To Judge and To Justify: Profiles of the Academic Vocation

This book argues that judging and justifying are the two skills that specifically require academic training. In the current times, where the value of a university degree is increasingly questioned, it’s important to emphasize the significance of these skills. This volume addresses that universities are not necessarily stressing these skills, preferring instead to focus on the delivery of ‘content’ and the provision of ‘credentials’. Its main focus is on articulating the positive case for the university’s focus on judging and explaining as its core ‘transferable skills.’ It involves examining the historical and philosophical case for this claim, canvassing arguments made – and the example set -- by Plato, Francis Bacon, Immanuel Kant, William Whewell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Paul Feyerabend, Richard Rorty, John Rawls and Robert Nozick – as well as considering how they might be realized in today’s world. This book extends the arguments in Fuller’s recent book, Back to the University’s Future: The Second Coming of Humboldt (Springer, 2023).