The university is a state authority obliged to follow the law. It is a collection of buildings in need of upkeep. It is (or so the government and business sector hope) a driver of economic growth. It is a number of archives and libraries. It is all of us who daily tread the path from the metro to campus.
The university as a phenomenon is not easily described, yet there are some famous attempts to pinpoint its essence. In 1798, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant published Der Streit der Fakultäten, translated as The Conflict of the Faculties. It is basically a manifesto in defence of the autonomy of thinking – which Kant located to the faculty of philosophy. “It is absolutely essential”, he argued, “that the learned community at the university also contain a faculty that is independent of the government’s command with regard to its teachings; one that, having no commands to give, is free to evaluate everything, and concerns itself with the interests of the sciences, that is, with truth” (trans. Mary J. Gregor).
Kant did not question the legitimacy of the university’s mission to furnish society with useful expertise – in his day mainly in law, medicine and theology. Today, moreover, universities are composed differently. What once belonged in the faculty of philosophy is now distributed across the human and natural sciences.
But Kant’s lesson for our times – when political and bureaucratic pressures on the universities are mounting – has to do with following the quest for knowledge where it will lead. Above and beyond its legal obligations, then, the university must provide a space for teaching and research – our core activities – to be inconvenient for the powers that be, regardless if “power” is understood in political, economic or indeed immanently academic terms. This is not an end in itself, but a matter of loyalty to the university’s central task. It is a right derived from the very practice of seeking knowledge. But it is also conditional: claiming such a right means that one must defer to the stronger scientific argument.
It is in this dynamic process – the assessment of contrasting arguments and knowledge claims – that we can locate the strongest motivation for the very existence of universities, even today, when “everything” is a Google search away. Knowledge may, in other words, become uncomfortable, and this is as it should be. It is a right that many at Stockholm University value highly. The worldwide history of universities themselves supports them in this conviction.
This text is written by Stefan Helgesson, Deputy Vice President. It appears in the section ”Words from the University’s senior management team”, where the management take turns to write about topical issues. The section appears in News for staff.