The End of Knowledge in Higher Education

This study questions whether it is possible to identify a justified, secure and coherent base for our knowledge of the world and of ourselves. Science no longer enjoys an unquestioned pre-eminence in providing objective knowledge, and the social improvement brought about through rational thought has been recently attacked by postmodernism. Higher education is therefore placed in a precarious position, based as it is on the acquisition of knowledge and understanding. This book explores the various dimensions of this crisis of confidence in science and higher education, showing how thinkers in the various disciplines are reacting to this challenge, and how they are re-evaluating the basis of their forms of enquiry.

Introduction and outline of the issues, Anne Griffin; knowledge, legitimacy and the crisis for knowledge in higher education, Ruth Jonathan; the unnatural nature of science, Lewis Wolpert; truth, identity and community on campus, Nigel Blake; one dimension or anything goes?, Ron Barnett; whose knowledge, whose Postmodernism, Anne Seller; the arts, Postmodernism and the search for truth, Peter Abbs; negotiating truth - some insights in applied anthropology, Sonia Greger; thinking about nature in a post-Enlightenment culture, Kate Soper; higher education for all?, Clive Bloom; overcrowded universities and the crush on learning, John Haldane; the future for knowledge in a society of clients, David Peckham.

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