Elisa Briola, On the trail of Humboldt. The auto-education as enérgeia between individuality and totality

The name of Wilhelm von Humboldt is eminently associated with the Reform of Education which, in the first decade of the XIX century, reorganized Prussian schools and institutes, starting from the foundation of the University of Berlin. The breath of modernity that the Reform carried, together with the beginning of the new century, was the result of many years of study which had occupied the then Director of the department of Worship and Education. If, indeed, one may remember the eclectic Humboldt and the extent of his work, we need to admit, in this context, how and how much the central idea which connects all his works and the two related centuries is humankind. The assiduous study of every aspect of humankind functioned as background for pedagogical reflections, which founded the thought of the whole Reform. When we consider humankind, the subject is, once again, the Bildung. A Buildung which, according to Humboldt, takes root into the inwardness of human beings as individuals and moves forward totality. It is, then, starting from the idea of totality as relationship between the individual and the other, that the dynamic nature of human being takes shape and transforms him into enérgeia.

 

Published on: The teachers and the freedom in teaching N. 26 New Series – Year XIII 2017