Abstract

Zdenko Kodelja's purpose in this essay is not to give a comprehensive explanation of the impact of neoliberal ideas and politics on authority (in all of its forms) of universities and their professors. His aims are much more modest: to sketch a theoretical framework for better understanding what the essence of authority is; to show that the relation between authority and trust is the key to explaining the effect of neoliberal politics on the authority of the university and university professors; to discuss professors' autonomy as deriving primarily from epistemic authority and to point out that what makes professors epistemic authorities is not the truth of what they say, but rather the students' belief that it is true; and to disclose some problems related to authority, university autonomy, and neoliberal politics