@article{Burston, author = {Burston, Daniel}, title = {Authority, Tradition and the Postmodern University}, series = {Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture, Vol. 3 (No. 5) 2018, pp. 90-99.}, journal = {Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture, Vol. 3 (No. 5) 2018, pp. 90-99.}, abstract = {The postmodern university is experiencing a legitimation crisis because of a deepening and corrosive mistrust of all forms of authority; even those that are intended to benefit students by enabling them to >think critically<, or to deepen and improve their knowledge and skills. Some of the problem is rooted in prevailing cultural and economic trends, but others inhere in the nature of postmodernism itself; especially the postmodern claim that truth itself is non-existent or simply unattainable or unavailable, even at the best of times. Unlike earlier generations of critical theorists, who believed that >the truth shall make you free<, postmodern theorists, following Nietzsche, claim that the very idea of truth is moot, if not entirely obsolete. But absent a commitment to a search for truth, the entire structure of the university itself begins to crumble.}, language = {en} }