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Scientific freedom is an arena of political struggle. This became even more evident since the raise of the new populist and supremacists’ movements. The systematic downplaying of scientific knowledge has been one of the key strategies of populist and alt-right movements worldwide (Sidky, 2023). Classical liberal values such as “freedom of speech”, “diversity”, “intellectual freedom”, “religious freedom”, etc. have been instrumentally bent to promote anti-scientism.
Also, neoliberal societies failed to guarantee this freedom generating alarm among scholars (Basilio, 2025; Witze, 2025) as market and competition in themselves are not guarantees of quality and freedom of knowledge in science (Ferreira, 2022). On the contrary, academic institutions tend to be prone to political or economic power (Ball, 2025; Hegeman, 2024).
Moreover, the broad support and acceptance of market logic by scientists led to several consequences, such as the overlapping of the meaning of science with technological development, the neopositivist idea of science as control, and the idea that competition is the driving force of knowledge production. Yet, knowledge is a collective enterprise. Science is the fruit of the contribution of many people – sometimes driven by narcissism of course – and of a never-ending dialogue between different perspectives (Silva-Filho, 2024).
It is often repeated that science is not democratic, in the sense that consensus is not the basis for the understanding of the world. This argument has been targeted by anti-scientism as well as decolonizing movement for completely opposite reasons. While anti-scientism claimed democratization as the freedom of people to believe what they want or fits their value system (e.g. alternative facts), decolonizing critique has to do with the exclusion of some social groups from the process of production, sharing, and validation of knowledge (Dutta et al., 2021).
Higher education institutions are particularly relevant as they are both scientific and educational agents. Universities are one of the places where two important rights – academic freedom and intellectual freedom – meet and should feed into each other. The right to produce knowledge and the right to seek knowledge without restrictions are two sides of the same coin (Magi & Garnar, 2021). Moreover, universities are agents of social change, and they have the mission to provide knowledge for the benefit of the community.
Scholars – as both researchers and educators – must thus claim the right to resist the pressure from both sides: the market mechanism control and the populist ideological control. It does not mean that scholars should not be accountable to society either. So, it is time to imagine a new way of interpreting scholarship in society.
So far, the response of the academic community has been that of claiming her superiority and suggesting “more education” for the people. The discourse sounded like: if ever they knew what we know, they would understand. Exactly such an elitist approach has been easily targeted by populist rhetoric, reinforcing anti-intellectualism and “us” versus “them” opposition.
My first reflection is that the first possible way is to disconnect science and education from market rules. The second important step is to commit to higher values that can counter the populist instrumental denial and misinterpretation of science. I have been thinking about a first symbolic act that I want to share to begin a public discussion.
I have imagined a scholar’s oath: an ethically binding commitment for anyone who wants to do research and teaching, modeled on the Hippocratic Oath (Sioutis et al., 2021).
Hippocratic Oath is not an act of submission or adhesion to an institution or a faith. It is rather an ethic commitment to higher values, binding the person beyond and against any particular affiliation. Committing oneself in such a way is, on the contrary, an act of great intellectual freedom.
I drafted a text of the scholar’s oath:
“I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will pursue public, open, and free knowledge for the benefit of all living beings and the planetary ecosystem.
I will never contribute to any activity that produces oppression, violence, injustice, silencing or discrimination. I will never collaborate to the development any military or polluting technology.
My research will always be carried out “with” and not “on” humans and non-humans. Greed, ideology, purely personal benefits, or censorship will not silence or lead my pursue of knowledge.
I will remember that there is art to science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the technical instruments.
I will not be ashamed to say “I know not”, nor will I fail to seek the skills of another. I will commit to educate and enable those who will come after me to pursue their knowledge endeavor according to the same principles.
I will remember that I remain a member of society and planet’s inhabitant, with special obligations to all present and future fellow human beings and living beings, whether healthy or sick.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected in life and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of pursuing knowledge.”
I envisioned every future researcher and teacher committing to this oath at the end of the studies. What would be the consequences of such a commitment on the practice of science and higher education? How the different disciplines (humanities, life sciences, natural sciences, technology) would be affected? How would the society look at such a kind of scholarship?
I imagine that someone would say that such a commitment would be an ideological constraint over knowledge production. Others would say that it can slow down technological development. Another counter-argument could be that it is not respectful of cultural diversity as it introduces universal principles. All the above issues must of course be object of discussion. However, my point is that scholars must have the ethical compass to navigate the world and to understand the consequences of their actions.
Doing research and teaching imply the establishment of a systemic relationship. One of the main critical issues in science is the subject-object dualism in the epistemic relationship. Instead of a dualism, I suggest that scholarship implies the establishment of a whole/parts relationship (Tateo, 2020). When the researcher enters in contact with the object of interest (a person, a natural phenomenon, a concept), a new whole is produced. What are usually called subject and object of knowledge become a system of interdependencies. The idea that the scholar can temporarily interact with an object and return to his previous condition after that interaction is just a fiction. When one is pursuing knowledge, as instructor or as learner, an interdependency is established that necessarily changes both subjects. This is a wonderful consequence of scholarship but also a great ethical responsibility. If one applies this principle to both human and more-than-human epistemic objects, one can see how the epistemological perspectives of North-Atlantic and other indigenous cultures begin to get closer. This is also kin to the growing idea of the ethics of care (Naylor, 2023).
Indeed, my modest proposal of a scholar’s oath is a way to claim the right to say “I care” and thus I cannot submit myself or others to oppressive practices of any kind, neither in the name of “science” nor in the name of other ideologies.
References
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Author info:
Luca Tateo – https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3207-6312
University of Oslo and Federal University of Bahia
I have no conflicts of interests to disclose
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Luca Tateo, Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo, Postboks 1140 Blindern 0318, Norway. Email: luca.tateo@isp.uio.no
Bio: Luca Tateo is professor of Theory, Epistemology and Methodology of Qualitative Research at the University of Oslo, Norway and coordinator of the International Research Master in Special Needs Education. He is co-editor in chief of the Journal “Human Arenas. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Psychology, Culture, and Meaning”, Springer, and editor in Chief of the book series “Innovations in Qualitative Research”. He is a member of the board of the Network of Excellence “Ideas for the Basic Education of the Future” on Innovative Learning, Teaching Environments and Practices, based at East China Normal University in Shanghai. He is chair of the International Environmental Justice Committee of the Division 52 – Global Psychology of the American Psychological Association. His current research interests cover the general areas of ecosystemic approach to psychology; environmental and epistemic injustice; cultural psychology of education; the aesthetic dimension of psychic life; the epistemology, methodology and history of psychological science. His forthcoming editorial projects are: 1) the Routledge textbook Fundamentals of Cultural Psychology; 2) the Cambridge Handbook of Psychology and the Planet: Environment, Climate Sustainability and Nature; and 3) the Elgar Encyclopedia of Cultural Psychology.
