Human Sciences and Crises of Legitimacy An Enquiry into Political Economy of Knowledge 1945 2020

Abstract

Knowledge as a form of capital is always unevenly distributed; thereby, it has always stood in an intimate relation to power. Likewise, the process of knowledge production is inevitably influenced by the dominant political ideology and power dynamics of the milieu. In the post War epoch, newly constructed categories of knowledge, through the formation of discourses, came to function as ideological tools in constructing meaning and shaping social realities. The pervasive erosion of cultural values, degeneration of democratic ethos, silencing of critique, worldwide fall of public universities and the declining prestige of the human sciences cannot be seen as unconnected, isolated incidents. The researcher postulates that they have their historical roots in the Cold War intellectual history and emergent knowledge economy, which prompted of the human sciences are hence multidimensional and cross-sectional. This work attempts an investigative historical analysis to critically unveil by studying the impact of transnational power relations, dominant political ideologies and evolving knowledge economy on the self perception of the public university and the nature of knowledge production.