Realm of attention and contemporary epistemic engineering. On the future of university

Abstract

The article is a critical comment on the contemporary condition of the university and the reform of higher education introduced in Poland in 2018 (the so-called reform 2.0). The management culture imposed by the reform, focused on “scientific productivity” and bibliometrics, is in conflict with the university’s ethos of striving for truth and open discussion, constitutive for the community of learners and scientists. The author argues that attachment to these values is not only a matter of tradition, but a special task of the university within the contemporary public sphere, torn by axiological conflicts, and disintegrating into a number of digital “tribes”. The university as an institution developed along with the culture of axiological pluralism and rational doubt, which is supported itself. However, these values cannot be maintained if the academic doxa adopts the assumptions of radical cognitive relativism. “Anti-relativistic cognitive minimum” (Steven Lukes) and the assumption of relative translatability of languages are necessary if the university is to continue to play the socially important function of supporting critical dispositions and intellectual independence.