Wisdom’s limit: truth, failure and the contemporary university

Wisdom is essentially tied to a certain modesty of reason—a modesty that consists essentially in the recognition of limit. The commitment to truth is itself tied to such a recognition of limit, and so too is the possibility of any genuine critical engagement. It is thus that wisdom, understood in just these terms, can indeed be said properly to stand at the heart of any genuine form of teaching or research. As such, it is wisdom that must underpin the activity, as well as the organisational structure and governance, of educational institutions, and especially of universities. It is, however, precisely the idea of limit that is refused by the corporatism, managerialism and economism that dominates contemporary institutions of teaching and research, especially in the English-speaking world. Moreover, as is evident in the work of Adam Smith, as well as in a range of other thinkers, the idea of limit, and so of the modesty that comes with wisdom, is applicable not only in intellectual endeavour, but in all human activity—even in the realm of the economic and the financial.