According to Hellenic tradition the first natural philosopher was Thales of Miletus. While nothing he wrote remains, he is credited with predicting a solar eclipse in 585 BC and to have invented (discovered) the discipline of geometry. His theory of everything centred on the three phases of water, which for a time seemed a reasonable idea. Goes to show that experimental determinations do have their uses even though we often seem to run up against variations on the theme of  "don't bother me with facts; I've made up my mind," when dealing with bureaucratic authority. Moving right along, in 1687 Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica appeared but it wasn't until 1725 in Watt's Logic that the first recorded reference to science used in its more restricted modern sense appears; up until then it was natural philosophy.

And what's all this in aid of? Well, one of the groups making a submission to the "Higher Education at the Crossroads" review is the Australasian Association of Philosophy. You might think that they would see all that rhetorical emphasis on research and development as a threat to the well being of philosophy and how philosophers view the place of universities and higher education within the fabric of Australian culture. And you'd be wrong, at least in so far as the official view of the AAP is concerned. They summarise their views in six recommendations:

1. the stresses induced by growth in the sector need urgently to be addressed;

2. the importance of core disciplines in sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities needs to be more clearly reflected in higher education policy;

3. the differences between disciplines, especially in research, need to be incorporated as a significant factor in measures of performance, along with qualitative, rather than purely quantitative, indicators;

4. the real costs of increased reporting and quality assurance requirements need to be recognised and taken account of in policy formulation;

5. the distinctive character of university teaching and expertise needs to be recognised and maintained;

6. the quality of Australian higher education needs to be assessed on the basis of its standing in particular areas and disciplines, rather than the overall ranking of institutions.

The Association points out, "While it is certainly true that the growth within the sector has also been accompanied by a number of positive changes, including higher levels of teaching expertise and research productivity, the stresses that have arisen as a result of growth do need urgently to be addressed. Moreover, those stresses have nowhere been felt more acutely than in the core areas of research and teaching in the basic sciences, including the social sciences, as well as in the arts and humanities. These areas face serious problems in terms of high levels of staff-student ratios, overcrowded teaching facilities, reduced levels of research infrastructure (for disciplines such as philosophy this is especially evident in, for example, declining funds for library resources), increasing difficulties in retaining and attracting high quality senior staff (who are often being attracted instead to positions overseas) and a severely restricted capacity to generate funding from outside sources." The Silver Blonde, who does most of the hard yakka around this site, on reading that muttered, "that's tellin' 'em, not that it'll do any good."

One of the interesting observations about the government's and the opposition's attitudes toward the higher education sector is the movement from a preoccupation to an obsession of holding the sector to account using a short leash. "The common perception of the Australian university system as subject to a high level of government intervention, and an inordinately high degree of bureaucracy, is a major factor in the loss of senior staff overseas, while it also adds to tensions between academic and administrative staff within universities, and between university staff and government."

It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that few members of either the government or opposition parties see past the annual budget allocation when assessing higher education, or government funded research and development. The AAP speaks for more than one group when it points out, "Changes within the higher education sector have led to a great deal of uncertainty in some quarters as to what distinguishes universities from other educational institutions. We believe that university education remains quite distinct both from primary and secondary education, and from vocationally oriented training and that this remains true even with the supposed shift from an 'elite' to a 'mass' system."

With the continued, if not increasing emphasis by the government on immediate recovery of 'investment' as though the higher education sector were comparable to the short term money market, it is difficult to believe that there is any desire to make long term investments for long term national gains both materially and culturally. "Universities are about knowledge, and as such they aim at producing graduates who have not only mastered certain specialist skills, but who have also developed an understanding of what underlies those skills and the wider framework within which they are located."

And the Association goes on to tentatively suggest, "It may well be that the only practical measure of teaching performance, if such a measure were to be introduced, would be in terms of the generic skills of graduates."

The philosophers, sum up what has been the theme of numerous submissions both to the "Crossroads" review and others such as that recently completed by the Senate Committee for Employment, Workplace Relations, Small Business and Education References to report on "The Capacity of Public Universities to Meet Australia's Higher Education Needs".

[U]niversities generally play a crucial role as central repositories of knowledge and expertise, accessible to government, business and the wider community, across a range of core disciplines as well as in other more specialist areas. It is not surprising that the most respected institutions of higher education in the world, institutions such as Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge, continue to fit this traditional model of the university.

But then, perhaps it's just a matter of how you want to define crucial.