The Confustion Of Rationality And The Enlightement: The Paradox Of Intellectual, University And Modernity

Plato's"cave metaphor"is a symbolic origin of the Enlightenment narrative of Modernity. Its protagonist, Socrates who devoted his life to pursue truth, justice by means of rationality, was convicted and sentenced to death for his"impiousness","corrosion young's minds".Across the dark Middle Ages when rationality was ruled by Theology, until the European Renaissance and the rise of Religious Reform , the Age of Enlightenment which was in the name of rationality was finally opened.Rationality and the Enlightenment is not only the horizon of Modernity, but also the origin spirit of intellectual and university. However, the pursuit of rationality as a value can not form a workable structure system, and can not be institutionalized. The supported system of rationality, it can only be hypothetical, if the system is an entity, that it absent. The legitimacy of the Enlightenment, constructed by default of a concept of infinite progress in the future, knowledge (science) is the only option for people to obtain an independent, bright future. As there are wise and not wise of the points, those"thoughtful people"shoulder the mission of helping the public of those who was"in an immature state"out of ignorance. The self-definition of the Enlightenment avoided the problem of knowledge and power. Its self-legitimizing is obviously not self-sufficient. This is the confusion of rationality and the Enlightenment.In the practical level, Modernity starts with logic of"instrumental rationality"——a subsidiary system of the value of rationality. With the instrumental rationality of the all-pervasive, the grand narrative has collapsed. Under the situation of the Modernity which rationalize the construction of order, the intellectual experienced from legislator to interpreter and critic, from the"stranger"to"settler"; accordingly, under the pressure of modern instrumental rationality, university walks away from the"Ivory Tower", enters the"service station" and transforms into"Multiversity"and is promoted to the social"axis of body". As for the intellectual who is the actor of a function of the university-social interpretation and criticism, university should provide a utopia space. However, with the increasing specialization of disciplines and the orderlization of academic life, the more the recognition of intellectuals get from"Multiversity", the less of which they fight against orthodoxy and dogma, not easily incorporated by the government or group, the less independent and critical nature of the potential that needed for explaining the truth to the power: this is the paradox of intellectual, university and Modernity.