Ronald Barnett

Barnett shows how the University has been in the vanguard of an attack on its own foundations, and proclaims: "The Western university is at an end."

Universities are in part to blame for bringing about our current postmodern condition, where no knowledge is secure, no frame of reference and inquiry unchallengeable. Barnett uses the term "supercomplexity" to refer to this fragile state of affairs.

However, there is plenty of cause for hope and not despair, as two new challenges have arisen. Firstly, a mode of research that continues to generate supercomplexity, but which also acknowledges the demands of the world for knowledges to be "useful". Secondly, a mode of education that focuses on the whole of the student's being, preparing the student to survive and thrive in a supercomplex world.

My good friend says that he owes quite a debt to Heidegger's conception of being. I have thus far not found opportunity to research this for myself.… (more)