The modern idea of university: From the ivory tower towards academic capitalism

Abstract

This article analyzes the evolution of discourses about the modern university by presenting a reflexive reading of classical and contemporary texts on the passage from a university conceived as an ivory tower to the entrepreneurial university, and the strains it creates in terms of formative principles and knowledge organization. To do so, the article begins by arguing that the university becomes part of the Enlightenment and accesses to modernity when the Faculty of Philosophy ceases to be conceptualized as the handmaiden of the Faculty of Theology (philosophia theologiae ancilla) and grows to be understood as the mistress’ torchbearer, as ironically remarked by Kant. In the following decades, the new role that philosophy adopts in the division of academic labor changes the relationship of the institution with both the political and religious powers, opening the door on the road to the nation state and, further down, to the subordination of its activities to global academic capitalism. Consequently, traditional normative referents, as those proclaimed by Kant and Humboldt where universities were conceived as responsible for the evolution of modern society, lose plausibility and are subjected to the criticism of ideologies. The article concludes by examining future trends in education and research conducted in contemporary universities and by arguing that the crisis of the modern idea of the university is, in fact, an expression of its modern character that now turns against this very institution.