The aim of the paper is to provide a philosophical and historical background to current discussions about the changing relationships between the university and the state through revisiting the classical “Humboldtian” model of the university. This historical detour is intended to show the cultural rootedness of the modern “idea of the university”, and its close links to the idea of the modern national state. The background is provided by the discussion of such German philosophers and scholars as Wilhelm von Humboldt, (...) Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Friedrich W.J. Schelling in the 19th century, as well as the controversy between Karl Jaspers and Jürgen Habermas in the 20th century. The paper consists of the following sections: the university and society: basic questions; the modern university, the nation-state, and “retrospective constructions; the three main principles of the Humboldtian university; the nationalization of European universities: serving the nation; the national aspect of the German Bildung; the pursuit of truth vs. public responsibilities of the modern university; the idea of the university vs. its embodiments ; the university and the state: a modern pact; the renewal of the university vs. the regeneration of the nation; knowledge for its own sake and Wilhelm von Humboldt; Humboldt‟s university vs. the “Humboldtian” university; the University of Berlin: new weapons to continue the struggle lost in the battleground; Humboldt and the role of Bildung; the rebirth of the German nation through education?; giving birth to a new world and the Heideggerian overtones; the state, the university, and academic freedom ; philosophy and education ; and conclusions. (shrink)

Questions about the intellectual's place and role in society, his tasks and obligations, the status he ascribes to himself and that society ascribes to him have recently become a significant part of the ongoing discourse in the humanities. There are different reasons in different countries for this, but whether in English-speaking countries, in Germany or, especially, in France, questions about the intellectual have been important points of reference in numerous discussions at the end of the 20th century. Lepenies' thinking convincingly (...) shows that the dominating French discourse on the subject requires a significant supplement today, for it depicts merely a part of a larger whole which does not confine itself to France aloneFrench questions about the intellectual do not exhaust the catalogue of all the questions that can and should be asked today; nor do they restrict our account of the issue of the intellectual to the adventure of being seduced by the Marxist thinking which started with the October Revolution of 1917 progressing to the middle of the seventies on the part of French writers and philosophers, followed only by their disappointment with and gradual distancing from it after the Algerian war of independence and the events of 1956 ; furthermore, these questions, heading mainly back through history - and mainly to that of the 20th century France - basically pass in silence the present and the future. (shrink)