Australian Universities’ Review - Recession-oscopy - Can universities be the light at the end?

Oct 15, 2026

A philosophical and ethical analysis of issues raised in Australian Universities’ Review linking academic performance pay, research output measurement, and the remuneration of vice chancellors to the global financial crisis. Drawing on semiotics, it contrasts ideoscopy and cenoscopy to explain the misuse of scientific status and institutional malaise rooted in the early Enlightenment. It argues crisis may enable thinkers to avert disaster through clearer articulation of the present situation.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages4

Reading Time10 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

The cult of ideoscopy

A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W Recession-oscopy Can universities be the light at the end? Steve Mackey Deakin University This paper paints the philosophical and ethical backdrop to some of the issues raised in Australian Universities’ Review vol. 53, no. 2. It links academic performance pay; the measurement of research output; and the astonishing pay levels of vice chancellors to the present global financial crisis. These are explained as part of a general malaise of institutions, which has its roots in the early Enlightenment. Drawing from semioticians Charles Sanders Peirce and John Deely it uses the terms ideoscopy and cenoscopy to characterise the hijacking of unwarranted scientific status for much of the way our world is managed. But crisis can lead to opportunity. Consequently, the paper points to the glaring opportunity for thinkers who can articulate the present situation in a way which could avert disaster. Introduction How will the looming Global Financial Crisis (GFC) Mark II affect our lives? How will it affect universities here and overseas? What will courses and students look like under a regime of global austerity? Will Europe disintegrate into social strife? And, not to put too fine a point on it, what is going to happen to our superannuation? Nobody seems to know the answers to any of this. But, as TV financial pundit Alan Kohler put it in an ABC interview in January:‘This is a very interesting time for people in my caper.’Kohler was talking about his excitement as a specialist journalist during this ‘once in a lifetime financial crisis event’. But is this also an interesting time for those of us in the‘academic caper’? I’d like to answer: well, yes. But, well, perhaps no. I’ll attempt to justify this vacillation with the two words:‘ideoscopy’and ‘cenoscopy’.And this is where it gets a bit academic... The cult of ideoscopy Readers whose internal health has ever been questioned would probably be among the first to recognise the suffix 40 Recession-oscopy, Steve Mackey of these two words as to do with something that probes into unusual places with a light at the end. However, 19th century philosopher of semiotics and pragmatism Charles Sanders Peirce would have had no idea about this future implication. He coined the terms to mean respectively: knowledge originated in special scientific ways which it is hard to understand if you are not a relevant specialist; and knowledge which can be worked out by many people if they apply logic and experience to common sense,(Peirce, 1955, p. 66),(Peirce, Weiss, & Hartshorne, 1974, passim) . Deely (2008) and (2009) uses these terms to explain how modernity from Descartes onwards went too far down the ideoscopic track – the ‘trust in the experts track’ – the ‘call for the consultants track’. Deely’s argument in his 2009 book contrasts Peirce’s ideoscopic and cenoscopic notions to make the point that philosophy took an unreasonably nominalist turn in the 17th century. Deely’s multibook project champions a deeper understanding of the realism of the correct semiotic approach, as opposed to misunderstandings of semiotics. He writes in the tradition stemming from the scholastics which runs through John Poinsot (1589-1644) and Peirce (1838-1914) . Part of his concern is the difficulty caused by over-fascination with vol. 54, no. 2, 2012 A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W science and social science. He argues that scholarship was a cenoscopic activity from the times of the early Greeks right up to the 17th century when: One way of understanding that historical period or epoch in European history called ‘the Enlightenment’is precisely as that period when ideoscopy began to take hold and demand institutionalisation within the framework of the developing ‘community of inquirers’inspired by the idea of the university... The exuberance of the early generation of inquirers who turned to ideoscopy, especially in the

FAQs

What does the paper argue about academic performance pay and vice chancellor remuneration during the global financial crisis?

It links those issues to a broader institutional malaise, suggesting they reflect deeper philosophical and ethical problems rather than isolated policy choices.

How does the paper use ideoscopy and cenoscopy to interpret the world’s financial management?

It claims financial experts have operated ideoscopically by relying on hard-to-understand, mathematically designed products, and then suggests they are now becoming visible in common terms cenoscopically.

Why does the paper connect the Enlightenment to the dominance of ideoscopy?

It argues Enlightenment enthusiasm for ideoscopic experts led to institutionalization and a naive expectation that ideoscopy would replace cenoscopy, shaping how knowledge and participation became alienated.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Well Done