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E-book What is Academic Freedom? : A Century of Debate, 1915–Present

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Penilaian

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With these cautions in mind—against positing a transcendent idea of academic freedom—I have written the present book. It discloses debates in which mutually exclusive ideas about academic freedom are in play. These debates have not achieved closure; the history of academic freedom is an accumulation of uncertainties. This approach difers from that of most commentators on academic freedom, for they purport to have discovered its singular essence. When a historian discusses a case in which a professor was fred, the reader is likely to hear that the termination was plainly right or wrong, as if there is an obvious trans-historical standard of truth; as if there is no ground on which one can explore how each side in the controversy was plausible. I have tried to avoid right-versus-wrong judgments and have focused instead on explaining the intricacy of disagreements. The book is a series of complex case studies, not a collection of prophetic op-eds. I use history to resurrect knotty controversies and to disclose competing discourses. Some readers may fnd the chapters that follow too inconclusive. But we are exploring variations of a highly contested term. The meaning of academic freedom is not to be found in one abstract defnition; there is “no simple and handy appendage” that is the meaning of this concept.5 Particularly when a term is a matter of dispute over a long period, the meaning can only be plural. It is a totality of designations and contexts: the wide array of controversies in which contestants wield the term as the answer to specifc problems that concern them. I have aspired to map out a signifcant portion of these controversies. There is no “conclusion” to the inquiry, except an enriched understanding of an idea that is some-times wielded with nonchalant over-confdence. Historical scholarship, it is true, is no guarantee of detachment. In fact, erudition makes it easier to pass of one’s opinions as authoritative: to embed prescriptions in the interstices of scholarly description. If one aims to study academic freedom sine ira et studio, it helps to have a skeptical disposition. It is sometimes said that we always write from a particular point of view and that neutrality is impossible; better to wear one’s political colors on one’s sleeve than mask one’s biases. But why can’t one’s “particular” point of view be pluralistic and inquisitive? Are there not people who derive satisfaction from contemplating ideas in their multiplicity? Impartiality is not to be confused with claims to objective knowledge. Impartiality seeks only to portray rival solutions to a problem, while objectivity decrees which solution is true. As the Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt said, history “coordinates,” philosophy “subordinates.”6 History, or at least the kind I cultivate here, brings out the meaning of ideas by contrasting them to other ideas, as when the outlines of two or more shapes in a collage appear more vivid by being juxtaposed. The deeper meaning of academic freedom, in fact, is to be discerned in the spaces between discrete conceptions of it.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

378 GOR w

Penerbit

London : Taylor & Francis., 2022

Deskripsi Fisik

179 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9781003052685

Klasifikasi

378

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Higher Education, Universities

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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