Abstract
In the book Forgotten Connections. On Culture and Upbringing, originally from 1983, the late German educator Klaus Mollenhauer interprets Johann Friedrich Herbart’s educational concept of Bildsamkeit, i.e., the ability and willingness to be educated. Furthermore, Mollenhauer conceives Bildsamkeit as growing out of a primitive state towards a cultivated life. The Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard, however, conceives the Christian concept of ‘primitiveness’ as a growing in the opposite direction, i.e., as a growing out of a cultivated state towards a primitive one, in which the self shall let itself be invented by ‘God’. Thus, I investigate whether the concept of primitiveness may enrich the reflection on the educational concept of Bildsamkeit, as it is conceived by Mollenhauer. Towards the end of the paper I turn to Emmanuel Levinas, whose ethical reading of the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud may reveal a weakness in Kierkegaard’s concept of primitiveness. But rather than rejecting the concept of primitiveness, I suggest that we re-consider the concept, with the help of Levinas’s transcendental perspective of ‘God’. Essentially, I try to address the following question: Can Bildsamkeit be something more than the ability to be educated? Can not Bildsamkeit also be defined as being susceptible to ‘God’, who transcends our existence, after which we are lead towards a teaching and education otherwise?
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
There are different understandings of Bildsamkeit; in this case, between Herbart and Mollenhauer, but also between Hegel and others. Unfortunately, I cannot deepen these differences in this paper.
This work will be cited as SKS in the text for all subsequent references.
To be more specific, Mollenhauer (2003) challenges the scientific language which has forced itself into educational language and at the same time marginalised a non-scientific language in the form of pictures, poems, literature, etc. His thesis is that science cannot provide answers to all the problems and challenges in education. Therefore, we need to revive parts of our forgotten culture, because poems and the like can say something about education which science cannot. In other words, education and upbringing have a meaning which cannot be caught in scientific categories. What about Kierkegaard? Does he want us to forget or disregard culture? It may seem this way as he attacks Hegel. On closer examination, though, we can notice that Kierkegaard makes a settlement with the conventional culture to which everyone must be initiated in order to become a so-called educated human being. Thus, he does not want to disregard culture as such. In Kierkegaard’s body of work one finds many examples of him speaking warmly about fairy-tales, myths, literature, etc. (Saeverot 2013), i.e., such cultural contributions which Mollenhauer (2003) wants to bring out of oblivion. In that respect, there is a similarity between the two. One may even claim that both of them wish to give room for something the human being lacks; viz., a figurative language where one is able to see and seize something which goes beyond the conventional and scientific language.
However, I am not thinking of ethics in the ordinary sense. We do not find any answers to ethical problems, dilemmas or questions by reading Levinas as he is not developing a doctrine of ethics. Rather, he is developing a ‘fundamental ethics,’ pointing to the source of ethics– which is the face of the other.
I use Mollenhauer’s (2003) description of Kaspar Hauser, fully aware that he may have reached the wrong conclusions regarding this boy’s life. What is essential to me is the educational issues one can extract from Hauser’s biography, rather than conducting a historical analysis of this boy.
The case of Hauser is still an enigma. He dies in a mysterious way, apparently of a stab wound, 17th of December 1833.
More specifically, the idea of ‘dying to’ [afdøe] is about departing from time, but not in order to turn away from the earthly life. To Kierkegaard it is about departing from any self-absorbed thought or action, including the longing for eternity, so that one’s own wishes and needs do not influence the care and love of the Other (SKS 5, p. 315).
Kierkegaard repeatedly uses the child as an example in his many suppositions, so as to accentuate the necessity of the primitive and childlike trust in God (cf. SKS 12, p. 166).
With Levinas, the political question of justice occurs after the question of responsibility (Levinas 2009, pp. 158–160).
References
Benner, D. (1986). Die Pädagogik Herbarts [The Education of Herbart]. Juventa: Weinheim & Munich.
Benner, D. (2012). Allgemeine Pädagogik [General Education]. Juventa: Weinheim & Munich.
Biesta, G. (2014). The beautiful risk of education. Boulder & London: Paradigm Publishers.
Cappelørn, N. J. (Ed.). (1997). Søren Kierkegaards skrifter bd. 1–55 [Søren Kierkegaard’s Writings vol. 1–55]. Copenhagen: Gads forlag.
Gadamer, H. G. (1965). Wahrheit und Methode [Truth and method]. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr.
Hegel, G. W. F. (1995). Jenaer Schrifthen 1801–1807 [Jena Writings 1801–1807]. In E. Moldenhauer & K. M. Michel (Eds.), Hegel: Werke in zwansig Bänden bd. 2 [Hegel: Works in twenty volumes vol. 2]. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Levinas, E. (1996). Basic philosophical writings. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Levinas, E. (1998). Of God who comes to mind. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Levinas, E. (2007). In the time of the nations. London: Continuum.
Levinas, E. (2009). Otherwise than being. Beyond essence. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Duquesne University Press.
Mollenhauer, K. (2003). Vergessene Zusammenhänge: Über Kultur und Erziehung [Forgotten connections. On culture and upbringing]. Juventa: Weinheim & Munich.
Von Oettingen, A. (2010). Almen pædagogik [General education]. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
Ruhloff, J., & Bellmann, J. (Eds.). (2006). Perspektiven Allgemeiner Pädagogik [Perspectives on general education]. Beltz: Weinheim & Basel.
Saeverot, H. (2013). Indirect pedagogy. Some lessons in existential education. Boston & Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
The Holy Bible. (1999). King James version. New York: American Bible Society.
Uljens, M. (1998). Allmenn pedagogikk [General education]. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
Wivestad, S. (1999). Klaus Mollenhauers skisse til en moderne allmenn pedagogikk [Klaus Mollenhauer’s sketch to a general education]. In K. W. Møller (Ed.), Modernitetens praksis [The practice of modernity]. Århus: Jydsk Pædagogseminarium.
Acknowledgments
I am greatly indebted to the reviewers and the editor-in-chief Gert Biesta for their helpful comments and useful suggestions.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Saeverot, H. Revitalising Bildsamkeit?. Stud Philos Educ 35, 1–16 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-015-9461-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-015-9461-8