Beyond Relevance: In Praise of Useless Knowledge

Autor/in	Ikpe, I. B.
Titel	Beyond Relevance: In Praise of Useless Knowledge
Quelle	In: South African Journal of Higher Education, 24 (2010) 4, S.525-537 (13 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1011-3487
Schlagwörter	Foreign Countries; Higher Education; Cost Effectiveness; Humanities; Relevance (Education); Commercialization; Influence of Technology; Intellectual Disciplines; Politics of Education; Educational Change; Role of Education; Educational Policy; Educational Philosophy; Developing Nations; Africa + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ausland; Hochschulbildung; Hochschulsystem; Hochschulwesen; Kosten-Nutzen-Analyse; Kosten-Nutzen-Denken; Geisteswissenschaften; Humanwissenschaften; Relevance; Relevanz; Educational policy; Bildungspolitik; Bildungsreform; Bildungsauftrag; Politics of education; Bildungsphilosophie; Erziehungsphilosophie; Developing country; Developing countries; Entwicklungsland; Afrika
Abstract	The influence of positivism in education has been on the increase in the recent past, with academic departments increasingly being asked to justify the money spent on them and show some level of cost effectiveness. There is no other cluster of academic disciplines that is adversely affected by new wave of positivism as the Humanities which is increasingly being pressured to prove its worth in a society that is increasingly materialistic and where education serves a mere instrumental goal. The pressure has been on the Humanities to diversify, to reinvent itself and become more relevant to a new and increasingly technological era. In this article, I attempt a redefinition of disciplinary relevance beyond the obvious instrumental use promoted by this new wave of positivism. In a move reminiscent of Bertrand Russell, I argue for the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge sake and also point to the contributions, which hitherto supposedly useless knowledge can make to human society and the furtherance of human knowledge. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Unisa Press. Preller Street, P.O. Box 392, Muckleneuk, Pretoria 0003, South Africa. Tel: +27-24-298960; Fax: +27-24-293449; e-mail: sajhe@vodamail.co.za; Web site: http://www.sajhe.org.za
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10