{

The Free University: then and nowThe argument of freedom in historical and current HE discourse

Aksel Hugo, The Field Centre, Ruskin Mill Trust Richard House

IDEA

REVERSAL

RE-REVERSAL

The idea

Could a human soul reach an understanding in

which the conditioned and unconditioned - which means the definete and the infininte penetrated

each other, then such a soul would not be conditioned through anything else,

but through itself.

Henrik Steffens, 1809

-- because free we shall name what is conditioned in inner coherence with its

own nature.

Ibid.

Anyone is then, in ethical terms, an infinite sublime being, exhalted above all condition.

Ibid.

Therefore education is only directed towards ’the

common’ of all spirits, as the rich and fruitful soil,

out of which eveything individual, following its own laws, will flourish and shape itself.

Ibid

Es ist schwer, ein Bild von der Begeisterung und Größe dieser Schrift zu geben, in der zum

erstenmal der Gedanke ausgesprochen wird, daß sich in der Universität die Einheit des

wissenschaftlichen Strebens darstellt, wodurch der einzelne schöpferisch das Leben der Ideen in sich

erzeugt.

Eduard Sprangler, 1910 Festschrift zur 100 Jahre Humbolt Universität

It is difficult to give a picture of the enthusiasm and magnitude of this text, in which for the first

time the idea was spoken that the university expresses the unity of the scientific strife,

whereby each individual creatively generates the life of the ideas in himself or herself.

Eduard Sprangler, 1910 Festschrift zur 100 Jahre Humbolt Universität

According to Schelling, the understanding of the organic wholeness of the sciences must precede the constitution of a particular field of research. Whoever embarks to deepen a particular field of study, must learn to know the position this field

takes within that wholeness …

Ibid.

Therefore, the application of this idea to the universities through Fichte, Schleiermacher and

Steffens is only an individual manifestation of thoughts,

that Schelling first had kindled. …

And the form this idea takes is the same by all these thinkers: ‘The unity of the university is justified

through the unity of the idea.”

Ibid.

As long as the state is only external power, the ideal power of science must appear to it as an

alien competitor.

Thus, they were occupied by the burning question:

Will this state be able to hold freedom of teaching and research?

Ibid.

All rules one wants to convey to the student, can be condenced into one: “Learn only in order to be creative yourself!” Only through this godlike

capacity of being creative we are truly human, without it simply a smartly designed machine.

Ibid.

May the truth be one; the pathway to truth needs to be individual, and one can put no shackles on the free agility of the forces.

Eduard Sprangler, 1910 Festschrift zur 100 Jahre Humbolt Universität

The reversal

If choices of action are predetermined by a ”program” to be implemented, ethical awareness is

dimmed or eroded. Present neo-liberal educational policies may

contribute to such erosions of the conditions of the possibility of ethical action

in educational practice.

Dahlin 2010

The re-reversal

Retreat into spiritual values is unlikely to furnish much help in coping with Pandora.

NATURE might be a better guide, if we understand our own labours as part of its

being.

Richard Sennett, 2008

LEARN FROM HABITAT IN NATURE

to re-connect to location

Name space as the blind spot and

forgotten dimension of education

“Our place is part of what we are. Yet even a ‘place’ has a kind of fluidity: it passes through space and time …”

Gary Snyder

Situativity of perception and affordances of space. (Gibson 1977)*

Any learning arena is an invitation to engage with a particular kind of

intention - attention experience - emotion

impression - expression

Gibson, J. J. (1977). The theory of affordances. In R. Shaw & J. Brans- ford (Eds.), Perceiving, acting, and knowing: Toward an ecological psychology (pp. 67-82). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

LEARN FROM MIND IN NATURE

to reconnect thinking and deed

The lost connection between theory and practice is reconstituted in a double process where consciousness of the

activity of mind is connected to awareness of mindfulness in activity.

Hugo 2012

..the practical activity would be a thinking, the theoretical thinking a deed.

Novalis, In: Roder 1995

The artist is the synthesis of the theoretician

and the practician.

Novalis, In: Roder 1995

LEARN FROM AESTHETICS IN NATURE

a breathing of activity and reciptivity

Activity in a place does something to the space

it may evoke a new atmosphere

You would know there is a breathing process that has to take place between activity and receptivity

when something is performed.

Hugo 2012

LEARN FROM BECOMING IN NATURE

the becoming of genius

Man, his own maker.

Richard Sennet, 2008

A becoming, self-creating genius ... through schooling of will, feeling and

thinking.

Novalis, In: Roder 1995

Genius = talent for productive inspirations (Einfälle)

The genius has consciousness of the productive inspirations (Einfälle) ...

... lives attentive to (Blickwendung) very high spiritual creations.”

The same general gesture: in poetry (art),in thinking and in unfolding of life ...

the magically active I – from the realm of thinking into the realm of the will. ...

Through the act of conscious-exploration in performed-vocation

there is a yield of self-education

Hugo 2012

An inner schooling process is established, a vocational, situated cultivation of ones

self, not only for but through the material of the vocation. In short it is the path of schooling the self in encounter with the

situated vocation.

(Hugo 2012)

LEARN FROM DEATH IN NATURE

waiting in times of desintegration

When the forms of an old culture are dying, the new culture is created by a few people who are not afraid to be insecure.

Rudolf Bahro

Rather than inspiring and motivating us, hope has become a burden made heavy by its

companion, fear of failing

Thomas Merton

Only in the present moment, free from hope and fear, do we receive the gifts of clarity and resolve

Margaret Wheatley, 2009

My heart holds the image of us journeying in this way through this time of disintegration and

rebirth. Insecure, groundless, patient, beyond hope and fear. And together.

Margaret Wheatley, 2009

Independent of the changing outer circumstances, truly active in a sense of the whole …

no unfullfilled hope, no demolition of what seems dearest to you, no misunderstandings of the world are able to disturb the inner stillness, which - in all fermenting and entaglements of time – recognizes what announces itself inside you as the allmighty spirit,

who is the source of all wisdom, as well as who’s inner connection is the root of all freedom.

Henrik Steffens, 1809

Und der Künsler ist immer noch dieser: ein Tänzer, dessen Bewegung sich bricht an dem Zwang seiner Zelle. Was in seinen Schritten

und dem beschränkten Schwung seiner Arme nicht Raum hat, kommt in der Ermattung von

seinen Lippen, oder er muss die noch ungelebten linien seines Leibes mit wunden

Fingern in die Wände ritzen.

Rainer Maria Rilke