OTTO FRIEDRICH BOLLNOW

Contributions to a
Pedagogical Anthropology

'ftanslated by
Donald Moss and Nancy Moss

Duquesne University Press

Pittsburgh, PA
 ED/PSYCH
LIBRARY
First Published in German under the title L~ 75
Krise und neuer Anfang.
Copyright 1966 by Quelle and Meyer Verlag, Heidelberg Contents t.;r:
English translation copyright © 1987 by Duquesne lJniversity Press
TRANSLATORS' PREFACE ix
All Rights Reserved 1. About the Book ix
2. 0. F. Bollnow, the Man XI
Published by Duquesne University Press 3. About the Translation xii
600 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15282
AUTHOR'S PREFACE XV
Printed in the United States of America
I. THE HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF CRISIS AND
~

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data CRITIQUE (1965) 1

A. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CRISIS 1
Bollnow, Otto Friedrich, 1903- 1. Posing the Question 1
Crisis and new beginning. 2. The Life Crisis 3
B. CULTURE-CRITIQUE 6
Translation of: Krise und neuer Anfang. 1. Culture-Critique as Self-Critique 6
Bibliography: p. 2. The Critique of Cuture-Critique 8
Includes index. 3. The Meaning of the "Return to Nature" lO
1. Educational anthropology. I. Title. 4. The Double Meaning of the Word "Natural" 13
LB45.B62713 1986 370.19 86--24004 5. The Threatening Chaos 14
ISBN 0-8207-0188--2 6. The Enduring Meaning of Culture-Critique 17
7. The Return to the Origin 19
C. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CRITIQUE 21
1. The Pursuit of the Anthropological Significance of
Critique 21
2. Knowledge-Theoretical Excursus 22
3. An Education for the Capacity for Judgment 25
4. The Connection Between Crisis and Critique 26

II. THE NEW BEGINNING AND THE PROBLEM OF

REJUVENATION (1965) 28
1. Hermann Hesse and the Search for the Origin 28
2. The Yearning for a New Youth 30
3. The Possibilities for a New Beginning 33
4. The Correction of the Error 35
5. The Deeper Problem 37
6. The Battle Against Habit and Fatigue 38
7. The Origin as Essential Origin 41
8. Rejuvenation as a Task 44

III. OLD AGE (1962) 46

1. The Task of a "Gerontagogy" 46
 2. The Proper Fulfillment and Perfection of Aging 48 B. MAIN THEMES OF MODERN PEDAGOGY 133
3. Essential Features of Old Age 52 1. The Relationship Between Theory and Practice 133
4. The Late Works of Aging Artists 55 2. The History of Pedagogy 135
5. Old Age as a Crisis 58 3. Functional Education 136
4. Cultural Pedagogy 139
IV. THE DEATH OF ANOTHER HUMAN BEING (1964) 60 5. Critique of the Classical Idea of "Buildung" (Formation) 141
1. The Problem of Death 60 6. Teaching through Paradigmatic Examples 144
2. Sympathy with the Dying of Another, and Being 7. The Fruitfulness of the Phenomenological Method 146
Touched by Such a Death 62
3. Direct Testimony 63
C. AFTERWORD BY DR. BOLLNOW (1985) 149
1. Hermeneutics and Pedagogy 149
4. Forms of Bereavement . 66
2. Recent Developments 150
5. The Narrowing of the World in the Death of an Intimate 67
IX. EDUCATION AND THE EXISTENTIAL CONCEPT OF
V. SECURITY AND PEACE AS A TASK FOR
ENCOUNTER (1984) 154
EDUCATION (1964) 70
70 1. Background in the History of German Pedagogy 154
1. The Ideal of Eternal Peace
73 2. The Philosophy of Existence 155
2. Objective and Subjective Character
75 3. French Existentialism 156
3. Insight into the Value of Peace
77 4. The End of Existentialism 157
4. Education for a Disposition Ready for Peace
84 5. The Consequences of Existential Philosophy for
5. The Interweaving of the Two Tasks
86 Pedagogy 158
6. The Power and Limitations of Education
6. The Situation of German Pedagogy after 1945 159
7. The Concept of the Encounter 160
VI. THE TRANSFORMATION IN THE UNDERSTANDING
a. The Methods of the Human Sciences 160
OF THE HUMAN BEING IN THE NINETEENTH
b. Encounter and Formation 161
CENTURY (1960) 89
c. Irr'egular Forms in Education 164
1. Posing the Question 89
91 8. The Expansion of the Horizon of Pedagogy's Task 165
2. The Concept of the Person
3. The Personality 92
4. The Idea of "Bildung" (Formation) 95 REFERENCES 167
5. Individuality 97 APPENDIX: ENGLISH LANGUAGE WORKS OF 0. F. BOLLNOW 176
6. The Inward Turning 99
· 7. New Approaches 102 INDEX 179
8. The Inner Unity of the New Movement 109

VII. EDUCATION AND LIFE (1959) 111

1. Education as a Function of Life . 111
2. Example: Kerschensteiner's Basic Axiom of the
Educational Process 115
3. Democracy and Education 119
4. The Standpoint of the Philosophy of Life 121

VIII. PEDAGOGICAL RESEARCH AND PHILOSOPHICAL

THINKING IN GERMANY (1959) 124
A. THE AUTONOMY OF PEDAGOGY AS A SCIENCE 124
1. The Relationship to Psychology and Sociology 124
2. Empirical Research in Pedagogy 128
Translators' Preface

1. About the Book

THIS VOLUME PRESENTS a series of essays clarifying the concept

of the life-crisis, the philosophical analysis of human develop-
ment, the nature of aging and the life experience of the elderly,
and other concrete topics which apply an anthropological ap-
proach to the temporal organization of the human life.
According to Dr. Bollnow's view, it is inherent to the nature
of human existence that a man's life miscarries, goes astray, or
is shattered, and that in such repeated life-crises, the individual
is faced with an ethical challenge: to take hold of his or her life
and find the way back to a new beginning. The human life
moves forward not by unfolding and ripening in a steady or-
ganic fashion, but rather by aJl/ effortful progression of up-
heaval, reversal, and renewal. The German playwright von
Hoffmannsthal expressed this as follows: "The~ whole of life is
an eternal beginning again."
Dr. Bollnow's attention to the life-cycle and the life-crisis
presents a radical challenge to the educational process. He calls
for education to address the total human being in all phases of
life, and to mobilize all forms of human learning, including the
most irregula.r and unpredictable.
Dr. Bollnow's message directly touches the fields of develop-
mental psychology, adult education, affective education, geron-
tology, death and dying, and peace studies. In a broader sense,
however, this work is directed at any individual who cares more
deeply to understand his or her own developing humanity, and
at every educator who seeks better to address and guide the
total human being in his or her passage through the life cycle.
"Pedagogical anthropology, "as envisioned by Dr. Bollnow,
x TRANSLATORS' PREFACE
is the attempt at a fruitful marriage of educational thought with
anthropological reflections. As presented here it seeks: a philo-
sophical comprehension of man as a being who learns and
accrues his nature in the course of his life history. and a
reformulation of the tasks of education in each phase of life.
The phenomenon of aging, for example, presents us with a
"genuine educational task," that is, it challenges us more
deeply to lead the elderly themselves to an "authentic confron-
tation with their aging, and to a meaningful fulfillment of the
possibilities inherent in aging." (Chapter Three). To take
another example, how can the educator guide the pupil in
cultivating a "peace loving character?" (Chapter Five). Or
more broadly, how can education fulfill its "function in the
service of life," without being stifled by particular demands of
the community, church, parents, or the state? (Chapter Seven).
The "anthropological" approach, adopted by Dr. Bollnow
here, is not cultural anthropology as the American reader
knows it, but rather philosophical anthropology. The anthro-
pological approach views the human life as a meaningful whole,
within which all individual features have to fulfill a necessary
function, and within which they therefore can be understood as
meaningful parts. As such it rejects naturalistic explanations in
terms of underlying biological or psychological causes, and
seeks rather to take human behavior and experiencing seri-
ously, and to interrogate its meaning. To take one example,
organic changes in the cortex may well "cause" changes in the
thought and memory functions of the elderly. but what do these
changes signify for the consciousness of the older person? How
do they contribute, qualitatively and positively. to a very diffe-
rent mode of being in the world, visible even in the works of art
of the aging artist? (See Chapter Three). These are Dr. Boll-
now's questions, exemplifying the anthropological approach.
This anthropological approach has been applied fruitfully in
psychiatry and the social sciences by researchers of the stature
of Ludwig Binswanger, Erwin Straus, and Hubert Tellenbach.
Although closely connected in the history of German thought
with phenomenological and existential approaches, it remains
distinct, and Bollnow and Erwin Straus are its most articulate
spokesmen. Bollnow's earlier studies on moods and human
TRANSLATORS' PREFACE xi
spatiality are outstanding examples, as are the essays in the
present volume.
The author is also at home in the history of ideas. One of the
major contributions of the present volume is a deepened appre-
ciation for the roots of current pedagogical and psychological
concepts in past philosophical controversies. Chapter one traces
the influence of Rousseau and of German Romanticism on
basic concepts in modern pedagogy. and Chapter Six outlines
the deep transformations in the understanding of the human
being in the course of the 19th century.
The 19th century stands out in Bollnow's presentation as a
particularly fertile ground, contributing many rich yet unclar-
ified concepts-of the individual, of personal development, of
inwardness, and of existence. The full significance of such
concepts for our understanding of the human life often emerges
only through Bollnow's dialectical narrative, in which he first
uncritically presents them, then exposes their historical limita-
tions, and finally teases out their enduring kernels of truth.
2. Otto Friedrich Bollnow, the Man
Born in 1903, 0. F. Bollnow, pursued first the field of physics,
under the tutelage of Max Born. Under the influence of the
youth movement and the school reform movement in Germany
at that time, and following a semester as a teacher in Odenwald
in 1925, he turned with enthusiasm to philosophical studies and
a lifelong fascination with both the educational process and
pedagogy. The list of his publications spans the years 1925 to
the present, with translations of his works available in Dutch
French, Italian, Norwegian, Portugese, Spanish, Japanese and
Korean. (It is worthy of note that Chapters v·u and VIII of the
present volume originated as addresses delivered to non-
German audiences in Tokyo in 1959). Although a number of
articles and excerpts from his books have appeared in English,
the English speaking world seems to be least cognizant of his
work.
A full bibliography of his writings and of secondary sources
on his work fills 42 pages in the autobigraphical 1983 volume:
0. F. Bollnow im Gespriich (A Conversation with 0. F. Bollnow).
xii TRANSLATORS' PREFACE
His major books reflect the diversity of his interest in philo-
sophy, psychology, education, and cultural history: Dilthey
(1936, 1980), Das Wesen der Stimmungen (The Nature of
Moods, 1941, 1980), Existenzphitosophie (Existential Philo-
sophy, 1943, 1978), Neue Geborgenheit (New Security, 1955,
1979), Die Lebensphilosophie (The Philosophy of Life, 1958),
Existenzphilosophie und Piidagogik (Existential Philosophy and
Pedagogy, 1959, 1977), Mensch und Raum (The Human Being
and his Spatiality, 1963, 1980), Sprache und Erziehung (Lan-
guage and Education, 1966, 1979), and a two volume Philoso-
phie der Erkenntnis (Philosophy of Knowledge, vol. I, 1970,
1981, val. II, 1975). A bibliography of Dr. Bollnow's works in
English appears at the close of the present volume.
Otto Friedrich Bollnow has been a leading figure in post-war
German pedagogy. He brings to his research on education an
already keen understanding of the temporal organization of the
human life, as well as a deep familiarity with both phenomenol-
ogy and hermeneutics. The latter is most evident in this volume
in his examination of the place of critique within all human
knowledge, in Chapter One. Dr. Bollnow has recently com-
pleted a two volume work, "Studies in Hermeneutics" (Frei-
burg and Munich, 1982, and 1983), which will soon be available
in English, and which explores the philosophy of the human
sciences and the nature of hermeneutical thought. This new
work will present an excellent, more theoretical companion to
the present translation. In it he resurrects invaluable but little
known strains of thought on language, hermeneutics, philoso-
phical anthropology, and the human sciences, from the interwar
period in Germany-especially the works of Georg Misch and
Hans Lipps-representing a wealth of understanding lost in the
Nazi suppression of much independent scholarship in the
1930's.
Dr. Bollnow continues to reside in Tlibingen in West Ger-
many, and is emeritus professor of philosophy and psychology
at the University of Tlibingen.
3. About the Translation
We are grateful for the assistance of Dr. Bollnow in translating
and editing the text. This English version omits the very brief
TRANSLATORS' PREFACE xiii
ninth and tenth chapters of the German volume, which ap-
peared to be too narrowly addressed to the German pedagogi-
cal audience. These chapters addressed the issues of: 1) whether
classical studies should continue to be included in German
secondary education, and 2) the meaning of the "event" con-
cept frequently utilized in German pedagogical discussions in
the 1950's and 1960's. On the other hand this translation
restores-due to its inherent merit-the opening section of
Chapter Two, discussing Hermann Hesse, which was part of
Dr. Bollnow's original spoken and printed versions of this
chapter but did not appear in the German book length collec-
tion. This book also adds as Chapter IX a 1984 address on the
contributions of existential philosophy to educational theory,
especially highlighting the concept of "encounter," and those
forms of human learning which take place in a fateful, irregular,
and unplanned manner thoughout one's life cycle. Finally, Dr.
Bollnow has written an addendum to Chapter VIII summariz-
ing developments in pedagogical research and philosophical
thinking in Germany since the original publication of this book
in 1966.
DONALD Moss, Clinical Psychologist
Haight Clinic
Spring Lake, Michigan
NANCY Moss, Educator
Grand Haven Public Schools
Grand Haven, Michigan
Author's Preface

THIS VOLUME BRINGS TOGETHER several of my lectures,

delivered on various occasions in recent years. It is in the nature
of such addresses that a predetermined theme is assigned to the
speaker, who is thus often torn in a seemingly disturbing man-
ner from the continuity of his ongoing work. However, this
externally originating summons often at the same time consti-
tutes a beneficial pressure, forcing one to gain distance and
perspective, and to examine the problem in its essentials from a
new side. It often happens that when one succeeds in gaining
this new standpoint thoughts can take form, which one could
previously not properly grasp. Thus I find that although many
of these lectures do not fit into the larger context of the books I
have published, nevertheless so much that is dear to my heart
has flowed into these often very personally delivered addresses.
It would sadden me for these .remarks to be entirely forgotten,
or to remain scattered in often remote and inaccessible jour-
nals. For this reason I have assembled several of these lectures
here into a loosely organized whole, and added further essays
which seem to suitably round out their thematic circle. I hope
that even.without a systematic framework the common ques-
tions and approach from which these essays have all proceeded
will generally be evident.
I am dealing here with the application of the anthropological
point of view to pedagogical questions, especially to the tem-
poral organization of the human life, and to the educational
problems corresponding to this temporal organization. The
printed versions retain the form and characteristics determined
by the nature of the originally oral addresses, especially the
frequent use of the first person. Otherwise such dramatic revi-
xvi AUTHOR'S PREFACE

sions would have been necessary in the original texts, as to risk CHAPTER I
injury to their readability.

0. F. BOLLNOW
Tiibingen, Federal Republic of Germany
The Human Meaning of Crisis
and Critique

A. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CRISIS

1. Posing the Question

WHEN WE HEAR THE WORDS "crisis" and "critique" together,
then naturally the linguistic connection between the two is
immediately clear. Both words derive from the Greek krinein,
which means to separate or to purify. When on the other hand
we hear these words individually, then we will hardly be aware
of the connection at all, because these words have developed
very different meanings. Only the adjective "critical" can in
itself still unify both meanings.
Let us remain first of all with the word Crisis. By this word we
characterize certain processes of life, both of individual and of
supra-individual (or communal) life. One speaks of a crisis in an
illness as well as in a spiritual development, of a marital crisis, an
economic crisis, of a crisis in the collective lives of peoples, and
so forth. All of these examples have in common, that they
involve processes, which due to their pointed, grave, and risky
character, stand out from the steady current of the rest of life.
Every crisis stands under the threat of a catastrophe: That the
illness could lead to death, the marital crisis to the abandon-
ment of a life together, the political crisis to war, and so forth.
The crisis, however, does not necessarily lead to catastrophe.
Thus the crisis in an illness can introduce a recovery, marriage
may establish itself anew, economic crisis may lead to new
2 THE HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE
blossoming, the danger of war may pass, etc. In each case the
overcoming of the crisis signifies not only the averting of dan-
ger-although this stands most prominently in the foreground,
along with the feeling of relief-but rather at the same time,
viewed more deeply, also a purification, an elimination of
long-active conflicts. Thus, overcoming the crisis means arriving
at a new level only reachable by passing through the crisis. In
each case crisis signifies a real process which plays itself out in
the events of life. When a situation has entered such a crisis, we
characterize it as critical.
However we also characterize as critical a basic human atti-
tude, in which a person takes up a position toward reality, in so
far as this attitude does not take reality as self-evident, but
rather examines it as to its justification. In this sense critical is
not a reality but rather a human judgment about reality. One
observes the course of events critically and in particular exam-
ines the rightness or correctness of twman statements. From
this arises the significance of critique as the distinguishing
between true and false. Thus there is an art critique, a book
critique, etc. The word critique has taken on an especially
de-valuing character in this regard. One applies critique for
example, to the existing situation. This means that one discloses
the error in it. Critique is, in this sense, an aggressive act. There
is also an unwarranted critique; and many in the past have
energetically forbidden any critique of their own behavior or
their person.
However, the question remains for us, whether there is only a
linguistic-historical connection between the two words-crisis
and critique-or whether there is also a more objective link.
This leads to further questions: First, whether the crisis, as we
experience it, is not merely a passively suffered process, but
rather something which the human being must take hold of and
complete in his own actions, precisely through a "critical"
attitude and behavior; and inversely, whether a critique of
existing conditions, if it is to be effective, does not necessarily
itself lead to a crisis in these conditions. In any case, it is in
this sense that I have taken up the question of the relation
between crisis and critique, and to the extent that I am able,
sought to answer it.
CRISIS AND CRITIQUE 3
2. The Life Crisis
I will begin therefore with the crisis in the objective sense: a
crisis in the course of events. I will assume at present without
further justification that such an event must always be a life-·
event and that there is no crisis in the genuine sense in the
inorganic realm (although one can speak for example of a
critical temperature, and so forth). I will also not concern
myself here with the issue, that even the concept of "life
events" is ambiguous, in so far as it includes both organic and
historical life. I will limit myself for the sake of simplicity to the
crisis within the biographically comprehensible life of the indivi-
dual human being. I will ask therefore: What do crises mean in
this context? What place do crises have in the life of the human
being[l]?
My question is in this case an anthropological one, or more
precisely, since today one speaks of anthropology in a very
different sense, it is a question of philosophical anthropology. I
understand in this regard a mode of questioning, which has
proven fruitful in recent decades both in philosophy and in the
individual human sciences, a mode of questioning which relates
all individual phenomena to the totality of the human being and
seeks to understand their meaning from this totality[2). Thus we
seek the significance of the crisis within the total context of the
human life. In doing so, we are making a definite presupposi-
tion from the outset and must clearly recognize that we are
doing so. That is, namely, that the individual phenomena, in
this case the crisis, is not merely something accidental or dis-
turbing which merely happens to intrude from the outside into
this life. Rather, we presume that it belongs to this life essen-
tially and in accordance with its nature and has to fulfill a
meaningful and necessary function within it. This may at first
appear to be a too far reaching, or in our customary way of
speaking, an "uncritical" presupposition. But it loses this char-
acter if one takes it not as a metaphysical assumption, but
rather as a cautiously introduced working hypothesis, as a
heuristic principle, with which one cautiously approaches this
context, and which can only later prove to be justified through
its results-presuming that such results do follow. It is thus in
4 THE HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE
this fashion that we inquire about the meaning of the crisis in a
human life.
If we review from this standpoint the everyday understanding
of crisis, then the crisis does not by any means appear to be such
a meaningful process, but rather on the contrary a very disturb-
ing incident, which intrudes into the integral course of life,
which interrupts it, and places its overall successful outcome in
question. This explains the customary and usual understanding
of crises. One takes them as misfortunes; which one could have
avoided through greater foresight; which one could possibly
seek to avoid and which, when they in spite of all caution have
occured, one should as much as possible seek to mitigate and
ultimately put aside. Crises are, to put it broadly, avoidable
accidents. Though crises may belong to life in general, this is
true only in the sense, that this particular life is unfortunately
vulnerable toward crises, at this time and on account of its
imperfection, just as, for example, it is vulnerable toward
infectious diseases.
This conception is also not entirely off the mark. Doubtless
there are in human life such crises, which have arisen through a
mistake or through neglect, and which one could have avoided
through greater attentiveness. Here the task remains to avoid
such crises as much as possible and when they have nevertheless
once occurred, to mitigate them to the best of one's ability.
Many crises resolve themselves in the course of time, but even if
every specific, individual crisis would have been avoidable, the
question still remains whether crises in general are avoidable,
or whether the fact that in human life crises will always again
recur is based in a deeper necessity. Thus emerges the further
question: Are there not cases in which the smoothing over or _
stifling of a crisis once it has commenced is perhaps a shirking of
a deeper responsibility?
In this context it signalled an exciting revolution when, in-
fluenced by the perspective of Kierkegaard, the powerful forces
of existential philosophy broke forth in the 1930's in Germany
and emphasized that crises are not something accidental at all;
that on the contrary human life according to its essential nature
and in every moment lies in crisis and can only be conceived
through crisis. The older ones among us can still remember
CRISIS AND CRITIQUE 5
what a shock this conception created at that time-breaking
with all traditional habits of thought. Human life-or as one
would now more characteristically say: human existence-is
defined by the fact that it never simply "is," but rather takes
hold of itself in a process. It must tear itself free from everyday
life, which it sharply rejects as an inauthentic condition, fallen
prey to the world. The human being actualizes his authentic
existence only in the crisis and only through the crisis. The
critical moments are the only moments which really count in
human life. To exist means to stand in crisis.
I cannot today restrain myself from pointing out how much
this existential philosophical interpretation-that life stands in
every moment in a crisis---{;ould not be sustained in this exag-
gerated form. In any case this viewpoint taught us one thing-
and in this fact lies its irrefutable significance: That the crisis,
even if it does not comprise the totality of human life, never-
theless belongs necessarily to human life; and has a necessary
function to fulfill in it.
To summarize briefly, this viewpoint gives us the under-
standing that the human life does not basically unfold in a
merely "organic" process of growth; rather only by passing
through crises does life assume its genuine being. We would
already be leaning too heavily on an "organic" (or biological)
form of speech if we said that life only attains its maturity by
passing through crises, although this formulation has the advan-
tage of both comprehensiveness and simplicity. To be more
precise we can ask what distinguishes this human process of
passing through crises until one can finally be oneself, from a
simple organic maturation? To put it briefly, it is the authenti-
cally ethical element which distinguishes the human passage
through crisis. This means that something uniquely solid and
artificial is forcefully wrested away from mere nature-over and
above everything which is attainable through simple organic
maturation. Only at this level does the human being elevate
himself above a purely natural being and become a Self in the
genuine sense of the word. Thus, crises belongs to the nature of
the human life. They are necessary if life is ever to arrive at a
higher level.
6 THE HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE
B. CULTURE- CRITIQUE
1. Culture-Critique as Self-Critique
Among the many crises in human life, certain ones stand out
which the individual does not merely "suffer" in the passive
sense and does not merely endure as a kind of assault coming
over him from the outside. Rather, he consciously brings these
crises about by deliberately relating toward himself "critically,"
and by this word "critically" we designate those crises in which
the individual places his own self into question through a
self-critique. We will single out these cases for our reflections,
because in them the inherent connection between crisis and
critique can be clearly recognized.
There are forms of self-critique of widely varying depth. If
one speaks of self-critique in relation to the individual human
being, then as a rule one refers merely to single mistakes or to
single mistaken developments, which are subjected to a cri-
tique, in order that one can-through a special effort-leave
them behind. Thus, in this case we are dealing with a specific
form of critique that remains in the region of individual correc-
tions and does not lead to a crisis in the totality of life. In
contrast to this, and in order to better survey the deeper
reaching forms of self-critique, let us turn our attention first of
all to supra-individual history, and begin with the great cultural-
historical movements in which a weary and worn era places
itself in question. We will then draw conclusions from this
process for the life of the individual human being.
We can observe in cultural history typically recurring move-
ments, which are customarily viewed in common under the
name of "culture-critique." This is naturally not the place to go
into the history of culture-critique which leads from Jean Jacques
Rousseau through the era of the "Sturm and Drang" and
German romanticism to Nietzsche and his time and which was
again taken up in our century by the youth-movements and
applied in a broader context. We must be content with empha-
sizing the single, decisive, foundational idea of culture-critique.
This is Rousseau's claim that the refinements of culture have
CRISIS AND CRITIQUE 7
only made the human being more unfortunate. The summons
"Return to Nature" spread out from Rousseau to the whole of
Europe. The German "Sturm und Drang" ("Storm and Stress")
movement in the 1770's and 1780's adopted it in the sense, that
the genuine and immediate life of man was withering away in
the rigid ideas of abstract thinking, in the moral proscriptions
imposed externally on men and in the empty forms and formu-
lae of social conventions. The "Sturm und Drang" passionately
demanded a return to the origins of an as yet unspoiled life.
This same call has been taken up over and over again since
then, whenever dissatisfaction has erupted over conditions in
the present day.
Since Rousseau culture-critique has become an ever resur-
gent part of our spiritual and cultural life. Thus after World
War I, when so many traditional social orders had become
questionable, culture-critique emerged with a particular sharp-
ness. Expressionism was strongly conditioned by this will to
"return to origins." The art of the so-called "Primitives" gained
special interest from this standpoint. Even the entirety of exis-
tential philosophy developed on this basis.
Whether one joins with Heidegger in contrasting the authen-
ticity of existence to the condition of fallenness and everyday-
ness or with Sartre in contrasting the authenticity of the world
to bad faith (mauvaise foi), one is always primarily concerned
with turning back from a world which is estranged from man,
alienated, and exteriorized toward a genuine and original life.
The whole of existentialism, including even such external
markers as the hair style and clothing of the youths styling
themse~ves as "existentialist," could best be understood as an
outbreak of such a critique against the exteriorized life forms of
their elders.
If we draw together what is common to these often very
divergent cultural movements, it is the challenge to confront a
trend as unhealthy, to turn back from everything calcified,
rigid, and externalized, to turn away from all of the other ways
life could miscarry, and to return to the vital origins of life. It
was a "way back," and as such it emphatically opposed all belief
in progress and optimism in progress. The proud ethos of the
enlightenment, which had still believed in a future shaped
8 THE HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE
through one's own powers, seemed to be shattered as a naive
illusion.
2. The Critique of Culture-Critique
Meanwhile, however, a new counter movement has begun to
stand out. Culture-critique no longer appears to stand in high
repute, and the critique of culture-critique has been explicitly
carried out from the standpoint of sociology. From this perspec-
tive culture-critique appears to be a flight from the burning
tasks of the present and a retreat into a world-estranged and
irresponsible romanticism. In this connection Gehlen already in
1952 delivered a lecture about "the image of the human being in
the light of modern anthropology" (This lecture is easily avail-
able today in the "Rowohlts German Encyclopedia" volume
about "Anthropological Research" [3]). In his lecture, Gehlen
opposed Rousseau's challenge-"Return to Nature," with his
own sharply formulated antithesis-"Return to Culture." Given
the weight which each word of such a sharp thinker as Gehlen
deserves, it is astonishing that pedagogy, at least as far as I can
see, has not in the least responded to this challenge. This is also
another proof of how shockingly strange and isolated the neigh-
boring disciplines have become to one. another, and how little
they take notice of each other; because given the extent of the
influence which both Rousseau's approach to romanticism and
the closely related culture-critique have had on the pedagogy of
the early twentieth century, Gehlen 's formulation must appear
to be a sharp attack on a way of thinking which seems to have
entered indissolubly into the foundations of modern pedagogy.
Thus it is necessary that we clarify, from the standpoint of
pedagogy, the legitimacy of this critique of culture-critique and
draw out the implicit conclusions which it involves. In this
respect we will begin with Gehlen's remarks in which the
critique has been articulated with particular clarity and decisive-
ness. It goes without saying, that we will not concern ourselves
with Gehlen's philosophical anthropology as a whole-that
would be a much farther reaching task-but rather exclusively
with an examination of this single thesis.
I will attempt first of all to briefly summarize Gehlen's train
CRISIS AND CRITIQUE 9
of thought: Firstly, says Gehlen, the belief that one can return
to nature rests on an illusion. The human being is, as he
pointedly expressed it, "by nature a cultural being" (p. 78). As
a biologically weak or deficient creature man is only capable of
living within a "Nature which is artificially decontaminated,
made manageable, and fundamentally altered to serve life" (p.
48). That is, precisely, within a culture. There has never existed
any "wild form of the human being" (p. 58). Thus what we have
imagined as a state of nature is in fact merely a fantasy image
projected within a certain historical situation and is itself his-
torically shaped and contingent, through and through. Thus the
version of Nature portrayed by Rousseau is determined in every
respect by the spirit of the 18th century. Thus, what Gehlen
emphasized concerning the "Naturalism" of the turn of the
century is also true in general: "that this tendentious and
partisan Nature is just as much non-original and culturally
permeated as were the conventional forms against which it was
mobilized" (p. 82). "Thus the idea of Nature which is played off
against each successively disintegrating culture is continuously
transformed" (p. 82).
Secondly, Gehlen teaches, we are dealing in this change
process with the fact that certain social orders, which up till now
had been regarded as self evident, and which in this sense had
been held to be "natural," are now called into question and
regarded as merely conventionally determined. These old social
orders are contrasted with new forms, "which now impress one
as natural" (p. 84), until these new forms have themselves
become established and have again become taken for granted,
so that the process can begin anew from the beginning. Thus we
are dealing with an ever repeating circular process in history, in
which "ultimately one only replaces one set of culturally formed
modes of behavior, which have lost the semblance of natural-
ness, with another, which can win this semblance anew" (p. 84).
Finally, the third point, which Gehlen takes to be the most
decisive: The call to "Return to Nature" is dangerous, precisely
because the human being is such an instinct-weak and inwardly
almost limitlessly unstable being, and thus can only survive
within the framework of specific culturally determined forms of
life, and of certain institutions such as morality, the state, law,
 10 THE HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE
and so forth, which serve to regulate his behavior. "When one
knocks these supports away, we become primitive very quickly"
(p. 59). "Then our behaviour becomes distorted, emotionally
driven, impulsive, unfathomable and unreliable" (p. 59). In so
far as a culture-critique destroys these institutions, it leads
necessarily to a primitivization of the human being, in the sense
of a regression to a condition of chaotic, rampant, unbridled
impulsiveness. Gehlen calls to mind the ancient myths in which
Chaos stood at the begining of all developments. Human beings
would unquestionably sink back into this chaos, if they no
longer were constrained by institutions. Gehlen, depending
largely on psychoanalytic insights, shows these tendencies in
our present day: the breakthrough of an unrestra~ned impul-
siveness; the lack of moderation in all demands of life; the
erosion of finer discriminations; in a word, the primitivization
of the human being. Against this background Gehlen raises his
passionate plea against Rousseau: "For Rousseau 'Return to
Nature' signifies that culture deforms the human being; the
natural state shows man in his full naivete, righteousness, and
animation. Opposing this view and inversely, it seems to us
today that the natural state of the human being is chaos, the
Medusa head, the sight of which paralyses one" (p. 59 f.). Thus
our call must be: "Return to Culture" (p. 60). Only culture can
return to the human being his lost footing.
3. The Meaning of the "Return to Nature"
Thus far Gehlen. One can hardly escape the deep earnestness
and the great sense of responsibility in his remarks. Something
absolutely essential is truly touched on here. Nevertheless, we
hesitate to agree wholeheartedly with Gehlen, when he holds
:! "culture-critique" responsible for those manifold destructive
phenomena of the present day, which he delineates so accu-
rately. Can we really believe that all of the sincere struggles of
the best minds, devoting themselves to culture-critique, have
been mere folly if not something worse? The present reaction
against change seems all too simple in Gehlen's account. For
this reason, we must pause here, and at least make an attempt
CRISIS AND CRITIQUE 11
to carry out a critical examination of Gehlen's train of thought,
in order to discover in which respects it is correct, and in which
it is perhaps wrong.
I will begin by reviewing the sequence of the points already
mentioned. First of all: Gehlen is no doubt absolutely right
when he emphasizes: 1) that there never has existed a "wild
form" of the human being; and 2) that every version of "Na-
ture," to which the human being would like to return, eventu-
ally proves to be a historically fabricated image of man's own
desires, and always carries within it the special character of the
era in which it originated. The return into a lost paradise is
certainly an illusion. It is all the more certain, that many
muddled states of feeling and many escapist flights from the
present have been acted out in the name of a "return to
nature." The question remains, however, whether our critic-
isms are grasping the core of Rousseau's challenge to return to
pure origins, or more broadly, are we reaching the genuine and
total ethos of culture critique? Is this summons "Return to
Nature" already proven to be without value, and contradictory
in itself, just because we can demonstrate that a Nature such as
it portrays, has never existed?
Further, it seems questionable when Gehlen points, as proof
for the historical mutability of the idea of Nature with all its
specific content, to the naturalism in poetry at the turn of the
century (in Strindberg, Ibsen, and Hauptmann). Obviously
these poets' idea of nature was just as "culturally impregnated
and permeated" as that of Rousseau. However, it cannot auto-
matically be taken as comparable to Rousseau's version, be-
cause it lacks the ethos of "Returning," which is so characteristic
of Rousseau and of culture-critique in general. That is, it lacks
the pull back into the past. In this poetic Naturalism the
intention was directed much more strongly forward, even in a
revolutionary fashion. The same holds true of the "new Natur-
alness," which has been emphasized. in the works of modern
painting. What is most important in our confrontation with
culture-critique is not the mutability of the idea of Nature in
general, but rather exclusively of that Nature which one seeks
to arrive at in a backward movement. This "Return" is insepar-
12 THE HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE
able from the formula "Return to Nature," and only those
movements seeking to return to origins can legitimately be
compared to one another.
What then is the meaning of this "Return?" What then is the
"Nature" or the "Origin' to which one desires to return, if its
image proves to be historically relative? Even though we are
not interested here in the details of Rousseau's interpretation,
but rather only want to work out what is fundamental to this
cultural movement; nevertheless, we can still be certain that
Rousseau himself did not intend his challenge to mean that
human beings should once again live like apes in the trees (4].
His own idea of Nature was much too rational for this; and in
fact, remained in this sense a product of the Enlightenment.
The Nature to which one should strive to return was not simply
a kind of prehistoric state actualized at some point in the long
distant past. Rather it was the proper state of man's own
Nature, from which he had strayed, by losing himself in artifi-
ciality. Thus Nature had the character of a timeless norm. And
even the Origin, to which romanticism later yearned to return,
did not necessarily signify a condition which had actually ex-
isted at some earlier point in time, and to which one simply
needed to return by reversing certain temporal developments.
We are dealing here rather with the recognition, which was
first clearly articulated by existential philosophy, that the human
being is "always already" in a condition of corruption. Thus,
the "Return to Origins" should not be conceived in the sense of
a temporally understood going-back to a previous condition;
but rather in another, more precisely to be determined fashion,
which we can in a preliminary fashion convey as a turning back
to a supra-temporal essential origin.
In. other words: The return to the origin signifies not the
re-establishing of a past condition, but rather the timelessly-
understood turning around, to an essential origin which is
inherent within one's present life yet concealed. Turning back
signifies the laying open once again of an obscured and buried
origin. It is this which was intended in the culture-critique
movement, even though this was not always clearly understood
and was therefore often formulated in a misleading fashion.
However, the self-misunderstandings of culture-critique neces-
CRISIS AND CRITIQUE 13
sitated and called for a further corrective criticism, such as
Gehlen's.
But we are not ourselves concerned with an historical analy-
sis, though we might add that such an analysis must now be
carried out very differently, on the basis of more recent re-
search on Rousseau. Rather, our concern is with the truth, the
legitimate meaning, which was contained in the formula "Re-
turn to Nature," and which has repeatedly filled youth with
enthusiasm. Perhaps today, against the background of Gehlen's
critique, that truth can be more clearly recognized than it ever
was before.
4. The Double Meaning of the Word "Natural"
Gehlen's second point concerns the recognition that there is an
eternal cyclical process in history: All seemingly "natural"
orders in life are eventually confronted by a new revolutionary
movement. The old forms are destroyed; new forms then deve-
lop and take the place of the old; and the process begins anew
from the beginning. That is undoubtedly an accurate descrip-
tion of the circular process of historical development with its
unceasing transformation in social and cultural forms. The
question is now, to what extent this historical process can be
equated with the movement of culture-critique.
Gehlen equates the two processes, and believes that by
describing them as a circular process he is adequately recapitu-
lating the problems he articulated previously, but he is able to
do this only because of the double meaning and ambiguous
usage of the word "natural." A tradition life-order is held to be
"natural" in the sense of self-evident and beyond question.
When this order is confronted by new challenges which "im-
press one as natural," and when "modes of behavior which
have lost the semblance of naturalness" are in turn replaced by
others "which can win this semblance anew," then Gehlen's use
of the word "natural" not only misunderstands what Rousseau
intended by Nature, but actually turns it into its oppossite.
What Rousseau had sought as Nature was not the unquestioned
and self-evident; but rather the primal and originary ground,
which is so difficult to extract from the self-evident appearance.
14 THE HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE
In other words: Natural in the sense of what is taken for granted
without question is sharply different from natural in the sense of
original. Only by equating these two meanings can Gehlen
include Rousseau's desire to return to Nature, as a specific case
of the general cultural, historical transformation of forms.
However, this equation is false. The return to the essential
origin means something else entirely than the transformation
process affecting historical forms. They relate to each other
about in the same way that Camus, in Man in Revolt, distin-
guished between revolution and revolt: The one as the real
transformation of forms within time, and the other as man's
radical opposition against the elements of corruption in time as
a whole. The former unfolds within time, and the latter against
time and in a way "perpendicular" to time.
No matter how narrowly the two are interconnected; and no
matter how much the opposition against the abuses of time
serves as the motor bringing about a transformation in forms;
nevertheless, neither one can be derived from the other. To
equate the two processes necessarily distorts one's understand-
ing for the culture-critical principle of the "Return."
5. The Threatening Chaos
However, Gehlen's third point must first be addressed. Because
of the "inherent instability" of instinctual life (p. 59), the
human being needs the support of institutions. Whenever he
turns against and opposes them, he becomes "primitivised" and
falls prey to chaos. "The natural condition of the human being
is chaos" (p. 60). One could first of all object to this claim on
the basis that it contradicts Gehlen's own thesis that the human
being is necessarily a cultural being. In this case Gehlen himself
posits an original natural condition of the human being, only he
defines it, in contrast to Rousseau's version, as chaos. How-
ever, this objection doesn't really hold up with Gehlen anymore
than it did with Rousseau. Gehlen too intended by chaos not a
temporally preceding condition at the beginning of history; but
rather an essential possibility inherent in the foundation of the
human being, which at every factually present point in time is
always already (more or less) subdued by culture. The human
CRISIS AND CRITIQUE 15
being is in every moment threatened with chaos and must in
every moment wrestle against it to establish the order of his
own culture. Accordingly there are oscillations in the course of
history between times of chaos breaking out more strongly and
times of stronger mastery and restraint by cultural institutions.
Thus we find two opposing yet highly parallel conceptualiza-
tions, both of which relate the human being to a concealed
essential ground, and both of which characterize this ground by
the name "Nature." Only what Gehlen understands by "Na-
ture" has changed essentially from the Nature of Rousseau.
Gehlen's idea of Nature was formed by the naturalism of the
19th century, above all by that of Freud. Thus for him Nature
has a "Medusa face." It no longer seems to be one's most
intimate possibility but rather one's strongest threat.
However, the question has already been wrongly posed if one
sees in it merely two different valuations of one and the same
relationship to nature, between which one must decide. In
reality, through the inexact usage of the ambiguous word "Na-
ture," two very different things have been grouped together,
which only to a limited extent belong together: namely the
chaotic underworld of drives and instincts and the yearned for
essential origin of the human being. This apparent unity dis-
solves as soon as one looks more closely into what is signified by
"Nature."
One can only wholeheartedly affirm what Gehlen, as a rigor-
ous judge, has worked out in critique of the destructive phe-
nomena of the present day. We include here his warning of two
great dangers: that the dismantling of institutional bonds, espe-
cially the setting free of an unrestricted instinctual nature, will
lead to chaos; and that chaos lurks everywhere inherent in the
nature of the human being. In pointing to the danger of a
primitivization and erosion of refinement in the human being
Gehlen is undoubtedly correct. What he has to say about the
need for work and asceticism should be taken very seriously.
Even his observation that modern art tends dangerously toward
"psychopathy, dreams and the infantile" (p. 89) is perhaps
correct. This part of his work involves a critique of the times in
the deepest and most responsible sense, and we know ourselves
to be fully in agreement with him.

16 THE HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE
We disagree with Gehlen only at the point where he identifies
these present day phenomena of cultural dissolution as the
effec.ts of culture-critique and in opposing them formulates his
challenge as a "Return to Culture." In this regard he is confus-
ing two very different phenomena. He thus devalu~s the ap-
proach of culture-critique, which arose from a very h1gh etho~,
by means of a distorted presentation, in which he makes 1t
responsible for phenomena which are in fact absolutely unre-
lated. It is quite characteristic that in examining the present day
phenomena chosen by Gehlen as symptomatic, we do not
encounter the backward oriented summons to a "Return to
Origins" at all and the idea of the "new Naturalism" is only
very artificially "read in" by Gehlen. The present day move-
ments understand themselves consistently as breaking through
to new life possibilities and by no means as going· back to
concealed origins. The involved parties identify themselves
emphatically as the "Avante-garde." Though Gehlen may ~e
justified in sensing in many of these movements a certam
sentiment for the youth movement and romanticism, neverthe-
less, the latter do not play any part in these phenomena of
dissolution in modern life.
Further, one cannot simply characterize culture-critique as
hostile to culture. It directs its attack against the corruption of
culture, not against culture itself. Already the fact that it later
became customary to distinguish between genuine "culture"
and a merely external "civilization" still proves-no matter how
dubious this distinction itself may be-at least one thing: That
culture-critique did not oppose culture itself but rather desired
to turn back from a devalued and degenerate to a more genuine
form of culture. In any case, this is how the culture-critique of
the 19th and 20th centuries developed and this was basically the
case even with Rousseau himself. When Gehlen formulates his
own challenge as a "Return to Culture!" then that is much more
than a witty play at inversions: His critique of the culture-less-
ness of the times lives in the same ethos of the "Return" and of
the challenge to turn back to origins, once lost and now to be
regained. It may be that the critique was directed by R~usse~u
against an exteriorization of life and by Gehlen ag~mst 1ts
dissolution; nevertheless both are forms of denatured hfe, and
CRISIS AND CRITIQUE 17
the ethos of going back is in both cases the same. In this sense
Gehlen does not stand so far from culture-critique as it may at
first appear. He proves to be himself a passionate critic of
culture, a.Ithough in a different fashion corresponding to the
changed times. One need only dismantle the walls of misunder·
standings in order to discover our sharing in a common task.
6. The Enduring Meaning of Culture-Critique
At this point I will break off the encounter with Gehlen. I am
not concerne~ af~~r all with an examination of his anthropol-
ogy; rather h1s cnhque of culture-critique should serve us as an
e.xample of critique in the authentic sense, that is, as a separa-
tion of the true from the false. In this way, just as Rousseau's
we~k~esses were so clearly disclosed in Gehlen's critique, the
deciSive kernel of truth .in Rousseau's challenge to us emerged
~ll the more clearly. Th1s kernel had to be purified of the false
1ma?e of a temporally understood process, involving the rees-
tabhshment ?f a condition existing at one time in the past.
Rathe~, we. '?terpret the "Return" as a turning back to the
essential .on~ms of t~e human. being. In this sense we take up
the qu.es.h?n once agam: What 1s culture-critique actually about?
What 1s 1t m culture that it actually disputes?
It would lead us too far afield at this point to introduce even
just ~ few of the manifold expressions of culture-critique from
the time of the Sturm und Drang, of German romanticism, or of
the "Lebensphilosophie" (Philosophy of Life) of the 19th and
20th centuries[S]. But if we consider these testimonies in an
~npreju~iced ~ash!on: we learn that culture-critique did not
mvolve hberatmg mstmctual drives from barriers felt to be too
constricti?g, as we can in fact observe in so many phenomena of
modern hfe. Rather, culture-critique was concerned with con-
fro~ting traditional forms as ~mpty, hollow, rigid, dried up,
oss1.fied (or however one w1shes to phrase it). It battled
agamst: empty, abstract ideas, conventional forms which had
become h?llow and ~etr!fied, and moral correctness imposed on
hu~an bemgs. Thus 1t d1d not battle against culture as such, but
agamst. hollow and meaningless culture, not against morality
per se, m the sense of nihilistic destruction, but rather for a new
18 THE HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE
and stronger morality. The life that it sought to liberate was not
the life of chaotic drives, which must be suppressed from the
outside, but rather the life of the total human being which
yearns for an organized and articulated expression. The con-
trast, therefore, was not between form and chaos but rather
between rigid and living form.
Thus, one could see in history a process whereby living forms
become rigid and culture degenerates, and a battle was waged
against this degeneration. Because this degeneration seemed to
be a process unfolding gradually in history, one turned back to
the past to search for earlier times, and believed that in these
earlier times the degeneration had not yet begun. Because the
rigidified forms had become something artificial, on.e yea~ned.in
contrast for its opposite-for Nature as the state m whtch hfe
had not yet been debased. But this Nature signified not the
substratum of life, not a realm of pure animality but rather the
totality of life in its still undebased stat~. Yet it is u.n~erst~nd­
able that this state was first of all vtewed as extstmg m a
romantically glorified past. . . . here: What is the significance for the understanding of the
Thus the difficulty first arose when tt was reahzed-to put tt
loosely-that things had never been any bet,t,er in the_rast, t.hat
rather the human being had "always already found htmself m a
condition of degeneration ; and that in all times man has to first
struggle against the condition of degeneration in order to attain
his originary state. Expressed differently: originality has never
at any time been an automatic gift presented to the human
being, rather at all times it remains a challenge posed to .the
human being. Existential philosophy taught us for the first ttme
to clearly understand this relationship. W~ .must appr~pria.te
this understanding, without necessarily ascnbmg to the stmphs-
tic overall interpretation of existential philosophy.
In this regard, the question arises: If the "essential origin" is
a condition whose attainment is first posed to the human being
as a task, as a goal for his self-actualization process, why then
do we speak of a "way back?" The answer may be-if we seek
to answer cautiously-that we can only conceive of degenera-
tion itself as a process which takes place in gradual steps in the
course of time, and the elimination of this degeneration must in
CRISIS AND CRITIQUE 19
turn consist of a reversal of this course of events, that is in a
backwardly-oriented counter-movement.
We must conceive the human life through this antagonism of
opposing tendencies, the first the tendency toward decline,
occuring spontaneously of its own accord, and the second a
counter-action undertaken in a full exertion of the will. In this
connection, culture-critique means the ever renewed warning of
the tension between the counter-working forces.
7. The Return to the Origin
Our primary concern here is not with the cultural-historical
interpretation of culture-critique in its manifold forms, nor with
the discussion of its justification, nor even with the task of
critically separating out its legitimate concerns from its mani-
fold potential for degeneration. Rather, behind the entire dis-
cussion lies ultimately the philosophical-anthropological
question, which is the only question we can decisively answer
human being of the fact that in the course of history culture-
critique has always emerged in the same or at least very similar
forms?
We will begin by adopting, in this case too, the working
hypothesis which has proven fruitful over and over in anthro-
pological reflections: That culture-critique is something mean-
ingful and necessary in the context of human-historical life and
not merely an historical accident; and that it will prove reward-
ing to investigate its meaning, in order by this means to more
deeply comprehend human life. Naturally this will at first be
only an experimental hypothesis, whose justification can be
provided only in the course of investigation.
I will first of all anticipate the answer to this anthropological
question, but in a very general and indefinite fashion: It seems
to me to signify, that man is a being who does not develop along
a straight line into the future, in the sense of a naive belief in
progress, but rather only in ever renewed initiatives so that he
takes the miscarried development newly back into the origin,
and then commences once again in a new beginning. When we
20 THE HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE
introduce the general anthropological hypothesis here, that this
forward and backward are not accidental and avoidable mis-
haps (or mis-developments), but rather belong to the nature of
life, then we recognize that only in this double-movement of
first structuring life and then taking what miscarries back into a
new beginning, can life finally move forward.
In an earlier work [6], I demonstrated that it is part of the
essence of human life, that we always remain lagging behind
our possibilities, in debt to our possibilities, and must seek in
renewed initiatives to make up for what was earlier neglected.
This insight can now be modified and enlarged in light of our
reflections on culture-critique. It is not only after times of
exhaustion that the human being must make a new approach;
rather, whenever developments miscarry and wheneve~ his life
runs astray and escapes him, he must turn back and begm anew.
The human being must therefore begin again over and over
from the beginning, and not merely because of avoidable er-
rors, but because it belongs to the nature of the human life to do
so.
There are two traditional names for this process, namely
rebirth and rejuvenation. The human being must be born
again-as we find written already in the New Testament: not in
the flesh but in the spirit. He must rejuvenate himself in ever
renewed critical processes. That holds true of individual human
beings as well as of the supra-individual life of history, in which
cultural "Renaissances" must be understood as ever recurrent
and necessary processes. I am convinced that with the concept
of rejuvenation, a decisive attribute of human life comes into
view, without which human life cannot be adequately under-
stood. Human life is something which can fruitfully develop
further, only by means of ever renewed rejuvenation along the
way. It is this principle ultimately, which we learn from the
typically recurring movements of culture-critique. Rejuvena-
tion is just such a return to the origin. And the human being
remains vital only along the path of his own ever renewed
rejuvenation.
This is finally the end-point to which we are led by our
reflections on culture-critique, as well as on the critique of
culture-critique: Rejuvenation is something essential as a condi-
CRISIS AND CRITIQUE 21
tion for the possibility of a vital human life, as a basic attribute
of human existence, and therefore also as a fundamental prob-
lem of pedagogy. It would be a deeply rewarding albeit difficult
task to work out this problem of rejuvenation in all of its
intricate detail. It would lead deep into the innermost secrets of
human life [7]. To execute such an investigation would be a
contribution of decisive importance for pedagogical anthropol-
ogy; no one has yet risen to this challenge.
C. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CRITIQUE
1. The Pursuit of the Anthropological Significance of Critique
Our reflections up to this point, guided by a series of enticing
and fascinating questions, have developed in a very one-sided
fashion. It is therefore necessary that we take up once again our
guiding question and begin to fill in the side that is missing. In
an investigation which sought to pursue crisis and critique in
their inner connectedness, we have up till now only spoken of
crisis insofar as it can be conceived as something belonging
essentially to human life. We have considered critique only in
the special form of culture-critique and thus in this fashion, it
would seem, limited ourselves prematurely to a specific case. In
actuality, however, our discussion has enabled us to penetrate
more deeply into our guiding problem; because to the extent
that culture-critique is aimed against the rigidification of life, it
becomes ultimately a self-critique of the human being in his
culture. Self-critique, however, as we will now show, is not
merely an arbitrary, specific instance of critique, rather it is the
basic problem of critique in general. All critique is ultimately
based in self-critique. From this standpoint we will now take
what we have examined as a specific case, and utilize it for a
more general reflection on critique.
A more general reflection, or in other words: an anthropo-
logical discussion of critique. This signifies in turn the question:
In what way-perhaps-must even critique be understood to
22 THE HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE
fulfill a necessary function in human life? It seems in fact that
this question can be taken much farther than is customarily the
case.
We generally characterize as critique the testing-and as a
rule rejecting-attitude toward the performance or behaviors of
another person. We are not concerned here with arriving at a
more exact definition; because the essential question for us is
once again the anthropological one, that is, the question re-
garding those situations in human life where critique develops.
This is further a question of the "place" of critique in human
life: Is critique something which occasionally develops in order
to put aside errors which have already occurred-perhaps very
frequently yet in principle still avoidable; is it a scrutiny after
the fact of an already previously discovered truth; or is it the
necessary means inherent in any discovery of the truth? To be
the necessary means to discovering the truth-that should sig-
nify something more than an outward cautiousness in proceed-
ing, which is in this fashion _critical toward itself. Rather, it
should mean much more: That fundamentally the truth can only
be attained through a critical confrontation with already exist-
ing opinion. I believe that I can establish the truth of this last
principle.
2. Knowledge- Theoretical Excursus
This latter point, however, necessitates that we make a brief
excursus into general reflections on the theory of knowledge. I
can here only briefly establish as a proposition what I have
demonstrated more thoroughly in other contexts,[8] but this
brief detour is indispensable for the !Jnderstanding of the ideas
which follow. Until now the theory of knowledge has assumed
that it is possible to arrive at something like an Archimedean
point at which one could then in a step by step fashion erect an
entire system of knowledge; but the theory of knowledge has
shattered on precisely this presupposition. In this regard, the
traditional systems have been in general agreement, even though
they differed in other respects: some wishing to see this sec~re
point of departure in self-evident theses of the understandmg
and others in simple sense data. If these approaches were
CRISIS AND CRITIQUE 23
correct, then critique would in principle be superfluous. One
could simply and securely, by exercising adequate caution,
build knowledge step by step. A critique would only be neces-
sary with regard to the occasional error occuring in this process.
However, when I say that errors "occur," I am also already
implying that they need not occur, that they are something
fundamentally avoidable, even though on a practical basis and
in light of human frailty they do take place often enough and
perhaps even in the majority of cases. An absolutely perfected
mind would make no such mistake, and consequently would
require no critique. Critique would thus only be necessary as a
consequence of human imperfection. It would not necessarily
belong to the essential nature of human knowledge.
This principle is altered, however, as soon as one recognizes
that this approach cannot be sustained. We absolutely cannot
establish a departure point of knowledge, free of presupposi-
tions, at which point one could begin from the bottom up.
Rather, the human being always already finds himself inserted
into a totality of viewpoints and opinions which have previously
been taken for granted, within which he has grown up, and
which he unconsciously has taken over from his environment.
He absolutely cannot avoid this. He also cannot simply extract
himself all at once in some bold stroke, by negating it as a
whole. We learn this from the shattering of Descartes' mental
experiment, and the failure of the theory of knowledge built up
on his search for an absolute beginning. Each human being
must first of all submit to this totality of opinions, and to the
understanding of the world inherent in them, and must then
move about within them. Only then can he seek to penetrate to
a greater certainty through a step-wise scrutiny of those specific
individual opinions which have come to seem questionable.
This is of course not yet a rehabilitation of prejudices,[9] as
some have occasionally remarked, but rather a rehabilitation of
opinions, which have suffered a scorned and misunderstood
existence in the history of philosophy, due to a false pride in the
theory of knowledge, and which must nevertheless be con-
ceived as a basic supportive phenomenon within human life[lO].
Opinions stand at the beginning of knowledge-not as some,
thing totally mistaken and needing to be rejected in one stroke,
24 THE HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE
but rather as the supportive ground upon which it is necessary
to build further, through a process of step-wise scrutiny and
testing. In so far as we accept this step-wise, correcting proce-
dure as a constitutive part of the foundations of the theory of
knowledge, then we must characterize this process as herme-
neutic, as an interpretive method, and speak to this extent of a
hermeneutic theory of knowledge.
Naturally we cannot project here the outlines of such a
hermeneutic theory of knowledge, especially the question: By
means of what criteria should this correction of assumed opin-
ions be carried out (11 ]? I will merely select out one thought,
which applies directly to our theme. Just as hermeneutics as a
philosophical discipline has developed from textual critique and
necessarily includes the criticism of texts, so too the hermeneu-
tic theory of knowledge is the single theory of knowledge which
views critique not simply as a supplementary correction after
the fact, but rather accepts it from the outset as fundamental to
the innermost nature of knowledge: Human knowledge unfolds
only in the critical confrontation with an opinion, which up till
this moment has been taken over as unquestionable.
When we take a concrete look at this process, we see nat-
urally that the human being doesn't simply decide, out of pure
mischievousness, to subject particular opinions to a test. That
would be nothing more-at best-than witty intellectual play.
Existentially seen, we discover that the human being with his
previously held opinions falls into difficulties, that he cannot go
any farther in life, and that these difficulties then lead him to
critique. Truth is thus attainable for the human being only
through the strenuous critique of present opinions which have
been previously taken over as self-evident. Fundamentally truth
is possible only through this ever repeating process of clarifica-
tion and purification (and this is the meaning, in the strictest
literal sense, of critique), and never through a "presupposition-
less" intellectual construction in an as yet untouched region.
Only in this strenuous struggle for the truth, can truth unfold in
its human substance. In this way critique serves as a necessary
function inherent in the self-unfolding-process of human life.
This is what we have characterized as the "human significance
of critique."
CRISIS AND CRITIQUE 25
3., An Education for the Capacity for Judgment
But our discussion centers today not on epistemological prob-
lems, but rather on the immediate anthropological-or even
~etter-the ethical question. We have seen that through cri-
tique th~ huma~ ~eing liberates himself from the captivity of
unquestiOned opmwns. Through critique he awakens to his own
opinion. Through critique he becomes himself for the first time.
In this sense I embrace the Enlightenment in its proud Kantian
vers~on as the li~eration of the human being from an immaturity
of hts own makmg. The way to come of age leads necessarily
through critique. In this sense we must ask, what we can do to
assist the unfolding of this capacity for critique in the human
being-in ourselves and in others?
This task is more pressing today than in other times, because
t?day, mo:e. than earlier, people are overwhelmed with prefab-
ncated opmwns from the ever pervasive infiltration of the mass
communications media. Thus the range of their own decisions
threatens to become ever narrower. I do not intend to claim
here that earlier human beings were less affected by handed
down opinions, but these took the form of relatively stabile
traditions. Today in contrast, they have lost this stability. They
have become, as one so "beautifully" expresses it, manipulable,
and thus to a particular degree the individual needs a critical
distance, to protect his freedom against the influence of the
mass media. Thus we are touching here not only on the unversal
anthropological "place" of critique in human life, but also and
especially on the historically conditioned place of critique in our
life today.
Critique means, to say it one more time, not rejection at any
price, but rather, in accordance with its original, literal mean-
ing, the process of testing and purification, by means of which
the externally presented opinion can be transformed into one's
own opinion, as the individual freely adopts his own position.
We call this critically arrived at opinion a judgment, and in
thi~ regard break with the customary usage of traditional logic,
whtch calls every statement in thesis form a judgment. We are
holding to the rigorous concept of the judgment (12]. Thus not
every opinion one holds is already a judgment. Opinions can
26 THE HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE
also arise quite casually, or out of mere pleasure in contradict-
ing, or out of mere conjecture. Only as a critically attained
judgment does an opinion seem to be well-founded, and only
when well-founded can it therefore also be defended with a
claim to binding force.
We characterize this capacity to acquire an opinion through
critical consideration, and to freely defend this opinion, as the
power of judgment, and place special emphasis on the choice of
terms. In this way I see the most pressing task in our times as
the education of human beings for the power of judgment,
which must naturally be applied first of all to ourselves as
self-education. This power of judgment is, as Kant had already
seen (though he conceived the idea of the power of judgment
somewhat differently within the framework of his system), not a
purely intellectual faculty; rather it depends closely on the
moral substance of the human being. I therefore deliberately
speak of the "power of judgment" and not merely of the
"capacity for judgment," in order to emphasize the effort which
is necessary for judgment. To form a judgment is always at the
same time already a moral act. This power of judgment is the
same thing which enables the human being to liberate himself
from the actions of collective forces, to conduct himself in
freedom and thus to attain that maturity, which Kant saw as the
goal of the Enlightenment. We are today perhaps not optimistic
enough to believe in a newly emergent epoch of general enlight-
enment, but to pursue this enlightenment within the solitude of
our own souls seems to me today an even more pressing task.
4. The Connection Between Crisis and Critique
Our discussion has made clear the significance of critique in
human life. Critique is not a cheap form of knowing better than
the next person, no matter how often it may be misused in this
fashion in the mouths of frivolous fault finders. Rather it is the
strenuous and always at the same time deeply painful process,
through which the human being elevates himself from the midst
of an irresponsible collectivity and becomes a free, self-
sufficient person, that is, a true human being. Critique therefore
belongs to the innermost nature of the human being, and
CRISIS AND CRITIQUE 27
without critique the human being cannot be human. To reflect
on this involves recognizing the "anthropological significance"
of critique, that is, its anthropological function. That was the
other side of the connection we have considered here.
Critique is, however, as we have already mentioned, always a
strenuous and deeply painful process. Thus the question arises:
How does the human being arrive at critique? At this point we
recognize: One cannot simply make up one's mind, and decide
to be critical, at least not when it comes to the most deeply
rooted and cherished convictions. Powerful events are neces-
sary for this to come about. This already teaches us a lesson
about human development. The small child in his innocence is
not yet capable of critique. Only in the process of painful life
experiences, after he has abandoned the original sheltered
world of childhood, can the capacity for critique develop in
him. This is in turn directly connected with the crisis-times in his
development. The same is true as well of the adult human
being, although in the adult these crises are no longer so closely
connected to biological phases. I have already emphasized that
the critical attitude signifies a detachment from the medium of
collective opinions. I deliberately chose the concept of maturity
(or coming of age), which I used in this context earlier, from the
process of human development into adulthood, even though
many individuals in their entire lives never actually mature.
In this way the cultivation of critique is closely connected to
crises in human maturation. Because the human being falls
back over and over again into an uncritical state, he can never
sustain himself at the heights of a critical vigilance. A genuine
and responsible critique, therefore, can only be attained and
sustained through ever renewed crises. In this fashion we come
back to our beginning point. In this way our two themes of crisis
and critique blend into an indivisible whole, in which each side
conditions the other, and is in turn conditioned by it.

CHAPTER II
The New Beginning and the Problem
of Rejuvenation
1. Hermann Hesse and the Search for the Origin
OF ALL OF HERMANN HESSE'S works, the Journey to the East is
the most dear to me personally(!]. I would like therefore to set
out from it here. It is difficult to assign this enchanting work to a
definite poetic genre. It is through and through allegorical, that
is, what is reported in it is supposed to point to a deeper
intellectual message; and yet is is again so poetic that it does not
succeed in releasing this intellectual content into a conclusive
form. It slips away, just when one believes to grasp it and
remains peculiarly in suspension. But precisely because one
cannot take it into one's possession, the work, as is properly the
sense of allegory in general, provokes one to ever renewed
reflection, which then, once it has been provoked, can also
range a good distance from its starting point.
The work deals, in its directly narrated content, with a kind
of peaceful crusade to the Orient (the "Morgen/and," liter-
ally, "morning-land"), that mysterious cradle of the human
race lying far to the East. "Our whole host and its great
pilgrimage," so reads the story, "was only a wave in the eternal
stream of the human spirit towards the East, towards
Home(2]." But our attention is immediately drawn here to the
fact that this East (or Morgen/and) cannot be simply fixed in the
spatial or geographic sense. We see too the desire to return
into earlier times in history, and the effort to seek out figures
from fairy tales and poetry. In an enchanting and yet confusing
PROBLEM OF REJUVENATION 29
manner, even dearly cherished figures from Hesse's own earlier
works, such as the ferryman Vaseduva and the painter Kling-
sor, are woven into the fantastic fabric of the tale. What then is
this East, which is sought in the poetic work and which is
nevertheless clearly not entirely found? If we might risk a most
simple formulation we can perhaps say: the hidden, essential
origin of the human soul, to be sought beyond space and time in
the soul itself. We may perhaps also in this way comprehend
the hint: "For our goal was not only the East, or rather the East
was not only a country and something geographical, but it was
the home and youth of the soul, it was everywhere and no-
where, it was the union of all times(3]." It is inherent to the
possibilities and at the same time to the task of the human
being, when he has become unfortunate under the burden of a
miscarried life, a life slipping away from his own governance, to
turn back and to begin anew. That is generally the romantic way
back, the way inward, the way home, which Hesse has at-
tempted to pursue, in ever new approaches, already since his
earliest works.
Thus the Journey to the East, and fundamentally this is true of
the whole of Hesse's work, stands in connection with that great
spiritual movement, which we have, since Rousseau, come to
characterize as culture-critique, as an expression of that deeply
rooted yearning of the human being, to turn back from the
benumbed and degenerate forms of culture to a pure and
unfalsified natural state. Even the depiction of our time as a
"journalistic epoch," developed in The Glass Bead Game from
a fictional, retrospective viewpoint, is a clear expression of this
attitude.
This culture-critique, as it was passionately taken up in its
time by the youth movement, has today become largely suspect.
Some point out, with justification, that the human being is
essentially a cultural being, who can never escape from culture
without surrendering his essence, and that the so-called Nature
is only a dream-image(4]. It can be readily conceded that many
critics of culture have indulged in just such a dream image,
quite alien to the world. In spite of this, however, this critique
of these often self-misconceived accompanying phenomena by
no means addresses the essence of culture-critique. And here
30 NEW BEGINNING
we may once again take up the clue of the Journey to the East.
This journey itself, originating on the threshold of old age, is
conceived as a backward glance at the youthful aspirations of
the poet. Thus arises perhaps the gentle sadness which perme-
ates this work. In the face of many errors, it is the reflection on
the deeper sense of this movement. In this connection we find
the clue, that the East is not something geographic, nor we must
add, is it anything which can be sought, in general, in space and
time. Rather, as the text shows, it is "the home and youth of the
soul," the "everywhere and nowhere," the "union of all times."
It is in this sense that I utilize the journey to the East as an
outward depiction of the return of the human being to his
essential origin. This can clearly not be attained through a
flight from the responsibilities of the present, or through the
necessarily futile attempt to reverse the course of history; rather
the return must be consummated within the individual human
being himself, within his most inward soul. Only here can the
"youth of the soul," the "blue iris blossom of childhood" be
found. That is the meaning of the Journey to the East.
I will speak of this task as one of rejuvenation. This usage
presumes much, which we can only fully justify later. Thus,
stimulated by the ideas of the Journey to the East, we have
taken the problem of rejuvenation as our topic. I have resolved
upon this theme only with hesitation, because in addressing it I
must address things which are difficult to grasp and which easily
present the danger of misunderstanding. Nevertheless, I believe
that they are decisively important things, which warrant ven-
turing out, on their account, even on a dimly lit path. Above all
else, this appears to me to be the task of the philosopher, to
attempt, even at the risk of foundering, to lift hidden depths
into the light.
I propose therefore, to display the problem of rejuvenation
from this side and from that, in whatever manner it first pre-
sents itself.
2. The Yearning for a New Youth
The possibility of rejuvenation is already an old dream of
mankind. The yearning to be able to become young again by
PROBLEM OF REJUVENATION 31
any means, is clearly deeply invested in the human being and
takes on manifold forms, legitimate and illegitimate. If we do
not take this as purely a dream, but rather wish to establish
rejuvenation as a deeply obligatory task ordained to the human
being, then we must first of all undertake a survey of the various
forms in which this yearning operates and attempt to distinguish
between the legitimate and the illegitimate.
One is the fear of old age. The aging human being sees his
strength dwindling, has to battle with the manifold ailments
brought on by age, and yearns for the state in which he still had
at his disposal the full powers of youth. Many student songs sing
of the good old student days, which have irretrievably vanished.
Above all for women, old age manifests often as the loss of
youthful beauty. The yearning for rejuvenation was certainly
expressed in the old fairy tale motif of the old wives' mill and
the wives' fountain. I recall in this regard Cranach's light-
hearted mocking representation of the old wives' fountain: On
the one side the old women effortfully drag themselves forward,
only to merge again on the other side in radiant, youthful
freshness.
Recently the fulfillment of this yearning by medical means
has seemed to move into the realm of possibility. Attempts
have been made, through glandular transplants and hormonal
influences, to delay the aging process, and even in part to
reverse it. Nevertheless we can disregard these still very prob-
lematic endeavors here. Further, I need merely touch on the
widespread present tendency, to mimic a youthful style in
clothing and manner, and so to conceal the true age-l call to
mind here the youthful grandmother and grandfather. These
tendencies have to do with a more or less successful attempt to
preserve youth or the appearance of youth, but not with a
rejuvenation in the authentic sense, that is, the return to an
already once relinquished starting point.
Another old fairy tale motif leads even deeper here: namely
that rejuvenation is connected with the condition, that one must
run through the entire previous life, with all of its errors and
mistakes, once again in exactly the same manner. In the face of
this condition, most of the characters concerned shrink back in
horror, and choose rather to renounce the possibility of rejuve-
32 NEW BEGINNING
nation. This suggests to us, that the yearning for rejuvenation at
the same time concerns something else, beyond mere outward
youth, that the desire is not simply to traverse one's life one
more time, but rather, to avoid the errors, to make up for one's
negligence, in short, to fulfill the new life better than in the first
attempt.
From the preceding we may already derive an important
viewpoint for the understanding of rejuvenation: It is not con-
cerned with any arbitrary going back in time to an earlier state
of development, whether in the life of the individual human
being, or in that of a people or a culture as a whole; thus it is not
concerned with the artificial preservation or re-establishment of
a past state. Thus one can also not characterize as rejuvenation
those instances when men, in old age, again become childlike or
even childish. Rather, rejuvenation involves a going back in
order to make a new attempt; thus, we must ask why human
beings have the need to go back in time, and why they perceive
this retrogression not as a relief, but rather as a moral task?
It is in this sense that I will attempt to attack the problem of
rejuvenation. In so doing I will allow myself to be guided by an
expectation which, in the recent course of philosophical anthro-
pology, has proven again and again to be fruitful: that the
human life should be conceived as a meaningful whole, in which
all individual features have to fulfill a necessary function and in
which they can therefore be understood as meaningful. In our
case that means: that the striving for rejuvenation cannot
simply be condemned as a faulty behavior, but rather, that it
has to fulfill a meaningful and necessary task within the whole
of life. This task may perhaps be often misunderstood and often
concealed by misguided modes of behavior, but we will never-
theless attempt for once to view this task and to work out its
true nature. The principle we have outlined is naturally merely
a presumption, a working hypothesis, which can be confirmed
only through the results. However, such presumptions have
repeatedly been shown to be fruitful, and we will approach the
question along its guiding thread.
PROBLEM OF REJUVENATION 33
3. The Possibilities for a New Beginning
I will attempt to bring myself closer to the goal in several steps,
beginning with the most simple and familiar phenomena possi-
ble, and gradually pushing on to those which are more intricate
and opaque. Within the puzzling concept of rejuvenation we
encounter the kindred but simpler concept of the new begin-
ning. It seems to belong to the nature of the human life, that it
does not proceed as a unitary and continuous process of prog-
ress and development, but rather, must run through successive
and distinct phases, which are separated from one another by
breaks, and according to which life from time to time com-
mences again with a new beginning. I will mention only a few of
these possibilities, such as the entry into school, the passage
into a new class, the beginning of university studies, the com-
mencement of a new profession, the entrance into a marriage,
the move into a new dwelling, etc. With increasing age, that is,
with the progressive consolidation of life, these breaks seem to
become more rare, although the question nevertheless arises,
whether they do not even here maintain their function, and thus
should be under some circumstances consciously induced and
promoted, and whether even the transition to so-called retire-
ment should not be conceived as such a new beginning.
In each case the new beginning, when it is properly carried
out, is a fortunate experience. Everything which in the earlier
period of life had oppressed the individual has, as it were, fallen
away, and the soul strains itself expectantly and moves joyfully
toward the new life-possibilities. When a life-crisis is concluded,
the new epoch begins not as a simple continuation, but rather
with a new impulse, one wants almost to say: with an inward
rejuvenation.
That holds true not only for the beginnings of the great
periods of life, but also even for the small segments of everyday
life, for every work which we undertake anew, for every white
sheet of paper which we hesitantly begin to cover with writing,
and in the most pleasurable way for the recovery following a
long-suffered illness or for the first vacation day in the coun-
tryside. It is certainly not necessary here to pile example upon
example.
34 NEW BEGINNING
In earlier periods in the development of human-kind, and to
a certain extent even today, the new beginning of a decisive
life-epoch was perceived as such a strong break, that it hardly
even seemed to be the same human being who entered into the
new phase, that rather the previous man must have died and a
new one been born. In the initiation rites of many primitive
peoples this conception plays a large role. Even baptism is in its
symbolic meaning a submergence and a re-emergence out of the
water. Frequently this new birth is also expressed in a new
name, which the involved person keeps in his new station (the
monk's name, etc.). Thus the master wood carvers of Japan
could change their names many times in life.
Herman Hesse has expressed the experience of the new
beginning, in poetic form, in one of his late poems. In the poem
"Steps," we find:
And within every beginning there dwells a magic,
which shelters us, and helps us to live[5].
The word "magic" appears to be chosen with intent. In fact the
individual feels himself carried forward, by a "pull" resembling
magical connections, as out of the new beginning there arises at
the same time a new power.
In this connection, further, we may refer to a deeply thought-
ful passage from Hugo von Hoffmannsthal's "Schwierigem."
Antoinette remarks: "An old married couple has after all a way
with one another. One does not disturb that." Hechingen, who
comes to her as "one who is different, one transformed,"
replies to her: "All of that makes no difference. Here are you
and I, and everthing begins again afresh," and after this is
rejected he repeats once again, in a fundamental sharpening:
"The whole of life is an eternal beginning again[ 6]."
With this we have arrived at a decisive point: In contrast to
that fatigued and resigned viewpoint, which states that life
stiffens into rigid habits, and that failures, once transpired, can
never again be brought in order, we find emphasized here, that
the human being has the possibility, in a miscarried situation, to
begin anew. To put this more sharply: within this possibility of
ever recurring new beginnings lies the essential mystery of life:
PROBLEM OF REJUVENATION 35
"The whole of life is an eternal beginning again." Further, this
mystery is alive only within the resolutely seized possibility of
the new beginning.
Thereby we have reached a fundamentally new posing of the
question. The problem of beginning again is related not only to
the great and distinct phases of life; it is not concerned merely
with new and higher stages which should be arrived at after the
traversing of the earlier stages. Rather, it concerns an ever
newly re-consummated capacity for living, in which a miscarried
development may be recalled, and life commences anew at an
earlier point in time, even prior to the mis-development. The
new beginning now no longer means the taking over of a new
task in the continuing line of progressive movement, but rather
the going back in time, in order to take up once again what was
earlier begun. In this sense we will begin to pose our questions
once again.
4. The Correction of the Error
To what extent then is it possible to correct an error, once it has
been committed? I will begin again with a couple of entirely
simple examples which can help us precisely by their simplicity.
When someone has made an error in a mathematical problem,
he strikes out the previous calculations and begins from the
start. That becomes necessary especially when one does not
know precisely at which point the error has occurred, and
therefore the entire calculation must be run through one more
time, step by step. Such errors in reckoning come about as a
result of human negligence; but fortunately there exists here the
possibility of beginning again without further ado, from the
start. With other errors, such as with an insulting remark, this
possibility does not exist; but it does appear to exist throughout
the entire region of manual and technical production (if one
disregards the wasted material and the lost time).
In all of these cases the error need not be made. It occurs
only accidentally through human weakness. In principle it
would have been avoidable, but after it has once been made,
one can reverse it by beginning anew. Indeed one can even
hope to learn from errors and not to make them again in the
36 NEW BEGINNING
, PROBLEM OF REJUVENATION
future. In this sense one can even say that the errors committed
have also had a meaning.
Similar and more difficult situations arise in ethical life. This
can be the case in various ways, so to speak, at different degrees
of depth. First of all, there is the specific, ascertainable error; in
this case the person involved must attempt, if possible, to make
the error good again. Very soon one runs into the difficulties
inherent in such efforts to "make things good again" (as in the
above mentioned instance of an insulting comment). Going
beyond this example, however, the entire life of a man can be in
such disorder that he has no other alternative, in getting
through a difficult crisis, but to make a sharp break with his
previous life and "make a new life for himself" (as we so often
hear it said). The release of a convicted criminal may be a
drastic example of this. The individual, with all of his good
resolutions, makes a new beginning, and the less he is burdened
in this undertaking by his previous life, the better this new
beginning will succeed.
Even in these cases we are dealing with avoidable errors,
unless one wishes to say that, in general, the susceptibility to
such errors is founded in the weakness of human life. Even here
the possibility of beginning anew exists, even if it is difficult to
entirely escape the burden created by the earlier errors.
In his work, Schwierigen, von Hoffmannsthal writes that the
whole of life is an eternal beginning again. This does not imply
that the human being in his life makes particular errors which
are recognizable as such, which would in any case be avoidable,
and which would thus in this sense ultimately remain accidental.
Rather, this passage suggests that it is inherent in the essential
nature of the human being, that his life slips away from him,
and that he must, in ever renewed exertions, repeatedly
struggle to appropriate it. In this sense an individual only
possesses his life when in every moment he tears it back again
from its escape, and thus can realize his life only through this
ever renewed exertion.
If we characterize this process-in which the life of a man slips
away from him, in which rigid habits take the place of an every
renewed living and in which the life thus becomes rigid and
congealed-as the process of aging and in the extreme case as
37
senility, then it follows that the task of each human being is to
stand firm against this process of rigidification, and, by explicit
efforts, to win back again the original vitality of the life. Ac-
cordingly we may characterize this task as rejuvenation. In this
sense, rejuvenation, as a possibility and as a task, belongs
essentially and necessarily to the nature of the human life. Thus
rejuvenation proves to be the ultimate and most radical form of
the new beginning. At this point we will now begin again for the
last time.
5. The Deeper Problem
First of all I will summarize once more, in order that we not lose
sight of the question we have posed: We understand under
rejuvenation not the more or less productive attempts to slow
down, to stop, or even to reverse the biological process of
aging. Likewise we disregard the attempts to deliberately pre-
serve a youthful life-style, and, in old age, to mimic artificially
this youthful impression. These tendencies are expressed in
many currents of our times. The critique of these unnatural
attempts would be a rewarding task, but it does not belong in
the present context. The rejuvenation of which we speak has
nothing to do with the effort to flee from the aging process; it is
rather completely compatible with a conscious affirmation of
maturation and aging. In fact it seems to me that the conscious
and fruitful transition into old age actually provides a special
opportunity and confirmation of this rejuvenation process.
By rejuvenation rather, I mean the achievement-through an
explicit ethical exertion-of a return to an inward youth, that is,
to the timelessly conceived essential origin of the human being.
In this return it is not the positively understood maturation
process which is supposed to be reversed, but rather only the
negatively judged misdevelopments. Our concern therefore, is
that miscarried developments which distance the human being
from his true nature can be reversed; and the human being can
begin again from the start with new courage. What distinguishes
this process from the earlier examples, such as that of the
interrupted mathematical problem which is begun again from
the beginning, is that here the error is not avoidable, that rather
 T
38 NEW BEGINNING
the committing and reversing of errors belongs essentially to
human life and as such must be conceived as a meaningful
process. It would not be enough to say that the human being
learns only from his errors. We must comprehend more deeply
why that, which we here carelessly described as "error," be-
longs as a necessary and inevitable process to the nature of the
human life. In this sense we are once again led back to the
question: What does it signify for the human life, that it falls
again and again into the condition of an "existence in error," a
"miscarried existence," from which it must win itself back in a
direct countermovement?
It is best that we turn once again to culture-critique[?].
Because what is it, against which this critique directs itself?
Certainly not the fact that history develops in a forward direc-
tion; but rather that in the course of this development condi-
tions have arisen, which we characterize, in typically recurring
concepts, as coagulation, rigidification, and exteriorization.
These characterizations have in common that, in them, the true
vitality of life, the condition of living, however it is supposed to
be, has been lost. In opposition to these developments, the
younger generation rises up in a passionate attack and strives
for a rejuvenation ()f culture. The corresponding principle
clearly holds as well for the life of the individual human being.
It appears to belong to the nature of life, to solidify and then, in
battle against this solidification, to re-establish its own true
nature, and, indeed, in a genuine sense to have to actualize it
for the first time.
6. The Battle Against Habit and Fatigue
We will attempt once again, in a step-by-step fashion, to
define this process more closely. First of all, what is involved is a
confrontation with habits. In every life habits form. Under
habit we understand the state of affairs, in which a mode of
behavior tried out earlier is so often repeated in a new and
appropriate situation, that it no longer requires a new decision;
rather, the present behavior flows as though spontaneously in
the course marked out by the earlier behavior. These habits
signify a meaningful and necessary capacity of life. Through
PROBLEM OF REJUVENATION 39
them the life gains a stability, and only they make possible a
forward progress; because habits permit simple capacities, in a
certain measure, to become automatized, so that new and
higher capacities may be built up upon them.
In the domain of social and community life, habits find their
equivalents in the morals, customs, and in general the institu-
tions which fix the behavior of the individual into definite
"behavior-models." This too is a meaningful and necessary
process, because a regulated, human, community life is only
possible on this basis. It would thus be completely misguided to
wish to disavow this process.
In spite of this, there is a great danger in habits-whether
habits develop immediately in the individual life or whether
traditions form in collective life and have an impact on the
individual-because in habits the freshness of life is lost. For
simplicity's sake I will restrict myself for the present to the life
of the individual, even though these considerations can largely
be carried over to the effects of social conventions.
The automatized life is always poorer in living. Therefore the
development of habits is only meaningful as long as, by lighten-
ing the burden, they make room for new tasks. Wherever these
new tasks are absent, however, or are not taken up in a living
manner, life ebbs into the equilibrium of habits. That is one side
of the aging process, which as such has very little to do with
biological aging. Thus it becomes necessary to interrupt habits
and ever again to wage combat against them, wherever they
have led to a diminishment of the intensity of life. We call to
mind Rousseau, who in Emile, in a perhaps exaggerated fash-
ion, sought to hinder the formation of rigid habits.
Vacation times already form one suitable means for the
interruption of habits. Vacations release one, at least tempor-
arily, from the equilibrium of one's workaday existence. For
this it is usually not sufficient to remain at home, however much
this might suffice for a mere resting up from work. Rather, a
change of residence during the vacation proves expedient, in
order to release one entirely from the habits of domestic life.
This enables us to understand the inner necessity of the vaca-
tion trip. Thomas Mann, in his Magic Mountain, has shown
beautifully how a change of place operates as a rejuvenation of
 T
40 NEW BEGINNING
time-consciousness-and that means as a rejuvenation of the
human being in general. Filled with fresh experiential content,
those hours which, in their customary course, have shrunken
together into a hurried sequence, once again may expand forth
in their full compass.
Secondly, we may recollect here that life cannot consistently
sustain its full exertion, that it tires again and again, and in this
condition of exhaustion lags behind its own possibilities. After
many futile efforts the human being resigns himself and allows
things to take their course. Therefore, ever renewed urgings are
necessary to muster one's energies. once again and to make up
for that, which one long ago should have done. In the life of a
child, the admonitions of parents and educators serve this
purpose. However, the life of the adult human being also
requires such urgings-originating outside oneself-because it
rarely happens that a man spontaneously and on his own
becomes conscious of his lagging. Often it is the encouraging
word of a friend which enables one to take courage. Mostly,
however, it is bitter life-experiences which startle one out of an
ever more weary stagnation and force one to a new beginning.
This then is the function of the difficult life crisis.
This, however, points to a wider context which I may intro-
duce here as a third viewpoint. We have begun by asserting that
it is the nature of the human life, that it can unfold itself only by
objectifying itself in rigid forms, and exteriorizing itself in this
way. It also appears, however, that this process of structuration
and self-structuration, this developmental process of the life,
cannot be built up in a constant, step-wise fashion, nor can it be
achieved in a gradual, progressive achievement. Rather, it can
be actualized only through ever renewed intiatives. It appears
that every development of life is, in germ, at the same time a
mis-development. Within every expression-and a life can
realize itself only in such an expression-there is already at the
same time also a falsification of what is therein expressed.
Every structuration not only remains lagging behind what it
intends, but rather, at the same time also produces results other
than those originally intended. Every formation of life is at the
same time a rigidification, in which the life stiffens and which
must therefore again be abandoned, in order to set free the
PROBLEM OF REJUVENATION 41
original vitality of the life. Thus the human being must again
and again surrender what he has attained, in order to begin
again. Only in this context does the problem of the new begin-
ning disclose its ultimate depths: We come in this manner to
recognize, that the forms one is forced to retrace have not in
any.simple sense been misguided; but rather, that they lead one
forward, insofar as they make possible-in the new intiative-a
correction and thereby also a higher-leading achievement,
which would not have been possible without the earlier steps.
Only in this back and forth, in this returning and new begin-
ning, is the deepest power of living set free within the human
being.
Thus arises the task, in the face of all miscarried efforts and
all forms of rigidification, of turning back to a new beginning
and to a new primordiality of living. We characterize this as the
task of rejuvenation, to be achieved through the conscious
exertions of a human being. The abandoned forms of the
degenerate life, of the life eluding one's grasp, are in this regard
not avoidable errors; rather they are the resistance against
which the movement back to the source must push and through
which alone that movement can be actualized. They are at the
same time the material with which the new constructive effort
must work. The rigidification of all achieved structurations is
thus the price to which the self-unfolding and enhancement of
life are necessarily bound, and the rigidification should be
understood in this context.
7. The Origin as Essential Origin
In the foregoing, however, an inadmissable presupposition has
still been made, or, at the very least, an intrusive idea has not
been explicitly rejected. The kindred concepts of the self-
developing habit, of fatigue, or of rigidification, clearly suggest
the conception that the condition of primordial life-freshness
has already once, in the beginning, actually existed. Many
processes within the life of the individual human being can
actually be conceived this way. However, what can be traced in
this fashion is the emergence of particular habits, particular
rigidifications, and particular mis-developments. These observ-
 T
42 NEW BEGINNING
able, particular sequences of events, however, should not mis-
lead one to carry over this image to the human being as a whole,
and to expect, even here, to come to a beginning, at which point
the misguided development first began. We may very well trace
the emergence of particular habits but not the emergence of
anything like habit in general. Rather, as far back as we are able
to go, we find the human being always already to be a slave to
his habits, embedded in an alienated conventional life, and thus
in a general state of confinement by habit. Thus Dewey showed
profound insight when, in his analysis of human nature, he
began with habit as the elementary given.
Let us set aside here the question of the newborn child in
which such a beginning does indeed appear to exist. Concerning
the young infant we know very little and in any case certainly
not enough to draw it into our reflections. Already on method-
ological grounds we can understand the child only from the
standpoint of the adult and never the inverse. Moreover, the
infant always lives only in the harmony with its parents and its
environment, which is already characterized by the condition of
alienated life. The radiant picture of bodily youth should not
disguise from us the fact that, in the spiritual sense, human
beings come old into the world, and must first acquire their
youth. They must first of all break through the entire tangled
mess of handed down life-forms, in order to attain to that life
which is most their own. In this context we must think through
the problem of puberty but also rethink the later life-crises.
Let us take the human being, whether younger or older, as he
finds himself in his life. Inward youth is, even with the younger
man, something given first of all as a task. It does not come to
him as a gift from the gods but rather must first be acquired.
Since only the strongest natures succeed in this acquisition
under their own power, education--or more broadly
upbringing-is necessary. This is alluded to by the profound
maxim of Herder: "To re-establish in education the youth of
the human soul! Oh, what a task[8]." It is not only the aging
man who has the task of actualizing his yout" again and again
along the path of restoration; rather, even for the young man
spiritual youth can be attained only on the path of restoration.
We must therefore ask: How can one speak of a "restoration"
PROBLEM OF REJUVENATION 43
of something, which at least in the temporal sense has never
previously existed?
. Here pe~haps a certain analogy to an existential-philosophical
mterpretatwn may lead further: Within the existential view-
point the authenticity of existence can be wrestled back only
subsequently to the always already present "fallenness," and
the inau~henticity of human existence precedes the authenticity,
at least m the temporal sense. So too here the vitality of life is
not something which had ever existed in the beginning, but
rather something which must be won back, in an explicit effort,
from the already present rigidification of life. The anthro-
pological thesis would thus state: Human life is constituted in
such a way that it must actualize its youthful freshness and
vitality for the first time in a return to its origin, in opposition to
a pre-given condition of rigidification in habits. Only through
this retrogressive movement, which must constantly be re-
peated, can it for the first time achieve its true inward youth.
This analogy to existential-philosophical ideas was intended
only as an illustrative hint. The inward youth mentioned here is
not the same thing as the authentic existence in the sense of
existential philosophy. To establish this distinction in detail,
would lead us too far afield here. We must at least, however,
emphasize a distinction here over against the most simplistic
existential-philosophical interpretation: This turning back is not
necessary in the same way in every moment; and even if it must
again and again be undertaken anew, there are nevertheless
certain recurrent moments, or crisis events in the human life,
which force the individual to such a turning back. These are
individual processes corresponding to the times of renaissance
which occur in the course of collective history.
Nevertheless a difficult question remains: If we are to under-
stand this return to the source, assigned as a task for the human
being, in a timeless sense, and if this primordiality lies before
him as a goal, why then do we speak of a return? Why do we
elucidate this process as a turning back to a past, temporal
condit~on? Within this question we plainly encounter a deeper
~eces.stty, Because although the human being always already
hves m the condition of habits and rigidifications, nevertheless
every particular rigidification is a process occurring with and in
44 NEW BEGINNING PROBLEM OF REJUVENA TJON 45

time and increasing with time, and the countermovement com- When we look back from this point at the already traversed
batting this process necessarily has the character of resisting the course of our reflections, it seems to me that the presupposi-
stream of time. From this character arises the image of the tion, which at the outset we adopted only with great caution,
return which, when it is carried over to the collective condition has been confirmed: Namely that the concept of rejuvenation
of the human being, should be understood only allegorically. concerns a decisively important characteristic of human life,
Linguistically, one cannot express this in any other way; but without which this life cannot be adequately comprehended.
along with this vividness, the image at the same time also carries Human life is constituted in such a way that it can be sustained
a temptation to comprehend the timeless, existential occur- and further developed only along the path of an ever renewed
rence as a temporal process, and one must again and again turn rejuvenation and only in the continuing battle against rigidifica-
away from this effort into a renewed reflection. tion. This principle at the same time determines the deeply
responsible task before which we all stand in our lives.
8. Rejuvenation as a Task
This conclusion can be formulated even more sharply. If we
characterize the process, in which one's life escapes one's grasp,
as rigidification or solidification, then we recognize how inti-
mately this is all connected with the problem of death. Because
the rigid is also the dead, and life is, insofar as it structures
itself, an ever continuing dying. Dying is not only the final
closing, which approaches life only once, at some distant point
in time; rather dying occurs everywhere, wherever life escapes
into rigidification. It occurs necessarily in every moment. The
young Rilke has viewed it in this way, when, in the "White
Princess," he says:

When someone dies, not that alone is death

Death is, when one lives and knows it not
Death is, when one cannot die at ali-
In us daily are dying and birth[9].
Thus in every moment life consists of a dying and being born
again. Only we should not conceive this process in the romantic
sense of a purely organic becoming and perishing. What distin-
guishes the human situation from a purely natural event is that
the re-birth does not spontaneously occur, but rather, must first
be wrested away by the individual, in ever renewed efforts,
from the deathly rigidification. For the human being the
remaining-young and the becoming-vital-again are a task,
which endows his life with a lasting responsibility: rejuvenation,
as a task to be accomplished ever anew.

CHAPTER III
Old Age
1. The Task of a "Gerontagogy"
It is one of the prominent features of our time, that as a
consequence of progress in medicine, human beings live longer
on the average than just a few decades ago, and that as a result
the proportion of older people in the total population steadily
increases. Scientists have spoken, with a minimum of respect,
of a "senilification" of the general population. This phenome-
non poses special problems and challenges. The difficulties are
multiplied by the fact that today's small families, with their
equally small homes, are no longer able to take in these older
people, something that was taken for granted as natural in the
large extended families of earlier generations. Along with this is
the added and final difficulty, that the medical arts are often
able to preserve the corporeal life of the human being, but are
not in the same measure able to guard against the deterioration
of the mental faculties. The result is that older people today
have much more frequently than in earlier generations become
"queer" and eccentric. Thus often-even when the greatest
good intentions exist-they cannot be taken in and cared for by
these same families, now smaller and living in smaller homes.
The care for the older person thus becomes a problem of
steadily increasing importance.
This problem also arises from other standpoints. So long as
we are concerned merely with economic security, the problem
can essentially be solved by the various modern forms of bene-
fits for the aged. Much more difficult is the question of provid-
ing accomodations, and, when it becomes necessary, daily care.
OLD AGE 47
The growing number of homes for the aged is the expression of
this need, and in spite of this, they still do not in the least
suffice. On the medical side these questions led already several
decades ago to the formation of gerontology, that is, the science
of the corporeal dimensions of aging, in order to assist the
human being with the health-related infirmities of aging.
Further, the importance of the mental domain was recognized
as well, especially in the "homes for the aged," and particularly
the need for entertainment and diversions for these aged per-
sons. All of this is important. And yet this still does not suffice,
because beyond these areas there lies another and deeper
difficulty. Namely, it is not enough to lighten the maladies of
aging for these persons through medical help, and to distract
them from their suffering through occasional conversations and
entertainment. Rather, what is necessary is to genuinely help
them to come to terms with, and to reach closure on their aging,
in a proper and meaningful manner. That is a task for edu-
cation.
Thus an entirely new task arises for education, for which I
would like to propose the name, gerontagogics, that is, the
science of the education of the aging human being. One could
naturally object to such an articulation of the task, and declare
that it is nonsensical to speak of education at all for such aging
persons, because one can only educate young and formable
human beings, whereas the old are already finished in their
development, already almost rigid, and therefore no longer
educable. One can at best still care for them in a custodial
fashion. Our answer to this is that to proceed in such fashion
would betray the essence of the task posed for us by these aging
human beings. We are not dealing with a simple task of reliev-
ing their suffering, in bodily as well as mental aspects. Rather,
we are challenged much more deeply, to lead the elderly
themselves to an authentic confrontation with their aging, and
to a meaningful fulfillment of the possibilities inherent in aging.
This task goes beyond all medical care, as well as beyond any
psychological consolation. This is a genuine educational task,
which one must take up in all humility, considering that the
elderly themselves have not yet been able to conclude the task.
Indeed, it may even be, that a certain distance and considerable
48 OLDAGE
expert knowledge are necessary for this task. Moreover there
can be no objections raised against this concept, because the
scope of pedagogy was long ago extended beyond the area of
the education of children. Adult education and criminal peda-
gogy, for example, have long included the adult human being,
and we must now extend the line of these developments to this
final phase in the life-development of the human being. One
calls to mind in this context, that already Comenius concluded
his "Pampaedia" with an explicit "School for the Aged[l],"
although he did not intend by this a concrete educator, but
rather understood the whole of life as a schoo1[2).
2. The Proper Fulfillment and Perfection of Aging
This task of a gerantogogics, however, presupposes first a clear
picture of aging, and of the possibilities inherent in aging. It is
not enough to view old age in the negative sense, from the
standpoint of its infirmities, and to search for their remedy.
Rather, we must first of all come in a positive sense to recognize
aging in its own nature, as it can be and should be. We need a
clear image of aging, in order to properly address all help-and
as we have said already, all education-to this aging. We need a
psychology, and beyond that an anthropology, of old age.
In this regard we take notice of the remarkable fact, that such
a psychology of old age is still lacking, although a corresponding
psychology of childhood and youth was developed decades ago.
The reasons for the absence of a special psychology of aging can
be explained rather easily. The first is of a practical nature, and
shows how strongly the direction of scientific research is in-
fluenced by the immediate necessities of life. Children must go
to school. In the everyday life of the schools the peculiar nature
of the mental life of children, diverging so far from that of
adults, acts as an obstacle, which interferes with the direct
transfer of expectations and attitudes based on adults, and
forces the educator to a reflection on the unique properties of
the child's soul. Elderly people, however, do not go to school,
and until now there has been no institution in our cultural life,
in which old age as a whole comes into view. This fact is only
OLD AGE 49
today beginning to alter, through the increasing importance of
care for the aged.
The second reason depends more deeply on the influence of
traditional habits of thought. We are even now accustomed to
regard the mental life of "adult" human beings as normal.
Fortunately the naive viewpoint-widely held until the enlight-
enment-has now been overcome, which held that children
were simply as yet undeveloped "little adults," and could only
be distinguished from adults through their lesser capacities for
achievement. It has now been recognized that childhood, as a
separate stage of life, has its own inner lawfulness, with its own
form of perfection and its own beauty, none of which can be
comprehended in the terms of adult life. But until recently it
had not occured to anyone to apply this same point of view to
the later stages of life. We were left with an undifferentiated
image of the adult, which remained the object of psychology,
and the elderly person was viewed merely as a withered down
version of the adult, distinguished only by his or her age related
signs of deterioration.
In contrast to this, it is now necessary to carry out a funda-
mental inversion of this image. We must no longer measure old
age by the standards of a "normal" human being of the middle
years of life, in comparison to whom the aged seem only to be
distinguished by diminished bodily capacities and greater men-
tal susceptibility. Rather, we must now consider the aged first of
all in their own nature, and seek after their own inherent
perfection, grounded in that nature. Further, we must ask from
this standpoint whether that which upon a superficial viewing
may appear as mere deficiency can be understood perhaps,
under deeper reflection, as an expression of the inherent fulfill-
ment of the aged.
Such a new point of view rests on the foundation of a
conception of human life-development, which disavows the
simple model of an ascent to a certain height, followed by a
decline. Rather, the new point of view regards the succession of
ages in a man's life, from childhood through old age, as a series
of structural transformations, involving forms which are qual-
itatively different in nature, yet fundamentally equal in worth.
50 OLD AGE
In no specific phase does the human life achieve its greatest
height; rather only in the full traversing of all of the different
phases does it reveal its full richness. And what is true for
childhood holds equally true of old age: it is no less perfect and
complete, rather merely different than the middle life years.
This is the classical-romantic idea of the "inherent worth of
the stages" within any continuous "organic development,"
which is finally applied here to the last phase of the human life,
and thus we will find support for these ideas first in the German
romantic authors. I refer to an excerpt from Arndt's "Fragments
Regarding the Formation of the Human Being," in which he
draws a deeply meaningful picture of old age. "Thus (the
children) lead you through the years of strength and on into the
quiet years of the second childhood, where the ripe fruit bows
low to the grave, and with grandchildren you begin to play once
again and to dream ... Thus the life cycle is closed gracefully,
and hope with its gentle hands draws together the two points of
the end and the beginning[3]." Though much of this may be
poetically glorified, and cannot be adopted without further ado
as established knowledge, nevertheless this quotation expresses
several ideas, which can be helpful for our further reflections.
The first is the idea of the circular course of life, in which the
phases alternate, without any one of them standing out as the
highest. There is at the same time the idea of the "second
childhood," in which old age comes once again into a certain
proximity and relatedness to childhood. Arndt sees this above
all in the relationship between the generations, in the special
closeness of grandparents to their grandchildren, insofar as they
are able to play with them in a free and unconstrained manner,
and are able to win their confidence more easily than are the
parents themselves. In fact, the relation of the grandparent to
the grandchild is entirely different than that of parent and child.
Nohl has pointed to these differing possibilities from the stand-
point of pedagogy. Perhaps we can learn something about the
nature of the older person, from his special relationship with
the child. But for now let us take these thoughts merely as a
hint, whose import we will establish only through a more exact
investigation of the essential features prominent in the older
human being.
OLD AGE 51
One additional idea will lead us farther in this direction.
What stands out first of all when we consider old age, are
certain disturbing manifestations of deficiency and defect. The
signs of reductions in both corporeal and mental capacities, of
the atrophy of organs, these are all facts, which one must look
honestly in the face, and which cannot simply be interpreted
away. In spite of this, let us-with all foresight and merely as a
heuristic principle for interpretation-risk a supposition which
has proven so fruitful at other places in philosophical anthropol-
ogy: That is, that all of the phenomena of human life can be
conceived as meaningful and necessary members of a larger
whole. Thus we can ask here, whether perhaps that which we
encounter in the phenomena of old age as burdensome weak-
nesses, may with closer consideration at the same time reveal a
good sense, and prove to be an expression of the unique merit
and priority of old age.
I found these ideas confirmed in the deeply thoughtful and
unfortunately almost unknown book of Eugene Minkowski,
Verse une Cosmologie. In this book the author, standing himself
at that time on the threshold of the 50th year of life, inquired
whether signs of an increasing weakness in memory, which he
had perceived as a painful hindrance in his scientific work,
might not perhaps at the same time be the expression of an
advantage, making possible a new and positive capacity? He
based this on the fact, that his thinking, freed from the con-
stricting burden of memory, was now for the first time freely
able to unfold in its creative possibilities. Minkowski saw this
capacity-made possible through aging, or at least made easier
by aging-in inspiration and imagination. He also expressed
himself as follows, that the thinking of the elderly has become
·:more contemplative," opened up to a freer mode of thinking,
liberated from fixed purpose. Thus he emphasized, that think-
ing, liberated from the force of habits, can take things back
once again into their primal condition, and is thereby in a
position to allow a new vision to arise. He emphasizes: "Simul-
taneously thinking seems as though freed from acquired know-
ledge, in that it escapes the chains of the past, spontaneously
ascending higher, as though from a virginal earth, in order to
bring forth what is unsaid[4]."
52 OLDAGE
3. Essential Features of Old Age
In seeking the essential nature of old age, if one wishes to avoid
the contingency of one's individual point of departure, then at
best one should proceed from those features, which have been
emphasized in popular consciousness and which have in part
been crystallized in the form of proverbial phrases. In doing so
it becomes immediately evident, that these sayings emphasize
many highly divergent and often quite contradictory features of
old age. One could speak in fact of a bright and a dark image of
old age; and one could connect this difference, at least in part,
with the perspective from which the proverbs originally arose:
(a) whether it is the older human beings themselves who con-
front their condition in the proverb, (b) whether from a great
distance and externally there emerges an image of the aged
eminence worthy of dignity, or (c) whether in the narrow
confines of the common life of families the special qualities of
the aged are experienced as disturbing.
One series of qualities, which one typically emphasizes in
older people, concerns their cheerful serenity, clarity, and
self-possession, their reflective wisdom and their great good-
ness. According to this conception the older human beings have
gone beyond the "follies of youth." With age they increase both
their experience and their general reason (We understand
by reason the capacity for a quietly reflective, tempe~ate, and
balanced thinking, devoid of any one sided exaggeration). We
recognize the high esteem for the wisdom and experience of the
aged in history, reflected in the typically recurring institutions
by which society has sought to utilize this wisdom and experi-
ence fruitfully for the life of the community. The "gerusia" of
Athens and the Senate of the Romans reveal already by their
names, that we are encountering institutions established around
older human beings. What is important in this regard is the
special function of these institutions in the collective life: It is
that of advice and counsel, which old age can still fulfill, even
when it no longer carries responsibilities in active life. The good
functioning of the life of the community rests on the proper
equilibrium between the forward pressure of youth and the
retarding counsel of the elders. Both are necessary in the same
OLD AGE 53
measure, if the balance is not to be tipped at different times now
to one side and now to the other.
In any case one dare not without second thoughts accept the
value of the greater peace and clarity as merits of aging. Much
of this is merely the result of a cooled down emotional respon-
siveness and of a decreasing vitality in general. On the other
hand cheerful serenity is not the self-evident natural condition
of the aged; on the contrary, mistrust and irritability and in
general a sullen and sulky basic mood are also common. Further,
as the proverb says, "the old are not immune to folly," and
greedy and lecherous old men have been the object of righteous
ridicule since the story of the "bathing Suzanne." Thus, here
too, a deeply ambivalent image of aging emerges.
The second of the often emphasized features of old age is the
goodness of the elderly, their loving and understanding attitude
toward others, especially toward younger people. The intimate
relationship, already mentioned earlier, between grandparent
and grandchild, is an example of this. Whoever has himself
already endured the distressing confusions of life, and has
succeeded in growing beyond them, is in a good position to
understand another person in his difficulties and to help him
with them, and even to participate with selfless joy in the
other's joys and successes. Examples of this warm kindness are
well known to each of us from our own unforgettable personal
experiences. In spite of this, however, this kindness is also not a
self-evident essential feature for all old people. Beside the ever
boundless and manifest self-absorption, we see the decreasing
interest in the external world in general, which renders many
older persons indifferent to the joys and sorrows even of those
toward whom they are closest.
A further essential feature, prominent in proverbs, is the
talkativeness or verbosity of the elderly. In school we learned
the motto: "Senectus est loquacior" (senescence is loquacious).
Through this talkativeness the elderly often become a burden to
the young, who can only force themselves to patiently listen
with respectful consideration.
In particular, stories from their own youth are told over and
over again, with great prolixity. But here too it is important to
investigate the basis for this talkativeness. One reason certainly
54 OLD AGE
lies in the decline in concentration-the loosening of the tight
thread of organization and salience-which allows conversation
to digress into utter distraction. The elderly person has lost the
taut, future oriented relation to the world. He no longer has any
urgency, as though he lived in general with a completely differ-
ent feeling of time. Many of the difficulties occurring when
younger and older persons live together rest on their divergent
and qualitatively distinct feelings of time.
Another feature which often comes to the fore in the context
of this talkativeness, is the backward orientation of the older
human being to his own childhood and youth. In the same
measure in which the future loses its meaning, he turns toward
the past. While memory for recent events weakens so substan-
tially, that the older person often cannot remember what he has
done on the previous day, many long forgotten recollections
from childhood suddenly emerge. We know today that these
changes are connected with corporeal processes, but such a
causal viewpoint is not the essential one for achieving under-
standing. It is much more important to ask about the relation-
ships of meaning, which are made possible through these
processes: the new proximity to childhood, which we already
encountered in the romantic image of the elderly.
In order to round out the dark side of our portrayal, we must
still point to the the morbid mistrust of the older human being,
which may be connected in a characterological sense with his
helplessness (the same is true of the widespread trait of ava-
rice). Likewise we should emphasize the older person's limitless
absorption in the sensual pleasures of eating and drinking. All
of these things gain an importance which they had not had in
earlier years.
Thus, a very contradictory image of old age stands out when
we first interrogate the general experience of aging. The harmo-
nious image of a consummate perfection arrived at in old age
dissolves, and is replaced by painful and shocking features. On
what can we depend, if we are looking for the "true" nature of
aging? Up until now we have merely begun, in a tentative and
superficial fashion, to collect several of the outwardly obvious
features of aging. This makes it all the more urgent for us to
pursue a deeper, essential image of aging, which can serve to
OLDAGE 55
orient us, as we seek to understand and to evaluate the individ-
ual manifestations of aging. If we wish to escape the comfort-
less image of aging as a simple process of atrophy and disinte-
gration, how can we protect ourselves against falling prey to
mere illusions? How can we avoid projecting an idealized
image which will not stand up to the gruesome reality?
4. The Late Works of Aging Artists
When the observations of everyday life are ambiguous and
suggest contradictory interpretations, it seems to me there is
another way, which leads to more secure results. That is, to
proceed from the accomplishments of older human beings.
Further, this will best succeed if we examine the works of the
great artist, the painter, the poet, and even of the philosopher;
because here one has something solid on which the investiga-
tion can rely. Certainly these great human beings are excep-
tions, but one can recognize in their ultimate perfection those
same qualities which comprise the essential features of old age
in general. It is striking, how many works were created in the
old age of the great artists. Titian, for example, was more than
90 years old (in any case, as we customarily calculate his birth
date), when he created the sublime Munich "crown of thorns."
But once again, it is not enough for one merely to become
amazed, that the artists could "still" create such works at such
an age, or for one in a quantitative sense to trace the distribu-
tion of an artist's achievements at each stage in aging. If our
thesis of the intrinsic value of old age is to gain authority, then it
must be documented here. We must show that something new
emerge.s in the late works of aging artists, something which was
not yet accessible to men of lesser years. This something repre-
sents the unique contribution of old age to the consummate
fulfillment of humanity.
This all can only briefly be outlined here. For simplicity's
sake I will limit myself to examples from painting, although
precisely corresponding points can be documented in the other
arts as well, above all in poetry, but also in the later works of
philosophers. There is a typical style of old age, which stands
out in the same fashion in all artists, at least in those who have
56 OLDAGE
arrived at old age, but which also begins to develop already in
relatively earlier years in those artists, such as Rembrandt, who
do not survive to an exceptionally old age. We are not inter-
ested here in the aesthetic or art-historical viewpoint (you are
referred to Brinckmann's beautiful book for that point of view
[5]), but rather only in what we can deduce from this about the
nature of aging itself. In this context we must take up once
again several perhaps already familiar points.
The most obvious is perhaps the observation that in the late
works of painters, and in a typically recurrent manner, the fixed
contours of things and the distinct local colors dissolve, and
every particular detail makes way for a total treatment which
dissolves the particular into a continuous whole. The late Titian
or Tintoretto, and the late Rembrandt are impressive examples
of this, as is the late Corinth among the newer painters. Obvi-
ously this process produces the most extreme results in those
artists who had already tended toward a more "painterly" style,
but it can also be traced in general. Unfortunately we cannot
linger with particular examples, but rather must ask: What
does this style of old age signify as an essential expression of the
older human being?
One could perhaps define this process as follows: that in this
world of the late art-works the particular things lose their
accustomed firmness and definition, and that they now appear
only as the transient impressions of a dark background. The
surface becomes as it were transparent and behind it there
appears a mysterious depth. "Everything transient," as the then
aged Goethe expressed it, "is merely a likeness." One could
speak in a general sense of a religiosity of the aged, in which the
naive realism of an earlier stage dissolves.
If we go attentively through the great museums, then it is
precisely the works of the already aged artists, which especially
capture us. A special mystery emanates from them. What is it
that draws us to them? Is it that we trace in them the tragic
struggling of the artist, as his eyes fade and his hands are no
longer so certain, and we see how he nevertheless cannot let go
of his object? Such a humanely-sympathetic attitude is entirely
understandable, but it would in no case suffice to explain the
touching effect of these pictures, and for the most part we are
OLDAGE 57
not even aware of the difficulties the artists faced. It is rather a
new depth of the world which addresses us directly in these
works, and which becomes accessible to us in such penetrating
fashion only in these works.
Thus the question arises once again: How is the depth of
these works connected with the nature of aging? Here we are
led once again to Minkowski's initial question, whether that
which impresses us as the disadvantage of aging, the real
decline in physical capacities, may not at the same time serve as
the basis for the characteristic advantage of aging? In the fading
sharpness of the senses, in the decreasing vital energies, in the
altered time consciousness, in the reliquishment of any goal
directed orientation to the future, in all of this the human being
is released from his immediate relation to the world. But it
would be false to view this dissolution and release as a defect, as
a slowly commencing dwindling away. Rather on the contrary:
From the greater distance arises a new and deeper relationship
to the object; what is individual dwindles away, but by this very
fact the general becomes visible; the particular becomes a
symbol. A more spiritual world is established here.
When we look back from this point, we realize that what
became visible in the great works of aging artists is in fact the
nature of the attitude of old age itself; it is this which faces us
here so mysteriously and from the background. Only from this
standpoint can we comprehend what the wisdom of the aged
and the kindness of the aged actually mean. From here the path
leads further to the final stage in maturation, which Jean Paul
portrayed so incomparably in his "Primer for Life." It is finally
"that sublime position in old age:" where everything which
previously seemed significant loses its importance, where all
vanity has fallen away, and a new inner freedom once again
makes possible the joy in children and small things; and where
in Jean Paul's words, "the human being lives as though at the
pole: no star goes down, none goes up, the entire heavens stand
still and blink, only the pole star of the second world shimmers
steadily right above one's head [6]."
58 OLDAGE OLD AGE 59

understand the obvious contrast between the bright and the

5. Old Age as a Crisis dark features of aging.
But we must now be cautious and ask ourselves, whether we Let us tum back, however, to our opening question: What can
have projected a very unrealistic and glorified image of aging, one do, in order not merely to lighten the fate of older human
and whether the reality, as we confront it in so many unfortu- beings, but also to help them at the same time, to grasp the
nate and suffering older persons, in so much hopeless lamen- challenge of their aging in a positive sense as something great
tation, does not look entirely different. On the other hand we and beautiful? I hope that our reflections here have made a first
must reflect on the general anthropological significance of our step, by opening up a view of the intrinsic worth and the
investigations. We have sought to draw an image of old age, as inherent beauty of this old age-a view so sharply in contrast to
it can be and should be by virtue of its nature. The possibility of the prevailing view of aging as burdensome for oneself and
such fulfillment in old age is no illusion; this is proven by the others. The understanding of these worthwhile possibilities can
testimony of the late works of aging artists, as well as by the first of all assist the individual, when he reaches this point in
many venerable older persons whom we encounter in life. life, to confront his own aging. The broader problem, how one
Something else entirely is the question, in how many cases such can also help others, the task of a "gerontagogics," presupposes
a fulfillment in old age will actually be achieved? a vast experience and involvement with older persons. Much of
If one selects the image of an organic development as the this is already taking place, but it is also truly urgent that this
basis for understanding the course of the human life, then the problem be taken systematically into consideration from the
transition from one step to another is only possible through scientific standpoint.
crises. Not only do we see this in the familiar phenomena of
puberty in the course of becoming an adult; rather, there are
entirely analogous crises, but extending much longer in time, in
the course of becoming old. In one case just as in the other the
process of mental maturation is closely linked with physiologi-
cal processes. Here too we must distinguish between the terri-
ble effects of the aging crisis, and the authentic, essential
features of old age, which are only arrived at through navigating
this crisis. This implies nothing about how many older persons
actually achieve the consummateness of old age, which is possi-
ble for them. It is not only the difficult confrontation with
death, which comes ever closer, rather it is also the ever
increasing complaints, fading physical capacities, the increas-
ingly pressing pains, and the often severe mental impairments,
which constrict the scope of life ever more narrowly. Many of
these burdens are in fact overpowering. One may not close
one's eyes to this gruesome side of aging, if one wishes to attain
an honest understanding. There is a suspenseful battle between
the soul striving for fulfillment and the body which strives ever
more strongly against this end. The earlier unity of body and
soul begins to break up. It is this battle which enables us to

'

CHAPTER IV
The Death of Another Human Being
1. The Problem of Death
The problem of death remained entirely peripheral for much of
'•,
modern philosophy, and even seemed, in spite of its pressing
11,
i reality, not to exist at all. Only with the advent of existential
"' philosophy, with its thinking directed immediately to the needs
'•I
and difficulties of one's own life, has death been placed em-
I
phatically at the center point of philosophizing. The classical
presentations of existential philosophy introduced this problem-
atic, commencing with Simmel's significant initiative [1), and
developed further by Martin Heidegger (2), especially in his
principle work "Being and Time," in the famous chapter en-
titled: "The Possible Being as a Whole of Dasein and the Being
towards Death." A certain onesidedness quickly becomes evi-
dent, because Heidegger deals (as does existential philosophy
in general) exclusively with one's own death, which stands
inescapably at hand for every human being, and the threat of
which forces life into its most extreme resoluteness. In this
sense for Heidegger human existence is a being toward death.
The death of another human being, however, and especially of
another human being with whom one is intimately connected,
has still not been taken into consideration philosophically. Yet,
the death of another seems to me to present a problem of no
less significance, not only as the nameless pain, which assaults
those others who survive, but rather also as an experience
which is of decisive importance for the understanding of human
life as a whole.
In fact Heidegger also begins, in the chapter mentioned
THE DEATH OF ANOTHER 61
above, with the example of the dying of another human being.
However, he uses this only to elucidate the problem and bring it
into relief, in order in this fashion to clarify the problem of
death as he has viewed it-death as an ever threatening possi-
bility of one's own life, which cannot be comprehended through
the co-experiencing of another's dying. His investigation aims
from this point onward in an entirely different direction. Never-
theless, we must complete our first step along this path by
relying on the Heideggerian train of thought, in order to allow
our own diverging orientation to stand out more clearly.
Dying, as we encounter it in other human beings, so Heideg-
ger begins, seems to be a kind of "turning" from one mode of
being into another, namely from that of being-alive into that of
lifelessness. In spite of this, continues Heidegger, the lifeless-
ness brought about by death is different from the thing-ness of
other lifeless objects. This holds true even of dead animals. As
something "perished" the dead animal is related to the pre-
ceeding condition of vitality. It is a corpse, and even in the
animal corpse, the sense of "no-longer"is immediately evident,
in the sense of the relatedness to the earlier life. To the extent
that we feel ourselves connected even with life beyond human-
ity, we sense the dead animal as something that concerns us.
Irresistably we sense sympathy.
With a deceased human being, however, this sympathetic
bond takes on greater proportions. The "mortal remains" of
another human being are not merely things like other things,
rather they comprise the body left behind by this deceased,
which is handled with special piety, subjected to the cultivated
forms of a funeral, and then transferred to the grave, which is
itself tended with devoted love. Already Vico in his era sought
to define what is unique in the human being, by deriving the
Latin word "homo" from "humus," the ground; thus he sees
the human being as distinguished from the animal, in that only
man buries his dead in the earth.
But we will miss the problem, if we direct our attention only
to the corpse which remains behind, or to the permanent grave
to which the piety is transferred. What is decisive is rather the
privation, which the survivor has experienced through the
death of an intimately familiar human being. At this point
62 THE DEATH OF ANOTHER
questions must arise for us which will take us further. What
does this privation mean in the life of a survivor? At the decis-
ive point where Heidegger delineates his own train of thought,
focused sharply on existence as a "being toward death," he also
points out that the privation experienced at the death of
another human being is something fundamentally different
from the "privation of being" which the human being suffers in
his own death. This is undoubtedly true. In the dying of another
human being, a man does not experience that same privation of
his own existence, which is the focus of his fears in the face of
his own death. Thus he can only to a limited degree learn
anything from this experience about the confrontation with the
death which threatens his own existence. Nevertheless this
death of another-though it takes another form-should still be
understood as a genuine "privation of being," even though it is
not a privation of "the" being in the sense of one's own entire
existence in general. Rather, it is a privation of being as a grief
over one's inner nature and substance. It is our intent to
elaborate the sense of this inner privation of being.
2. Sympathy with the Dying of Another, and Being Touched
by Such a Death
Before we go into things more precisely, several preparatory
distinctions should be elaborated. The privation which the
human being experiences in the death of another, and the pain
which shakes him through and through, should not be confused
with the sympathy which affects him in the dying of another
human being when he is concretely present. The latter is a
sympathy, a sharing in the suffering of the dying individual and
an immediate empathy with his dying. This affects a person
even in the case of an entirely unfamiliar human being, in
whose dying he participates, even when he has not known him
previously at all and when his death cannot signify any loss in
his own life. This is based on the immediate empathy with the
suffering of that other life, even with the suffering of an animal,
although naturally the degree of being-affected is essentially
stronger with a personally and intimately familiar human being.
Thus we are distinguishing between sympathy with the dying
THE DEATH OF ANOTHER 63
and privation through the death of another human being. We
are concerned here only with the latter.
Nor are we concerned here with an existential terror at the
death of another human being, as for example is reported in the
legend of the enlightenment of the Buddha, or as is portrayed in
the fresco on the Campo Santo in Pisa, in the "legend of the
t?ree living a~d _of the three dead" (citing Rilke's descrip-
tton)[3]. The stgmficance of the Buddha's experience was that:
"The unknowing human being in everyday life, who is himself
after all subject to death, senses uneasiness, shame, and disgust
when he sees a dead human being, in that he makes the
practical application to himself: I too am subject to death.[4]"
The human being is affected here not by the fact that this
specific person has died-someone he has not even known and
consequently will not miss. Rather, it is the threat of death in
general which strikes here; the menace of his own death touches
the individual in this glimpse of the dead.
The privation and bereavement which I experience in the
de~th of an i~timately familiar human being is something else
entirely. In thts case the experiencing of the hour of death and
the viewing of the remaining corpse are neither decisive nor
even important, because they can contribute nothing at all to
the experience of loss and privation. The privation touches me
in the sa~e fas?ion, e~en if I h~ve not been present at all. Being
prese~t ~n an tmmedtate spatial sense has only a subjectively
mtenstfymg effect and can produce an upsetting of the entire
person which brings the loss all the more urgently to conscious-
ness. However, it can add nothing to that which comprises the
loss.
Here arises the question: What does this privation mean? We
do not ask merely in the immediate sense: What does this
specific loss mean in the life of this specific individual human
being? Rather, we ask about this in a general anthropological
sense: What does it mean for the understanding of human life in
general, that such privation and loss occurs in it?
3. Direct Testimony
If we wish to answer this question and in doing so wish by
 64 THE DEATH OF ANOTHER
means of a more circumspect procedure to avoid the dangers of
a premature or hastily subjective interpretation, then it is appro-
priate to proceed from direct testimony, from the statements of
human beings under the impact of a death touching them.
deeply. Among such testimony we include first of all the eye
witness reports of those directly concerned, in which they con-
front head on the fate of their bereavement, and-to the extent
to which they are capable in that moment-seek to clarify this
fate. We are reminded of Lessing's restrained words, in which
he expresses his consciousness of being left behind in a com-
pletely emptied out world: "I content myself, that there cannot
be many more such experiences in store for me, and then I rest
easy, "[5) that is, rest easy in the awareness that after such a loss
there is not much left to lose.
Or we may think of the remarks of Goethe, when he had
withdrawn for several weeks into the deepest solitude at Darn-
,, '
burger Castle, after the death of Duke Carl Augustus: "I
continue," so he writes, "through diligence and diversion to
soothe a painfully moved interior; echoes and reverberations
''I
I I will not leave me alone, and so one must seek to hold on;
I I because who would presume to be a match for such an event, as
I
I
has touched me[6)." Bred now views this statement in connec-
II:
tion with Goethe's warni-ng, directed at himself in the context of
!I
II:
I
his departure from Rome: "in every great separation there lies
a kernel of insanity; one must guard against reflectively brood-
i,, ['
II'
ing over and cultivating this kernel[?)." Thus intensive work is
'''I for Goethe the only thing enabling him to find consolation in
II: this situation, because it protects him from a complete inward
'I:
II:
disorder.
In contrast in other thinkers we encounter the warning, not to
suppress the pain, but rather to take it wholly on oneself, if it
touches on a metaphysical experience, even though it may also
be most painful. Here we think chiefly of Spranger's final essay
on metaphysical suffering, in which. after the death of his wife.
he confronts these most difficult experiences in a manly fashion,
and seeks to extract sense even from suffering, by interpreting it
as metaphysical homesickness. "To suppress genuine homesick-
ness," so he writes here, "is not possible. But it is also not right.
Because in homesickness something of nobility shines forth,
THE DEATH OF ANOTHER 65
that is, something of higher origin and of the most beautiful
refinement of the human soul[8)."
No less important, however, are the testimonies contained in
so-called condolence letters, that is, those attempts at a sym-
pathetic helping, which close friends attempt to render for those
touched by loss, and in which they wish to help them to reach
closure on their grief. Thus these are words of consolation and
encouragement in which friends undertake to interpret this
privation from their own perspective. Rilke knew better than
anyone how to write such understanding condolence letters. I
mention here just one, perhaps his most significant, the letter to
the Countess Sizzo, written on the feast of the three kings, in
1923. Such letters are not sympathy letters in the customary
sense. Rilke adamantly refused any desire to console, because,
so he emphasized, "all consolation is cheerless." Here he points
to the decisive point of this problem. Consolation is not a
matter simply of referring to the time which heals all wounds
and makes all burdens again forgotten. He emphasizes: "Time
itself does not 'console' at all, as one superficially says, at the
most it packs away and puts things in order." Rather, Rilke is
concerned with the precise opposite, with battling against
forgetfulness, and taking grief in its total gravity into one's life.
Thus Rilke raises the challenge which grief of this kind poses for
us. "Such a grief, the more deeply it confronts us and the more
violently it touches us, is that much more of a task, calling us to
take possession anew-differently and ultimately-of that
which was hopelessly lost. This then is an endless achievement,
which immediately overcomes everything negative, everything
saturated with pain, ... this is a more active and inward-
working pain, the only kind which has meaning and is worthy of
us[9)."
Thus far we are able to follow Rilke well and without reserva-
tions, but when he seeks to clarify this task of grieving further,
and expresses it as follows, "thus that which killed me, killed
me within my own heart, so to speak," then we will have to
tread more carefully. At this point he begins to develop his own
metaphysics of being-dead, in the context of his generally
formulated task of transmuting the visible into the invisible. We
are concerned here only with a purely anthropological analysis.
 66 THE DEATH OF ANOTHER
namely with the question, what such a death signifies in our life
on "this-side." In this regard we must leave aside not only
Rilke's metaphysical interpretations, but all metaphysical inter-
pretations of death, especially all ideas of a beyond, regarding
the possibility of a subsequent meeting or reunion after death,
as well as any ideas about an enduring personal presence of the
dead in life. The entire spheres of the history of religion and of
ethnology, with their abundant and profound testimonies, lie
outside the scope of our present investigation.
4. Forms of Bereavement
Thus we inquire simply, what is it that occurs-through the
death of an intimate-in the life of the survivor? We have
characterized this occurence until now as a privation or be-
reavement. But it is a privation of a special and extraordinary
.1111
kind, and our task remains one of understanding the nature of
this privation in its existential significance, in its sense for one's
:::: own life. To accomplish this it is necessary to distinguish this
privation from other and less decisive modes of privation.
I will begin with externals. I lose something. That means first
of all: A thing which I have possessed gets lost, and I miss it
after the fact. I can then, under certain circumstances, find it
iI~ :
,,,, once again. The privation is something like carelessness or
II"
l,,,i~ inattention. The privation can also arise through the fact that
I something is snatched away from me externally. Thus there are
II:''"
privations of goods and properties, and in each case I can once
again attempt to compensate for the privation through my own
efforts, by replacing the lost thing.
However, I cannot replace everything. This possibility ceases
to exist when I am bound to the thing concerned by a unique
relationship, for example through its comme~orative value.
Then the privation leaves behind it a gap, which can never again
be closed, which rather signifies an enduring impoverishment of
my life.
Beyond the loss of a particular thing, I am touched at a
deeper level by more encompassing privations, such as the loss
of my total collected belongings, through a devastating fire or
through political events. Here I am affected in the totality of my
THE DEATH OF ANOTHER 67
existence and must-to the extent of the loss-start over from
the beginning, to build myself an orderly life once again.
Beyond this there are privations in my own bodily existence.
I can lose one of my limbs or one of my sense organs, for
example my eye sight. Naturally this signifies a considerable
reduction in my total life possibilities.
Opposing all of these privations, there is the existential
experience that there is something ultimate in me, which en-
dures and cannot be affected by all of these more or less severe
privations, something which only comes forth in its ultimate
decisiveness in such moments. It is this ultimate something
which existential philosophy characterizes by its concept of
existence in the most rigorous sense. This is a familiar concept,
and I shall not speak further about this here.
However, the privation affecting a human being in the death
of an intimate acquiantance is different, distinct from all of
these greater or lesser privations. Here one's own existence is
not brought forth more sharply for the first time, on the con-
trary, one's existence is weakened in its intensity. We can
perhaps formulate it as follows: The loss of an intimate is not a
privation within the world, but rather a privation of the world in
general. It is thus a privation in the very substance of that which
suffers the privation. To this extent the loss of an intimate
touches directly on one's own existence. It signifies a genuine
privation of being.
Here it is not a particular member-be it ever so important
and valuable-which is torn from the world, rather the world
itself is transformed. The world itself is impoverished and at the
same time the human being with whom this world is associated.
The survivor no longer dwells in the same fashion in his world.
He has become homeless, and in this frailty he is a shocking
sight. We have all experienced this at some time.
5. The Narrowing of the World in the Death of an Intimate
To comprehend this state of affairs, we will best begin with the
thoughts which Binswanger developed, in such a profound
fashion, concerning the spatiality of a loving being-with-
one-another[lO). In a love filled life together the two parties by
 68 THE DEATH OF ANOTHER THE DEATH OF ANOTHER 69

no means mutually narrow themselves, by one taking away the

space or latitude of the other; rather they create a space for one
'
,,
i
Thus the death of an intimate is truly a "privation of
being"-that is, not a direct privation of one's own life, but
another for the first time. To cite Rilke, "they beget for one rather a privation in one's own life; a privation in one's own
another ... mutually and unceasingly, space and breadth and substance. The human being "withers" in the death of an
freedom[ll]." It is a common space in which they then live intimate. To this extent the dying of an intimate is always
together. This is true not only of marital love, although it stands already a good piece of one's own dying. "It is not he that was
forth most clearly there, but rather characterizes every form of dead, but I," thus I once heard the experience of this pain at the
friendly relatedness. This mutual space involves more than a death of an intimate expressed. The condition encountered by
mere feeling of self-sufficiency; rather, the relatedness reaches the survivor is in fact his own being-dead.
actively beyond and creates a world of common life, of mutual Thus we encounter the moving fate of those who in old age
planning and action. are left behind all alone. All of the human beings who stood
When we reflect on this, then we can understand what hap- close to them have died. This does not mean simply that with
pens when one member of a relationship has died, because now each new death they are reminded once again of their own
the inverse process sets in: The life space built up in common imminent death. Rather, in a deeper sense it means that the
again breaks down. The latitude for action constricts, and world in which they have lived fades away ever more. They
consequently both the possibility for work in common and even become ever more world-less with each new death. They them-
the possibility for individual work come to nothing. Indeed, this selves fade away in the dying of the other. Thus we see the
holds true not only in the immediate practical sense for busy endless melancholy of these now solitary older people. The
:,::: activity in the world, but rather even for purely contemplative world fades away around them. They can no longer enter into
and perceptual activities. Because every joy calls for someone new bonds or new life possibilities. If they still have a "hold,"
to share it, someone with whom to rejoice, and because every then this is so in a way that has set them free them from all
understanding and every breakthrough of knowledge requires earthly bonds.
another person who can participate in understanding the dis-
covery, the scope of the concretely experienced world narrows.
One's own possibilities for living and experiencing shrink. The
comfortable habitability of the world collapses, as Minkowski
has so unnervingly pointed out[12). He who remains behind no
longer dwells in his world, in the sense that dwelling comprises
a deep and essential characteristic of the human being, as the
I' true modality of his rootedness in the world. The bereaved
survivor has lost his firm stand. The world about him has
become uncomfortable, uninhabitable, desolate, and empty.
This emptiness signifies precisely not an expansion of his room
for movement, but rather a robbing of his possibilities and
thereby a narrowing. The individual finds nothing more to
which he can hold on. Thus the emptiness breaks over him. The
survivor has become solitary, and solitary here signifies: He has
become world-less.

CHAPTER V
Security and Peace as a Task for
Education
1. The Ideal of Eternal Peace
For as far as we can look back in history, eternal peace has
''Ill been an endless yearning of the human being. The more the
wars of the world shatter and ever again annihilate the results of
human industry and the human order, the stronger does the
yearning arise for an enduring kingdom of peace. "Peace on
earth"-this was the proclamation of the angel of the gospel.
The history of this yearning for peace through the centuries can
obviously not be traced here. I must refer to one point, how-
ever, because it will be important for the following: Throughout
most of history wars were regarded much like other catastro-
phes beyond the control of man, such as earthquakes and
floods. It was assumed that mankind could not achieve libera-
tion from wars through human effort. Eternal peace remained a
hope in the sense of something one could only hope for, but not
oneself actualize. Only with the growing maturity of the human
being did there awaken the consciousness of the human respon-
sibility for an enduring peace. Only with this development did
the actualization of an eternal peace become an ethical task.
Only then did the question arise: What means are available to
organize this peace?
Maria Montessori has formulated this question strikingly:
"The problem of peace is not only an economic or social
concern. The problem is man himself. Peace can no longer
remain in the realm of hope. Peace must become a science, and
TASK FOR EDUCATION 71
this science that of the "formation" (or education) of the
human being[l]." Three points can be articulated here as pro-
grammatic for our discussion:
. a. "Peace can no longer remain in the realm of hope," that
ts, we may no longer be content with the idea that peace will
some day be given to us. We are responsible for it and must
work for it. Further, we must do so with all of the means and
methods of a systematic and responsible effort, that is, in a
scientific manner.
b. This peace is not only a matter of the external conditions
of life, but rather concerns the human being in his innermost
core. It is in this sense a moral problem.
c. If, however, the task of peace requires a systematically
executed transformation of the human being, then peace is in
the last analysis a pedagogical problem. The ultimate responsi-
bility for the actualization of peace lies in education.
In this connection, Kant's essay of the year 1795, "Concern-
ing Eternal Peace," stands as a significant milestone. We can
best orient ourselves to this work, if we will conceive the
uniqueness, the absolutely novel gravity of todays situation.
Kant recognized keenly the moral character of this problem: "If
a duty exists, and at the same time a well founded hope, to
render actual ... the condition of a public justice, then eternal
peace is ... no empty idea, but rather a task[2]." Peace is "no
empty idea," because there is a "well founded hope" of actual-
izing it. The actualization of eternal peace thus lies within the
realm of human possibilities. On the other hand, Kant defines
this task in a cautious and restrictive fashion, as one "which
little by little is solved, and steadily nears its goal." The condi-
tion of peace for Kant was one which could only "be made real
through endlessly progressing approaches." To reckon already
in his own time on such an eternal peace would have appeared
to him, and rightly so, as audacity.
This distinguishes Kant's situation from that of today. We are
today no longer, as Kant was, in the fortunate situation, of
confidently postponing the achievement of an eternal peace to
an endless future. The threat of a war, with the inherent
capacity for total annihilation, has today taken on such propor-
 72 SECURITY AND PEACE
tions that we can no longer wait for its actualization until the
distant future. Today, the dream of eternal peace must be
actualized, if we do not wish to gamble with the fate of all of
humanity. The actualization of peace has become the most
pressing problem of our time. I refer to the speech regarding
the "Conditions of Peace," which Carl Friedrich von Weiz-
sacker delivered on the occasion of receiving the German
Publishers' Peace Price. There he remarked: "Wold peace is
necessary, one could almost say that world peace is unavoid-
able. It is a condition for life in the age of technology. As far
as our human foresight can reach we will have to declare: We
will either live in a condition which deserves the name of world
peace, or we will not live at all[3]." The Nobel Prize winner of
the older generation, Max Born, has emphasized exactly the
same point: "World peace in a world become small is no longer
Utopia, rather it is a necessity, a condition for the survival of
I "'•
''II: the human race[4]."
This also places an enormous responsibility on the educator
I"''
today. I set aside the other side of the question as we posed it,
and limit myself to the one perspective which directly concerns
us here: that of education. Maria Montessori also intended this
by her formulation, that the science of peace should be that of
the formation of the human being.
In this regard the educator must view his contribution in all
modesty. Whenever we reflect on the power of education, we
see that it never impacts on the immediate present, but rather
always only on a future, albeit perhaps on the near future_. A
certain time is always necessary before those human bemgs
formed through education can grow up and attain to politically
responsible positions. Thus there is also the danger that edu-
cation comes too late with its influence because the catastrophe
has commenced before education could have its effect. When
we speak of the responsibility of the educator then, we do so
with reservation and in the anxious hope that history, which in
this case means the actions of the politicians, will give the
educators enough time, for them and their educational process
to be able to attain the goal. That is, we hope for enough time
for the children educated now to go forth as adults and take the
fate of humanity into their own hands. We all long for this time,
TASK FOR EDUCATION 73
and hope we will be granted these few years. May they only be
given to us! In this framework and with these presuppositions I
will attempt to clarify the question: What can education con-
tribute to the actualization of peace?
2. Objective and Subjective Character
As departure point, it seems useful to me to adopt a dis-
tinction made by Herbart. This distinction is today unjustly
scorned; my teacher Noh!, however, has repeatedly and em-
phatically drawn attention to it. I refer here to the distinction
between the subjective and objective aspects of human charac-
ter. Under the subjective aspect of character, we understand
the image which the human being makes of himself through his
goal-setting and his ideals. This is the image which hovers
before him in his actions. By the objective aspect of character,
in contrast, we refer to the nature which the human being has,
independent of his image of himself. This objective nature to a
great extent already determines the individual's images of him-
self. The originality of Herbart's idea consisted in the recogni-
tion that education must primarily be directed at objective
character, if it is to have an enduring result; because here it
finds a reliable foundation, whereas the goals which hover
before the human being in his consciousness are easily prey to
the many externally and internally originating influences. "No-
thing remains for moral teaching," emphasized Herbart,
"except to apply itself to the subjective dimension of the per-
sonality." Morality must appeal to man in his consciousness and
hold before his will the ethical goal. Education however, ac-
cording to Herbart, must "dedicate its special attention to the
objective aspect of character[5]." That is, it must reach one
level deeper. It must form the will itself in the proper fashion,
so that one formed in this fashion simply cannot act otherwise
than conforms to the goal of education.
In the work of his elder years, the "Outline of Pedagogical
Lectures," Herbart formulated this task more cautiously and
comprehensively: Education concerns both sides of character,
and the essential aim, through education, is to create the proper
balance between them.
 74 SECURITY AND PEACE
On the subjective side of character, that is, regarding what
the human being would like to be, Herbart comments as fol-
lows: The human being seeks to surpass and exceed himself, that
is, to grow beyond himself and to be more than he is. In modern
philosophy the etymologically corresponding Latin term pre-
vails: to transcend oneself. This self-transcendence is a decisive
feature of the human being. Beyond that it is the decisive point
of departure for education. The decisive point is arrived at in
education, only when the educator understands how to connect
with this idealistic will and to activate it; but this "surpassing,"
to use Herbart's term, or this transcendence, has its limits. "This
surpassing of oneself is not always wholesome for morality,"
emphasizes Herbart. The human being, given the reality of his
life, often cannot live up to the demands he has posed for
himself. Thus arises, as Binswanger has so convicingly por-
trayed it, the "high-flown extravagance" (Verstiegenheit) as a
'1::
fateful form of a miscarried existence[6]. In this extravagance,
the over-heated and impassioned will deceives itself about its
own success. This extravagance is a danger too easily encoun-
tered by an idealism which misjudges its own limits. This is the
point at which pedagogy must intervene and assist, through the
cultivation of objective character, that is, the cultivation of the
human being as he exists independently of his images and
ideals, in his own reality. The cultivation of objective character
is necessary to provide a supporting foundation for self-
transcending aspirations.
Thus as Herbart has formulated it, the educator is faced with
"a double task: to observe and to guide in part the objective
and in part the subjective aspects of character[?]." The educa-
tor is challenged to keep his eyes firmly on the reciprocal action
bet,ween the two sides and to activate both in their inner
dynamic.
Our discussion has seemingly taken us far afield from the
urgent tasks of the present into the domain of the history of
pedagogy and into merely academic questions, but that only
seems to be the case. Precisely at this point 1 believe I have
found the decisive path toward the understanding of our pri-
mary question. If we wish to reflect on the possibility of an
education for peace, it is important to distinguish between the
TASK FOR EDUCATION 75
influences on subjective and objective character, because the
two are entirely different in nature and pose entirely different
tasks for us. Though we dare not neglect the first direction, it
nevertheless seems to me that the essence of the matter lies in
the reciprocal action between the two different ways of in-
fluencing character. I will now attempt to establish this princi-
ple.
3. Insight into the Value of Peace
The first direction is concerned with planting in the souls of the
young: a valuation of peace as one of the highest goals of
humanity and the will to apply oneself vigorously for its actual-
ization. Here too we can distinguish two separate dimensions :
On the one hand, and in the negative sense, to awaken a
repulsion regarding war and everything connected with war.
Though otherwise education may not lean heavily on fear, in
this case it is permissible, all the more so because we are not
dealing here with the survival of an individual life but rather
. . '
with the fate of humamty and of human culture as a whole. One
should awaken horror regarding war, by presenting it with all its
terrible and annihilating consequences in their full unvarnished
truth. Above all else one should make clear, that any war
bre~king out today risks not only the destruction of specific
regwns, not only a partial privation, but rather an annihilation
s.o .total,. that th~reafter even for the survivors no life worthy of
hvmg will remam possible. (Von Weizsacker has also empha-
sized this fact).
One should awaken an honest repulsion for war, in order
~hen to portray in briiiiant colors and in the positive sense, the
Image of peace as the harmonious working together of all men
and all peoples, toward a common actualization of a worthy life
and a higher culture.
It is not enough to kindle all of the powers of enthusiasm for
this high ideal. In the ebullience of feeling, this enthusiasm
could easily shift as well to other goals and perhaps even to
~~re dubious go~ls. It is necessary to awaken and to fortify the
Insight, that the Ideal of peace is not just one arbitrary goal
among many others, rather it is a unique goal whose special
76 SECURITY AND PEACE
place is rooted in the nature of the human being. Because in an
uneasy and chaotic world, the human being can only unfold to
his full humanity, if he succeeds in winning away from the
threatening and impinging powers of destruction a space of
safety, of peace and of security, and thus increasing his own
order amidst a disordered world. I have sought to establish this
elsewhere, and cannot repeat the entire discussion in detail[8].
To create order, and not to believe that order can simply be
discovered already complete, rather to establish order through
one's own efforts, and then to live in this self-created order:
This is the task of the human being as a cultural animal, that is,
as a being that by its very nature is oriented to culture. These
humanly ordered regions are of various kinds, ranging from the
narrow region of the house as the primordial cell of all safety
and security, and therefore also as the point of departure for all
education, to the grand structure of the state. At the borders of
these regions, however, the domain of a secured peace ceases,
and the wars between nations have ever again destroyed all
works in the process of being constructed. In contrast today, in
this moment of the most extreme urgency, the time seems fo
have arrived in the history of humanity to create a comprehen-
sive kingdom of peace transcending the particular orders and
taking in the earth as a totality.
Against this hope the objection is raised: That there have
always been wars throughout history, that war belongs even to
the essence of the human being, and that it is a childish illusion
to desire to avoid war in the future. This objection is so
dangerous, precisely because it contains a kernel of truth, but
draws from this kernel a false conclusion. We see today more
sharply than earlier the deep brutishness of the human being.
The so called existential philosophy has shown with ultimate
clarity, and Karl Jaspers has characterized under the concept of
the "limit situation," those ultimate painful givens of human
nature, against which we must presumably always struggle.
Strife belongs among these givens, as Jaspers has emphasized
(and I believe rightly); strife, in which human beings fight
against one another. But in confirming this state of affairs, there
is also at the same time a danger, of resigning oneself too early,
and acquiescing in a passive attitude toward these factual giv-
TASK FOR EDUCATION 77
ens. Although limits generally belong to the nature of the
human being, nevertheless, as Simmel has shown, no specific
limit is final, and each can be surpassed by human effort[9].
Though strife may seem to belong to the nature of the human
being, the same need not be true of all of its specific phenome-
nal forms, especially of an annihilating war among nations.
Recognizing strife as a given does not free man from the
obligation to fight against the humanly unworthy forms of strife
with all available means and to establish a comprehensive order
of peace. This orientation to a peacef!-11 ordering of his world is
deeply rooted in the nature of the human being-as a being
responsible for his culture. This obligation cannot be sacrificed
without sacrificing the dignity of the human being himself.
Thus we gain insight into the significance of peace as a
condition for the possibility of humanity fulfilling its own nature
and essence. This insight carries with it at the same time the
moral responsibility felt by each of those sharing in this collec-
tive work, so that each can not only share a fear for the
endurance of peace, but rather also, in the consciousness of this
responsibility, may collaborate in the actualization and preser-
vation of peace. To awaken this consciousness is the great task
of education. This task is difficult to achieve, however, because
the actualization of peace is an affair of sober reflections. There
is no intoxicating and exaggerated enthusiasm for those serving
the ideal of a peaceful life together, as is so easily attained by
those serving the praises of war.
4. Education for a Disposition Ready for Peace
We have examined the first task, of awakening and establishing
in the conciousness of youth the goal of peace; the second task
is deeper than the first. It involves educating the human
being himself to become a being so ready for peace that in his
entire nature he cannot do otherwise than to act with peace in
mind. If you will allow me yet one more recollection from the
history of pedagogy, I would like to refer to Fichte's often
misunderstood and often misused "Address to the German
Nation," delivered originally in almost the same year as the
earlier cited thoughts of Herbart. Fichte sought an education
 78 SECURITY AND PEACE
which would seek not only to influence the human being exter-
nally, but rather would be in the position to "penetrate to the
roots of the actual stirring and movement of life, and to form
this process[lO]." "If you wish to have influence over him (the
pupil)," Fichte continues, "then you must do more than merely
to address him, you must take him over, make him over in such
a fashion, that he can absolutely not even desire otherwise than
you wish him to desire [11]." "Merely to address him" signifies
an appeal to his good will, but this will can be unsteady, and the
result of such an admonition can be uncertain. Thus Fichte
demands more: "You must make him over," and this "making"
means to form him in his entire nature, so "that he can abso-
lutely not even desire otherwise than you wish him to desire."
These words sound harsh, but I will now seek to establish that
this is in no way an offense against the freedom of the human
being[12].
In order to do that I must still unfold the problem as a whole
somewhat further. Though we cannot immediately formulate
''''•
::;;;; the problem, nevertheless, the phenomenon itself characterizes
the precise goal which we also pose for ourselves, when we
speak about the formation of objective character under the
perspective of education for peace: That goal is to educate the
child in such a way, that he cannot do otherwise than to desire
peace.
That is a great and multi-faceted task. I cannot presume to
propose a solution here. I can only attempt to bring together
several points of view, which seem to contribute to such a
solution, without raising any kind of claim to completeness or to
any systematic order. The importance of this task forces us to
join together in a common search for anything which can
contribute toward this goal, and further, not to shy away from
anything which might appear too trivial. Often it is the entirely
simple and almost self-evident things on which we must reflect
in this connection. We dare not shy away from speaking about
what is self-evident, merely out of a striving for originality. I
must at times also repeat things on this occasion, which I have
already said in other contexts.
We are thus asking: By what means can we "construct" in
some measure a peace loving character in young people? The
TASK FOR EDUCATION 79
essence of the solution is that many different factors must come
together, many different "building stones," which are necessary
for the final goal. It is by no means necessary, however, that the
end goal of peace have entered the field of attention of the
individual being educated, for these factors to work their effect.
I will attempt to highlight several of these "building stones."
1. The first I will mention is the readiness for regimented
common work, as is necessary not only in the political domain
in questions of common work between the states, but rather as
must already be developed and preserved as the precondition
for any everyday life and work in community. Kerschensteiner's
idea of a school for work seems to me to have an irrefutable and
as yet never exploited significance here; because as he conceives
it, it involves a common and mutually beneficial labor toward a
common goal, and must therefore awaken all powers of mutual
consideration, and the consciousness of a mutual relatedness
with one another toward the better achievement of the work.
The same holds true naturally of all forms of pedagogically
guided cooperative work, directed toward a common goal and
maintained over long time spans. I will be content here with
mentioning Kerschensteiner as an example, and will not cite
further support for this approach, though obviously many other
names could be mentioned here, not the least among them
Maria Montessori. All of these forms of cooperative work have
the effect, that they create a general psychic collective state of
mind, which can then stand the test in broader contexts. In this
way the human being learns not only to recognize the value of
sociability, but rather he himself is transformed in the process
into a sociable being.
The limits of this simplest form of education for community
lie in the danger, that at first it touches only smaller and
comprehensible groups, and can thus lead (as Kerschensteiner
has already observed) to a kind of group-egoism, leaving room
for the emnity of groups toward one another. Thus it is neces-
sary to expand this particular form of sociability to a universal
sociability.
2. We thus come upon a second building stone and can once
again be grateful to Kerschensteiner. If this cooperative work
practiced in small circles of three to five children is to be
 80 SECURITY AND PEACE
expanded to larger circles, then that which until now has hap-
pened in self-evident, cooperative work, requiring no special
regulation, must be made conscious and subjected to a thorough-
going and exhaustively considered regimentation. This can be
expanded to ever larger contexts, and leads ultimately to the
cultivated forms of the public life of a democratic state. Even
the already complicated rules of order of parliamentary associa-
tion must first be learned and brought to awareness in smaller
forms of community. Here too I will forego illustrating this
widened compass of political education with detailed examples.
It seems better in the present ·circumstances to focus on the task
at hand.
Two things appear especially important here:
(a) The acknowledgement of the majority decision---even for
those who had at first spoken against it. Once it is reached, it is
binding for common actions which originate from it and is to
that extent removed from further discussion, and
(b) The art of forming a compromise through an exchange of
opinions.
'Ill In this regard one must clearly recognize a difficulty: At least
with us in Germany, one frequently tends to mistrust a corn-
promise as an imperfection and to admire the unconditional
nature of the uncompromising attitude as moral greatness. In
relation to this it is necessary to recognize clearly, that this
admired and seemingly idealistic ethic of unconditional commit-
ment leads to inhumanity and destruction. Here lie the moral
limits of every exaggerated idealism. Much can be learned in
"• this connection from Camus' important late work, "Man in
'" Revolt" [13]. I refer to what he calls approximate thinking, in
contrast to abstract thinking: The art of building in a step by
step fashion and on the basis of facts, without at the same time
destroying the entire existing order; this kind of thought proves
so fruitful both in rejecting violent revolution and in overcom-
ing the spirit of war.
3. The third building stone is the overcoming of particular
cooperative efforts in the direction of a universal cooperative
labor, that is, the overcoming of group rivalries, and above all
of ernnity and animosity between peoples. There seems to be a
TASK FOR EDUCATION 81
simple path to this end, which in spite of noteworthy ap-
proaches is still too seldom heeded. This is the path of student
exchanges. It is an old law of experience, that whoever has
once come to know a foreign land, will also love it and will not
be touched by the prejudices which so obstinately poison the
relationships between peoples. No one returns from a foreign
.land as an enemy, after he once has experienced human bonds
and human closeness in that land. Obviously vacation trips, in
the sense of tourism or of the wanderings of today's youth, are
not enough for this purpose, as they achieve only a flickering
image of another land. Rather, what is necessary is actually to
come to know people, at best within the circle of a family. To
experience the happiness of human closeness and human mutu-
ality, beyond the boarders of social standing and of nation, is
one of the most fruitful means of awakening a consciousness of
the ultimate unity of humanity beyond the limits of peoples and
cultures and of all historically conditioned differences. It is a
pressing necessity today that this contact transcend the bound-
aries of Europe and include the non-European peoples as well.
The many members of these peoples who today seek out our
colleges provides an important, though barely utilized oppor-
tunity for this.
4. One of the most important sources from which arises the
fascination with war, may be the need for heroism, for which
our modern world provides so little opportunity. This need
finds its fulfillment in war. This is actually an instance in which
the legitimate need of youth does not receive its rightful place.
Thus it is necessary to recognize and acknowledge this need,
and to provide it with a less dangerous opportunity for actual-
ization. It seems to me that Kurt Hahn has shown us the way,
with his ideas for an organized rescue-service. When it suc-
ceeds, this readiness to dedicate one's powers unhesitantly,
even in the face of danger to oneself, in the service of saving
human lives, snatches heroism away from the dangerous adven-
turism of war, and places it in the service of a peaceful com-
munity. I will once again here suffice myself with mentioning
this single, albeit especially convincing example. Many further
possibilities of this kind should be sought. Here is a fruitful field
for new pedagogical ideas.
 82 SECURITY AND PEACE
5. This heroic will appears to be a deep and necessary feature
of youthful humanity. Behind this, however, lies a general
problem, which at least here in Germany blocks the proper
valuation of peace: There is a certain romantic fascination with
the danger of war. War, so taught already Heraclitus, is the
father of all things. In war, so one learns further, is revealed for
the first time the true greatness of men. The life of peace
receives in this light a certain contemptuous after-taste [14]. It is
for the lame and the weak, for those who do not dare to pledge
themselves. This view is rooted, it seems to me, in modern
irrationalism, and thus this irrationalism seems to me to present
a danger to peace which one cannot take seriously enough.
These tendencies have been taken up in recent years, to an
increasing degree, by existentialism and related currents of
thought. After all of the deep reaching destruction of the
,'!: .'.' prevailing order, after all of the experiences of the shocking
.:: abyss of existence, an attitude has formed which sees in the
striving for peace and security only the remnants of a con-
temptible "bourgeois" world view, a world view which flees
into illusions and protects itself from glimpsing the gruesome
Ill
reality. In the face of the enormous endangerment of human
·:: II life, it seems in this view to be treason to strive for safety and
security, and the courageous suffering of the total threat
seems-in this view-to be the single honorable attitude.
To me such an attitude seems dangerous and ultimately
:II irresponsible; because it easily leads to a self-intoxication with
the feeling of threat and to a passive surrender to terrible
events. It is not that we would be blind to the threat, but rather
,,
,,, that we recognize it in its full measure; I believe the single
responsible attitude is one of opposing this temptation with the
utmost determination. Accordingly, it seems to me that one of
the most important tasks, perhaps the most important task
overall, which education has to fulfill today is: To oppose all
dark powers by cultivating the forces of rational insight and
clear circumspection, or to speak generally, to lead human
beings once again toward a right respect for reason.
This task faces us especially here in Germany today, because
we seem to be endangered to a heightened degree by the
temptations of irrationalism. But this task, as I see it, may go
TASK FOR EDUCATION 83
beyond this. It is at the same time a part of the broader task: to
rec?nnect once again with the great tradition of the European
enlightenment and expressly to combat those tendencies which
have brought contempt upon the enlightenment, on account of
its supposed superficiality and shallowness.
6. And now finally, the last and perhaps most important step:
No human being wants war. Everyone has a natural abhor-
rence. How does it happen then, that in spite of this wars take
place again and again, which no single individual, so long as he
acted in and for himself, would have wanted? It seems that the
great, supra-individual formations, which have developed be-
yond our understanding, tend to take on an abstract, inner
lawfulness of their own, which brings them into opposition to
the natural reason of the individual human being. But they
could not even unfold this dangerous inner lawfulness, if they
did not have the possibility of overpowering individual men.
How these possibilities may have looked in earlier times need
not concern us today. Today there is in any case a dangerous
means toward this direction: That is the possibility of opinion-
formation through the means of the modern journalist; the
manipulation of public opinion through the press, radio and
kindred media; and the transformation of men by this means
into a mass too easily misused by demagogues. It would be a
childish venture to want to remove these opinion-molding
forces from the world. It would be equally childish to try to
steer them through some kind of governmental control into
responsible or non-injurious directions. But there remains one
possibility, and here the responsibility of the educator enters:
To develop in the human being his own judgment, which
renders him as much as possible immune to the influences of
these collective powers. I need hardly to emphasize that there is
no complete immunity, but to develop the highest possible
measure of this immunizing capacity for judgment appears to
me today to be a an urgent task for all of education. Further, it
seems to be the place, where education can work to the best
advantage for peace and can best stand up to the danger of war
[15].
How this can be done, I cannot develop here in any detail.
The task begins in the lowest grades where one attempts to
 84 SECURITY AND PEACE
bring children to develop their own judgment, over against the
authority of the teacher, over against all other authorities, and
even over against the pressure of public opinion embodied in
their classmates, and to maintain this individual judgment
courageously over against their environment. Thus it does not
happen where the question of war and peace is expressly
discussed but rather in the unpretentious domain of everyday
living. It also does not take place in any appeal to the ideal
"will" of subjective character. Rather here, in the inconspicu-
ous work of the classroom, the formation of objective character
takes place, which then enables the individual to escape from
the suggestively-operating influences of external forces.
5. The Interweaving of the Two Tasks
Thus far in the preceding overview, the second part of the
task has at least been outlined. We have pointed to the special
problem of education, which Fichte intended by his formula-
tion that the educator must "make" the human being. But
when we now look back, a feeling of dissatisfaction necessarily
befalls us. Education for a peaceable and sociable disposition,
for a regulated life together, for the recognition of unfamiliar
alternative forms of living, for rationally considered mastery of
the affects, and even for independent judgment; certainly, this
all may be good and right. But is that not much too little and
much too harmless and general in relation to the great and
pressing task of education for the today so inescapably neces-
sary achievement of peace among nations? Here we must think
back to the general approach of our reflections: to the inter-
weaving between the objective and subjective sides of charac-
ter. What I have introduced here regarding the education of
''I I;
objective character, and concerning the formation of a peace-
ready and peace loving human being, is not the whole picture,
but rather merely a first step. These are only the general
presuppositions, which now should provide the reliable founda-
tion, upon which the second, more specific part of our task
should now be erected. This is what I in the exposition antici-
pated as the target, but which in the actual process of education
only here finds its place: the explicit education toward the
TASK FOR EDUCATION 85
understanding of the ideal of peace and toward a responsible
dedication for this ideal.
This second part then is a matter of subjective character, that
is, it involves expressly, in full consciousness and with full
personal decisiveness, taking up a position. Now what I had
said earlier, in a preliminary and perhaps somewhat premature
fashion, about an education for the ideal of peace and for a
repulsion against war attains its proper place. Thereby the circle
is closed, or better, we see demonstrated here the reciprocal
influence of the two clearly distinct tasks. On the basis of a
character raised for peacefulness and established firmly in this
peaceful nature, the ideal of peace can develop in a way which
is no longer vulnerable to transient influences and which can
endure. This holds true inversely as well: Only in the conscious
and passionate dedication toward this ideal can the necessary
objective character be formed and attain its ultimate definition.
Therein already is contained the thesis, which I have arrived
at in my remarks today. Among my many observations which I
take as self-evident, I see this thesis as my own contribution to
the question regarding a meaningful education for peace: the
distinction between the two tasks, of the education for subjec-
tive character and that for objective character, which present
entirely different problems, and beyond this the insight into the
necessary relatedness of each to the other. One cannot lead to
success without the other, and vice versa.
I would like to draw together the results by relying on the
familiar Kantian formulation: Education for subjective charac-
ter without,the simultaneous education for objective character
is empty; education for objective character without that for
subjective character is blind. What I mean by this is the follow-
ing: Enthusiasm for higher ideals in general, and that for peace
among nations in particular, is good and necessary; but as such
it cannot be depended upon, because "the spirit is willing but
the flesh is weak." Such enthusiasm is exposed to ever renewed
and often questionable influences. Even the accompanying
insight is often overrun by passions aimed in other directions.
Thus one must create within the domain of conscious insight
and conscious goal-setting a firm essential core, which secures
and gives perseverance to the striving for freely chosen ideals.
 86 SECURITY AND PEACE
This is what I meant by an education for peace-ready human
beings.
On the other hand, the human being who in a general sense is
ready for peace is still too uncertain and still relies too much on
himself. Thus it was only the most general properties ("building
stones"), which could be cited in this respect. What is lacking is
the clear focusing on a goal, which for the first time mobilizes
these mutely slumbering possibilities. Therefore the human
being must, to use Herbart's words, "go beyond" himself, in
that he lays out a goal for himself, and then emulates it. Here
arises for the first time all of that ideal striving, in which the
human being awakens to his greatness and for the first time
makes himself into that which he then is. Both together are
necessary, the reliable, abiding ground of the nature and the
transcendence of this ground in orientation to an ideal. Either
part alone will miscarry. That holds true in a general sense of all
moral education, but especially so here, where what we seek is
an education toward a responsible dedication to peace among
peoples.
What is at stake here is a structural relationship of one
component to the other, in that objective character forms the
foundation for the construction of subjective character. We
understand that Herbart placed emphasis first on the education
for objective character. Nevertheless, one must guard against
viewing this relationship as a simple, one-time, temporal se-
quence. It is rather an ever renewed cycle, in which subjective
character also works backward on objective character in a
formative and determinative fashion, and in this sense then is a
"'•
I":: genuine reciprocal action. We can here only allude to two
qualifying features: that the relationship between the two edu-
cational tasks changes in the course of childhood development,
in an age-specific fashion; and that influence on the subjective
part of character is only possible after a certain age, but there-
after comes temporally into the foreground.
6. The Power and Limitations of Education
In the foregoing we have perhaps also clarified the objec-
tions which must be raised against Fichte's harsh formulation,
TASK FOR EDUCATION 87
that the educator must "make" the human being: "make him
over in such a fashion, that he can absolutely not even desire
otherwise, than you wish him to desire." To properly under-
tand these words it is essential to recognize that this formula-
tion is related to the first part of the task: to the cultivation of
objective character. Even here, however, the formulation by no
means grows out of any exaggerated ideal, or an expression of
hubris in education, which might believe it possible to make
whatever one wants out of the human being, or to arbitrarily
form him at will. What the educator "makes," is not his own
voluntary choice. Rather, he can only "make" that which is
already necessarily laid out in the nature of the human being.
He will force nothing on him, but rather merely awaken an
insight, or call forth an experience, which, once it is complete,
compells the human being with irresistible power. Just as there
are rational insights: for example, whoever has once grasped
that 2 times 2 = 4 can never again rightly accept anything
different as correct, there are also certain basic experiences in
the moral domain which transform the human being, once he
has arrived at them in an irrevocable manner. Thus these
experiences involve a kind of irreversible process in the deve-
lopment of character. It is in this fashion that Fichte meant his
remarks: Whoever has once experienced the deep satisfaction
involved in a self-surrendering activity, is thereby irrevocably
transported beyond the condition of a purely passive and hedo-
nistic life. Thus it appears to me in regard to those experiences,
which I have drawn together for the cultivation of a peace-
loving character, for the peaceable life together, for the reign of
reason, etc. When the human being has once arrived at these
experiences, then they will have their effect through a kind of
inner evidence, with irresistible necessity. It is this which Fichte
wished to convey by the word "make."
We are concerned in this sense with the task of forming a firm
and unchangeable character. But how this character can be
produced, does not lie within the arbitrary favor of a presump-
tuous educator's will. Rather, the experience itself determines
exclusively what is learned by the human being undergoing such
experiences, and how he is formed by them. What education
can accomplish is merely to lead an individual to these
 88 SECURITY AND PEACE
experiences. But here lies another limit for all education:
Whether the individual really is touched by the experience and
brings it to completion in his own interior. that is his own
decision, to which education can only lead him. To this extent
the results of all education-and even of the best education-
always remain uncertain. It can also miscarry, precisely because
it must always presume the freedom of the other human being.
In the present, critically heightened situation, education can fail
even if it miscarries with one single human being, who then, as a
consequence of the deficient attention of his surroundings,
acquires a key position, and brings about by his deeds an
irretrievable catastrophe.
The possibilities for education are thus limited. The educator
alone cannot accomplish the work of peace. What is necessary
is a cooperative labor with the politicians and in fact with every
single human being conscious of his own responsibility. But this
does not diminish the responsibility of the educator, and thus
the challenge of the hour is directed chiefly at him. I close, by
allowing my esteemed teacher Born to speak again: "There is
still a hope, but it will only be fulfilled, if we all engage
ourselves against the sicknesses of our time[16]."
1,,,
t::::
IIIII
CHAPTER VI
The Transformation in the
Understanding of the Human Being in
the Nineteenth Century
1. Posing the Question
I have been asked to report on the transformations in the
understanding of the person in the 19th century. The form in
which this question is posed seems to me to demand expansion
in two directions.
On the one hand, the epochs which are decisive for cultural
history seldom coincide neatly with the boundaries of the centu-
ries. For this reason I would rather demarcate this epoch by two
cultural-historically decisive turning points, in the seventies of
the 18th and the forties of the 20th century. The early turning
point is the breakthough of the Sturm und Drang ("Storm and
Stress") era in the young Herder, Goethe, and Jacobi in the
1770's and 1780's. These events commenced a movement
strongly irrational in its coloration, in contrast to the then
dominant Enlightenment, which was so strongly conditioned by
the understanding. Nohl first glimpsed this movement in its
inner unity and characterized it as the "German movement."
Korff then, in order to avoid the obvious potential misunder-
standings and lacking another convincing objective name char-
acterized it under the name of its dominant personality as the
"Goethe era." In literature this movement encompasses the
development leading from the Sturm und Drang to classicism
and romanticism, and culminating with the Biedermeier period.
Philosophically the same movement includes German idealism
 90 UNDERSTANDING OF THE HUMAN BEING
proceeding from Kant through Fichte to Hegel and Schelling.
Finally from pedagogy, we include here the German new-
humanism, embodied most purely in Humboldt, which laid the
foundation for an essentially new German cultural formation.
This movement is a unitary one in spite of its divergent
reflections. After the deaths of its leading representatives
(Hegel, 1831, Goethe 1832, Humboldt, 1835) this movement
collapsed under the attack of the modern empirical sciences.
Within the context of philosophy the 1840's form the next
decisive turning point, with new approaches represented by
Comte and Feuerbach, and Marx and Kierkegaard, which have
then shaped further developments through the present.
Both movements meet in the 19th century, but reach beyond
it, the one into the 18th century, and the other into the 20th.
Neither are they sharply separated by the cutting point of the
."
;;:ill 1840's. While the new movement forged ahead, the old also still
II continued, and the confrontation between the two persists into
::::11
the present. In a deeper sense both-in their irrational
::::::
1::::: natures-belong together. Thus I believe it necessary to look
beyond the narrow limits of the 19th century to discover the
I IIIIo
basis for the whole of this double development.
The second expansion of the problem concerns the under-
standing of the "person." This concept has been coined in order
to elevate and set apart what is unique in the human being
from the mode of being of things, but also from that of other
living beings. This concept, however, appeared to me to be ill
suited from the German perspective of the 19th century. On the
one hand the concept remained relatively constant in its philo-
sophical usage, so that the transformations in the understanding
~ lilt '
IIIII,
of the human being cannot be traced through its use. On the
other hand not all of the thinkers in question here used "per-
son" as their fundamental concept in understanding the human
being. Rather this term took a back seat to other favored
concepts, so that we would miss the decisive turning points if we
restricted ourselves too narrowly to the word person. Thus I
have, in spite of the risk of a vagueness, selected the more
general concept "understanding of the human being," although
I will also attempt to pay attention at the same time to the more
narrow problem of the "person."
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 91
2. The Concept of the Person
In spite of our expansion in posing the problem, it will be
necessary to begin with a short look at the more narrow concept
of the person. In his familiar "Dictionary of Philosophical
Concepts," Eisler has summarized the general understanding of
the person in the following manner: A person is a "self-
conscious, responsible I, pursuing purposes, and capable of
behaving in a free manner [1]." We can best clarify this defini-
tion by reference to Kant, who stands at the beginning of the
historical development in question.
The first determinant of the person is self-consciousness,
which sustains itself as one and the same in the course of
temporal change. Kant has characterized the person in this
fashion (in agreement with a similar definition found in Leib-
niz): "Whatever is conscious of the numerical identity of itself
in different times, is to that extent a person [2]." As the subject
of contemplation and of thinking, Kant regarded the person as
not amenable to objectification. Wherever I make the human
being into an object (of knowledge), there I make him into a
thing, and fail to appreciate his unique character as a person.
This approach reaches deeply into the foundations of Kantian
philosophy. As a person the human being is a part of the
intelligible world, and not a part of scientifically researchable
phenomena. Only as a person does he have freedom, which
therefore can never be established by means of objective
knowledge. To this extent the personality is characterized by
"freedom and independence from the mechanism of all of
nature [3]." This is a thought which Schiller then enthusiasti-
cally took up: The person is "a being, which can be its own
cause, and in fact the absolute and final cause of its own
condition, and which can transform itself according to reasons
which it finds within its own self [4]."
The questign is at this point displaced to the ethical domain.
As such a free being, the person is responsible for himself and
his own behaviour. Kant emphasized: "The person is that
subject whose actions are capable of a reckoning [5]." On this
rests the special worth and dignity of the human being, to the
extent that he is a person. Rational being signifies for Kant
 92 UNDERSTANDING OF THE HUMAN BEING
persons, "because their nature already characterizes them as
ends in themselves, that is, as something which may not merely
be used as means[ 6]." On this rests the one familiar formulation
of the categorical imperative, that one must never use humanity
merely as means, but rather always anhe same time as end in
itself.
This Kantian position cannot be pursued in any greater detail
here, but it provides the approach which endures into the 20th
century relatively unaltered, wherever the concept of the per-
son stands in the foreground. Thus, to mention merely an
example, William Stern developed his "Personalism," in which
he proceeds from the person and the thing as two opposing
modes of being, but then, going beyond the human domain,
conceives the world itself as a graduated structure of persons[?].
In the same fashion Scheler founded his "ethics of values" on a
, ;;:II"
1
.• Ill pregnantly conceived concept of the person. He conceived the
. : lil person as an "Act-center." The person lives only in the execu-
tion of intentional acts, and therefore (just as we found in Kant)
can never become an object, and can never be conceived as
substance[ B).
'I II"'
3. The Personality
.. '
A more precise distinction is now needed to further distinguish
·' r:.:::l
:1 1:•::1 the concept of personality from that of the person. Etymologi-
cally the distinction seems obvious. The "personalitatas" is that
which comprises the nature or essence of a person; it is thus
.,... ,
..... , the abstract formation. Nevertheless this distinction is soon
,I
blurred. In Kant, for example, it would make little sense to
distinguish more precisely between the concepts of the person
and the personality. In contrast a precise distinction has devel-
oped in everyday, non-philosophical speech, which may be
significant for our further reflections.
Person, as the common German usage speaks of it, refers as a
rule to the individual human being in his embodied manifesta-
tion and is often used as an equivalent with "human being."
One remarks "I for my own person," when one wishes to
contrast one's own decision as different from that of others.
One delivers a piece of news personally when one comes
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 93
oneself, and not when one reports through a letter or messen-
ger. In the same way one speaks of a man's person and a
woman's person, or counts how many persons there are in a
room, and so forth, and refers thusly to the human beings in a
neutral sense, aside from their gender. Thus on the German
railroad there are "person trains" (Personenzuge) and freight
trains.
Personality, in contrast, means much more. It refers to the
human being in a specific sense, and not every human being is in
this sense a personality. There is a significant, a weighty person-
ality. The word touches on character, in the sense of a stable or
fixed character, without exactly being synonomous. "This man
is a real personality," that already means high praise: This man
elevates himself above the average, he represents something
there, he rests firmly in his own nature, and thus another can
rely on him. Personality is thus in this sense a definite ethical
concept. One has this sense in mind primarily, when in Ger-
many one cites the words of Goethe (although these words are
cited in a careless and misunderstood fashion):
The highest good fortune of the
children of the earth,
Would be nothing other than the personality[9].
This sentence can be easily misunderstood, because its sense
depends entirely on that which one understands under person-
ality, and this is by no means certain in Goethe. One can only
attempt to reason back from the totality of the poem to the
sense of what is here meant by personality. What is especially
important for this is the sentence:
One could lose everything,
If one were to remain, what one is.
That is the expression of an ultimate autarchy. The human
being, as a being resting in his own self, can lose everything if he
merely remains himself. Thus as a person he cannot be touched
or injured by external casualty. It is not the external possession
which makes the human being fortunate, nor is it the external
result of his actions, but rather only his own being. Thus
Goethe would immediately agree with the familiar first proposi-
 94 UNDERSTANDING OF THE HUMAN BEING
tion of Kant's "Foundation of a Metaphysics of Morals:"
"There is overall nothing in the world, not even anything
possibly conceivable, which can be held as good without qualifi-
cations, except good will alone[lO]." A highly significant transi-
tion is made here, leaving behind the moral value of the
unconditional good, and proceeding to the "highest good for-
tune of the children of men." From this understanding arises
then the moral task of unfolding the human personality.
The citation as a rule is understood in this fashion, but in this
place, in his late literary work, this is not Goethe's own opinion.
Thus it is a misuse of the citation, if one tears it from its
assigned context, and in most cases replaces the subjunctive
case by the indicative. In the context of the West-ostliche
Divans, the quotation is a statement of Suleika, which is imme-
diately answered by Hatem:
That could well be! so it is thought;
Yet I am on another track.
This conception is thus not simply declined, it is tolerated:
"That could well be." Yet Goethe's own opinion, at least in this
::1'1
late phase of h!s development, goes in another direction: "I am
on another track." Thus he opposes these words by answering:
·"'I
All earthly good fortune,
;;:,;:
1::.11 I find united in Suleika alone.
;: ii How that will be enlarged upon in detail, need not concern us
1::::
here. One point will suffice: It is not in the self-sufficient
""II
personality, but rather in the relationship to the beloved other
human being, that all "earthly good fortune" is "united."
Clearly we must qualify our critique of the misuse of the
citation somewhat. Because the very fact that it lends itself so
readily to misuse, reflects how close Goethe himself was to this
position. It was only with the wisdom of old age that Goethe
assumed a critical distance toward the ideal of personality.
(This occurs perhaps in connection with a typical feature in the
style of aging artists, in which the forms which have been fixed
again begin to become ftuid)[ll]. On the other hand, the early
Goethe had strongly represented the very same opinion he now
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 95
disavowed. Thus Wilhelm in "Wilhelm Meister" expressed his
basic guiding attitude in the following way: "To cultivate and
perfect myself, entirely as I am, that was mysteriously from
youth onward my wish and my intent[12]." The unfolding of
one's own nature, in accordance with its own inner law-aside
from and independently of any consideration of usefulness in
human society-appears here as the highest goal.
4. The Idea of "Bildung"(Formation)
This ideal, however, stands in a larger context, because what
was given poetic form in "Wilhelm Meister," is the expression
of the struggle for a new image of man, as it came into domi-
nance in the first phase of the development which we are
examining, in the so called Goethe era. We can characterize
this new idea in its core by the concept of Bildung, or forma-
tion. I will only be able to point to this development with a few
broad strokes, and must unfortunately relinquish any more
detailed illustrations, even though this development itself is of
decisive importance for the history of pedagogy.
The word Bildung is so difficult to translate into other lan-
guages. It has already a long pre-history in the German lan-
guage and has especiafiy gained a deepened metaphysical sense
through German mysticism[13]. In its contemporary meaning,
however, it is a creation only of the late 18th century. Herder
and Goethe utilized this term to formulate their own image of
the human being in their confrontation with the Enlightenment.
With Humboldt it found its most mature and carefully weighed
out presentation. In this regard it is significant that the concept
of Bildung originated from the domain of organic life. It serves
to emphasize the special nature of the organic in contrast to
what is merely mechanical. In this sense the concept of Bildung,
applied first of all to plant life or to an animal nature, emphas-
izes the totality, the "Gestalt-formation" in contrast to the
mere summation of elements, and the relatedness of all parts to
a unitary center. Thus even in Goethe's writings the word
usually means simply the living form of a human being. When
we find in "Hermann and Dorothea" the lines:
 T
96 UNDERSTANDING OF THE HUMAN BEING
And it astonished the friends, astonished the loving
parents,
Over the figure (Bildung) of the Bride, the bridegroom's
figure (Bildung) comparable, [14]
we can unequivocally conclude from the context, that the word
Bildung here means exclusively the living form. Applied parti-
cularly to the temporal process, the concept of Bildung then
signifies the quiet, inwardly necessary unfolding of an organism
according to its own inherent lawfulness. The images of the
unfolding of a blossom and the ripening of fruit characterize at
its best this law of organic formation (Bildung).
From this point the concept of Bildung is then also applied to
the human soul. One speaks now also in the spiritual sense of
1,11
' the formation of a human being, or of a "formed" (cultivated)
•.l:i human being. Along with this transfer from the organic to the
.. 11
spiritual realm, however, a definite reinterpretation of the
spiritual necessarily takes place at the same time, namely
i::'
,, 1I 1
through the analogy to plant life. In the general context of the
"'"I
•. •I'
Goethe era, Bildung stands above all as a pedagogical concept,
I I in sharp contrast to all formation originating from without, and
11:' 1 I
.. I to all scientific learning. This signifies that just like a plant the
soul too should unfold entirely from within, according to its
own laws. It is a quiet plant-like process which without any
coercion happens entirely on its own, if only external distur-
bances can be kept distant. All somehow dramatic processes,
"II
and all moral conflicts, thus appear as avoidable. In general the
:::11 I conscious tensions of an ethical consciousness battling against
'':II I
I
resistance, and even the authentic manliness of the soul, recede
entirely into the background. The formation-path of the hero in
Nachsommer, with its conflict-free self-evidence, can serve as
an example here[15].
This image of an organic unfolding reaches even deeper into
the conception of the human being, because it excludes every
distinction between good and bad features in the human being.
Further it requires that all powers lying in the human being be
unfolded to the same degree, without any one-sided emphasis
on certain powers or suppression of others. One is convinced.
that everything contained in the natural tendencies of man is
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 97
good in the same measure. The ideal of this time is to bring all
of these powers, unfolded to the same degree, into balance-
to create the harmony of all of the powers in the human being.
5. Individuality
This concept of formation (Bildung) necessarily involves the
recognition of the human being in his individuality. In this
connection, German new-humanism has given a profound me-
taphysical interpretation to individuality. In this sense individu-
ality does not signify the particularity of a being existing for
itself, but rather the character of the human being in its unique
configuration (Gestalt). In spite of this, the emphasis on indivi-
duality does not mean the dissolution of the individual from
humanity. Rather, the individual remains linked with human-
ity, in that all powers present in humanity as a whole are also
present in each individual, and none are lacking. For this reason
also, the various individuals understand one another within the
greater framework of humanity, but these inherently similar
powers fit together in varying relative strengths in each indivi-
dual. In each individual the powers of humanity combine in a
unique mixture. Thus the relative strength of the various powers
is that which distinguishes the distinct individuals.
Behind this fact lies the profoundly metaphysical theory, that
humanity can actualize the fullness of its inherent possibilities
not in any particular human being, but rather only through the
fact, that these possibilities are separately displayed through the
multiplicity of individual possibilities. Only collectively do all
together comprise humanity. Humanity is reflected in each
individual in some particular fashion. But each individual ver-
sion is also necessary, because without it humanity would not be
complete. No one of them can be relinquished. In this lies the
entire worth of the individual figure. In his youth Schleier-
macher expressed this in enthusiastic words: "So that has oc-
cured to me, which ever since has served to exalt me; thus it has
become clear to me, that each human being should represent
humanity in his own manner, in his own combination of its
elements, so that in this fashion humanity reveals itself, and all
of that can become actual in the fullness of space and time,
 98 UNDERSTANDING OF THE HUMAN BEING
which can potentially be born from humanity's womb. This
thought has lifted me up immensely ... I feel myself to be in
this sense an individually desired and selected work of the
Godhead, which should celebrate its particular shape and
formation[16]." One could formulate this also with the help of
the microcosm idea: The individual is the microcosm, in which
the macrocosm of humanity is reflected in unique form.
We must now add a third point: Each individuality is also and
first of all limitation, namely contingent and fortuitous particu-
larity. Individuality involves potential which is realized in one
fashion and no other; in this sense individuality is one-
sidedness. When, as corresponds to the goal of organic forma-
tion (Bildung), the human being is supposed to develop into a
harmonically balanced form, this does not simply occur on its
own as an undisturbed growth from within. Rather, it is also
necessary that the individual broaden himself and compensate
for the one-sidedness in his own predisposition, by entering into
community with other individuals, and thus take into himself
the life expressions of these individuals, and ultimately those of
the whole of humanity. For elucidation I will cite Schleier-
macher once again: "I must go out of myself into many kinds of
community with other souls, not only to see how much there is
to humanity ... no also more firmly to determine ... through
"•:11
'ill giving and receiving ... my own being[ 17]."
1: ;I,
l.,:li:
:,,,,,
This takes place to a great extent in intercourse with other
human beings, and we understand in this light the significance
which the German romantics ascribed to friendship in human
life. However, it also occurs to the same extent through contact
with the works of the mind, of art, of science, of religion-not
only the works of the present, but also those of different
people and times. We can comprehend from this the import-
ance which the pre-occupation with Greek and Roman anti-
quity and the Italian renaissance has held for German classicism
and for the German new-humanism .. Nevertheless we can only
allude here to the pedagogical side, the question concerning the
value for education of the study of foreign languages and
cultures.
This new feature transcends the analogy to the growth of
plant life. The single individual, we are now to understand,
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 99
develops to a consummate perfected state, only insofar as he
takes into himself the greatest range of the life-expressions of
other humans and inwardly broadens himself through them. On
this basis an enthusiasm for historical research developed in the
19th century, which drew ever new possibilities for being
human into the scope of its consideration. Accordingly, there
arose at the same time a danger of historicism, an aimless losing
of oneself in the multiplicity of possibilities. Inversely and at the
same time emerged the challenge, that the human being not
lose himself in alien possibilities, but rather actually appropri-
ate them and integrate them into his own inner Gestalt. This
double-sidedness is the essential kernel in the classical concept
of Bildung (formation), as Humboldt articulated it in its most
mature form. Spranger formulated this pregnantly in his book
on Humboldt: Individuality-universality-totality[18]. Thus it
is the goal of totality to overcome the fortuitous limitation of
individuality, as it is given, by means of taking up and appro-
priating the widest possible universality of human possibilities
and finally to reestablish this individuality on a higher level.
Only when the human being completes this movement through
individuality and universality toward totality is the true and
fully unfolded individuality achieved.
6. The Inward Turning
These few indications must suffice to bring into view not the
classical ideal of the human being as such, but rather merely the
transformation in the understanding of the human being as
person, which this classical ideal expresses. If we look back at
Kant one more time, the shift in the mode of understanding will
become entirely clear. The human being as a person, in Kant's
view, stands as a pure subject over against the world, and thus,
insofar as he is a person, cannot himself be a part of this world.
He has a transcendental structure but no objectively definable
form. Thus he stands beyond all individual definitions, because
these would only be possible as objective definitions. The concept
of personality in the citation from Goethe can be thoroughly
comprehended only in the sense of a non-objective subject, which
cannot be touched by any external injury; nevertheless, this
100 UNDERSTANDING OF THE HUMAN BEING
personality is still accessible to our understanding, as a definite,
manifest, tangible, and even rather fixed figure. Thus the mode
of understanding has already shifted dramatically from the
concept of individuality in the sense of German classicism. The
human subject, which formerly could be comprehended only in
its actual relations, has now become an individual figure which
can be characterized by definite properties, and is thus a con-
stituent part of the phenomenal world, comprehensible to ob-
jective knowledge.
In the "Apprentices of Sais" by Navalis, this shift in the
mode of understanding can be followed especially clearly.
When human inwardness is interpreted there as the "source of
freedom," which contains the "key" to the decoding of the
"cryptic code of nature," then this is first of all viewed in the
sense of Kant's transcendental philosophy: The a priori forms of
contemplation and of thinking form the key to the understand-
ing of external nature. However, when this human inwardness
is seen at the same time as a "magic mirror," in which the
external world is reflected in a perfecting fashion, when further
an "inner world" is counterposed to the external world, then
the relationship of the subject to the world of objects is thereby
transformed to the mirroring relationship of two distinct
worlds, of which the inner world comprises the more perfect,
and the one which holds a priority for the human being over the
external world. Thus we find in Navalis: "The inner world is
almost more mine than the external. It is so inward, so
familiar-one could wish to live entirely in it[19]." In this text is
revealed the romantic discovery of the soul: the soul no
longer as the organ for comprehending the world, but rather as
one's own, rich, and articulated world, stretching into mysteri-
ous depths.
This is the sense of the romantic inward path. This is, al-
though perhaps expressed differently, also at the same time the
implicit presupposition of the classical conception of the human
being: the turning toward human inwardness as a region in its
own right, which requires a special attention and cultivation;
and toward the human personality as an artistic work to be
consciously formed, in contrast to which all tasks fulfilled in the
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 101
external world fade into insignificance. Allow me to elucidate
this by citing Schleiermacher once again. He merely expresses
in blatant form, that which we could have elucidated just as well
through the works of Humboldt: "Have no fear about what
might develop, when you have begun to pursue this or that!
Nothing will ever become of this except you yourself." All
external behaviour exists only for the sake of inward fulfillment,
and may therefore never be passed over in a self-forgetful
abandonment. Schleiermacher explicitly emphasizes: "What-
ever you offer the world should be ripe fruit freely ready to drop
from the branch. Do not-in false magnanimity-sacrifice the
smallest part of your own nature[20]."
This is, brought to the ultimate and most simple formula, the
human ideal of the German new-humanism, and this is certainly
not false. It is rather one of the greatest achievements in
general, which has ever resulted from German intellectual
history, and for which we must-in admiration and respect-be
grateful. Just as in Kant the human being was a part of the
causal nexus interior to phenomena, so too here that great
domain opens up in which the education and self-education of
the human being is possible, in which the human being can be
cultivated toward the consummate perfection of his nature. I
will therefore designate this briefly as the domain of the plasti-
city and perfectibility of man (Bildsamkeit). This is the domain
in which the human being becomes visible in the fullness of his
inherent attributes, his characteristics, capacities, and virtues,
precisely as individuality. But with thi~ turning toward the
conscious formation and self-formation of his nature, there is
also a necessary correlary: an objectification of the human
being, even an objectification of his own "I" or ego. When
Navalis speaks in characteristic fashion of an "inner world,"
then this is also once again a world in the Kantian sense, that is,
it is an object for a subject. Thus the correlary danger arises,
that behind the authentic "source of freedom," the subject
itself-as something fundamentally never to be objectified-is
lost. To bring this to a rough formulation: The will toward the
formulation of the personality conceals the true nature of
the person, the person namely as a transcendental depth not
 T
102 UNDERSTANDING OF THE HUMAN BEING
amenable to objective definition, the person as the "opening,"
through which, in the literal sense of the "personare," a voice
of the absolute resounds into our objective world.
7. New Approaches
Thus we arrive at the demarcation point for the second part of
the development we are considering here. In its decisive fea-
tures this second movement takes place as a counter-movement
against the first, and remains always related to this first move-
ment. We are concerned with the time period from the middle
of the 19th century through our own present time (to the extent
that we are even capable of taking our own time into historical
consideration). I cannot pursue in detail the attacks against the
classical ideal of Bildung (organic formation), which rose up
within the field of pedagogy since the second half of the 19th
century. It may be a general principle, which Dilthey in his time
had already emphasized, that every ideal of the human being,
brought forth by humanity in a particular time, is necessarily
one-sided, in that it merely synthesizes in clear form certain
aspects of the human being, and on the other hand excludes
others, and that this one-sidedness then always necessarily leads
to a counter-movement. Thus it was in this case economics,
politics, and religion which commenced the critique of the
classical ideal of Bildung[21].
I can only allude to these developments here; they will
provide us merely with background for understanding the philo-
sophical initiatives, which-paralleling these pedagogical
debates-have struggled for a new and original understanding
of the human being. In contrast to the developments of the
late 18th and early 19th century, which in spite of their muti-
faceted nature still unfolded as a unitary and coherent course of
events, the subsequent counter-movement lacked any such
unitary or continuous trend. We see rather a variety of indivi-
dual initiatives, which emerged here and there with individual
thinkers, essentially independent of one another. We must seek
to comprehend these initiatives, without regard for any tem-
poral order, in accordance with some systematic viewpoints.
I will attempt to summarize these approaches, which point to
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 103
a new understanding of the human being, under several points.
I will give these points in a rough order, just as they impress me,
linked only externally to one another, without attempting to
achieve a deeper systematic articulation.
1. The first is the dissolution of any fixed and enduring nature
of the human being into a flowing movement. This is the
Heraclitean tendency of all of Lebensphilosophie (philosophy
of life), which holds that being in general only arises as a
rigidification, but that the true reality manifests as permanent
movement, as becoming, and as living in the literally empha-
sized meaning of the word. This viewpoint necessarily combats
against any "closed personality," which has become a fixed
Gestalt, and against every orientation of human life toward a
completed artistic form. It its place arises the principle already
formulated by Goethe: "die and become." Thus Nietzsche later
took up these thoughts passionately, in that he confessed of
himself:
Unquenched like the flame,
I glow and consume myself,[22]
and refused any form of abiding permanence.
Only he who transforms himself, remains kindred to me ... [23]
In this fashion he called out to his friends. And in our own
century Rilke has repeated similarly:
Desire transformation! 0 be so inspired by the flame,
within which something eludes you,
something that makes a play of metamorphoses[24].
If these characteristics are also supported on the objective level,
then it is important that the fixedness of any enduring substance
be destroyed, and that unceasing process take its place. Ortega
y Gasset has formulated this in a similar fashion: "The human
being is no thing, but rather a drama[25]."
104 UNDERSTANDING OF THE HUMAN BEING
T THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
2. The discovery of the inward temporality of the human
being shares this same context: We encounter Bergson's con-
cept of duration and the corresponding ideas of Simmel,
Proust's poetic portrayal of the unceasing transformations in all
mental processes, and even Heidegger's grand analysis of
human temporality.
3. This becoming finds its more precise definition in creation.
Above all Nietzsche understood the human life as a process of
creation and was fascinated by its inexhaustible productivity.
"The greatest, that is: the creative,[26)" so it is written in
"Zarathustra," and the will toward creation compells at the
same time-in order to make room-the destruction of every-
thing existent. The "revaluation of all values" demanded by
Nietzsche is the necessary consequence of this continuous crea-
tion and re-creation; because it signifies not merely a one-time
inversion of values, but rather an ever renewed process,
through which existing values are to be replaced by newly
created values. Dilthey has in his quiet fashion portrayed ex-
pression as creative achievement, because in expression the
human being lifts new possibilities from the inexhaustible
depths of life, and embodies them in the great achievements of
culture.
4. This creative nature of the human being relates to the
production not only of external works, but rather also and
above all of the human being himself and leads in this sense to a
deeper understanding of his historicity. Nietzsche himself had
already once characterized the human being as "the not yet
established animal,[27]" and emphasized in this fashion that
the human being does not have a fixed nature as other animals
do but rather must first create this himself. Thus what the
human being is, depends on he himself. Marx had already
spoken of the "self-begetting of the human being" through
human work, [28] whereby he meant the development and
cultivation of his senses and faculties in the course of history.
Dilthey developed more than anyone else an understanding of
human historicity: "The type-human being-fuses into the
process of history[29]." This means that there is no fixed
nature of the human being, which holds true throughout his-
tory, but rather this nature transforms itself in its course
105
through ever new creative achievements. Thus it can only be
learned from history: "What the human being is, only his
history can te11,[30]" but even here every image arrived at
remains provisional, because history remains always open to
new and unreckonable possibilities. For Marx as for Dilthey,
this transformation of the nature of man was the work of
supra-individual history. With Sartre, however, it received its
ultimate heightening, and was laid in the hands of the individual
human being. Sartre emphasized: "The human being is nothing
other than what he makes of himself[31]."
5. Another approach offers the concept of intentionality, as it
was coined by Brentano, then taken up and further developed
by Husser! and the phenomenologists. This concept was first
developed to distinguish the peculiar nature of psychical being
from that of physical things. It signifies that all psychical being
is characterized by the fact, that it refers to something else,
which is not itself: All representation is representation of some-
thing; all love is love of something; all hope is hope of some-
thing; all desiring is desiring of something; and etc. This
concept leads further, however, to what is for us a decisive
point, because already from the start it abrogates the possibility
of any so-called inner world, and emphasizes that human exist-
ence resides only in the relatedness to something beyond it-
self and can never be defined as a kind of autonomous being
resting in and based upon its own self. In place of the idea of the
self-preoccupied refinement of one's own nature and of the
cultivation of personality (or however one might express it), we
find a self-forgetful merging into function. This corresponds to
what Rilke later sought to understand as "relation," when he
raised the challenge to:
Singing and praising, climb back,
climb back into pure relatedness ... [32]
because this means: Renounce the all too natural striving for
self-preservation and surrender yourself to a pure functioning,
which is fulfilled only in self-forgetfulness. Elsewhere he has
described this similarly:
We live truly only in pure figures[33].
106 UNDERSTANDING OF THE HUMAN BEING
6. In this fashion the individual differences, on which the
classical ideal of the dignity and worth of the human being was
founded, lose their metaphysical priority and once again fade
into a self-effacing contingency. Thus one could say that only by
finding his place within the general or within the type does the
human being fulfill his nature, which can only be defined in its
function. In any case Hermann Hesse seems to have understood
things in this way. In his "Glass Bead Game," he takes a
fictional look backward, from the standpoint of a future, per-
fected, and clarified condition of mankind, grown beyond the
confusions of the present. There he observed that, for the
"biographers and historians of earlier times," "the essential in a
personality seemed to be the unique and deviant qualities; the
aspects which defied the normal, and even at times the patho-
logical. We in the present, however, generally speak of import-
ant personalities only when we encounter human beings, who
beyond all originality and distinctness, have achieved the fullest
possible, consummate insertion of themselves into the general
and the fullest possible service to the supra-personalleve1[34]."
7. This converges once again with Nietzsche's familiar for-
mulation that the human being should be "a rope, tied be-
tween the animal and the superman,[35]" that he should be "a
bridge and not a purpose,[35]" "a transition and a ruination"
(literally, a going beyond and a going under); [35] because this
too again emphasizes that the human being does not have any
nature resting in itself, to be defined in its own terms, that
rather he can only be understood in terms of this "between,"
and of the movement to be consummated in this "between."
"The human being," so he emphasized, "is something which
is supposed to be overcome[36]." In these perhaps poetically
exaggerated words we encounter something essential: that
namely the human being should be comprehended as a move-
ment leading beyond itself and surpassing itself. The earlier
definition of transformation takes on here a more pregnant and
harsher visage. Simmel speaks of a "self-transcendence," of a
"stepping of the spiritual life beyond itself[37]." Rilke also
renders the foreign Latin word "transcendence" as the poeti-
cally sublimated German words "stepping beyond," producing
one of the key phrases in his interpretation of the human being.
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 107
Thu~ we, find a parallel in the words of the singer Orpheus, one
of Rilke s purest embodiments of human nature:
~e hearkens an~ obeys, in that he steps beyond ... [38]
This means that, I.n so far as he relinquishes everything
perman~?t and carne~ forth the movement of this "stepping
beyond, he fulfills his own nature. Allow me to clarify this
?Y means of another contemporary German poet. Hesse
mcludes in his "Glass Bead Game" the poem "Stages " in
which we find written: '
We shall cheerfully step from place to place,
And cling to none as a homeland. . . [39]
He explained this himself as the task of making life into "a
transcending, a decisive and cheerful traversing, fulfilling and
relinquishing of every place, and every stretch of ~ne's
path[40]." ~ut this stepping beyond, one must interject, is not
only a steppmg further from one level to another, but is also at
th~ s~me tu~e an absolute stepping beyond the sphere of any
this-sided existence, and a stepping across toward death. Rilke
had intended it this way in his Orpheus; Nietzsche had also
characteri~~d t~e human being as "a going beyond and a going
under[41]. T~Is then;te .leads us through Simmel's writings and
beyond to Heidegger s Interpretation of human existence as a
"being towards death."
8. This development finds its ultimate expression in the
modern concept of existence, originated by Kierkegaard and
taken up.by exist~ntial philosophy. If we attempt to capture this
concept m the simplest formula, then existence characterizes
that last k~rnel in the human being, which one can no longer
define by Its. contents; .rather one can only comprehend it by
means of a dtre~t expenence penetrating beyond any regard for
contents. or ~ttnbut~s o.f the person. The human being experi-
ences this existence m himself not in pure thinking, but rather in
the painful experience, that everything which he can in some
sense "have"--external possessions and human relationships
even his ~~n body with its members and senses, as well a~
the capacities and dispositions of his soul, that all of this
nevertheless remains external to himself, and that it can be
taken from him. What then lights up in him as something final,
108 UNDERSTANDING OF THE HUMAN BEING
most inward, and even absolute, which cannot be touched
amidst all of these injuries, that is his existence in the rigorous
sense of existential philosophy. For existence experienced in
this fashion, everything else is merely external; even the muti-
faceted individuality, fully unfolded, actualized, and fixed as
personality, in the sense of classicism, even the "inner world" in
the sense of romanticism, and even the entire world of the spirit
and of culture are external.
Jaspers emphatically pointed out that this existence is funda-
mentally not objectifiable and cannot therefore be com-
prehended in objective knowledge. He emphasized: "This will,
which compells one to know that which by its very nature is not
knowable, becomes a betrayal of existence[42]." In spite of this
it is a distinctly characterizable mode of being. "What in a
mythic mode of expression is called the soul and God, is not
world. They are not knowable in the same sense that things in
the world are, yet they can be known in other ways[43]." They
are only given in the concrete execution of existential exper-
iencing. They can be "illuminated" by circumspect efforts of
thought, through a continuous circling, and this thinking, which
remains inadequate to the nature of existence, may neverthe-
less, by means of its appealing, draw out or provoke "exis-
tence" in another human being. This is possible, because such
existence is not at hand at all times, but rather actualizes itself
only through an existential impetus.
Heidegger conceived this same problem differently. He at-
tempted to define human existence, which in its "what" is not
comprehensible, by its "how," that is, in its relations to the
world. Thus we see his formulation: "The essence of Dasein
[man's mode of being there in the world] lies in its
existence[44]." That is, it is not comprehensible in its specific
"properties," but rather only through certain structural forms
of its behaviour toward the world, which Heidegger character-
ized as "existentials." Sartre, on the other hand, saw in the later
development of these thoughts a betrayal of human freedom, if
one should then ascribe to the human being certain virtues and
depravities in the sense of fixed properties.
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 109
8. The Inner Unity of the New Movement
Many other features remain to be added here, and even what
we have alluded to already should be more precisely developed
in its essentials. But I must break off here. What may have
begun as a mosaic of many separate pieces-all of the indivi-
dual factors which I have introduced-fuses together after
deeper consideration into a whole and can be understood as one
movement. Originating in opposition to the image of the human
being of German classicism and romanticism, this movement
breaks through into a deeper understanding of the human being
in his personality. Pointing in this direction, we find first of all
the dissolution of any continuous and abiding being into pure
movement, and then the closer characterization of this move-
ment as a creative process, proceeding from inexhaustible
depths, and transcending itself continuously. Farther along we
encounter the conception of the human being in his intentional
relatedness, which ultimately leads to a full overcoming of any
objective definitions and attributes, in the primordial existence
of the human being. It is not by accident that the Kantian
distinction-between the world of phenomena and the person
who can never be objectively comprehended--emerges once
again, in a precisely corresponding fashion, in Jaspers'
viewpoint. We encounter here in fact precisely the same prob-
lem, emerging once again in a new form.
It may be inappropriate, regarding a thinker of the magni-
tude of Kant, to speak of a deepening of his thought. Neverthe-
less on the other hand it is significant that the newer German
philosophers (aside from Max Scheler) have for a long time
neglected the concept of the person and have attempted to
understand the phenomena associated with this concept under
other labels[45]. The discoveries of classicism and romanticism
have also influenced the newer philosophical discussions; in
place of the rational willing, encountered in the Kantian per-
son, we find a fuller and deeper but also more sorrowful image
of the human being. Both tragic developments and existential
need have contributed to this image. In the passage through
Dionysian ecstasy and all consuming passions, as well as
through the depths of despair, that same "source of freedom"
110 UNDERSTANDING OF THE HUMAN BEING

breaks forth, which elevates the human being above any kind of CHAPTER VII
inner-wordly events, in that it places him into an immediate
relationship to the absolute. Wherever this occurs, all of the
distinctions of philosophical interpretation become immaterial.
To hold them pure, however, across the chasm of the times,
remains the eternal task of philosophy. Education and Life

1. Education as a Function of Life

In order to achieve a reliable foundation for the examination of
pedagogical phenomena, one must not view education in isola-
tion. Rather, one must see education as a specific capacity
within the total context of life, and understand it from this
perspective. It has developed in this life and always retains a
reference back to this life. I speak generally in this regard of
"life," and intend this first of all in a still non-specific sense, so
that it refers equally to the individual lives of particular men
and to the supra-individual life of the "objective mind" in its
various forms, the lives of states, of churches, of professional
organizations, etc., which taken together can be conceived of as
life.
Later on I will further justify this use of terms, which must at
first sound quite vague. Meanwhile this usage will make possi-
ble our first conclusion: Education does not exist in empty space
for itself alone, rather it has to fulfill a specific capacity in the
context of life. It is also therefore not something that can be
derived from some kind of abstracted theses; rather it must be
comprehended from this context of life in which it stands. In
theological language many in Germany today speak enthusiasti-
cally of a "mission." I would prefer to avoid this term, because
it sounds too concretely personal to me. One can only speak of
a mission, when a specific concrete person is present to bestow
Jhis mission. Thus one could speak of an educational mission
which the parents bestow upon a private tutor, but that would
be a special case. Life taken in our very general meaning is
112 EDUCATION AND LIFE
poorly suited to bestow such missions. It would be more accu-
rate to speak of a task of education, whereby this task would
then have to be more precisely defined. I therefore would say
generally-and this is my first thesis-that: Education must be
conceived as a function in the service of life. Just as in the
physical domain the heart, the lungs and so forth have to fulfill
certain functions in the life of the organism, so too in the
spiritual life of human communities there are also such func-
tions, and education is one of them.
Things are no different in this regard than they are for
science, the arts, the law, economics, and so forth, which must
all be conceived in this fashion as functions in the service of life.
The function of education is furthermore manifold and cannot
be understood in any simplistic formula. From one perspective
we can characterize this state of affairs in a provisional fashion
as follows: Education should enable the generation now grow-
ing up to fulfill its task in the totality of life and to replace the
older members of society who are eliminated through death.
Already here we can detect a twofold direction which is inhe-
rent in one's fundamental concept of life: From the standpoint
of the individual human beings, they must be enabled to assert
independence in life, thus they must first of all be made ge-
nuinely ready for life, and this task becomes all the more
difficult, the more complicated are the social relationships.
From the standpoint of society, however, this task signifies the
formation of individual human beings for the fulfillment of their
task in the society; because only by this means can a society
preserve its abiding existence beyond the life-span of particular
individuals.
We will come back to this point soon, but first a difficulty
arises: In order to be able to fulfill this function in the service of
life, education must free itself from any immediate dependence
on life-or better, on the specific particular forms of life-and
develop itself first according to its own intrinsic nature. It dare
not simply accept orders from any of the great organizations of
life, from the state, from political parties, from religious organ-
izations, from economic organizations, and in fact even from
the parents, as to how it should educate students, or toward
what specific goals it should educate. Life in the sense intended
T EDUCATION AND LIFE 113
here is more than all of these particular organizational forms. In
its responsibility to this "life," education must define itself
according to its own nature; it must itself know what its task is,
and may not allow this to be dictated by other authorities. Thus
in order to be able to serve life in the proper fashion, education
must first separate itself (relatively) from the totality of life, it
must develop itself in its own nature, in order then to be able to
contribute to this life through its own capacities.
The situation is in any case no different in this regard from
that of the other functions of life, the sciences, the arts, and so
forth. Even science (we will use the example of science for
or~entation) has to serve life. That is entirely self-evident.
Science does not fulfill this task by simply allowing itself to be
told the ways it should be useful and what it should research or
invent; rather it must first of all develop its knowledge accord-
ing to its own intrinsic.Jaws. It must first ask: What is true and
not true? Accordingly it does not begin by asking: What is
pleas~ng or what is useful? It must be directed only according to
the smgular law of the truth. Only then does it fulfill its true
function in life. The so-called "research on demand" never
leads very far, and the great breakthroughs of science, even in
the sense of its practical applications, have always proceeded
from unrestrained pure research.
The s~me is .al~o true of art: Every connection of art to specific
tendentiOus mtsswns or to any specific intention causes art to be
stunted. Nevertheless, we are not encouraging a regression of
art into the isolation of a mere "l'art pour I' art," an art for art's
sake. Only when art develops itself in its own essential nature
without regard to external effect, can art fulfill its true task i~
life, and thus become a great life-forming force. As Simmel
once formulated this: Only on the path that leads through and
beyond art for art's sake can art in a deeper sense become an art
for the sake of life ("l'art pour Ia vie").
The same i~ also true for education: The state, the parties,
and other fachons~all ?f these objective forces-would gladly
take hold of the child, m order to use the child for their own
purposes. For this reason they desire to prescribe for education,
how and toward what ends it should educate. Even with the
parents things are no different. In fact they are often the worst
114 EDUCATION AND LIFE
enemies of a rational education; because as a rule they have the
economic progress of their children in mind in a one sided
fashion. They want "things to go better" for their children than
they have for themselves, and thus they emphasize the practical
side of education and training, the so called "useful," and for
this reason they thus often neglect the deeper humane edu-
cation of the child. Education, on the other hand, must rebuff
all of these demands which impinge on it from without. It is
primarily oriented to the child. It must assist this child to his
proper unfolding, and to this end must act as an advocate for
the child, and protect the child from the grip of any objective
societal powers. In this sense education must develop its goals
entirely from within itself, and on its own responsibility, goals
which cannot be overruled by any outside force. In this fashion
education serves not a single power or faction, but rather life as
a whole. In Germany we have called this principle the auton-
omy of pedagogy.
The concept of autonomy can easily be mistunderstood. Even
in Germany it has been often debated and often misunderstood.
The National Socialists (Nazis) attacked this principle especially
vigorously in their time. They reproached the pedagogues with
attempting to isolate education from the rest of life, and with
desiring to set up a world-estranged domain of their own-a
distinct "pedagogical province," far from all of the demands of
actual life. But this is not what is intended. Rather the auton-
omy of pedagogy should signify that education can only then
fulfill its task in life in the proper manner, when it does not
allow itself to be commandeered by any faction, but rather can
pursue its goals and its methods in complete freedom and on its
own responsibility.
We are able to summarize these thoughts by expanding and
qualifying our first thesis through the second: Education can
properly fulfill its function in the service of life only then, when
it can develop itself independently from all other social forces-in
freedom and according to its own lawfulness. In this and only in
this sense, we speak of an autonomy of pedagogy-just as of the
autonomy of every other cultural domain. Functional character
and autonomy are thus necessarily mutually related. It should
also be self-evident, that what holds true of pedagogy as the
EDUCATION AND LIFE 115
everyday reality of education, holds true equally of educational
science as the theory of pedagogy. We mention this here only
for the sake of thoroughness.
2. Example: Kirschensteiner's Basic Axiom of the
Educational Process
As an example of a demand originating from the inner lawful-
ness of padagogy, I will mention Kirschensteiner's familiar
basic axiom of the educational process and use this example
to clarify the nature of this much disputed pedagogical
autonomy. Kerschensteiner's axiom, condensed to its simplest
form, states that the child will only be able to meaningfully
assimilate those kinds of cultural goods, for the reception of
which his mental development is now mature enough. Ex-
pressed in this fashion that sounds almost self-evident; yet it is
by no means self-evident, but rather of the highest importance
for the proper institution of instruction and education. It is
above all a criterion against the perpetual efforts to extend
curriculum toward a too premature age level, something which
pedagogically injudicious forces in our society are always press-
ing for.
Earlier times (such as the Enlightenment of the 18th century)
saw the child as a small adult. They assumed that everything
which the adult can understand should also be understood by
the child, though perhaps somewhat more slowly and in a lesser
measure. In opposition to this, insight into the inner lawfulness
of the thinking of children discloses that this thinking differs
not only in degree but also in kind from that of the adult, and
that for this reason many topics, at least in the form developed
by adults, cannot be meaningfully assimilated by the child at
all. Thus mathematical instruction has had to take heed of the
child's conceptions of number and space, so absolutely different
from our own. That which stands at the very beginning in the
scientific construction of this discipline, such as the axiomatic
foundations, is entirely inappropriate as the access point for a
child's mind. One must introduce the child to the topic from
another side entirely. What this correct path for instruction
is, cannot be determined from mathematics alone; rather to
116 EDUCATION AND LIFE
discover this presupposes an exact knowledge of the develop-
ment of a child's mental life and especially of his forms of
thought and intuition.
A very similar problem arises in dealing with the great
works of literature. There is a serious question as to what extent
the works of the great poets, such as Goethe and Holderlin, can
be conveyed in the lower schools, because they perhaps- I say
perhaps here intentionally - can only be comprehended by
individuals of an age much greater than that of the elementary
school. A compulsory preoccupation with material which is
incomprehensible at this lower level may arouse nothing more
than a lingering aversion, which will block one's access to the
poetry even later in life. The teacher may respond to this by
saying: If the child does not come to understand this poetry
now, then it will pass him by once again at a later age. Yet this is
a very questionable argument, because by this means one could
excuse every offense against the criterion that education suit the
level of the child.
On the other hand, the question is really not so simple at all.
If one excludes important works of culture from the schools on
the basis of a lack of spiritual maturity in the students, then it is
to be feared that the child will never be exposed to them at all,
because at a later age he may never on his own initiative
confront them.
At this point very difficult questions arise. This is the problem
of anticipation, as Flitner has best articulated it. Instruction
must not orient itself on the principle of developmental suita-
bility alone, but rather must at the same time always reach a bit
beyond the present level into the future, in order to create a
demand which draws development onward like a kind of suc-
tion. It must not, however, reach so far ahead that it becomes
generally inaccessible from the present developmental level,
and thus severs the fruitful tension, and collapses into complete
incomprehensibility. Things are no different, one might add, in
moral education, for example in the question of truthfulness. In
general things come down to the proper balance between antici-
pation and developmental suitability, so that education can
move forcefully ahead. Even a never understood sentence, a
poetic phrase or Biblical text, can occasionally be fruitful at
EDUCATION AND LIFE 117
s?me point in later life, if it has remaind preserved in memory
smce schooldays. Yet we are dealing here naturally with the
exceptional case, in which an otherwise lively instruction at the
same time contains such a seed for the future.
These demands of pedagogy based on developmental psy-
chology have come into especially intense conflict with the
churches; bec~use the c~urches require, which is entirely na-
tural from theu standpomt, that certain basic dogmatic truths
be communicated to the child as early as possible in his life.
Pedagogy on the other hand resists this demand because it has
recognized that many such teachings either ca~not be under-
stood at all by the children at their level or in any case cannot be
understood in the dogmatic form promulgated by the churches.
Further, pedagogy recognizes that the most destructive conse-
quences for religious development will arise if the children are
in spit.e of all this, forced to an external learning of what are t~
~hem Incomprehensible religious teachings. Even the old fash-
IOned mod.e of speaking, sanctified by tradition, with so many
words whtch have . long since disappeared from everyday
speech, creates a maJor obstacle for the child, who thinks in the
immediate idiom of his surroundings. Thus the teacher must
translate this langu~ge, against every theological objection, into
a language accesstble to the child. We have here another
example for Kerschensteiner's basic axiom: Only the educator
can decide ~hat and in which form the child can be taught, and
he must resist every external encroachment on his decision. But
the same example shows equally clearly that it is not out of
emnity against religion that he resists the churches' demands·
~i~ opposition rests rather in the meaningful interests of re~
hg~o~s development itself. We recognize once again the inter-
twmmg of autonomy and functionality: Precisely because of its
responsibility for religious development, education must hold
firm against the demands of the churchly authorities when
these authorities seem to offend against the criterion of ;'devel-
opmental suitability."
~he same problem occurs just as much in the political do-
mat~. The state and the parties want to win the child as early as
posstble for themselves. The state wants the child to be formed
into an obedient subject, who experiences a deep reverence for
118 EDUCATION AND LIFE
the "authority" of the state and submits without question to the
demands of its officials. The parties in turn want the child to
commit himself as early as possible to their point of view, so
that he will become a determined follower. Thus both threaten
already early on to constrict the child's latitude for unfolding. In
contrast pedagogy has pointed out that such a commitment,
namely a decision solidly based in reality, is only a matter for
the mature adult. Further, pedagogy shows that a multifarious
exposure to ideas at an early age is a necessary presupposition
for every later decision, if it is to be accomplished as a real, that
is a conscious and insightful, decision, and not simply taken
over as the opinion of one's environment in the sense of a
prejudice. Political education is necessarily an education to-
ward autonomy in political judgment and toward the assump-
tion of political responsibility, and both presuppose the freedom
of one's own decision. The cultivation of the capacity for
judgment is thus a pressing modern problem vis a vis the
"manipulation" of public opinion through the media. In order
to make this possible, however, the educator must repeatedly
block the premature intrusive efforts of the political forces, and
further, must retain a certain neutrality, or better a "supra-
partiality" (an attitude beyond partisanship), in his or her own
political remarks. This does not mean that the educator should
have no standpoint in his own political life, but this standpoint
has no place in his instruction, and thus he must cultivate in this
regard a conscious reserve. Here too we find a close parallel
with religion: This reserve does not imply the political disinter-
est of the teacher, nor does it aim at educating the child into an
apolitical human being, rather it is precisely for the sake of
political education that the child must be protected against
injurious, premature influences.
Thus one can say in general that Kerschensteiner's basic
axiom directs the educational process to shelter the child from
any premature assaults by objective forces in society, and to
preserve the urgently necessary latitude for his free, unre-
stricted development. The educator, acting in his educational
responsibility, resists such partisan assaults, and precisely this is
his function. But he does this not because he regards the claims
of the supra-individual social forces as unjustified. Rather on
EDUCATION AND LIFE 119
the contrary: He recognizes these claims entirely, but he be-
lieves that it is necessary to determine the proper point in time
and the proper manner in which they can be meaningfully
presented to the child, because only then can they really be
fulfilled. Every prematurity in such matters will merely mis-
carry.
3. Democracy and Education
This recognition-of the necessity for the autonomy of
pedagogy-also has an immediate political consequence.
Namely, it formulates at the same time a demand which peda-
gogy must place before society: In order that education can
fulfill its task properly, it requires freedom for its proper un-
folding. This in turn is only possible within a free system of
government. If we characterize this free system of government
as democratic, however, we do not mean this or that specific
form of government existi~g .today under the label democracy.
Rather, we mean in general any form of government containing
the degree of freedom, to enable education to fulfill its task on
its own responsibility. Thus such a government stands in stark
contrast to a totalitarian system, whether this system would be
of a worldly or spiritual nature. An authoritarian system will
seek to form the child from the outset for service to its own
purposes and thus does not provide the child with the necessary
latitude for his own free unfolding with all its inherent possi-
bilities. It will recognize only a pre-determined, constricted
development for the fulfillment of those achievements dictated
by the system-thus a development in the direction of a very
specific usefulness. Things are no different in authoritarian
forms of religion than in authoritarian forms of government.
Neither recognizes the principle of the education of the total
human being toward wholeness as a human being, something
that is possible only within the medium of a political and
spiritual freedom. Education thus requires, for its full unfold-
ing, at least an absolute minimum of democracy, although we
are pre-judging absolutely nothing about the particular form of
such a democracy.
What we in Germany experienced during the dominance of
120 EDUCATION AND LIFE
the National Socialists holds true necessarily of every totalitar-
ian system, to the degree that such a system obstructs the
intrinsic lawfulness of a freely and spontaneously unfolding
pedagogy. It is no accident that National Socialism restricted
pedagogical research as much as possible, eliminated the prof-
essorial chairs in pedagogy at the universities for the most part,
and filled the remaining seats with dogmatically loyal Nazi
followers. Nor is it an accident that the influence of the parental
home and school was sharply curtailed, in order to deliver the
children into the power of the state-directed organization of the
"Hitler Youth." The slogan adopted from the youth move-
ment, that "youth must be led by youth," is in and of itself
already dubious, because it fails to understand the superior
power which is necessary for any conscious, forward leading
education. In this case, however, the slogan served to eliminate
the control of a responsible pedagogy, by handling control over
to an unstable and thus easily directed strata of politically active
youth leaders.
The damage which this all has done to the immediate practi-
cal work of pedagogy, as well as to scientific research on
pedagogy, has even to this day not been undone. Even today
there remains in our youth a strong aversion to the teaching
profession, which causes us serious concerns for the coming
generation. This can probably be explained by the fact, that in
the Nazi time this occupation like hardly any other was tortured
by state control and supervision, and teachers were forced over
and over again to present or at least to tolerate viewpoints,
which ran against the demands of their own consciences. In
particular we are still lacking a more mature generation of
scientists in pedagogy, because at that time no one wanted to
have anything to do with an area, in which every act of intellec-
tual autonomy must necessarily lead to conflict with a jealous
governmental supervision.
I point out in this regard that I do not speak here as the
representative of a specific party or of a specific world-view,
who would polemicize against the representatives of other
parties or world views. Rather, I speak as a representative of
pedagogical science as such, or at least, of this science as I
understand it in my own best judgment. I develop from this
EDUCATION AND LIFE 121
science the conditions which must be fulfilled in order for
genuine education and the educational-scientific research
necessary to establish such education to be possible. Every
educator must recognize these conditions if he wishes to edu-
cate meaningfully, entirely apart from the question, of which
party or religious confession he otherwise adheres to. I have
sought to characterize these conditions by the concept of the
autonomy of pedagogy, but it is important that the concept of
autonomy not be misunderstood. Autonomy does not imply the
retreat of pedagogy from an involvement with the totality of
social life, into a separate and distinct "province;" rather it
designates the latitude which pedagogy needs to fulfill its task,
through its own insight into the context, and according to the
rules of education's own inner lawfulness. Thus these require-
ments involve no arrogance or presumption. Things are thus no
different in pedagogy than they would be if any other specialist,
for example a technician, were to insist on carrying out his job
according to his own best insights, and did not wish those who
commission his work to encumber him with unfulfillable wishes
or wishes detrimental to the original plans.
One assumption has been made throughout, if this is in fact
an assumption and not a self-evident truth: that is, the intrinsic
right of the child to the free unfolding of his own personality.
But this is no more than one of the fundamental rights of the
human being in general.
4. The Standpoint of the Philosophy of Life
Finally, one more point: We spoke of education as a function
of life, and in doing so left the concept of life largely undefined.
I will now seek to elaborate this concept more precisely, by
adopting as my viewpoint the perspective of Lebensphilosophie-
the philosophy of life. But I want to understand this philosophy
of life not in the sense of some kind of specific philosophical
school and jargon, but rather in the sense of a natural departure
point for every philosophy. The philosophy of life leaves aside
any rational narrowing of philosophy by basing itself on the
total human being, with all of his powers for understanding, as
well as for feeling and willing. The life lived by the human
122 EDUCATION AND LIFE EDUCATION AND LIFE 123

being, concrete lived reality, that is the natural point of depar- This standpoint of the philosophy of life shows its
ture. fruitfulness-as is our concern at this point-especially in sys-
Accordingly, Lebensphilosophie also opposes any attempt to tematic pedagogy, which can be developed from this point
conceive life from some kind of externally imposed standpoint, henceforth as a "hermeneutics of educational reality, [2]" tak-
which, as in the case of Descartes, believes it has found an ing educational reality as one important partial domain of life.
absolute beginning point in some kind of rational evidence,
from which one could erect the edifice of knowledge in a
step-wise, progressive, constructive process. It also with equal
force opposes every dogmatic foundation on the part of re-
ligious belief. It does not by any means reject such religious
faith, but it does not presuppose such beliefs within the context
of its philosophical foundations as a purely secular science,
which must rest on its own basis. To disclose the life lived by
human beings in its total fullness, and to understand it purely in
its own right, without underlying presuppositions, that is the
goal of a philosophy of life, at least as I understand it.
We will attempt to conceptualize this state of affairs termino-
logically, by formulating it with reference to Dilthey: philos-
ophy as a hermeneutics of life, as the art of interpreting life.
The concept of hermeneutics as a methodologically regulated
art of interpretation is in this regard carried over from the
philological sciences, where it originated and already has a long
prehistory, to philosophy [1]. Thus just as philology interprets
its text and undertakes to clarify it, so too philosophy takes life
in its given actuality as a text, which it aims to read and to
understand without prejudice and without preconceived opin-
ion. A methodological circle characterizes the human sciences,
which, lacking the possibility of an absolute starting point,
begin with an at first quite indefinite total understanding and
press forward with progressive refinement into greater depth.
This same methodological circle also carries over into hermen-
eutic philosophy. Thus the philosophy of life stands in sharp
contrast to all dogmatic and scholastic philosophies, but it
converges closely with the pragmatism developed in America,
especially as Dewey understood it. However, the philosophy of
life seeks to comprehend the concept of life-experience more
fully than pragmatism, to include all of the irrational aspects of
life as well.

II
I
j_
 1
I
CHAPTER VIII
Pedagogical Research and
Philosophical Thinking in Germany
A. THE AUTONOMY OF PEDAGOGY AS
A SCIENCE
1. The Relationship to Psychology and Sociology
ANYONE wishing to report about the present day condition of
educational science in Germany must first of all take a short
look at the developments which led to the present conditions.
Only from the vantage point of this process of development,
can the inner tensions as well as the forward pointing tendencies
in the present situation be adequately understood. Like so
many other individual sciences, pedagogy had first of all to
detach itself from the all encompassing context of philosophy,
in order to establish itself as scientifically self-sufficient. Along
with psychology and sociology, pedagogy was one of the last
sciences to carry out this process of separating from philosophy.
This explains the fact, that its relationship to philosophy re-
mains contested today, both with regard to the proper content
for pedagogy and with regard t-o methodologies.
Until the late 19th century, and in part still into our own
century, pedagogy was nothing more than a sub-discipline of
philosophy and for the most part a discipline of relatively little
significance. Even as it gained in visible importance and began
to stand on its own, the professors of philosophy remained for a
long time the representatives of pedagogy within the organiza-
tion of the German university; they performed the duties of this
PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING 125
second discipline to a certain extent as a kind of sub-office, and
the tastes of the particular professor largely determined how
much he wanted to burden himself with this additional task. In
this connection pedagogy remained an applied version of phil-
osophy. That meant that one took the foundations from the
then prevailing philosophical system and transferred them after
the fact to pedagogy. Thus one deduced from the general
philosophical approach how education should be, but did not
confront and come to terms with education as it actually took
place. No doubt the individual thinker brought in a certain
amount of personal experience from his own viewpoint, or at
least from his memories of his own school days, but this was
only occasional and was assimilated in a more aphoristic man-
ner, was not applied to the philosophical foundations of pedag-
ogy in any critically clarified relationship, and thus was not
actually worked through in a systematic fashion. Thus the
process of developing into a self-sufficient science signified that
pedagogy must form its own knowledge base in a deliberate,
conscious fashion and from this develop its own methods.
The autonomy of such a new science has its own character-
istic difficulties, and thus it did not come about without deep
reaching crises. Thus the separation process was pursued with a
certain emotionally conditioned intensity. It seemed to be a
liberation from a hated yoke. In this combat situation it was in
turn understandable that in the process the separating peda-
gogues drew a one-sided, distorted picture of philosophy and
equated it with an abstract, a priori construction disregarding
actual experience, or even with ungrounded, rootless specu-
lation.
In this situation, in which pedagogy struggled to liberate itself
from the guardianship of the philosophy which it viewed in this
distorted fashion, and sought to form a scientific, reliable basis
of knowledge, it was only natural that pedagogy sought help
from the neighboring disciplines, which had already earlier
carried out this separation from philosophy, and which were
now recognized as independent sciences. This included psy-
chology and later also sociology. This resulted in the further
danger, however, that the struggle for independence from
philosophy would simply lead to a new dependence of pedagogy
126
1
i
PEDAGOGICAL RESEARCH
on these other sciences and that the strived for indpendence
would be lost in a new direction. Therefore it is also necessary
that we clarify the relationship between pedagogy and psychol-
ogy, and pedagogy and sociology.
In this situation pedagogy sought help first from psychology;
because here it found an already developed empirical science of
the human being and especially of the developing human being:
the child and youth, with whom the educator has the most
dealings. This alliance with psychology proved immediately
fruitful, and under its influence since the beginning of this
century the study of the child and pedagogical psychology have
drawn such an enormous impetus, that we on the side of
education can only welcome it. Not only was it indispensable in
assisting the educator toward an understanding of the child, but
it also helped repeatedly to defend the newfound autonomy of
pedagogy from the threatening intrusions of powers outside of
pedagogy (such as were discussed earlier in Chapter VII), by
providing a body of recognized scientific findings which could
be cited. On the other hand, the unexpected expansion of
pedagogical psychology carried with it the danger that under
the influence of a predominantly psychological mode of posing
questions the intrinsic problem domain of pedagogy itself would
be lost from view.
If one were to reduce this relationship to a simple formula, it
would run as follows: Psychology teaches how man is in his
nature, but not to what end he should be formed through
education. It can certainly make judgments about the means
adopted for reaching a goal, but it can conclude nothing about
the goal itself. Psychology is confined formally to its knowledge
of mental functions and thus can decide nothing about the
formative contents of these functions. That means that psy-
chology, viewed from the standpoint of pedagogy, is an indis-
pensable auxiliary science which can make essential statements
about the possibilities for and the limits of education but cannot
in itself conclude anything about the goals of education or about
the educational institutions serving these goals. I would point
out in this regard, in order to avoid possible misunderstandings,
that designating one science as an auxiliary science for another
does not detract from or demean it. It is inherent in the shared
PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING 127
work taking place between the sciences that from the perspec-
tive of each individual science the others receive the function of
auxiliary sciences while inversely from the standpoint of the
other science, one's own science ;;tppears in turn to be its
auxiliary.
Pedagogy is to an entirely different degree than psychology a
cultural science. It considers, as we saw in our earlier reflec-
tions, the individual human being within the meaningful struc-
ture of the encompassing objective mind, and it is, at least in
part, also a normative science. It develops guiding ideals within
the framework of the objective mind and dispenses with exist-
ing reality in accordance with the demands of these ideals [1].
We encounter a difficult problem here, as to how pedagogy can
be capable of such a normative function, without surrendering
its character as an empirical science. This is a fundamental
question of historical consciousness to which we will have to
return. Pedagogy is therefore, in contrast to psychology, in a
very difficult methodological situation from the beginning. From
this intrinsic character of pedagogy arose the difficult challenge
.of keeping in mind the autonomy of pedagogical questioning, in
the face of the over-simplifying influence of psychology.
A second problem also emerges at the same time in this
connection: The more strongly one departs from an individual-
psychological mode of questioning and views the child in his/her
involvement with society, the more necessary becomes the
adoption of a sociological perspective. This expansion in point
of view is all the more important within German pedagogy, as it
was seriously neglected within the previously dominant, indi-
vidually oriented, classical German pedagogy. It has certainly
not been entirely neglected: We call to mind, for example, Paul
Barth's History of Education in Sociological and Cultural-
historical Illumination, [2] but on the whole this orientation had
little influence. So it is quite welcome that a fruitful encounter
between sociology and pedagogy has also commenced in our
time. In this regard we include first and foremost the important
investigations of the pervasive changes in the situation of the
child in modern industrial society (Schelsky, Wurzbacher, Ten-
bruck, among others), [3] as well of as the pedagogical conse-
quences which have resulted from these changes. The great
128 PEDAGOGICAL RESEARCH
·mportance of these investigations for educational science should
~ot be underestimated. Sociology was in many respects .more
unpreJU · d'ced
1
and free , because it was not burdened
. .
w1th so
. with a special, insistent emphasis throughout Germany in the
many traditional ideas. Pedagogy itself falls w1thm the doma1.n
of cultural forces of an unusual power and perseve.rance. It IS
always in danger of lagging behind developmen.ts . It IS therefore
much to be welcomed when a strongly dynamic mfluence from
sociology penetrates the-at least in Germany-very conserva-
tive educational tradition.
In the long run, however, the same problems result h~re as
with psychology. No matter how decisively important so:wlo~y
is for the understanding of educational processes, ~specially m
light of their social functions, nevertheless the .mdep~n.dent
character of pedagogy, which also includes norma~1ve deci.slOns,
cannot be established from a sociological standpomt. So~wlogy
can indeed specify the necessary conditi~ns un~er wh1ch the
realization of certain educational ideals 1s po,ss1bl~ ~nd t~us
serves to demarcate the latitude and outer hm1ts w1thm wh1ch
every educational ideal of a certain time perio.d must be con-
fined. It is thus above all important as a correctiOn for obsolete
pedagogical ideas, but it cannot in itself produce concrete goals.
2. Empirical Research in Pedagogy
Pedagogy desires to free itself fr~m the. guardianship of psy-
chology and sociology, just as 1t prevw~sly had defended
itself against the unjustified influence of phliosophy. Pedag~gy
does not desire to be either an applied psycholog~ or ~n apph~d
sociology, yet still wants to avoid falli?g back mto 1ts earher
dependence on philosophy. Accord1?gly, _redagogy m~st
pursue the necessary foundations wh1ch wlil guarante~ ~ts
character as an empirical science, and must. pursue t~em m 1ts
own domain, namely the domain of educatiOn. In th1s cont~xt
we can better understand those currents in Germany w~1ch
have led to the development of a special "empirical p~dag~g1cal
research," through the earlier pedagogues in the umvers1ty at
Jena Peter Petersen and his co-workers; the same currents
were' also influential in the establishment by Hylla of the "Scho~l
for International Pedagogical Research" in Frankfurt. Th1s
PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING 129
concept of research, which traces back to a large extent to the
influence of the Anglo-American concept of research, was used
years after the war. The first philosophical journal founded in
the year 1946 paid tribute to this trend, in that it was named the
"Zeitschrift fiir philosophische Forschung" (Journal for Philoso-
phical Research). Actually, the application of the concept of
"Research" is quite problematic in philosophy, in spite of the
precedent set by Husserl's journal, the Zeitschrift fiir Phiinome-
nologie und phiinomenologische Forschung (Journal for Phe-
nomenology and Phenomenological Research).
This deliberate use of the word research after 1945 has to be
understood from the standpoint of a very specific cultural-
historical situation. The research movement is characterized
more precisely by a twofold ideological position. It emphasizes
on the one hand the empirical character of this science and in
this fashion is oriented toward the great prototype of the
natural sciences. In this connection it turned against philosophi-
cal pedagogy, which sets out from a a priori given presupposi-
tions and-as was the frequent reproach-builds its educational
system "in the air." The idea of research, in contrast, emphas-
izes the control and "check" of a systematically erected body of
knowledge.
The research movement turns on the other hand, however,
just as sharply against the pedagogical reform movement which
had developed directly from educational practice and which had
exercised such a strong effect in Germany in the first third of
this century. This movement had developed from an enormous
enthusiasm for education and was also guided (consciously or
unconsciously) in this regard by a passionately conceived image
of the human being; this movement had formed an essential
part of the everyday reality of education. But its presupposi-
tions had never been clarified and it was in need of a systematic
scientific formulation, in order for it to transcend its merely
personal approach and to establish its claim to a general objec-
tive validity. Thus in sharp contrast the research idea empha-
sized the concept of a rigorous science, in order to transform
the impulse of the pedagogical reform movement from its
practice-based beginnings into scientifically secured results, and
130 PEDAGOGICAL RESEARCH
to turn back with these results· once again to practical applica-
tions.
A third feature is also involved here: A turning against any
political domination of pedagogy. Just such a domination ~ad
been imposed in the Third Reich, under the pretex of estabhsh-
ing a "worldview" or Weltanschauung as a foundation for
education. This concept of a worldview-in itself proper and
indispensable-had fallen into disrepute, at least for a long
time, because of this misuse by partisan political factions. Thus
the emphasis on the scientific character of empirical research
served in an attempt to liberate education from this ominous
combat between worldviews. The belief was that "research"
would provide-in opposition to these uncontrollable
influences-a reliable base of facts.
This is the background which one must see, in order to
understand the emergence of a distinct current of empirical
pedagogical research, and more generally, to understand the
emphasis on the idea of research in the time aft~r.1945. Ger~an
pedagogy sought to liberate itself from the poht!cal confusiOns
of the past years, by forging this connection with the empirical
pedagogies of the Western countries, which had already devel-
oped much further in this regard.
But the problem of empirical research, as well as the concept
of research in general, carried a difficulty of its own, when
applied to pedagogy, and this difficulty was not a.lways reco.g-
nized with sufficient clarity. This involves the questiOn: What 1s,
after all, a pedagogical fact? Or perhaps better: What is, merely
as fact, pedagogically significant? Because as long as one is not
clear about this, there is a danger of an unrestrained gathering
of material, which in its immeasurable fullness runs its course
ultimately without direction, and in its uncritical closeness to
the object studied, loses its vision for the great meaningful
context of education. Even with the most precise investigative
protocols (as adopted in the school of pedagogy led. by Peters~n)
the question still often arises: What can one begm to do w1th
this research? What is ultimately gained by this? In any case,
neither the guiding ideas for the institution of education nor the
fixing of goals and models can be attained from empirical
research as such.
PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING 131
The old Kantian finding holds true here as well that in the
search for knowledge one only arrives at useful answers, when
one has first posed the proper questions. Thus every empirical
research project already requires, if it is to proceed meaning-
fully, a preliminary understanding of that which it aims to
investigate, and will arrive at its goal that much better, the more
clearly this pre-knowledge has been worked out. This, how-
ever, is a philosophical problem, and thus the question arises
once again of the relationship between philosophy and peda-
gogy. This question may no longer be answered in the older and
already discarded sense, that philosophy establishes the norms,
which pedagogy then merely applies. Rather it must be an-
swered in such a way that philosophy contributes helpfully in its
own right to the thinking through of pedagogical questions.
Philosophy as an auxiliary science for pedagogy-that is how we
could phrase it in accordance with what has been discussed
already. In any case, we can now see the problem which I have
expressed in the title of this chapter: to clarify pedagogical
research and philosophical thinking in their reciprocal relation-
ship.
This question is also obviously not unknown to the represen-
tatives of empirical pedagogical research. Roth, for example,
emphasized the significance of philosophical pedagogy for em-
pirical research (4]. I believe he conceived the relationship
badly, however, when he interpreted it as a temporal succession
with first one then the other active. He expressed the opinion
that philosophical pedagogy (which in and of itself is necessary)
had done its work in the past in a definitive and conclusive
manner, and that now is the time for empirical research to build
on this foundation. That seems much too simplistic to me.
There is in any case no a priori foundation which could be
untouched and final in the face of empirical research; rather,
the results of empirical research steadily modify the underlying
concepts, and compel renewed reflections. The so-called fund-
amental philosophical ideas are not something fixed for all time,
rather they change and grow within the circle of ever renewed
experience and knowledge. Thus we see that many entirely new
fundamental ideas have arisen, within the framework of exis-
tential philosophy and in response to the needs of the present
132 PEDAGOGICAL RESEARCH
day, ideas which were not prefigured whatsoever in classical
pedagogical theory. (I will return to these ideas from existential
philosophy later). They were not worked out in classical pedag-
ogy, simply because no one had envisioned them. They have
emerged today not so much from pedagogical theory as from
the needs of life itself.
Thus in place of a one-sided dependence of pedagogy on
philosophy, we discover a fully reciprocal relationship among:
direct knowledge of life, applied empirical research, and philo-
sophical reflection. This new reciprocal relationship makes it
possible for the first time for pedagogy to enter into a fruitful
relationship with philosophy, without fear of falling back into
the earlier dependence on it. This is the kind of connection
which based on our current understanding, we find in general
' .
in the relationships between philosophy and the individual
sciences: At the beginning stands knowledge, the conclusions of
which cannot be changed; what is necessary, however, is to
interpret these facts properly, to render them transparent. and
to turn back from this point to further experience with a
deepened posing of the question. In this sense philosophy is
dependent on the individual sciences and proceeds as a post-
facto, deepening reflection on each. The individual science is,
to cite a profound remark of Schelling, taken up more recently
by Plessner, the "Organon" of philosophy.
This general relationship of the individual science and philo-
sophy is even more complicated in pedagogy than in the other
sciences, because pedagogy cannot restrict itself to pure re-
search into "that which is"; rather it must seek after the proper
way to bestow meaning on events, in order to permit one at the
same time to derive norms for educational actions. This brings
up the more general question: How can pedagogy, without
losing its status as an experience-based science, be at the same
time a normative science? This connection between 1) a deter-
mination of the facts, and 2) a critical evaluation of these facts
in the service of a binding norm, clearly discloses the special
difficulty of scientific pedagogy, from a theory of science per-
spective. (I leave aside the question in this regard, as to what
extent similar problems occur in other sciences).
What follows is a genuine, mutual working relationship be-
PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING 133
tween empirical research and philosophical thinking, unfolding
in a thoroughly new and until now poorly illuminated fashion.
The emphasis may lie, in accordance with the personal tem-
perament of the individual researcher, more on one side or the
other. Nevertheless both sides must collaborate if the work of
educational science is to succeed. These difficult questions in
the theory of science cannot be systematically developed here;
that would take us far beyond the task of the present report.
But these questions do provide the perspective for properly
understanding what is taking place today in Germany, on many
different sides, toward the construction of a unitary educational
science.
B. MAIN THEMES OF MODERN PEDAGOGY
I will attempt to organize what follows according to several
systematic viewpoints. In doing so, I will not take the concept of
"modern" scrupulously; rather, I will attempt to include under
this heading everything-arising from the developments of the
last fifty years-which is still vital today. I will orient this
overview not to personalities but rather to the issues and
problems of the discipline. In this regard, acting in my character
as a philosophically oriented theoretician, I will concentrate on
the fundamental questions for the foundation of pedagogy as an
empirical science.
1. The Relationship Between Theory and Praxis
The first problem is the difficult one, as to how "from the
knowledge of that which is, can the rule be derived, of what
should be"-as Dilthey had· already formulated it in his day.
The question is: How can we begin with research on reality-as
it presents itself to us without any influence on our part-and
ultimately derive a goal for our own actions, by means of which
we can even, if necessary, critically confront this same given
reality.
At this point, a general reflection on the relationship between
thoery and praxis may lead us further. I will be guided here by
134 PEDAGOGICAL RESEARCH
the discussion of this question developed in the Dilthey school,
including the work of Noh!, Flitner, and Weniger. The usual
relationship which can be observed between natural science and
technique, in which practice involves the after-the-fact applica-
tion of an already developed pure theory, will no longer suffice
here. Already at the outset of our reflections on the function of
education in life, we emphasized that education and upbringing
took place long before all theory. Indeed prior to any actual
theories there was a cultivated and richly organized totality of
educational institutions and procedures practiced in these insti-
tutions. These institutions and procedures always already con-
tained a setting of goals for education and an attribution of
meaning to education.
These elements were thus always already present as a part of
reality prior to all theory; there was a praxis prior to theory, and
pedagogical theory has thus proceeded from it. Thus theory
need not develop its conclusions on its own; rather it already
has them as something pre-given, which it must critically exa-
mine.
This means however that: There is basically no Archimedian
point in pedagogy, upon which it could begin to construct its
edifice without presupposition and entirely from the bottom up.
Rather, the totality of the "educational reality" which has
arisen over the centuries always already forms the "presuppo-
sition" for pedagogy as a science.
This educational reality in its full breadth is thus the intrinsic
object for pedagogical research and not merely some artificially
prepared laboratory segment of learning. Pedagogy thus finds
itself in no different a situation than do the philological and
historical, or more broadly the human-scientific ( Geisteswis-
senschaftliche) disciplines [5). Thus the methodologies devel-
oped in these areas must also be applied to pedagogy: For
example, the philologist undertakes to interpret his pre-given
text with unbiased devotion and in the process grows so beyond
the text without realizing it, that at the close he understands his
author better than the author has understood himself (to use a
frequently cited principle).
In the same fashion, theoretical pedagogy involves a reflec-
tion in the sense of distancing oneself from immediate action,
PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING 135
and thus a clarification and interpretation of the pre-given
educational reality. In this regard, this pedagogical analysis of
reality, as it already existed prior to all reflection, must at the
same time disclose the immanent law or principle within this
reality. Recognition of this law will then enable pedagogy in
turn to judge this reality itself, to evaluate it, and to develop
goals which will guide it from the unsatisfactory state of a
fortuitous and multiply conditioned reality, in the direction of a
better configuration.
Pedagogy can therefore rely in this context on the procedures
developed in the human or cultural sciences ( Geisteswissens-
chaften), but it must at the same time transform these proce-
dures accordingly in light of its own needs. Thus it is under-
standable that perhaps the strongest and most widely dissemi-
nated pedagogical school in Germany (especially in the 1920's)
drew strongly on the methodological self-reflection of the
human sciences, as begun by Wilhelem Dilthey. This school
included such figures as Spranger, Litt, Noh!, and Flitner. I will,
in general, characterize this basic methodological position
within pedagogy, to which I also myself adhere, as an under-
standing of pedagogical theory in the sense of a hermeneutics of
educational reality. The concept of hermeneutics as it was
developed in the philological sciences, in the sense of a metho-
dologically regulated art of interpretation, is transferred here to
pedagogy. It remains in connection in this regard with "Lebens-
philosophie," the philosophy of life, which one can characterize
analogously as a hermeneutics of life. Education itself, as it has
always already developed in practice, with its institutions and
procedures, is in a certain fashion the "Text" which is to be
interpreted and elucidated in pedagogical theory. Only from
the perspective of this approach can the relationship between
comprehending reality and providing norms be resolved.
2. The History of Pedagogy
This same "geisteswissenschaftliche" point of view also makes it
possible to understand the central role that a preoccupation
with the history of pedagogy always plays for us even today in
Germany. This is something which easily seems to the outside_r
136 PEDAGOGICAL RESEARCH
as an escaping from the challenge of the present, into the quiet
field of mere scholastic pursuits. Even more interesting is the
observation, that the manner of this preoccupation with the
past has changed essentially. It is characteristic that no more
great total-presentations of the history of pedagogy appear any
longer, as were produced in such numbers in the late 19th
century. Today we are no longer generally dealing with a mere
historical interest, researching history for its own sake and
attending consistently to the details.
We now see rather a concrete interest in the present, turning
back to the past, in order to understand this present better
through the encounter with the past, and in this way seeking to
make the past fruitful for the present. In this regard, pedagogy
pursues not so inuch the great developmental connections, such
as would interest the "pure" historian, but rather the entirely
concrete individual questions such as arise in the midst of
present-day problems, and for the mastery of which one then
reaches back to the past. Pedagogy turns to the past in order to
discover in its attempted solutions, and especially from the
comparison of a variety of attempted solutions, the presupposi-
tions for a universal and balanced solution of today's problem.
What is important in general is this linking of the historical
with systematic interests, and their reciprocal and pervasive
mutual influence. This seems to me to be the most fruitful
aspect of this work and distinguishes it from a merely scholarly
historical research. Most of this work is carried out at our
universities within the framework of pedagogical seminars or
institutes. Along with the larger individual research projects,
we should also mention the abundance of often very good
doctoral dissertations in pedagogy, especially those which are
guided by an overall unifying research-plan and which build
mutually upon one another in elaborating a larger problem area.
3. Functional Education
The "geisteswissenschaftliche" point of view also provides us
with sufficient access for understanding the process of education
within the framework of the totality of culture. Viewed from
this vantage point, education is the regeneration process for a
PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING 137
society, by means of which new individuals are formed to be the
carriers of a supra-individual, comprehensive total-culture. This
necessarily involves a twofold aspect, namely viewed from the
standpoint of the individual and of the society. On the one
hand, education is the accommodation of the individual to the
requirements of the society. On the other hand, however, viewed
from the individual, it is the unfolding of the possibilities inherent
and latent in the individual, through the appropriation of the
objective cultural "goods" prepared by society.
In the first orientation, the discovery of the so-called "func-
tional education" is most important. One understands by this
an educational effect which takes place without conscious ped-
agogical intent as though automatic and spontaneous, within
the ordered communal life of human beings. The discovery of
this concept has essentially expanded the educational processes,
because while one previously was inclined to speak of educa-
tional only when a conscious educational will was present, one
now sees the enormous influence of many other processes,
which are contained within an intact tradition. We observe this
wherever the younger generation takes part in the life of the
older. The young people watch how their elders do things; they
begin with small attempts to help and to join in a task; and in
this fashion they find their way into the forms and techniques of
life of their elders. They take over in this fashion not only their
external modes of living, such as manual craft techniques or the
external forms of courtesy; rather at the same time and along
with these externals they appropriate the viewpoints and ideas
guiding them, the modes of moral behavior of their elders and
their religious convictions, and in short the entire world-view of
the older generation as well. And this all takes place in the
simple course and conduct of life itself, without any educational
intent, and even without this process being noticed at all. Even
though a special form of instruction has been developed for the
conscious techniques, and though there is an actual manual
craft lesson and a proper school training, nevertheless moral
education still takes place predominantly in the unconscious
fashion just described.
In Germany, one customarily characterizes this process as
"functional education." It would perhaps be better to speak of
138 PEDAGOGICAL RESEARCH
an unintentional or unconscious shaping, in the sense of such
processes carried out spontaneously and self-evidently in the
course of life. But terminology is beside the point, if one will
only examine the phenomenon clearly. Kriek was the first to
elaborate on this subject at length, and we are indebted to him
for this service in spite of his later political errors.
We ask, however: What is the special significance now of this
functional education, within the framework of a comprehen-
sively understood total-education? The answer is: It is above all
the seat of a spontaneously occurring steadiness in life and thus
of self-evident tradition. It is important to recognize this fact,
especially in sharp contrast to the "enlightenment" attitude
within pedagogy; which comprehends education exclusively as a
conscious enterprise, which believes that one can "make" ev-
erything in education in a conscious, deliberate manner, no
differently than a manual laborer produces an object assigned
to him. This "enlightenment" attitude would gladly reorganize
and reform everything from the ground up. From the stand-
point of such an "enlightenment" attitude, the operations of
such unconscious, formative forces seem to be no more than a
burdensome disturbance. Herbart has spoken in this sense of
"concealed co-educators," who frustrate the intentions of the
responsible educator in an unreckonable fashion. The insight
into the nature of functional education shows, however, that
this presumed disturbance represents in reality the supportive
foundation, which the more deliberate and conscious education
must always presuppose, and from which it can stand out only
by means of its own achievements.
Functional education is, in this regard, the bearer of the
continuously passed on and preserved forces in the life of the
generations. It is essential for a comprehensive understanding
of the educational process to recognize the working of func-
tional education, and to include them properly within the
totality of education. Above all, it is important to understand
this in view of the tradition-less, rationalistic, and extreme
reformism in pedagogy.
Nevertheless, however, one must also recognize the limits of
this functional education. First of all it no longer suffices for
situations which are becoming more complicated, and in them a
PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING 139
conscious intervention becomes necessary. Even more import-
antly, however, there are limits inherent from the outset in the
nature of this unconscious, accommodating shaping process. This
shaping namely has no moral standard of its own. It is exactly as
good or as bad as the community in which it takes place. It takes
on a positive value, when a high ethos is held up as an example in
the community concerned. A healthy family with exemplary
parents is still always the best presupposition for a successful
education. But this influence can also be equally as injurious,
when the community concerned is itself morally reprehensible.
A criminal milieu will only form the human being into a crim-
inal, and a state organization established on an immoral found-
ation will also influence the human beings growing up within it
only in an immoral direction. It is for this reason that parents
fear the destructive influence of bad company on their children
and seek to shelter them from such an influence. It is on this
basis that Spranger recently warned against the thoughtless use
of the "Pestalozzish" thesis, that "life educates."
For the same reason, it is questionable whether one can even
speak here in a genuine sense of education. The so-called
functional education is a necessary presupposition for every
educational process. The educator must recognize it, and in-
clude its operations properly in his own efforts, by cultivating
and preserving its favorable effects and inversely seeking to
guard against its unfavorable effects. In accordance with this
viewpoint it seems perhaps more appropriate-in spite of the
vast importance of the unconsciously working processes-to
label these processes in a morally neutral sense as "shaping"
and to restrict the concept of "education" to conscious and
responsibly guided educational processes.
4. Cultural Pedagogy
This "functional education" forms to a certain extent the
ground floor, upon which then all later explicit education must
be erected. In primitive cultural conditions, education can
follow almost exclusively on the path of this "functional edu-
cation." Whenever culture has achieved a certain degree of
complexity, however, the process of appropriating cultural
140 PEDAGOGICAL RESEARCH
goods then becomes a special problem for human beings in the
process of growing up, and only then do we see arise a con-
scious and explicit education. We can describe the shaping of
the individual human mind, through the appropriation of the
cultural goods transmitted in his environment, as "formation"
(Bildung) [6). We conceive this formation-understood not as a
process, but as the product of this process-as the subjective
correlate of objective culture. Formation (Bildung) and culture
are thus necessarily related concepts, corresponding closely to
one another.
The guiding principle in this context may be the basic concep-
tion that the totality of culture and the individual mind stand in
a mirroring relationship to one another, that culture thus repre-
sents, so to speak, a human being in macroscopic form (just as
Plato had already claimed for the State). This need not involve
some kind of questionable personification of culture as a whole,
rather it should merely connote, that the same kinds of basic
orientations are involved, expressing themselves in the soul of
the individual human being, and at the same time in bringing
forth the various domains of culture-art, science, religion, and
so on. We are indebted to the so-called "cultural-pedadogy" for
bringing this viewpoint into the foreground. This cultural peda-
gogy developed primarily from the Dilthey School, and coin-
cides to a great degree with the names already mentioned in
connection with the hermeneutical foundations of pedagogy:
Litt, Spranger, and others. Its primary problem is the investiga-
tion of the processes involved in the appropriation of objective
culture. The problems presented by the instruction of language
and history have received an especially strong new impetus
from cultural pedagogy.
Characteristic for this point of view are Spranger's "Forms of
Life" and his "Psychology of Adolescence," two books which
have appeared in numerous editions, and which-one can hardly
say it any other way-have shaped an entire generation of
teachers. Spranger's fundamental idea is that there are certain
basic spiritual orientations within the human being, which in the
course of history have led to the development of specific cul-
tural domains, and that in turn one can understand the mind of
the individual human being through its participation in these
PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING 141
cultural domains. Thus the individual human being and· the
total culture mutually illuminate one another. Plessner recently
applied this idea fruitfully for the systematic construction of his
philosophical anthropology.
5. The Critique of the Classical Idea of "Bildung" (Formation)
This movement of cultural pedagogy stands entirely within the
framework of our classical German tradition, transmitted to us
from German idealism and from the new-humanism in the
age of Goethe. We recognize and treasure this as a significant
gift from our spiritual heritage; something we are not ready to
lightly surrender. But on the other hand, decisive political and
social events have intervened, rupturing our continuity with
that classical age, and the question arises: To what extent is this
classical ideal of formation (Bildung) still applicable under the
altered conditions of the present-day world; to what extent
must it be modified; and to what extent must it perhaps be
entirely given up and replaced by a fundamentally new educa-
tional ideal?
Corresponding to this point of view, a passionate and as yet
unresolved process of questioning has arisen in Germany, fall-
ing into four main directions:
a. The first is the confrontation between the humanistic ideal
of formation, with its orientation to the balanced, harmonious
development of all of the powers of the human being, and the
much harsher conditions of the world shaped by modern natural
science and technology. Science and technology do not seem to
find any adequate place within the old ideal of formation
(Bildung). Yet to neglect them threatens to hand the entire
educational process over to estrangement from the world and
ultimately to ineffectiveness. The question arises: To what
extent can harmony still be a meaningful goal? Is one not
perhaps compelled to embrace both the contradictions and the
tension? And the further question emerges: To what extent
does human nature actually fulfill its full powers in a well-
rounded form of education? Or inversely, doesn't a certain
one-sidedness facilitate the highest achievements of human
nature in our collective life? Goethe had already pursued this
 i
I
142 PEDAGOGICAL RESEARCH
question in his novel "Wilhelm Meister." One inquires further,
whether harmony must not remain restricted to the surface,
while deeper contradictions and tensions belong to the irrevoc-
able nature of the human being? And if that is the case, then
one must therefore take these contradictions and tensions upon
oneself in a courageous resoluteness. Thus a widely dissem-
inated, tragic conception of life, arising from many different
sources, opposes the humanistic optimism of a natural goodness
in the human being. Among the representatives of the older
generation in pedagogy, Litt, more than any other, has soberly
and thoroughly confronted these questions. He arrived finally
at a point where he clearly distanced himself from the classical
ideal of humanity while at the same time rejecting the technical
mechanization of life.
b. The second direction is the objection against the purely
spiritual character of this formation, oriented wholly to inward-
ness. In its time this character arose perhaps understandably
from the politically powerless situation of the middle class of
the time, but today it tends to form individuals unfit to take
hold of the political responsibilities of our time. The older
educational process has certainly been rightly reproached of a
political despair and cowardice. Thus in the time since 1945
attention has increasingly been directed toward the activation
of political powers and in general toward the importance of an
education for the collective life with others. Already in his time
Kerschensteiner had proposed an education toward citizenship,
yet had been unable to properly implement this. Since 1945 this
has been carried further, with a strong dependence on the
American model of an education for partnership (Oetinger), of
group-oriented education, and so forth. In association with the
confrontation with the recent political past, this represents one
of the most frequently discussed problems in our colleges and
universities.
c. The third direction, which I can merely allude to here, is
the confrontation between the exaggerated pedagogical opti-
mism of the past, which believed itself capable of forming the
human being at will-and thus necessarily misfired, and the
insights into the biologically given (and especially genetic)
limits of education. The problem of the limits of education was
'
l
PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING 143
generally visible as one of the fundamental problems of peda-
gogy. These limits are demarcated in a twofold fashion, by the
"lower," biologically conditioned boundary and at the same
time by the "upper," existentially or religiously conditioned
boundary; beyond these limits begins a domain unreachable by
the powers of conscious human education.
d. In this context, we touch on new questions which modern
existential philosophy has highlighted for pedagogy. This phi-
losophy is characterized namely by the ethos of a new uncon-
ditionality-it respects no limits or conditions; in relation to it
the world of classical formation must seem unaccommodating
and insufficient. The earnest and serious character of life is
emphasized in existential philosophy, in opposition to a predo-
minantly aesthetic attitude of life. In this context, a series of new
fundamental pedagogical concepts have come into prominence,
which had been neglected in traditional theory, and which now
must be taken up and worked out by pedagogy. Among these
belongs the idea of an organic, harmonic unfolding of the
connection between: A situation threatening a human being
and a clear decision which "looks this situation in the eye." At
the same time we include here-if I may refer here to my own
works-the concept of encounter, as the profoundly stirring
contact of one human being with another, in his ultimate depths
(or with another people, with another culture, or with a unique,
great work of art) [7]. Whereas for humanistic thought alterna-
tive human possibilities were viewed merely as a potential
expansion of the contents of one's own individuality, here in the
concept of the encounter I stumble against another reality,
through which I in my own existence am placed in question; I
must struggle to maintain my own position in the face of this
other reality, and in the face of it I must arrive at a decision.
The existential philosophical thesis is that only in the encounter
with another human being can the human being actualize him-
self in the ultimate sense.
I cannot carry this any further here. What has been said must
serve as an indication that under the influence of existential
thinking new fundamental pedagogical concepts have come to
light-such as that of the crisis, the appeal, the awakening, and
so forth--concepts which were strange to our classical theories
144 PEDAGOGICAL RESEARCH
in pedagogy and which now are in need of a scientific elabora-
tion.
6. Teaching Through Paradigmatic Examples
At another level the process of a fruitful education is endan-
gered by the superfluity of material for instruction, brought
about by the steady increase in cultural goods. Along with the
steady increase in cultural goods in the course of historical
development, the amount of material to be covered in the ·
schools also necessarily grows. At the time of the development
of the humanistic "gymnasium" (the German secondary school)
at the beginning of the 19th century. the curriculum for the
schools was relatively small and distinct. Meanwhile, however,
new sciences have regularly presented themselves. and each
needs to be covered in the school. The number of school
subjects thus becomes ever greater. Within the individual sci-
ences unexpected and often rapid developments have taken
place, which likewise need to be taken into consideration in the
schools. We need merely call to mind the revolutionary devel-
opments in the new physics. Consider further that the advances
of history draw ever new events into the scope of history
instruction, events which because of their proximity to the
present demand especially urgent consideration. Thus instruc-
tional material grows at a menacing pace. The question is how,
in dealing with an ever growing abundance of material, one can
still penetrate the depths, that is, not merely to mediate superfi-
cial knowledge, but rather to form the human mind.
At this point the task of reducing the volume of instructional
material has become one of our most urgent problems. dis-
cussed often among us here in Germany. yet by no means has
any satisfactory solution emerged. This problem points in two
directions. It compels us at the same time to reduce the number
of subjects, especially in the upper grades, and also to limit the
amount of material within each individual subject [8]. It seems
to me that one fruitful beginning in this direction is the concept
of teaching through paradigmatic examples, something which
presently stands at the center of a lively discussion of instruc-
tional methods here in Germany. The historian Heimpel gave
PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING 145
the initial impetus to this development. He sought to make the
image of medieval history more simple and distinct, by no
longer dealing with the entire, continuous course of this history
with the same, uniform fullness of detail. Instead he presented
it through individual "paradigmatic" figures, in which the entire
image of the age seems to be reflected, as though in a focal
point, and in which this age is more vividly comprehensible in
its concrete form. This idea then received a new and decisive
impulse, when Wagenschein developed the concept of "ex-
emplary teaching" (or teaching by examples) from the stand-
point of mathematics and physics instruction. When one attempts
to convey as much material as possible, one is compelled to
proceed hastily; and in this snatching after "results," the best
one achieves finally is a half understood rote learning. In
contrast Wagenschein proposed that one allow time for indivi-
dual examples, just as in case law. remaining attentive to the
path of inquiry, proceeding step by step. in order by this means
generally to penetrate into the essence of the work of physics.
and into the structure of physical reality. Thus through the
individual example one penetrates here into the essence of the
domain of the scientific discipline in question and penetrates
more deeply than would be possible through a comprehensive
overview. This is what Wagenschein means by the concept of
"exemplary." In this context one could say that we must have
the "courage for omission [9]."
In the special form in which Wagenschein introduced the
concept of the exemplary. that is. the recognition in an indivi-
dual example of a general lawfulness. this approach remains
bound to the domain of mathematics and physics. where the
individual case does generally merge into a general lawfulness.
To what' extent this procedure can be transferred to other
disciplines or to what extent it must be modified for these new
applications remains an open question. Heimpel's concept of
the "paradigmatic" points in yet another direction. namely to
take a specific individual figure as representative for a more
comprehensive context.
146 PEDAGOGICAL RESEARCH
7. The Fruitfulness of the Phenomenological Method
Finally, one last point, which lies especially close to my own
heart. In order to be able to pursue this methodological ap-
proach neatly within the context of hermeneutics, it seems to
me that the most suitable procedure would be an application of
phenomenological methods to a scrupulous analysis of educa-
tional reality. The art developed within the school of Edmund
Husserl under the name of phenomenology, an art of describing
and distinguishing, which makes possible a penetration into the
essence of a thing, has still had much too little influence in
pedagogy. The pathfinding essay by Alois Fischer about "De-
scriptive Pedagogy" (already written in the year 1914) has
remained as good as unnoticed; this continues even today to be
a detriment to our science. The arts of careful description and
of seeing in such a way as to make fine discriminations have
been little cultivated in pedagogy until now. Because research-
ers have not yet learned to see in a sufficiently discriminating
fashion, findings which were specific to a given area of research
and methods developed specifically for such an area, have
repeatedly been generalized in an uncritical fashion to the
whole of education. This tendency then disguises from view the
uniqueness of various phenomena, which cannot be adequately
comprehended from just any arbitrary vantage point, because
such phenomena involve different structures, which require
different categories for their undetstanding.
Thus, to elucidate this matter by an example, the forms of a
pedagogy which seeks "to appeal," such as I have sought to
develop in connection with an existential-philosophical train of
thinking, cannot be comprehended by the same conceptual
means which have been developed for the description of or-
ganic formation, development, and unfolding. The effects of an
encounter which shakes a human being to his core cannot be
described in the same thought forms as are used to convey
scientific instruction, and so forth. I would suggest, therefore,
that we must distinguish in human life both the slowly growing,
continuous forms of life and the suddenly intruding and discon-
tinuous existential events. Thus there are very differently struc-
tured regions, which overlap and intermingle within the larger
PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING 147
reality of education. Each region must be worked out in its own
unique character and each requires its own conceptual tools for
it to be suitably mastered.
The elaboration of these differing conceptual structures in all
necessary clarity is a task which we might characterize as the
"categorical analysis" of educational reality, borrowing here
the language of Nicolai Hartmann. Thus, if we were to antici-
pate such a task by a crude preliminary schema, we could
distinguish the following regions:
1. Child rearing and care in both the physical and intellec-
tual sense;
2. functional education which involves an automatic and
spontaneously occuring adaptation to society;
3. instruction and teaching through a planned out and regu-
lated transmission of pieces of knowledge and skills;
4. formation in the sense of an organic shaping and of a
closely connected plant-like growth from within;
5. and the "pedagogy which appeals" ion the existential
sense.
This enumeration is by no means comprehensive and must be
further refined.
These regions actually take the form of levels, which ascend
from the lower toward the higher and overlap one another. To a
large extent (but not completely) the formation of the higher
level presupposes the preceding structure of the lower level.
Each of these levels has its own conceptual system, decisively
coherent in itself, which is only valid for this particular level,
and which is essentially different from the conceptual systems of
other levels. Thus the concepts of conscious planning, of goals
and means, and of a step by step construction are quite at home
in the region of instruction and teaching, but cannot be trans-
ferred to the phenomena of an organically unfolding formation.
Thus too, to mention another example, the concepts of totality
and structure (Gestalt), and of harmony and development in the
genuine sense of the word (in connection with the so-called
negative education) are suitable to the level of organic forma-
tion, but cannot be transferred to the existential region. The
 rr
148 PEDAGOGICAL RESEARCH
uncritical carrying over of categories to a region alien to them
I C. AFTERWORD BY DR. BOLLNOW(1985)
leads necessarily to misleading results. To sharply refine and
work out the details of these conceptual systems in their diver-
sity remains the task of a categorical analysis within pedagogy.
But until now this very significant task has not even been begun
in any systematic sense. Important work remains to be done
here.
I hope that I have found an approach here, in opposition to a
one-sided concept of research oriented only to the natural
sciences, to bring to light the deeper relationship between
philosophy and pedagogy.
At the same time we have clarified the claim of a reciprocal
working relationship between philosophical thinking and em-
pirical research within educational science. A categorical analy-
sis such as we have described here, supported by careful
phenomenological investigations, provides the presuppositions
which are indispensable for succesful empirical research. But
this same example also shows us, that we cannot conceive the
relationship as one in which the philosophical phenomenologi-
cal reflections create in advance the foundations upon which
then each individual research must build. Rather, precisely the
opposite is true: The ever new experiences within the concrete
life of education and the ever new adaptations to the changing
intellectual and social conditions of the times compel us to an
ever new and modified reflection, which in turn affects the
individual research project. The establishing of philosophical
foundations and the carrying out of individual research do not
stand in a relationship of "before and after;" rather, from the
beginning they are intimately linked with one another in a
necessarily circular, reciprocal interdependence, and they re-
main in this same relationship for the future as well. The strict
separation of disciplines leads to sterility. Philosophy and pe-
dagogy cannot be separated, and an isolated, purely positivistic
pedagogy will never be able to achieve the goals it poses for
itself. Only in the most intimate connection with philosophy can
pedagogy fruitfully approach its tasks.
PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING 149
The present chapter did not attempt a comprehensive presenta-
tion of the development of German pedagogy in the first half of
our century, but rather merely to highlight several problems,
which appeared suitable to interest non-German pedagogues as
well. Accordingly it cannot be the task of an "Afterword" to
characterize the entirety of the developments which have taken
place in the intervening years. I can once again merely empha-
size several points of view which seem important to me in
completing the picture.
I will briefly review: After the end of World War II, as
Germany pedagogy began anew after the years of National
Socialist (NAZI) domination, its first task was to restore conti-
nuity once again with developments at the point where it had
earlier been interrupted. This was the so called "geisteswissen-
schaftliche" (human scientific) pedagogy, which had so deci-
sively shaped the face of German pedagogy in the 1920's. The
leading representatives of that earlier time, Theodore Litt,
Herman Noh!, and Eduard Spranger, took over the leading
roles once again in spite of their advanced age. Soon, however, a
critique arose against this predominantly philosophically deter-
mined orientation, and other currents entered the foreground,
strongly influenced by America: The empirical sciences of the
human being-biology, psychology, sociology, and so forth-
won a growing influence as the foundational sciences of peda-
gogy, and in pedagogy itself the natural-scientifically oriented
empirical methods won ever greater acceptance. One spoke of a
"realistic turning" in educational science (Heinrich Roth). But
soon the situation changed once again, as the social criticism
developed in the Frankfurter School (Max Horkheimer, Theo-
dor Adorno) also won growing influence in educational science.
1. Hermeneutics and Pedagogy
In recent years hermeneutics, which has gained ever greater
currency in philosophy, has begun to play a part in pedagogy as
well ..This is seen especially in the resurrected interest in "geistes-
wissenschaftliche" pedagogy, and in the long neglected history
 1
150 PEDAGOGICAL RESEARCH
of pedagogy. Naturally it is not enough to simply repeat a past
position, rather it is necessary to take up once again the old,
long neglected problems in the context of those insights and
methods developed in the intervening time. Thus a similar
situation has developed within pedagogy. as had also presented
itself in philosophy-with increasing clarity-for some time.
The sterile battle of the schools among the three principal
orientations- of scientific theory (scientism), of ideological
critique, and of hermeneutics, as Karl-Otto Apfel has dis-
tinguished them-has begun to be replaced in philosophy by a
relationship of reciprocal recognition, of supplementing one
another, and of fruitful collaborative work. It seems to me to be
a most important and in spite of all difficulties also attainable
goal, to achieve in pedagogy as well a similar collaborative work
among the various orientations, through an awareness of the
common task [10].
2. Recent Developments
In order to enlarge upon this point, I would like to present the
example of two endeavors which have arisen in the intervening
years and which are especially dear to me.
a. The first is pedagogical anthropology, as it has been deve-
loped by myself and my co-workers in an intimate connection
with the form of philosophical anthropology developed by
Helmuth Plessner. As a philosophical discipline our work
should be distinguished from pedagogical anthropology in its
other meaning as a mere summary of those results of the
empirical social sciences which are relevant for education.
In this form of a philosophical-pedagogical anthropology.
one seeks to achieve a solid reference point for pedagogy, by
relating the different cultural domains-art, science, religion,
the economy, technology. and so forth-back to the human
being. The human being, in turn, is conceived as "the produc-
tive place where a culture issues forth" (Piessner). That is, one
comprehends these cultural domains in terms of the needs out
of which they have developed and in terms of the functions
which they have to fulfill in human life. In a somewhat broader
PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING 151
version, this perspective poses the question: How must we
conceive a specific phenomenon of importance for education-
such as work, the holiday, shame, the upright gait, the use of
the hand, and so forth-in order that it can fulfill a meaningful
and necessary function within the context of human life? In-
versely, how must we conceive the human being, such that this
specific phenomenon can be seen as meaningful and necessary
within human existence?
The medium for the analysis is the careful description of the
involved phenomenon, suspending all presuppositions. Phe-
nomenology as developed by Edmund Husserl gains in this
context a special significance for pedagogy. The fruitfulness of
this philosophical approach is proven ever anew. wherever we
deal with an understanding of otherwise unnoticed or uncom-
prehended phenomena in the life of the child.
As a simple example I mention the admonition. Educators
are forever voicing the complaint that none of the forms of
admonishment accomplish a thing. The admonition takes on a
necessary function, however, when one reflects that the human
being does not develop "organically" in a continuous line, as
for example an apple ripens. Rather, in all his efforts the human
being tires again and again, falls back into old errors and habits,
and requires an ever repeated nudging, in order to exert himself
once again. In this connection we see evidence of the need for
an "appealing pedagogy." Until now there has been no recogni-
tion of the systematic significance of such a pedagogy which
directly appeals to the aspirations of the human being. The
theoretical foundations for this form of pedagogy can be found
in the works of Karl Jaspers.
A further and somewhat more complicated example is
Adolph Portmann's theory of the "extra-uterine Spring" of the
human being, that is, the suggestion that a human child comes
into the world essentially much earlier than do other compara-
ble animals. This signifies that the influences of the external
world forming the human child commence to act at a point in
time, when the young animal would still be protected within its
mother's womb against such influences. That signifies further,
that the human being is much more plastic and can be formed
 1
152 PEDAGOGICAL RESEARCH PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING 153

differently by varying environments. This is, furthermore, the child involves achieving insight into the functional structure of
biological presupposition for the historical mutability of the t?is place, seeing through its artificially constructed tempta-
human being [11]. tiOns, and thus achieving an inner freedom in relation to this
The works of the Dutch pedagogue J. M. Langeveld toward place and task.
an "anthropology of childhood" stand in a very similar context. This is ultimately a hermeneutic procedure. In this regard we
His works, through their finely discriminating descriptions, can see the fruitfulness of hermeneutics for pedagogy. It makes
illuminate many phenomena of the child's life, such as the possible a close proximity to praxis, which cannot be achieved
significance of the "secret place" or the multiplicity of relation- through a purely technical consideration of education and of
ships with things in the life of the child. ~nstr~ction. A methodologically guided understanding must
b. As the second of the newer endeavors I mention Klaus tllummate the concepts which are already utilized in practice,
Giel's new approach to the theory of elementary instruction, and free those concepts for their full potential, in order by this
which up until now has still received relatively little attention means to provide a reliable foundation for empirical research.
even in Germany, but which seems to me to be of a very basic
importance. It signifies a radically new reflection on teaching in
the primary grades, in the fundamentally altered social situation
of m0dern industrial society, so different from the social cir-
cumstances of traditional pedagogy. While traditional pedagogy
had believed that it could begin with a null point free of
presuppositions and proceed in a one-dimensional progressive
course to build a systematically ordered knowledge, Giel recog-
nizes the impossibility of such an "Archemedean point." The
child .does not enter the school as a tabula rosa, but rather
discovers himself in an already (more or less) understood
world, and knows already how to move about (more or less
well) in this world. The teacher errs if he believes that he will be
able to transmit to the child something entirely new. The child
already brings an abundance of skills and pieces of knowledge.
The task of instruction is to make this "everyday reality"
transparent and intelligible for the child, to clarify those ideas
he has taken over without thought, to free the child from
entanglements in opaque and clouded situations, and thus to
make possible a meaningful behavior liberated from unrecog-
nized compulsion.
In this way the emphasis of instruction shifts from the mere
transmission of knowledge to the practical mastery of lif~. Giel
develops his theory around the "errands" the child has to carry
out, as the smallest self-contained and distinct unities of behav-
iour in an otherwise already formed environment. As example
he chooses shopping in a supermarket, where the task for the

CHAPTER IX
Education and the Existential Concept
of Encounter
1. Background in the History of German Pedagogy.
With the growing interest in and understanding of the history of
German pedagogy, there is also an increased interest in the more
recent past, that period of the 1920's and 1930's, which had fallen
into a pervasive forgottenness, because of the influence of the
subsequent ahistorical currents in our history. In any case, only
a confused image remains of this inter-war period, distorted by
multiple disagreements and misunderstandings. I have myself
experienced a part of this development, and have in my own
very modest part also contributed to this development. My
intent here is to serve as a witness to this past for the members
of a younger generation, who have not experienced this deve-
lopment; and to report on what took place at that time. More
precisely I will pursue: How has this development appeared to
me?
How far back I reach in my report is rather arbitrary. So I will
leave aside my beginnings in the youth movement and the
so-called human scientific (geiseswissenschaftliche) pedagogy,
to which I am indebted through my teachers Hermann Nohl and
Edward Spranger. I will begin rather with the dramatic turning
point which the eruption of the philosophy of existence signified
at that time. Thus I will interpret my task as follows: To portray
the influence which the philosophy of existence exerted on
pedagogy at that time, and to ask how this influence should be
judged in light of the perspective we have gained in the in-
tervening years. In particular, I will deal with the concept of
CONCEPT OF ENCOUNTER 155
encounter, which provoked such a lively discussion at that time,
and whose origin can only be understood against the back-
ground of existential philosophy. Finally, I will handle the
question: To what extent does the encounter remain an endur-
ing and valid basic concept in pedagogy?
2. The Philosophy of Existence
It is almost impossible for anyone today to imagine what mean-
ing the philosophy of existence had at that time, that is, in the
middle of the 1920's. One could say: It struck like a bolt of
lightning and with one blow transformed the entire philosophi-
cal situation. Many causes may have worked together in the
emergence of existential philosophy. One, already long in evi-
dence, lay in the historical awareness that all enduring values
seemed to be relativized. The second, working more immedi-
ately, was the political collapse of 1918, in which so many
long-enduring and previously unquestioned social orders had
dissolved, thus spreading the feeling of a deep-reaching insecu-
rity and vulnerability (1].
The answer which existential philosophy gave to this situation
was that by courageously enduring through all anxiety and
despair one could experience the ultimate and innermost core
in the human being. This core was characterized as existence-
using the concept taken from Kierkegaard. Karl Jaspers and
Martin Heidegger were considered to be the principle represen-
tatives of this existence-philosophy, though this identification of
Jaspers and Heidegger with the philosophy of existence remains
somewhat problematic. Kindred ideas were developed further
in the dialectical theology established by Karl Barth.
Characteristic for the philosophy of existence is an extremely
dualistic concept of the human being, which hearkens back
under the influence of Kierkegaard to the original Christian
viewpoint. The human being as encountered in everyday life
finds himself in a condition where he is not as he is supposed to
be. Heidegger calls this "inauthenticity," or in Christian terms
sin, and this condition must be raised up through a radical
turning toward the authenticity of one's own existence. This
authentic existence lies beyond all definitions in terms of mere
 T
156 EDUCATION
contents. It can only be attained in the collapse of everything
which the human being can in any sense "have." This uncondi-
tioned quality of authentic existence, however, is always arrived
at only for the moment. It passes away once again with that
same moment. Thus arises, as is true also for dialectical theol-
ogy, an outspoken estrangement from culture, if not an anta-
gonism to culture. The total richness of a refined culture, with
its art and science and other cultural domains, loses its value vis
a vis the unconditioned claim of existence itself. The same holds
true for the ideas of a progressive formation of the human being
through the appropriation of culture, and of the unfolding of a
harmoniously organized personality. In history, interest no
longer lay in the richness of established forms, nor in develop-
ment and the possibility of progress, but rather in the few great
human beings who stood out like islands against the dark
currents of the times, and in encounter with whom-across the
temporal distance-an authentic existence could once again be
ignited.
3. French Existentialism
In the "Third Reich," the philosophy of existence was strictly
prohibited as an expression of a destructive nihilism. It ap-
peared generally to be a closed phase in the history of German
philosophy. In my 1943 presentation of existence-philosophy, in
the collective work published by Nicolai Hartmann, "System-
atic Philosophy," I wanted to preserve it, in retrospect, from a
total oblivion. After the collapse of Nazi.Germany, however, in
the years after 1945, the philosophy of existence experienced an
unexpected resurrection in the powerfully influential form of
French existentialism-as represented by Sartre and Camus.
The same kind of situation was now repeated as had existed
during the emergence of German existence-philosophy. In a
time of extreme need when all prevailing social orders had
collapsed, when all ideals had become questionable, when no
one knew how to proceed into the future, and in a situation
defined by anxiety and despair, existentialism once again ap-
peared to be the single honorable attitude. When all efforts to
set goals had become questionable, there is still one thing which
CONCEPT OF ENCOUNTER 157
stands firm. That is the unconditional manner in which the
human being commits himself to something.
4. The End of Existentialism
Since that time, one has hardly heard of existence-philosophy
or existentialism. I believe there are two decisive reasons for
this. The first is the slowly dawning recognition, that a meaning-
ful human life cannot. be built upon the basis of existentialism
alone, that in fact existentialism has elaborated one side of
human life in its ultimate sharpness, but requires a complemen-
tary attention to the other side of life, which one can briefly
characterize as a trust in life and hope for the future. At that
time I expressly pursued this problematic of a necessary over-
coming of existentialism. I published my work under a title
determined by the events of that time, but perhaps unfortunate
for the long-term-"Neue Geborgenheit" (New Security). I
would rather have called it "The Philosophy of Hope," but this
tittle was no longer available in Germany after the
appearance-just previously-of Block's major work, "The
Principle of Hope."
I cannot claim to have significantly influenced further devel-
opments through this book. If existentialism has slipped once
again since that time into forgottenness, then' this happened
without critical discussion and entirely unnoticed-or to put it
spitefully, because it no longer fit the image of the newly
spreading well-being and did not suit the newly established
orders.
In spite of this the question remains: Was existentialism
really only a transient and faddish phenomena without enduring
effect, or has some enduring concern for philosophy come to
expression in it-something which we must not lose sight of,
even though existence-philosophy cannot raise any claim to
represent the totality of philosophy? I myself am firmly in favor
of this second alternative. I see the enduring function of
existence-philosophy in its insistence on the unconditioned
quality of authentic existence. All further pronouncements of
philosophy will have to defend themselves against this demand.
I have merely outlined this history briefly as background in
158 EDUCATION
order now to introduce my actual theme in a more comprehen-
sive fashion: the influence of the philosophy of existence on
pedagogy.
5. The Consequences of Existential Philosophy for Pedagogy
From the very beginning existential philosophy was a difficult
chunk for pedagogy to swallow. The existential philosophical
thesis, that the human being grasps the authenticity of his
existence only in the moment, and cannot preserve it beyond the
compass of the moment, seemed to call into question the
possibility of pedagogy in general, because pedagogy simply
cannot exist without the assumption of a lasting influence. Thus
it is understandable that the two sides hardly knew how to begin
dealing with one another. The representatives of existential
philosophy had no relationship with pedagogy, and for pedag-
ogy existential philosophy remained a menacing and foreign
body.
6. The Situation of German Pedagogy after 1945
Even after the collapse and new beginning of Germany in 1945,
when existentialism spread from France to Germany and be-
came a decisive force, pedagogy remained almost untouched by
it. At this point I must first make a few comments about
pedagogy in the early years after the war: This was a time of
seemingly insurmountable difficulties. These difficulties were
created first of all by the efforts of the occupying forces toward a
"re-education" of the German people, who had been misused
by National Socialism. These endeavors at reeducation-
undertaken with acknowledgeably good intentions-brought
about rich and fruitful contact with the pedagogy of the West-
ern countries, from whom we had so long been cut off. These
efforts were still limited by the fact, however, that they came
from outside and could not connect with the German heritage,
as it had remained intact beyond all of the upset and destruction
by National Socialism.
CONCEPT OF ENCOUNTER 159
Added to this was the fact that the German pedagogues who
had remained in their positions during the Third Reich were
suspect to the occupying forces. Instead, the universities called
back those great pedagogues who had been the leading rep-
resentatives of German pedagogy prior to Hitler's 1933 seizure
of power. These included first and foremost the "three saints,"
as they were called in good-natured humor: Theodore Litt,
Herman Nohl, and Edward Spranger. At a time in which they
otherwise would have settle back into a well-deserved retire-
ment, they were forced to take over once again the leading roles
in German pedagogy. They provided a bridge across the abyss
which re-established continuity with the flourishing era of the
"geisteswissenschaftliche" (human-scientific) pedagogy of the
1920's.
This too had the necessary consequence that further develop-
ment was set back for more than a decade. Under the pressure
of National Socialist domination a development had broken off,
which had begun to be recognizable already in the 1920's. It is
well worth one's effort in this regard, to carefully review the
issues from that time period of the journal Die Erziehung
(Education). A new generation (or perhaps more accurately,
half a generation) had arisen, which promised to lead the
development of German pedagogy further, in a fruitful fashioit,
beyond the stage of "classical" geisteswissenschaftliche pedag-
ogy. I will mention here only Wilhelm Flitner, Erich Weniger,
Romano Guardini, Eberhard Grisebach, and even the long
forgotten Hermann Weil, all of whom were robbed in one
fashion or another of their influence. We can speak within
pedagogy of a lost generation which under the pressure of the
political situation never came to have the effect it deserved. It
was an urgently pressing task, to once again take up and work
out the fruits of this generation, which had fallen into oblivion.
A further difficulty arose as well: The continuity with this
generation was broken off so completely, and there was no
rising generation of younger pedagogues. For one, most of the
professorial chairs in pedagogy in the German universities were
dissolved. Thus the representatives of this generation could not
develop any younger forces. It is also impossible to assess how
160 EDUCATION
many highly gifted young persons were lost in the war. Many
others were expelled because of their political incrimination
andthen disappeared into oblivion.
7. The Concept of the Encounter
Let us now turn from the historical background back to the
question of the influence of existential philosophy on ~eda~ogy.
I ask your forgiveness if in this regard I must speak pnmanly of
myself, because I can hardly speak here of "th~" German
pedagogy. German pedagogy as a whol.e still r~mam~d largely
untouched by the existential problematic. The mtensiVe move-
ment which soon developed in German pedagogy came from an
entirely different direction: The natural scientifically oriented
theory of science, following the paradigm of the Western coun-
tries, with its striving for ever more exact methods, followed
somewhat later by the critical theory of the Frankfurt School,
and more generally by the social-critical perspective. But. these
are newer developments, which no longer play a part m my
present theme: the influence o~ existentia.l phil~sop.hy.
Let us first of all bring these mfluences mto view m a general
way. Based on my personal viewpoint, I would like to dis-
tinguish three stages:
The Methods of the Human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften).
The first stage is characterized by my lecture on "The Methods
of the Human Sciences," delivered in the year 1950. The
question at that time was: After the suspicion toward the
Geisteswissenschaften (Human Sciences) in the preceding years,
what would still prove transferrable and useful from this past
viewpoint, and where could we once again connect with it?
With our vision sharpened by existential philosophy it was
possible to see more clearly both the abiding significance and
the limitations of the older human-scientific approach.
If I were to be carried away by a great enthusiasm and to
seek to understand everything and to appropriate everything
which the human spirit had ever created in different times and
cultures, then this learning would ultimately remain rather
detached because I would not really be existentially touched by
any of it. 'u I am really to take something seriously, then I inust
CONCEPT OF ENCOUNTER 161
take a position, I must decide myself-for this and against that.
Only when I decisively engage myself with it, does the object
freely disclose its ultimate depths.
We can best attempt to comprehend this most extreme form
of being-touched-by-something as an existential encounter..
Encounter and Formation. The far reaching pedagogical con-
sequences first become clear to me when I was invited by Felix
Messerschmid in 1955 to deliver a lecture on "Encounter and
Formation." I must confess from the outset that I did not coin
the pedagogical concept of the encounter. It was provided me
by the assigned lecture theme. My task was one of conceptual
clarification, and to that end I adopted a usage of speech which
had developed at that time and sought to identify a uniquely
new orientation which was finding its expression in this speech
form. A new "hardness" had been discovered in our relation-
ship to reality. This development began in the religious domain
under the influence of dialectical theology. People spoke with
new emphasis of an encounter with God, whereas earlier they
would have spoken of a religious experience. Thus they de-
picted the "hardness" of a divine reality which confronted the
human being with an unconditional demand. Subsequently, the
concept was then adopted in a more general sense to character-
ize the process in which I, usually in an accidental and unex-
pected fashion, collide with a reality which confronts me as
something other, alien, and resistant to my natural life force.
This other reality is like a wall with which I collide in a
thoroughly painful way, because I become conscious of the
shortcomings of my life as I have previously Jived it.
I will summarize: The encounter signifies in this sense a total
shattering which places the human being-without his seeking
it-before the demands of his own existence. This shattering
determines what is genuine in the human being, and what is
mere mendacious or deceitful appearance. The encounter thus
becomes a decisive event: Only by standing firm in the en-
counter does the human being become himself. In its particu-
lars, the encounter can assume the greatest variety of shapes.
Thus we discover that the decisive incident in human life-the
prominent turning point--can be the encounter with another
human being, but it can also be an encounter with a work of art
 162 EDUCATION
or philosophy, with the testimonies of a religion, or perhaps
even with a landscape.
Just as I have already emphasized previously, however, that
existential philosophy only brings to expression one side of
reality and thus requires a completion through the considera-
tion of the positive and supporting conditions of life, so too in
the encounter we comprehend only one moment-though in-
deed a decisive moment-in our relationship to the other hu-
man being and more generally to the surrounding culture.
If we are to adequately comprehend the situation of the
huma~ being, the Condition humana, we must not lose sight of
what IS neglected in the existential account-the entire richness
of the spiritual world and the formation of the subjective mind
through the appropriation of the contents of this world in an
individua~, formational development. It is this which I sought to
charactenze by the second concept in my theme, that of "For-
mation" (Bildung). Thus we face a new set of questions con-
cerning: the relationship between formation and encounter
their mutual implication, and at the same time the tensio~
which remains between them.
This essay on "Encounter and Formation" provoked exten-
si~e discussio~. in its time and in the process also met in part
With sharp cnttque. The contributions to this debate are col-
lec~ed in the volumes edited by W. Faber, E. Gerner, and J.-E.
Plemes, and thus are still easily available today. These works,
however, go much farther than the original posing of the
problem and open up an entirely new field for study.
The most weighty objection to my essay seemed to me to be
that of Derbolav, who critiqued my position in his essay "On
the Nature of the Historical Encounter." Reducing his remarks
to the most simple formula, he asserts that in my existen-
tial-philosophically defined concept I have narrowed the prob-
lem of encounter too far in an inadmissible fashion, and further ·
that in doing so I have dealt with only one aspect of a mor~
comprehensive, tripartite phenomenon. Derbolav distinguishes
three con~epts of the encounter, which taken together comprise
the totality of . th_e ~ncounter: "Encounter as the working
through and assimilatiOn of the other precisely as other," "en-
CONCEPT OF ENCOUNTER 163
counter as becoming other in and through the other," and "en-
counter as becoming oneself through the other."
When I look back today from the distance of a quarter
century on the discussions of that time, I see that my contribu-
tion lies in having recognized the phenomenon of encounter for
the first time in its systematic significance and thus in having
made possible the intensive preoccupation with this phenome-
non. The contribution of Derbolav on the other hand seems to
me to lie in the fact, that he freed the concept of encounter from
the one-sidedness connected with my first approach and estab-
lished it in a larger context by means of his reference to ~he
classical-humanistic concept of formation as personified by Litt.
The difference between us seems to me in retrospect to be
essentially much less than it may have seemed at the time. I
would, however, diverge from Derbolav and hold fast to my
original interpretation at one point: It is a mistake to ask about
the nature of "the" encounter. Derbolav attempts to com-
prehend the encounter in the most comprehensive fashion
possible, as a unitary phenomenon and to un_derstand the
various concepts of encounter as moments of a umtary whole. I
believe on the other hand that we are not dealing with a unitary
phenomenon, which is merely considered from differen~ sid,es
or distinguished in its different aspects. Rather, we are_ m fact
dealing with two very different entities-both charactenzed by
the word encounter and both intimately related to one another-
and we must begin by distinguishing them sharply from one
another.
To begin with merely formal definitions, this _mean_s that:
Encounter in the existential sense is the process m which the
human being fatefully confronts something, which compels him
to a radical reversal in his life; in this fashion alone can he
actualize his authentic self. Encounter in the classical humanis-
tic sense on the other hand, is the enrichening of one's own
mental a~d spiritual world by means of becoming familiar with
strange worlds. The fact that these are not merely d~fferent
aspects of one and the same thing, but ra~her very different
things, can be easily seen when we recogmze that each phe-
nomenon can also occur independently of the other. At times
164 EDUCATION
the human being becomes himself through being thrown back
on his own-most possibilities, without assimilating in the pro-
cess any new contents from outside himself. At other times,
under thankfully open conditions, we see an assimilation of
alien cultural contents, without this necessarily involving the
kind of total shattering essential for the existential encounter.
Thus it seems to me expedient to distinguish these distinct
phenomena linguistically as well, and to speak in the first case
of an existential encounter and in the second case of an histori-
cal encounter-this latter case fitting more closely the sense of
Derbolav's discussion. The first kind of encounter can only be
experienced by an individual human being, the latter, in con-
trast, is also possible between cultures, as Litt has described the
encounter between the German spirit and Christianity.
I would therefore draw the conclusion: We rob the existential
encounter of its rousing power, if we assimilate it as merely one
moment in a more comprehensive process of formation. The
antithesis between the existential event and the spiritual-
cultural world cannot be dissolved, and must not be watered
down through any attempt at a synthesis.
I will now return to my opening question: What is it that
remains from the original impetus of existential philosophy as
an enduring gain for pedagogy? To this I would answer: The
existentially understood concept of encounter contributes some-
thing ultimate and unconditional, something alien to all previ-
ous pedagogy. This concept presents an ultimate standard,
against which all formational events and processes must be
measured. It must be recognized in this proper function, and
must be resolutely upheld.
Irregular Forms in Education. The difficulty in making exis-
tential philosophy fruitful for pedagogy consisted, as I said
earlier, in the fact that the authenticity of existence can only be
won for the moment and disappears again with that moment,
whereas pedagogy must pre-suppose the possibility of an en-
during transformation and improvement. Through our consid-
eration of the phenomenon of the encounter, however, it has
become clear that this is a false dichotomy, that the human life
neither runs a predictable, regular course nor does it completely
fragment into disc~nnected existential moments. Rather, in the
CONCEPT OF ENCOUNTER 165
human life there are events which disrupt the regular course
through crises, and the human life is thus-to speak math-
ematically-regular in a step-wise fashion. That is to say, the
regular course of life is repeatedly and always interrupted by
irregularly intruding events. In these events the existential
aspect of life comes :nto its own.
Once this principle was recognized, it took only one more
step to observe, that there are in life many other forms of such
irregularly intruding events-aside from the encounter. I at-
tempted to present this observation systematically in my 1959
book "Existential Philosophy and Pedagogy." Besides the en-
counter we might also mention the admonition and the appeal,
which attempt to drag the individual back from a complete
surrender to indolence. The possibility of a "pedagogy of the
appeal" has still not yet been systematically thought through.
We would also include among such "irregular forms" the
"awakening," which sets free possibilities long slumbering in
the person. We would also include in a more general sense the
crisis and the new beginning attained by enduring and passing
through the crisis[2]. Even in a "total failure," something which
remains an essential possibility inherent in all educational ef-
forts, the existential dimension shows its validity.
8. The Expansion of the Horizon of Pedagogy's Task
For pedagogy the question remains: How should we deal with
these processes which we have characterized as "irregular
forms?" From the outset we must confront a difficulty: We are
dealing with events which come over the human being fatefully;
which therefore elude all planning and all conscious arrange-
ment; and which furthermore render us deeply aware, in a very
painful fashion, of the limits of all educational planning and of
planned instruction in general.
The circumstances differ from case to particular case. The
educator can and must deliberately attempt to provoke an
awakening. But he cannot make it occur, because the result
does not depend on him. Likewise one cannot willfully bring
about an encounter, though we would do well to consider more
166 EDUCATION
precisely by what means we could intentionally prepare the way
for one. Finally, to desire to deliberately bring about a crisis,
entirely for the sake of its purifying effect, would be presumptu-
ous because of the danger connected with a crisis. However, we
can perhaps stand by in an understanding and helpful fashion
when someone is touched by a crisis.
In any case, all of these events force us to a fundamental
reflection on the domain of study for educational science. Until
now education has been understood as a kind of "making" or
production, that is, as a conscious, goal-directed activity. The
alternative conception, however, based on a facilitation of
growth, is also not applicable here. Like production, growth is a
process which runs a regular course, whereas all regularity is
disrupted in the processes discussed here.
The necessary result therefore is an expansion of the domain
of study for pedagogy as an educational science. Pedagogy must
include such irregular processes as these, which it cannot itself
bring about, and which in their essentials it cannot even influ-
ence, but which it must understand if it is to assist growing,
maturing human beings in their development. It must at the
same time include the entire environment in which education
unfolds. It can no longer restrict itself to rationally determined
behavior or to behavior with a measurable outcome. Accord-
ingly we are compelled to accept an essential expansion in the
domain of study treated by pedagogy.
References
CHAPTER I
1] I refer to the chapter "The Crisis" in my book: Existenzphiloso-
phie und Piidagogik, Versuch uber unstetige For'!len i~ der Erziehung
(Existential Philosophy and Pedagogy, A ConstderatiOn of Irregular
Forms in Education), 3rd Edition, Stuttgart, 1965, p. 24. For an
overview of the richly articulated and comprehensively developed
literature on the problem of the life-crisis, see also the anthology: Zur
Psychologie der Lebenskrisen (Toward a Psychology of the Life Cri-
sis), edited by C. Zwingman, Akademische Reihe, Frankfurt, 1962. In
the present context I must limit myself to what is essential for our
particular theme: the link between crisis and critique.
2] For background and the theoretic~! foundation~ of this
viewpoint, I refer you to: O.F. Bollnow, Dte a~throp~logtsch~ B~t­
rachtungweise in der Piidagogik (The Anthropologtcal Pm~t of Vtew m
Pedagogy). Neue Piidogische Bemuhungen (New Pedagogtcal Efforts),
vol. 23, Essen, 1965.
3] A. Gehlen, Anthropologische Forschung. Zur Selbstbegegnung
und Selbstendeckung des Menschen (Anthropological Research. Con-
cerning the Self-Encounter and Self-Discovery of the Human B_ein~).
Rowohlts Deutsche Enzyklopiidie, vol. 138, Hamburg, 1961. I will ctte
in the following from that edition.
4] It is clear from their correspondence that Voltaire, for example,
had merely insinuated his own misunderstanding into Rousseau's
work. I refer you to: J. J. Rousseau, Schriften zur Kulturkritik (Papers
on Culture Critique). Philosophische Bibliothek (Meiner), Number
243, Hamburg, 1955, p. 301 ff.
5] I refer you to: O.F. Bollnow, Die Lebensphilsophie (The Phil_o-
sophy of Life), Heidelberg, 1958. I have attempted there to deptct
these currents as a whole.
6] Compare my text: Existenzphilosophie und Piidagogik (Existen-
tial Philosophy and Pedagogy), op. cit., especially the chapter on the
admonition.
7] Cf., Chapter II in the present volume, "The New Beginning and
the Problem of Rejuvenation."
8] Cf., my articles: Uber die unmoglichkeit eines archimedischen
Punkts in der Erkenntnis (Concerning the Impossibility of an Archime-
dean Point in Knowledge), Archive fur die gesamte Psychologie, 116,

168 REFERENCES
1964, p. 219 ff, and Aspekte der gegenwartigen deutschen Philosophie
{Aspects of Contemporary German Philosophy), Universitas, 20 ,
1965, p.809 ff.
9] It was Gadamer who in this fashion correctly perceived the
situation, but formulated it in this somewhat exaggerated and thus
easily misunderstood way. Cf. H.G. Gadamer, Wahrheit und
Methode, Grundzuge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik {Truth and
Method, Basic Features of a Philosophical Hermeneutics), Tubingen,
1960, p. 255 ff.
10] Cf., O.F. Bollnow, Erziehung zur Urteilsfiihigkeit {Education
for the Capacity for Judgment). In Mass und Vermessenheit des Mens-
chen (The Measure and Audacity of Man), Philosophische Aufsiitze,
Neue Folge, Gottingen, 1962, p.107 ff.
11] {Trans!. Note) Bollnow addresses this question in his two
volume Studien zur Hermeneutik (Studies in Hermeneutics), Freiburg
and Munich, Verlag Karl Alber, 1982 and 1983, especially in the first
volume, Zur Philosophie der Geisteswissenschaften (Toward a Philo-
sophy of the Human Sciences).
12] H. Lipps, Das Urteil (The Judgment). In Die Verbindlichkeit
der Sprache, Arbeiten zur Sprachphi/osophie und Logik {The Binding
Quality of Speech, Works Toward a Philosophy of Language and
Logic), Frankfurt am Main, 1944, p. 9 ff. See !ilso: Untersuchungen zu
einer hermeneutischen Logik (Investigations Toward a Hermeneutic
Logic), Frankfurt am Main, 1938, p. 48 ff.
CHAPTER II
1] See also the author's earlier work on Hesse: 0. F. Bollnow,
Hermann Hesses Weg in der Stille (Herman Hesse's Way into the
Stillness). In Unruhe und Geborgenheit, im Weltbild neuerer Dichter,
2nd edition, Stuttgart, 1958.
2] H. Hesse, Morgenlandfahrt (Journey to the East). Gesammelte
Dichtungen, vol. 6 p. 15. English edition: The Journey to the East,
N.Y.: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1961, p.l2.
3] Ibid., p. 24, English edition, p. 27.
4] Cf., in this regard, first of all A. Gehlen's Das Bild des Mens-
chen im Lichte der modernen Anthropo/ogie (The Image of the Human
Being in Light of Modern Philosophical Anthropology). In Anthropo-
logische Forschung zur Selbstbegegnung und Se/bstendeckung des
Menschen. Rowohlts Deutsche Enzyklopiidie, vol. 138, Hamburg,
1961. Cf., also my reply: Zur Kritik an der Kulturkritik (In Critique of
Culture Critique). In Zeitschrift fur Piidagogik, 11, 1965, p. 364 ff.
5] H. Hesse, Gesammelte Dichtung (Collected Poetry), Berlin
1952, vol. 6, p. 555 f., vol. 5, p. 781 f.
REFERENCES 169
6] H. von Hoffmannsthal, Gesammelte Werke in Einzelausgaben.
Lustspiele (Collected Works in Individual Editions. Comedies), vol.
II, Stockholm, 1948, p.422.
7] Cf., also Chapter I, the section entitled "Toward a Critique of
Culture Critique."
8] J. G. Herder, Siimtliche Werke (Complete Works), edited by B.
Suphan, 1877, vol. 4, p. 453. Cf., also Heinrich Lenzen, ~erjung~ng
als piidagogisches Problem-nach Herders Lebenswerk (ReJuvenation
as a Pedagogical Problem-According to the Life's Work of Herder),
Dissertation at Mainz, 1953.
9] R.M. Rilke, Gesammelte Werke (Collected Works). Leipzig,
1930, vol. 1, p. 394.
CHAPTER III
1] J. A. Comenius, Pampaedia, edited by D. T~chizewe_skij.
Piidagogische Forschung. Veroffentlichungen des Comemus-Insfltuts,
vol. 5, Heidelberg, 1960, p. 418 ff.
2] Ibid., p.375.
3] E.M. Arndt, Fragmente uber Menschenbildung (Fragments
Concerning the Education of the Human Being), edited by W. Munch
and H. Meisner, Langensalza, 1904.
4] E. Minkowski, Verse une Cosmologie (Toward a Cosmology),
Paris 1936, p. 259.
5] Cf., A. E. Brinckmann, Spiitwerke grosser Meister (Late Works
of Great Masters), Frankfurt am Main, 1925.
6] Jean Paul, Leben Fibels, des Verfassers der Bienrodische Fibel
(Fibel's Life). Werke, edited by E. Berend, Berlin, no date, vol. 4, p.
811.
CHAPTER IV
1] G. Simmel, Lebensanschauung. Vier metaphy~ische Kapit~l ~A
View of Life. Four Metaphysical Chapters), Mumch and Leipzig,
1918, the third chapter: Tad und Unsterblichkeit (Death and Immor-
tality?, p. 99 ff.
2] M. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Being and Time), Halle an die
Saale 1 1927, p. 235 ff.
3] R. M. Rilke, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 143.
4] Cit{d by G. Misch, Der Weg in die Philosophie {The Way to
Philosophy), 2nd edition, Munich, 1950, p.36.
170 REFERENCES
5] G.E. Lessing, Brief an J. J. Eschenburg vom 10. Januar 1778
(L~tter to J. J. Eschenburg of January 10, 1778). Ausgewiihlte Werke,
edited by W. Stammler, Munich, no date, vol. 3, p.355.
6r J. W. Goethe, Brief an den Kanzler von Muller vom 7. August
1828 (Letter to the Chancellor of Muller of August 7, 1828). Sophien
Ausgabe, section IV, vol. 44, Weimar, 1909, p. 250.
7] J.W. Goethe, 1talienische Reise (Italian Journey). Gedenkaus-
gabe, edited by E. Beutler, vol. 11, p. 585, as well as in: Maximen und
Reflexionen (Maxims and Reflections), vol. 9, p. 627. Cf., also W.
Brednow's work: Goethe und die Langweile (Goethe and Ennui). Neue
Sammlung, 4 , 1954, p. 1 ff. Bredow suggests in this article that as
Goethe, residing at Dornburg Castle, wrote the letter to the Chancel-
lor of Muller, he may have called to mind this passage from his "Italian
Journey," written a few months previously.
8] E. Spranger, Vom metaphys~~che Leid (Concerning Metaphysi-
cal Sorrow). In Stufen der Liebe. Uber Wesen und Kulturausgabe der
Frau (Stages of Love, Concerning the Nature and Cultural Task of the
Woman), Tubingen, 1965, p. 224.
9] R. M. Rilke, Die Briefe an die Griifin Sizzo (Letter to Countess
Sizzo), Wiesbaden, 1950, p. 32 ff.
10] L. Binswanger, Grundformen und Erkenntnis mensch lichen
Daseins (Basic Forms and Knowledge of Human Existence), 2nd
edition, Zurich, 1953, p. 23 ff.
11] R. M Rilke, Briefe aus den Jahren 1907-1914 (Letters from the
Years 1907-1914), Leipzig, 1939, p. 84, and Gesammelte Werke (Col-
lected Works), vol. 3, p. 274.
. 12] E .. Minkowski, Espace, intime, habitat (Space, Intimacy, Ha-
bitat). In Situation, Beitriige zur phiinomenologischen Psychologie und
Psychopathologie (Situation, Contributions to a Phenomenological
Psychology and Psychopathology), Utrecht, Antwerp. 1954, p. 172 ff.
CHAPTER V
1] Maria Montessori, cited in the Invitation to the XIIIth Montes-
sori Congress.
2] I. Kant, Zum ewigen Frieden (Toward Eternal Peace). Werke,
edited by E. Cassirer, vol. 6, p. 474.
3] C.F. von Weizsacker, Bedingungen des Friedens (Conditions for
Peace), Gottingen, 1963, p. 7.
4] M. Born, Die Hoffnung auf Einsicht aller Menschen in die
Grosse der atomaren Gefiihrdung (The Hope That All Men Will Have
Insight into the Magnitude of the Atomic Menace). Die Hoffnung
unserer Zeit. Eine Sendereihe des Suddeutschen Rundfunks, Munchen,
1963, p. 137.
REFERENCES 171
5] J. F. Herbart, Allgemeine Piidagogik (General Pedagogy).
Siimtliche Werke, edited by K. Kehrbach vol. 2, p. 91.
6] L. Binswanger, Drei Formen missgluckten Daseins. Verstiegen-
heit, Verschrobenheit, Manierthiet (Three Forms of Miscarried Exis-
tence. High Flown Extravagance, Eccentricity, and Affectation),
Tubingen, 1956.
7] J. F. Herbart, Umriss piidagogischer Vorlesungen (Outline of
Pedagogical Lectures). Siimtliche Werke, edited by K. Kehrback,
Langensalza, 1887, vol. 10. 179.
8] Cf., 0. F. Bollnow, Mass und Vermessenheit des Menschen (The
Measure and Audacity of Man), Gottingen, 1962, especially the sec-
tion: "Excursus on Security and Peace," p. 22 f.
9] G. Simmel, Lebensanschauung. Vier metaphysische Kapitel (A
View of Life. Four Metaphysical Chapters), Munich and Leipzig,
1918, p.2.
10] J. G. Fichte, Reden an die deutsche Nation (Address to the
German Nation), edited by F. Medicus, Leipzig, 1908, vol. 5, p.22.
11] Ibid., p. 29.
12] Compare the discussion on page 87 in the present chapter.
13] A. Camus, L'Homme revolte (Man in Revolt), Paris, 1951.
Cf., also my discussion: Von der absurden Welt zum mittelmeerischen
Gedanken (Regarding the Absurd World in Mediterranean Thinking).
Antares, 2 (1), 1954, pp.3-13. This piece was reprinted in: O.F.
Bolin ow, Franzosischer Existentialismus (French Existentialism),
Stuttgart, 1965, p. 167 ff.
14] Cf., O.F. Bollnow, Mass und Vermessenheit des Menschen
(The Measure and Audacity of Man), loc. cit.. especially p. 24 f.
15]Cf., O.F. Bollnow, Erziehung zur Urteilsfiihigkeit (Education
for the Capacity for Judgement), loc. cit .. p. 107 ff.
16] M. Born, op. cit., p. 140.
CHAPTER VI
1] R. Eisler, Worterbuch der philosophichsen Begriffe (Dictionary
of Philosophical Concepts), 3rd edition, Berlin, 1910, vol. 2, p. 989.
Numerous additional examples can be found there.
2] I. Kant, Werke (Works), edited by the Royal Prussian Academy
of the Sciences, vol. 4, p. 227.
3] I. Kant, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 87.
4] F. Schiller, Siimtliche Werke. Siikularausgabe (Complete
Works. Secular Edition). vol. 11, p. 193.
5] I. Kant, op. cit., vol. 6, p. 223.
6] I. Kant, op. cit., vol. 4, p. 428.
172 REFERENCES
7] W. Stern, Person und Sache (Person and Thing). vol. 1-3,
Leipzig, 1906-1924.
8] M. Scheler, Formalismus in der Ethik und die formale Wertethik
(Formalism in Ethics and the Formal Ethics of Values), 3rd edition,
Bonn, 1926, pp. 405, 385.
9] J. W. Goethe, Gedenkausgabe (Memorial Edition), vol. 3, p.
0
353.
10] I. Kant, op. cit., vol. 4, p. 393.
11] I refer you to Chapter 3 in the present volume, especially
section 4, "The Late Works of Aging Artists."
12] J. W. Goethe, Joe. cit., vol. 7, p. 311. See also 0. F. Bollnow,
Vorbetrachtungen zum Verstiindnis der Bildungsidee in Goethes
"Wilhelm Meister" (Preliminary Considerations in Understanding
the Idea of Bildung in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister), Die Sammlung, 10,
1955, p. 445 ff.
13] Cf., G. Dohmen, Bildung und Schute (Formation and School),
2 volumes, Weinheim a. d. Bergstrasse, 1964 and 1965, as well as I.
Schaarschmid and F. Rauhut, Beitriige zur Geschichte des Bildungsbe-
griff. Kleine piidagogische Texte (Contributions to the History of the
Concept of Bildung. Short Pedagogical Texts), vol. 33, edited by W.
Klafki, Weinheim a.d. Bergstrasse, 1965.
14] J. W. Goethe, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 233.
15] Cf., 0. F. Bollnow, Der "Nachsommer" und die Bildungsi-
dee des Biedermaier (The "Indian Summer" and the Idea of Bildung in
the Biedermeier Era). In: Beitriige zur Einheit von Bildung und
Sprache im geistigen Sein. Festschrift zum 80. Geburtstag von Ernst
Otto (Contributions Toward the Unity of Bildung and Language in
Mental-Spiritual Being. Memorial Volume on the 80th Birthday of
Ernst Otto), Berlin, 1958, p. 14 ff.
16] F. Schleiermacher, Monologen (Monologues). Siimtliche
Werke, Dritte Abteilung, vol. 1, Berlin, 1946, p. 367.
17] F. Schleiermacher, op. cit., p. 371.
18] E. Spranger, Wilhelm Humboldt und die Humanitiitsidee (Wil-
helm Humboldt and the Idea of Humanity), Berlin, 1909.
19] Navalis, Schriften (Papers), edited by P. Kluckhohn, Leipzig,
no date, vol. 3, p. 220.
20] F. Schleiermacher, op. cit., p. 418.
21] I will not portray this countermovement in any detail at this
time, because we will return to it later in another context. I refer you to
Chapter 8, commencing with section B. 5, entitled "Critique of the
Classical Idea of Bildung."
22] F. Nietzsche, Gross und Kleinoktav-Ausgabe (Large and Small
Octavo Edition), vol. 5, p. 30.
REFERENCES 173
23] F. Nietzsche, op. cit., vol. 7, p. 279.
24] R. M. Rilke, Gesammelte Werke (Collected Works), vol. 3, p.
354.
25] J. Ortega y Gasset, Geschichte als System (History as System),
transl. by F. Schalk, Stuttgart, 1943, p. 49.
26] F. Nietzsche, op. cit., vol. 6, p. 73.
27] F. Nietzsche, op. cit., vol. 7, p. 88
28] K. Marx, Der historische Materialismus. Die Fruhschriften
(Historical Materialism. The Early Papers), edited by S. Landshut and
J.P. Mayer. KronerTaschenbuchausgabe, Leipzig, 1932, vol. 1, p.328
29] W. Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften (Collected Works), vol. 8,
p.6.
30] W. Dilthey, op. cit., vol. 8, p. 224.
31] J. -P. Sartre, L'existentialisme est un humanisme (Existential-
ism is a Humanism), Paris, 1946, p. 224.
32] R. M. Rilke, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 356. Cf., 0. F. Bollnow, Rilke,
3rd edition, Stuttgart, 1956, p. 179 ff.
33] R. M. Rilke, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 324.
34] H. Hesse, op. cit., vol. 6, p. 81.
35] F. Nietzsche, op. cit., vol. 6, p. 16.
36] F. Nietzsche, op. cit., vol. 6, pp. 13, 51, 289.
37] G. Simmel, Lebensanchauung. Vier Metaphysische Kapitel (A
View of Life. Four Metaphysical Chapters), Munich and Leipzig,
1918, p. 6.
38] R. M. Rilke, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 317.
39] H. Hesse, op. cit., vol. 6, p. 483.
40] Ibid., p. 483.
41] F. Nietzsche, op. cit., vol. 6, p. 16.
42] K. Jaspers, Philosophie (Philosophy), Berlin, 1932, vol. 1, p. 93
43] K. Jaspers, op. cit., vol. 2, p.I.
44] M. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Being and Time), Halle a.d.
Saale, 1927, p. 92.
45] I am not able to discuss more fully here the current prominent
new efforts to renew and deepen the concept of the person. I refer you,
for example, to J. Schwartlander, Kommunikative Existenz und dialo-
gisches Personsein (Communicative Existence and Dialogical Personal
Being). Zeitschrift fur philosophische Forschung, 19, 1965, p. 53 ff.
CHAPTER VII
1] (Transl. Note) A recent article by Packer clearly delineates the
 l
I
174 REFERENCES
approach, assumptions, and usefulness of hermeneutical understand-
ing and investigation: M. J. Packer, Hermeneutic Inquiry in the Study
of Human Conduct. American Psychologist, 40 (10), 1985, pp.
1081-1093.
2] I refer you also to Chapter 8, commencing with section B. 1,
"The Relationship Between Theory and Praxis."
CHAPTER VIII
1] (Transl. Note) Objektiver Geist: objective mind. In Hegel's
philosophy, the absolute mind or spirit actualizes itself in history in the
form of objective mind, that is, law, morality. customs, and institu-
tions. In philosophical anthropology objective mind can be understood
as the collective "mind" of culture, which is objectified in the works,
institutions, and objective products of the culture.
2] P. Barth, Geschichte der Erziehung in soziologischer und geistes-
geschichtlicher Beleuchtung (History of Education in Sociological and
Cultural-historical Illumination), Leipzig, 1911.
3] H. Schelsky, Schule und erziehung in der industriel/en Gesells-
chaft (School and Education in Industrial Society), Wurzburg, 1957.
See also another work by the same author: Die skeptische Generation
(The Sceptical Generation), Dusseldorf and Cologne, 1957.
4] H. Roth, Die Bedeutung der empirischen Forschung fur die
Piidagogik (The Significance of Empirical Research for Pedagogy). In:
Piidagogische Forschung and piidagogische Praxis, Veroffentlichungen
der Hochschule fur Internationale Piidagogische Forschung, vol. 1,
Heidelberg, 1958. CoQfer also his later work: Empirische Piida-
gogische Anthropo/ogie (Empirical Pedagogical Anthropology), alec-
ture held at the First Session of the Deutsche Gese/lschaft fur Erzie-
hungswissenschaft in Kassel, April30, 1965, published in Zeitschrift fur
Piidagogik, 11, 1965, p. 207 ff.
5] (Transl. Note) See also Bollnow's more recent work, Studien
zur Hermeneutik (Studies in Hermeneutics), Freiburg and Munich,
Verlag Karl Alber, vol. I, 1982, and vol. II, 1983, especially the first
volume on the philosophy of the human sciences ( Geisteswissenschaf-
ten ).
6] (Trans!. Note) There is no English equivalent to the.German
Bildung, as discussed in Chapter VI, Section IV. For this reason, the
German Bildung will be retained for clarity in parentheses.
7] 0. F. Bollnow, Existenzphilosophie und Piidagogik (Existential
Philosophy and Pedagogy), Stuttgart, 1959.
8] Cf., 0. F. Bollnow, Abschied von der Antike (Farewell to
Antiquity), in Krise und neuer Anfange, Heidelberg, Quelle und
Meyer, 1966, pp. 142-144.
REFERENCES 175
9] M. Wagenschein, Die piidagogische Dimension der Physik (The
Pedagogical Dimension of Physics), Braunschweig, 1962. Even the
author's early essays, once so scattered and difficult to obtain, are now
easily accessible in the collection: M. Wagenschein, Exemplarisches
Lehren im Mathematikunterricht (Exemplary Teaching in Mathematics
Instruction). Stuttgart, 1962, and M. Wagenschein, Ursprungliches
Verstehen und exaktes Denken, Piidagogische Schnfte, (Original
Understanding and Exact Thinking. Pedagogical Papers), Stuttgart,
1965.
10] (Transl. Note) The recent work of Helmut Danner, Methoden
Geisteswissenschaftliche Piidagogik: Einfuhrung in Hermeneutik,
Phiinomenologie, und Dialektik (Methods in Human Scientific Pedag-
ogy: Introduction to Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and Dialectics),
Munich, E. Reinhart Verlag, 1979, presents a more detailed overview
of the "geisteswissenschaftliche" viewpoint in contemporary German
pedagogy, detailing the distinct influence of hermeneutics, phenome-
nology, and the social-critical dialectics of the Frankfurt School.
11] I mention as supplementary material my works: Die anthropo-
logische Betrachtungweise in der Piidagogik (The anthropological point
of view in pedagogy), Essen, West Germany, 3rd edition, 1975, and
Anthropologische Piidagogik (Anthropological pedagogy), Tokyo, Ta-
magawa University Press, 1971 (and: Bern, Switzerland, 3rd edition,
1982).
CHAPTER IX
1] (Transl. Note) The following citation from Erwin Straus con-
veys the prevailing shock of the time: "Only those who have known the
years before the first World War can fully appreciate the magnitude of
the crisis we are undergoing. During those years most people believed
that in western civilization man had reached a more or less definitive
state of historical development. In accordance with this attitude the
past was interpreted in a somewhat peculiar way. We had heard about
wars, about persecution, about intolerance ... But we had also
learned that since 1600, or somewhat earlier, when man's eyes were
opened, there had been irresistable progress ... " "There was gen-
eral optimism and a feeling of security. And then suddenly that
shocking disappointment to optimism and security! Suddenly history
with all its good and bad passions was alive again. Suddenly everything
which we thought gone forever was here again, and that progressive
state which we expected to be the final and lasting one had disap-
peared." (E. Straus, Education in a Time of Crisis. Black Mountain
College Bulletin, 7, 1941).
2] (Transl. Note) cf., Chapters 1 and 2, infra.
 APPENDIX: ENGLISH WORKS 177

Works by 0. F. Bolin ow Available (1979) What does it mean to understand a writer better than he has
understood himself? Philosophy Today, 22 (114), 16-28.
in English (1980) Aspects of the philosophy of life, Universitas, English edition,
22, 31-36. 0 0 0 0 0

Compiled by DONALD MOSS, PH.D. (1980) The word as decision-Aspects of hngmsttc phtlosophy, Um-
versitas, English edition, 22 (3), 187-193. .
(1982) On silence-findin~s of p_hilosophico-pedagogtcal anthropol-
(1950) Existentialism in Germany, Actualit~s Scientifiques et indus- ogy, Universitas, Enghsh edttto_n. 24, 41~7.
trielles, 1110. (1984) The discovery of language m the phtlosophy of the present,
(1958) The conquest of existentialism, Universitas, English Language Universitas, English edition, 26 (1), 21-28. .
edition, 2, 131-139. (1984) Gabriel Marcel's concept of availability: In P. A. Schlipp_ & L.
(1959) Educational research and philosophical ideas in Germany, E. Hahn (Eds.), The philosophy of Gabml M~rc~l. The L1brary
Proceedings of the international Conference on Educational Re- of Living Philosophers, vol. XVII, La Salle. Ilhnms: Open Court
search, Tokyo, pp. 59-68. Publishing. . .
(1961) Lived space, Philosophy Today, 5 (1/4), 31-39. (June, 1984) Translation of Die Verantwortung der Vernunft m. emer
(1961) The meaning of hope, Universitas, English edition, 4, 263-273. friedlosen Welt (The Responsibility of reason in a world wtthout
(1963) Existentialism's basic ethical position. In, Contemporary Euro- peace). Report of the Third international Conference of Korean
pean ethics. N.Y.: J. J. Kokelmans, pp. 369-383. Culture and Characteristics, pp. 66-78.
(1963) Address on Eduard Spranger: In memoriam, Universitas, En-
glish edition, 6, 223-235.
(1964) Translation of Sicherheit und Frieden als Aufgabe der Erziehung
(Security and peace as a task for education), Congress Report of
the 13th Montessori Congress, Amsterdam, pp. 55-64.
(1967) Aspects of contemporary German philosophy, Universitas,
English edition, 9, 257-276. Reprinted in United Asia. interna-
tional Magazine of Afro-Asian Affairs, XVI, 1967, 390-405.
(1970) Translation of Erziehung zum Gespriich (Education for dia-
logue), Education. A Biannual Collection, 1, 20-33.
(1971) Considerations on the construction of a philosophy of know-
ledge, Universitas, English edition, 13, 105-116, 253-262.
(1971) Training towards independent judgment, Education. A Bian-
nual Collection, 4, 18-21.
(1972) Encounter and education (Parts I & II), The Educational
Forum, 36, 303-312, 46~72.
(1972) Risk and failure in education, Education. A Biannual Collec-
tion, 6, 37-52. Reprinted in J. P. Strain (Ed.), Philosophy of
education. N.Y., 1971, pp. 520-535.
(1974) Wilhelm Dilthey, in Encyclopedia Britannica, 15, 804.
(1974) The objectivity of the humanities and the essence of truth,
Philosophy Today, 18 (114), 3-18.
(1975) Translation of Obung als Weg des Menschen (Practice as the
way of the human being), Education. A Biannual Collection, 10,
61-75.
(1977) Criteria of truth 1• Universitas, English edition, 19, 27-33.
(1979) Translation of Uber die Tugenden des Erziehers (Concerning
the virtues of the educator), Education. A Biannual Collection,
20, 69-79; also in Teacher Today, July/Sept, 1984.
Index
Abstract thinking, compared to
approximate thinking, 80
Adorno, T., 149
Aging, 46--59
and actualization of youth,
42-43
ambivalent image of, 53, 54
backward orientation in, 54
crises in, 58-59
essential features in, 52-55
fear of, 31
fulfillment and perfection
of, 48-51
habits in, 39
inner freedom in, 51, 57
kindness in, 53
and late works of artists,
55-57, 94
and melancholy of bereaved
survivors, 69
and relationships with
children, 50, 53
rigidification in, 36--37
transformations in, 49-50
verbosity in, 53-54
wisdom and experience in, 52
and yearning for new youth,
30-32
Anthropological significance of
critique, 21-22, 27
Anthropology
pedagogical, 150-152
philosophical, 3, 8, 19-20, 32,
51, 141, 150
Apfel, K. -0., 150
Appealing pedagogy, 146, 147,
151, 165
Approximate thinking,
compared to abstract
thinking, 80
Arndt, E. M., 50
Art, function of, 113
Artists, aging, 55-57, 94
Authoritarianism, affecting
education, 119-120
Autonomy of pedagogy,
114-118, 121
as new science, 124-133
Baptism, as new beginning, 34
Barth, K., 155
Barth, P., 127
Bereavement, forms of, 66--67
Bergson, H., 104
Biedermeier period, 89
Bildung concept, 95-97, 98, 99,
101, 140, 162
critique of, 141-144
Binswanger, L., 67-74
Bloch, E., 157
Born, M., 72, 88
Brednow, 64
Brentano, F., 105
Brinckmann, A. E., 56
Buddha, 63
Camus, A., 80, 156
Chaos, as human condition, 8,
14
Children
capacity for judgment, 84
compared to adults, 49
education for peace, 75-88
goals of education for,
113-114
preschool knowledge of, 152
readiness for education,
115-119
relationships with
grandparents, 50, 53
180 INDEX
as youth leaders, 120
Collective life
education for, 79-80, 142
habits in, 39
Collective opinions, detachment
from, 26, 27
Comenius, J. A., 48
Communications media,
opinion-molding in, 25, 83,
118
Community life
education for, 79-80, 142
habits in, 39
Compromise, art of, 80
Comte, A., 90
Condolence letters, 65
Cooperative work, goals in,
79-80
Corinth, L., 56
Creative nature of humans, 104
Crisis
in aging, 58-59
as avoidable accident, 4
and existence, 5
function of, 1-5, 40
intruding events in, 165
relation to critique, 2, 26-27
Critique
anthropological significance
of, 21-22, 27
of culture-critique, 8-10
of opinions, 23--25
relation to crisis, 2, 26-27
self-critique, 6-8, 21
Cultural history in 18th to 20th
century, 89-90
Cultural pedagogy, 139-141
Culture-critique, 6-21, 29
critique of, 8-10
enduring meaning of, 17-19
recurring movements of,
19-21, 38
as self-critique, 6-8
Curriculum, materials for,
144-145
Cyclical process in history, 13
Death
and condolence letters, 65
confrontation with, in aging,
58
and forms of bereavement,
66-67
and narrowing of world for
survivors, 67-69
and privation of being, 62, 63,
66-67, 69
problem of, 60-62
and rigidification, 44
sympathy and empathy in, 62
and testimonies of survivors,
63-66
Degeneration, as human
condition, 18
Democracy, and education,
119-121
Derbolav J., 162-163, 164
Descartes, R., 23, 122
Dewey, J., 42, 122
Dilthey, W., 102, 104, 105, 122,
133, 134, 135, 140
Education
for aging persons, 47-48
and autonomy of pedagogy,
114-118, 121
and balance between objective
and subjective character,
73-75, 84-86
and capacity for judgment, 26,
83
and concept of encounter,
154-166
conflict with churches, 117
and democracy, 119-121
as function of life, 111-115
functional, 136-139
limits of, 142-143
and "making" of human
beings, 78, 84, 87
paradigmatic examples in,
144-145
partisan assaults on, 117-119
for peace, 70--88
and perfectibility of man, 101
readiness of children for,
115-116
Educational reality, as pre-given
state, 134-135
Eisler, R., 91
Encounter
and actualisation of self, 143,
146
concept of, 160--165
in existential sense, 163
and formation, 161-164
in humanistic sense, 163--164
as tripartite phenomenon,
162-163
Enlightenment, 7-8, 25, 26, 83
Errors
as avoidable events, 23, 32, 36
correction of, 23-24, 41, 35-37
as essential to human life,
37-38
Examples, paradigmatic,
teaching with, 144-145
Existential philosophy, 4-5, 7,
12, 18, 43, 107-108, 154-166
and concept of encounter,
160--165
end of, 157-158
and feeling of threat, 82
in France, 156
limit situations in, 76-77
and pedagogy, 131-132, 143,
164-165
and problems of death, 60
Expressionism, 7
Faber, W., 162
Fairy tales, rejuvenation motif
in, 31-32
Fatigue, effects of, 40
Feuerbach, L., 90
Fichte, J. G., 77-78, 84, 86-87,
90
Fischer, A., 146
Flitner, W., 116, 134·, 135, 159
INDEX 181
Formation, and organic
unfolding. See Bildung
concept
Freedom
and concept of the person, 91
inwardness as source of, 100,
101
in aging, 51, 57
French existentialism, 156
Freud, S., 15
Functional education, 136-139
Funerals, 61
Gehlen, A., 8-17
German pedagogy after 1945,
158-160
Gerner, E., 162
Gerontagogy, 46-48
Gestalt formation, 95, 97
Giel, K., 152 .
Goethe, J. W., 56, 64, 89,
93-96, 99, 103, 116, 141
Grisebach, E., 159
Group-oriented education, 142
Group rivalries, 79, 80--81
Guardini, R., 159
Habits
confrontation with, 38-40,
41-43
and posibility of new
beginnings, 34
and rigidification of life, 36-37
Hahn, K., 81
Hartmann, N., 147, 156
Hauptmann, G., 11
Hegel, G. W. F., 90
Heidegger, M., 7, 60--62, 104,
107' 108, 155
Heimpel, 144, 145
Heraclitus, 82, 103
Herbart, J. F., 73-74, 77, 86,
138
Herder, J. G., 42, 89, 95
Hermeneutics, 24, 135, 149-150,
153
 182 INDEX
and philosophy of life,
122-123
Heroism, need for, 81-82
Hesse, H., 28-30, 34, 106, 107
Historicity, human, 104-105
History
of cultural development in
18th to 20th centuries,
89-90
cyclical process in, 13
of pedagogy, 135-136
Hitler youth, 120
Hoffmannsthal, H. von, 34, 36
Holderlin, F., 116
Homesickness, metaphysical, 64
Horkheimer, M., 149
Human beings
existential concept of, 155-156
one-sidedness of, 98, 102
progressive formation or
unfolding of, 156. See also
Bildung concept
understanding of, 102-108
Human-scientific pedagogy, 134,
135, 149, 154, 159, 160
Humanity, linked to individuals,
97
Humboldt, W. von, 90, 95, 99,
101
Husser!, E., 105, 129, 146, 151
Hylla, 128
Ibsen, H., 11
Idealism, exaggerated, 74, 80
Individuality, 97-99, 100
Initiation rites, as new
beginning, 34
Inner world, cultivation of,
99-102
Institutions
culture-critique affecting, 10
habits in, 39
support of, 14-15
utilization of older people in,
52
Inward journey, and new
beginning, 29
Inward youth, acquisition of,
42-43
Irrationalism, as danger to
peace, 82
Jacobi, F. H., 89
Jaspers, K., 76, 108, 109, 151,
155
Jean Paul (J. P. F. Richter), 57
Judgment, capacity for, 25-26,
83
Kant, 1., 25, 26, 71, 85, 90,
91-92, 94, 99, 100, 101, 109,
131
Kierkegaard, S. A., 4, 90, 107,
155
Kerschensteiner, 79, 115, 117,
118, 142
Knowledge, theory of, 22-24
Korff, H. A., 89
Kriek, 138
Langeveld, J. M., 152
Leibniz, G. W., 91
Lessing, G. E., 64
Life, philosophy of, 17, 103,
121-123
Litt, T., 135, 140, 142, 149, 159,
163, 164
Magical connections, in new
beginnings, 34
Majority decisions, importance
of, 80
Mann, T., 39
Marx, K., 90, 104, 105
Maturity, critical attitude in, 25,
27
Messerschmid, F., 161
Minkowski, E., 51, 57, 68
Montessori, M., 70, 72, 79
Moral education, as unconscious
process, 137-139
National Socialism in Germany,
114, 120, 149, 156, 158-159
Naturalism, 9, 15
in poetry, 11
Nature, return to, 7, 8-15
New beginnings
correction of errors in, 35-37
and inward journey, 29
possibilities for, 33-35
New-humanism, German, 97,
101
Nietzsche, F., 6, 103, 104, 106,
107
Nohl, H., 50, 73, 89, 134, 135,
149, 154, 159
Navalis (F. von Hardenberg),
100, 101
Objective and subjective aspects
of human character,
73-75, 84-86
Oetinger, F. C., 142
Opinions
collective, detachment from,
26, 27
critique of, 23-25
exchange of, and compromise,
80
manipulation of, 83, 118
prefabricated, 25
Order, creation of, 76
Origins, return to, 7, 12, 14, 16
Ortega y Gasset, J., 103
Peace
and creation of order, 76
education for, 77-84
limitations in, 88
ideal of, 70-73
value of, 75-77
Pedagogy
ofappe~. 146,147,151,165
autonomy of, 114-118, 121
as new science, 124-133
cultural, 139-141
and education of aging
INDEX 183
persons, 47-48
expanding horizons of,
165-166
and functional education
136-139
in Germany after 1945,
158-160
and hermeneutics, 135,
149-150
history of, 135-136
and problem of rejuvenation,
21
relationship to philosophy,
124-125, 131-133, 148
relationship to psychology and
sociology, 124-128
research in, 120, 128-133, 148
theoretical, 133-135
Person, concept of, 91-92
Personalism, 92
Personality, 92-95, 99-100
Petersen, P., 128, 130
Phenomenology, 105, 146-148,
151
Philosophical anthropology, 3, 8,
19-20, 32, 51, 141, 150
Philosophy
existential. See Existential
philosophy
of life, 17, 103, 121-123
relationship to pedagogy,
124-125, 131-133, 148
transcendental, 99-100
Plato, 140
Pleines, J. -E., 162
Plessner, H., 132, 141, 150
Poetry, naturalism in, 11
Political education, 80, 117-118
Portmann, A., 151
Praxis, relationship to theory,
133-135
Prejudice, and political
education, 118
Primitives, art of, 7
Primitivization of humans, 10,
14, 15
184 INDEX
Privation, in death of familiar
persons, 62--63, 66--67, 69
Proust, M., 104
Psychology, relationship to
pedagogy, 124-128
Reality, educational, as pre-
given state, 134-135
Rebirth, 20--21. See also
Rejuvenation
Regimentation, and cooperative
work, 79-80
Rejuvenation, 20--21
fatigue affecting, 40
habits affecting, 38-40, 41--43
as necessary task, 32, 37,
44--45
and possibilities for new
beginning, 33-35
renewed initiatives in, 40--41
and yearning for new youth,
30--32
Religion
and concept of encounter, 161
conflict with pedagogy, 117
Rembrandt, 56
Rescue service, heroism in, 81
Research in pedagogy, 120,
128-133, 148
Return to Culture, 8, 10, 16
Return to Nature, 7, 8-15
Return to Origins, 7, 12, 14, 16
Rigidification of life
confrontation with, 17-18, 21,
38, 43
as deathly process, 44
habits in, 36--37, 41--43
and renewed initiatives, 40--41
Rilke, R. M., 44, 63, 65--66, 68,
103' 105' 106--107
Romanticism, German, 6, 8, 17
Roth, H., 131, 149
Rousseau, J. J., 6--7, 8-14, 16,
39
Sartre, J.-P., 7, 105, 108, 156
INDEX 185
Scheler, M., 92, 109 Traditions War
Schelling, F. W. J., 90, 132 habits in, 39 and manipulation of public
Schelsky, H., 127 and prefabricated opinions, 25 opinion, 83
Schiller, F., 91 rigidity in, 17-18 and nature of human beings,
Schleiermacher, F., 97-98, 101 Transcendence of self, 74, 76--77
Science, function of, 113 106--107 and need for heroism, 81-82
Self-critique, 6--8, 21 Transcendental philosophy, repulsion of, 75
Self-consciousness, 91 99-100 romantic fascination with, 83
Self-education, 26 Truth, and testing of opinions, Wei!, H., 159
Self-forgetfulness, and pure 24 Weizsacker, C. F. von, 72, 75
functioning, 105 Weniger, E., 134, 159
Self-transcendence, 74, 106--107 Unfolding, organic. See Bildung Work, cooperative, 79-80
Separation, effects of, 64 concept World-view, as foundation for
Simmel, G., 60, 77, 104, 106, education, 130
107 Wurzbacher, 127
Vacations, interruption of habits
Sociability, value of, 79
in, 39 Youth, See also Children
Sociology, relationship to
Vico, G. B., 61 actualization of, in aging,
pedagogy, 124-128
Soul, as inner world, 100 42--43
Spatiality, in friendly Wagenschein, M., 145 yearning for, in old age, 30--32
relatedness, 67--68
Spranger, E., 64, 99, 135, 139,
140, 149, 154, 159
Step-wise building of knowledge,
23-24
Stern, W., 92
Strife, in nature of humans,
76--77
Strindberg, A., 11
Student exchanges, value of, 81
Sturm und drang, 6, 7, 17, 89
Subjective and objective aspects
of human character,
73-75, 84-86
Supra-individual forces
affecting education, 118-119
and development of wars, 83
recurrent processes in, 20
Tenbruck, 127
Theory, relationship to praxis,
133-135
Tintoretto, 56
Titian, 55
Totalitarianism, affecting
education, 119-120