On Affirmativity and Non-affirmativity in the Context of Theories of Education and Bildung

Abstract

This chapter describes the genesis and reception of my attempts at developing a non-affirmative pedagogy in four sections. The first recalls the beginnings, which identified non-affirmativity as a feature of critical pedagogical thought and action, leading beyond the then widespread juxtaposition of affirmative and emancipatory pedagogy. The second section presents the yield of these efforts on my “General Pedagogy” (1971/2018) and the basic pedagogical concepts, basic pedagogical theories, and elementary forms of action in education that I introduced in it. The third part develops systematic distinctions between positive and negative experiences, teaching and learning, and between upbringing, education, and competence, which are helpful for understanding the inherent logic of pedagogical thought and action and for the coordination between pedagogical theory and research in educational science. The fourth section deals with the reception of the approach and works out an enduring significance of critical non-affirmativity, which must be constantly re-examined against the background of changing pedagogical problem constellations.

Dr Aline Nardo (University of Edinburgh) provided immense support in the process of translating this text from German to English.

The meaning of the terms “affirmativity” and “non-affirmativity” in the context of educational theory and research is not self-evident. The terms refer to commandments to avow or disavow something particular. But on what grounds should one be commanded to avow and disavow? This question is especially relevant when considering educational contexts, in which the ability to judge whether something should be approved or disapproved – hence stating “yes” or “no” – is not only an important developmental step for children, but also a continuing task for adults throughout their lives.

Some argue that children do not learn reasoned avowel and disavowel at the same time as they learn to use the terms “yes” and “no,” especially the word “no.” But even this idea is controversial. Even at a young age, children encounter situations in which a simple “yes” or “no” is insufficient, for example, when a child who has learned to eat independently, without the need to be fed, is asked whether she wants spinach or cabbage, and answers that she wants carrots. Or, anecdotally, in my family, when my mother remarried after her first husband’s death, the priest, who became our stepfather, and he asked my brother and me (when we were 4 and 6 years old) whom we liked better, our mother or our new father. The priest’s intention had been to find out whether the new father had been integrated well into the family. Naturally, my brother and I did not want to offend either parent by taking sides. Thus, while I remained silent, my younger brother answered spontaneously not with “yes,” “no” or with “I don’t know,” but with an emphatic: “You!” which could only mean that he preferred the priest as a parent – an answer which, of course, nobody believed.

These examples show that when faced with a choice between fixed alternatives, children are able to choose an entirely different third option from an early age. Perhaps children are not always able to respond in such a way, but the situation permitting, they may exercise the freedom to choose something else. When given the choice between a red and green boiled egg in the Easter egg basket, for example, the child could choose the chocolate egg lying next to the others instead. In cases where there is freedom at play a choice must not be only between a yes or a no, that is, between confirming or negating something given, but rather can involve a third option (cf. Benner, 1987, p. 30; 2015, p. 41).

In the following, “affirmativity” and “non-affirmativity” are not introduced as formal-logical concepts with the purpose of merely distinguishing between affirmative and negative statements. Rather, the terms are to be interpreted in the context of reflective teaching-learning processes (Lehr-Lernprozesse) in which subject matter cannot be taught and learned through commandments to affirm or disavow. In such reflective, educational and educative-formational processes (Erziehungs- und Bildungsprozessen), the tertium non datur of formal logic becomes a tertium datur. This “third possibility” is not fully and finally determined; it must be continually clarified through further experiences, assessments and reflections on the part of both teachers and learners (see Heinrich, 1970). 

Below, I bring together fragments from different theoretical traditions that were developed in attempts to confront dogmatic affirmative pedagogies. In doing so, my aim is to work towards a non-affirmative understanding of education as a process of: educating another person through education (Erziehung); formation (Bildung); and teaching-learning processes (Lehr-Lernprozessen) within pedagogical institutions. I do not claim to have invented pedagogical non-affirmativity, rather my thinking is based on classical texts that have guided and inspired me. Developing these connections is what makes working on non-affirmative pedagogical experiences, forms of argumentation, and plans of action so interesting and exciting. The aim of my own work on non-affirmativity has not been to draw strict boundaries between different traditions of thought, but rather to reflectively discover new connections that are otherwise obscured by scholastic approaches.

The chapter is divided into four sections. The first section summarises attempts to identify non-affirmativity as a characteristic of critical pedagogical thought and action. It is based on an examination of both affirmative concepts of education and emancipatory concepts of Bildung which I worked on between 1978 and the late 1980s and subsequently expanded on in the context of my investigation of traditional and contemporary “Key trends in Education Science” (see my book Hauptströmungen der Erziehungswissenschaft, Benner, 1973/2001). The second section addresses the results of these efforts as laid out in my book on philosophy and theory of education (Allgemeine Pädagogik, 1987/2015). Therein, I systematically analysed the history of educational ideas in order to differentiate between affirmative and non-affirmative theories of pedagogical action, and as well as between dogmatic and transformative-reflective forms of pedagogical practice. In the third section, I turn once again to historical examples of the concept of non-affirmativity in theories of education and Bildung (Erziehungs- und Bildungstheorie). Therein, I introduce fundamental and systematic distinctions necessary for developing the inherent logic of pedagogical thought and action. I conclude this section with reflections on possible connections between concepts of pedagogical action and concepts of educational research, which is oriented on classical paradigms. In the fourth section, I take up critiques of my notion of a philosophy of education and pedagogy that is empirically sound. In closing, I work towards a concept of “critical non-affirmativity,” which is characterized by the need to be constantly redefined in the face of new problems and questions.

On Initial Attempts to Identify Non-affirmativity as a Characteristic of Critical Pedagogical Thinking and Action

The idea of reflecting on the difference between affirmative and non-affirmative education and transformation (Erziehung and Bildung) – and thus also between affirmative and non-affirmative functions of educational institutions – emerged in the second half of the 1960s. At that time, I was studying philosophy in Vienna with my friend and fellow student Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik, who, like me, was an assistant at the Department of Pedagogy at the University of Bonn. During that time, we became acquainted with Pedagogy and the newly emerging “science of education” (Erziehungswissenschaft) (cf. Benner, 2014). At the time, emancipatory education was discussed mainly in the German-speaking context, in particular by Klaus Mollenhauer, Herwig Blankertz and Wolfgang Klafki. Hans-Jochen Gamm and others added a materialistic dimension to the discussion. In the context of this discourse, we began to discuss some of the fundamental questions surrounding educational theory and pedagogy. We sought to clarify theoretical and practical differences between pedagogical action, theories of pedagogical action, and educational research, difference which, in our opinion, neither the traditional not the new studies of pedagogy had adequately addressed (cf. Schmied-Kowarzik & Benner, 1970, written for the most part by Schmied-Kowarzik, and the subsequent studies by Schmied-Kowarzik, 1974 and Benner, 1973). While in Mollenhauer, Blankertz and Klafki their critical reflective approach in developing concepts of emancipatory reform was apparent, in Gamm, whose arguments were far more sensitive and thoughtful, attempts to legitimize emancipatory education from an anthropological perspective, and to place it in the service of political anticipation, became central – this became particularly clear to me in my personal conversations with him. Gamm proposed that when new school buildings were built, “rooms should be created in which pupils of both sexes could be unmonitored and have the opportunity of erotic communication” (Gamm, 1970, p. 78). He used psychological and political reasons to justify such an extension of the tasks of public education to include the introduction and practice of “tenderness” and “love.” His psychological justification amounted to interpreted freedom as the holistic expression of a “unity” in thinking, feeling and acting, rather than as the individual’s inner, judgement-mediated freedom from impulse (see the statement in Gamm, 1977, p. 106). His political justification put emancipatory education at the service of a “socialist transformation of society” (see a critical analysis of this by Müller, 1992; see also Oelkers, 1989).

In my lecture at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Bonn in 1970,¹ I discussed additional connections between “Education and Emancipation” (Erziehung und Emanzipation). In that lecture, I did not refer to Gamm’s work – which was still unknown to me at the time – but drew from concepts of emancipatory education referencing Jürgen Habermas. My lecture developed the argument that emancipation cannot be a legitimate aim for pedagogical action, as it sets the task of the educator to be freeing the younger generation from existing cultural norms by imposing on them the orientations of their educators. Instead, I proposed to counter the idea that emancipation occurs when the younger generation had adopted predefined orientations of their educators, and argued instead that emancipation is attained when learners are able to enter transformational educational processes (Bildungsprozesse) that are not predetermined by their educators (Benner, 1970). Understood correctly, emancipation is not liberation through education (Erziehung), but rather liberation from particular forms of pedagogical dependencies and the need for pedagogical guidance and support.

I proposed a similar correction to the idea of emancipation for the then newly established discipline of educational research (erziehungswissenschaftliche Forschung). At the time, a new discussion had emerged that viewed empirical research in education from an emancipatory perspective. This discussion was based on the critical theories developed by Habermas, Mollenhauer, Blankertz, and Klafki, who, together with Ilse Dahmer and others, had initiated a departure from Pedagogy (Pädagogik) as a discipline rooted in the humanities, an initiative developed by Erich Weniger (cf. Dahmer & Klafki, 1968). Instead of viewing pedagogy as a discipline in the humanities, they proposed a research paradigm for educational research (Erziehungswissenschaft) that linked empirical approaches with hermeneutical methods, arguing that such a shift would be in the interest of emancipation from existing forms of domination. My objection to their approach was that their interest in emancipation was not sufficient to justify interpreting scientific-nomological and historical-hermeneutical knowledge pedagogically. I criticised that the meaning of these connections could neither be determined empirically, hermeneutically, nor simply politically. In my book “Key Trends in Education Science” I later explained that Habermas’ project of combining philosophical analysis and enlightenment and social-scientific enlightenment and emancipation (cf. Habermas, 1965) did not elevate critical philosophy and educational theory (Bildungstheorie), but rather made them fall behind important developments established in the intellectual tradition (cf. Benner, 1973, pp. 289–299; 2001, pp. 280–292; see also the more far-reaching sceptical, precondition-critical problematization in Ruhloff, 1983). Let me explain.

With my argument for non-affirmative education (Erziehung and Bildung), I did not advocate for the affirmation of the existing order, nor against changes to this order. Rather, I tried to develop a stance that went beyond these prevalent opposing positions. I sought to develop an alternative position grounded in a concept of education that does not seek to educate the next generation to affirm the existing order. Equally, it does not seek to educate the next generation to affirm a future order anticipated by the educators themselves. I believed that non-affirmative education, which was still in the process of being developed, prohibited both of these forms of indoctrination. I argued that young people ought not to be educated to affirm the status quo or an alternative future envisioned by pedagogical actors. Instead, education ought to enable young people to actively participate in debates on what should be preserved and what should be changed. A form of education (Erziehung) that aims to engage young people into such discourses can only be “non-affirmative.” Its aim cannot be to anticipate the results of educative-formative processes (Bildungsprozesse). Instead, its aim is to introduce young people to an ongoing debate that plays itself out, not merely amongst the adults themselves, but also between the generations. The outcomes of such a debate should not be allowed to be determined through education (Erziehung) (cf. the similar, but not identical criticism of education in Arendt, 1958). It was only much later that I realized that my criticism of Klaus Mollenhauer was unjustified, because early on, he had advocated in favour of transformational emancipation processes that kept the future open and did not aim to affirm specific outcomes (for the correction of my Mollenhauer criticism, see Benner 2000, 1973/2001, 4th edition, p. 307).

An opportunity to test my idea of pedagogical non-affirmativity arose in January 1978 at a “Forum” in Bonn-Bad Godesberg on the subject of “Courage for Education.” At this meeting, University of Zurich Philosophy Professor Herman Lübbe put forward a nine-part argument against the emancipatory pedagogy of the 1960s and early 1970s, which were grounded in a contrast between affirmation and emancipation. Just a few days after the presentation of Lübbe’s nine theses, some of the members of University of Münster’s Department of Education and School Theory (in the Institute of Educational Science) and I began to formulate our “Responses to the Bonn-Forum ‘Courage for Education’” (see Benner et al., 1978). Our response was published in the same year as the “Forum” in Bonn took place (cf. Courage for Education, 1978). The responses were written not only by members of the aforementioned department, but also contained the audio transcript of a presentation in which the educational researcher and school reformer Hartmut von Hentig from Bielefeld University had problematised the general thematic direction of the Bonn-Forum and some of the theses presented there (see von Hentig, 1978).

Our response did not defend emancipatory pedagogy against the theses of the Bonn-Forum. Rather, we tried to show that the theses were based in the ideology of an affirmative education. Although the theses provided justified critique of Gamm’s argument, in the sense that they justified a critique of certain education concepts of an emancipatory pedagogy that attempted to guide young people to affirm the ideology of their educators, the proponents of the Bonn-Forum followed a specific definition of successful education based on their own vision of desirable practices for educating future generations. At the Bonn-Forum, however, the dogmatic contrast of “true” or “false” views undergirding the theses had been presented as truths. They had articulated simplistic answers to difficult questions, for the clarification of which only differentiated reflections would have been necessary. In a public debate with Hermann Lübbe, which took place during the 17th discussion on education policy at the Werner Reimers Foundation from May 3 to 5, 1979, he “once again” defended the theses identifying them as “reminders of important trivialities” (Lübbe, 1979, pp. 3–4). In contrast, in my retort, I referred to the “lack of pedagogy at the Bonn-Forum” and referred to Robert Spaemann’s advocacy for critical reflection to be applied to the theses themselves and the other contributions presented at the Forum.

In his presentation at the Forum, Spaemann had explained that if correctly understood, “courage to educate” requires “work on nonrelativistic beliefs” that “cannot be taken up as the purpose of education.” His lecture ended with the question: “What does ‘courage to educate’ mean?” His answer was: “A scoundrel is someone who gives more than he has. In education, this unscrupulous behaviour will inevitably lead to a cultural revolution.” (Spaemann, 1978, p. 33). I agreed with this answer but supplemented it with the statement that the unscrupulous behaviour lamented by Spaemann was evident not only in cultural-revolutionary tendencies of educational reform, but also in “theses, such as those of the Bonn-Forum” (Benner, 1979a, p. 11). That is because the nine thesis had not taken on the necessary work of developing non-relativistic considerations when proclaiming trivial answers.

At the time, the dispute about which affirmations in education were to be seen as the “correct” ones, was not only the subject of debates in educational research and policy², but was also carried out in court between 1977 and 1989 between a group of parents and the Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.³ The parents had filed a suit against a textbook for early readers that, in their view, contained cartoons which subjected members of children’s parent and grandparent generation to negative judgements and ridicule (see the detailed account in Benner, 1988, pp. 141–159). In one illustration, for example, a grandmother says to a child that girls should wear skirts and not trousers and real boys should not cry. In the book, characters in the margin of the page were seen to be commenting on this interaction with statements such as “Grandma says blah, blah, blah” as if to be saying, “I’m so glad not all grandmas are like that.”

The group of parents who had filed the suit (one of whom was the head of the North Rhine-Westphalian Parents’ Association) interpreted these and other passages to imply that the state-approved textbook used in their daughter’s lessons – and the primary school lessons derived from it – called on the pupils to adopt certain value judgements and attitudes. They took legal action because in several places the textbook displayed views that did not agree with their own. In the end, it was this affirmative attitude and argumentation style of the parents who had filed the suit that led the court to reject the complaint without having to address the pedagogical quality of the textbook itself.

In their legal suit, the parents had not opposed the general affirmative tendencies at the heart of the textbook or the educational reform predating them, but rather the specific passages that did not correspond to their own values. They called on the state to ensure that only value judgements aligned with the customs recognized in the families of origin are represented in the textbook. To support their case, the parents who filed the suit collected expert reports. The authors of these reports referred explicitly to the principles of “affirmative education.” The reports demanded recognition of the parental right to their children’s education by the public school system, even in the event that the parents had erroneous or even false ideas about education and – I would add – exercised their right to education without observing children’s rights, thereby violating the requirements of a joint and public education of the next generation (see Benner, 1988, p. 147).

In my expert statement held at the oral hearing before the Higher Administrative Court for the State of North Rhine-Westphalia on 13 September 1985, I assumed the view that the textbook did indeed show a problematic understanding of education (Erziehung and Bildung) in certain passages, but that the texts did not define how they were used in class. It is possible for the texts to be used in class as materials for critical discussion. Thus, the conclusion that the selection of certain content necessarily corresponds to certain learning objectives is not legitimate. For example, textbook sources on the Thirty Years’ War or the Holocaust could not reasonably be read as having the aim to sway young people towards religious wars or raising them in the ideology of National Socialism. In all subjects, thus, teaching should be designed for learners to acquire knowledge, be supported in their ability to form judgements and be enabled to actively engage in discussion, rather than for learners to affirm imparted predetermined values.

The Higher Administrative Court conducted extensive deliberations. At the centre of its final judgement – which was challenged by the parents who had filed the suit but ultimately stood up to the review by the Federal Administrative Court and the Federal Constitutional Court – were justifications based on legal arguments and school theory. The court recognised the fact that the aforementioned textbook about “grandmas” was “perceived to be unflattering” by many citizens and probably still are today (p. 13), but also made clear that:

• Textbooks are “not the sole medium of education, but one teaching tool among others” (p. 8).

• Only when viewed together, “the textbooks and the anticipated actions of the teacher in class ... allows a judgment to be made” as to “whether the textbook supports the objectives of public education to be achieved and the limits of public education to be maintained” (p. 9).

• “In school, children hear opinions that are not expressed in their parental home,” which is “inevitable given the different approaches to education among the parents” (p. 13).

• “School activities” ... must be “open to the variety of views on educational issues to the extent that it is compatible with an orderly state school system” (p. 8).

• “School authorities” must “practice tolerance” with regard to this variety, but “refrain from any indoctrination” (p. 8).

I listed the last two points at the end of this section to bridge the gap between the affirmative theses of the Bonn-Forum and a non-affirmative approach to public education. Dieter Wehling summarized this gap brilliantly in his formulation of the principles for political education known as the “Beutelsbach Consensus.” According to Wehling, political education must neither indoctrinate nor overwhelm with ideology. What is discussed as controversial in science, or in constitutional law, as a matter of course, must also be presented as controversial in class (cf. Wehling, 1976; Grammes, 2017). My view is that this applies not only to political education, but to all areas of learning and instruction (see Benner, 2020, pp. 186 and 191; Benner et al., 2015, p. 188).

If the Minister of Education Wilhelm Hahn of Baden-Württemberg had recognized and shared the consensus formulated by Wehling in 1978, he could have problematized the criticism of emancipatory education presented at the Bonn-Forum. He could have done so without committing his teachers to an educational ideology that amounts to the view that the success of education (Erziehung) is dependent on learners’ agreement with existing customs and conventions, and at the same time underestimates learners’ ability to form their own judgements when met with conflicting conventions. Similarly, it took many years for the general discourse in educational research to acknowledge the importance of the “Beutelsbach Consensus.” In the discussion of the nine theses of the Bonn-Forum, the Beutelsbach Consensus was not addressed, not even in the responses to the forum, which was a mistake.

Outline of a Non-affirmative Philosophy of Education: Foundational Concepts, Theories and Forms of Pedagogical Practice

Based on an examination of the intellectual history of non-affirmativity, in my General Pedagogy (Allgemeine Pädagogik, 1st edition 1987; 8th edition 2015), I developed an action-theoretical (Handlungsteoretische) understanding of pedagogical thinking and acting that:

• 1. Identifies education as a human practice that – alongside work, ethics, politics, art and religion – is indispensable in terms of anthropology and education theory.

• 2. Defines pedagogical thought and action based on two constitutive concepts historical a priori and two regulative principles historical a posteriori.

• 3. Distinguishes between three areas of theory, each with specific faulty forms.

• 4. Differentiates between professional and non-professional educational practice in distinguishable forms of a regulating and disciplining of education. These forms of educational practice expand experience and interaction through teaching. In a subsequent step, teaching then evolves to an education aimed at self-responsible action.

These basic ideas are presented with the help of illustrations from my “General Pedagogy” – without references to page numbers. Figure 2.1 lists six fields of practice – from economics, ethics, pedagogy, and politics to art and religion. It does not claim to be comprehensive, but rather aims to highlight that one of the tasks of modern public education is to prepare future generations to enter these fields of activity independently and to enable them to participate in their further development. Unlike a Aristotelian terminology and order, the proposed view of practice does not focus on ethics and politics (and is distinguished from work (poiesis) and art, as well as philosophy). It has its roots in Karl Marx’ revaluation of work as human practice. I acknowledged Marx’ critique of Hegel in my dissertation, without sharing his devaluation of religion (see Benner, 1966, pp. 137–162).

Fig. 2.1

Diagram of a non-hierarchical order of fundamental areas of human practice. (According to Benner, 2015, p. 46)

New about this ordering of the practices is that it aligns the task of educating future generations with the task of introducing all people to the six fields of action. It also acknowledges a historical necessity for each of the six practices. As far as we know, people have always been confronted with these six practices in some way. The differences that Aristotle made – among other things – between theory, practice, and work are not being negated by this ordering, but rather interpreted non-hierarchically in their intrinsic logic. This avoids traditional demarcations between work as lower and art and philosophy as higher transformation (Bildung).⁴

My Allgemeine Pädagogik (Benner, 2015) attempts to determine the logical relationships between the six practices, by means of the existential elements of corporeality, freedom, historicity and linguisticality. These existential elements transcend the six practices. I adopted the idea to view practices in a non-hierarchical order from the philosopher and pedagogue Eugen Fink, whom I met during my philosophical studies in Vienna and whose chair at the University of Freiburg I held for three semesters after my habilitation. Fink described the order of co-existential and existential elements phenomenologically and cosmologically. He differentiated along the basic anthropological phenomena of work, love, domination, death, and play (see Fink, 1979). I owe to him not only important impulses, but also fundamental insights into the basic phenomena and the practice-transcending significance of the existential elements. However, I do not interpret them anthropologically and cosmologically, but primarily in terms of education and action theory (Handlungstheorie). I developed the notion of the corporeality of human practice based on Fichte’s concept of corporeality (see Fichte, 1796, § 6) and interpreted the body as a receptive and articulatory organ of human practice. Furthermore, I distinguished the freedom of practice from both arbitrariness and mere freedom of choice, understanding historicity beyond the view of human beings as either victims or master of history. I positioned thinking of language beyond image-theoretical and conventionalist or constructivist language models. I sought to describe an inherent logic for pedagogical practice that does not identify pedagogical activity as a mere means to the end of other social activities and practices, but rather as a constituent form of practice that purposefully brings about its own end by enabling young people to enter the six areas of human practice independently and to act according to their own judgement.

On this conceptual and theoretical basis, I developed a structure of basic concepts for pedagogical practice that distinguishes between the individual and social dimension of pedagogical interaction. It develops basic educational concepts in relation to how they connect to corporeality, freedom, historicity and linguisticality of human beings and arranges them in such a way that three basic theoretical areas of pedagogy can be distinguished and put into relation to each other. In the systematic delineation of the four basic concepts, I drew from Kant’s distinction between constitutive and regulative principles, without, however, following his distinction between transcendental intuitions and scientific categories or regulative ideas of reason. Instead, I differentiated between constitutive and regulative principles of pedagogical thinking, judgement, and activity. The constitutive principles inform basic concepts of the individual dimension of pedagogical practice, and the regulative principles those of the social dimension. Together, these principles develop relevant problem-historical and action-theoretical (handlungstheoretisch) relationships between principles and basic concepts that are significant for educational practice, theory and research (see Brüggen, 2006).

Two basic concepts are developed. The concept of the Bildsamkeit of every human being, which is not determined by natural abilities or talents (Bildsamkeit), and the concept of a physical, free, historical and linguistic summoning to self-activity (Aufforderung zur Selbsttätigkeit). Together, they determine the individual dimension of pedagogical interaction. Their modern formulation was developed successfully during the modern enlightenment. Since then, their significance as a historical a priori has been acknowledged in action theory (Handlungstheorie), allowing them to claim validity also for the pre-enlightenment. Reflections of their significance can be traced back to ancient myths. People have always been born with an indeterminate plasticity, as was the case in the ancient polis, which for ideological reasons distinguished between free and slave by nature, without being able to refer to a plasticity established by nature.

The two constitutive principles concerning the individual dimension of pedagogical interaction allow us to be critical about concepts of education, pedagogical theories and research concepts that speak, for example, of an education based on aptitude, or such that claim that 75% of the developmental potential of humans are determined by aptitude, 24% by the environment and only 1% determined by interaction. Such findings, presented by psychological research in the twentieth century, are wrong not only because their data was forged or their results could not be replicated, but also because their hypotheses were based on categorical errors, which become apparent when one considers that biological, sociological and interactive causalities can never add up to 100%. Fixed natural dispositions or talents developed through socialisation are inadequate as basic concepts of pedagogical thinking and argumentation if Bildsamkeit of individuals in physical, free, historical, and linguistic interactions is acknowledged. Both basic concepts are interactive rather than ontological attributions made about learners or educators. They make visible the individual and social dimension of pedagogical interaction, rather than claiming to be ultimate justifications for human dignity. They are, however, helpful in revealing ideological dimensions of pedagogy, such as those underlying concepts of aptitude equity, talent equity, or equal opportunities (see Bellmann & Merkens, 2019).

For the two constitutive concepts of the individual dimension of pedagogical practice to be recognized, certain societal measures are necessary. These measures are explicated by the two regulative concepts of the social dimension of pedagogical thought and action. These regulative concepts do not have a historical a priori but a historical a posteriori status. Historically, they were developed only after the establishment of the modern concept of Bildsamkeit and that of summoning to self-activity (Aufforderung zur Selbsttätigkeit) (see on this point Brüggen, 2022). These regulative concepts are bound to the conditions of modern societies and are therefore not valid for understanding education in pre-modern societies.

The constitutive concept concerning the individual, the one of indeterminate plasticity, or Bildsamkeit, corresponds to the regulative principle of non-hierarchical relations between education, economics, ethics, politics, art, and religion (position 4, Fig. 2.2). Under modern conditions, educational goals can no longer solely be derived from ethics, politics or economics. Therein, modern societies differ from, for example, the Ancien Régime, where education was based on the assumptions that (1) professions and class are inherited from parents to their children, (2) that the morals of the younger generation should correspond to those of the adult generation, and (3) that the political and religious orientation of the parents determines that of the children. What was deemed legitimate in pre-modern social formations, such as the position of the pater familias and the authority of the older generation maintained from birth until the death of the parents, can no longer claim absolute validity in modern societies. In modern societies, the task of handing down traditions across generations is no longer to be fulfilled by the means of demonstration and imitation. Instead, the younger generation must be introduced to the tasks of actively and reflectively developing economics, ethics, politics, art, and religion. In this function, pedagogical action is no longer subordinate to ethics and politics. Instead, educational processes are viewed in a non-hierarchical relationship to the other forms of practice. Moral education (moralische Erziehung) is no longer possible without a reflective moral formation (moralische Bildung); political education (politische Erzieung) is no longer possible without reflective political formation (politische Bildung); religious education (religiöse Erzieung) is no longer possible without reflective religious formation (religiöse Bildung). The goals of education must be to enable younger generations to participate independently in the deliberations on what is to be preserved and what is to be changed in society. This civic orientation distinguishes modern education from pre-modern subordination of pedagogy to economic, moral, political, and religious aspects.

Fig. 2.2

Four basic concepts of pedagogical thinking and acting with associated theories of education and Bildung (Erziehungs- und Bildungstheorien) and theories of educational institutions and their reform. (Benner, 2015, p. 130)

Next, the second basic concept of education, that is, the concept of education as a summoning to free self-activity (Aufforderung zur Selbsttätigkeit, Position 2 in Fig. 2.2) must be connected to the social dimension of educational processes . The non-hierarchical order of societal forms of practice corresponds, which is the fourth principle, is connected with the third principle: the need to transform interests vested in education by society into pedagogical categories. Everything that children are expected to learn in educational settings must be pedagogically prepared for learners to enable them to learn it in ways that simultaneously expands experience, supports their capacity to form judgements and opinions, is reflective and participatory.

This has consequences not only for the forms of pedagogical action, but also for theory. In Fig. 2.2, the four basic principles are ordered in a way that makes apparent their fundamental role for the following three theories of pedagogical activity:

• For theories of formation (Bildung) that base the task of human growth on the concept of Bildsamkeit and the non-hierarchical relationship between pedagogical practice and other forms of practice

• For theories of education (Erziehung) that understand educative influences as the promotion of self-reflection, self-judgement and self-action and link them to pedagogical transformations of external demands on education

• For theories of educational institutions that define the educational environments as transitory places with specific transitions, from forms of action in contexts of formal education to contexts of non-formal education

It is not a legitimate task of general pedagogy (Allgemeine Pädagogik) as an academic discipline to clarify and to normatively articulate specific methods, patterns or forms of pedagogical practice, based on the developed basic concepts, foundational theories and forms of action in pedagogical practice. Theories of pedagogical practice themselves must be developed in the debate with historical and current discourses. However, the basic concepts inherit the function of critically evaluating theories of education (Erziehung), Bildung, and educational institutions. Figure 2.3 lists some well-known theories that, when evaluated with the above presented basic concepts, show flaws and inconsistencies. These theories must be changed or redeveloped to ensure they do not fail to describe their object based on categorical reasons alone.

Fig. 2.3

Faulty forms of pedagogical theories of action. (Benner, 2015, p. 134)

Based on the basic concepts developed above, a critique is possible of the intentional and functional theories of education, formal and material theories of Bildung, and theories that decouple or connect the individual and social dimension of education. My critique does not aim to prohibit the development of such theories in psychology, sociology, and education economics. Rather, the critique aims to show that these theories only become relevant for pedagogical theories of action and educational research, if they orient their questions on the basic concepts of pedagogical thought and action, and the pedagogical theories of action based on them.

In the field of educational theories (A) in Germany, Wolfgang Brezinka (1971) and Niklas Luhmann (1986) developed intentional (A1) and functional (A2) approaches based on the basic concepts of summoning to self-activity (Aufforderung zur Selbsttätigkeit) (Fig. 2.2, basic concept 1) and pedagogical transformation of societal influences and requirements (Fig. 2.2, basic concept 3). In cases where they were interpreted as theories of pedagogical of action, they led to distortions of pedagogical practice and oversimplified concepts in educational science.

In his metatheory of education, Brezinka defined education as an intentional teleological-causal-technological form of practice. He wrote that education (Erziehung) are “actions by which adults (“educators,” “teachers”) try to intervene in the process of becoming and growing personalities, in order to support or initiate learning processes that lead to dispositions and behaviors that are viewed by adults as desirable” (Brezinka, 1971, p. 26.f.). This rather traditional definition of education (Erziehung) is problematic because Brezinka interprets education as a conglomerate of normative and technological aspects, of which he says that educational activities and institutions existed only because one expects them to be “suitable means to achieve certain ... desired or valued states of the personalities to be educated” (ibid., p. 31). Regarding the normative side of this concept of the pedagogical relationship, with a view to the ethos of educational actors, he said that only those who had the technical means of educational influence and legitimate educational authority would be able to cope with today’s increasing uncertainty of societal values regarding religious beliefs (Brezinka, 1988, p. 99ff.).

Functional theories of education (funktionale Erziehungstheorie, A2) replace the intentional concept of education with one that derives the task of education from the function education is expected to have in society. Functional theory develops its effectiveness largely independently of the intentions and means in the hands of educational actors. Niklas Luhmann recently tried to justify such a concept of education in the German-speaking area. In his study “Coding and Programming,” he interpreted the general system-theoretical distinction between standardization and code in such a way that he assigned the task of standardization within education to the requirements of the other social subsystems and defined the specific code of educational action by the fact that it differentiates worse from better learning performance. Addressing educators and teachers, he stated that anyone who tries to influence and change adolescents according to normative ideas about upbringing will necessarily fail in their efforts. In contrast, those who orient their pedagogical action on the distinction between better and worse pupils can have a pedagogically successful effect and do this in every act of pedagogical assessment (cf. Luhmann, 1986).

Intentional theories of education (intentionale Erziehungstheorien, A1) like Brezinka’s violate the principle of summoning self-activity (Aufforderung zur Selbsttätigkeit). They see children and adolescents not as co-actors in pedagogical interactions, but as objects that, according to preconceived normative ideas about upbringing, are to be influenced in such a way that their thinking, judging and acting correspond to an external ideal. Functional theories of education (funktionale Erziehungstheorien, A2), on the other hand, deduct from the principle of the necessary transformation of social influences and tasks. These intentional and functional theories of education cannot be expected to provide explanations and interpretations of educational interactions that are legitimate in an action-theoretical sense (handlungstheoretisch).The theories listed in Fig. 2.3 under A1 and A2 are not sufficiently complex and lack the intrinsic logic of educational processes (Erziehung and Bildung). They do not possess the quality of guiding and orienting action in education.

In the field of theories of formation (Bildungstheorien, B), analogous reductions of problems can be observed in connection with the principles of Bildsamkeit (Fig. 2.2, basic concept 1) and non-hierarchical order of human practices (Fig. 2.2, basic concept 4). The formal and material educational theories listed in Fig. 2.3 under B1 and B2 undercut the intrinsic complexity of pedagogical interactions by reducing the task of pedagogical practice to formal training of abilities or the (material) development of particular skills. Both fail to develop a concept of the individual and social competencies which education is supposed to foster. They are not sufficiently complex and, as Elmar Anhalt (2012) and Thomas Rucker (2014) have shown in extensive basic theoretical studies, do not do justice to the basic structure of education and the interplays (Wechselwirkungen) that constitute educational processes (Erziehungs- und Bildungsprozesse).

The same applies to the theories of educational institutions listed in Fig. 2.3 under C1 and C2. They ignore important connections between the basic concepts concerning the individual and social dimension of education and do not understand educational institutions as transitory institutions concerned with the transition from family education (and socialization) into differentiated social fields of action and subsystems. Some strands of the German Reformpädagogik (German Progressive Education) decouple the individual and societal dimension of educational action, locating pedagogical practice in isolated spaces “outside” of society. They claim priority of pedagogical practice over all other fields of action. This is justified with the argument that it is important to make the world around children and young people suitable to them. System-theoretical functionalizations, on the other hand, tend to link the education system to the other social subsystems that constitute its environment. Thereby, they disregard the basic concepts of summoning to free self-activity (Fig. 2.2, basic concept 2) and pedagogical transformation of external societal interests into legitimate pedagogical action (Fig. 2.2, basic concept 3). Neither approach develops a concept of the task of educational institutions – beginning with the family, kindergarten and schools, and extending to vocational training and socio-pedagogical institutions – to secure both transitions from one educational institution to the next and those from institutionalized education processes (Erziehungs- and Bildungsprozessen) to independent participation and involvement of young people in social life.

In the context of this discussion, it is worthwhile to consider the substantial changes that Niklas Luhmann made in the posthumously published works to his own sociological concept of the education system. In the writings published during his lifetime, he had envisaged a strict separation of code and program for the education system and defined the code of the education system by distinguishing between “better” and “worse” pupils (cf. Luhmann, 1986). Four years after his death, his treatise Das Erziehungssystem der Gesellschaft (The Education System of Society; edited by Dieter Lenzen) was published. Here he distanced himself from his system-theoretical parody of reform pedagogical illusions and stated that the general system-functional separation of code and program could not be applied to the education system. He also argued that the code “better-worse” was not suitable for describing performance in the education system. At best, this code functions as an auxiliary code in the service of a completely different code that does not distinguish between better and worse student performance, but between “communicable/not communicable” performance (Luhmann, 2002, pp. 42–46, 64, 73–74). It was only after this correction that Luhmann’s system theory really found application to the educational science and pedagogy. However, the distinction between communicability/non-communicability is not new, but has been made in the context of various theoretical traditions. These can be differentiated again according to the various forms of pedagogical action that will be discussed in the next section (on a fundamental criticism and appreciation of Luhmann, see Benner, 1979b, 2003a).

The four basic concepts introduced above also have a critical function, not least with regards to the modes of operation, tasks, and institutional positioning of three forms of pedagogical action. These forms of pedagogical action will only be briefly presented here, with a final figure from my General Pedagogy, developed there in more detail. Figure 2.4 shows continuities and discontinuities in the differentiation and determination of three classical forms of pedagogical action from antiquity to the present.

Fig. 2.4

Three basic forms of pedagogical action and their delimitation from the morality and virtue of adults emerging only after education. (From Benner, 2015, pp. 216–327)

Modern versions of the three forms of pedagogical action were developed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762) in his treatise “Emile or On Education,” Immanuel Kant (1803) in his “Lectures on Pedagogy,” Johann Friedrich Herbart (1806) in his “General Pedagogy” and Friedrich Schleiermacher (1820/21, 1826) in his “Lectures on Education.” Rousseau rejected punishment – but also praise – as an educational tool and argued for education that relies on rationally regulated freedom. Kant and Herbart assigned disciplining pedagogical action the task of protecting children and society from harm by preventing young people from acting unreasonably. Not, however, to guide them positively by regulatory measures. Rousseau, Kant and Herbart extended the task of school education beyond the introduction to elementary techniques (e.g. reading, writing, counting), already mentioned by Aristotle, to include the communication of the basic principles of modern science. They defined school education as the content-based cultivation of thought and judgement, which does not occur in everyday life, but must take place artificially in a formal education setting. In addition to school teaching, they conceptualized a common civilizing social education (zivilisatorische Sozialerziehung) with the task to introduce the young generation to the rules of living together and to support the transition, while still in childhood and youth, from pedagogical institutions to those beyond formal education, where they participate in social life with their own sense and their own will.

Modern education differs from the education conceived by Aristotle in that obedience could no longer be forced by threat and punishment, but should instead develop early on as obedience to one’s own insights. According to Herbart and Schleiermacher, supportive education should be designed both in the context of instructive school education and a socio-pedagogical and advisory education outside of school. Instructive education intends to broaden experience and contact with science, art, society and interreligiosity under modern conditions; advisory education intends to encourage children and young people to learn to confer with themselves and others. Beyond the differences mentioned above, Aristotle and modern theorists agree that the character of young people developing under the influence of education should not be the direct result of educational intervention but the result of their own thinking and acting. This can be interpreted as a further indication of the basic features of non-affirmative pedagogical action, which will be summarized once again under the three action theory questions.

From the perspective of educational theory (Erziehungstheorie), the non-affirmative nature of educational practice means that young people actively participate in their education and are never merely educated from the outside, or “brought up.” From the perspective of a theory of Bildung (Bildungstheorie), pedagogical processes are oriented towards the interplay between young people and world, in which they acquire what is alien and unknown to them. From the perspective of institutional theory, pedagogical practice takes place not only “naturally,” while living together, but increasingly also in designated places where things can be taught that cannot be learned through everyday experience. Such things are writing and foreign languages, science and history and everything that is in danger of being lost through interrupted traditions in the field of morality and religion, but which is indispensable for the survival of modern societies. Non-affirmative communication in this sense takes place by the means of regulating and disciplining. These educational forms of counteracting prevent young people from behaving in an unreasonable manner without positively directing their behaviour in relation to norms. Reflective processes in the context of educational instruction do not typically occur in everyday life but in ways that artificially expands experience theoretically and aesthetically. In the area of advisory education, transitions occur between and amongst educational institutions and the entry of young people into societal activities and subsystems, in which the generations interact with each other without the need for further pedagogical support.

On the Further Development of the Concept of Pedagogical Non-affirmativity and the Development of Basic Pedagogical Differentiations

The research presented in the first two sections of this chapter pursued action-theoretical questions. After completing my General Pedagogy, I continued to elaborate them by tracing them back to ancient myths and linking them from the very beginning to the reinterpretation of findings in the social sciences.

In-Depth Studies of the History of the Problem

The in-depth problem historical studies presented above served not only the purpose of securing the foundational pedagogical concepts, but also to pave the way for a discussion of regional and international research projects. These projects were developed in collaboration with research groups that worked on topics such as “Bildung und Kritik” (Benner et al., 1999), “Kritik in der Pädagogik” (Benner et al., 2003), “Erziehung, Bildung, Negativität” (Benner, 2005a, b) and “Erziehung – Moral – Demokratie” (Benner et al., 2015). The intention behind my own contributions in these volumes was not to develop theory, but rather to expand questions and research approaches, among other things, to create opportunity for reflections on action theory (Handlungstheorie).

Two of these studies will be examined below. Both refer to the foundational notions of pedagogical thinking and acting – the concept of Bildsamkeit and the concept of the necessary educative support of processes of formation (Bildungsprozessen).

The Ten Commandments of the Jewish Philosopher Moses – which can be traced back to the negative confessions of faith in the graves of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs – can be interpreted as early indications of the non-affirmative nature of the concept of Bildsamkeit. Unlike the positive Jewish code of conduct, they do not define what is good, but only specify what is to be avoided as evil (see Benner et al., 2015, pp. 16–22). Their negative concept of good related to the myth was handed down in the “Theogony” of Hesiod, of the Greek gods Epimetheus, Prometheus and Zeus endowing the first human beings and the philosophical interpretation of this myth in Plato’s dialogue “Protagoras” (see ibid., pp. 22–31). According to these, due to their epimethic nature, human beings were initially not endowed, namely, “a-kósmetos” meaning they were not well integrated into the order of the cosmos, an idea that Schleiermacher tried to capture for his contemporaries in his Plato translation by the German word “unbegabt” (untalented or not gifted) (Plato, Protagoras 321 c 1–2). Humans became capable of surviving only when Prometheus stole fire from a forge of the god Hephaistos and thus gave them the ability to invent technology. However, because they used technology to wage war and kill each other, Zeus additionally endowed humans with “sense of justice” and “shame” (díke and aisthos), giving them the ability to develop law and morality. Both the Jewish and Greek myths speak, each in its own way, of the fact that man has no inherent knowledge of what is good, but has always possessed an ability to develop technology, morality, and justice. This ability Rousseau later described in his book “Emile” as undecided or open “perfectibility” or the ability to develop abilities. Based on this, Herbart, Fichte, Humboldt, Schleiermacher and others avoided later misinterpretations of humans as deficient beings, by reinterpreting the unfinished or formable (bildsam) nature of humans. The understanding of Bildsamkeit developed by these thinkers, and Humboldt in particular, does not only refer to the individual human being or the human species, but also to the human relationship with the world (see Benner & Brüggen, 2004). Humans do not only have the ability or capacity to learn (plasticity), but they are always also are world-forming (weltbildend) in their interplay with the world (these connections were overlooked in Klaus Heinrich’s 1975 lecture on “Enlightenment in the Religions”).

Regardless of the differences between ancient and modern philosophy, similar problem-historical connections exist between Plato’s concept of paideia and the modern concepts of education in Rousseau, Fichte, Herbart and Schleiermacher. They all point out that an appropriate concept of education identifies humans not only as learning and educable individuals, but, at the same time as beings who develop morality and justice – and also science, technology, art, and religion (see Thimm, 2007 on education and morality). Plato traces the implied connection to an early concept of paideia, which is primarily geared towards adults, in the Allegory of the Cave in the 7th book of his treatise on the state (Politeia 514 a–521 b). Paideia refers to a double “art of redirecting” the viewpoint (Bildung, ibid., 518 d), namely, first the art of being able to change one’s own view, and then the art of being able to encourage and summon others to change their views (Erziehung).

The example Plato uses to illustrate this is that no one can use what they have seen themselves in order to change another’s view. This means that everyone must change their view themselves, by seeing. But that is only possible if they live in a community where others turn their gaze and reciprocally share their experiences with one another. In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” this practice of turning the gaze occurs not only among the philosophers, on whose education (Erziehung and Bildung) Plato focused his attention. Turning the gaze had already occurred among the simple cave dwellers, who, tied to certain places in a cave, perceive changing phenomena on a cave wall, talk to each other about their perceptions and make bets on what will appear next. However, they are not able to understand the prisoner whose shackles had been removed and who made new experiences with himself and the world. They cannot turn their gaze the way he did, nor do they feel called upon by him to change their gaze.

What Socrates fails to achieve in the “Allegory of the Cave,” he succeeds in Plato’s dialogue “Menon.” Here, he provokes a boy to change his view, which finally leads him to understand the Pythagorean theorem.⁵ The metaphor that nobody can put anything “into a person’s eye,” that they have not seen for themselves, appears in modernity with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who extends it from the sense of sight to all senses and ultimately to the formation of the sense of community in childhood and adolescence. He uses precise observations to show how each sense is formed individually and how different senses interact with each other in ways that may inhibit and/or promote insight and understanding. What Plato said about the sense of sight – that it is impossible to put something that one has seen into the mind of another – Rousseau applied to all the senses. The equivalent of “turning the gaze” must be performed with seeing, touching, hearing, smelling, and tasting, and then, after being performed with each sense, also between the senses (Rousseau, 1762, pp. 154–183).

Rousseau’s observations are guided by the general educational principles of the “éducation de la nature,” the “éducation des choses” and the “éducation de l’homme,” which he established in the first book of Emile (ibid, pp. 10–11). He used these distinctions as a basis for the educational processes of all ages from early childhood, childhood, and adolescence to the beginning of adulthood (for early childhood and childhood, see Piper, 2018, pp. 27–49). In the same way that Rousseau describes the development of the senses by incorporating the findings of modern optics, acoustics, etc. – while preserving Plato’s insight developed with regard to the sense of sight – he also bases his principles of education on the experiences of modernity. Yet, Rousseau still adheres to Plato’s teaching of paideia as a twofold art of the changing the viewpoint. The connections between the three types or basic concepts of education – (1) “education through nature” or the capacity to learn (Bildsamkeit), (2) “education through things” or the Bildung interplay of the young person with the world, and (3) “education through people” as educational support of Bildung processes – lead Rousseau to the concept “éducation négative” (negative education). This concept applies not only to childhood, but to all ages and even to the learning and educational processes of adults (cf. Blankertz, 1990). By “negative education” Rousseau describes pedagogical activity that recognises that learning can merely be supported, but never be caused and directed intentionally. Following Rousseau, education (Erziehung) takes influence by actuating the individual’s activity in learning (Bildsamkeit) and fostering experiences with things, rather than with the creation of such experiences. The third type of education cannot replace the first or second. It presupposes the plasticity (bildsame Natur) of individuals to be educated as well as their ability to enter into transformational interplay with the world. But the second and third types of education that Rousseau distinguished cannot do without the first either.

Rousseau tied his concept of education to the indeterminate perfectibility of human nature (Bildsamkeit) and processes of Bildung occurring in interplay with the world and things – not only as negative education, but also as positive education. “Education through humans” Rousseau referred to as “making use of the development (of our abilities) that we are taught” (Rousseau, 1762, p. 11). He added that the third type of education must be oriented to the “other two” (ibid.). Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1796, p. 43. Corrolaria to § 3) attempted to define the relation between Bildsamkeit, Bildung and education (Erziehung) more precisely with his concept of education developed in the treatise on the “Foundations of Natural Right.” Fichte said, “Summons to free self-activity is what is called education.” He did not understand this to be a pedagogical act, which, according to some interpreters, seeks to have an effect on young people through empty subject-theoretical impulses such as to “be self-active,” but rather he saw it as a kind of summoning that supports changing the gaze from old to new, and from new to old experiences. How superficial the subject-critical deconstructions of Fichte’s concept of education (Erziehungsbegriff) are (see Ricken, 1999, pp. 374–388) becomes apparent when confronted with the task that Fichte proposed in his “Speeches to the German Nation.” In the second book titled “Speeches,” he exemplifies the act of education by suggesting to give learners any number of slats and summoning them to find out the minimum number of slats necessary to enclose an area (Fichte, 1808, Second Speech, pp. 399–400; cf. Benner, 2020, pp. 26–28).

With his concept of education as summoning to self-activity (aimed at changing of the learners gaze), Fichte transformed Plato’s aporia that no one can simply implant something to be learned into another individual. In my General Pedagogy (Benner, 1987, pp. 63–73; 2015, pp. 82–96), I attempted to grasp these changes of view (Blickwendungen), with reference to Fichte, as an interplay between the subject’s self- and world-activity. Thereby, we may distinguish non-affirmative pedagogical activity from an understanding of education as the exertion of direct influence on learning and educational processes of young people (for the non-affirmative meaning of this concept for didactic actions, see Rucker, 2019).

The connections that can be pointed out between Plato’s concept of paideia – not yet oriented towards the education of children and young people – Rousseau’s concept of negative education, and Fichte’s concept of education as “summoning to self-activity,” refer on the one hand to antiquity and on the other to modern forms of knowledge. However, these different historical positions cannot only be interpreted in terms of the specific views of knowledge they represent. They also show resemblance in the intrinsic logical structure of educational processes (Erziehungs- und Bildungsprozessen).

On Basic Pedagogical Distinctions and Their Possible Meaning for a Supra-paradigmatic Description of Educational Processes (Erziehungs- und Bildungsprozessen)

I adhere to the foundational ideas developed in my Allgemeine Pädagogik, which has been adopted widely. However, since its publication, my thinking has developed further. In particular, I have increasingly moved towards attempts to combine foundational pedagogical theory with basic research. Significant experiences of the past few years in non-German-speaking countries – Denmark, Poland, and the Czech Republic – have contributed to this, amongst other things; in particular my experiences in China, where I taught and conducted research at ECNU (East China Normal University) for 20 years. Abroad, I was confronted with the problem of explaining basic pedagogical concepts that were developed based on German traditions, without assuming that the German tradition was widely known. This has led to fundamental distinctions that I first developed systematically in Umriss einer allgemeinen Wissenschaftsdidaktik (Outline of General Science Didactics). Later, I drew from these distinctions to describe research projects in which empirical and quantitative educational research is combined with research on teaching and where educational theory is combined with empirical educational research (see Benner, 2020, in particular pp. 43–65). These distinctions, which I will elaborate on in the following, allowed me to relate non-affirmative problems in pedagogical action theory to different paradigms of educational research without necessarily using the term “non-affirmative” (cf. Benner, 2022). If the three pedagogical forms of action are added to the pedagogical distinctions developed in the outline, there are a total of six, which are outlined only briefly below (Fig. 2.5).

Fig. 2.5

Basic differentiations of general education

Pedagogical situations and problems that refer to these distinctions can be interpreted in the context of a theory of pedagogical activity (pädagogische Handlungstheorie) and examined in educational research projects using different methodologies. For example, they can be explained in scientific terms, hermeneutically decoded, analysed phenomenologically and questioned with regard to their inherent ideological blindness.

The first of the six distinctions above – that between education (Erziehung) and Bildung – refers to connections between educative guidance from pedagogical actors and the educational interplays taking place, not between these actors and young people, but between young people and their experiences of the world (cf. Benner, 2015c). This can be demonstrated in a transformation of what is called the pedagogical or didactical triangle, which Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik and I developed during our time as assistants at the Bonn Institute of Pedagogy (Fig. 2.6).

Fig. 2.6

Diagram to differentiate between education and transformation processes (Erziehungs- und Bildungsprozesse)

In learning and teaching process in school, the distinction between education (Erziehung) and Bildung corresponds to that between teaching and learning. Teaching is carried out by teachers who do not directly bring about learning but give didactical support to promote learning processes that learners go through in dealing with tasks and subject matters (Uljens, 1997).

The differences and relationships between education (Erziehung) and Bildung as well as teaching and learning become clearer if we use the third distinction between positive and negative experiences that pedagogical actors create for young people to undergo and experience. These negative experiences – the way they are intended and the way they are experienced – are not the same. Negative experiences on the part of pedagogical actors arise when they notice that their educative support does not have the desired effect. Negative experiences on the part of the students occur when they are confronted with the irritation of unexpectedly not understanding something. Such negative experiences may rise through the questions of a teacher, which cause confusion and irritation for the students, resulting in that the world appears in a new light, requiring them to deal with the world in a new way.

These distinctions and relationships are important for the fourth distinction (see above) in which new competences arise as a third component. They arise as related to positive and negative experiences from the relationships between education (Erziehung) and Bildung, as well as between teaching and learning. These competences arise from the completion of certain process of education (Erziehung) and Bildung (and teaching and learning) that enable students to do something that they could not do before.

The triad of education (Erziehung), Bildung, and competence makes it possible to distinguish three so-called elementary pedagogical causalities in educational processes: an educative causality, a Bildsamkeit-related causality and a methodological causality. Of these, the first causality arises from the influence of a pedagogical actor, the second arises from the learners’ confrontation with selected teaching materials, and the third arises from the interplay between the educating and the Bildsamkeit-related causality. All three together may have the effect that further learning, or relearning, is no longer dependent on educative support and that pedagogically supported learning processes transform into learning processes occurring beyond education (cf. Benner, 2018b).

The interplay of the three causalities does not mean that gender, milieu, and cultural causalities – including the forms of capital distinguished by Bourdieu (1986) – do not exist. However, instead of conceptualising pedagogical action based on a denial or recognition of such causalities, it is important to attempt to alter their influence with the help of the three pedagogical causalities identified above. Bourdieu’s sociological praxeology and pedagogical-educational praxeology as well as his research on practice would then no longer ignore each other (cf. Liebau, 2009, p. 41), but could enter into fruitful connections (see section “The importance of the basic concepts for the conceptualization of educational research projects”). The legitimacy of the governing and disciplining form of action would then also depend in their sociological descriptions on the fact that it seeks to secure transitions from external discipline to self-discipline. The same would apply to the interplay of the three causalities in teaching and advisory pedagogical interactions, the success of which would depend on the transition from external instruction to self-instruction as well as external counselling into self-counselling. A description and assessment of these transitions is missing in Didier Eribon’s novel Return to Reims (2016). The author describes his own education exclusively in Bourdieu’s categories and, for a long time – perhaps for this reason – fails to fully understand his father’s relationship to him and interprets his own upbringing only within the limits of Bourdieu’s theory (Fig. 2.7).

Fig. 2.7

On three causalities in education and transformation processes (Erziehungs- und Bildungsprozesse) and their significance for the three classical pedagogical forms of action

The Importance of the Basic Concepts for the Conceptualization of Educational Research Projects

The basic principles discussed above do not only claim to play a role in conceptually constituting the object of the action-theoretical questions of educational practice. They also intend to constitute the research objects in the field of educational research. However, the presented distinctions do not themselves establish an empirical research paradigm that could clarify their significance for the development of educational theory and practice. Conversely, none of the existing research paradigms ensure by their methods that educational research actually address the fundamental connections between education (Erziehung) and Bildung, teaching and learning, positive and negative experiences, or each of their significance for disciplining, instructing, and advisory educational processes.

Over the last two decades, I have focused on developing concepts that foster cooperation between the foundational theoretical distinctions introduced above and established research approaches. I have experimented with three transitions between basic pedagogical theory and empirical research and vice versa (cf. the complexity theory works of Anhalt, 2012; Rucker, 2014).

A first possibility for such connections between theory and empirical research already exists below the level of paradigmatically proven research concepts. This initiative starts off with theoretically guided practice protocols that observe disciplining, instructing, and advisory pedagogical interactions in pre-school, school, and socio-pedagogical institutions. The protocols are discussed with the pedagogical actors whose practice and pedagogical interactions have been observed. This praxis-theoretical approach was developed in close cooperation with the educationalist and pre-school teacher Sandra Piper and the Chinese educationalist Juan Gu from ECNU. It is currently being tested by them in Shanghai and Berlin/Brandenburg (for the theoretical justification, see Piper, 2018; Benner et al., 2018b; cf. also the references in Benner, 2022).

In the projects mentioned, the above-discussed basic concepts serve as points of departure for practice-theoretical descriptions of processes of education (Erziehung) and Bildung. They underpin the observation of a given practice and support the analysis of the protocols together with the pedagogical actors responsible for interactions observed. The actors first comment on the protocols by adding to them or correcting the descriptions made by the researchers. Then the practitioners and researchers confer on whether the protocols contain suggestions for a possible optimization of the observed practice that strengthens the pedagogical forms of action and the underlying causalities. Initial consultations in such teams have shown that action-theoretical protocols can be helpful for making strengths and weaknesses visible, for example in pedagogical practice in kindergartens, and to support educators in the further development of their practice.

A second initiative goes beyond practical observations. It examines existing research projects from the perspective of action theory (Handlungstheorie) and analyses them anew. This, however, presupposes that the projects have compatible descriptions of practice in their data. This was the case in a pedagogical action theoretical analysis of the film Elternschule (Parents’ School), made by Jörg Adolph and Ralph Bücheler (see Adolph & Bücheler, 2019). The film depicts inpatient therapies in the department for paediatric psychosomatics at the children’s and youth clinic in Gelsenkirchen. It shows children who, due to misguided parental upbringing, had not learned to eat for themselves, to enjoy movement and to fall asleep in the evening. Instead, they had learned to refuse to eat through misguided supervision and care, and were displaying largely apathetic behaviour and suffered from severe sleep disorders. In order to release the children from the over-anxious supervision and control, the therapists first separated them from their parents and then left them to their own devices and helpless for a while. Afterwards, the therapists made interesting offers aimed at initiating a change in behaviour, which eventually, together with a newly awakened self-activity of the children, was achieved in the cases shown.

In the public debate, the film was criticized primarily by representatives of the children’s rights movement, who problematised isolation from their parents and viewed the therapeutic interruption of previous upbringing as a failure to provide assistance. The scenes shown in this film reconstruct transitions from a family education practice, in which elementary principles of regulating and advisory education were not adhered to, to a therapeutic practice criticized by children’s rights activists as para-pedagogical and from there to a rule-guided education practice. The therapies could legitimately be criticised as a para-pedagogical practice that violates children’s rights. Simultaneously, however, it was possible to appreciate their therapeutic achievements and successes, with which they created the first prerequisites for developing new forms of coexistence in the families. This made it possible to resume education with changed rules. The action theoretical re-analysis opened up new possibilities for connecting not only psychological and educational practice, but psychological and educational research as well, and broadened the horizon of medical, psychological and educational anamnesis and educational counselling (see Benner, 2022).

A third approach was tested in two projects on modelling, testing and interpreting religious and ethical-moral competences of pupils (cf. Benner et al., 2011; Benner & Nikolova, 2016), the second of which is currently in the internationalization phase in China (see Peng, 2018; Peng et al., 2020/21). Both projects worked with the statistical methods developed by international empirical education research, but made three important adjustments to the modelling and testing of domain-specific competences.

The first project did not model the items for test tasks according to psychological models of literacy, whose tasks are abstracted from the tasks and contents of school curricula. Instead, domain-specific competences were modelled by three sub-competences that are fundamental for public education in schools. They distinguish between (a) basic knowledge to be taught in the classroom, (b) domain-specific competence in interpretation and judgement, and (c) domain-specific competence in participation and action planning. In the second, rules for designing test items were developed that involved relationships between didactic tasks and test items, and ensured that the sub-competences were defined as knowledge, judgement, consulting and participation competences. The third transferred the concept of competence used in empirical educational research, which was developed in Germany primarily by Franz E. Weinert (2001), into an understanding of competence that does not focus on problem-solving skills but rather on problem-processing skills. The problem-processing skills are defined in terms of the ability to understand and process problems and interpret the answers found, a task that is more closely aligned with the educational mandate of public schools (see also Benner, 2020, pp. 241–276).

With these modifications, both projects succeeded in modelling religious and ethical-moral competences. They did this in such a way that instruments could be developed that describe the trajectories of competence development promoted by school-based teaching, based on the curriculum and, in addition to the characteristics such as gender, social status of the parental home, migration, etc., also considered the topics covered in class. Due to these modifications of the newly developed instruments, the research results allowed for differentiated feedback to individual classes, schools, and education administrations, providing information on the effectiveness of teaching, school reform measures, and teacher training concepts. Furthermore, they allowed for international comparisons – for example, a comparison of Europe and China – in which cultural characteristics are examined.

This approach can be expanded and can also be used to optimize other domains. It can also be used to develop sophisticated models and instruments that have been proven in educational theory (Erziehungstheorie), theories of educative formation (Bildungstheorie) and school theory that create links between pedagogical action theory and educational research for “basic first language education,” which includes not only competences in reading, writing and grammar, but also rhetorical skills, “basic mathematics education” (cf. Benner et al., 2018a), “basic science education” and “basic second language education.” The aim of the described research cooperations is not to replace the international competence research working with psychometric methods, but to supplement it with models that are grounded in educational theory. These allow conclusions to be drawn about the quality of a previous pedagogical practice and provide cues for optimizing it.

One of the non-affirmative aspects of the research concepts outlined above is that in all three variants action theoretical structures are developed without neglecting the intrinsic logic of pedagogical practice. They also do not immunize research against criticism with reference to paradigm-specific norms and self-evident features (see Merkens, 2003; Heid, 2004). Rather, they seek to bring action theory and paradigmatically proven research into an exchange that avoids uniform conceptions of theory and empiricism and focuses on the further development of educational practice and the optimization of educational research.

The Sustained Importance of Critical Non-affirmativity, Which Must Be Constantly Redefined and Reassessed

The studies on a non-affirmative theory of education (Erziehung), Bildung and educational institutions presented in the previous sections were developed at a time when “the end of general pedagogy” was predicted by some. Dieter Lenzen (1987) assessed the “Prospects of Systematic Pedagogics” as a postmodern simulation that seeks to preserve a unity that no longer exists. Such diagnoses were also the starting point for my considerations on the necessity and superfluity of a basic pedagogical approach (see Benner, 1987, pp. 13–17; 2015, pp. 17–21). Yet, research published on non-affirmative education theory has been discussed in many areas of educational research, such as general educational science, pedagogical anthropology, philosophy of education, didactics and science education, school and social pedagogy, the didactics of ethics teaching, political education, physical education and sport, religious education, the history of pedagogy and education, and, more recently, in empirical education research.

The aforementioned research was well received not only in the German-speaking world, but in other European countries (see von Oettingen, 2001, 2006, 2010; Uljens, 1998; Benner & Stępkowski, 2015b; Benner et al., 2015), as well as outside Europe, especially in China (Benner et al., 2015, 2020), Taiwan (Liang, 2002, 2012) and Japan (Benner & Ushida, 2015a). In the English-speaking world, this research has been taken up much less, with exception of Andrea English (2013) and Michael Uljens (Uljens & Ylimaki, 2017). This is partly due to the fact that the German terms Erziehung and Bildung – but also the Greek and Latin terms paideia and educatio – resist a simple translation with the English term “education.” However, the difficulties of translation are far greater than the concentration on two terms. How substantial these difficulties are became clear when the essay entitled “Bildsamkeit und Bestimmung” (Benner, 1988) was translated into English as “Malleability and Destiny” (German: Formbarkeit and Schicksal).

In this final section, I address five critical appraisals of my concept of non-affirmative education. The first is by Michael Winkler and Heinz-Hermann Krüger, who, from a systematic and socio-pedagogical point of view, spoke of the “rise,” “fall” and “retreat” of General Pedagogy (Allgemeine Pädagogik) in the mid-1990s (Winkler, 1994, p. 93 ff. ; Krüger, 1994, p. 115). Their most important objection to my theory was that my research did not develop a pivotal general pedagogical idea but only a school pedagogy. According to their critique, my non-affirmative education theory could not claim to be valid for social pedagogy. This view was contradicted by Klaus Mollenhauer (1996), Lothar Wigger (1996) and Jörg Ruhloff (1998). They pointed out the general relevance of the basic concepts and principles, as did Jürgen Reyer (2002) in his Kleine Geschichte der Sozialpädagogik (Brief History of Social Pedagogy). The latter text describes my General Pedagogy as dealing with “theory connections” that have fallen into oblivion in social pedagogy, and discusses basic pedagogical concepts and theories that suggest it should also be read as a “theoretical social pedagogy” (Reyer 2002, p. 270 f.).

The second critique to be mentioned here was developed by Alfred Langewand (2003), who rightly pointed out that education cannot be justified solely by the foundational concept of summoning to free self-activity (Aufforderung zur Selbsttätigkeit). I can only agree with this criticism with reference to the three other basic concepts (see also Benner, 2003a, b). With reference to the three causalities in educational processes (Erziehungs- und Bildungsprozesse), Langewand’s objection regarding the limitation of the principle of “summoning” – a concept which had been modernised by Fichte – becomes even more clear. Further, it can be combined with a distinction between action and interaction theory causalities and those causalities examined by the social sciences and empirical educational research such as gender, social milieu, migrant background, etc., whose influences cannot be denied. However, they do not affect pedagogical action directly. Rather, they must be interpreted in and transformed into pedagogical terms.

The third critique comes from the Swiss philosopher and philosophy teacher Johannes Giesinger (2011). He wrote an article in a philosophical perspective with the title Bildsamkeit und Bestimmung. Kritische Anmerkungen zur Allgemeinen Pädagogik Dietrich Benners (Plasticity and Determination: Critical Remarks on Dietrich Benner’s General Pedagogy) in the Zeitschrift für Pädagogik. The English translation of the title commissioned by the journal’s editorial staff contains errors similar to those mentioned above. Bestimmung is again translated as “destiny” and Bildsamkeit not as “plasticity,” but as “ductility” – which distorts the meaning equally, and is inconsistent with both Giesinger’s and my intentions (see Zeitschrift für Pädagogik, Volume 6, issue 57, p. III). Giesinger’s argumentation entails both agreement and contradictions with my concept of Bildsamkeit. This caused some confusion (see Ziegler, 2019, pp. 57–67). Giesinger’s critique intended to show that my attempt to present Bildsamkeit as a constitutive principle of pedagogical action was not successful and that, instead, that goal was achieved only in his article. I can agree with this, because in the entire intellectual history of the problem, from mythical ages to Fichte and Schleiermacher, there exist many examples that achieved this that are more significant than Giesinger’s and my work.

Approaching the problem historically, I too recognize the relevance of Giesinger’s point when he says: “Bildsamkeit is to be distinguished in particular from a kind of malleability or Bildsamkeit that can also be attributed to objects of nature. It is therefore constitutive for pedagogical action to see the counterpart not as a malleable object to influence, but as a subject with a free will that can be shaped (bildsam) and is receptive to pedagogical communication” (see Giesinger, 2011, p. 908). It is lamentable, however, that while working on his text, he had considered my essay from 1988, but not my General Pedagogy – that indeed is mentioned in the title of his article – in its entirety. If he had been able to access the volume in its entirety, he could have spared many of the corrections interspersed in the text – for example, concerning the understanding of freedom.

The fourth critique was again focused on Fichte’s basic concept of the “summoning to free self-activity” (Aufforderung zur Selbsttätigkeit) and its references to the principle of Bildsamkeit that is not determined by status at birth and social hierarchies. This critique was developed by Norbert Ricken, who – unlike Giesinger – agrees with the idea of “non-affirmative pedagogical action” developed in an action theoretical framework as a basis for educational theory (Erziehungs- und Bildungstheorie). Ricken argued that the idea of non-affirmative pedagogical action itself questions the idea of modern subjectivity (see Ricken, 1999, pp. 374–387). Ricken’s objection is that the basic idea I developed did not consistently stick to its non-affirmative mental figure: “Benner’s General Pedagogy suffers – even without using the corresponding ... concepts such as autonomy, subject, reason – ... from the abridgement and one-sidedness of the ‘modern pedagogy’ he himself rejects” (Ricken, 1999, p. 377).

Ricken links this shortcoming to two concepts, first to the concept of an inner historical “necessity” of education, which has always been present since the existence and coexistence of human beings, and, secondly, to the concept of the “summoning to self-activity” (Aufforderung zur Selbsttätigkeit). He objects to the remarks on an original necessity of education, arguing that they theoretically assume a mistaken “readiness” of the child to “be educated,” which contradicts the “non-affirmativity” (which in and of itself is good) of the newly formulated concept of plasticity. He then extended his critique of theory of the subject to include the concept of education based on Fichte’s work, stating that the concept originated in an educational theory that – arguing under the rational assumptions of transcendental freedom and autonomous subjectivity – had long been overcome.

Ricken’s subject-theoretical – or better yet – subjectivity-critical objections seem to be problematic because, I argue, they refer to positions that the authors, in relation to whom I developed the foundational pedagogical idea, did not represent at all. The “illusions” of freedom, reason and autonomy that he rightly criticized following Käte Meyer-Drawe (1990/2000) are not to be found in Rousseau, Kant or Fichte, nor in Herbart and Schleiermacher. Incidentally, Meyer-Drawe problematized them in completely different contexts, forms of knowledge and paradigms, but not in those pedagogical positions to which I refer. A critique that directs these illusions on classical pedagogical theories of education is in danger of dismissing traditions with arguments that anticipated Ricken’s criticism of “modern” pedagogy (see Brüggen, 1986; Brinkmann, 1999; Benner, 2017). It has to be recognised that Ricken himself made significant contributions to overcoming the pedagogical paradox, which, as I argue, pursue similar questions as the basic idea that I have developed.

The last critique to be mentioned here does not aim to overcome the educational concept of modern subjectivity. It comes from Alfred Schäfer, who in his study “Zur Genealogie der Pädagogik” (On the Genealogy of Pedagogy) dedicated a large section to my General Pedagogy (Schäfer, 2012, pp. 300–315). Therein, he presents my educational theory as an attempt to deal with the normativity of pedagogical action without the need to ultimately justify and unify pedagogical theory and practice:

Benner’s effort leaves behind both a modern transcendental-philosophical perspective of justification and the attempts to formulate an empirical-transcendental debate; at the same time, however, he claims to solve the problem of the pedagogical (and thus also of the social) aspect by means of an action-theoretical and problem-historical assurance. If the basic pedagogical thought process is to be interpreted “with regard to historically defined questions and problems,” it cannot be naively assumed that such an interpretation expresses the ontological truth of the problem, of the necessity itself – it remains disputed. Rather, conversely, the interpretation of the basic thought process that takes place alongside action-historical and problem-historical assurances can be used to conclude the existence of such a pre-reflexive necessity that generates pedagogical thinking and action. Such a conclusion is never possible with absolute certainty. Benner’s precondition, however – with reference to a problem to be solved pedagogically – is the decision for an action-theoretical perspective (Schäfer, 2012, p. 302).

In his analysis from 2012, Schäfer presents a highly significant examination of my General Pedagogy, especially in the problematizing references. Like no other, Schäfer grasped the efforts underlying my General Pedagogy to develop a non-affirmative practical theory. He has pointed out that it presupposes the existence of a world in which meaningful and rational action is possible in differentiated practices, without any of them being given priority over the others or even an overall primacy based on a substantial idea of good. At the same time, he pointed out that human freedom of choice, not between predetermined alternatives, but the choice itself, can also be a disturbing, even despairing thought, in which Kierkegaard did not see a sufficient reason for a specified “moral quality” of human practice, but rather an “abyss” of human existence (ibid., p. 306; see also Schäfer, 2004).

I deem Kierkegaard’s despair regarding the abyss of human freedom to be a necessary corrective to the program of a “higher development of humanity” in a neo-Kantian sense, to which I have referred in my first studies on a basic pedagogical thought process (see Benner, 1980, 1983). I excluded this from the first edition of my General Pedagogy in favour of the concept of a non-hierarchical nature of the differentiated areas of practice. By substituting the concept of a rational higher development of humanity by that of non-hierarchical human practices and fields of action, I sought a way out of the aporia that there are transgressions in human history. A transgression above all are the crimes committed by Germans during the National Socialist dictatorship with the industrial-scale destruction of human life – that cannot be improved or even remedied by any idea of a higher development of humanity as a telos of history and the goal of education. The foundational idea of my General Pedagogy tries to do without the idea of a higher development. It rejects any hierarchization of social sub-practices as a model for problem-solving and instead relies on an unsolvable tension/conflict between the inherent logic of work, ethics, pedagogy, politics, art and religion, which must be reflected upon, sustained and discussed again and again.

One might now ask whether this conflict between forms of practice might not in themselves be a reason for despair over human freedom and powerlessness. Given historical experiences, we conclude that there is no such protection against despair that could provide the assurance of reason for human thinking and acting. Nevertheless, I consider the demand to let go of any ideas of a valid hierarchical order of all of human practice to be rational and helpful. In any case, further assurances are not absolutely necessary for determining the experimental rationality structure of pedagogical action. Even those who seek them in the field of religion can despair of questions that cannot be resolved by a history of salvation (cf. Mark 15:34; Matthew 26:46; see also Benner, 1987, p. 28; 2015, p. 37, footnote 10).

No form of practice can legitimize itself through references to a substantive idea of the good; an entity that protects against despair does not exist for human practice. Conversely, this implies that despair in itself is not sufficient to dismiss experimental structures of rationality and fruitful tensions between positive and negative experiences. Non-affirmativity is rationally allowed, even if transitions to affirmations that can no longer be problematized do not exist.

For the further discussion about affirmativity and non-affirmativity in pedagogical practice, theory development and research, it is important to think of the distinction between affirmativity and non-affirmativity as a reflective, rather than a dogmatic distinction (cf. Rucker, 2021). It does not create self-evident certainties, but perhaps a framework that must be evaluated again and again in pedagogical practice and other fields of action and in the development of reflective theories.

Here I conclude my considerations on non-affirmativity in education (Erziehung und Bildung) and pedagogical institutions. I did not claim that affirmations are avoidable, nor that non-affirmativity is a positive goal to strive for. Dealing with affirmativity in a non-affirmative way is not a programmatic, but rather an eminently theoretical, reflective and also practical undertaking, which one can doubt but does not have to despair over. This is referred to in the final sentence of a treatise by the French philosopher and sinologist François Jullien (1998/2001), entitled Un sage est sans idée. Ou l’autre de la philosophie (A wise man lacks ideas. Or the other of Philosophy) that confronts European with Chinese, and the Chinese with European traditions of philosophy and thought. Alfred Schäfer recommended it to me during a conversation. Its reads, in a modified version with regard to the thoughts under discussion here: Wisdom and prudence do not need to be based on an eternal idea.