603016 KU Education as a Link to the World and Self-Knowledge

winter semester 2020/2021 | Last update: 07.12.2020 Place course on memo list
603016
KU Education as a Link to the World and Self-Knowledge
KU 2
4
Block
annually
German

The lecture will be considered successful, when there will be an increase of more comprehensive appreciation for the historical or contemporary interrelationship between the self and the world. As a consequence this will lead to an enlarged and specified concept of education (Bildung).

Looking for the sources of the historical notion of our concept of education, one will come sooner or later across the mystic Meister Eckhart. He aimed to come up to the condition, in which God would enter into the soul, so that He may “build (einbilden)” Himself in it. This expresses the idea that God actively models the soul as a sculptor does.  Certainly this effect is done by a transcendent “sculptor (Bildner)”, but the human being itself has as well to cooperate with Him to realize His intention in the human soul. The preparation of the soul consists in the active willingness to become empty for this divine act in which it would be sculptured. So education (Bildung) means facts that are more complex than that what we call “upbringing (Erziehung)”, “socialization” or “learning”. Protagonists in the history of ideas and the way of thinking push this “divine sculptor” into the background with the perspective to expose in the foreground the subject that brilliantly cultivates its capability to model, develop, and form itself. Here we are at the focus and central question of our lecture: How can we imagine this strange interrelation between self-knowledge (Selbsterkenntnis) and the exterior world (Weltbezug)? How can this interrelation be achieved, historically or in a contemporary way? What does this connection describe concerning the human experience? This anthropological question reminds us of the theory-tradition of Wilhelm von Humboldt. He speaks about the connection of our self with the world as a “most general, active, and free interrelationship”. This happens so intensively, that both permanently, in a sort of short wave, influence each other, so that they are permanently engaged in a mutual modification and shaping. It is therefore the question of aesthetics that moves into the visual focus. This will be brought and discussed in the lecture mainly under the perspective of the “economies of reserve (Zurückhaltung)”. The university itself should be understood in this context as a domain of “aesthetical education (Bildung)” that will be explored by modest empirical studies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are three approaches foreseen: smaller groups can read texts together intensively and interpret them to each other. As well you can choose a short report about one of these topics and summarize the main theses in a paper. A third possibility could be an experimental contribution to the lecture, for instance with the means of video or performance.

 

 

The course has an immanent character of examination. The grades are based on  a regular participation in the lecture and the assessment of two works done in the methods as described above, either written, oral or in a scenic piece produced with electronic media.

Very recommendable in advance:

  • Bilstein, Johannes/Brumlik, Micha (Hg.): Die Bildung des Körpers. Beltz Juventa: Weinheim/Basel 2013
  • Gronau, Barbara/Lagaay, Alice (Hg.): Ökonomien der Zurückhaltung. Kulturelles Handeln zwischen Askese und Restriktion. transkript: Bielefeld 2010.
  • Haß, Ulrike/Müller-Schöll, Nikolaus (Hg.): Was ist eine Universität? Schlaglichter auf eine ruinierte Institution. transcript: Bielefeld 2009.

A comprehensive bibliography will be given at the beginning of the course.

None

see dates
Group 0
Date Time Location
Tue 2020-10-13
11.30 - 14.30 4U102b 4U102b Barrier-free Induction loops for hearing impaired Präsenztermin
Tue 2020-10-27
11.30 - 14.30 4U102b 4U102b Barrier-free Induction loops for hearing impaired Präsenztermin
Tue 2020-11-10
11.30 - 14.30 4U102b 4U102b Barrier-free Induction loops for hearing impaired Präsenztermin
Tue 2020-11-24
11.30 - 14.30 eLecture - online eLecture - online
Tue 2021-01-19
11.30 - 14.30 eLecture - online eLecture - online
Tue 2021-02-02
11.30 - 14.30 eLecture - online eLecture - online