Abstract
Recent critiques of the curricular and pedagogical limitations of the Western university model and its various international imitators have focused sharply on the question of knowledge—in particular the supposed privileging in the academy of Eurocentric and ‘colonialist’ constructions of knowledge at the expense of subaltern or indigenous knowledge repositories and epistemologies. A particular target of this invective has been the modern or so-called ‘Humboldtian’ research university, condemned for its exclusionary conceptions of knowledge legitimation and its imperial subordination of alternative traditions of wisdom, inquiry, learning and knowledge production. While it is important, however, to recognise the damaging effects of the Western university’s complicity with imperial education in all of its hierarchical forms, sustained attention to the careers of the Humboldt brothers and their roles in the shaping of the ‘Berlin Curriculum’ reveals a much more complex understanding of the modern university at the moment of its incubation. Influenced by their various encounters with indigenous societies, and their wider appreciation of the German tradition, the revolutionary reimagining of university essayed by the Humboldts was in fact much more sympathetic to alternative, marginalised styles of reasoning and synthesising than is commonly acknowledged. The Humboldtian moment may therefore be a much more hopeful one for reflecting upon future directions of the globalised, intercultural academy.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Aman, R. (2015). The double bind of interculturality and the implications for education. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 36(2), 149–165.
Anuik, J., & Gillies, C. L. (2012). Indigenous knowledge in post-secondary educators’ practices: Nourishing the learning Spirit. Canadian Journal of Higher Education/Revue canadienne d’enseignement supérieur, 42(1), 63–79.
Arvanitakis, J. (2013). Massification and the large lecture theatre: From panic to excitement. Higher Education, 67(6), 735–745.
Ash, M. (2006). Bachelor of what, master of whom? The Humboldt myth and historical transformations of higher education in German-speaking Europe and the US. European Journal of Education, 41(2), 245–267.
Barnett, R. (2014). Imagining the humanities – Amid the inhuman. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 13(1–2), 42–53.
Boulton, G., & Lucas, C. (2011). What are universities for? Chinese Science Bulletin, 56(23), 2506–2517.
Brady, N. (2012). From ‘moral loss’ to ‘moral reconstruction’? A critique of ethical perspectives on challenging the neoliberal hegemony in UK universities in the 21st century. Oxford Review of Education, 38(3), 343–355.
Brown, W. (2015). Neoliberalism’s stealth revolution. New York: MIT Press.
Chibber, V. (2013). Postcolonial theory and the specter of capital. London: Verso.
Cruickshank, J. (2016). Putting business at the heart of higher education: On neoliberal interventionism and audit culture in UK Universities. Open Library of Humanities, 2(1), e3.
de Sousa Santos, B. (2015). Epistemologies of the south: Justice against Epistemicide. London: Routledge.
Fichte, J. G. (1805–1806/1926). Deduced scheme for an academy to be established in Berlin. (G. H. Turnbull, Trans.). The educational theory of J.G. Fichte (pp. 170–259). London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Franklin, M. (2011). Orientalist Jones’: Sir William Jones, poet, lawyer, and linguist, 1746–1794. Oxford: OUP.
Fulford, A. (2016). Higher education, collaboration and a new economics. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 50(3), 371–383.
Ghosh, K. (2010). Indigenous Incitements. In D. Kapoor & E. Shizha (Eds.), Indigenous knowledge and learning in Asia/Pacific and Africa (pp. 35–47). London: Palgrave.
Gibbs, G. (2013). Lectures don’t work, but we keep using them. Times Higher Education Supplement, 211113.
Grosfoguel, R. (2013). The structure of knowledge in Westernized Universities: Epistemic racism/sexism and the four genocides/epistemicides of the long 16th century. Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, 11(1), 73–90.
Hall, D. (2001). Just how provincial Is western philosophy? ‘Truth’ in comparative context. Social Epistemology, 15, 285–298.
Hauschild, T. (1997). Christians, Jews, and the other in German anthropology. American Anthropologist, 99(4), 746–753.
Irwin, R. (2006). For lust of knowing: The orientalists and their enemies. London: Penguin.
Israel, J. (2002). Radical enlightenment: Philosophy and the making of modernity, 1650–1750. Oxford: OUP.
Kant, I. (1798/1979). The conflict of the faculties (M. J. Gregor, Trans.). New York: Abaris Books.
Kant, I. (1803/2003). On education (Paul Kegan, Trans.). Mineola: Dover Publications, Inc.
Khoo, S., et al. (2016). Ethical internationalization, neo-liberal restructuring and “beating the bounds” of higher education. In L. Schultz & M. Viczko (Eds.), Assembling and governing the higher education institution (pp. 85–111). London: Palgrave.
Kirkwood, A., & Price, L. (2014). Technology-enhanced learning and teaching in higher education: What is ‘enhanced’ and how do we know? A critical literature review. Learning, Media and Technology, 39(1), 6–36.
Kitchen, M. (2015). Albert Speer: Hitler’s architect. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Kwiek. (2009). The changing attractiveness of European higher education: Current developments, future challenges and major policy issues. In B. M. Kehm et al. (Eds.), The European higher education area: Perspectives on a moving target (pp. 107–124). Dordrecht: Springer.
Lepori, B., & Kyvik, S. (2010). The research mission of universities of applied sciences and the future configuration of higher education systems in Europe. Higher Education Policy, 23(3), 295–316.
Marcone, J. (2013). Humboldt in the Orinoco and the environmental humanities. Hispanic Issues On Line, 12, 75–91.
Marcus, J. (2016). The paradox of new buildings on campus. The Atlantic, 250716.
Marshall, S. (2010). Change, technology and higher education: Are universities capable of organisational change? Research in Learning Technology, 18(3), 179–192.
Martín-Díaz, E. (2017). Are universities ready for interculturality? The case of the Intercultural University ‘Amawtay Wasi’. Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, Online View, 1–18.
McClintock, A. (1995). Imperial leather: Race, gender and sexuality in the colonial contest. New York: Routledge.
McDonald, I. (2013). What are universities for? Journal of Research Initiatives, 1(1), 12.
McLaren, P. (2006). Rage + Hope. New York: Peter Lang.
Nakata, N. M., et al. (2012). Decolonial goals and pedagogies for indigenous studies. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1), 120–140.
Narvaez, D. (2014). Neurobiology and the development of human morality: Evolution, culture and wisdom. New York: Norton.
Nybom, T. (2007). A rule-governed Community of Scholars: The Humboldt vision in the history of the European university. In P. Maassen & J. P. Olsen (Eds.), University dynamics and European integration (pp. 55–80). Dordrecht: Springer.
Nybom, T. (2012). The disintegration of higher education in Europe, 1970–2010: A post-Humboldtian essay. In S. Rothblatt (Ed.), Clark Kerr’s world of higher education reaches the 21st century: 163 chapters in a special history, higher education dynamics 38 (pp. 163–181). Dordrecht: Springer.
Nylander, E., et al. (2013). Managing by measuring: Academic knowledge production under the ranks. Confero, 1(1), 5–18.
Oleseon, A. (2014). Teaching the way they were taught? Revisiting the sources of teaching knowledge and the role of prior experience in shaping faculty teaching practices. Higher Education, 68(1), 29–45.
Phipps, A. (2013). Intercultural ethics: Questions of methods in language and intercultural communication. Language and Intercultural Communication, 13(1), 10–26.
Pietsch, T. (2015). Empire of scholars: Universities, networks and the British academic world 1850–1939. Manchester: MUP.
Rata, E. (2012). The politics of knowledge in education. British Educational Research Journal, 38(1), 103–124.
Readings, B. (1996). The University in Ruins. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Scharfstein, B.-A. (2001). How important is truth to epistemology and knowledge? Some answers from comparative philosophy. Social Epistemology, 15, 275–224.
Seuffert, N. (1997). Circumscribing knowledge in Aotearoa/New Zealand: Just epistemology. Yearbook of New Zealand Jurisprudence, 1, 97–125.
Shahjahan, R. A., & Morgan, C. (2016). Global competition, coloniality, and the geopolitics of knowledge in higher education. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 37(1), 92–109.
Sillitoe, P. (2010). Trust in development: Some implications of knowing in indigenous knowledge. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.), 16, 12–30.
Sutherland, M. (2014). Indigenous and western knowledge: A false dichotomy? In P. Inman & D. L. Robinson (Eds.), University engagement and environmental sustainability (pp. 35–47). MUP: Manchester.
Trifonas, P. P., & Peters, M. A. (Eds.). (2005). Deconstructing Derrida: Tasks for the new humanities. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Von Humboldt, W. (1809/1990). Über die innere und äussere Organisation de hoheren wissenschaftlichen Anstalten zu Berlin. In E. Moller (Ed.), Gelegentliche Gedanken iiber Universititen (p. 34). Leipzig: Reclam. Translated in Ash (2006).
Von Humboldt, W. (1963). Humanist without portfolio: An anthology of the writings of Wilhelm von Humboldt (M. Cowan, Trans.). Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Warraq, I. (2007). Defending the west: A critique of Edward Said’s orientalism. New York: Prometheus Books.
Wolf, A. (2015). The invention of nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s new world. London: John Murray.
Worrall, D. (2015). Harlequin empire: Race, ethnicity and the drama of the popular enlightenment. London: Routledge.
Zoontjens, P. J. J. (2010). Protecting ‘university’ as a designation: Analysis and comparison of the legal position in several countries. Education Law Journal, 11(2), 117–131.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Davis, R.A. (2018). Ethics, Epistemology and the Post-Humboldtian University. In: Smeyers, P., Depaepe, M. (eds) Educational Research: Ethics, Social Justice, and Funding Dynamics. Educational Research, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73921-2_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73921-2_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-73920-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-73921-2
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)