To Judge and To Justify: Profiles of the Academic Vocation [Hardcover]

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, its 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 universitys 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 todays world.
This book extends the arguments in Fullers recent book, Back to the Universitys Future: The Second Coming of Humboldt (Springer, 2023).

Chapter 1. Introduction: Judgement and Explanation as Uniquely Transferable Academic Skills.- Chapter 2. Platos Legacy.- Chapter 3. Bacons Legacy.- Chapter 4. Kants Legacy.- Chapter 5. Whewells Legacy.- Chapter 6. Wittgensteins Legacy.- Chapter 7. Feyerabends Legacy.- Chapter 8. Rawls and Nozicks Legacy.- Chapter 9. Rortys Legacy.- Chapter 10. Conclusion: Knowledge as a Global Public Good as the Goal of Judgement and Explanation.

Steve Fuller is Auguste Comte Professor of Social Epistemology at the University of Warwick, UK. Originally trained in history, philosophy and sociology of science, Fuller is best known for his foundational work in the field of social epistemology, which is the name of a quarterly journal he founded in 1987 as well as the first of his twenty-six books. His most recent research has focused on the future sustainability of humanity as a concept inlq