Much of Europe (and the world) may be in recession, cutting back on spending on the universities (among other services), but Germany has in recent years begun a major investment in its leading research universities, similar in ways to what Australia and Canada have also done in an effort to recruit or retain leading academic talent. My own university tried, unsuccessfully, to recruit Rainer Forst, a leading German political philosopher (mentioned below), to the Political Science Department several years ago. Forst, as a leading international figure on the German philosophical scene, has received excellent support for his work. Detlef von Daniels, a philosopher at the University of Witten in Germany, invited me to share some observations about the effects of the new funding system. I've opened the thread for comments, though they will have to inclue a full name in the signature line and a valid e-mail address. His comments follow:
Meet the establishment: The future of political philosophy in Germany
Detlef von Daniels
Predicting the future is notoriously difficult. This also holds true for future trends in philosophy. However in the case of German philosophy, one trend for the next decade can already be predicted with near certainty. Regardless of social and political developments or international turmoil, political philosophy in Germany will be dominated by a blend of Frankfurt School and post-Rawlsian thinking. A constant stream of publications reflecting this line of thought will also be appearing in English language journals. The basis for this bold prediction is quite simple. In soccer we say money scores goals, and in philosophy we could similarly say that money makes propositions come true. The money comes principally from a major federal research initiative. As part of that initiative, what is known as a "cluster of excellence" has been established in Frankfurt (www.normativeorders.net) under the auspice of Rainer Forst and Klaus Günther. In addition, Rainer Forst has just been awarded a Leibniz prize, which comes along with another 2.5 million euros for research. Therefore, a research program with a specific bent will dominate the field of political philosophy.
[After some initial correspondence] Brian Leiter [invited] me to briefly explain how this development came about, what opportunities it might offer for Anglo American scholars, and what it means for the philosophical landscape in Germany. The establishment of the cluster of excellence goes back to an initiative launched six years ago by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research aimed at jump starting German "elite universities" by providing extra funds and pooling resources at a few selected places. Universities could enter a competition for federal funds by presenting ideas for graduate schools, interdisciplinary "clusters of excellence" and "future concepts" (university wide strategies to promote top-level research). The idea of nominating elite universities by state fiat (and setting up a "market" with only one "buyer") may sound strange to American readers. However, one has to keep in mind the framework of the German university system. All major German universities are public institutions and in most federal states, take in no student fees. Since attempts to introduce even modest student fees (500 Euro/Semester) proved politically unfeasible, universities still have to rely exclusively on state funding, which means they are chronically underfunded.
Until recently, the self-perception of universities was that all universities and all professors are equal by default. Thus, every professor of equal rank in Germany (speaking of the humanities) earned the same salary as a civil servant and had the same teaching load. One effect of the federal initiative was to dissolve this illusion. Universities started to focus on their strengths and to establish collaborations, while others were forced to realize that self-perception does not always translate into competitive success. Even if we consider only the events organized during the last two years by the cluster of excellence in Frankfurt (a much smaller "Graduate School of Mind and Brain" in Berlin is also funded from this initiative), the initiative can said to be a success. For the first time in years, there is a place in Germany with sufficient funds for regularly inviting international scholars to give guest lectures and join conferences. Professors can be attracted with reduced teaching loads and dozens of graduate students create a vibrant intellectual atmosphere. For Anglo-American scholars it means that Frankfurt will be the venue for a number of conferences, and there will be Ph.D. scholarships, postdoc positions and opportunities to spend sabbaticals. This is especially attractive for people working in the tradition of the post-Habermasian Frankfurt School, but some others might be welcomed to add "exotic" flavour.
However, concentrating resources on one field also has ramifications for the German intellectual landscape. Even though the federal initiative prescribes no explicit political aims, the way it is set up and the way the money is spent channels research in a specific way. Since the initiative is also being looked to as a model by other countries, it might be worthwhile to reflect on the changes it is bringing about. The initiative requires that all proposals be interdisciplinary, wide ranging, and include multiple collaborators. Moreover, research aims must be formulated for several years in advance and, since they are evaluated every five years, they have be formulated de facto in a way that assures success but always leaves room for the necessity of further research. Thus, someone like Derek Parfit would arguably not fit in any cluster, since his work is not interdisciplinary and does not require collaboration. Simply putting together different views that might be represented at a single university will not work, either. One might argue that the Harvard philosophy faculty of the 1970s, including Rawls and Nozick, would be the worst possible team to enter an excellence competition, since they would likely never have been able to agree on common research objectives. Including hypothetically Oakeshott and Skinner would make the case even worse. Thus, one ramification is that the idea of a university providing room for diverse and unorthodox thinkers is getting lost. Moreover, since research plans have to be fulfilled and people in the humanities are very bad at designing fake objectives (theoretical physicists admit that the SDI program worked for them as a financial shield for curiosity driven research) there is little room for irritations from the scientific community or society at large, as both would threaten the plan.
Therefore, the future of political philosophy becomes very predictable. In the Canteen News Network, one can hear complaints about the rise of a clone army or even about insider corruption. However, such insinuations usually come from people who fancy about building a cartel themselves, and miss the point that it is not people but "things," the institutional setup, the logic of collaborate research, etc. that "produce" the agenda. It is readily apparent, however, that no other university currently has the resources to compete with a cluster of excellence so promising graduate students are naturally drawn to Frankfurt. As a consequence, all philosophical traditions that cannot be integrated into the new Whig history of the Frankfurt School will have difficulties getting heard. This applies not only to historical and libertarian traditions, but curiously enough, also to reflections about the dark side of Germany's past. Thus, the idea of a university with an extraordinary dream team faculty, like Harvard in the 1970s, or of a multitude of diverse intellectual centres will remain just an idea – in German terminology of course: a necessary idea of reason.
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