Academy Lecture 30 May 2023, at the Academy Afternoon of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
By Peter-Paul Verbeek, University of Amsterdam
Academy Lecture 30 May 2023, at the Academy Afternoon of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
By Peter-Paul Verbeek, University of Amsterdam
Madam president, dear all,
For a long time, discussions of academic freedom always concerned distant countries where scientists are oppressed. The Academy's Committee for the Freedom of Scientific Pursuit – which I had the privilege of chairing for a time – busied itself with writing letters to the governments of those countries. But in the past few years, that picture has undergone a major change. There is suddenly a great deal of discussion of academic freedom in our own country, too, and that gives cause for reflection and contemplation. Let me refer to three trends.
The first trend centres around the concept of “woke” – even though that concept is interpreted differently by many people. I use the term with some reluctance, because it has long since ceased to be a neutral term. For some people, “woke” means a movement for equality and justice and a much-needed development of society aimed at ensuring that disadvantaged and marginalised groups can feel safe and be provided with a level playing field. For others, “woke” has come to signify an excessive focus on gender and ethnicity, exaggerated identity politics, and a "cancel culture" in which you need to watch what you say. Discussions about “woke” are currently ongoing at many universities. According to some people, “woke” is pre-eminently the expression of a critical scientific attitude towards implicit assumptions; others believe that their surroundings have become so “woke” that they can no longer say what they think and therefore find themselves constrained in their research and teaching. At the University of Amsterdam, too, this discussion is ongoing, as you've no doubt heard. An independent commission is currently investigating a specific complaint; I look forward to their report and the discussions that will undoubtedly follow.
The second challenge as regards academic freedom is that of increasingly vehement climate activism. Many universities and other higher education institutions have been occupied in recent months by groups of activists demanding that they sever all ties with the fossil fuel industry, particularly Shell. In their eyes, that industry has absolutely no place at universities, not even in projects around sustainability, because in their view that is nothing more than greenwashing. More and more universities are heeding that call, because they agree with parts of the activists’ analysis. Two universities have already declared a climate emergency situation, one refuses to work with Shell again until it complies with the Paris Agreement, and the University of Amsterdam has announced a temporary moratorium on any new cooperation with fossil fuel partners so as to create space for a university-wide dialogue, which is intended to lead, before the summer, to a new ethical framework for cooperation with the fossil fuel industry. Universities are facing a difficult decision: should we indeed restrict academic freedom for ethical reasons, or is it in fact unethical in this case to restrict the academic freedom of scientists who wish to work with the fossil fuel sector on sustainable energy?
There is also a third trend that poses a challenge to academic freedom, namely growing concerns regarding information security. Some organisations and states appear to be stealing confidential knowledge from our universities, and in some cases, knowledge generated at our universities could also be utilised for non-peaceful purposes. Regulations are in the works to prevent this, and there are increasingly vociferous calls for increased awareness of this issue. Restricting cooperation with scientists from certain organisations and countries amounts to a limitation of academic freedom; this is controversial because some scientists believe that it constitutes discrimination, and that keeping scientific cooperation going with these countries can form a basis for peace.
I do not think it's a coincidence that these three discussions are taking place at the same time. That's because all three represent aspects of a development that has been going on for much longer, and that is characteristic of science in the 21st century, namely the ever-closer interwovenness of science and society. Science is becoming societal and society is becoming scientific. Our society needs science in order to tackle the challenges it faces, such as the climate crisis, while at the same time the scientific agenda is becoming increasingly interwoven with social issues. That is the context within which we need to rethink, reshape and – most importantly – exercise academic freedom in the 21st century. In this lecture, I would therefore like to explore (1) how to understand that interwovenness more clearly; (2) what it means for academic freedom; and (3) above all, how we can protect and promote academic freedom in a responsible manner as administrators, but more importantly exercise it as scientists.
The new interwovenness of science and society results in an intrinsic tension in science, which I like to refer to as the “science paradox”. Science has become a societal activity, but a very special one because it is based on scientific methodology. On the one hand, science in this configuration is value-free: a neutral and independent source of knowledge and insights that society can rely on. At the same time, however, science is valuable; it is not just neutral, it is also impactful, and it is not only independent but also engaged. Two hearts beat in every scientist: the heart of curiosity and the heart of engagement. On the one hand, we seek fundamental knowledge and insights that allow us to better understand the world around us, while on the other, we seek ways to be meaningful for society and not only to understand the world better but also to make it better.
Universities have the task of holding the two poles of this paradox together. They need to create the conditions under which critical and independent thinking can go hand in hand with engagement, so that researchers are free to combine their curiosity and their social engagement, and students learn that both these aspects of science are important.
The ongoing discussions on academic freedom are directly related to this science paradox. The debates about "woke", fossil fuel, and information security embody, on the one hand, strong social engagement: the quest for an inclusive and just society and a sustainable future for planet Earth. On the other hand, they embody scientific engagement: wanting to question one's assumptions and what one takes for granted regarding gender, sexuality, and ethnicity; searching for new methods of generating and storing energy; and striving for a global scientific discussion community.
As regards academic freedom, the two poles of the paradox seem to point in different directions. Viewed from the pole of curiosity, any attempt to limit academic freedom is fundamentally undesirable. You must be able to question everything, irrespective of who is involved, without taking account of different groups or feelings. And no restrictions must be imposed on you when conducting your research, not even if you want to carry out sustainability research in collaboration with a fossil fuel company so as to help the fossil fuel sector switch to renewable energy; nor if you want to work with universities that have been designated risky as regards information security.
But viewed from the pole of social engagement, the need to place limits on research does indeed sometimes arise. According to some, universities should be a “safe space” where you can’t just question everything if that might be hurtful for some people. Others say that universities should resolutely sever ties with the fossil fuel industry, even where joint research on sustainability is involved, because such joint research only constitutes greenwashing. And the call to safeguard our information is growing ever louder: we should stop collaborating with external parties who could steal our knowledge or use it for undesirable purposes, for example in warfare.
To make matters even more complex: social engagement may in fact also give rise to the need not to restrict academic freedom. After all, some scientists have societal reasons to indeed discuss topics that others may find hurtful ("if we continue to refer to the Dutch 'Golden Age', we are failing to acknowledge all the suffering that colonialism caused"); to indeed collaborate with fossil fuel companies ("it's only by working with them that we can green the energy sector, and without their knowledge and capital, the energy transition isn't possible"); to indeed collaborate with certain countries ("it's precisely by continuing to seek cooperation as scientists that we can lay the foundations for peace").
This discussion shows that dealing responsibly with academic freedom involves much more than just the question of under which circumstances we may restrict the freedom of teaching and research. Academic freedom is emphatically academic freedom, and as academia has become increasingly societal, we also need to recalibrate our understanding of academic freedom. That is what I intend to do in what follows, and I'll then explore what that recalibration may mean - in specific terms - for scientific practice and university governance.
A great deal of work has already gone into providing a sound definition of academic freedom – including in the report Academic Freedom in the Netherlands: a concept analysis and guideline by our own Academy's Committee for the Freedom of Scientific Pursuit. And although I co-authored that report, I want to go a little bit further here. I would like to explore which concept of “freedom” is best suited to understanding academic freedom now that science has become societal and society has become scientific. I distinguish between three different dimensions of academic freedom. First, I would like to tie in with the classic distinction between positive and negative freedom, and then juxtapose the concept of existential freedom to it: academic freedom is something to which we are "condemned", whether we want it or not, and which therefore presents us with a challenge.
In 1958, in his celebrated inaugural lecture ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, the philosopher Isaiah Berlin introduced an influential distinction between two types of freedom. Freedom, he showed, is usually understood as the absence of obstacles and constraints. He refers to that as "negative freedom": freedom in the sense that nothing stands in your way, i.e. freedom from something. But that concept doesn't yet signify fully what people mean by freedom. If that were all, then the words of the song ‘Me and Bobby McGee’ would apply: “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”. Freedom also has a ‘direction’: it is focused positively on something, it wants to achieve something. It isn't just freedom from but also freedom to; it's the opportunity to accomplish something. These two concepts of freedom reflect the two poles in the science paradox: value-free and neutral on the one hand, not bound or constrained or determined externally, but valuable and involved on the other, oriented towards a social goal and based on engagement.
Viewed from the perspective of academic freedom as negative freedom, the key question is: under which circumstances is it permissible to restrict the freedom of research and teaching? Because of the great importance of free scientific practice for the existence of a free and democratic society, the freedom of science can only be restricted by very widely shared and virtually uncontroversial frameworks, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is only such frameworks enjoying a clear social consensus that have sufficient weight to restrict a right as important as that to the free pursuit of science.
Nevertheless, this concept of freedom turns out to be insufficient. All discussions about "woke", fossil fuel companies and information security are, after all, emphatically about positive freedom: the freedom to contribute from within science to a social goal. And those goals are in actual fact widely shared: the transition to sustainable energy and an inclusive and just society. The activists who occupy universities demanding that all ties with Shell be severed and the scientists who want to work within consortia with Shell on renewable energy all have sustainability as their goal. They differ only as to whether this can be accomplished together with Shell: one group says that the transition is not possible without Shell's capital and knowledge, while the other says that Shell is attempting to delay the transition for as long as possible and is only implementing sustainability projects as a means of greenwashing, as a way of camouflaging what is in fact a highly unsustainable business.
The same is true with regard to “woke”: there is a widely shared desire for inclusiveness, but one group believes that this requires us to rid our vocabulary of implicit exclusionary mechanisms in order to create a safe and inclusive environment, while the other believes that we cannot tolerate self-censorship at universities but should instead be able to discuss any idea openly, even if it may be perceived as offensive. And where information security is concerned, almost everyone wants to contribute to a peaceful and inclusive world, but some believe that we can achieve that goal by ring-fencing knowledge in order to prevent it falling into the wrong hands, while others believe that it is precisely through global scientific cooperation that a basis for dialogue and connection can be maintained, with science being a peace-making activity and not a threat to peace.
The relationship between positive and negative freedom thus exhibits the same tension that exists between the two hearts that beat within science. Social engagement from within science can sometimes mean that scientists impose restrictions on themselves, for example with regard to the partnerships they enter into with external parties. Exercising ‘positive academic freedom’ then has implications for ‘negative academic freedom’. And that in turn raises the question of whether those implications should apply only at the individual level or also at the institutional level. Many universities, for example, do not wish to collaborate with the tobacco industry, even if the actual research would not be used to promote smoking.
This tension between negative and positive freedom, which is intrinsic to science, reveals another dimension of freedom, which I would like to add as a third variant, namely existential freedom. In existentialism, freedom is the core concept, and is considered an essential characteristic of human beings. People are characterised by a relationship to themselves: we don't just exist but we know we exist. It is this self-relationship that gives us freedom: our own existence in the world is not fixed but must be shaped by us ourselves. At the same time, this existential freedom also harbours a striking paradox: we did not freely choose it ourselves. We were ‘cast’ into existence. Our freedom is our fate. Even if we were to decide that we no longer wished to have that freedom, that would be a free choice. People, as Sartre said, are "condemned" to freedom. The only choice we don't have is the choice not to choose.
This existential concept of freedom makes it possible to connect positive and negative freedom. It shows that academic freedom is not just a right that must be protected, but a task that we must accomplish. Let me discuss three varieties of existential freedom that can be helpful in making this connection, going back in time to do so.
Firstly, Sartre's concept of freedom. For Sartre, our being "condemned" to freedom is also directly linked to responsibility. We cannot help but make choices that have implications (Sartre 1965) and for which we can always be held accountable, whether we want to or not. Exactly the same applies to academic freedom. Our research and our teaching inevitably have influence, and we are therefore also responsible for the influence that we have. Science is not just a non-committal little game in an ivory tower; it has real consequences in the real world. Negative freedom is therefore always limited by the normative framework from which we fulfil our responsibility for the impact of our science.
The second variant of existential freedom comes from Karl Jaspers. He focuses primarily on how you, as an individual, can embrace or attempt to evade your freedom. Freedom gives you the option of authenticity, for ‘thinking as yourself’ rather than being absorbed within the crowd. In his splendid text Die Idee der Universität (1946), Jaspers elaborates this concept of freedom as regards the university, in the period immediately after the Second World War. The university, he argues, should be a place that nurtures, promotes, protects, and preserves authentic thinking. What happened within fascism was the exact opposite of this. As a scientist, you can always start over, follow a different path. And you can always ask yourself whether you can still look at yourself in the mirror. Academic authenticity links together positive and negative freedom in accepting that the tension between them is unavoidable and that every scientist must link scientific curiosity with social engagement.
The third variant is quite a bit older and comes from the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. For him, the scientific freedom to think is primarily a source of permanent doubt (Kierkegaard 1842 - Dutch translation 2013). Our relationship with ourselves allows us to doubt everything and question the taken-for-granted nature of everything. Nothing is permanently fixed; everything can always be scrutinised critically. This systematic doubt, elevated to a methodology in philosophy and science, was for Kierkegaard an existential torment. Seeking something to hold on to no longer makes sense; there is nothing that offers certainty. But where scientific doubt led for Kierkegaard to despair, I wish to cherish that doubt as an essential component of academic freedom. Academic freedom as an ‘academic self-relationship’ means always being able to relate to what you take for granted, to what is the norm, to what ‘just works that way’. And we can learn from Kierkegaard that this demands courage: the courage to constantly dare to doubt, to start over, to question what you hold to be true. This courage to doubt therefore requires both negative freedom and positive freedom: there must be no restrictions on asking questions, and at the same time you must always be able to ask yourself whether your societal goals are still the right ones and whether your scientific and societal goals are justified.
So what do the science paradox and the three dimensions of academic freedom associated with it specifically mean with regard to giving shape to academic freedom at our universities? I believe that the following implications are particularly important:
Jaspers, K. (1946). Die Idee der Universität. Berlin: Springer
Kierkegaard, S. (2013) [1842]. Johannes Climacus of De omnibus dubitandum est. Eindhoven: Damon.
Sartre, J.P. (1965). Over het existentialisme. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Maarten Muntinga bv