Intellectual Self-reliance:J. P. S. Uberoi,Sociologyof Knowledge andModern Social Life

Abstract

Of what value is freedom of expression, construction of identity, higher education and autonomy of university if these do not contribute to intellectual self-reliance? J. P. S. Uberoi has argued that intellectual self-reliance is respectful of the self and of the other as its second self. It acknowledges that all human beings are thinking social beings who aspire to know themselves, the world they live in and the relationship between the two. This is the basis of civility. However, historically, modernisation has not succeeded in creating conditions for the fulfilment of this aspiration. On the contrary, it has contributed to universalisation of othering at all levels of social, political and economic life. This has damaged reflexivity. He further argued that the questions of decolonisation cannot be fully addressed without the teleology of intellectual self-reliance. In this regard, it is necessary to question the monopoly of European science over naming, which defines things, classifies them in relation to each other and determines therelation of knowledge to way of life.