Vita activa, Vita contemplativa

Sven Lindman om akademisk frihet

Kirjoittajat

• Dag Anckar

Abstrakti

Sven Lindman, who was a professor of political science at Åbo Academy in 1942—73 and Chancellor of the same university in 1978—80, died in 1983. This paper forms a part of a biography, now in preparation, and deals with Lindman’s conception of academic freedom, which is demonstrated to be academic-elitist in outlook, emphasizing university autonomy and the need for social scientists to stay out of party politics and commitments to political “isms”. It is suggested that Lindman’s inclination to argue in favour of dissociations from political life can be explained with reference to (1) his general conception of society, which was influenced by conflict theory, and (2) his conviction, obtained already during his formative years as a student at the University of Uppsala, that science must rely strictly on empirical observations and must be alien to general belief systems and ideologies. However, Lindman did not himself adhere strictly to these principles. He was active within the Swedish People’s Party in Finland during several periods of his professional life. It is suggested that this discrepancy between ideas and reality was because Lindman regarded his party as a language formation rather than an ideological formation.