The place of the university in modern life

Thorstein Veblen

Uniwersytet Missouri

Abstract

The aim of the text is to show the place of the university in developed capitalist countries at the beginning of the 20th century. The author shows the affinity between adepts of knowledge in the past (including priests and shamans) and the present (scientists). The
text draws attention to the fact that, regardless of any differences between the past and the present, the quest for an idle knowledge and the instinct of workmanship is embedded in human beings. Modern civilisation has transformed the quest for knowledge by subjecting it to the criterion of business andcool, dispassionate precision. It is industry and its norms that determine the direction of academic research.

Keywords:

science, knowledge, technology, business, an idle curiosity, instinct of workmanship