ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a fresh way to think about the shape of the academic profession. It starts with ideal typical models of the university and the State, through which the conventional views of the 'East Asian State' and the social role of the 'man of knowledge' can be critically reconsidered. The chapter also focuses on three ideal typical models of the university from the writings of Newman, Jaspers and Confucius. It argues that despite their colonial origins, the universities of Korea, Malaysia and Singapore have diverged from the European university models and academic professions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The chapter reviews the Confucian conceptions of the State in the same categories that were used for Locke: the origins of the State; the State's legitimacy; and the obligations of the State to individuals. In these ideal typical models, three aspects are stressed: the nature of knowledge; university and state relations; and the concept of the academic.
