Reminiscences of the University of Sydney psychology department’s discipline-focused education of young John (1958-65) under O’Neil’s god professorial reign (1945-65): Academic freedom, fairness in evaluation, and educational integrity
Year: 2009
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: This paper is a modification of and some additions to an oral paper given in 2008 to philosophers and psychologists most of whose current thinking is along the lines of a post-modern, instrumentalist approach to knowledge and higher education. The paper’s (long) title shamelessly plagiarizes from the title of the book by the much more eminent Donald Horne. The approach I advocate, and look back to (perhaps with glasses that are somewhat rose tinted) is one that characterized O’Neil’s department. The approach was pre-modernist in a number of differentiating respects that included complete academic freedom, education rather than indoctrination, and fairness in the evaluation only of academic performance rather than of personal beliefs and attitudes. These conditions, rather than those of such features as “inclusiveness”, I argue, are necessary for integrity in higher education. These are also the conditions which are largely satisfied in competitive elitist sports and games, especially in Australia.
Author: John J. Furedy
Language: English
Subfield: General Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1579883481