Idea of the University

The Idea of the University, the first book in a set of volumes from Michael A. Peters and Ronald Barnett, provides readings of central texts in the philosophical discourse of the organization and development of the modern research university. Since von Humboldt's reforms at the University of Berlin in 1810, the early influential model of the university was intended to achieve a unity of teaching and research in providing students with an all-round humanist education. Emerging from German idealist and Romantic philosophy traditions, the Humboldtian university reflected the central importance of philosophy and the notion of academic freedom-the freedom to teach and to learn. Over the next two hundred years, scholars developed this discourse, so establishing a canon of texts which are presented in this reader: Kant's The Conflict of the Faculties, Newman's The Idea of the University, Heidegger's The Self-Assertion of the German Universities, Jaspers' The Idea of the University and Ortega y Gasset's Mission of the University. Also included here are contributions from other major figures such as Sedgwick, Whelwell, Stuart Mill, Arnold, and Leavis from the English tradition; and Hutchins, Clark, Kerr, and Bok, among others, from the American tradition. The collection concludes by presenting writings from Lyotard, Derrida, Bourdieu, MacIntyre, Said, and Readings who were all concerned at the many limitations being imposed by modernity and, in their different ways, held out for an idea of the university built around critical reason. With a full-length opening essay by the editors and introductory notes on each of the readings and their authors, this volume constitutes a unique text in the literature on higher education and the university.