Hegel and Gadamer on Bildung

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Hegel and Gadamer onBildung

The Southern Journal of Philosophy (2008) Vol. XLVI

Abstract

Hegel argues that Bildung(cultivation or education) involves an ability

to reflect on ones habitual beliefs in a detached, uncommitted way.

According to Hege l, the educated (gebildete) individual is able toconsider a manifold of standpoints on a given issue through awarenessof the historical and cultural variability of beliefs. Hans-GeorgGadamer invokes Hegels account ofBildungin arguing that historicalstudy permits current presuppositions (Vorurteile) to become reflectedthrough the awareness of cognitive plurality and change that such studybrings about. The paper mainly tries to show three things: (i) that Hegelis a source of inspiration for Gadamer in this regard but that there arealso important differences between their accounts ofBildung; (ii) thatthese accounts are not unambiguous; and (iii) that Gadamer, in

particular, makes somewhat elusive claims on the power ofBildung.

Introduction

Rousseaus Emile or On Education (1762) argues that the taskof education is to help the child develop its natural abilities byisolating it from civilized life. Emile was greeted with con-siderable enthusiasm but was vigorously opposed by Hegel,whose account of education (Bildung) is the direct opposite of

Rousseaus. According to Hegel, the purpose ofBildung is pre-cisely to overcome nature through the inculcation of beliefs,norms, and customs, which thereby become second nature. This

Anders Odenstedt is a lecturer in Philosophy in the Department of

Philosophy at Ume University, Sweden. Among his recent publications

are Gadamer on Context-Dependence,The Review of Metaphysics 57: 1

(September 2003), Gadamer on the Limits of Reflection,The Journalof the British Society for Phenomenology 36:1 (January 2005), and

A d Hi i G d H i Ph l i h


Anders OdenstedtUme University


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Anders Odenstedt

Bildung counters the childs insistence on the priority of its ownbeliefs and desires. But the second nature that is thus acquiredmay later in life become subject to a process ofBildung throughformal education which creates a third nature, as it were, andthis, Hegel holds, is one goal of historical study.

Thus, Hegel argues that the study of the ancient world isespecially appropriate for providing this form ofBildung.1 Theancient world, Hegel says, is sufficiently alien (fremd) toseparate (trennen) us from our natural state, that is, theculture to which we belong.2 But the ancient world is also simi-lar enough to our culture to permit us to find ourselves again(uns wiederfinden) in it.3 As we shall see, this means that theindividual that has acquiredBildung no longer simply takes thevalidity and significance of his culture for granted through theresources already available to it, he achieves reconciliation

(Vershnung) with it through the adoption of a more reflective,universal point of view.

Accordingly, the questioning of habitual beliefs is not theculmination ofBildung as such but nevertheless forms anintegral part of it. Hegel argues that educated (gebildete) peopleare capable of turning things [Sachen] round and consideringthem in many aspects. This ability involves, Hegel says, apower of keeping the manifold points of view present to themind, so that the wealth of categories by which an object maybe considered are grasped (LHP, 1:359). Awareness ofotherhistorical and cultural milieus may play an important role inthis process.

The natural man [who lacks Bildung] lives quite unconsciously

in his own particular way, in conformity with the morality of his

town, without ever having reflected on the fact that he practices

this morality. If he then comes into a foreign [anderes] land, he is

much surprised, for through encountering the opposite he for the

first time experiences the fact that he has these customs, and he

immediately arrives at uncertainty as to whether his point of viewor the opposite is wrong. (LHP, 2:355)4

Similarly, awareness of the perspectives ofothers is essential tothe Bildung that society through its norms and customsinculcates.

By educated [gebildete] people, we may understand in the first

place those who do everything as others [anderen] do it and who do

not flaunt their particular characteristics [Partikularitt], whereas

it is precisely these characteristics which the uneducated display.Similarly, in his relations with others, the uneducated man can

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Gadamers view of the value of historical study and theGeisteswissenschaften in general is indebted to Hegels accountofBildung. Gadamer thus holds that historical study maypermit contemporary presuppositions (Vorurteile) to becomereflected. Insofar as the beliefs and customs of the past diverge

from those of the present, they may allow the educatedindividual (der Gebildete) to relate to his or her own culturalmilieu in a reflective way (TM, 17; GW, 1:23). The awareness ofcognitive plurality and change that historical study may bringabout permits the educated man to relate to current views andcustoms more reflectively than the individual who assumes thatthere are no alternatives to them. The educated man, one mightsay, has the ability to judge his own historical context from thestandpoint ofother such contexts. As Gadamer says:

That is what, following Hegel, we emphasized as the generalcharacteristic ofBildung: keeping oneself open to what is other

[Anderes]to other, more universal [allgemeinere] points of view. It

embraces a sense of proportion and distance in relation to itself, and

hence consists in rising above itself to universality [Allgemeinheit].

To distance oneself from oneself and from ones private purposes

[Zwecke] means to look at these in the way that others [die anderen]

see them. (TM, 17; GW, 1:2223)

This essay seeks to trace differences and similarities betweenHegels and Gadamers accounts ofBildung and to distinguishbetween different senses in which their respective claims onthis issue may be understood.

1. The Triad ofBildung

Hegel provides what is surely his most famous example ofBildung in his account of the so-called masterslave dialectic(PS, 111ff.; PG, 109ff.). He describes the first stage of this

dialectic thus: Self-consciousness is faced by another self-consciousness; it has come out of itself[auer sich gekommen].This has a twofold significance: first, it has lost itself, for itfinds itself as an other [anderes] being [Wesen]; second, indoing so it has superseded [aufgehoben] the other, for it doesnot see the other as a being [Wesen], but in the other sees itsown self (PS, 111, trans. modified; PG, 109). At this stage ofthe dialectic, the individual does not consider the other pointof view as such and presupposes that it is basically the sameas his own.5 Self-consciousness is thus simple being-for-self,

self-equal [sichselbstgleich] through the exclusion from itself ofeverything else [andern] (PS, 113;PG, 110). The other is then

d d t ti l h t i d bj t [G t d] (PS


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Hegel holds that, at these stages of the dialectic, the other isnot recognized as an independent individual and that thisprevents detachment from ones own desires and beliefs. Subse-quently, however, due to the submission of the slave, he arrivesat such a detached point of view. The demands of the master are

initially seen as threatening by the slave, but he eventuallyrealizes that the subjection of his will to another is not anundue imposition on him. There is no ultimate distinctionbetween I and We (PS, 110;PG, 108). The slave learns to seethings with the masters eyes and checks his desires (Begierde)instead of favoring the satisfaction of them: Since the slaveworks for the master and not in the exclusive interest of hisown individuality, his desire is expanded into being not only thedesire of this particular individual but also the desire of another.Accordingly, the slave rises above the selfish individuality of his

natural will (PM,Zusatz to 435).Bildung thus runs through three stages that may roughly be

outlined in the following way:

(i) Unreflected unity with ones natural state, and a corre-sponding neglect of otherness;

(ii) Alienation from ones natural state induced by otherness;

(iii) Reflective reconciliation between self and other.

As regards the Bildung that creates a third nature that chal-lenges ones initial socialization, Hegel sees a triad in differentapproaches to the past in historical study as well. He distin-guishes between original (ursprnglich), reflective, and philo-sophical history writing (PhH, 1f.;PhG, 3f.). Original history ischaracterized by the fact that theBildung that has formed thewriter is identical with that which has moulded the events thatconstitute the matter of his story. Reflections are none of hisbusiness, for he lives in the spirit of his subject; he has not yet

transcended it (PhH, 2, trans. modified;PhG, 45).By contrast, reflective history is an undertaking whosemode of representation [Darstellung] is not confined by thelimits of the time to which it relates, but whose spirit tran-scends the present (PhH, 4; PhG, 6). Original history dis-regards otherness, whereas reflective history is aware of thedistinction between self and other, although it initially fails toapply this distinction correctly in interpreting the past in termsof the present; the historian will thus insist upon his ownspirit as that of the age in question (PhH, 7;PhG, 10).

Philosophical history, finally, understands that the past andthe present are both stages in the development of Spirit. Worldhi t i th t li ti (V i kli h ) f S i it lf


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or even unrelated to, the present, but the realization thathistory is the actualization of Spirit permits the superficiality ofthe distinction between self and other to be discovered. Theactualization of Spirit through history does not give rise to anynew content and unfolds what has been implicitly present all

along (LHP, 1:21).Similarly, Gadamer describes three approaches to otherness

in historical study and is clearly indebted to Hegel in so doing(TM, 35861; GW, 1:36447). First, there is an attempt todiscover typical behavior in ones fellowmen in such a waythat predictions about others on the basis of experience can bemade. This approach does not recognize the otherness (Anders-sein) of the past but rather assumes that current modes ofthought and conduct are transhistorical: we thus understandthe other person in the same way as we understand any other

typical event in our experiential field [Erfahrungsfeld].Second, there is a mistaken sense of otherness that fails to

notice the cohesion of history, not in the sense of world history,as in Hegel, since (as we have just seen) this is precisely themistake made by the first attitude toward otherness rejected byGadamer. The mistaken sense of otherness rather occurs in ashared historical context. The extent of cognitive diversity andchange in such a context is, Gadamer holds, easily overrated byindividuals situated in it insofar as the persistence of basic,shared presuppositions is ignored.

In such cases,Bildung is not indicated by a sense of othernessbut rather by the reverse (TM, xxiv; GW, 1:34).7 Thus, whatGadamer refers to as historically effected consciousness(wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewutsein) rises to the third stage inthe triad ofBildung. Through this consciousness, self and otherare understood as belonging to the same historical context and asboth subject to its effect (Wirkung). The culmination ofBildungin a shared historical context thus means reconciliation betweenself and other. According to Gadamer,

Things that change force themselves on our attention far more

than those that remain the same. This is a general law of our

intellectual life. Hence the perspectives that result from the

experience of historical change are always in danger of being

exaggerated because they forget what persists unseen [die

Verborgenheit des Beharrenden]. (TM, xxiv; GW, 1:34)

2. Gadamer on the Power ofBildung

The stages in the triad ofBildung according to both Hegel andGadamer may thus be outlined in the following way:


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(ii) Alienation from ones natural state caused by otherness;

(iii) Reconciliation between self and other.

But what, more precisely, does stage (ii) involve? To begin with,Hegel holds that otherness can be fully recognized. The self can

thus perceive itself just as it is perceived by others (PS, 395;PG, 351). According to Hegel, the detached point of view on selfthat the second stage in the triad ofBildung involves does not,one might perhaps say, mean regarding myself as I wouldregard myself ifI were in the shoes of the other; it meansregarding myself as the other regards me.8

This view is at odds with a frequent assumption onGadamers part. According to this assumption, Bildung alwayscontains a residue of ones own initial standpoint: [if] weovercome the presuppositions [Vorurteile] and limitations of our

previous experience of the world, this does not mean that weleave and negate our own world. Like travelers we return homewith new experiences. Even if we emigrate and never return, westill can never wholly forget (TM, 448; GW, 1:452, trans.modified).Bildung means transposing oneself[sich versetzen]into other standpoints: For what do we mean by transposingourselves? Certainly not disregarding ourselves. This isnecessary, of course, insofar as we must imagine the othersituation. But into this other situation we must bring, precisely,ourselves (TM, 305; GW, 1:310).

However, this passage seems to contradict Gadamers claim,quoted above, that Bildung means adopting the standpoints ofothers (TM, 17; GW, 1:2223). And Gadamer goes on to saysomething that suggests that his view on this issue is evenmore complex: If we put ourselves in someone elses shoes, forexample, then we will understand himthat is, become awareof the otherness, the indissoluble individuality [Individualitt]of the other personby puttingourselves in his position (TM,305; GW, 1:310). Now, this seems to mean, for example, that the

very possibility of the other in historical study to challenge onesown presuppositions is that these presuppositions are used inorder to stress aspects of the past that may be relevant to thepresent. By contrast, insofar as the other is approached as amere historical source, he or she is no longer taken seriously as apartner in dialogue, as it were (TM, 361; GW, 1:367).

But it does not seem correct to say, as Gadamer does, thattransposing oneself into the others standpoint involvesunderstanding his or her individuality. It rather seems tomean applying the other to contemporary issues in such a way

that he or she may be seen as relevant to them. And Gadameroften describes this application (Anwendung) as the proper

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[Andersheit], but in such a way that it has something to say tome (TM, 361; GW, 1:367).

Indeed, Gadamer himself is often critical of the tendency toreduce the other to individuality and argues that such reduc-tion occurs in situations in which the claims of the other are not

taken seriously as even failed attempts to account for theirsubject matters. As a result, the claims of the other are neitherassented to nor doubted but are understood in an uncommittedway by means of historical or psychological analysis. Insofar asthe goal of dialogue is to understand the individuality of theother in this way, an attempt to reach a better understanding ofthe subject matter will not occur. As Gadamer says: Where aperson is concerned with the other as individualityfor example,in a therapeutic conversation or the interrogation of a manaccused of a crimethis is not really a situation in which two

people are trying to come to an understanding (TM, 385; GW,1:389).

As we have seen, however, Gadamer sometimes holds notonly that the reduction to what he calls individuality is undesir-able, but also that it is impossible insofar as the othernessavailable to the historian involves what he or she would perceivein the shoes of the other. According to Gadamer, the recognitionor even understanding of the historical other is limited by thisfact. This apparent ambiguity, to which I shall return in whatfollows, is central to Gadamers account ofBildung.

3. The Dialectic of Limits

But let us for the moment ignore this ambiguity in Gadamerand focus on his claim that the recognition of otherness, andthereby the power ofBildung, is limited by the context of thehistorian. This claim diverges from a frequent assumption onHegels part. According to this assumption, precisely the notionthat there is a limit to, for example, the recognition of otherness

shows that this limit has been overcome. In order to know thatthe recognition of otherness is limited, or perhaps even to graspthe possibility that such limitation obtains, the individual mustalready have overcome it. And Hegel holds that this is the casewith the awareness of limits generally. Gadamer correctlydescribes Hegels views in this respect in a passage that meritsquotation at length:

Kants critical delimitation of reason had limited the application of

the categories to the objects of possible experience and declared

that the thing-in-itself behind appearances was unknowable.Hegels dialectical argument objected that by making this

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sides of it. It is the dialectic of the limit to exist only by being

superseded [aufhebt]. What appears in logical generality in the

dialectic of the limit becomes specified in consciousness by the

experience that the being-in-itself distinguished from consciousness

is the other of itself, and is known in its truth when it is known as

selfi.e., when it knows itself in full and absolute self-conscious-ness. (TM, 342-3; GW, 1:348)9

In opposition to Hegel, Gadamer denies that the bare notionthat there are limits to cognition, or (more specifically) to therecognition of otherness, in itself shows that these limits havebeen overcome (PH, 172; GW, 3:141). But a Hegelian dialecticmay be operative in such claims. Indeed, Gadamer is well awareof this possibility. As he says: when we speak of historicallyeffected consciousness [das wirkungsgeschichtliche Bewutsein,

i.e., the consciousness that is effected by influences of histori-cal context], are we not confined within the immanent laws ofreflection, which destroy any immediate effect? Are we notforced to admit that Hegel was right and regard the basis ofhermeneutics as the absolute mediation [Vermittlung] of historyand truth? (TM 341; GW, 1:347, italics in original). That is,when it is argued that consciousness is subject to unreflected(immediate) influences of historical context, has one therebynot already reflected on and thus mediated them? And are wethen not forced to admit that Hegel was right in asserting thatthere is fundamentally no distinction between history as therealization of Spirit, on the one hand, and the reflection onhistory on the other hand? But Gadamer goes on to say that he isstill concerned to conceive a reality that limits the omnipotence[Allmacht] of reflection (TM, 342, trans. modified; GW, 1:348).

Gadamers analysis of historically effected consciousness isthus meant to be understood in distinction to (in Abhebung von)Hegel, and primarily (or so it would seem) Hegels view that itis the dialectic of the limit to exist only by being overcome (TM,

346; GW, 1:352). Yet Gadamer commends Hegel for havinggrasped the negativity (Negativitt) of experience (Erfahrung)(TM, 353f.; GW, 1:359f.). Hegel thus, Gadamer argues, seesexperience as skepticism in action, whereby things turn out tobe not what they previously appeared to be.10 But this process,Gadamer holds, is an overcoming of limits only in the sensethat it shows the falsity of our previous generalizations. Hegelasserts that Bildung culminates in absolute knowledge (dasabsoluteWissen), which permits Spirit to equate (auszug-leichen) its consciousness and self-consciousness due to the

insight11 that reality as such has the character of the self (PS,486; PG , 428). According to Gadamer, however, there is onlyi t i bl di l (G h) (TM ii GW 2 447)


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That we should become completely aware of effective history

[Wirkungsgeschichte] is just as hybrid a statement [hybride

Behauptung] as when Hegel speaks of absolute knowledge, in

which history would become completely transparent to itself.

Consciousness of being effected by history is primarily conscious-

ness of the hermeneutical situation. To acquire an awareness of asituation is, however, always a task of peculiar difficulty. We

always find ourselves in a situation, and throwing light on it is a

task that is never entirely finished. The illumination [Erhellung]

of this situationreflection on effective historycan never be

completely achieved. (TM, 3012; GW, 1:3067, italics in original)

There is thus a limit to the power ofBildung not only in thesense that presuppositions can never be fully discarded, theycannot even be made completely self-conscious. One can,

Gadamer argues, acknowledge that Bildung is an element ofspirit without subscribing to Hegels philosophy of absolutespirit (TM, 15, trans. modified; GW, 1:20).

However, despite Gadamers attempt to resist the force ofHegelian dialectic, he sometimes himself suggests that there isa link between the awareness of ones limits (presuppositions)and the overcoming of them (understanding or even recognizingthe historical other). Thus, Gadamer insists on the historianscontext-dependence, while at the same time stressing both that

a distinction between self and other in historical study mayoccur and that this distinction may be adequate and evenexhaustive. The otherness of historical texts may be grasped insuch a way that the interpreters Bildung is promoted. Mostimportantly, the historians presuppositions may thereby bedetachedly related to in some sense by him or her.

Hence the hermeneutically trained mind will also include historical

consciousness. It will make conscious the presuppositions governing

our own understanding, so that the text, as anothers meaning

[Andersmeinung], can be isolated [abhebt] and valued on its own.We know what this requires, namely the fundamental suspension

[grundstzliche Suspension] of our own presuppositions. (TM, 299,

trans. modified; GW, 1:304)

But what does the suspension of presuppositions mean? Doesit mean that they are conclusively discarded, temporarily putout of action, or used in an uncommitted way without beingsubscribed to unreservedly? Neither of these alternatives,however, guarantees that the otherness of a historical text is

itself understood, and even less that it is accepted as achallenge to ones own views. Even if I manage to discard my

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seems to suggest that there is indeed a direct link between theawareness of ones limits (presuppositions) and the overcomingof them (understanding or even recognizing the other).

Elsewhere, however, Gadamer argues (as we have seen) thatthe awareness of limits does not show that they have been

overcome. In this context Gadamer even asserts that presup-positions are conditions of possibility of access to otherness andthat they are not in this sense contingent or even inevitablelimits to such access (TM, 302; GW, 1:307). The sense of beinglimited by presuppositions is thus not a sign of a transgressionof such a limit but rather of the opposite. Insofar as the historianrefuses to let himself be influenced by his presuppositions in hisencounter with the past in perceiving them as limits, theotherness of the past will actually be prevented from appearing.

This, one might say, is an inversion of Hegels view that

limits are transgressed through the awareness of them.According to Gadamer, the sense of limitation in cases of thiskind shows that the other is reduced to a mere historical sourceand thereby prevented from challenging ones own views. Thisclaim would, I believe, be Gadamers answer to the charge ofambiguity that I have made above, that is, Gadamer stressesboth the importance of otherness in historical study and theapplication of the other to ones own views in such study.According to Gadamer, the discarding of the historianspresuppositions would indeed allow the otherness of the past toappear, but only an otherness in the form of mere difference. Inorder for the past to be seen as otherness in the sense of achallenge to ones own views, the historian must transposeherself into the past.12 If this claim is correct, Gadamersalternating claims that otherness and application is central toBildung would perhaps not constitute an ambiguity after all. Ishall return to this issue in what follows.

4. Hegel on the Power ofBildung

When stressing the importance of otherness for BildungGadamer argues that: The universal viewpoints to which thecultivated man [der Gebildete] keeps himself open are present to him only as the viewpoints of possible others (TM,17; GW, 1:23).

Elsewhere, however, Gadamer asserts that presuppositionsform a horizon (Horizont) by means of which otherness isapproached and that if there are shared concerns or views incases of this kind, a fusion (Verschmelzung) of ones own

horizon with that of the other can occur (TM, 302f.; GW,1:307f.).13 This is something else than the simple adoption of the

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confronting each other are fused (TM, 290; GW, 1:295). Still lessdoes the fusion abandon any particularity, and in this respect itresembles the perception of oneself from another point of view,as well as the application of the other through the transposingof oneself into his or her situation.14

But it could of course be argued that Bildung does notalways consist in (1) a fusion of horizons. Nor need it consist in(2) a detached point of view on self only through the otherhorizon. Bildung can also, or so it would seem, mean (3)reflection on the possibility that both horizons (or even allhorizons) are questionable. A detached consideration of thiskind would transcend both horizons in a way that cannot bedescribed either as their fusion, or as the perception of oneselffrom the other point of view, or (finally) as the application ofthe other to ones own concerns.

Now, Hegel seems to affirm the possibility of (3) andthereby differ from all of Gadamers alternating positions inthis respect. But Hegel describes (3) in somewhat differentways; sometimes he suggests that it amounts to an uncom-mitted having of different particular standpoints that does notaffirm any one of them unreservedly.15 Elsewhere, however, hesuggests that Bildung may take the form of an even moreradical form of detachment that does notcontain particularityat all. I now turn to a discussion of these two different sensesofBildung in Hegel, referring to them as (3a) and (3b), respec-tively.

Otherness can involve contrariety, contradiction, a source oftension, or difference. Having irreconcilable desires is othernessin the first sense. Thus, for example, I may wish to studyphilosophy but also economics, and I can abstain from studyingboth, but the choice of one of them excludes a choice of theother. Similarly, two beliefs can be contraries in the sense thatboth can be false, but both cannot be true. By contrast, thetruth of a belief implies the falsity of its contradiction.

Alternatively, of course, the divergence of beliefs may amount tomere difference, which is not a source of tension insofar asthere is no rivalry involved.

Whereas Hegel sometimes seems to hold that (3b) above ispossible and that it occurs through a pure negation thatcontradicts any particular point of view, Gadamer asserts, as wehave seen, that (1) takes place through another horizon thatinvolves contrariety or a source of tension.16

As we have also seen, Hegel holds that the other is initiallyseen not as another selfbut as not beingoneself, that is, as ~F

rather than G, where F is oneself. This dismissal treats theother as contradiction, not as contrariety or difference. ButH l l d ib th ti it (N i i ) t d b


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But in order for this to occur one must take the other seriouslyinstead of seeing him or her simply as not being oneself.

As I have already indicated, Gadamer often argues thatBildung is induced by the particular perspectives of others, andhe even suggests that it consists in the affirmation of them.

Thus, we are possessed [eingenommen] by something [otherness]and preciselybymeansofit are we opened up [aufgeschlossen]for the new, the different, the true (PH, 9; GW, 2:225, italicsadded).

Hegel, by contrast, sometimes argues that Bildung (3b) is aform of pure negativity, which amounts to an activity withoutsubstrate, as it were, and that the detached point of view thatthis permits does not contain particularity even in the sense of(3a) (PS, 10;PG, 18. See also PM,Zusatz to 378). This is not aperception of oneself from the standpoints of others or a fusion

of ones horizon with that of the other. This Bildung is a purenegativity in that it negates any particular standpoint, notfrom another standpoint but in virtue of being the absence ofany particular standpoint at all.

Hegel distinguishes between determinate and abstractnegation (EL, 147;E, 130 (91)). A determinate negation eitherretains parts of what is negated or is not simply its absence.But an abstract negation is an absence of particularity,corresponding to (3b), and is not accomplished through anotherpoint of view in either of the ways that Gadamer invokes whendescribingBildung in terms of (1) or (2).

According to Hegel, the particularity of ones cultural contextcan be related to transformatively, in which case, for example,political institutions are changed in accordance with an alterna-tive conception of social life. But context can also be related toin a purely negative way.

Only in destroying something does this negative will have a feeling

of its own existence [Dasein]. It may well believe that it wills some

positive condition but it does not in fact will the positiveactuality [Wirklichkeit] of this condition, for this at once gives rise

to some kind of order, a particularization both of institutions and

individuals; but it is precisely through the annihilation of particu-

larity that the self-consciousness of this negative freedom arises.

(EPR, 38; GPR, 29 (5))17

In the case of transformation of society in accordance with analternative conception of it, there is contrariety, whereas in thecase of the negative will there is contradiction, for the person

both is and is not particular, that is, she both is and is not amember of her culture.

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things, which cease to be as a result of their contradictorynature (SL, 23738; WL, 1:23223). According to Hegel, the I isfree from particularity in the sense that it says I of itself inthe same sense as anyone can say this (PS, 314;PG, 280). TheIas universal (which Hegel calls the pure I) thereby resembles

the term this, which is indifferently (gleichgltig) applicable toany entity (PS, 6062;PG, 6566). But the pure I contradictsthe cultural particularity which the individual also is.

However, by contradiction Hegel also refers to tensionsand conflicts; there is in this sense a contradiction betweenthe childs lack of rationality and his potential having of it,and this functions as a vehicle ofBildung (LHP, 1:2122).There is an otherness belonging to Spirit as such, consisting ofa future stateof rationality, which Spirit attempts to makeactual and which conflicts with its present state. This is

neither contrary nor contradictory; it is not the case that eachthing is in either the potential or the actual state involved butnot in the other, and they may both exist at the same time inthe same subject. But the otherness of the potential state is nomere difference either insofar as it is a vehicle of change; thepotential challenges the actual in such a way that a new stateis attained.

The relation between the universality of the pure I and theparticularity of cultural context can also, or so it would seem, beseen as a source of tension rather than as a contradiction in alogical sense. Thus, Hegel makes the following claims on therelation between thought and cultural context, claims thatsuggest that the particularity of such a context cannot bediscarded in the strong sense of pure negativity or contradiction(3b above) but that it may be had in an uncommitted waythroughBildung (in sense 3a): But if philosophy does not standabove its time in content, it does so in form, because, as thethought and knowledge of that which is the substantial spirit ofits time, it makes that spirit its object (LHP, 1:54). Philosophy

is its time comprehended in thoughts (EPR, 21; GPR, 15). WhatHegel means by this is not easy to say, but he seems to havesomething like the following in mind: the form of unreflectiveassent of the first stage in the triad ofBildung is overcome insuch a way that particularity (the content), through being madethe object of philosophical thought, is seen as possible to justify,or as requiring justification, or even as problematic.18

And Hegel asserts that the individual is a child [Sohn] ofhis time in the even weaker sense of retaining its concerns:Every philosophy is the philosophy of its own day, a link in the

whole chain of spiritual development, and thus it can only findsatisfaction for the interests belonging to its own particularti (LHP 1 45 h i dd d) Th l ti f th ht t


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the individual may use the presuppositions of context withoutunreservedly (or irrevocably) conformingto them, or even tryingto justify them. Similarly, a legacy of presuppositions isrequired by the activity of Spirit, but this legacy is eventuallydegraded to a material by this activity (LHP, 1:3).19

Indeed, Gadamer sometimes expresses a similar view,arguing that Bildung and its detached point of view requiresself-recognition in otherness. He thereby seems to hold that thisprocess depends on the horizons involved sharing certainconcerns. A shared tradition, which provides the necessaryframework for a fusion of horizons, is homogeneous insofar ascertain questions are posed by its members, but it only indicatesthe answers (Vorzeichnen von Antworten) to these questionswithout dictating them (DD, 111; GW, 2:370).

However, despite this occasional convergence between

Gadamer and Hegel, Gadamer most frequently differs fromHegels position. As Gadamer says: I do not at all deny that ifone wants to understand, one must endeavor to distance oneselffrom ones opinions on the matter [Sachmeinungen]. Still, Ithink that hermeneutic experience teaches us that the effort todo so succeeds only to a limited extent (TM, 56768; GW,2:466). And when Gadamer argues in this way, he rejects theidea (which he elsewhere seems to embrace) that Bildung ispossible even in the weak sense of affirmation of the particularstandpoints of other historical contexts.

5. The Triad ofBildung Revisited

The foregoing discussion has attempted to show that one way ofunderstanding Hegel is to see him as arguing that the indi-vidual is neither Gadamerian particularity in the sense ofretaining both the content and form of particularity (i.e., boththe presuppositions induced by the historical context and theassent prevalent in this context), nor pure negativity.20 As we

have seen, Hegel holds that determination is negation and thatnegation is determinate. Particularity cannot, this claim seemsto imply, be discarded in the strong sense of pure negation, butdeterminate negation reduces particularity to a mere property(PM,Zusatz to 410). Instead ofbeing his or her particularity,the individual now comes to have it in a less committed, unre-flective way at the second stage in the triad ofBildung. Andthis corresponds toBildung in sense (3a).

Similarly, the subject initially sees herself as a property ofculture. Thus, the individual understands herself as being her

culture or some other particularity on her part. This mode ofthought has not yet arrived at the notion that the subject hash ti i ti i lt i th f f di t (P di t)


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assent is overcome, and particularity thereby had in an uncom-mitted way.21

Hegels analysis of habit (Gewohnheit ) is conducted insimilar terms. Habit, Hegel says, reduces particularity to aproperty (Bestimmung). In habit, the soul neither negates its

particularities, nor is it absorbed in them, but has them (PM,140;E, 415 (410)).22 Similarly, Hegel stresses what he takes tobe a difference between the Bildung of ancient and moderntimes; the former, he tells us, consisted in raising the individualfrom sensuous apprehension to the universality of thought,whereas the latter must free the individual from the fixity ofthe abstract form that he or she finds ready-made. Hegel says:Thoughts become fluid when pure thinking, this inner imme-diacy, recognizes itself as a [mere] moment [as an aspect andnot as the whole], or when the pure certainty of self abstracts

from itselfnot by leaving itself out, or setting itself aside, butby giving up the fixity of its self-positing [das Fixe ihresSichselbstseztens] (PS, 20;PG, 28).Bildung and its detachedpoint of view on self consists, Hegel seems to say, not in purenegativity (leaving the certainty or affirmation of self out), butin an uncommitted use of what was formerly affirmed in anunreflective way. As a result, the fixity (unreserved affirma-tion) of the ungebildete person is overcome.

However, the individual is finally reconciled with particularityin reflectively coming to see it as her own being and not as amere property at the third stage in the triad ofBildung. Thesecond stage in the triad ofBildung is not its culmination, aswe have already seen. Hegel says:

Every self-consciousness knows itself as universal, as the possi-

bility of abstracting from everything determinate, and as particu-

lar, with a determinate object [Gegenstand], content and end. But

these two moments [Momente] are only abstractions; what is

concrete and true is the universality which has the particular as

its opposite, but this particular has been reconciled [ausgeglichen]with the universal. (EPR, 41; GPR, 3031 (7))

The individual, in contrast to what Hegel (as we saw in theprevious section) calls the pure I, reconciles the particularwith the universal. The particular is universal insofar asdetermination is negation. In this sense, affirmation (or the lackofBildung) is never unconditional, or at least never final.

Conversely, the universal is particular insofar as negation isdeterminate. It is for this reason, Hegel argues, that, for

example, the adolescent and certain forms of cultural critiquewrongly believe themselves to turn against family and society

ith t li i th t h t th iti i i h t k th


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are shared presuppositions involved in these cases. The presup-positions of cultural critique unnoticeably remain the same asthose of its target, and there is thus nothing inconsistent orfundamentally diverse in a culture (LHP, 1:54).

Now, this would seem to mean that the individual only

believes himself to have his particularity, while remaining itsproperty. Detachment is not real, not even in the sense that theindividual tries to detach himself while failing to do so, andwhen interpreted in this way Hegel is not very far from aGadamerian position. But a difference between Hegel andGadamer remains insofar as Hegel holds that the dependenceon particularity is at last reflectively and rationally grasped;the adult eventually grasps that there is no ultimate conflict oreven distinction between self and family, or between self andsociety. In Gadamer there is no equivalent to this, although

Gadamer, too, insists that, for example, authority is legitimate inmost situations. But in order for this assumption to be justified,Gadamer does not require that the individual herself in eachsituation (or even ever)grasps the rationality of authority.24

As we have seen, Hegel holds that the second stage in thetriad ofBildung involves recognizing the other as such andthat this permits an uncommitted having of ones own particu-larity. By contrast, Gadamer implies that the individual is herhistorical particularity and that she does not only have it.Discussing this issue, Gadamer says the following:

All self-knowledge [Sichwissen] arises from what is historically

pregiven [geschichtlicher Vorgegebenheit], what with Hegel we call

substance, because it underlies all subjective intentions and

actions and hence both prescribes and limits every possibility for

understanding any tradition whatsoever in its historical otherness

[Andersheit]. This almost defines the aim of [Gadamerian] philo-

sophical hermeneutics: its task is to retrace the path of Hegels

phenomenology of Spirit until we discover in all that is subjective

the substantiality that determines it. (TM, 302, trans. slightlymodified; GW, 1:307)

When arguing thus, Gadamer holds that subjectivity is a propertyof substance and not the reverse. Subjectivity is a property thathistorical context (substance) has; historical context is not aproperty that the individual and her subjectivity has. AndGadamer stresses that this substance does not consist in avehicle or material of thought that may be related to in anuncommitted or wholly reflected way (in sense 3a ofBildung),

and even less can it be discarded altogether so that an absenceof particularity is attained (in sense 3b). To use Hegels termin-l G d d i b th th t ti it i ibl


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LHP Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 3 vols., trans. E. S.Haldane and F. Simson (Lincoln: University of NebraskaPress, 1995). References to volume number are by Arabicnumerals.

PG Phnomenologie des Geistes, Gesammelte Werke, Band 9, ed. W.

Bonsiepen and R. Heede (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1980)

PhG Philosophie der Geschichte, ed. E. Glans and K. Hegel (Berlin:Duncker und Humblot, 1848)

PhH The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (New York: Dover,1956)

PM Hegels Philosophy of Mind, trans. W. Wallace and A. V. Miller(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971)

PS Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1977)SL Hegels Science of Logic, trans. A. V. Miller (London: Allen &

Unwin, 1969)

WL 1 Wissenschaft der Logik. Erster Teil. Die objektive Logik.Erster Band. Die Lehre vom Sein (1812), Gesammelte Werke,Band 21, ed. F. Hogemann and W. Jaeschke (Hamburg: FelixMeiner, 1985)

Works by Gadamer

DD Destruktion and Deconstruction, trans. R. E. Palmer and G.Waite, inDialogue and Deconstruction. The Gadamer-Derrida

Encounter, ed. R. E. Palmer and D. P. Michelfelder (Albany:SUNY Press, 1987)

GW Gesammelte Werke, 10 vols. (Tbingen: Mohr, 198695)References to volume number are by Arabic numerals.

HD Hegels Dialectic. Five Hermeneutical Studies, trans. P.Christopher Smith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976)

PH Philosophical Hermeneutics, trans. and ed. D. E. Linge(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976)

TM Truth and Method, 2nd rev. edn., ed. and trans. J. Weinsheimerand D. G. Marshall (London: Sheed & Ward, 1989)

Notes

1 See Hegels Nuremberg speech of 29 September 1809, inGesammelteWerke, Band 10, vol. 1. NrnbergerGymnasialkurseundGymnasialreden (18081816), ed. Klaus Grotsch (Hamburg: FelixMeiner, 2006), 45565.


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Die Bildung). According to Hegel, Bildung involves alienation(Entfremdung) and separation (Trennung) from ones natural state.The alien character of, e.g., the ancient world alienates us from ourown culture and permits us to no longer simply take it for granted.Similarly, Gadamer describes what he calls historical consciousness(geschichtlichesBewusstsein) as alienation (Entfremdung). According

to Gadamer, this consciousness emerged in the nineteenth century inphilosophers such as Wilhelm Dilthey as a result of an increasinginterest in history. Due to this interest, the natural (unreflective)identification with ones historical context is, Gadamer holds, disturbedinsofar as it becomes seen as one such context among many otherswithout any special status; see TM, 275; GW, 1:280; TM, 65; GW, 1:7071.

3 In his account ofBildung, Gadamer explicitly invokes Hegelsdual stress on the importance of the alien and familiar character ofthe ancients; see TM, 14; GW, 1:19. Hermeneutics, Gadamer similarly

says, is based on a polarity of familiarity and strangeness. The truelocus ofhermeneutics is this in-between [Zwischen] (TM, 295; GW,1:300, italics in original).

4 That the encounter with other cultures immediately gives riseto uncertainty is of course too simplistic a view, and Hegel elsewhereshows that he is well aware of this, as we shall see.

5 For Gadamers interpretation of this aspect of the masterslavedialectic, seeHD, 63; GW, 3:55.

6 A tendency to describe unfamiliar norms as an absence of normsas such would perhaps be an example of this attitude. Hegel does not,however, to my knowledge provide exactly this example himself.

7 For a critical discussion of this aspect of Gadamers thought, seemy Gadamer on Context-Dependence, Review of Metaphysics 57(2003): 75104.

8 I shall return to this claim on Hegels part in what follows.9 According to Hegel, this is the ultimate reconciliation between self

and other at the third stage in the triad ofBildung, a reconciliation dueto the insight that reality as such has the character of the self, i.e.,Spirit. On Hegels view, Kant has partly understood the finitude of theconcepts of the understanding insofar as they are said by Kant himselfto be inapplicable to the thing itself, and this setting of their limitpresupposes access to the other side of this limit, however imperfect

this access may be. Hegel argues that reality and negation (concepts ofthe understanding in Kant) sublate themselves (sich aufheben) whenapplied in isolation. Reality (determination) is negation. For instance,red has its identity in virtue ofnot being green. Conversely, negationis determinate; not red differs from not green and does not simply referto an absence of red. The finitude of the understanding thus does notconsist in the fact that we employ the concepts of reality and negationand that they are inapplicable to the thing in itself, as Kant thought,but in these concepts themselves and in the fact that they areinapplicable independently of each other (EL,Zusatz to 60).

10

For Hegel on this issue, see, e.g.,PS, 56;PG, 61.11 Briefly described in note 9 above.12 For a somewhat more detailed discussion of different senses of


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sense of the sheer otherness of the other, and thus rises to the thirdstage in the triad ofBildung. Rortys description of Gadamer is partialin stressing the way in whichBildung on Gadamers view is a sense ofthe relativity of descriptive vocabularies to periods, traditions andhistorical accidents (Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of

Nature [Oxford: Blackwell, 1980], 362). This description correctly

stresses one claim on Gadamers part but fails to take account ofGadamers other claim that the purpose ofBildung is application(Anwendung)the return to oneself through otherness in a fusion ofhorizons.

14 To be sure, a fusion of horizons should perhaps be understood asgoing beyond mere combination, i.e., as resulting in something thatdiscards both original horizons instead of simply enlarging or revisingthem. The problem is this: should a fusion of horizons be understoodas an alloy or as a compound? Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin;they keep their identity in being joined. In an alloy, no chemical

reaction occurs and the mixture can usually be separated back into itsoriginal components. By contrast, water is a compound of hydrogenand oxygen; they are transformed in being joined. Indeed, Gadamersometimes describes the fusion of horizons in a way that suggests thatit is a compound: it consists, he tells us, in rising to a higheruniversality [hheren Allgemeinheit] that overcomes not only our ownparticularity [Partikularitt] but also that of the other (TM, 305; GW,1:310).

15As we shall see in what follows, Hegel holds that the having ofparticularity means being able to distance oneself from it instead ofunreflectively being it.

16 Mere difference and contradiction do not, or so it would seem,contain that shared basis that Gadamer describes as a precondition ofthe fusion of horizons. And in the case of contrariety, it would seem asif the fusion must be a compound and not an alloy, to use the termin-ology introduced above, since two contrary alternatives cannot both betrue. They must therefore be transformed so as to form a coherentconception.

17 Hegel refers to the final stages of the French Revolution in thispassage. For Hegel on the French Revolution, see also the sectioncalled Absolute Freedom and Terror [Schrecken], in PS, 355ff.;PG,316ff.

18 But why would the notion that a form of particularity is possibleto justify count as reflection? Because even trust is a mode ofreflection (EPR 191; GPR 134 (147)). Insofar as I trust something,Hegel seems to say, I have already (however plainly) raised the questionwhether it is trustworthy.

19 Hegel here seems to invoke Aristotles view that form and matterare relative, so that what is form on lower ontological levels is merematter on higher levels. See Aristotle, The Physics, trans. P. H.Wicksteed and F. M. Cornford (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress, 1929), 194b.

20

For a similar interpretation, see Rdiger Bubner, Essays inHermeneutics and Critical Theory , trans. E. Matthews (New York:Columbia University Press, 1988), 60.


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the perception of a particular state (such as a headache) as an insur-mountable limit that is impossible to ignore requires that the subjectis not immersed in this state and thus has it instead ofbeing it. Thisis one version of Hegels claim that limits are transgressed throughthe awareness of them, a claim discussed in section 3 above. Hegelthus argues that pains would not be felt by a sentient creature if it

were not beyond them (darber hinaus) (SL, 135; WL, 1:122). Now, thisseems to mean that a sentient creature is not a collection of states butdistinct from them and that this is a prerequisite of their beingexperienced as limits. If a sentient creature were immersed in itsparticular states, that is, if it were them as opposed to having them, itwould not perceive them as limits (Schranken). By contrast, the limits(Grenzen) of inanimate objects are only for us (EL, 105;E, 97 (60)).For instance, that a stone lacks certain characteristics is not perceivedby the stone itself as a limit. And there is in the stone nothing thatperceives itself as limited by the characteristics it does have.

22

As Malabou points out, habit comes from the Latin habere,which means to have. Habit is a way of having and in this senseinvolves a possession or a property. It stands halfway between abstractnegation (pure negativity) and immersion (unreserved affirmation). Oras Malabou puts it: Habit emerges as a liberating process, saving thesoul from the two forms of dissolutioneither lost in the emptiness ofideality [abstract negation] or absorbed in a determinate part isolatedfrom the whole [unreserved affirmation] (Catherine Malabou, The

Future of Hegel. Plasticity, Temporality and Dialectic, trans. L. During[London: Routledge, 2005], 37). Ferrarin describes a similar change inthe relation between nature and Spirit: If I duplicate myself and am

object to myself, I am a division between what is mine and myself; Iknow myself in and as this opposition. Hence I am not tied to mybiological life; I have a life [instead of simply being it], which means Iam free from it (for example, I can risk it for the sake of somethinghigher) (Alfredo Ferrarin,Hegel and Aristotle [Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2001], 233). Or as Hegel himself puts it: I havethese limbs and my life only inso far as I will it; the animal cannotmutilate or destroy itself, but the human being can (EPR, 78; GPR, 56(47), first italics added).

23As Hegel says: What, in relation to the single individual ,appears as his cultivation [Bildung], is the essential moment of the

substance [culture] itself. What appears here as the power andauthority [Gewalt] of the individual exercised over the substance,which is thereby superseded [aufgehoben], is the same thing as theactualization [Verwirklichung] of the substance (PS, 29889, trans.modified;PG, 268. See also PS, 21;PG, 29). Culture, Hegel here seemsto say, does not change through the otherness of emancipatedindividuals. Their critique is a symptom of cultural change and not thecause of such change. But why does Hegel call culture substance? Onhis view, no culture consists of subjects who are constantly reflective:there are always, even in modern society, certain unreflected activities

and assumptions in, e.g., family life. The family is thus based onfeeling and not on reflection (PM, 255;E, 497 (518)). This is part ofthe ethical substance, which underlies the reflective individual.


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the form of a property.24 Thus, authority rests on recognition [Anerkennung] and hence

on an act of reason itself which, aware of its own limitations, trusts tothe better insight of others [anderen] (TM, 279, trans. modified; GW,1:284). For an interesting discussion of this difference betweenGadamer and Hegel, see Robert B. Pippin, Gadamers Hegel, in

Gadamers Century. Essays in Honor of Hans-Georg Gadamer, ed. J.Malpas, U. Arnswald and J. Kertscher (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,2002), 22556.

25 For the distinction between transformation and alteration, seeTM, 111; GW, 1:116. This distinction is made by Gadamer in a discus-sion of aesthetic experience, but he clearly sees a structural parallelbetween such experience and the effect of being historically situated.

26 I would like to thank Ingvar Johansson, Pr Sundstrm, SharonRider, Bertil Strmberg, and the participants in the seminars inTheoretical Philosophy at Uppsala University and Ume University

for valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper.


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Documents

Hegel and Gadamer on Bildung