Abstract:
The purpose of this article is to stimulate debate about the developing
paradoxes and dilemmas facing the university academic. This article argues
that academics are increasingly being steeped in an inauthentic existence due,
at least partly to, egocentrism and sociocentrism. A modest transdisciplinaryexistential
analytical framework is applied as an intellectual method to reflect
on the prevailing monological perspectives stifling the role of academics, in
working towards building a more sustainable future. Using concepts such as
the subject, facticity and transcendence, the article investigates the dialectical
tensions between some of these monological perspectives and proposes
avenues to create new possibilities to progress the role of the academic. The
article argues that the multilogical perspectives of transdisciplinary thinking
and the empowering perspectives of existential thinking can provide
academics with the necessary conceptual tools to transcend egocentrism and
sociocentrism. While it is likely that new contradictions will emerge as a
result of this synthesis, open-minded academics are urged to ignite their
imaginative powers and take up the challenge of creating and acting on new
possibilities. A transdisciplinary-existential dialectical approach can provide a
richer understanding of present dilemmas in academia and the world, and
suggest more satisfying paths to a sustainable future.
