National and State Classical University in a Globalizing Modernity

Abstract

The classical “university of reason”, the idea of which is defined in German classical philosophy and German romanticism as “preparation for knowledge”, and “mission” - as “the formation of goodwill”, i.e. the education of a citizen, has lost its foundation in modernity: the essential unity of culture, the nation, the state, and the university is removed and the named “elements” of this unity in modern reality, presented in the liberal version of the economic paradigm, mean something else: the article indicates their new meaning, and as such are no longer connected. The thing that has replaced the “university of reason” in modernity has other tasks: to guarantee globalization by producing technical, i.e. directly useful and standardized knowledge, and to participate in the formation of human capital. The products produced by the university are offered on the global market as a competitively priced commodity; the name “university” is still kept as a “technical term” to denote a “bureaucratically and commercially oriented corporation”. (B. Ridings). At the same time, a unified educational space as one of the areas of the global order needs the formation of a cosmopolitan worldview - the structure, the content of educational programs, the form of organization of the modern university-corporation (as now - “multicultural reality”) are aimed at fulfilling such a definite task. The concept of “sustainable development” and its stated agenda, by defining educational goals, represents a way of ’politicizing’ (W. Beck), which aims to limit total market logic and balance necessary inequalities to ensure the unity of the global order; the article asks what this means for a university that has lost its essential identity and is embedded in a global network.