ABSTRACT
Depending on one’s ideological stance, the present developments of the institution of university can be deplored or hailed. There is no doubt, however, that mass universities turn into professional schools – partly because mass higher education does not have the resources to keep it at the level envisioned by Humboldt, and partly because new digital technologies allow it to be turned into mass higher education. Doctoral and postdoctoral studies will likely become the equivalent of the university of the old vision – an elitist development for some, an obvious result of democratization for others. In what follows, I abstain from such judgments, focusing on possible desirable directions such a development may take. Accordingly, my first assumption is that candidates to our doctoral courses will not have a university education in the sense of Bildung as Humboldt understood it – a first step in the lifelong development, rather than acquisition of specialized knowledge and skills – and that the courses will have to complete their education in that way.
