The world always discloses itself to us in new and illuminating ways. And through the world’s disclosure, we are simultaneously revealed to ourselves. In this remarkable horizon of revelation and self-revelation, we realize something fundamental is happening: A confrontation with ourselves is an exposure (exponere – to place) to the Other of the self. Hence, it is a matter of con-versing with and positioning ourselves to our very selves and the world. This positioning will remain the core challenge (Herausforderung) in our life as the blessing (Gabe) and the daring task (Aufgabe). As such, it is a matter of orienting oneself in the world, which is inspiringly captured by Hegel when he speaks of in-dwelling (einhausen),1 which is not a simple domestication of the world. And since this orientation within and toward the lifeworld is a never-finished project, human life happens in the in-between of homecoming and homelessness.
We find an understanding of life as an unfinished project already in St. Augustine. Possessing both an exceptional education and a successful teaching career, Augustine was a genuine seeker of the Truth. He was never satisfied with what he had learned, yet he was still hesitant to embrace the Truth fully. In his insatiable desire to learn, he recognized that he was not loving God (as he was revealing himself to him as love), but the idea of love: nondum amabam, et amare amabam.2 This poetically expressed depiction of himself as “not yet in love, but loving the possibility of loving” discloses the depth of the confrontation with his very self. He realized to the full extent that he is a question to himself. Thus, his “mihi quaestio factus sum”3 opens up the unending trajectory of identity and care for oneself (Selbstsuche und Selbstverwirklichung) in our orientation toward the world. The more we allow ourselves to become this “question to ourselves,” the more we make space for what is yet to come (l’avenir).
On this journey, however, we are not alone: Sometimes, it is a pedagogue who might take us by the hand; other times, we learn by following the trace of someone who has walked here before. And yet, even if we place each foot into his footsteps, it is always a new journey, disclosing the world in diverse ways, leading to an increase and deepening of Being. This is as much an inner journey as one through time and space. And while we sometimes wish to control, predict, or regulate this process, no one can replace the other on this path: No pedagogue can walk on behalf of the child. However, if it is indeed the case that education cannot be regulated or controlled, what then does it mean to ‘teach,’ to ‘educate’? What makes for a good pedagogue?
Mining Meaning: Etymological Layers
We begin by exploring the etymological roots of learning: ‘To learn’ comes from Old Frisian lernia, Middle Dutch leeren, and German lernen, with a base sense of “to follow or find the track” (from PIE root *lois- “furrow, track.”) It is both related both to German Gleis “track” and Old English læst “sole of the foot”.4 This etymology evokes the image of someone carefully placing his feet where someone has gone before. It is an image that we also find in Hans-Georg Gadamer when he quotes Hegel: “The ability to walk with the other; to overcome one’s narcissism and listen to what the other would like to say; that is what we call Bildung.”5 What distinguishes a learned and educated person (den Gebildeten) is their ability to make judgments (Urteilsfähigkeit) while being aware of the limits of their ability and knowledge. It is a matter of mediating between the thoughts and perspectives of others, understanding the reciprocity of the influence of experiencing Otherness while also being aware of oneself. Further, an educated person (Gebildeter) is not just capable of engaging other perspectives but also welcoming and implementing them into one’s own capacity to make judgments. We can develop and sharpen our judgment by deliberating (überlegen) on the Otherness of the other (die Andersheit des Anderen). The Gadamer scholar James Mensch adds in this context: “The duality of our self-presence points to a certain inner distance in ourselves, a distance from which we can gain a perspective on ourselves.”6 Hence, learning means orienting oneself toward what needs to be reflected in the confrontation (Begegnung) with the other. This orienting is necessarily turning toward it and thus transposing oneself into the position of the other. In that sense, I am always resituated in terms of Otherness, where my own viewpoint is “overlaid” by Others, thereby partially disclosing my own Otherness. In a way, it is a trans-lation, a trans-position (Versetzung), which requires self-translation and self-transposition. Here, Gadamer is noticeably clear:
For what do we mean by “transposing ourselves”? Certainly not just disregarding ourselves. This is necessary, of course, insofar as we must imagine the other situation. But into this other situation we must bring, precisely, ourselves. Only this is the full meaning of “transposing ourselves.” If we put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, for example, then we will understand him – i.e., become aware of the Otherness, the indissoluble individuality of the other person – by putting ourselves in his position.7 Transposing ourselves consists neither in the empathy of one individual for another nor in subordinating another person to our own standards; rather, it always involves rising to a higher universality that overcomes not only our own particularity but also that of the other.8
Gadamer emphasizes that, following Hegel,
If all that presupposes Bildung, then what is in question is not a procedure or behavior but what has come into being. It is not enough to observe more closely, to study a tradition more thoroughly, if there is not already a receptivity to the “otherness” of the work of art or the past. That is what, following Hegel, we emphasized as the general characteristic of Bildung: keeping oneself open to what is other – to other, more universal points of view. It embraces a sense of proportion and distance in relation to itself, and hence consists in rising above itself to universality. To distance oneself from oneself and from one’s private purposes means to look at these in the way that others see them.9
Therefore, learning does not mean having control over a subject matter but rather surrendering to it, thereby opening ourselves up to something radically other than what is on our horizon.
We are not alone on this journey, especially as we enter the realm of “educational institutions,” where a pedagogue might accompany us for a while. In that respect, entering “educational institutions” reminds us that this introduction itself is a guide into the new, unfamiliar, and unknown (Ein-leitung/Leitung, Einführung/Führung). In walking together (
Furthermore, in the literal sense, ‘education’ (from Latin: educere as ex-ducere) means to draw out, extract, branch out, lead out, and bring out as bringing into view. This could be seen as a release into the open, which we cannot dominate and control. It is happening in us and to us beyond our wanting and doing. Moreover, what is interesting is the ex-, because
How has this understanding of education, learning, and pedagogy changed over time? Without being able to give a full account of all the aspects, some exciting and less well-known developments will be discussed in the following section.
Historical Contingencies
At the beginning of Summa Contra Gentiles, Book I, Aquinas writes:
Of all human pursuits, the pursuit of wisdom is the more perfect, the more sublime, the more useful, and the more agreeable. The more perfect, because in so far as a man gives himself up to the pursuit of wisdom, to that extent he enjoys already some portion of true happiness. Blessed is the man that shall dwell in wisdom (Eccles xiv, 22). The more sublime, because thereby man comes closest to the likeness of God, who hath made all things in wisdom (Ps. ciii, 24). The more useful, because by this same wisdom we arrive at the realm of immortality. The desire of wisdom shall lead to an everlasting kingdom (Wisd. vi, 21). The more agreeable, because her conversation hath no bitterness, nor her company any weariness, but gladness and joy (Wisd. viii, 16).12
It is essential to understand further how the pursuit of wisdom is intertwined with our understanding of being human.13 In Aquinas’s context, he repeatedly speaks about inordination (inordinatio) that causes distortion in human beings. This deformation begins in the human heart and mind and impedes their development, i.e., the orientation toward the Good, the Right, and the Beautiful (impediantur et deordinentur). We discover a form of education that attends to the entire human being and how they disclose the world to themselves and others.
This we further find in the parable of the Prodigal Son or Prodigal Love (Lk 15: 11–31), which teaches us something fundamental about the necessity of serious intellectual engagement in repositioning our life, i.e., for a turn that reorients our life. Experiencing famine and hunger, the younger son comes to himself and thus begins returning to himself (his personal conversion) and to his father (healing the relationships). At the onset of any turn in life (
The Crisis of Education as a Crisis of Thinking
We might ask what kind of dis-order we are dealing with. And what type of order do we wish to introduce? An order of thinking versus inordinate turning to inordinate action, passions, and desires? Is this inordinateness related to the flight from thinking and the fundamental lack of care for oneself (Selbstsorge)?
In our attempt to (dis)close the meaning of education, we realize that something is happening in us and to us when we learn and teach. What is happening goes to a large extent beyond our wanting and doing. The more we wish to penetrate this happening, the more things are unveiling in front of us. However, we experience with the same conviction that a covering is occurring. Moreover, the covering and revealing take place simultaneously as we disclose Truth in our positioning toward the world.15
In one of his late seminars from 1951, Martin Heidegger16 writes: “The most thought-provoking in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.”17 Heidegger’s leading question, “what is called thinking?”, can only be answered if we think ourselves. Yet, in order to think, we have to be “ready to learn to think.”18 His claim here is twofold. Firstly, we can only know what thinking means if we do it ourselves. And secondly, thinking calls us, meaning we “find ourselves” urged to think.19 Thinking back to the etymology of ‘learning,’ we might, for example, be inspired to think by ‘following’ the traces of a thinker. As we follow, however, the thinker does not think for us. We can only ever think for ourselves. And in our thinking, we always think differently. This is also what Gadamer says about understanding: We always understand differently if we understand at all.20 Any “thinking about something,” and predominantly any “thinking something,” is always threefold: understanding, misunderstanding, and re-interpretation.
Heidegger is troubled mainly by the “growing thoughtlessness” (Gedankenlosigkeit)21 because we are “in flight from thinking.”22 Instead, he calls what we teach in schools and universities “calculative thinking” (das rechnende Denken). This thinking is goal-driven, productive, and “races from one aspect to the next.”23
Thoughtlessness is an uncanny visitor who comes and goes everywhere in today’s world. For nowadays, we take in everything in the quickest and cheapest way, only to forget it just as quickly, instantly.24
This encompasses all present-day education with an emphasis on learning as quick answers in the form of recipes, solutions, and mere memorization. It occurs at the expanse of sustainability and complexity. It often leads to an almost compulsive taking of courses, developing new skills (Fertigkeiten), collecting data, becoming ever more efficient, and eventually catapulting oneself out of the present into an ever-evading chronological future. This trend in education can be recognized further in the idea of a “Curriculum,” where knowledge and learning are gathered around packages of information, competencies, and skillsets that can be tested and quantified. Consequently, Heidegger ponders:
Perhaps there is a thinking which is more sober than the irresistible race of rationalization and the sweeping character of cybernetics […] Perhaps there is a thinking outside of the distinction of rational and irrational still more sober than scientific technology, more sober and thus removed, without effect and yet having its own necessity.25
This pondering (verweilen) reminds us that thinking is not just an activity we might choose when we wish. It is a clear demand, a command we must fulfill with radical responsibility. As in the verb verweilen, a Weile, an Augenblick, a moment of vision is included. Early Heidegger was very conscious of this kairological aspect of life, and before changing later on from Greek
What has led us into this “race” away from thinking? Is it possible to learn to “think” again? In Heidegger’s view, we are irreplaceable in how each individual sub-jects to a situation, a question, or a work of art, thereby drawing out what has not been disclosed before. However, this is not so much of a predictable activity but rather an entering into what is being offered to us, what we are allowed to see, hear, and touch (Sehen- Hören- und Berührenlassen). The desire to predict and control learning is contrasted by giving value to the openness and unpredictability of what is to come (ad-venire). Didactics is being replaced by hospitality for the unknown, non-chronological future, thereby deepening the present and becoming attentive to what is given to us in this Augenblick (resoluteness).27 For example, a question might invite us to think. However, we forego this offering if we fill it quickly with an answer. Instead, we suggest keeping ourselves in suspense. Heidegger writes: “We are thinking. To say it circumspectly, we are attempting to let ourselves become involved in this relatedness to Being. We are attempting to learn thinking.”28 His student, Gadamer, continues this idea when he writes about the relationship between the question and thinking: “The art of questioning is the art of questioning further, i.e., it is the art of thinking.”29
By leaning into this clearing, we leave behind what has become familiar and become entangled with Being itself. We are face-to-face with the abyss of Being, the groundless groundedness of existence. In that intense encounter, our existence turns into this question to which only we can respond30 as Dasein31 (in the presence). Such a question might call us to think like a challenge (Herausforderung or Denkaufgabe).
In that sense, being “provoked” to think means nothing else than being “called upon” to live. Not any life, and certainly not the life of “they” (das Man). We are called upon in our own groundlessness, from which we stick out in this awkward way. We are called upon to respond to the question of our own existence. No one can give this response for us, just as no one can eat for us, love and die for us, or live this life for us. As such, we are individuum, i.e., indivisible, as we cannot share this burden, this question, this responsibility. If we can take what was said, submit to the call (sub-jacere), and respond to the question, we could say with Heidegger that only we ourselves are respons-able, i.e., respondable, and, in the proper sense, accountable.
Continuous empowerment comes from what shows itself to us, calling us to think, forming and transforming us, as we are not fully transparent (given) to ourselves. In this absence of complete knowledge about ourselves, while being absolutely separate as embodied from the rest of the world, we stand into this possibility of thinking. It reveals us to ourselves and being in the presence of Being, which conceals and unconceals to us in its unfathomable ways. In our belonging, we long for the fulfillment of the promise in the infinite tension between already and not yet (nunc et nondum). Our sense of being, our human finitude, exists within this horizon of temporality. But we are not condemned, nor can we be released. As we respond, we do not respond from the indefinable outside but instead are being pulled into this world, into the presence-ing of the moment as this authentic Dasein, which Heidegger also calls the Er-Eignis32 or “Event.”
Seeing and the Excess of Meaning: Seeing and Becoming
When Heidegger speaks about the event (Er-eignis) as “er-äugen,” there is an emphasis on the eyes that goes beyond merely registering something as something. As we remain in the present, an opening occurs where the world discloses itself to us in this particular relationship. And even though it cannot be controlled or predicted, one can become sensitized to those moments. We will conclude our introduction with two examples of such a sensitization. The first one explores the process of “learning to see’ in the writings of the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, especially his prose. The other concerns the art of seeing in Picasso’s portraits.
“Learning to See” in Rainer Maria Rilke’s Prose
Rilke’s fictional biography of Malte Laurids Brigge is one of the most explicit phenomenological descriptions of ‘learning to see.’ Around the turn of the century, he wanders through the streets of Paris and becomes aware of a change in his perceptions. He writes: “I am learning to see. I do not know why it is, but everything enters me more deeply and doesn’t stop where it once used to. I have an interior that I never knew of. Everything passes into it now. I don’t know what happens there.”33 Later, he continues, “Have I said it before? I am learning to see. Yes, I am beginning. It is still going badly. But I intend to make the most of my time.”34 He recognizes how the world enters him more profoundly and penetrates his entire existence. The world no longer remains on the (out)side, but in its disclosure, he is being (dis)closed to the world and himself. As such, he is orienting and turning himself toward what the world offers: He is giving himself to the world in response to the world’s giving itself to him. Further, he adds: “I think I should begin to do some work, now that I am learning to see. I am twenty-eight years old, and I have done practically nothing. [… listing his writings]. Ah, but poems amount to so little when you write them too early in your life. You ought to wait and gather sense and sweetness for a whole lifetime, and a long one if possible, and then, at the very end, you might perhaps be able to write ten good lines. For poems are not, as people think, simply emotions […], they are experiences.”35 Rilke contrasts mere emotions with actual experiences. With reference to Heidegger’s understanding of Ereignis, we might add: “poems are an event” as we ein-‘äugen’ (observe from observare, to watch, attend to, closely look at) what shows itself to us in its dialectic of unconcealment and concealment (Entbergung/Verbergung). The world unfolds in this standing now (nunc stands/
At this point, his descriptions change significantly and hint at the beginning of his “Thing Poems” (Ding-Gedichte): “[you …] must feel how birds fly and know the gesture which small flowers make when they open in the morning. […] And it is not yet enough to have memories. You must be able to forget them when they are many, and you must have the immense patience to wait until they return. For the memories themselves are not important. Only when they have changed into our very blood, into glance and gesture, and are nameless, no longer to be distinguished from ourselves/ only then can it happen that in some very rare hour the first word of a poem arises in their midst and goes forth from them.”36 Not only is there a synaesthetic quality of perception, but there is a lingering and layering of experiences, creating thickness and density. And maybe it is not surprising that in German, ‘poem’ is called Gedicht, meaning densification or condensation (Verdichtung) of experiences.
Furthermore, in this description, we see the intense presence in and through one’s own body. The things of the world cease to stand before us, but rather, they arrange themselves within us, inhabit us, and change us from within. Such penetration can be horrifying and overwhelming. We find such an example when Rilke sees the reminiscence of a torn-down house, where he recognizes centuries of life at the remaining wall: “You would think I had stood looking at it for a long time, but I swear I began to run as soon as I recognized this wall. For that’s what is horrible – that I did recognize it. I recognize everything here, and that’s why it passes right into me: it is at home inside me.”37 What is impressive is how the world begins to dwell inside his existence; it changes him from the inside out and results in a completely new form of German prose. It is as if he had to re-invent German in order to find words for the depth and radicality of his experience. Later on, this newfound language leads him to a number of Ding-Gedichte (Thing Poems) as well as some short stories. Now, he is no longer talking about the change of perception; rather, we see the new way of being in the world at work in his writing. An example stems from his short story called “In Conversation”: “One can easily imagine there are paintings in the room: deep, dreamlike ones in quiet frames. A Giorgione, perhaps, or a dark purple portrait in the style of Titian, maybe the Paris Bordone. Then, one knows that there are flowers. Large, astonishing flowers, lying all day in deep, cool bronze bowls, singing fragrances: idle flowers. // And idle people. Two, three, or five. Again and again, the light stretches out from the colossal fireplace and begins to count them. But it errs again and again. // Right up at the front by the fireplace, the princess in white leans next to the large samovar, which wishes to capture all the brilliance. She stands there like a wild color sketch, brushed in the storm of an idea or a whim. Painted with shadows and light out of some genius impatience. Only the lips are finely executed. As if everything else was there only for the sake of this mouth. As if one had made a book just to write the quiet eulogy of this smile on one of a hundred pages.”38 The things in the world seem to stand ‘into’ him, obsess him, and take him hostage until he finds words for them. This sensitization arises from his courage to surrender himself to the world. Sinking into the moment, the present unfolds like a Renaissance painting, where the margins are fleeing into eternity. Being is the continuous birthing into the Augenblick, where we drink from an eternal spring of existence, while existence itself wells up and makes toward this shore of presencing.
The Passion of Art and The Contingency of Being in the World
Not much later than Rilke, Picasso likewise tried to unlearn what seemed to disturb his vision. Seeking a new path for his paintings, he always discovered a new language of painting, what he thought and not what he saw. The artist’s creative imagination and language do not work to present reality. His unique, innovative capacity allowed him to create works beyond reality. Rafael apparently died after too intense of a sexual relationship with his model. Picasso was inspired by the story and reinvented it by bringing it into his own life as an artist by addressing the tension between the artist and his model. Understanding that the art of painting and the art of making love is the same art helped him to remake his identity as a painter and redefine his relationship to art and his models. Reinventing himself allowed him to become always someone else and to paint like he had never done before. Unlearning, unleashing, and unburdening himself from the constraints of seemingly valid perspectives helped him relish his notions and desires. It facilitated a connection with the human psyche’s primordial dimensions and overcame the convention’s constraints.
Consequently, Picasso’s life and his art made him see things that were not necessarily there. Already in the portrait of Gertrude Stein (1906), we experience the hieratic enactment: The eyes hear, the ears see. Two different eyes, two different hands. Past and future. Different languages spoken by a person, different languages speaking about that person, and the infinite process of translating those languages into different languages and different sensitivities. Apparently, Stein told Picasso that she did not recognize herself in the portrait. He told her that she would. Only later did she understand the hieratic aspect of her portrait, which was like a mask: It contained the future in a way inaccessible to the ordinary eye.39
We recognize the synesthetic interlacing of the senses as well as the non-linear perception of time. The hieratic enactment in the work of art powerfully in-forms the spectator by illuminating the presence from the future and compelling them to grasp what is to come by living the
When, in May 1946, Picasso finally convinced some 40-years-younger painter Françoise Gilot to move with him to the Rue des Grands Augustins, he painted a series of portraits of her. Picasso often referred to the form which takes the artist captive. This relentless exposure and paradoxical surrender to the mysterious source of inspiration does not cease to concern and stimulate artists. Sollertia, as skill, smartness, and ingenuity, captures the grace for acting spontaneously with divine help. It is this meditative state of intensity and concentration in the process of creation of the work of art, an instantaneously experienced profound insight into the subject matter.
In La femme-fleur (1946), Picasso discloses his further progress in learning to see differently. Seeing Françoise, Picasso envisioned a flower with Matisse-like green, virtually emerald hair, an oval face, and voluptuous breasts. The organic lines of this portrait allow the artist to concentrate on the image Françoise engraved in his eyes. It was an image of the independent woman, who, in the most profound sense of the artistic vocation, lived for and from the very co-dependent, almost sacred communio with the painter. Unlike any human relationship, this artistic communio does not depend much on external realities. This precious artistic collaboration lives on something different from the mutual promise “till death do us part.” The lines and shapes in La femme-fleur displace the meaning by giving a different meaning, thus revealing something unexpected, what was initially covered. Picasso proclaims in his portraits that it is not reality that gives rise to thought but thought that gives rise to reality. The painter gives testimony to the possibility of imagining everything differently: Nothing has to be as it is. Going beyond appearance means searching for a meaning that can always be created anew. There is no single pictorial solution. Hence different versions of the same subject, like in any translation process. Every time, something else will come to the forefront. No singular form ever perfectly matches the original and satisfactorily covers the subject matter. What is absolutely unique and outstanding in Picasso’s work on La femme-fleur is his remarkable patience in arriving at daring simplifications by taking off the layers of the body to reach the exact envisioned expression that, in the next moment, undergoes a further transformation.
The art of creation is as important as the work of art and its reception by future generations. In an interview in 1998, Françoise Gilot was shown her outstanding photograph from 1946 and La femme-fleur from the same year. When asked if she recognized herself “better” in the photo or the painting, she answered without hesitation: Better in the painting. The photograph depicts a particular moment, something that might be significant or even essential for capturing the meaning of a person. However, a painting is the extrapolation of individual moments, a kind of unifying vision that embraces the tension of who a person is in her interdependent and often contradictory epiphanies and actions.
The art of photography does not need to be compared with the art of painting. The artist’s sensitivity and greatness are expressed through their artistic medium. When Françoise Gilot considers the photograph and the painting, which are equally “of her,” she can clearly see the difference in what each work of art can disclose to her and which of those artworks is closer to her vision of herself as the painter and a human being. In 1998, she could see the promise of art being still alive, and hence, long beyond the death of Picasso, unveiling the layers of herself fundamental to her and somehow closer to immortality. This experience is compelling because it tells us about our discovery of who we are and our destiny. Therefore, it is applicable to each of us in seeking our true selves and, in our vulnerability, finding (in)dependence and autonomy from and in the world. The transformative power of art helps us to find ourselves in the world that is our world.
In that respect, the educational aspect of creating and living with art emphasizes the indispensability of artistic vision for creating and receiving art. The ability of the work of art to speak to us is the focal point in our engagement with the world of art. It is their prerogative to address us. However, for communication within the art world, our response is necessary. Here, our response, which is the matter of our personal radical responsibility, is the task of letting art speak to us (Sprechenlassen). This letting speak is not a mysterious attitude but an openness into the Open, a mode of being in the world with Others that is receptive (empfänglich) toward that which confront us. Gadamer reminds us that this is the essence of understanding: Something is happening in us and to us “beyond our wanting and doing.”40 The task of education is to empower a human being to visualize the world as we see it not just through art but in living our lives. It is not just mastering or perfecting the ways of perception but attuning ourselves to ourselves and others in our Lebenswelt. This is an expression of a genuine care of oneself.
By acknowledging and appreciating the uniqueness of the time totally dedicated to studying (
Beginnings (An-fänge) and Endings
The things of the world are disclosing themselves to us as a clearing, a possibility, a promise. We be-long to this world. That is to say, we are present with what is being concealed to us while longing for what is yet to arrive.
In this volume, Subject, Identity, and Care: Educational (Dis)closures, we not only contemplate the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of learning but also explore the ‘where’ and ‘when.’ Here, the notion of contemplation is central: Contemplation is derived from the Latin contemplari, “to gaze attentively, consider,” originally “to mark out a space for observation.” It is an assimilated form of com- and templum, i.e., an area for the taking of auguries. The word ‘temp’ is likely from “to stretch” or the “cleared (measured) space in front of an altar,” like a “stretched” string that marks off the ground (see: Greek
Moreover, we negate the view of formal education as a sort of oasis, protecting us from the everyday concerns of human beings. Instead, we see it as an awakening to the responsibility toward ourselves in the world with Others: To understand human beings as they develop in life and find their place in the world with Others again and again. Education, far from simple distribution of knowledge even at the high level, is more like writing and reading individual histories of nations and peoples, where every story carries with itself the unrepeatable traces of life in its Lebenswelt. Those narratives, big and small, are like silva rerum, the forest of things to be discerned in the horizon between
This introduction is, in itself, for us, and not only was during the long process of writing together, the event of learning (Ereignis). We were blessed with the gift of being together (Miteinander) and led (geführt) by the energy of (dis)closure that illuminated our way. We felt not only privileged but favored by this illuminatio, which was a genuine happening of the (dis)closure of Truth. Welcoming ideas in the authentic experience of the hermeneutics of sympathy and suspicion, we participated in the showing of the phenomena and tried to give witness to this epiphany. In emphasizing (Hervor-heben) and bringing into light (ans Licht bringen) the different aspects of this (dis)closure, we delighted in the wonderful flow of the thinking process. It was real, and not just metaphorical, dancing together. The bodies entwined (verschlungen) in one movement, a passionate pas de deux. Such a dazzling partnership is precisely the condensed expression of what takes place in the happening of education: Like in a pas de deux, the partners are not leading each other but are led by the music. Understanding how little is necessary in life might take a lifetime. It will definitely cost a lot. However, every second of coming to this understanding is precious and priceless.
We hope this introduction will open up horizons of thinking together through education by (dis)closing something essential about ourselves as unfinished projects. Such incompleteness is not a hurdle to overcome but rather an offering that encourages us to begin (catch on/an-fangen) this adventure of thinking.
We are grateful to all contributors for their papers and the insights they shared with us in the process of preparing this publication. Moreover, our heartfelt gratitude extends to our dedicated students, who ambitiously contributed to the editing and proofreading procedure. We wish to express special appreciation to Dr. Parmis Aslanimehr, whose indispensable oversight of the editing and proofreading procedure ensured that we remained on course for punctual publication. Moreover, her insightful suggestions improved the final version of this book significantly.
“The young human being makes himself at home (einhaust) in a world. This is a word (einhausen) that the great philosopher Hegel has used. He could venture, through his own reflective usage, to coin new terms, for example: from ‘hausen,’ (to dwell) to ‘einhausen’ (to in-dwell). Making oneself at home in the world (Sich-Einhausen) reveals itself also in this courage for creating new vocabulary of which I already spoke. This age is very interesting.” Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Education is Self-Education,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, vol. 35, no. 4, (2001): 532.
St. Augustine, Confessiones, 3, 1: “Veni Carthaginem, et circumstrepebat me undique sartago flagitiosorum amorum. nondum amabam, et amare amabam, et secretiore indigentia oderam me minus indigentem. quaerebam quid amarem, amans amare, et oderam securitatem et viam sine muscipulis, quoniam fames mihi erat intus ab interiore cibo, te ipso, deus meus, et ea fame non esuriebam, sed eram sine desiderio alimentorum incorruptibilium, non quia plenus eis eram, sed quo inanior, fastidiosior.” “I came to Carthage and all around me a melting pot of illicit passions was seething. I was not yet in love, but I was in love with the idea of love; and because of the neediness I felt deep down I hated the thought of not being needy enough. I was looking for something to love, loving to love, and I hated the safety of a course free from pitfalls Ws 14:11. Within myself I was hungry from the lack of inner food: you yourself, my God; but that hunger did not make me want to feast – rather, I had no desire at all for the incorruptible food. This was not because I was already full of such food; instead, the more empty I was, the more I disdained it.” https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/latinconf/3.html.
Ibid., 10, 33: “flete mecum et pro me flete qui aliquid boni vobiscum intus agitis, unde facta procedunt. nam qui non agitis, non vos haec movent. tu autem, domine deus meus, exaudi et respice et vide et miserere et sana me, in cuius oculis mihi quaestio factus sum, et ipse est languor meus.”
See: https://www.etymonline.com/word/learn (retrieved 19 Jan., 2024).
“Die Fähigkeit mit den Gedanken des anderen mitgehen zu können, seinen Narzissmus überwinden zu können, auf das hören, was der andere sagen will, das ist Bildung.” (from an interview with Gadamer, in which he speaks about Hegel’s notion of Bildung; translation by authors).
James Mensch, Ethics and Selfhood (New York: State University of New York Press, 2003), 46.
This trans-position does not wipe out our own perception and replace it with the perception of the other. We are ouselves in the shoes of the other, yet we are not the Other.
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd rev. ed., trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Continuum, 2000), 304.
Ibid., 15–16.
“The historical movement of human life consists in the fact that it is never absolutely bound to any one standpoint, and hence can never have a truly closed horizon. The horizon is, rather, something into which we move and that moves with us. Horizons change for a person who is moving. Thus, the horizon of the past, out of which all human life lives and which exists in the form of tradition, is always in motion. The surrounding horizon is not set in motion by historical consciousness. But in it this motion becomes aware of it.” Ibid., 303.
See Walter Kohan’s talk on the “Present(s) of the Question”, talk given at the University of British Columbia, October 2022.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book I, Chapter 2, tans. Joseph Rickaby, SJ https://basilica.ca/documents/2016/10/St.%20Thomas%20Aquinas-The%20Summa%20Contra%20Gentiles.pdf. Of intrestest is that the University of Oxford placed in 1902 Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles on the list of subjects of choice for the candidates in the Final Honour School of Literae Humaniores. See also the Encyclical of Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, urging and encouraging the study of Doctor Angelicus. Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/la/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_04081879_aeterni-patris.html.
This question ought to be pondered further, particularly in times when computer programs threaten to take over the task of writing.
Barbara Weber and Arthur Wolf, “Questioning the Question: How to Cultivate Philosophical Questioning in a Community of Inquiry,” in Maughn Rollins Gregory, Joanna Haynes, and Karin Murris, ed., The Routledge International Handbook of Philosophy for Children (London: Routledge Publisher, 2016), 74–82.
A more detailed elaboration of the following can be found in: Arthur Wolf and Barbara Weber, “Existential Urgency or: Toward a Provocation to ‘Think Different,’” Childhood & Philosophy Journal 19 (2023): 1–25, e-issn 1984–5987.
The authors would like to distance themselves from any political decisions and statements made by Martin Heidegger. We took extra care to only include quotes and ideas that are not in any way related to his political statements and ideas, which – again – we vehemently reject.
The lecture series was published as Martin Heidegger, Was Heisst Denken? (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1954).
Ibid., 3.
This urging to think is about the courage to think: “Das wissenschaftliche Leben ist wie ein Tanz, zu dem wir alle eingeladen sind, solange wir den Wunsch hegen, dieser Einladung zu folgen und uns dem, was gedacht werden will, mit sich immer erneuernder Vitalität, persönlicher Souveränität und intellektueller Produktivität zu nähern. Im Denken geht es nicht bloß um ein im Zeitalter der Experten und Technokraten übertrieben hochgepriesenes Sachverständnis, sondern darum, es in seiner ursprünglichen Anschaulichkeit zurückzugewinnen. Der Mut, das Denken zu wagen, tut heute mehr Not denn je.” Andrzej Wierciński, Hermeneutik und Metaphysik: Bildung im Gespräch zwischen Philosophie, Theologie und Dichtung (Zürich: LIT Verlag, 2017), 7.
“It is enough to say that we understand in a different way, if we understand at all.” Gadamer, Truth and Method, 296.
Martin Heidegger, Discourse on Thinking, trans. John M. Anderson & E. Hans Freund. (Evanston & London: Harper & Row Publishers, 1959/1966), 45.
Ibid., 45.
Ibid., 46.
Ibid.
Martin Heidegger, On Time and Being (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1969/ 1972), 72.
Cf. Andrzej Wierciński, “The Dialectics of Power and the Irrevocability of Time (Unwiderruflichkeit der Zeit),” Studia z Teorii Wychowania/Studies In the Theory of Education 43 (2023): 19–41.
“The hermeneutics of education is a reflection on what happens to us and in us when we learn or teach. There is no teaching without learning and, what is crucial here, learning needs to be understood as a lifelong task and challenge. Goodness and generosity are first verified in our approach to ourselves, in our hospitality toward ourselves. Only by being a hospitable, kind, and generous person to oneself, can one be such a person toward others. Learning and teaching are not so much about acquiring or transmitting information or sharing some selected fragments of our existence with others, but more about being responsible and committed to being with others, to share the world, and to deal with life challenges together with others. This permanent education becomes a way of living, incessantly provisional, attentive, and open to revision and correction. This is not because we may not be very talented or hard-working enough, but because we are human. To be a human being is to be always sensitive to the fact that our perspective is limited, simply because it is a human perspective that lies stranded between phenomenological description and hermeneutic interpretation.” Andrzej Wierciński, Hermeneutics of Education: Exploring and Experiencing the Unpredictability of Education (Zürich: LIT Verlag, 2019), 303.
Martin Heidegger, What is Called Thinking? (New York, Evanston & London: Harper & Row Publishers, 1968), 86.
Gadamer, Truth and Method, 372.
The term “response” comes from the Latin spondere, to pledge, to promise, and “re-”, in return.
Dasein, a term Heidegger uses instead of human, emphasizes the intensity and irreplaceability of the ‘being thereness.’
In German Er-Eignis is both event as well as being our own Dasein, “own-ing” ourselves.
Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, trans. Stephen Mitchell (New York: Vintage International Books, 1990), 5.
Ibid., 6.
Ibid., 19. Rilke’s soliloquium on the ars poetica as the art of living his own vocation as a poet is further elaborated in his letters:: “Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple ‘I must,’ then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.” Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet (Portland: Scriptor Press, 2010), 6.
Rilke, Malte Laurids Brigge, 19–20.
Ibid., 48; the description of the torn down house starts on p. 45.
Rainer Maria Rilke, Die Letzten (Frankfurt a.M.: Insel Verlag, 1986), 9; trans. B.W. In the original German: “Man kann gut denken, dass Bilder im Saale sind: tiefe träumerische in ruhigen Rahmen. Ein Giorgione vielleicht oder so ein purpurdunkles Porträt von einem nach Tizian, etwa dem Paris Bordone. Dann weiß man, dass Blumen da sind. Große erstaunte Blumen, die den ganzen Tag in tiefen, kühlen Bronzeschalen liegen und Düfte singen: müßige Blumen. //Und müßige Menschen. Zwei, drei oder fünf. Immer wieder streckt sich das Licht aus dem Riesenkamin und beginnt sie zu zählen. Aber es irrt sich immer wieder. //Ganz vorn an der Feuerstelle lehnt die Prinzessin in Weiß neben dem großen Samowar, der allen Glanz fangen möchte. Sie ist wie eine wilde Farbenskizze, so hingestrichen im Sturm eines Einfalls oder einer Laune. Mit Schatten und Licht gemalt aus irgendeiner genialen Ungeduld heraus. Nur die Lippen sind feiner ausgeführt. Als ob alles andere nur um dieses Mundes willen da wäre. Als ob man ein Buch gemacht hätte, um auf eine von hundert Seiten die stille Elegie dieses Lächelns zu schreiben.”
“Das ‘bildende Gespräch’ setzt dem Streben nach Gewißheit die Forderung nach Phantasie entgegen. Es ist die Macht der Phantasie, die uns das kreative Lernen und Lehren ermöglicht. In der gebührenden Anerkennung der Phantasietätigkeit finden wir einen Weg, nicht nur nach Sinn im Dialog zu suchen, sondern das desen der Bildung im Miteinanderverstehen und Miteinanderlernen zu sehen. Was von uns als dialogischen Wesen erwartet wird, ist Beweglichkeit, Wachsamkeit und gegenseitige Achtung dessen, was die Lernenden den Lehrenden in der Begegnung entgegenbringen. Neue Aufbrüche zu wagen ist kein unrealisierbarer Traum, sondern eine existentielle Herausforderung, eine Wirklichkeit für den, der den Mut hat, sich an sich selber zu wenden (con-versio), auf sich selber zu hören und auch auf den anderen zu hören, der uns zunächst fremd erscheint. Die Idee der hermeneutischen Gastfreundschaft ist der Schlüssel: der Aufruf zu einer bedingungslosen Aufnahme des Seltsamen und Unerwarteten (hostis). Wir plädieren für eine Vision der ökologischen Verantwortung und Nachhaltigkeit und setzen uns somit für unbedingte Gastfreundschaft ein, das Andere und den Anderen anzuerkennen und das Fremde und den Fremden zu respektieren. Indem wir die Grenzen der Bildung in ihrer Wirkungsgeschichte kritisch hinterfragen, sehen wir, dass die Logik von Frage und Antwort das leitende phronetische Modell für Bildung ist. Erziehung ist ein wahrer Ausdruck hermeneutischer Gastfreundschaft.” Andrzej Wierciński, Hermeneutik und Metaphysik: Bildung im Gespräch zwischen Philosophie, Theologie und Dichtung (Zürich: LIT Verlag, 2017), 253.
Cf. Gadamer, Truth and Method, xxv–xxvi.