Care of the Other of a Classical University

Abstract

The modern classical university is considered as an extension of the original (medieval) university which was formed at the beginning of the second millennium AD as a supra-national social institution. The university supplemented the system established by the time of social institutions, including states, cities with their municipal authorities, the church, families, professional guilds, etc. The university remains a relevant system and an essential social institution in the present days and in the observable future. The conditions of careless questioning about the truth, which is its differential feature, are above all in the space of this social institute. The conditions of light-hearted questioning of the truth require a significant degree of institutional autonomy, which was and still remains the problem of the existence of the university. So, the modern network transformation of the university as offered by information technologies can result in its ability to distance itself from the expansion of other social institutions. The author acknowledges the heuristic actualization of the ancient idea of care of the self introduced by Michel Foucault. At the same time, the author argues variants of its hasty modernization in interpreting the worldviews of people of subsequent ages, and especially casts which doubt the correctness of its dissemination in the university community and among its representatives. Care of the self is the searching of microcosm to macrocosm. The Christian doctrine opened up the space, and macro-and microcosm its dimensions. The truth became the continuation of a conversation with God, with others before Him. The infinity of these dialogues is exempt from the concern of the final forms of the arrangement of life, the final formulas of truth: nothing is final; there is endless joy in query, questions and replies that give rise to new questions. In recognition of this priority carefree questioning gained the importance of an institutional form for allocating and even separating it from the church, through which the Christian faith was widely spread in Europe. Subsequently, Non-Churchism facilitated the penetration of the university in the space of non-Christian civilizations.