Knowledge and the University: Re-claiming Life

207 Pages·2019·3.481 MB·English

by  Ronald Barnett, Søren S.E. Bengtsen

KNOWLEDGE AND THE UNIVERSITY
Forhundredsofyears,knowledge hasbeencentralinunderstandingtheuniversity.
Over recent decades, however, it is the economic value of knowledge that has
cometothefore.Now,inapost-truthworld,knowledgeisalsotreatedwithsuspi-
cion and has become a vehicle for ideologies. Knowledge and the University combats
alltheseways ofthinking.Itscentralclaim isthat knowledge isofvaluebecause of
itsconnectionwithlife.Knowledgeisoflife,fromlife,inlifeandforlife.
With an engaging philosophical discussion, and with a consideration of the
evolution of higher education institutions, this book:
(cid:129) Examines ways in which research, teaching and learning are bound up with
life;
(cid:129) Looks to breathe new life into the university itself;
(cid:129) Widens the idea of the knowledge ecology to embrace the whole world;
(cid:129) Suggests new roles for the university towards culture and the public sphere.
Knowledge and the University is a radical text that looks to engender nothing less
than a new spirit of the university. It offers a fascinating read for policy makers,
institutional leaders, academics and all interested in the future of universities.
Ronald Barnett isEmeritusProfessorofHigherEducation,InstituteofEducation,
UniversityCollegeLondon,UK.
Søren S.E. Bengtsen isAssociateProfessorattheCentreforTeachingDevelop-
ment and Digital Media and Deputy Director of the Centre for Higher Education
Futures,AarhusUniversity,Denmark.

KNOWLEDGE AND THE
UNIVERSITY
Re-claiming Life
Ronald Barnett and Søren S.E. Bengtsen
Firstpublished2020
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For Joy Carter, who much inspires
Theentireconsciouslife,thespiritalongwiththesoul,theheart,goodness,andvirtue–
inwhoseservicedotheylabor?Intheserviceofthegreatestpossibleperfectionof[all]the
basic…functions:aboveall,theenhancementoflife.
FriedrichNietzsche,TheWilltoPower(1968)
DarestthounowOsoul,
Walkoutwithmetowardtheunknownregion,
Whereneithergroundisforthefeetnoranypathtofollow?
Nomapthere,norguide,
Norvoicesounding,nortouchofhumanhand,
Norfacewithbloomingflesh,norlips,noreyes,andinthatland.
WaltWhitman,‘DarestThouNow,OSoul’
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction:thelife-enhancinguniversity 1
PARTI
Theuniversityandlife 15
1 Lifeintruthandtruthinlife 17
2 Therealthing 29
3 Re-placingthehumanities 41
4 Where’sthelifeinacademicknowledge? 53
Interlude:onlife 65
PARTII
Thespiritofacademicknowledge 69
5 Morethanmeredebate 71
6 Awilltoknow 83
7 Livingwithdarkness 95
8 Edifyingknowledge 107
9 Acultureoflivelydiscourse 119
PARTIII
Cultivatingknowledgeintheuniversity 131
10 Livingreason 133
11 Wideningtheknowledgeecology 145
12 Reachingout 157
Coda:re-enchantingtheuniversitywithanewcognitivespirit 169
Bibliography 172
Subjectindex 188
Nameindex 194
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are most grateful to Sonja Arndt, Ryan Gildersleeve, Bruce Macfarlane,
Rikke Toft Nørgård and Sharon Rider, each of whom took the time in their
hugely busy and committed lives to read our manuscript and offer us helpful
feedback on it. We are conscious that we haven’t been able to do justice to all
their suggestions and observations, which provide us with much food for
thought for further work.
We also thank the publishers, Routledge, especially Sarah Tuckwell, Com-
missioning Editor, and Lisa Font, for all the support we have received for this
venture, and the anonymous referees of our earlier proposal, whose comments
we much valued as this book took shape.
Ronald Barnett and Søren Bengtsen
INTRODUCTION
The life-enhancing university
The basic issue
For hundreds – if not thousands – of years, knowledge has been the central con-
cept in understanding the university. The university is an institution concerned to
advance knowledge and help students gain it, and (more recently) to share with
the wider society the knowledge that it has garnered. But, strangely, there have
been few attempts to look at this matter, the relationship between the university
and knowledge. With rare exceptions, the scholarly works that do exist are now
rather longstanding1 and, on that ground alone, it is time for a contribution that
places the matter firmly in the context of the twenty-first century.
However,thereisamuchmoresignificantmatter,namelythatthenear-absenceof
scholarly work on the relationship between the university and knowledge is
symptomaticofageneralfeatureofthepresenttime.Overthelastthree–fourdecades,
the very matter of knowledge has been pretty well lost from view as a matter of
public interest. Certainly, there was – in the more specialist literature – a playing up
oftheideaof‘theknowledgesociety’.Butthatphrase,coinedbyNicoStehr(1994),
is some decades oldandgave way totalkof ‘the knowledge economy’and an over-
whelming interest in ‘skills’ and, more recently, to a concern with ways in which
knowledgemight‘transfer’intothewidersocietyandits‘impact’through‘knowledge
exchange’, especially so as to assist ‘innovation’. Knowledge is now characteristically
situated in its economic contexts. A shorthand for this situation that has emerged is
thatof‘cognitivecapitalism’(Boutang,2011).Itisevident,then,thatanunadulterated
interestinknowledgehasdisappeared.2
In the past, it was said that administrators in higher education were guided by
‘the principle of ripe time’ (Cornford, 1922) but the situation here seems rather
to be one of unripe time. After all, the general absence of thought being given
to knowledge and the university reflects a widespread loss of interest in