The point of departure for this paper is a current development that has been called „the crisis of free speech“ in universities (Slater 2016, Schlosser 2015). It is described as a shift towards censorship and a form of politically correct speech that reduces conflict and argumentation in the university. Schlosser (2015) remarks that students become more and more resistant in engaging with challenging issues, e.g. „students complained that he [a colleague] exposed them to ‚offensive’ texts written by Edward Said and Mark Twain“ (Schlosser 2015). With the ever growing pressure on especially younger colleagues who are dependent on getting their contracts renewed, the university loses its capacity of philosophical and cultural critique as well as ‚free argument’.

The idea of this paper is to discuss from an educational-philosophical perspective what has been called „the threat from within“ the university (Furedi 2016), i.e. from its own ranks. After delineating this debate (that has, so far, been very much centered around the aspect of „free speech“, see e.g. McDermott 2016; Post 2006; Butler 2006), I will present educational-philosophical positions that link Bildung and university on the grounds of a challenging self-inquiry (anon 2009, 2017; Meyer-Drawe 2003, 2008; Schäfer 2004). Here, my aim is to present a strong motive in the German speaking discourse that deserves to be discussed more generally (Koller 2012) – given that their is a strong internationalization going on in higher education. In particular, I will refer to the German phenomenologist Bernhard Waldenfels (2009) who has described university as a „performative space“ – a space that can be characterized by „threshold affects“, like „curiosity“, „astonishment“, and even „shock“.

While these references to educational philosophy seem to imply that the current developments imply a downfall of Bildung and university, I will show in the third part of the paper that matters are not that easy. Referring to the political philosophy of J. Rancière I will reflect on the problems inherent to educational-philosophical reasonings on „Bildung and university“. Here, it will be important to scrutinize the self-positioning of professors/tutors. However, it will also be important to discuss what „academic freedom“ means for the members of the university, for their presence and their being a ‚student’.

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