Hannah Arendt and the Idea of the University: Between Intellectual Autonomy and Political Engagement

This article examines the relationship between science and politics. Specifically, it explores limitations on academic freedom and the resulting compromises on the role of the researcher as a public intellectual and purveyor of the truth. By discussing and analysing Hannah Arendt’s idea of the university, I argue that the university contains an inherent tension, for it is both an apolitical space for truth’s pursuit while also a public realm wherein researchers can engage politically and ethically with society. I suggest that researchers, as public intellectuals, are situated in this liminal space in which thinking, judgement, and action are supposedly protected under the ideal of academic freedom. Finally, I explore a legal perspective through which to examine the relationship between academic freedom and its institutional foundation. Through emphasizing localism over centralization and advocating for ground-up power through the promissory potential of academic freedom, I conclude that the responsibility for protecting and promoting such a freedom does not necessarily lie outside of the university but arises from within.