Abstract

Recently, "postmodern" forms of thought have emerged in many fields that pose fundamental challenges to modern assumptions concerning knowledge. On the premise that the postmodern is modernism in its nascent state, it is shown how the visions of higher education of four established thinkers and institutional leaders imply an absolute foundation of knowledge. Then, the implications of five postmodern philosophical positions on knowledge for higher education are explored, including the positions of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Richard Rorty, and Calvin Schrag, to show how they reject absolute foundations and seek to expand the possibilities of theoretical practice. It is argued that the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is, in effect, the absolute foundation of the modern university and that this foundation unduly limits the capacity of intellect. In particular, the disciplines have the effect of presupposing the idea of an absolute foundation concerning what counts as legitimate intellectual activity. ;A postmodern conception of higher education is advanced that rejects the absoluteness of the disciplines. A postmodern university would be a place that is focused on expanding the idea of theoretical practice by emphasizing an idea of intellectual activity that goes beyond the modern pursuit of knowledge. A conception of higher education that both reforms the idea of the disciplines and that goes beyond them is developed with the key concept being "intellectually compelling ideas." Implications of the postmodern university for the idea of interdisciplinarity are also explored. Based on the conclusions of this inquiry, a description of what a postmodern university and intellectual community would be like for those who would work and learn there is articulated