Introduction and Scope of the Essay

The complexity of philosophical arguments often distracts people from comprehending their relevance to daily life. At the same time, some philosophical studies obscure their applicability to everyday concerns with hyper-specialized academic jargon. Thus, readers unaccustomed to the apparent abstractions in philosophical discourses may misinterpret their challenging vocabularies as crypticism or, worse, as empty rhetoric. Responsibility for this scenario—in which philosophers constrain the applicability of their ideas or people lack sensitivity and live unexamined lives—is inconsequential in this essay. However, I do argue that, philosophers must increase accessibility to philosophy without trivializing their arguments and reflections.

This paper is part of a broader project in which I investigate autobiographical experiences through a philosophical perspective. The project argues that philosophical ideas and, in general, those arguments that fall under the broad category of “theory” pertain to the everyday social existence of human beings. As everyday life becomes more fragmented and inscrutable, people more urgently require philosophical reflections. However, philosophy should not merely embellish “everyday” culture. Instead, philosophy should actively influence culture at the levels of individual, community, and political decision-making. We could elect here as our own motto the following passage by the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre:

There ought not be two histories, one of political and moral action and one of political and moral theorising, because there were not two pasts, one populated only by actions, the other only by theories. Every action is the bearer and expression of more or less theory-laden beliefs and concepts; every piece of theorising and every expression of belief is a political and moral action (1981, 58).

Thus, the object of this essay is to prove that philosophical ideas are inherently interwoven with the everyday social existence of human beings. Specifically, this essay considers the correspondence between the concept of Bildung and an anecdote from my own experience.Footnote 1 This anecdote, the “philosophical lesson” of a seven-year-old child named Vincenzo, subtly characterizes the concept of Bildung and also helps extricate its complexities.Footnote 2

The essay follows a four-part structure. After recounting the anecdote in the first part, I will discuss its relevance in understanding Bildung. Since not all anecdotes are “exemplary” and beneficial for philosophical investigations, I define the qualities of anecdotes that enable some of them to be “exemplary.” With those definitions delineated, the first section concludes that non-anecdotal analysis of Bildung—that is, analysis not grounded in the praxis of the lived experience—cannot illuminate the concept’s complexities. In Part II, I analyze the idea of Bildung within the contexts of contemporary philosophy. Gadamer’s and Hegel’s interpretations of the concept help explain the complexity and effectiveness of Bildung within philosophical inquiry. Of numerous extant critical analyses of Bildungstheorie, I privilege Gadamer’s and Hegel’s analyses due to the significance of the concept in their works and because they consider Bildung one of the most urgent concepts for our time.Footnote 3 In Part III and Part IV, I demonstrate that the concept can be only partially standardized by a set of criteria that thinkers can apply to a variety of circumstances. As discussed below, any act of Bildung can be trivialized easily in Rückbildung (reverse-Bildung).Footnote 4 Without attempting to systematize the concept of Bildung, this essay partially builds on theses by scholars Thomas Rucker and Eric Dan Gerònimo, who write that “the concept of complexity could be suitable for bringing attention to common presuppositions in the theoretical dealing with the problem of Bildung” (2017, 569). However, this current paper, is uninterested in commenting further or even expanding on the validity of “common presuppositions” in Bildungstheorie.Footnote 5 Rather, I aim to simplify contemporary understandings of the concept of Bildung. I do so not to trivialize the idea’s content-value but instead to render it more transparent, accessible, tangible. Thus, I analyze the broad concept by considering an anecdote as illustrative.

In conclusion, this essay does not contribute to the systematization of the concept of Bildung or discuss potential commonalities among theoretical approaches to it. In contrast, I propose understanding Bildung through a dialogue of theoria and praxis, and I argue that that dialogue is an indispensable condition for studying Bildung today.

The Anecdote

It must have been 1993, certainly not later than 1995. I was a student in a Christian Catholic school in a mid-sized town in the south of Italy. Our teacher’s name was Suor Emilia. I have a few images and impressions left from that time, but one in particular remains in my memory. It begins with a class exercise: my peers and I had written short fictional stories. I do not recall if this exercise was recurrent or sporadic. I distinctively recollect that, after writing our stories, our teacher called up two students at a time to read them in front of the class, while the rest of the class publicly voted for their favorite of the two by raising their hands. In pairs, one student succeeded and the other failed in his or her performance. I do not remember if I won or lost my “competition.” However, I do remember the turn of one of my schoolmates, Vincenzo, and his competitor. Something incredible happened as we cast our votes in their round. While students raised their hands in favor of Vincenzo’s competitor’s story, Vincenzo added his vote, too. In all previous contests, no student voted for his or her competitor because we were chiefly concerned with winning. Vincenzo acted differently, and our teacher acknowledged and praised Vincenzo’s mature, admirable gesture. Her praise and the impact of Vincenzo’s action impressed the rest of the class, and every single student—no one excluded—voted for his or her competitor for the rest of the day.

That story hardly qualifies as an event with a capital “E.” Certainly, we can define the mundane event I just recounted as an “anecdote.” Scholar Lionel Gossman reminds us that, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, an anecdote is the “narrative of a detached incident, or of a single event, told as being in itself interesting and striking” (2003, 148). Gossman also notes that the anecdote frequently resembles a “highly concentrated miniature narrative with a strikingly dramatic three-act structure consisting of situation or exposition, encounter or crisis, and resolution” (2003, 149). Though I grant that the term has encompassed a wide variety of meanings over time and hardly could be summarized by a well-defined set of characteristics, I have come to understand that an anecdote is a written or oral narrative, often concise, with some presumed interesting quality. In the first iteration of an anecdote, only the narrator presumes the relevance of the narrative; hence, the narrator recounts the anecdote at all. For instance, for the anecdote narrated above, I have not demonstrated yet its striking quality. However, through additional reflection—performed by the narrator, listener, reader, or by their dialogical interactions—an anecdote can become an “example.”Footnote 6 In the rest of my analysis, I will reflect on my anecdote about Vincenzo, which in itself is unremarkable, in order to elaborate its “exemplary” quality.

Maurizio Ferraris’s explanation of the exemplary as a “model” (2016, 50–53) influences my definition of the “exemplary anecdote.” Ferraris states that “the example describes the normal, but … such normality can be exceptional without contradiction” (2016, 53, translation mine). That is to say, “normal” does not contradict “exceptional,” so the commonplace can be recognized as “exemplary.” Vincenzo’s anecdote is absolutely “normal,” ordinary. We are with some children in a classroom where a lesson, in which children read aloud their papers, takes place.Footnote 7 In addition, it is “normal” that children follow their motivations to win, and no one before Vincenzo voted for his or her competitor. Vincenzo’s vote, as I will consider further below, is “exceptional” for its being part of a normal setting. There must be something “exceptional” within an anecdote to make it “exemplary.” But the “exemplary” quality of the anecdote precisely follows the normality of the setting. Without some “normal” traits, the anecdote would be fully exceptional, and it would interest us as a curiosity and not as an “example.” Mundaneness is necessary for an anecdote to be “exemplary.” An anecdote becomes “exemplary” when it changes those who experience it. As philosopher Pietro Montani writes “the exemplary work furnishes a pragmatic model and provides new rules for the ethical judgment, [and] it aims to produce accord [con-senso], to reorganize the common sense” (2007, 46–47, translation mine). Although Montani’s study addresses the “great” work of art—or, broadly speaking, “the work of genius”—this paper extends his characterization of the “exemplary” work to the ostensibly commonplace anecdote. To summarize, an “exemplary anecdote” can be a “model”—that is, by virtue of its exceptional and mundane qualities, the anecdote can broaden the criteria for judgement and reorganize common sense.Footnote 8

The significance of Vincenzo’s gesture and its impressive effects on the rest of the class are apparent if we understand the philosophical implications, with which I will engage using the concept of Bildung as an investigative tool. While the concept of Bildung helps sublate and stabilize my anecdote into an “example,” the anecdote simultaneously problematizes and destabilizes the concept of Bildung itself. Thus, the interaction between theoria and praxis is a dialectical and intertwined process of mutual stabilization and destabilization. If theory attempts to stabilize praxis, then praxis concurrently questions and destabilizes the theoretical efforts of stabilization. The mundane/exceptional anecdote narrated above provides a glimpse of the intertwinement of and tension between theoria and praxis. Any appropriate critical investigation must acknowledge the constant interaction between the life of the mind and the realm of actions. This dialectical interaction between theoria and praxis forms a totality (σύνολον) at the heart of critical thinking and human experience in general.

Brief Introduction to the Concept of Bildung

Before analyzing the interplay between the anecdote and the concept of Bildung, I will briefly introduce the concept in more general terms. Scholarship on the concept itself, and its cultural implications, is vast (Siljander et al. 2012; Gennari 2014; Reichenbach 2014; Horlacher 2016; Rucker and Gerònimo 2017). Two hundred years of discourse on Bildung and Bildung-related analyses have produced myriad definitions that affirm the “multidimensionality of the concept” (Siljander et al. 2012, 2–3). Siljander, Kivelä, and Sutinen note in their introduction to Theories of Bildung and Growth, “no direct English language equivalent exists [of the term Bildung]. Words used as translations of the term Bildung include ‘formation,’ ‘self-formation,’ ‘cultivation,’ ‘self-cultivation,’ ‘self-development,’ and ‘cultural process.’ … None of these cover the entire content of the Bildung concept, however” (2012, 2). The editors of the volume also quote this fascinating and important passage from Max Horkheimer’s 1953 speech Begriff der Bildung:

Don’t expect me to define [Bildung]. There are areas in which clear and simple definitions are more than to the purpose, and the role of definitions in knowledge should not be underestimated in any way. … One must attempt to gain entry to an idea’s internal life, its tensions and ambiguities, and surrender to the risk of colliding with contradictions in such a manner that one is even guilty oneself of contradiction. Suspect the need for intellectual purity of an exaggerated type that always requires in a discussion precise advance knowledge of what an idea means before it can be used at all. The process of clarifying and defining ideas is not something that precedes knowledge…. This applies also to the idea of Bildung (2012, 2–3).

In other terms, a commonly-shared definition of Bildung does not exist. Instead, the term is described by a loosely connected group of definitions (Rucker and Gerònimo 2017, 570). In his essay collection Praise of Theory, Gadamer comments on the difficulty of defining the concept of “culture,” which is related to Bildung. Gadamer writes that “although we would all know that culture is something that supports us, none of us would be so knowledgeable as to say what culture is” (1998, 1). On the other hand, the impossibility of a comprehensive definition of Bildung does not prevent completely our ability to identify some of its crucial components. Later in this essay, I use my anecdote to outline these components and their irreducible interplay. First, I continue a broad overview of the notion of Bildung.

In his major work, Truth and Method, Gadamer investigates the meaning of Bildung by focusing on the history of the word itself. Gadamer outlines German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder’s preliminary description of the term when he writes that Bildung implies “rising up to humanity through culture” (2006, 9). Gadamer consolidates that early delineation referring to Hegel’s idea that “culture” (Bildung) should be understood in opposition to what is “natural” and “immediate.” Humanity, says Hegel, “‘is not, by nature, what [it] should be’—and hence [humanity, adds Gadamer] needs Bildung” (2006, 11, emphasis added). Hegel articulates his positions on the nature/culture dichotomy extensively, so this essay cannot fully review the breadth of his ideas. For clarity’s sake, Hegel’s and Gadamer’s theories are not limited to contraposition between nature and culture. Hegel is well aware that Bildung is not a mere supplement to the human being’s natural state. Instead, for Hegel, Bildung is a proper part of the human natural state, that is, the human tends to depart from and abstract itself from its own “naturality” (Giosi 2012, 170).Footnote 9 A full illustration of the complicated relation between nature and culture is not the project of this study. For now, I ask readers that the argument suffices that in Hegel’s philosophy, culture cannot be conceived in isolation from nature and nature cannot be conceived in isolation from culture.Footnote 10 Most relevant in this paper is that the assumed opposition between “nature” and “culture”— in general or as a distinctive feature of Bildung—is disputable. For instance, one might ask: how can humanity be itself without considering what humanity is by nature—for example, without considering its finitude, which is a natural and not a cultural trait?Footnote 11 Common sense still identifies a contraposition between an “instinctive,” “immediate” nature and a “creative,” “innovative” intelligence. However, the strict contraposition between “nature” and “culture” is questionable, especially when this discourse is related to the human being.Footnote 12

Instead of affirming the problematic nature-culture dichotomy, I find more promise in the second dichotomy proposed by Hegel and Gadamer—that is, the contrast between Bildung and the “immediate.” The significance of this second contrast is obscure. Indeed, thinkers often consider “culture” to be the set of assumptions that define community values, such as an unquestioned cultural tradition. For instance, competition is a well-established value in Western culture, and my anecdote also exhibits the internalization of a culture of competition through the disciplinary realm of the school. At the same time, Gadamer’s notion of Bildung as a “break with the immediate” (2006, 11) directs our attention beyond unquestioned customs, habits of mind, and culturally “naturalized” practices. As reported by Gadamer, it is Hegel, again, who importantly clarifies the contrast between “culture” and the “immediate” when he says, “Whoever abandons himself to his particularity is ungebildet (‘unformed’)” (2006, 11). From this statement, we more clearly understand the concept of Bildung via its antinomic characterization. Those who are ungebildet (“unformed”) cannot distance themselves from their “particularity,” that is, from their “immediate” experience. Therefore, one’s development or “self-formation” (Bildung) requires the sacrifice of particularity and the detachment from oneself (Gadamer 2006, 11–12). In more general terms, Bildung coaxes individuals to go beyond their own pre-formed concepts of individuality. However, the “sacrifice of particularity” does not require abdication of an individual perspective or homogenization of oneself to doxa.Footnote 13 Moreover, the idea of Bildung as the “sacrifice of particularity” or as a “detachment from an immediate finality” reminds that such a concept has little relevance in regards to the “cultivated” person. As philosopher Donatella Di Cesare notes, Bildung “means to see oneself with the eyes of the other and from their standpoint” (2013, 39). Thus, Bildung has little to do with mere erudition or social status. Instead, it refers to a disposition of openness. Indeed, the cultured (gebildete) person is not merely the erudite or intellectual; can even be a child.

My attempt to provide an initial definition of the concept of Bildung around the key arguments of the “sacrifice of particularity,” “detachment of oneself from oneself,” and “overcoming of limits” opens up a set of problems in need of consideration. My interpretation of Bildung, similar to Hegel’s and Gadamer’s concepts, is grounded in opposition to the “immediate” rather than in opposition to “nature.” Moreover, my interpretation undermines the correspondence between any theoretical elaborations and essentialist characterization. Instead of trying to define a concept as complex as Bildung rigidly, in the following section, a description of Bildung’s concrete manifestation through Vincenzo’s anecdote will serve to both clarify and destabilize any facile understanding of Bildung.

Vincenzo’s Anecdote as Exemplary Manifestation of Bildung

Vincenzo’s act is the trace of an event: he detaches himself from an immediate finality, that is, to achieve the victory in the literary competition, and opens himself to what is “other.” Vincenzo exhibits a self-reflective and disinterested perspective through which he views the “other,” his competitor, not only as “competitor” but also as an intentional agent with whom he shares a common horizon. Vincenzo’s vote in favor of his competitor occurs because of formation of a subjective taste and detachment from an immediate scope. At the same time, Vincenzo’s act is more than an autonomous expression of taste.

The gesture of the student disrupts the regularity of the class’ behavior up to that point. The unexpected appearance of his raised hand in favor of his opponent leads to the transformation of an established order and to the insertion of an element of chaos within the class.Footnote 14 In their work examining Bildung, Rucker and Gerònimo may overstate the function of chaos when they write that “only chaotic states establish the possibility for the development of a new order” (2017, 573); however, their articulation of the logic of that statement is relevant. They note that “chaos possesses not only a destructive, but also a constructive element” (2017, 573). Thus, in disrupting normal class behavior, Vincenzo’s gesture also establishes for the class the possibility of a shared and more harmonious environment. In the micro-universe of the classroom, Vincenzo’s act allows for a glimpse of a potential “new order.” The student’s gesture indicates a new possibility for classmates—that is, to listen to competitors’ stories while detaching themselves both from their own immediate identities as antagonists and from their desires for collective approval and unique validation. Reading my anecdote as a collective reorganization of individual selves within a group reflects philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt’s analysis of Bildung.Footnote 15 According to von Humboldt, Bildung is a “‘linking of the self to the world’ that possesses the form of interplay” (Rucker and Gerònimo, 575). Vincenzo’s act overcomes strict competition between schoolmate antagonists that had not allowed until that moment any form of mutual recognition or interaction apart from a rigidly antinomic one. His interplay with the environment of the class creates a community of individuals where, before, there was a grouping of alienated parties in contraposition to one another.

In the context of the classroom, his act reveals an elegant demonstration of a centered-decentering move. Vincenzo’s behavior is self-active in that he not only recognizes the “other” through his vote, but he also recognizes himself. On one hand, Vincenzo’s vote for his opponent enables him to acquire a clearer sense of his own position as “competitor.” Such awareness of his position as “competitor” centers Vincenzo’s sense of self. On the other hand, Vincenzo’s vote provides him also the possibility to consider that situation from the perspective of an “impartial spectator.” This decentered move also contributes to Vincenzo’s greater acquisition of a sense of himself. In sum, a fruitful paradox characterizes his act. Vincenzo better centers himself in the position of “competitor” by voting against his own interest. But he also decenters himself from himself by voting with disinterest—that is, by voting from a position impartial to the identification of “competitor.”

The paradox at the center of Vincenzo’s act helps differentiate the two definitions of Bildung at play here. On one side, Vincenzo’s act is an expression of an Humboldtian “linking of the self to the world.” In voting for his antagonist, Vincenzo acquires a clearer sense of his own position (“self”) as literary competitor and recognizes the “other”—that is, the “world”—through his vote. On the other side, Vincenzo’s vote refers to an Hegelian notion of Bildung. That is, the student’s decentered, “impartial” vote in favor of his antagonist symbolically express the formation of a more neutral, objective, “scientific” consciousness.Footnote 16

In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith (1723–1790) explains that human beings are born with the imaginative capacity to put themselves in the place of another person (Paganelli 2016, 319). The difficulty in performing this special ability of decentering, according to Smith, is that we are naturally biased by our self-love and self-interests. “Our I-spectator,” says Smith, “is partial to us because of his proximity and love toward us. So we need to train ourselves to decrease this bias and try to distance ourselves from ourselves as much as possible, that is, we need to train ourselves to create more space between the I-actor and the I-spectator” (1976, III.3). This valuable idea can be discussed from several perspectives. For instance, one might ask if specific institutions and techniques can cultivate a space in-between the “I-actor” and “I-spectator.” From another angle, the idea of an autonomous “I-actor” might appear as problematic as the idea of an “impartial spectator,” both for their quasi-mythological qualities. Is the “impartial spectator” a talent one acquires through a specific kind of cultivation (Bildung)? How does the decentering capacity of the impartial spectator actually work? How can an “impartial spectator” be “impartial” if he or she has not previously experienced his or her own, so to say, partiality? According to Gadamer, Bildung means “transposing oneself” (sich versetzen) into other standpoints: “For what do we mean by ‘transposing ourselves’? Certainly not disregarding ourselves. This is necessary, of course, insofar as we must imagine the other situation. But into this other situation we must bring, precisely, ourselves” (2006, 305. emphasis added). Hence, we can understand the quality of Bildung as a broader capacity for abstraction—that is, as a sensitivity, a talent, or a process materialized into gestures and acts within a specific context.Footnote 17 As commented by Pauline Von Bonsdorff, the notion of education as Bildung is far more hermeneutically fruitful than a view of education as merely teaching, training, or schooling; thus, Bildung must be understood as a social and dialogic process (2013, 127).

This essay does not discount or judge negatively students’ immediate desires to win their small competitions. Moreover, Vincenzo may not have denied a private purpose tout court. In spite of the decision to vote in favor of his competitor, Vincenzo may have preserved a desire to win his competition. Perhaps, also Vincenzo foresaw the possibility of popularizing himself through a magnanimous act. However, I believe that Vincenzo’s vote is more than a “nice gesture” (bel gesto) and formal demonstration of open-mindedness.

To summarize, Vincenzo’s act materializes a reflexive distance and opens up a space in-between “Vincenzo-as-competitor” and “Vincenzo-as-spectator.” The impersonal and reflective place from which the child performs judgment allows him to better comprehend his identity within a specific community. The centered-decentering capability is the critical component of Vincenzo’s act. As critics, we value Vincenzo’s “educated” (gebildete) gesture for its ability to disclose a multiplicity of perspectives. In expressing his own judgement, he does not only perform as an autonomously disinterested, “impartial spectator.” This interpretation would trivialize the meaning of his act. The role of “impartial spectator” performed by Vincenzo connects to his localized position—that is, the position of the competitor in the classroom’s literary “arena.” Surely, we might read his gesture as an exclusive expression of either preformed subjective tase or a virtue on which Vincenzo might be acting. It is considerate for one to demonstrate that he or she can appreciate another’s work or ideas even when such appreciation might undermine the reception of one’s own work or ideas.Footnote 18 However, that interpretation misses a number of important points: the economy of Vincenzo’s act in the overall context of the class; the class’s response to Vincenzo’s gesture and to the teacher’s praise; and, more importantly, the multiplicity of perspectives performed by Vincenzo.

In sum, I believe that Vincenzo’s act exhibits the capacity for Bildung to manifest a plurality of point of views. I emphasize plurality with reference to Hegel, who characterizes “educated” (gebildete) people by their abilities to “turn things [Sachen] round and consider them in many aspects” (Odenstendt 2017, 154). This ability, says Hegel, is “a power of keeping the manifold points of view present to the mind, so that the wealth of categories by which an object may be considered [is understood]” (Odenstendt 2017, 154). Vincenzo votes for the success of his classmate as an “impartial spectator,” while acquiring a greater sense of his position as competitor. In this paradoxical duality and opening up of a multiplicity of perspectives, Bildung is at work (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
figure 1

Bildung at work as capacity of looking at things from a multiplicity of perspectives. Drawing and digital manipulation by the author

Bildung and Rückbildung

The story of Vincenzo’s vote does not end there. Once the class recognized the admirable quality of his gesture, which was validated by the teacher’s recognition, they followed Vincenzo’s action by uncritically repeating his gesture and always voting for their competitors for the rest of the day. In this way, Vincenzo’s “revolutionary” act was immediately reduced to a formulaic action, to mere doxa. In our ungebildet perspective as primary school students, we did not and probably could not recognize that Vincenzo was not establishing a strict rule but broadening the possibilities for judgments.

We can understand that the concept of Bildung is related to an “experience of crisis,” which Vincenzo’s vote created for the class. As Rucker and Gerònimo summarize, a condition of crisis “sets in either, because a person does not possess any rules for positioning himself in relation to a new subject; or therefore, because the previously relevant rules no longer seem suitable for taking a position” (2017, 576). The teacher’s praise of Vincenzo determines that a previous rule—students’ instinctual desires to succeed—should no longer define the rules of the classroom. On the other hand, we could not know yet how to relate to “a new subject,” “Vincenzo-as-spectator,” and to a “new order,” which is the possibility to perform a multiplicity of perspectives. Vincenzo’s action extended possible judgments for the rest of the class by introducing other possible perspectives: (1) the judgment that one’s competitor might have actually performed better; (2) the capacity to impartially vote and to freely express our own tastes; (3) the possibility to not vote for our competitors in case his or her story was recognized as a mere repetition of an external source lazily copied; and so on. However, in the context of the class, the broadening of possible judgments was transformed immediately into a form of adaptive conformity, in passive subscription to the doxa. To paraphrase the philosopher Emilio Garroni, the impression is that more a rule is broad, more a person must be “talented” (gebildet) in applying this rule to particular circumstances (2010, 153). But, since our teacher valorized and, so to say, “institutionalized” Vincenzo’s gesture in her verbal praise, we believed that it was a sign of maturity to show support for our competitor, and we all began to follow this assumed diktat. The gesture, when replicated as a form of adaptive conformity immediately lost its Bildung-ness, that is, “the distancing from the immediacy of desire, of personal need and private interest, and the exacting demand of a universal” (Gadamer 2006, 12). But more than a “demand of a universal”—as Gadamer corrects subsequently—we should consider Bildung as the process of developing a common sense (2006, 17).Footnote 19 The “common sense” that Bildung can produce, however, is neither adaptive conformity nor doxa but rather a mobile-horizon open to possibilities. As elementary students, we could not fully understand the philosophical and pragmatic implications of Vincenzo’s complex communicative act.

The canonization of Bildung performed by the teacher and the rest of the class illustrates that at the core of this notion lies an irreducible interplay between authority and critique, tradition and emancipation, social consensus and its relation to authority itself. The notion of Bildung involves the problem of its transmission and the question of whether the education of Bildung is conceivable. As argued by Ari Kivelä with reference to Immanuel Kant’s Lectures on Education (1803) the canonization of Bildung is related to an essential problem for education: “Education seems to be the condition for the freedom and autonomy at the individual level, but education itself is—paradoxically speaking—initially involved with the use of discipline and coercion” (2012, 66). The problem of “cultivation” is, broadly speaking, the problem of education as such. If education requires discipline, its coercitive value is irremediably in contrast with its emancipatory purpose.

Two images help illustrate the problem with the class’s imitation of Vincenzo’s gesture which was perhaps caused by their passive acceptance of the gesture’s value-content as established by the teacher. A series of futuristic pictures by Jean-Marc Côté issued in France around 1900 imagine the world in the distant year of 2000. Originally published in the form of paper cards enclosed in cigarette and cigar boxes and later as postcards, one of them shows the experience of being “at school” (Fig. 2). The image seems to anticipate the use of “audio-books” in education, and it also comments on the possibility of facilitating the acquisition of knowledge through a delegating act. Certainly education entails a similar processes of acquisition. However, we should consider this visual example and Vincenzo’s anecdote in irreducible contrast. In this image, “thinking” is strictly reduced to a delegating act and, therefore, to a deliberate attempt in avoiding the responsibility of “thinking.” As John Dewey notes in How We Think, “thinking is not like a sausage machine which reduces all materials indifferently to one marketable commodity, but is a power of following up and linking together the specific suggestions that specific things arouse” (1971, 5). Dewey’s emphasis on thinking as an art of “linking together” reminds me of Humboldt’s translated passage in which the writer qualifies Bildung as a “linking of the self to the world.” In consideration of Dewey’s and Humboldt’s statements, I argue that we can also understand “thinking” as the cultivating quality of intertwining theoria and praxis without reducing the complexities of the everyday life to indifferent matters.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Source: Public Domain Wikipedia

Jean Marc Cote (if 1901) or Villemard (if 1910), France in XXI Century. School, c. 1900.

Another visual source from a drawing manual also published around 1900 shows a group of students in the act of pedissequa imitating the image of a leaf drawn by their master at the blackboard, while a real aucuba leaf camps at the side of the master’s drawing (Fig. 3).Footnote 20 As analyzed by the art historian Richard Shiff, we do not see the master within the class, but his presence is manifested by the authoritarian correspondence between model and representation (1989, 75). In this photograph, says Shiff, “institutional and traditional authority establishes the link between model and representation” (1989, 75). The image shows students from the back as if their individuality is less important than their adaptive conformity to a norm. In making their own drawings of the aucuba leaf, each child attempts to imitate the look of the master. In a similar fashion, the students in Vincenzo’s class are also imitating the look of the master and her words of admiration while passively accepting its value-content.

Fig. 3
figure 3

Source: Vaughan 1902

Freearm drawing photograph from a drawing manual. c. 1900.

Theodor Adorno famously expressed serious reservations about the Bildung ideal.Footnote 21 At the same time, as Douglas Yacek points out, Adorno formulated “a truly dialectical … conception of Bildung” (2016, 244). Vincenzo’s anecdote precisely exhibits Adorno’s dialectical conception of Bildung in that the narrative reveals the capacity for a disinterested form of judgment, and it also shows that the “impartial spectator” capacity can be perverted and transformed into mere doxa. Our teacher institutionalized Vincenzo’s act, and the imitation of the class contributed to its banalization. However, we should not dismiss the teacher’s and the classmates’ behaviors as merely trivializing. The difficulty for the class to internalize Vincenzo’s Bildung reinforces Adorno’s dialectical conception of Bildung as a “‘force field’ sustaining two competing moments: the Enlightenment ideal of intellectual autonomy, and the cultural necessity of assimilation” (Yacek 2016, 244). As Adorno states, “If the force field of Bildung congeals around fixed categories, be it spirit or nature, sovereignty or assimilation, then each of these isolated categories becomes the contradiction of what they intend, offers itself up to ideology and advances Rückbildung [reverse-Bildung]” (2003, 96). In sum, Bildung does not have its proper home in any metaphysics (Clearly and Hogan 2001, 525). Instead, it refers to the opening up of spaces of possibility.Footnote 22 But the “openness” of such space leads with itself the actual possibility that Bildung might be also contracted immediately in a reverse-Bildung, as our anecdote demonstrates.

Attempting to capture this complex dialectical tension, I am reminded of Rucker and Gerònimo’s important insight about Bildung: “openness and uncertainty are … two sides of the same coin” (2017, 574). Bildung is, among many other things, the art of cultivating openness to uncertainty. However, in a neoliberal era that has normalized precariousness and uncertainty, the conception of openness and uncertainty as “two sides to the same coin” threatens complicating Bildung further. Our problem is not the openness to uncertainty. Society is full of uncertainties—professional, emotional, existential—of nearly any kind. Hence, what argument am I making? Am I, perhaps, unconsciously celebrating “uncertainty” via this antinomic characterization of “cultivation” as openness to uncertainty? Certainly not. If “openness” and “uncertainty” are “two sides of the same coin,” then still, they are not the same. “Openness” as a talent for flexibility and as capacity to distinguish, separate, correlate, and value certainly requires awareness of uncertainty; not uncertainty as such. Possibly, the social and historical conditions of a human’s existence might preclude cultivation of “openness and uncertainty” because “uncertainty” may be so totalizing to render “openness” impossible. Nonetheless, in this essay I do not intend to deal with such daunting issues. Instead, my more minimal ambition is to demonstrate that Bildung as “self-formation” is a dialogical process that first requires the capacity to perform a multiplicity of perspectives but that Bildung also can be banalized easily in formulaic actions deprived of any Bildung-ness.

Vincenzo’s teaching on Bildung reveals that such concept does not designate “universal viewpoints” or a mere transcendence of the particular to the universal. Rather, Bildung establishes a glimpse into the possible through the development of a common sense. Now, “common sense” does not mean I-do-it-because-everyone-does-it, and we must not confuse it with formulaic ability or an uncritical and automatic formulation like an unquestioned tradition or habit of thought. On the contrary, “common sense” manifests itself more prominently on a case-by-case basis in the shape of a never-ending constructive process at the intersection of theoria and praxis.

Conclusive Remarks

In conclusion, who is the subject of Bildung in the anecdote just narrated? Is Vincenzo, or the classmates? Is the subject me in the act of writing this paper years later or each reader who reads and eventually reflects on this paper? I answer these questions with the closest characterization of the concept of Bildung itself.

My anecdote demonstrates that Bidung is not only about “inwardness itself,”Footnote 23 but it is oriented to the development of self-consciousness through the interaction of the “self” with the “world.” Thus, the subject of Bildung is not Vincenzo, the classmates, me, or readers. The subject of Bildung is each person who recognizes himself or herself in connection with the historical, social, existential realities in which they live. The subject of Bildung can only be a community. Many commentators consider Bildung as the awareness of the subject in relation to himself or herself.Footnote 24 However, if, in principle, a subject is never completely detached from other subjects, then Bildung is always the formulation of the subject in relation to the world. Donatella Di Cesare reminds us that “the cultivated person is the one who has a sense of community” (2014, 40). Hence, the subjects of Bildung are simultaneously: a) the subject in relation to himself or herself (for it would be impossible to cultivate a sense of community without having cultivated self-consciousness as well); b) the subject in relation to the world; c) another “impartial” subject (“neutral”) who reflects on the relation among subjects; and d) Bildung itself as a thematized concept that cannot be reduced to a set of criteria. These four subjects are all at work, simultaneously, in the concept of Bildung.

When viewed through the lens of Gadamer’s and Hegel’s characterizations of Bildung, Vincenzo’s anecdote helps comprehend what is “common sense” and its possible perversion into doxa. Vincenzo’s gesture originates and provides new criteria for the rest of the class, and it furnishes us who are considering its potential quality. That act creates the space for a possible community in which members can regenerate the horizons of communication. It does not merely perform an admirable or virtuous gesture but rather evokes a model for possible judgements that are, in principle, plural and non-determinable in advance. Vincenzo’s gesture is not only a nice gesture (bel gesto), but the trace of an event: the rise of a meta-operative awareness in which the child becomes able to imagine himself in someone’s else position and to imagine the “other” not only as an “other” but as an intentional agent with whom he shares a common horizon. Vincenzo’s vote (that is, his praxis) not only testifies a form of subjective taste (a theoretical preference) but also creates the condition for a more harmonic environment. If until Vincenzo’s vote, the classroom was enlivened by a number of antagonists, then afterwards, it became possible for classmates to exist within a shared environment.

The apparently banal example that I narrated manifests the tangibility and worldly quality of the concept of Bildung. This story is about children because the same story narrated in the context of adults—for example, in the context of a parliamentary discussion—would be less significant. Moreover, it cannot be stressed enough that Vincenzo’s act acquires an exemplary value because of its unexpectedness within the context of the class and in relation to the students’ behavior. Both the visual examples provided above and the behaviour of the students who uncritically followed Vincenzo’s act show a form of “education” as mere world-appropriation. Differently, Vincenzo’s gesture, detached from the canonization of the teacher and further banalization of the rest of the class, shows an example of Bildung as world-building. Vincenzo’s anecdote is a little story in the long history of the emancipation from and of ourselves. “Cultivation,” within the context of Vincenzo’s story, indicates the following: first, learning to act without looking at the immediately useful; and second, developing a mode of being able to perform a multiplicity of perspectives through the centered-decentering ability.

An art metaphor helpfully summarizes the story narrated above. Through the artwork, the artist doubles and recognizes himself or herself. The artist eliminates his or her inflexible foreignness by creating an object in a block of marble or on a canvas in which he or she recognizes himself or herself.Footnote 25 Critics, however, should not take for granted that the necessities of self-identification found their “natural” manifestation in the work of art. It is possible that the everyday life might be woven by events in which such necessity might find an actual manifestation. In face, I read Vincenzo’s gesture as “artistic” because it engages an extraneous environment (the classroom up to his vote) as an artist would engage a resistant block of marble. Moreover, his vote demonstrates an ability to perform autonomous actions as artists would do with their work. His gesture is “institutionalized” by the teacher as much as museums and art critics do with works of art. Finally, as happens with innovations in art, a plethora of imitators (the rest of the class) passively replicated Vincenzo’s gesture without reflecting on its meaning. Evidently, the duplication of the “self” in artistic works which can lead the human to self-consciousness does not produce necessarily great works of art. Those processes of expression or duplication can be represented by mundane gestures or events, as the one we have described.Footnote 26

As we have briefly mentioned, an incredible amount of scholarship is devoted to the celebration and discussion of the idea of Bildung, and between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a cult in its honor was created. Our example follows the critical tradition of questioning the very idea of an ultimate foundation of the concept of Bildung itself. That unsteadiness, however, is not paralyzing but rather is generative in that it broadens the horizon of possibilities. Odenstedt summarizes that, for Hegel, Bildung occurs in two main forms: “Initially, the child is subject to (i) elementary education, which aims to integrate it into the cultural milieu. However, later in life this Bildung may become subject to (ii) questioning and critique as a result of higher education” (2017, 153). Odenstendt explains this idea again in a close consideration of Hegel’s conception of Bildung as sacrifice of particularity and detachment from an immediate finality. Odenstendt writes that according to Hegel:

the purpose of Bildung is precisely to overcome nature through the inculcation of beliefs, norms, and customs which become second nature, and which thereby thwart the child’s insistence on the priority of its own beliefs and desires (its inborn and constitutional “first” nature). But the second nature that is thus acquired may later in life become subject to a process of Bildung, which creates a third nature, as it were, and this, Hegel holds, is one goal of historical study and of higher education more generally (2017, 153).

Hence, Hegel distinguishes the development of consciousness by three categories: (1) natural, instinctual desires; (2) “second nature,” or, the inculcation of beliefs, norms, and customs (a minor and initial form of Bildung); and (3) third nature—that is, a collection of talents acquired through higher education or, as this paper argues, an additional and more sophisticated process of Bildung. In my paper I do not consider Bildung in sense (i) as “inculcation of beliefs.” For clarity’s sake, a better term for such process would be “formal education.” What, however, is more important, Bildung at all levels of sophistication requires the processes of questioning and critique. In his summary, Odenstendt’s writes “The questioning of habitual presuppositions is thus not the culmination of Bildung as such but nevertheless forms an integral part of it” (2017, 154). This analysis of the concept of Bildung is the clearest I have found among secondary sources because it demonstrates that the concept refers to the investigation on both the first nature (the uncanny realm of the biological) and the second nature (the equally puzzling inculcation of beliefs, norms and customs). Following Hegel’s position, Odenstendt’s study argues that Bildung elevates self-consciousness to a greater stage of awareness. Finally, our example demonstrates that the linear process from first nature to second nature to third nature does not happen necessarily in such a linear fashion. Experience is always more messy than it appears in academic papers.

The relationship between contingency and necessity, culture and nature are crucial themes for philosophical studies. This discipline can notably contribute to the understanding of the dialectical interrelation of these opposing and intertwined realms. To the general public, philosophical speculations often seem to be abstract and detached from everyday life, even when philosophy deals with the tables, chairs, and blackboards that one found in Vincenzo’s classroom. My anecdote about a lived experience and an apparently banal event from my childhood reflects my desire for a more humble, mundane, but, perhaps, also urgent direction for philosophical studies. Without examples concepts always risk to crystallize in mere abstractions. As Hannah Arendt expresses, “Yet, such speculations are meaningful to the extent that they remind us that history is a story of events and not of forces or ideas with predictable courses” (1998, 252). Apart from its significance for a discussion of Bildungstheorie, this paper aims to inspire a collective dialogue on the urgency of philosophical investigations on the contingent, the daily, and even the apparently obvious through a rich and ambitious simplification of our communicative instruments.