THE HUMANITIES: INSTITUTIONALIZATION AND CRISIS OF INTEREST

the sense of "crisis" as resulting from the perception of the public sphere's and the student body's diminishing interest in the Humanities. Discussion of external and internal causes of that lack of interest: problems arising from changes in the public's tastes and dispositions and from current research and teaching practices. Suggestion of practical courses of action through the discussion of 1) the real extent of the lowering visibility of the Humanities in the public debate; 2) the conditions of evaluation of their influence; 3) the relation between the epistemological foundations of knowledge and its power of influence; 4) the autonomy of research and its large-scale communicative potential.