Philosophers on the University

This book shows the significance of the thinking of philosophers (and other key thinkers) in understanding the university and higher education. Through those explorations, it widens and substantially adds to the emerging philosophy of higher education. It builds on the historical literature on the idea of the university, and provides higher education scholars with highly accessible introductions to the thinking of key philosophers and thinkers, alerting them to a set of literature that otherwise might not be encountered.

Until very recently, most of the debate on higher education – both in the public domain and in the scholarly literature – has been conducted with little regard to the philosophical literature.  This is odd for two reasons.  Firstly, much of the historical literature on the idea of the university – over the past two hundred years – has been written by philosophers and their thinking has largely gone unmined.  Second, and perhaps even more importantly, many of the issues in the higher education debate are either philosophical in their nature, or require reflective thinking, and there lies to hand huge resources in the philosophical literature that can help in working through those issues.  Issues such as what is to count as knowledge (in the university), wisdom, voice, democracy, culture, what it is to ‘be’ a student or academic, academic freedom, communication, work and disciplinarity cry out for the kind of insights that the philosophical literature – very broadly understood – can offer.  This book attempts precisely to do this, to show how the work of key thinkers can help in deepening the higher education debate.

Each chapter focuses on an individual thinker, giving both an insight into the thinker in question and accessibly drawing out something of their thinking and showing its significance in understanding the university and higher education.  The editors provide a full-length introduction that marksout this large territory and prepares the ground for the reader.