Internal Threats to Academic Freedom

When considering threats to academic freedom, it can be helpful to distinguish between those which come from outside the academic domain and those which originate inside it. In a legal perspective, both a state law and a university regulation can encroach on the freedom of teaching and research. A philosophical regard, in turn, observes that, while extra-academic powers often seek to restrict or even negate the autonomy of scientific enquiry, such restriction or negation can also be inflicted by the academic community on itself. The talk will focus on these latter and less discussed threats to academic freedom, which mostly take the form of a variety of evaluative practices. The common feature of these practices is the substitution of scientific judgement with forms of assessment which are based on criteria other than scientific truth. By adopting such criteria, academia effectively relinquishes its autonomy and inner solidity, thus becoming even more exposed to heteronomous direction. An analysis of said “internal threats” bears on a prior diagnosis of the present state of scientific knowledge in its fundamental scope (notably, the process of “technicization” and “societization” of science) and institutional setting (namely, the present rationale of universities). Shedding a light on what is expectable from scientific research and academic teaching today, finally allows to point out a range of untimely practices and forms of governance through which the freedom of scholarly endeavours seems to be curtailed in a manner that menaces our capacity to adequately respond to the “epistemic demands” of our time.  

CHAIR

Ester Gallo, University of Trento