What is Bildung and what does it have to do with education and self-development? This presentation gives an overview of von Humboldt's famous fragment on the Theory of Bildung for Mankind.

1. Theory of BildungWilhelm von
Humboldt
normfriesen@boisestate.edu

2. Overview
• Historical background
• Structure of the fragment on Bildung
• Language as the “exemplary medium” of
Bildung
•Humboldt & Bildung today
“Humboldt’s role in German educational theory
can be compared to that of Dewey in the US.”

3. Timeline
• 1762 – Rousseau publishes Emile: Or, on Education
• 1784 – Kant publishes “On Enlightenment”
• 1786 – Fredrick the Great, Enlightened Calvinist King of Prussia, ends
reign
• 1789 – French Revolution; Ancien Régime falling across Western Europe
• 1793 – French Reign of Terror begins
• 1794 – Humboldt, Theory of the Bildung of Humanity
• 1807 – Hegel publishes Phenomenology of Spirit
• 1808 – Fichte: Addresses to the German Nation
• 1810 – University of Berlin (1949 Humboldt University of Berlin) founded

4. The Fragment Itself (Lüth, 1998)
• Begins by imagining “a substantial and exquisite
piece of work” which would bring together the
individual disciplines to contribute to the
education and cultivation, to the Bildung of
mankind.”
• The development of the disciplines, of science
(Wissenschaft) is not contributing to Bildung.
• Through their unification, von Humboldt believes
they can / will.

5. The Fragment Itself (Lüth, 1998)
• Balance outer reach with inner development: “man’s
nature drives him to reach beyond himself to the external
objects, and here it is crucial that he should not lose himself
in this alienation, but rather reflect back into his inner being
the clarifying light and the comforting warmth of everything
that he undertakes outside himself.” (infinity=complete
alienation)
• (Self-)alienation is a necessary part of Bildung, but it should
be mitigated by a return to the self, to the familiar

6. The Fragment Itself (M.H. Abrams, 1973)
• A narrative “congruent with the Biblical story of the loss and
future recovery of paradise; [it is] a mythical representation of
man's departure from the happiness of ignorance and self-unity
into the multiple self-divisions and conflicts attendant upon the
emergence of self-consciousness, free decision, and the analytic
intellect…
• “Equate the fall as a fortunate self‐division, because it was the
necessary first step upon the educational journey by which
thinking and striving man wins his way back toward his lost
integrity, along a road which looks like a reversion but is in fact a
progression.” (Natural Supernaturalism, p. 217)

7. The Fragment Itself (Dewey, 1889)
But the voyage one takes in entering college life is a
voyage to a far port, and through many countries foreign
in space, in time, in manner of speech and thought. If
such travelling of the spirit does not remove the narrow
and small cast of one’s opinion and methods it is failing
of its aim. The Germans call the period of youthful
culture a period of “self-alienation,” because in it the
mind gives up its immediate interests and goes on this
far journey. “Ethics in the University of Michiga

8. The Fragment Itself: Conclusion
Humboldt returns to the “imagined work:”
“The work I describe would therefore have to portray
this diversity and should not overlook anyone who has
distinguished himself in any field and through whom
it has acquired a new form or a broader concept.
These would have to be portrayed in their complete
individuality, showing the whole of the influence
their times and their nation had exerted on them.”

9. Language as “the exemplary medium of
Bildung”
Language for Humboldt has a double function:
1. “It is the medium of the General, is the instrument of Reason
(Logos), and through whose power individuals are bound together.”
2. “It is at the same time the creation of the individual (spirit); language
vouchsafes the humanity of the human, because it allows for the rational
‘coming to terms’ (Bewältigung) with the world.” (Blankertz, 1982)
Humboldt: “Language is the formative (bildende) organ
of thought.”

10. Language as “the exemplary medium of
Bildung”
• “Language” for Humboldt “is the decisive medium of the
formative interplay of the human with the world. This applies
not only to the relationship of humans with things, i.e. the
function of language in opening up a world, but also relations
to other humans, i.e. language in its communicative function.”
(Koller, 2012)
• Humboldt: “the richness of the world grows as a direct result
of the diversity of languages… in this way the scope of
human being is expanded for us … [and we gain] new ways
of thinking and perceiving.” (1804)

12. Bildung Today
Bildung (which enables and promotes educational action)
can fundamentally transform the way an individual
behaves towards the world and his or her self. It is
presumed that within such transformations Bildung is
always fulfilled (or rather can be fulfilled) “when
individuals gain experiences they exceed their previous
means and options” (Koller 2007, 50). Bildung, however
defined—though Humboldt’s definition is the most widely
accepted—sets the standard for today’s education policy
issues. R. Horlacher, The Educated Subject &
the German Concept of Bildung

13. Sources
• von Humboldt, W. (1794/2000). Theory of Bildung. In S. Hopmann, I. Westbury & K.
Riquarts (eds.) Teaching as a reflective practice : The German didaktik tradition.
Mahwah NJ: Erlbaum
• Blankertz, H. (1982). Die Geschichte der Pādagogik. Potsdam: Pandora
• Lüth, C. (1998). On Wilhelm von Humboldt's Theory of Bildung Dedicated to
Wolfgang Klafki for his 70th birthday. Journal of Curriculum Studies 30(1), 43-59.
• Abrams, M.H. (1973). Natural supernaturalism. New York: Norton.
• Dewey, J. (1889). Ethics in the University of Michigan. Ethical Record 2, 145-148.
• R. Horlacher. (2016). The educated subject & the German concept of Bildung: A
comparative cultural history. New York: Routledge.
• Koller, H.-C. (2012). Bildung anders denken: Einführung in die Theorie
transformatorischer Bildungsprozesse. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.