
651
56
Believing in the University
in a Conceptual Age
Ronald Barnett
INTRODUCTION
The idea of the present age as a “conceptual age” is a provocative idea, in the best sense of being
“provocative.” Far from this being a conceptual age, it could be said that the present age is marked
precisely by a diminution of concepts. Certainly, words and phrases and even neologisms abound;
there is a cascade of new terms, not least in a digital age. But concepts, it may be felt, are thinning
and even dissolving, for concepts imply a public able to share ideas and to engage in debate such
that those ideas are deepened and strengthened into collectively under