The Entanglement of Nation and Epistemology: Glances into the Backyard of Academic Dignity

This article addresses the phenomenon of ‘national epistemologies’ that are
understood as particular ways to think about the world, both enabled and restricted by national(ist) ideologies as cultural thesis about distinct commonality and togetherness. With regard to methodology, the article describes on a general level how these ‘national epistemologies’ can be identified and particularly how their development as nationally idiosyncratic ways of conceptualizing and conducting research can be explained, taking the academic field of education as an example. The existence of such distinct national research thought styles can be detected, at least in the West: in the United States, in France, in England and in Germany. Thereby, imperial aspirations of these nationally connoted and configured phenomena come to the fore, indicating their efforts of spreading from epistemologically stronger nation(-state)s into weaker ones in the way of ‘travelling ideas’. Starting from the thought style represented by German Idealism, two major reasons or purposes for these travels can be distinguished: One ‘by invitation’ and one ‘as occupation’, as represented by the case of Austria.