Summary:

Knowledge in digitized societies rapidly becomes ephemeral, obsolescent and competitive. Thus, the roles of its academics are subjected to a precarious existence; they strive to accumulate semiotic capital through impact factors – easily quantifiable – that blur the qualitative value of the cognitive. It is in this plot that the universities of the XXI century end up registering; Akádêmos’s maieutics begins to blur behind the bureaucratic-business competitiveness of cognitive capitalism.

Key words: capitalism | knowledge | cognition | impact factor