Episteme jako zasada połączenia uniwersytetu ze światem

Abstract

The author of the article analyzes the crisis of the contemporary university in Europe and America. Her starting point is Bill Readings’ critique of the post-historical phase of the university development, included in his book The University in Ruins (1996). As she argues, “the main characteristic of this phase is the replacement of the idea of science and education with the idea of excellence.” However, the idea originates from the “need to achieve a universal tool for comparing research results of different scholars, as well as from the need to evaluate these results.” Rejecting such a way of reasoning, the author of the article points to the model of the university based on German and Polish traditions, i.e. ones grounded in episteme. For her, episteme is a complex experience, which after re-thinking and after selecting, can be accepted as one’s own, and subsequently transformed and verified in one’s own action. An anthropological equivalent of such a conception is an active and responsible free-thinker.