ABSTRACT
On every hand commentators say that the American university cannot have it both ways; it must be this or that, stand here or there, take one path or another. They say: that if the university responds favourably to advocates of affective education, then the quest for certainty must be surrendered; that if the principle of reductionism is adhered to, then seeing the gestalt, acknowledging existential wholeness, developing a tolerance for ambiguity, accepting complexity or even contradiction, become impossible; that if the institution is faithful to its sociopolitical involvements, the concept of the university as a centre of independent thinking goes out the window.
