Thinking as a craft. What universities can contribute. That was the title of a booklet I received from a student as a thank-you.

I was struck by the tone of the subtitle: What universities can contribute. It does not sound wildly ambitious (all the things they might contribute), prescriptive (what they should contribute), or entirely noncommittal (after all, they can contribute something).

The wording reflects confidence in and modesty about the role of the university. But what exactly is that role, and in what areas? In this context, I would like to briefly mention two thinkers.

The first comes from close to home: Hendrik van Riessen, my predecessor in the Chair of Christian Philosophy (then called Reformed Philosophy) here at TU/e. The second is American sociologist Robert Merton, who wrote about what science is, or should be, all about.

The ideas of both thinkers emerged against the backdrop of World War II. To protect society from totalitarianism, Van Riessen returned to principles that had already been developed around 1900 by Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920) and subsequently further developed by Herman Dooyeweerd (1894–1977).

A key concept was the principle of ‘sphere sovereignty.’ Roughly speaking, this means that social institutions and organizations (such as the church, state, family, science, the arts, sports, and businesses) each have their own nature and corresponding tasks, rules, and norms, which cannot be imposed by other social institutions or organizations.

Each institution or organization is called to act freely and responsibly, within the boundaries of its own internal structure. Every social institution or organization therefore has its own logic, which cannot be reduced to the logic of another or imposed on another.

When you do impose one sphere’s logic on another, you diminish the plurality of social institutions and organizations, and that plurality is necessary for society, and its individuals, to flourish. You do not run a family like a business, an orchestra like a church, a university like a hospital, or a school like a soccer club.

Of course, there are similarities between these spheres. A family has a household budget, a museum can promote sportsmanship, and a university that takes the religious practices of its employees or students into account does not suddenly become a church. A problem arises when the rules and norms of one sphere become the guiding principles for another.

For example, when a university allows itself to be drawn into making political statements, a sports club dances to the tune of its shareholders, or the norms of a hospital are confused with those of the aesthetic arts. In the long run, something is lost, with the result that individuals can no longer move freely within or between these institutions and organizations.

I wonder whether I could have written this column, for example, if Dutch society had not been steeped in the principle of sphere sovereignty for the past hundred years.*

Now to the role of the university: for Van Riessen, it was clear that research conducted at a university should benefit the education of students. Research conducted in a corporate laboratory serves the purpose of improving products and furthering the company’s objectives. The two may look similar, but they serve different purposes and are therefore organized differently.

For Merton, science was necessarily characterized by communalism (scientific knowledge is produced collectively and belongs to the community), universalism (regardless of who you are, meaning it should not matter whether a researcher is Jew or Greek), disinterestedness (research findings should not be driven by the interests of a group or individual), and organized skepticism (what we know today as the peer-review system, in which peers evaluate research before it is published).

Think of these as the structural principles of science. When these principles are lost—for example, when universities express geopolitical preferences, or when governments determine what counts as scientific research—we do society no favors; quite the opposite. No matter how well-intentioned the motives may be.

Merton added that these values can sometimes be inconsistent with those of society, but that if the university is to serve society through its unique role, it must remain focused on them.

Christine Boshuijzen-van Burken is chairholder of Christian Philosophy at TU/e. Her primary appointment is at the Netherlands Defence Academy, where she conducts research on military ethics. The views expressed in this opinion are her own.

This opinion was translated using AI-assisted tools and reviewed by an editor.

* Van Riessen, who himself was arrested because of his active involvement in the resistance, even believed that the Dutch resistance during the Nazi occupation in World War II was so successful because individuals moved freely between social institutions and organizations, while the resistance itself was not tied to any particular institution or sphere of life. Van Riessen was therefore a professor who was highly politically active, but it never occurred to him to push his university to make a political statement.