University: Genesis and Transformation of an Idea

Abstract

The article is devoted to the birth and transformation of the Idea of the University as an institutional form within the German spiritual culture of the 19th – 20th centuries. The author traces the history of the Idea of the University from the works of I. Kant (through the prism of his idea of the Enlightenment), then in the works of W. von Humboldt, the attempt to revive the Idea in the works of K. Jaspers, and the death of the idea during Nazism on the example of the “Heidegger case” The article specifically examines the basic principles of the University of W. von Humboldt – academic freedom and unity of science and education. The latter is considered not in a narrow academic sense, but in the classical – the formation of a person's image, chasing his appearance. W. von Humboldt assumed the unity of three universes: the universe of man, the universe of knowledge and the university as an institution that creates conditions for “solitude and freedom”.

Further, the author shows the transformation of the university in the modern world in connection with the change in the time vector, the reorientation of the educational paradigm from the past to the future and the search, in this connection, of a new identity for universities. Despite the actual death of the classical idea of the University of W. von Humboldt, the author shows that this idea can be revived in a new model of an entrepreneurial university, which also contains the basic principle of W. von Humboldt, which presupposes a constant scientific search and the formation of a person for whom personal development remains a value.