Topia 28_Reviews  Nov 07 2012 

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Maria Victoria Guglietti

The University and a New Definition of

Enlightenment

A review of

Angus, Ian. 2009. Love the Questions: University Education and Enlightenment. Win-
nipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing.

Ian Angus’s work is a courageous and eye-opening reflection on the present condi-
tion of universities in North America, one that makes use of what Angus calls “a
realistic approach” (10). This means that he resists the temptation to write another
nostalgic volume about the “decline” of contemporary universities, choosing instead
to embark on a critique of contemporary attempts at dissociating critical thinking
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from teaching and research. The goal of his book is to learn from this critique and
identify what residual or new forces within the university can be saved or discov-
ered. This realistic approach marks a refreshing departure from works that either
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compare the university to an unattainable ideal, or else “objectively”—and uncriti-
cally—accept the university’s present condition.
Angus has sufficient experience to adopt such an approach. He is a professor of
Humanities at Simon Fraser University and has, since the mid-1980s, taught at the
University of Waterloo, Trent University, the University of New Hampshire and
the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His interest in reflecting on the state
of the university is also a long-term one. The publishing of Love the Questions is
preceded by over a decade of his activism and public discussion on university affairs.
The book’s main premise is that the university was—and should be—an institution
of enlightenment. Angus develops his notion of enlightenment as critique by draw-
ing on a series of well-known sources, including: Socrates’s view of enlightenment
as necessary for self-knowledge; Immanuel Kant’s conception of enlightenment
as intrinsic to forms of critique that probe the limits of any claim to knowledge;
Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s understanding of critique as freedom
from social domination; and phenomenology’s “regressive inquiry,” which envi-
sions critique as a form of dismantling and tracing the sources of knowledge. In
other words, enlightenment is a term assigned to the free human exploration of
the limits of knowledge, and it operates through the dismantling of naturalized
discourses and practices. For Angus, the university has traditionally been the site
Topia 28_Reviews   Nov 07 2012   16:26:57  Page 307

and facilitator of enlightenment through research and teaching. However, the con-
temporary “corporate” university has marginalized enlightenment in order to focus
on more profitable activities such as the development of technological applications
and “the transmission of knowledge.” In Angus’s words, “Education has come to be
seen as the transmission of knowledge.... But knowledge can be transmitted only if
it is completed; thus, teaching is now seen as giving students something in whose
formation they have no part” (111). The transmission of knowledge for Angus
undermines enlightenment because it discourages any inquiry into the nature and
limits of knowledge: “How does one come to know? What is thinking? How can
thinking be concretized into a specific contribution to a field of knowledge? The
unique characteristic of universities was that its professors did not simply transmit
knowledge but were engaged in producing it” (111–12).
If enlightenment is at the conceptual core of Love the Questions, the notion also
informs the book’s structure. In fact, the book is an exercise in enlightenment
methods, something that is revealed as Angus deconstructs the discourses that
have legitimized the university as a social and historical institution. The tone of
the volume is pedagogical, and it is directed toward specialized as well as non-
specialized audiences. This “reaching out” beyond academic circles is implicit in
Angus’s understanding of enlightenment as a critique that triggers self-knowledge

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and personal growth by questioning established understandings. It is also consistent
with Angus’s view of the university as potentially a site of reflection wherein social
movements, academics and the public at large engage in active thinking. Love the
307
Questions certainly contributes toward the furtherance of this goal.
According to Angus, the association of the university with enlightenment has both
classical and modern roots. The medieval university, which was influenced by the
classical Greek tradition, regarded knowledge as a byproduct of the quest for self-
knowledge. Angus notes that “Greek schools sought a form of knowledge that
the individual could use in distinguishing himself in front of gods and men,” and
in medieval times the concept of self-knowledge grew in significance to become
“the belief on which society is founded” (44). The “modern university,” emerging
in the 1700s as a project of newly formed nation-states, was originally envisioned
as an institution within which specialized knowledge “came together into a unity
of self-knowledge” (45). In other words, the modern university was intended to
generate self-knowledge by pondering the limits of the specialized knowledge pro-
duced within its walls. For Angus, this search for self-knowledge is fundamental to
enlightenment because it is through the process of its acquisition that people learn
exactly who they are and what knowledge actually is. Historically, maintaining the
balance between specialized knowledge and self-knowledge remained a long-term
challenge for the university.
As children of the nation-state, modern universities were held responsible for
the formation of citizens and not just the production of thinking individuals. In
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addition, as capitalism became a predominant force in most European and North

American nation-states, the modern university was increasingly regarded as a pro-
ducer of practical knowledge with a variety of marketable applications. The coexist-
ence of these multiple discourses unsettled the balance between specialized knowl-
edge and self-knowledge, forcing the university to consign the latter, in the form of
enlightenment and critique, to the domain of the liberal arts while the production
of specialized practical and technical knowledge devolved upon the sciences.
The “corporate” university has its roots in the modern university and it proposes to
create a deeper division between scientific research, the liberal arts and professional
studies. This division has undermined the fragile balance between the university’s
twin imperatives to generate holistic critique and specialized knowledge to such
an extent that, for Angus, contemporary universities no longer pursue an ideal of
enlightened unity. As he puts the matter, “To be self-knowledge, knowledge must
first be a unity. To be a coherent university, and not just a jumble of remnants and
traditions and ad-hoc improvisations, the university must be a unity.… [T]he con-
temporary university has no centre and no unity. It is simply the sum of a number
of parts in which each part dances to its own tune” (59).
The modern university’s dependence on the nation-state and the market was also
altered by the increasing independence of the now-global market from the state.
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In other words, the market grew beyond the limits of the nation-state and its pow-
ers of intervention. The modern university, which was dependent on state funding,
308 was deeply affected by the partial loss of this kind of financial support and soon no
longer served as the sole provider of qualified labour and research to what was for-
merly a national market. Global companies can now access technological develop-
ment and scientific knowledge and hire labour drawn from a pool of human talent
that extends far beyond the limits of any one particular nation-state.
Once the public role of the university was undermined, the corporate university
emerged as a kind of public-private partnership. It is not surprising that universities
accordingly privilege profit and administrate human and non-human “resources”
in a manner similar to that of any other business company. The challenge of the
corporate university is to transform education and research into consumer goods.
For Angus, “The classic modern university was defined by the inseparability of
teaching and research, but the corporate model of the contemporary university has
separated them.... The research product has indeed become a commodity that has
a direct market value, unlike the credentials that are inseparable from the graduate”
(89). The goal of education is reduced to the learning of skills and the granting of
credentials that are sufficiently recognized in the market, from whence their value
derives. This shift in educational goals has also transformed the realities of student
and faculty life. Students now bear the cost of their education with less support
from a state that does not always acknowledge the public role served by education.
To pay the bills, they either sink into debt or work while they study. Angus claims
Topia 28_Reviews   Nov 07 2012   16:26:57  Page 309

that “for most students, university life has become continuous with work and prepa-
ration for work” (82). For faculty, the separation of education from research has
resulted in a two-tiered workforce: some full-time faculty focus on the production
of marketable technical knowledge through research, while others, mostly part-time
faculty, devote their time to teaching. Despite a lack of detailed evidence, Angus’s
succinct and passionate account of the university’s journey from public institution
to quasi-corporation will surely be familiar to those readers engaged in university
life in North America, and elsewhere.
Angus dedicates two of his last chapters to analyzing transformations of knowledge
in the corporate university. He begins by arguing that research has become a com-
modity, and that private investment in research has curtailed the development of
knowledge for public purposes. The former freedom of researchers and teachers to
inquire about the forces regulating the market and the state has been curtailed by
the transformation of the university into a public-private institution. Is it possible to
keep private interests at bay? Is it feasible to continue protecting academic freedom
when the university is no longer seen as having a prominent public role? For Angus,
the potential intervention of private interests in research agendas is a consequence
of the increasing dependence of the corporate university on private funding. In
the past, “the public university gained a certain autonomy by accepting the legiti-

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macy of the corporate economy outside its gates and confining its criticism to the
classroom” (93). This autonomy is now seriously threatened by the intervention of
the university’s administration in research and teaching. According to Angus, the
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corporate university prevents the rise of “difficult questions” by “promot[ing] and
polic[ing] a confinement of inquiry to technical questions within pre-established
boundaries that violate not only the procedures, but the function and the rationale,
of the university as an institution of free inquiry” (97). Angus’s association of aca-
demic freedom with the university’s public role is insightful. He rejects the view of
academic freedom as a luxury and reminds academics of their responsibility toward
enlightenment: “The first task is thus...to raise the larger questions, to make the
issues public and thus to fulfil the social task of the university by bringing critical
thinking to the public outside the university” (98).
The second part of Angus’s argument concerning the transformation of knowledge
deals with the rise of the network society and its impact on the university. Angus
compares the notion of knowledge as an open process of reflection to information
as knowledge that is self-enclosed: “Information forms knowledge into bits, pieces
that can be added to other pieces. These pieces can then be stored, processed, trans-
mitted and retrieved. The bit of information is thus single, closed upon itself ” (113).
The difference between knowledge as reflection and knowledge as self-enclosed
information is that the former requires active participation of the learner while the
latter is produced to be passively received. Angus then notes that in our current
network society information has become the predominant form of knowledge.
This epistemological shift has important implications for the university. Having
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lost its focus on the promotion of self-knowledge through reflection and critique,
the corporate university is in a disadvantageous position as it is forced to compete
with other institutions dedicated to the production of information, such as private
and public research centres and the mass media.
What is the role of the contemporary corporate university in the network society?
According to Angus, the university is only one more “node” in a network of infor-
mation production and exchange. However, his conclusion depends on a series of
assumptions. Angus seems to accept the emergence of the network society as a fact,
while elsewhere the notion has been criticized for its technological determinism
For example, in “Information Society Theory as Ideology,” Nicholas Garnham notes
that the network society theory is characterized by “huge epochal and totalizing
claims” and “a technologically determinist theory of communication has become
THE theory of society with a vengeance” (2004: 168). Network society theory pos-
its technology as the cause of social and cultural changes: “What these definitions
share is the conviction that quantitative changes in information are bringing into
being a qualitatively new sort of social system” (Webster 2009: 588). By accepting
the network society as inevitable, Angus falls into a determinist argument that
announces a qualitative change in society as a result of an apparent increase in the
importance and quantity of information and information technologies. Or as he
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puts the matter, “The technology of information is not an isolated phenomenon

but is the active force shaping social possibilities in its own image” (118). While the
central role of information is undeniable in academic knowledge production, there
310
is no substantial evidence provided in Angus’s study to support the conclusion that
an increase of information causes qualitative changes in how knowledge is defined,
received and produced.
In the last pages of his book, Angus discusses the future of the university in the
network society. He observes that networks lack centres, and that this is precisely
what makes them dynamic and unstable. The instability of the network produces
anxiety, since no node can claim the power to control meaning production within
the network’s matrix. According to Angus, the experience of living in an ever-
changing environment destabilizes the identities of those within the network:
“Because the network is constantly changing, it destabilizes the identities of those
who work and live within it” (120). The process of identity construction requires
identification with a stable referent, which is denied by the fluid nature of the net-
work. The search for identity in response to these contingencies becomes a pressing
problem and encourages the emergence of new social movements. Angus’s debt
to Manuel Castells’s The Power of Identity (2004) is evident here. Castells regards
the emergence of identity-based social movements as one of the effects of the net-
work society. However, as Garnham notes in his critique of Castells’s work: “For
all Castells’ attempts to keep the flame of political hope and action alive and his
attachment to social movement theory, in the end it is the logic of the structure
that determines” (168). The same flaw is found in Angus’s argument about social
movements, where he proposes that “Network society is thus traversed by social
Topia 28_Reviews   Nov 07 2012   16:26:57  Page 311

movements that struggle with established powers over the direction of innovations”
(120). Angus’s words suggest that these rather abstract “social movements” are a
structural consequence of the advent of the network society, but he gives no clear
evidence to support his contention.
The network’s instability leads to the emergence of a new form of enlightenment,
since as Angus points out, “The anxiety about identity produced by the network
thus motivates a search for self-knowledge that can produce new knowledge and
not simply recombinations of information” (123). Angus does not provide a clear
definition of self-knowledge in this context, though it is suggested that this search
involves a challenge to the network’s development and structure. The university
has been called on to serve as a site where social movements may be encouraged
to develop self-knowledge. This is as it should be because “Each of these [social]
movements poses issues about how to understand the current state of the network.
These issues have entered the university and pose interesting philosophical and
political questions for thinkers” (121). However, in order to serve properly as a
“space of social reflexivity” (121), the university must open its doors to the public
and embrace its public role. The university, conceived of as a site of public reflection,
is conducive to a new form of enlightenment because it provides social movements
and the public in general with a chance to develop self-knowledge at a time when

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instability is the norm. Despite the deterministic character of Angus’s description
of the network society, he never loses sight of the realism underlying his approach.
He envisions a future for the university in its embrace of new forms of knowledge
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and provision of enlightenment rather than in some kind of nostalgic withdrawal
from the present.
Love the Questions is a passionate study of the present, past and future role of the
university in relation to its responsibility to provide enlightenment. To “love the
questions” is “to engage in the struggle for enlightenment” (132) through a system-
atic critique of, and reflection on, the bases of knowledge. What Angus has crafted
is a work that not only concerns those directly involved in academic life but also
the general public. The volume is well written and introduces, notwithstanding the
problems alluded to earlier in this review concerning Angus’s conception of the
network society, a sophisticated analysis of higher education that is accessible to
specialized and non-specialized audiences alike.

References
Castells, Manuel. 2004. The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. 2: The Power
of Identity. Oxford: Blackwell.
Garnham, Nicholas. 2004. “Information Society Theory as Ideology.” In The Information
Society Reader, edited by Frank Webster, 165–84. New York: Routledge.
Webster, Frank. 2009. “Theories of the Information Society.” In Reading Media Theory:
Thinkers, Approaches and Contexts, edited by David Barlow and Brett Mills, 582–622.
London: Pearson.