The university and the new problem(s) of counsel

Attending to how academic and scientific advice is integrated with decision-making and part of the forming of public opinion, in the present article, I delineate the terms of the reconfiguration of the problem of counsel. 1) I will briefly start by sketching the original configuration of the early modern problem of counsel, considering how it accompanies the differentiation of the modern university. We will see how melancholy, as a complex of impotence or inhibition, is intrinsically related to the scholar’s counsel. Then, 2) departing from Niklas Luhmann’s remarks on the formation of the university’s medium and forms, I address the ambivalences surrounding the forms of scientific advice and counsel, namely the recurring complex of inhibition affecting scholars. 3) From there, considering the function of academic prestige, I delineate the evolution of the positioning of academic organizations and scholars in delivering counsel and scientific advice. 4) Finally, I outline the contemporary conditions for soliciting and providing scientific advice on public matters, highlighting the COVID-19 crisis. I will conclude by focusing on the imposition of automatized forms of advice and their risks to the social ecology.