What Is a University?

From the perspective of the tradition of higher learning, developed by thinkers as diverse as Wilhelm von Humboldt, Karl Jaspers, John Henry Newman, Manuel García Morentes, and Alasdair Macintyre, the university is an institution that is marked out from other institutions in one singular respect: among all human institutions, it stands out as a community of scholars and students devoted to the pursuit of truth, valued as an end in itself, through rational inquiry in all fields of human knowledge, with a special privileging of philosophy and the liberal arts.

One might consider the ancient academies such as the Athenian school of the Peripatetics as the first “universities,” since they too seem to fit this definition, at least in spirit. However, these academies did not have the strong links with, and openness to, the wider social order that the medieval studium generale and the modern university do, nor did they have anything like the same degree of professionalization and accreditation that we associate with the medieval and modern universities.

For these reasons, it is traditionally considered that the university was “born” around 1200 AD in medieval Europe, with the emergence of centers of higher learning, devoted to the study of the liberal arts as a preparation for advanced studies in theology, law, and medicine.

The Proper Ends of the University

Now, if we consider the university to be a community of scholars and students devoted to the rational pursuit of truth in all fields of knowledge, then what are the ends that directly participate in the university’s truth-seeking mission, and what are the ends that are auxiliary or secondary with respect to this mission?