7/31/2023 0 Comments Social microcosm definitionIt is shown that subsequent political thought only becomes fully intelligible in relation to the on-going struggle between the radical and the moderate enlightenments, and that it is necessary to appreciate that the moderate enlightenment, manifesting itself in neo-liberal thought, is profoundly anti-democratic. Endorsing Cornelius Castoriadis’ argument that democracy has been betrayed in the modern world but disagreeing with his analysis of modernity, it is argued that the tradition of modern democratic thought can only be properly comprehended in relation to the ‘radical enlightenment’ originating in the Renaissance, efforts to subvert this by the ‘moderate enlightenment’, and the revival and reformulation of the radical enlightenment in Germany at the end of the eighteenth century. However, such an argument only has force, it is suggested, if we can revive an appreciation of the real meaning of democracy. This “idea” acknowledges the complementarity of disciplines in advancing a common objective – one that incorporates descriptive and axiological dimensions of scholarly and social life.Įndorsing Bill Readings’ argument that there is an intimate relationship between the dissolution of the nation-State, the undermining of the Humboldtian ideal of the university and economic globalization, this paper defends both the nation-State and the Humboldtian university as core institutions of democracy. Given their common foundation, the sciences and humanities can be understood to function with reference to a shared academic purpose: the cultivation of knowledge for the good of humanity. ![]() Neither alone can address the crisis of meaning that infects academy and society alike. Drawing upon Husserl’s concept of intersubjectivity within a shared lifeworld, I argue that the sciences and humanities share a common intersubjective basis. ![]() This divide, however, is based on a false premise, namely the objective-subjective dichotomy itself. From within this schism, the sciences produce reliable, useful and objective knowledge, while the humanities produce speculative, inconsistent and subjective belief. While academic fragmentation has many sources, one involves the longstanding science-humanities antinomy. There is arguably no core ideas that structure the scholarly and teaching missions of the academy. Disciplines prepare career-minded students for individual professions or further localized study. Scholars pursue their agendas within local specializations, often unware of outside scholarship that has deep implications for their work. ![]() Its humanistic core has given way to disciplinary specialization. The contemporary academy is suffering from a crisis in meaning. Their goal, never fully articulated as such but successfully prosecuted, is a dumbed-down population. With managerialism and the undermining of democracy, such education and the questioning, creative people it produced, are now seen as a threat to the new global corporatocracy who, to achieve cultural hegemony, have coöpted university managers and academics to impose their agenda to cripple the liberal arts. ![]() While not always upholding this ideal, it is argued in this paper that the liberal arts always kept alive this quest for liberty, bequeathing this quest to the Renaissance philosophers and to the proponents of the Radical Enlightenment. Inspired by the Ancient Greek notion of paideia, the liberal arts, which originated in republican Rome, was the form of education required designed for free people, in opposition to the specialist education appropriate for slaves, to inspire them to maintain their liberty and enable them to govern themselves. The central place the liberal arts had in upholding this liberty is shown. The struggle within universities is the site of a struggle to reverse the gains of the Radical Enlightenment, the tradition of Enlightenment that, committed to upholding and developing the civic humanism of the Renaissance, strove for liberty, understood as democratic self-governance. This is associated with a global managerial revolution that is enslaving nations and people to the global market and the corporations that dominate it. Using Australia to illustrate the case, in this paper it is argued that the transformation of universities into businesses and the undermining of the liberal arts is motivated by either contempt for or outright hostility to democracy.
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