Description
Book SynopsisStarting from Newman`s concept of the university as a place of liberal education, Professor Cameron examines how today`s university functions, what its aims should be and what its strengths and deficiencies are, and presents some proposals for reform. He argues that liberal education, in which knowledge is pursued for its own sake as well as for the advantages it may bring, should remain the core of university studies, although he emphasizes that natural science and the technologies, as well as the traditional art subjects, may be studied liberally in the university. In the course of a rich and broad-ranging discussion, he singles out parasensical discourse – a kind of curious verbal play, neither sense nor nonsense, designed to inculcate attitudes, not convey information – as a symptom of the crisis in the university today. Cameron`s trenchant analysis of it and of the serious ills that it represents is particularly relevant to an understanding of the controversy surrou
