Philosophy is not a specialized form of knowledge, for everyone philosophizes—no matter how unconsciously. Even children ask questions about the future, about death, and about happiness. “A child [says Hans Georg Gadamer] is a bit of a philosopher, a philosopher is a bit of a child.” This guarantees the future of philosophy. Donatella Di Cesare
Abstract
This paper is part of a broader project in which I investigate autobiographical experiences and transcribed memories. Specifically, this essay analyzes the potential linkages between philosophical ideas and everyday social existence. First, I consider the correspondence between an anecdote from my own lived experience and the concept of Bildung—a multidimensional notion loosely translated as “formation,” “self-formation,” “cultivation,” “self-cultivation,” “self-development,” “cultural process,” and so on. Building on Hegel’s and Gadamer’s contributions to Bildungstheorie, I introduce readers to the concept. Then, in analyzing my anecdote, I destabilize the concept and demonstrate that any act of Bildung can be trivialized easily by Rückbildung (reverse-Bildung). The general scope of this essay is neither to contribute to the systematization of the concept of Bildung nor to discuss potential commonalities within the realm of interpretative contributions to this notion. Instead, I demonstrate that thinkers cannot measure this concept with a set of fixed criteria and, finally, I propose a critical understanding of Bildung through a dialogue of theoria and praxis.
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Notes
With regards to Hegel’s discussion of Bildung, Krassimir Stojanov points out the correspondence between the concept of Bildung and everyday social existence (2017, 28–29).
For a brief history of Bildung see Biesta 2002a, b; and Horlacher 2016. Moreover, the concept of Bildung evokes the ancient mystical tradition (and Meister Eckhart as one of its most representative figures) according to which the human being carries in his soul the image (Bild) of God, after whom he is fashioned, and which man must cultivate in himself. In Bildung, there is Bild (image) which recalls the concepts of copy (Nachbild) and prototype (Vorbild). For the history of the concept’s origin in medieval mysticism see Gennari 2014. The reference to spiritualistic and mystical characteristics of the concept of Bildung are also briefly discussed in Bleicher 2006. In the context of this paper, however, I do not take into consideration the medieval origins of this concept and its reference to mysticism.
As John Clearly and Padraig Hogan notice, “the importance of [Bildung] in Gadamer’s thinking can be gathered in an initial way from the many Bildung words that occur in [Gadamer’s] address, [“Education is Self-Education”]: bilden, sich-bilden, gebildet, herausbildet, Fortbildung, Wortbildung, Vorbildern, Allgemeinbildung, Bildung” (2001, 525). Similarly, in his recent translation of Hegel’s The Phenomenology of the Spirit (1807), Terry Pinkard writes that Bildung “is a key term in Hegel, since the whole book can be interpreted (and has been) as a study of the Bildung of consciousness” (2018, xli). Moreover, Donatella Di Cesare reminds that: “Hegel … recognized in the concept of Bildung the prerequisite of philosophy itself” (2013, 39). Finally, Marco Giosi stresses that Hegel read Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Emile; or, On Education (1762), and in this work, Hegel found the example of a “natural” conscience able to elevate itself to freedom through crucial formative experiences (Giosi 2012).
I freely adapt the concept of Rückbildung (reverse-Bildung) from Theodor Adorno’s “Theorie der Halbbildung” (1959). In Adorno’s essay, Rückbildung is a play on words that comments on the limits of Bildung itself. In spite of the limited usage of this term in Adorno’s work, I refer to the German philosopher because he was among the first theorists to express reservations about the Bildung ideal (Yacek 2016, 243). Moreover, the common meaning of the German Rückbildung lacks significance in the conversation on education, but it broadly refers to a process of involution and regeneration, for instance the “regeneration” of the body after pregnancy. Therefore, in this paper, I use the term metaphorically—that is, to comment on the complexities of the process of Bildung.
I thank Reviewer #1 for pointing out the common usage of this term and emphasizing the term’s limited usage in Adorno’s work.
For a discussion of the basic theoretical structures of Bildung—with an emphasis on the concept of complexity—see Rucker et al. (2017, 568–584).
It might be true that—as Hegel says—an anecdote by itself is unable to prove anything, so thinkers need a collection of them to identify a pattern or a point (McCumber 2009, 61). However, even a collection of anecdotes cannot guarantee their assembled interest or value. Additionally, some anecdotes are unique to themselves or are instrumental only for the distortion of reality. For instance, Hegel notes that Italian women and maidens “not infrequently … have died instantaneously from grief over an unhappy love affair” (McCumber 2009, 62). Hegel’s ambition here is to qualify the Italians’ “Spirit” as particularly weak compared to other European nations, and the Germans more specifically, who are qualified through other equally questionable anecdotes. Apart from these stereotypical and improbable ideas, it is evident that it can take a number of false anecdote put in a series to try to prove the “reality” or “truth” of a story. However, I use the term “anecdote” in a purely descriptive way, as a synonym for “miniature narrative.” For a different view on the relation between “anecdote” and “example” see McCumber (2009, 56–65).
Perhaps, it is “exceptional” that our teacher asked students to publicly compete with one another, but I will comment more on that aspect of the anecdote below.
For a thematization of the concept of “example” see Ferrara (2008).
I owe a debt of gratitude to my friend and colleague Eli Lichtenstein and to the Reviewer #1 for this observation and for urging me to reconsider my analyses of the nature/culture dichotomy in Hegel’s work.
One might challenge this question itself by considering that “finitude” might be a “cultural” or “historical” trait, not a “natural” one. Advocates of “post-humanism” might adopt that perspective since, in their most radical ambitions, they propose the abolition of the human being’s mortality. Or, post-humanists at least reduce mortality to a matter of choice. Pertinent to this study is that the “post-” in “post-humanism” retroactively makes us consider “humanism” as the realm of finitude. This “finitude,” however, as a distinctive feature of “humanism” might be even questioned from religious perspective. For example, in the case of Christian beliefs, the concept of “finitude” itself could be problematized with reference to humans’ eternal souls. However, one also might counter-argue that the Christian soul needs a perishable “alter-ego” without which it would not be entirely justifiable. Hence, finitude is the conditio sine qua non for a non-perishable soul. I thank my friend and colleague Sebastien Fanzun for comments and suggestions on this footnote.
For a discussion of the relation “nature-culture” in similar terms see Garroni (2010, 44–48).
I will return to and expand on this crucial argument in the section “Bildung and Rückbildung.” .
For a discussion of the constructive role of “chaos” for Bildungstheorie, see Rucker et al. (2017, 573).
For Von Humboldt’s legacy in the history of the Bildungstheorie see Gadamer (2006, 9–10).
I am grateful for the comments of the Reviewer #1, which asked to more explicitly address the reasons behind Vincenzo’s vote. In particular, the reviewer recommended that I differentiate the Hegelian and the Humboldtian perspectives on the anecdote.
For an analysis and problematization of the concept of the “impartial spectator,” see Paganelli (2016, 319–323).
I thank Reviewer #2 for insights prompting this acknowledgement.
With regards to the “communal sense,” we are reminded by Di Cesare that “from the constellation of humanism Gadamer chooses a few ‘leading concepts’ that could shed light on a model of knowledge as an alternative to the methodical one: culture, the community’s sense, judgement, and taste.” (2013, 38).
The photograph from a popular drawing manual was published in numerous editions around 1900. See Vaughan (1902, 41).
A similar interpretation has been proposed by Christiane Thompson who refers to Bildung explicitly as “a destructive occurrence that opens up spaces of possibility” (2009, 47).
For a similar discussion see Oelkers 1999, 36. For a critique of Bildung as an escape toward inwardness, see Reichenbach (2014). For a discussion of Bildung as a social and dialogic process and for a shift of emphasis from the individual towards the social sphere in relation to the discussion of Bildung, see Von Bonsdorff (2013). Finally, as noted above, Humboldt is the key source for the characterization of Bildung as “linking of the self to the world.”.
For instance, Reviewer #1 holds this position. For a systematic analysis of the concept of Bildung as Self-Bildung, see Biesta (2002b, 378).
Although I refer to traditional media, the example works in application to other art forms as well.
For the metaphor that I have just narrated, I have in mind Hegel’s section on “The Work of Art as a Product of Human Activity” from his Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics and, more precisely, the fundamental passage where he writes: “The things of nature are only immediate and single, but man as mind reduplicates himself, inasmuch as prima facie he is like things of nature, but in the second place just as really is for himself, perceives himself, has ideas of himself, thinks himself, and only thus is active self-realizedness. This consciousness of himself man obtains in a twofold way: in the first place theoretically, in as far as he has inwardly to bring himself into his own consciousness … Secondly, man is realized for himself by practical activity … This purpose he achieves by the modifications of external things upon which he impresses the seal of his inner being … Even the child’s first impulse involves this practical modification of external things. A boy throws stones into the river, and then stands admiring the circles that trace themselves on the water, as an effect in which he attains the sight of something that is his own doing. This need traverses the most manifold phenomena, up to the mode of self-production in the medium of external things as it is known to us in the work of art. And it is not only external things that man treats in this way, but himself no less, i.e. his own natural form, which he does not leave as he finds it, but alters of set purpose” (1993, 35–36).
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Acknowledgements
For the writing of this essay, I am thankful to my friends and colleagues Lynn Cowles, Sebastien Fanzun, Lisa Gulesserian, Eli Lichtenstein, Dario Marmo, and Peter Worger for precious suggestions. During the summer of 2018, I also received a grant from Cornell University, and I attended a summer program at the School of Criticism and Theory. On that occasion, I discussed this paper with Peter Gordon and received important advice. A first draft of this essay has been presented at the XXIV World Congress of Philosophy Beijing 2018. I owe a debt of gratitude to the “Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art” session chairs and to the other panelists, in particular to my friend and colleague Laura Eliza Enrìquez. I was able to attend the conference in Beijing thanks to a grant by the Department of Art & Art History and the Center for the Studies of Modernism at The University of Texas at Austin. Special thanks too to the anonymous reviewers for Studies in Philosophy and Education who have greatly enriched this essay with their comments. Finally, my greatest thanks goes to Vincenzo, to a certain extent, coauthor of these words.
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Loia, D. Bildung Between Praxis and Theoria: A Philosophical Study of an Exemplary Anecdote. Stud Philos Educ 38, 499–516 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-019-09665-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-019-09665-0