Higher education was conceived as the formation of critical, reflective, informed citizens capable of contributing to the life of the mind and of their communities — a purpose in deep tension with its current operation as a credential market and professional pipeline. The examined intellectual life — Periagoge's central aspiration — was the original purpose of the university, derived from the Socratic academy and carried through the liberal arts tradition. What it can still be, under pressure from both economic forces and its own institutional rigidities, is one of the central questions of contemporary cultural life.
Each step builds on the last.