The Purposes of Higher Education and the Changing Face of Academia

While there is no recognised sub-discipline of 'the philosophy of higher education', there has been a steady flow of writings having just such an orientation, a flow that has increased in recent years. That flow has mainly taken two courses. On the one hand, those of a conservative persuasion hold to an ideal of higher education largely separate from society and find themselves, thereby, trying to identify any possible intellectual spaces in which universities may enjoy a position of being their own end. On the other hand, those of a post-modern persuasion convince themselves that no large purposes of their own can seriously be entertained by universities and that, therefore, only instrumental ends are available or that universities have simply to content themselves with their own form rather than their substance. Such a limited set of responses to the contemporary situation of universities is unnecessary. The very complexity of that situation, intermeshed as it is with the wider society, opens up new spaces and new universal challenges. It is possible for there to be a philosophical enterprise in relation to the university that also embraces large concerns and large future-oriented possibilities.