Abstract
Since the nineteenth century, the debate around the process of professionalization of higher education has been characterized by two extreme positions. For some critics the process carries the risks of instrumentalizing knowledge and of leading the university to succumb under the demands of the market or the state; for other theorists it represents a concrete opportunity for the university to open up to the real needs of society and for reorienting theoretical and fragmented disciplines towards the resolution of concrete and challenging problems. This article pursues three objectives. Firstly, we show that the debate is usefully informed not only by ideas of what a university is, but also by ideas of a profession (and, by extension, of professional training). We suggest that both ideas help to overcome the conflict between the two afore-mentioned antagonist perspectives. Secondly, we demonstrate that a certain understanding of a profession can prevent the risk of viewing knowledge exclusively as scientific expertise and reducing training to the acquisition of technical skills. The position on professions adopted here is inspired by the Scottish philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, whose work is instructive in understanding professions as “rational practical activities”, embedded in a social context with their own internal goods. Our third objective, therefore, is to argue, with MacIntyre, that the presence of professions within the university opens up the opportunity to rescue forms of rationality that are oriented towards action and, by implication, promotes spaces of training that are resistant to exclusively corporate or governmental interests and criteria of mere effectiveness.
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Notes
Whether or not universities should offer professional training is a question that has been disputed since the nineteenth century, and this debate is informed by two different traditions. In the Anglo-Saxon world, it is informed principally by Cardinal J. H. Newman’s idea of knowledge as its own end and the main risk is seen in the instrumentalization of knowledge and the weakening of the liberal arts tradition. On the Continent, the debate is informed principally by Wilhelm von Humboldt’s idea of the research university, and the associated concepts of education [Bildung] and academic freedom [Lehrfreiheit and Lernfreiheit]. The key concern in this debate lies with the advancement of a service orientation (towards the needs of society and state), pragmatism, and the practical utility of the university.
A point which has not yet received full attention in the literature on the professions, however, is that each of these two broad theoretical perspectives also represents one of the two rival traditions that Alasdair MacIntyre analyses in his works: the modern or rationalist perspective and the postmodern or genealogical perspective (MacIntyre 1990).
Although this statement is characteristic of MacIntyre’s thinking, it seems important to emphasise that MacIntyre does not believe that professional activities constitute a superior form of knowledge with a higher status of morality. Indeed, he is against any “elitism” which is evident in the specific examples of communities of practice he provides. These examples include “fishing communities in New England […] cooperatives farming in Donegal” (MacIntyre 2009, p. 143)
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Acknowledgments
This research is the outcome of a postdoctoral fellowship completed by the first author at the Institute of Education, Community and Society at The University of Edinburgh. This project was sponsored by CONICYT, Formation of Advanced Human Capital Program (Becas Chile).
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Serrano del Pozo, I., Kreber, C. Professionalization of the University and the Profession as Macintyrean Practice. Stud Philos Educ 34, 551–564 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-014-9453-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-014-9453-0