Pragmatism and Academic Freedom

Dea’s account of the development of the idea of academic freedom begins with Wilhelm von Humboldt, who envisioned the university as an institution committed to research, to the intertwining of research and teaching, and to academic freedom. Humboldt influenced both Charles Peirce and John Dewey. Peirce held that the purpose of a university is “the production of knowledge” and that university students should learn not by listening to lectures but by participating in research. For Dewey, the function of a university is to seek the truth, and any restriction on academic freedom is an attack on the university itself. He held that the primary threat to academic freedom is the tendency of universities to expand and the consequences of that expansion. Dea concludes by considering the threat that authoritarianism continues to pose to academic freedom and the resources that Peirce and Dewey provide to help us respond to that threat.