There is a current debate about the extent to which Academic Freedom should be permitted in our universities.On the one hand,we have traditionalists who maintain that Academic Freedom should be unrestricted:people who...There is a current debate about the extent to which Academic Freedom should be permitted in our universities.On the one hand,we have traditionalists who maintain that Academic Freedom should be unrestricted:people who have the appropriate qualifications and accomplishments should be allowed to develop theories about how the world is,or ought to be,as they see fit.On the other hand,we have post-traditional philosophers who argue against this degree of Academic Freedom.I consider a conservative version of post-traditional philosophy that permits restrictions on Academic Freedom only if the following conditions are met,Condition 1:The dissemination of the results of a given research project R must cause significant harm to some people,especially to people from oppressed groups.Condition 2:Condition 1 must possess strong empirical support,and which accepts the following assumptions:(1)there is a world of objective facts that is,in principle,discoverable,(2)rational means are the means of discovering it and,(3)rational means requires strong empirical support.I define strong empirical support for an hypothesis h on evidence e in probabilistic terms,as a ratio of posterior to prior probabilities substantially exceeding 1.I now argue in favour of a research policy that accepts unrestricted Academic Freedom.My argument is that there is a formal and general quandary that arises within the standard theory of probability when we apply this account of empirical support to a set of possible causal hypotheses framed in such a way that the“reverse probabilities”,pr(e/h)are 1.I consider various possible ways to escape this quandary,none of which are without difficulties,concluding that a research policy allowing for unrestricted Academic Freedom is probably the best that we can hope for.展开更多
Academic freedom is best understood not as an abstract universal principle or an ideal state of being but as concrete university practices nested in specific relational environments.As such,practices of academic freed...Academic freedom is best understood not as an abstract universal principle or an ideal state of being but as concrete university practices nested in specific relational environments.As such,practices of academic freedom vary across the world,according to variations in political cultures,educational cultures and state-university relations.The article discusses these variations with particular reference to differences between universities associated with the limited liberal states of the English-speaking world,and those associated with comprehensive East Asian states in the Sinic tradition,including China.Given the different traditions there is no point in imposing judgments on one system in terms of the norms of another,but worth exploring the potential for common ground.Any world-wide approach to academic freedom would need to combine a universal element with space for context-specific elements.展开更多
In this essay,we interrogate the role of academic freedom in the 21st century by describing its historical genesis in the modern university,its association with the concept of tenure,and how it is reinterpreted by dif...In this essay,we interrogate the role of academic freedom in the 21st century by describing its historical genesis in the modern university,its association with the concept of tenure,and how it is reinterpreted by different cultural and social contexts.Afterwards,we examine traditional infringements by national governments upon academic freedom,as well as new infringements brought on by the forces of globalization and commercialization.Since academic freedom not only protects scholarly inquiry,but the health and safety of academics across the world,we argue that academic freedom is a“transcendent value”that should be respected by political and institutional forces and carefully defended by engaged scholars.展开更多
文摘There is a current debate about the extent to which Academic Freedom should be permitted in our universities.On the one hand,we have traditionalists who maintain that Academic Freedom should be unrestricted:people who have the appropriate qualifications and accomplishments should be allowed to develop theories about how the world is,or ought to be,as they see fit.On the other hand,we have post-traditional philosophers who argue against this degree of Academic Freedom.I consider a conservative version of post-traditional philosophy that permits restrictions on Academic Freedom only if the following conditions are met,Condition 1:The dissemination of the results of a given research project R must cause significant harm to some people,especially to people from oppressed groups.Condition 2:Condition 1 must possess strong empirical support,and which accepts the following assumptions:(1)there is a world of objective facts that is,in principle,discoverable,(2)rational means are the means of discovering it and,(3)rational means requires strong empirical support.I define strong empirical support for an hypothesis h on evidence e in probabilistic terms,as a ratio of posterior to prior probabilities substantially exceeding 1.I now argue in favour of a research policy that accepts unrestricted Academic Freedom.My argument is that there is a formal and general quandary that arises within the standard theory of probability when we apply this account of empirical support to a set of possible causal hypotheses framed in such a way that the“reverse probabilities”,pr(e/h)are 1.I consider various possible ways to escape this quandary,none of which are without difficulties,concluding that a research policy allowing for unrestricted Academic Freedom is probably the best that we can hope for.
文摘Academic freedom is best understood not as an abstract universal principle or an ideal state of being but as concrete university practices nested in specific relational environments.As such,practices of academic freedom vary across the world,according to variations in political cultures,educational cultures and state-university relations.The article discusses these variations with particular reference to differences between universities associated with the limited liberal states of the English-speaking world,and those associated with comprehensive East Asian states in the Sinic tradition,including China.Given the different traditions there is no point in imposing judgments on one system in terms of the norms of another,but worth exploring the potential for common ground.Any world-wide approach to academic freedom would need to combine a universal element with space for context-specific elements.
文摘In this essay,we interrogate the role of academic freedom in the 21st century by describing its historical genesis in the modern university,its association with the concept of tenure,and how it is reinterpreted by different cultural and social contexts.Afterwards,we examine traditional infringements by national governments upon academic freedom,as well as new infringements brought on by the forces of globalization and commercialization.Since academic freedom not only protects scholarly inquiry,but the health and safety of academics across the world,we argue that academic freedom is a“transcendent value”that should be respected by political and institutional forces and carefully defended by engaged scholars.
