Om universitetsledelse og New Public Management, om eksploiteringen af en erkendelsesøkonomi, om Kant & Bourdieu - eller: selskabstømning i akademiet

On management in universities and New Public Management, on the exploitation of an economy of cognition, on Kant & Bourdieu - or: Asset stripping in academia: In his speech given at the annual celebration in 2008 the dean at The Danish School of Education, Aarhus University (DPU) referred to Der Streit der Facultäten by Immanuel Kant (1798) arguing for certain university political initiatives. However, the references were only to certain parts of the text necessary for the political standpoint in the dean's speech. In the present article first of all the relevant parts of Kant's text are resumed. In order to theoretically account for the seemingly discrepancies between a reference to an academic text and the omission of certain parts of this text, the sociological theories of Bourdieu are applied. The social and symbolic function of the dean's approach and practice is constructed as part of the reproduction and extension of an existing, in principle arbitrary social relation of dominance. The consequences of the approach and practice of the dean being the exploitation of an economy of cognition specific to university, a prerequisite for the relative autonomy of the university, in turn a prerequisite for a democratic society. The exploitation of an economy of cognition - or the asset stripping in academia - is ultimately at the risk of promoting instead of hindering a despotic work of the government, hindering the production of new cognition, and hindering “Die philosophische Fakultät kann also alle Lehren in Anspruch nehmen, um ihre Wahrheit der Prüfung zu unterwerfen”.