WHY does the “threat of terror” exist, and how can we make it redundant, particularly in our post 9/11 society? Where is the human face in the avalanche of technology, and what happens when people turn their backs on nature?

Bert Olivier, a professor of philosophy at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, believes in asking the uncomfortable questions that challenge the status quo, but ultimately have the potential of improving life for all.

For Olivier, philosophy does not belong in the confines of heavy textbooks and complicated concepts – it applies to all aspects of life, from music to cinema, and politics to nature.

“People who practise ivory tower philosophy don‘t demonstrate philosophy‘s relevance to society at large,” he said.

Olivier, 63, has published widely in the philosophy of culture, art and architecture, cinema, music and literature, as well as the philosophy of science, epistemology (the theory of knowledge) and psychoanalytic, social, media and discourse theory.

His research has earned him a number of awards, most recently NMMU‘s top researcher of the year award for 2008. He was also named the top researcher in NMMU‘s Faculty of Arts for 2008, an award he previously received in 2006. And, at what was then the University of Port Elizabeth, he was named the top researcher for the period 1999 to 2004.

Olivier discovered philosophy “by accident” as a filler subject in his teaching degree at what was then UPE.

“After school, I wanted to study drama, as I love literature and drama, but my father was a teacher and couldn‘t afford to pay for university education. So I applied for a teacher‘s bursary instead,” said Olivier.

His subjects included English, German and psychology but, because the latter clashed with German, he dropped it and picked a “filler” subject, which happened to be philosophy.

After completing his teaching degree – with philosophy as one of his majors – he started teaching at DF Malherbe High School in Port Elizabeth. “I was in my second year of teaching when, out of the blue, one of the philosophy professors arrived on my doorstep and offered me a lecturing job. I was busy completing my philosophy honours at the time.”

He accepted, and has been attached to the university ever since – a period of more than 35 years.

Not only did philosophy provide his life‘s passion, he even met his wife, Andrea Hurst, in the classroom.

Once working at UPE, it was not long before he openly criticised apartheid – his outspoken views making him something of a pariah among his colleagues. For 15 years, he was not promoted.

“There has never really been a great amount of tolerance on the part of the powerful people in society for philosophy. Philosophers ask uncomfortable questions, sometimes at great risk to their security, but I‘d rather lose my job than my self-respect.”

While Olivier‘s heart lay in the philosophy of art, culture and cinema, he did not know of anyone in South Africa who could be his promoter, so he settled for epistemology – the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and limitations of knowledge – taking it to doctoral level.

But it was a post-doctoral fellowship at Yale University, studying under Prof Karsten Harries, a leading thinker of the philosophy of art and architecture, that truly shaped Olivier‘s journey in philosophy.

Through Harries, he was introduced to the work of a number of renowned philosophers, including Martin Heidegger, who soon became one of his main influences.

“Heidegger was one of the first people who thought in post-structuralist terms”. A new paradigm of philosophy, post-structuralism emerged in France in the 1960s, and is broadly understood as a body of distinct elaborations on structuralism, which attempted to explain the world as a neat system of inter-related structures.

“Structuralism was a manifestation of the culmination of modern thought, which turns the world into a series of mathematically articulated objects – essentially the precondition for technology.

“Heidegger rebelled at this attempt to control the earth through technology. Instead of setting upon nature in the form of an assault, Heidegger believed we must become like listeners to discover our place on this earth.”