Got Bildung?
Some definitions of the German word Bildung :
"In the Age of Enlightenment, ... Bildung was self-education for humanity, which took on a more and more dynamic and progressive dimension which prevailed on the level of 'politesse' and which followed the direction of research into the sphere of spirituality." [1]
There was an attitude toward education and self-improvement at Southwestern (Rhodes College) that I have run across in the literature, but I have found it hard to describe to people who did not allready have the concept or attitude.
The term Bildung is close to adequate to describe this proclivity toward "lifelong education" and self-education, but it lacks a counterpart word in English. I ran across it in the book The Metaphysical Club about Pierce, W. James, and Oliver W. Holmes.
This group included many who had studied in Germany and were influenced by the attitude toward "Bildung" present there.
Humboldt coined the term weltanschauung which means world view. His world view itself was described by the term Bildung.
"The problem of Bildung is central in all Wilhelm von Humboldt's reflections. Central and exemplary because everything revolves around this idea in Humboldt's writings, both in the more famous essays, the political and linguistic ones, and in his unpublished notes."[1]
From a letter by Humboldt:
"Those who do not take great care of this interior need, who do not already find in themselves an irresistible desire to measure all mankind against themselves, who suppress the expression of this supreme need even for the best of reasons, shall always be far from truth." (3)
Dewey attended the Metaphysical Club meetings[4], and was influenced by the attitude toward the importance of Bildung. He used the the inspiration of Bildung in his work on pedagogy and philosophy. He is the person who got "hands-on" labs in high school, and moved the U.S. school system away from classical languages toward science. The methods he used were both experimental and theoretical.
John Dewey's philosophy has been named 'pragmatic humanism'. He is an advocate of "meliorism" which he defines as being 'the belief that the specific conditions which exist at one moment, be they comparatively bad or comparatively good, in any event may be bettered. It encourages intelligence to study the positive means of good and the obstructions to their realization, and to put forth endeavor for the improvement of conditions. It arouses confidence and a reasonable hopefulness as optimism does not.' [2]
We have all been influenced by Dewey's educational system, so his ideas do not seem profound at first. (In a aimilar way that Shakespeare seems to be all cliche's.) Before Dewey's influence, the schools were mostly rote learning of facts and rules with little critical thinking.
An author on 2thik.org says this about Dewey's Bildung inspired approach to education:
"The ultimate goal and result we can experience by understanding our past and forming anew our future is the attainment of "a more ordered and intelligent happiness". (p. 27) As Dewey explains it, "If this lecture succeeds in leaving in your minds as a reasonable hypothesis the idea that philosophy originated not out of intellectual material, but out of social and emotional material, it will also succeed in leaving with you a changed attitude toward traditional philosophies." (p. 25) [2]
This short essay should have a slightly different meaning when re-read.
...Capt. Nemo in memory of the "Tyger Tyger" Colloquium..6-19-2002
Afterword
Your Inner Consilience
Does your Bildung tend toward consilience?
"Wilson's premise in Consilience is that a common body of inherent principles underlies the entire human endeavor. "I believe that the Enlightenment thinkers of the 17th and 18th centuries got it mostly right the first time," he says. They assumed a lawful, perfectible material world in which knowledge is unified across the sciences and the humanities. Wilson calls this common groundwork of explanation that crosses all the great branches of learning "consilience," and he argues that we can indeed explain everything in the world through an understanding of a handful of natural laws."[1]
"In a book that is truly a magnum opus, Wilson is concerned with an even bigger project, the unification of all knowledge by the means of science, so that the explanations of differing kinds of phenomena are seen to be connected and consistent with one another--that is, to be consilient. . . . Wilson dazzlingly reaffirms the cogency and the power of scientific materialism." -- Booklist [5]
[2] "Reconstruction in Philosophy" by John Dewey
(3) Wilhelm und Caroline von Humboldt in ihren Briefen, Berlin 1935, p. 87 , quoted in reference [1]
[5] 2Think.org