The Logical Limits and The Ontological Principle of The Idea of University

This article settles an account with the idea of “university” that has been a traditional debate in philosophy. An idea can be accepted as necessarily true by a consensus among some reasonable people, if and only if, its premises could be grounded on true knowledge, and its result could be reached by true reasoning. Then, we have three questions: What is the idea of university, why should it be necessary, and how can a norm be grounded on knowledge? Behind the idea of modern university there is a principle called “Universitas”, named “metaphysics” by Kant, and “prote philosophia” by Aristotle. The opposite of it would be postmodern university, called “multiversity” in principle. Here, we ground the norm Universitas by the logical form of reductio ad absurdum, under the light of the knowledge of the value of some possibilities of human being, or simply, of human dignity.