From Homo Educandus to Homo Aestheticus: Kant on education

Abstract

The strength and weakness of the committed enlightenment of Professor Kant and his disciples lies in this surface paradox : in the kingdom of nature there is a being whose nature cannot be completely developed by nature, a being whose real nature is freedom, that is to say, a being which needs an ‘artii cial’ or ‘artistic’ ef ort to unfold his nature. This species of being is mankind as constitut- ing to itself its absolute beginning as well as its absolute end. The strength of this position consists in the ultimate synthetic unity tying nature and education through a certain naturalisation of freedom. As for its weakness, one can point out the ontological temptation of an aesthetic self-comprehension that seduces inevitably every free subject and encourages him to divide time and history, ‘to divide in order to rule’. In man, the development of nature is not reducible to generation, but it implies production. For man is not a natural given ; he does not appear to himself as an originally ‘ready-made’ work of nature. Instead, he i nds in himself nothing but the « natural readiness » (natürliche Fertigkeit) that has to be cultivated and exercised so that his natural organic system of virtual powers can convert into an organic unii ed system of actual performances. Let us elaborate on this issue where Kant’s rel ections on education 1 convoke his critical thought.