Criticality within the Disciplines

Abstract

Dominated by consensus and conformity, the intellectual environment of today’s university precludes all but the most determined attempts at truly groundbreaking free thought. Academic freedom thus comes to seem a largely abstract proposition disconnected from the pursuit of knowledge. This culture has emerged with the collapse of criticism, or the public act of passing judgement, which required both a concept of knowledge as contestable truth claims and an audience of people with the necessary expertise to validate the worth of a critique. Within the academy, such a public was formed of like-minded scholars who shared a common body of knowledge and similar theoretical and methodological assumptions.