ABSTRACT
In this essay, I aim to not only restate but also redescribe the core of academic freedom as a practice and a value (and it is both). I do not aim at normative novelty, but I do think that the redescription can shed new light on a variety of current disputes. The core traditional value of academic freedom is under serious threat around the world, and the responses to that threat are sometimes muddled by confusion about both what the value is and how it is justified; in the essay’s final section, I will try to resolve some of those confusions.
