The Corona crisis will show whether Avicenna was right

The Corona crisis will show whether Avicenna was right

The Arab philosopher Avicenna, who is often seen as of the greatest philosophers in world history, famously proclaimed that he stopped learning at the age of eighteen. With this, the self taught Avicenna tried to provoke people to teach themselves. For Avicenna was a big proponent of the autodidact, persons who teach themselves philosophy or other sciences without the help of a teacher. According to Avicenna, true understanding could not simply be gained by memorizing facts, but should be discovered by yourself. Unsurprisingly,  Avicenna’s own writings where therefore not focused at simply stating a theory, but at triggering people to think for themselves. For Avicenna this was the best way to learn philosophy.  

In the Corona crisis today, we are presented with a lot of bad news. However, there might be a little sprankle of good news as well, for in this crisis we will finally find out whether Avicenna was right about the autodidact. For the university of Leiden has cancelled all physical education until the end of the academic year, which will mean that students will lack physical lectures and will likely have to do more themselves at home. Everyone seems to agree that this will lead to worse results. The university has decided to postpone its binding study advice and many study programmes have decided to be more flexible in their exam norms. However if Avicenna is right, this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. Perhaps the fact that students are forced to become more of an autodidact will not harm the results, but might actually lead to greater understanding of philosophy. If Avicenna is right, the closing of the physical university might be a blessing in disguise. Let’s hope he was.