By Jorge Araújo
Former professional basketball coach
Today we live in a national cult of “opinion”. Commentators proliferate, we watch a continuous debate live on our televisions, we read daily “opinion columns” in newspapers and magazines, social networks “crush” us with their impunity as to what each person thinks about the most varied subjects.
Faced with such a vulgarization of this type of public debate, I remembered the wise words spoken to me one day by Luis Umbelino, a professor at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Coimbra.
“For the philosopher, “personal opinion” is of little value. It’s really the overcoming of “personal opinion” that should be understood as the beginning of knowledge. We know nothing on our own. “Personal opinion” is always limited, relativistic and often hasty. The challenge of thinking is to think with others, with those who have already thought about the same problems as us.” “It’s only when we say: ‘I hadn’t thought of this’, we are in a position to know that we are open to the difference that is the foundation of authentic knowledge. It is therefore more important than personal opinion to form a density of thought, because only this is capable of starting by understanding what really “calls for thought”. If we don’t understand this today, it’s because our society wants to convince us, through a kind of tyranny of equality, that we are all the same, that everyone’s opinion is the same, that all opinions are valid, etc. This bizarre idea is compounded by speed and emotion: everyone wants “a reaction”. Unfortunately, all of this is contrary to true thinking.” “The depth of reflection is not in opinion: it’s in the conflict of interpretations.” “In conclusion, it’s not opinion that we should look for first, but the study of the problem, the description of its contours and dimensions. Then we choose a perspective or point of view. We study this point of view, analyzing the authors who have best developed it and finding our place in this dialogue. Finally, we are ready to enter into a conflict of interpretations with other authors and dimensions of the problem.”
A real lesson from a great teacher, which I sincerely hope will serve as a reason for reflection in the near future for all those who sometimes tell us in the slightest and most superficial way that they “think that…”.
“Guesswork” which, more often than not, confuses more than it clarifies.
Please don’t forget Prof. Luis Umbelino’s message:
“It’s not opinion that we should seek first, but the study of the problem.”
