, C., „Energetic Personalism”, Albatros Publishing House, 2005, pp.V-LVI.
[3] Rădulescu-Motru, C., -„The Social Role of Philosophy (restored)”, „The Review of Philosophy” 2/1992, p.155-156.
[4] Vlăduţescu, Gh., - “Nonconventional on the Romanian Philosophy”, Bucharest, Paideia Publishing House, 2002, p.16-22.
[5] Gheorghiade, C., - „Mr. C.Rădulescu-Motru, a Teacher and a Man of Science”, „Literary Debates”, year VII, July-August, 1925.
[6] C.Rădulescu-Motru, – „The Operational School and Democracy”, „The Review of Philosophy”, no.3/1929.
[7] Gh.Vlădescu -Racoasa, a pedagogue – “In Honour of Professor C.Rădulescu-Motru”, in “The Review of Philosophy”, vol. XVII/1932.
[8] Gh.Vlăduţescu – Nonconventional, quoted work, p.43.
[9] Simion Ghiţă – „Science and Knowledge in C.Rădulescu-Motru’s Conception”, in “Romanian Philosophy and Sociology in the first Half of the 20-th Century”, Bucharest, Publishing House of the Academy, 1969.
[10] Petru Vaida, C.R.Motru, “The History of the Romanian Philosophy”, Vol. II, Bucharest, publishing House of the Academy, 1982, p. 368.
[11] History of the Romanian Philosophy, quoted work, p. 369.
[12] C.Rădulescu-Motru, - Revised and Abridged Works, 1944, II, Bucharest, Floarea Darurilor Publishing House, 1996, p.195.
[13] C.Rădulescu-Motru, ibidem quoted work, p.196.
[14] Ion Zamfirescu, in C.Rădulescu-Motru – Confessions, Bucharest, Minerva Publishing House, 1990, p.9.
[15] Imm. Kant – „An Introduction to the Critics of the Pure Reason”, Bucharest, Ştiinţifică Publishing House, 1969, p.25.
[16] N.Bagdasar, C.Rădulescu –Motru – Portaits, in the Annexes to the Pszchologz of the Romanian People, Paideia Publishing House, Bucharest, 1999, p.142.
[17] Ibidem quoted work, p.143.
[18] Mircea Eliade –„Memoirs”, in the collection of „Destiny”, 1966, p.113. In the „Les Promesses de L’equinoxe (Gallimard), in 1990, in which Mircea Eliade renders other meetings with C.Rădulescu-Motru; after coming back from India, he remembers the support of his teacher for publishing some works in the “Review of Philosophy”.
[19] Mircea Eliade, ibidem. quoted work, p. 115.
[20] V.Băncilă – “C.Rădulescu-Motru’s Energetic Personalist Doctrine”, Bucharest, Romanian Culture, 1927, p.117.
[21] Gh. Vlădescu –Racoasa – „The Life, Personality and Works of C.Rădulescu-Motru,” in the Review of Philosophy, no. XVII/1932, p. 26.
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