Escape from (Academic) Freedom: Towards a Social, Personal and Realist Heuristic for Evaluating Academic Freedom

• In Event: 1455 - Section on History of Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 1

Abstract

Erich Fromm observed that society’s inability to achieve the full uniqueness of each individual, or freedom to, had compromised gains in freedom from external constraint, or freedom from. I suggest that freedom from is similarly connected to freedom to in academic freedom. I draw on the analysis of Michael Polanyi, Karl Mannheim, and Robert Merton as they analyzed the changing nature of knowledge production in modern society. Following Merton, I argue that any account of freedom from in academic freedom must assess the relationship between academia and public opinion. Synthesizing Mannheim and Polanyi, I find that both awareness of the personal and social sources of knowledge and belief in an accessible, transcendent reality are necessary for freedom to in academic freedom. This dual acknowledgment constitutes a recursive organizing principle and helps correct the overemphasis on freedom from to the detriment of freedom to that erodes both.

Author

• Kerby Goff, Penn State University