Hegel and Gadamer on Bildung

The Southern Journal of Philosophy (2008) Vol. XLVI

Hegel and Gadamer on Bildung

Anders Odenstedt Ume University

Abstract
Hegel argues that Bildung (cultivation or education) involves an ability to reflect on ones habitual beliefs in a detached, uncommitted way. According to Hegel, the educated ( gebildete ) individual is able to consider a manifold of standpoints on a given issue through awareness of the historical and cultural variability of beliefs. Hans-Georg Gadamer invokes Hegels account of Bildung in arguing that historical study permits current presuppositions ( Vorurteile ) to become reflected through the awareness of cognitive plurality and change that such study brings about. The paper mainly tries to show three things: (i) that Hegel is a source of inspiration for Gadamer in this regard but that there are also important differences between their accounts of Bildung ; (ii) that these accounts are not unambiguous; and (iii) that Gadamer, in particular, makes somewhat elusive claims on the power of Bildung.

Introduction
Rousseaus Emile or On Education (1762) argues that the task of education is to help the child develop its natural abilities by isolating it from civilized life. Emile was greeted with considerable enthusiasm but was vigorously opposed by Hegel, whose account of education ( Bildung ) is the direct opposite of Rousseaus. According to Hegel, the purpose of Bildung is precisely 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 Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 36:1 (January 2005), and Art and History in Gadamers Hermeneutics, Phnomenologische Forschungen 2007. Odenstedts interests include German phenomenology and hermeneutics and the history of philosophy, especially Hegel.

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Bildung counters the childs insistence on the priority of its own beliefs and desires. But the second nature that is thus acquired may later in life become subject to a process of Bildung through formal education which creates a third nature, as it were, and this, Hegel holds, is one goal of historical study. Thus, Hegel argues that the study of the ancient world is especially appropriate for providing this form of Bildung.1 The ancient world, Hegel says, is sufficiently alien ( fremd ) to separate ( trennen ) us from our natural state, that is, the culture to which we belong.2 But the ancient world is also similar enough to our culture to permit us to find ourselves again (uns wiederfinden ) in it. 3 As we shall see, this means that the individual that has acquired Bildung no longer simply takes the validity and significance of his culture for granted through the resources 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 the culmination of Bildung as such but nevertheless forms an integral part of it. Hegel argues that educated (gebildete) people are capable of turning things [Sachen] round and considering them in many aspects. This ability involves, Hegel says, a power of keeping the manifold points of view present to the mind, so that the wealth of categories by which an object may be considered are grasped ( LHP , 1:359). Awareness of other historical and cultural milieus may play an important role in this 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 view or the opposite is wrong. (LHP, 2:355)4

Similarly, awareness of the perspectives of others is essential to the Bildung that society through its norms and customs inculcates.
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 easily cause offence, for he simply lets himself go and does not reflect on the feelings [ Empfindungen ] of others. ( PR , Zusatz to 187)

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Gadamers view of the value of historical study and the Geisteswissenschaften in general is indebted to Hegels account of Bildung . Gadamer thus holds that historical study may permit contemporary presuppositions ( Vorurteile ) to become reflected. Insofar as the beliefs and customs of the past diverge from those of the present, they may allow the educated individual ( der Gebildete ) to relate to his or her own cultural milieu in a reflective way (TM, 17; GW, 1:23). The awareness of cognitive plurality and change that historical study may bring about permits the educated man to relate to current views and customs more reflectively than the individual who assumes that there are no alternatives to them. The educated man, one might say, has the ability to judge his own historical context from the standpoint of other such contexts. As Gadamer says:
That is what, following Hegel, we emphasized as the general characteristic of Bildung : 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 between Hegels and Gadamers accounts of Bildung and to distinguish between different senses in which their respective claims on this issue may be understood.

1. The Triad of Bildung

Hegel provides what is surely his most famous example of Bildung 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 selfconsciousness; it has come out of itself [auer sich gekommen]. This has a twofold significance: first, it has lost itself, for it finds itself as an other [ anderes ] being [ Wesen ]; second, in doing so it has superseded [ aufgehoben ] the other, for it does not see the other as a being [Wesen ], but in the other sees its own self ( PS , 111, trans. modified; PG , 109). At this stage of the dialectic, the individual does not consider the other point of view as such and presupposes that it is basically the same as his own. 5 Self-consciousness is thus simple being-for-self, self-equal [sichselbstgleich] through the exclusion from itself of everything else [ andern] (PS, 113; PG, 110). The other is then reduced to a negatively characterized object [Gegenstand] (PS, 113; PG, 111) and is thus perceived as not being oneself, not as another self.6

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Hegel holds that, at these stages of the dialectic, the other is not recognized as an independent individual and that this prevents detachment from ones own desires and beliefs. Subsequently, however, due to the submission of the slave, he arrives at such a detached point of view. The demands of the master are initially seen as threatening by the slave, but he eventually realizes that the subjection of his will to another is not an undue imposition on him. There is no ultimate distinction between I and We (PS, 110; PG, 108). The slave learns to see things with the masters eyes and checks his desires (Begierde) instead of favoring the satisfaction of them: Since the slave works for the master and not in the exclusive interest of his own individuality, his desire is expanded into being not only the desire 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 corresponding 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 challenges ones initial socialization, Hegel sees a triad in different approaches to the past in historical study as well. He distinguishes between original (ursprnglich), reflective, and philosophical history writing (PhH, 1f.; PhG, 3f.). Original history is characterized by the fact that the Bildung that has formed the writer is identical with that which has moulded the events that constitute the matter of his story. Reflections are none of his business, 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 whose mode of representation [Darstellung] is not confined by the limits of the time to which it relates, but whose spirit transcends the present ( PhH , 4; PhG , 6). Original history disregards otherness, whereas reflective history is aware of the distinction between self and other, although it initially fails to apply this distinction correctly in interpreting the past in terms of the present; the historian will thus insist upon his own spirit as that of the age in question (PhH, 7; PhG, 10). Philosophical history, finally, understands that the past and the present are both stages in the development of Spirit. World history is the actualization ( Verwirklichung ) of Spirits selfconsciousness and freedom ( EPR , 372; GPR , 271 (342)). The past may give a misleading impression of being different from, 562

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or even unrelated to, the present, but the realization that history is the actualization of Spirit permits the superficiality of the distinction between self and other to be discovered. The actualization of Spirit through history does not give rise to any new 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 to discover typical behavior in ones fellowmen in such a way that predictions about others on the basis of experience can be made. This approach does not recognize the otherness (Anderssein ) of the past but rather assumes that current modes of thought and conduct are transhistorical: we thus understand the 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 the mistake made by the first attitude toward otherness rejected by Gadamer. The mistaken sense of otherness rather occurs in a shared historical context. The extent of cognitive diversity and change in such a context is, Gadamer holds, easily overrated by individuals situated in it insofar as the persistence of basic, shared presuppositions is ignored. In such cases, Bildung is not indicated by a sense of otherness but rather by the reverse ( TM , xxiv; GW , 1:34). 7 Thus, what Gadamer refers to as historically effected consciousness (wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewutsein) rises to the third stage in the triad of Bildung. Through this consciousness, self and other are understood as belonging to the same historical context and as both subject to its effect (Wirkung). The culmination of Bildung in a shared historical context thus means reconciliation between self 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 of Bildung

The stages in the triad of Bildung according to both Hegel and Gadamer may thus be outlined in the following way: (i) Unreflected unity with ones natural state, and a corresponding neglect of otherness; 563

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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 self that the second stage in the triad of Bildung involves does not, one might perhaps say, mean regarding myself as I would regard myself if I were in the shoes of the other; it means regarding myself as the other regards me.8 This view is at odds with a frequent assumption on Gadamers part. According to this assumption, Bildung always contains a residue of ones own initial standpoint: [if] we overcome the presuppositions [Vorurteile] and limitations of our previous experience of the world, this does not mean that we leave and negate our own world. Like travelers we return home with new experiences. Even if we emigrate and never return, we still 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 transposing ourselves? Certainly not disregarding ourselves. This is necessary, of course, insofar as we must imagine the other situation. 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 of others ( TM , 17; GW , 1:2223). And Gadamer goes on to say something that suggests that his view on this issue is even more complex: If we put ourselves in someone elses shoes, for example, then we will understand himthat is, become aware of the otherness, the indissoluble individuality [Individualitt] of the other personby putting ourselves 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 ones own presuppositions is that these presuppositions are used in order to stress aspects of the past that may be relevant to the present. By contrast, insofar as the other is approached as a mere historical source, he or she is no longer taken seriously as a partner in dialogue, as it were (TM, 361; GW, 1:367). But it does not seem correct to say, as Gadamer does, that transposing oneself into the others standpoint involves understanding his or her individuality. It rather seems to mean applying the other to contemporary issues in such a way that he or she may be seen as relevant to them. And Gadamer often describes this application ( Anwendung ) as the proper approach toward otherness in historical study. For instance, he says the following: I must allow traditions claim to validity, not in the sense of simply acknowledging the past in its otherness 564

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[Andersheit], but in such a way that it has something to say to me (TM, 361; GW, 1:367). Indeed, Gadamer himself is often critical of the tendency to reduce the other to individuality and argues that such reduction occurs in situations in which the claims of the other are not taken seriously as even failed attempts to account for their subject matters. As a result, the claims of the other are neither assented to nor doubted but are understood in an uncommitted way by means of historical or psychological analysis. Insofar as the goal of dialogue is to understand the individuality of the other in this way, an attempt to reach a better understanding of the subject matter will not occur. As Gadamer says: Where a person is concerned with the other as individualityfor example, in a therapeutic conversation or the interrogation of a man accused 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 not only that the reduction to what he calls individuality is undesirable , but also that it is impossible insofar as the otherness available to the historian involves what he or she would perceive in the shoes of the other. According to Gadamer, the recognition or even understanding of the historical other is limited by this fact. This apparent ambiguity, to which I shall return in what follows, is central to Gadamers account of Bildung.

3. The Dialectic of Limits

But let us for the moment ignore this ambiguity in Gadamer and focus on his claim that the recognition of otherness, and thereby the power of Bildung , is limited by the context of the historian. This claim diverges from a frequent assumption on Hegels part. According to this assumption, precisely the notion that there is a limit to, for example, the recognition of otherness shows that this limit has been overcome. In order to know that the recognition of otherness is limited, or perhaps even to grasp the possibility that such limitation obtains, the individual must already have overcome it. And Hegel holds that this is the case with the awareness of limits generally. Gadamer correctly describes Hegels views in this respect in a passage that merits quotation 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 distinction, and separating the appearance from the thing-in-itself, reason was proving this distinction to be its own. What makes a limit a limit always also includes knowledge of what is on both

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Anders Odenstedt 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-consciousness. (TM, 342-3; GW, 1:348)9

In opposition to Hegel, Gadamer denies that the bare notion that there are limits to cognition, or (more specifically) to the recognition of otherness, in itself shows that these limits have been overcome ( PH, 172; GW, 3:141). But a Hegelian dialectic may be operative in such claims. Indeed, Gadamer is well aware of this possibility. As he says: when we speak of historically effected consciousness [das wirkungsgeschichtliche Bewutsein, i.e., the consciousness that is effected by influences of historical context], are we not confined within the immanent laws of reflection, which destroy any immediate effect? Are we not forced to admit that Hegel was right and regard the basis of hermeneutics as the absolute mediation [Vermittlung] of history and 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 thereby not already reflected on and thus mediated them? And are we then not forced to admit that Hegel was right in asserting that there is fundamentally no distinction between history as the realization of Spirit, on the one hand, and the reflection on history on the other hand? But Gadamer goes on to say that he is still 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 is thus meant to be understood in distinction to (in Abhebung von) Hegel, and primarily (or so it would seem) Hegels view that it is the dialectic of the limit to exist only by being overcome (TM, 346; GW , 1:352). Yet Gadamer commends Hegel for having grasped the negativity (Negativitt) of experience (Erfahrung) ( TM , 353f.; GW , 1:359f.). Hegel thus, Gadamer argues, sees experience as skepticism in action, whereby things turn out to be not what they previously appeared to be.10 But this process, Gadamer holds, is an overcoming of limits only in the sense that it shows the falsity of our previous generalizations. Hegel asserts that Bildung culminates in absolute knowledge ( das absolute Wissen ), which permits Spirit to equate ( auszugleichen ) 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 only interminable dialogue ( Gesprch ) ( TM , xxxvii; GW , 2:447), where the presuppositions instilled by historical context can never become fully self-conscious. 566

Hegel and Gadamer on Bildung 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 consciousness of the hermeneutical situation. To acquire an awareness of a situation 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 of Bildung not only in the sense that presuppositions can never be fully discarded, they cannot even be made completely self-conscious. One can, Gadamer argues, acknowledge that Bildung is an element of spirit without subscribing to Hegels philosophy of absolute spirit (TM, 15, trans. modified; GW, 1:20). However, despite Gadamers attempt to resist the force of Hegelian dialectic, he sometimes himself suggests that there is a link between the awareness of ones limits (presuppositions) and the overcoming of them (understanding or even recognizing the historical other). Thus, Gadamer insists on the historians context-dependence, while at the same time stressing both that a distinction between self and other in historical study may occur and that this distinction may be adequate and even exhaustive. The otherness of historical texts may be grasped in such a way that the interpreters Bildung is promoted. Most importantly, the historians presuppositions may thereby be detachedly 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? Does it mean that they are conclusively discarded , temporarily put out of action , or used in an uncommitted way without being subscribed 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 a challenge to ones own views. Even if I manage to discard my presuppositions, this of course does not ensure that I have the resources even to understand a text written in another historical context. But in the passage quoted above Gadamer

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seems to suggest that there is indeed a direct link between the awareness of ones limits (presuppositions) and the overcoming of them (understanding or even recognizing the other). Elsewhere, however, Gadamer argues (as we have seen) that the awareness of limits does not show that they have been overcome. In this context Gadamer even asserts that presuppositions are conditions of possibility of access to otherness and that they are not in this sense contingent or even inevitable limits to such access ( TM, 302; GW , 1:307). The sense of being limited by presuppositions is thus not a sign of a transgression of such a limit but rather of the opposite. Insofar as the historian refuses to let himself be influenced by his presuppositions in his encounter with the past in perceiving them as limits, the otherness 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 this kind shows that the other is reduced to a mere historical source and thereby prevented from challenging ones own views. This claim would, I believe, be Gadamers answer to the charge of ambiguity that I have made above, that is, Gadamer stresses both the importance of otherness in historical study and the application of the other to ones own views in such study. According to Gadamer, the discarding of the historians presuppositions would indeed allow the otherness of the past to appear, but only an otherness in the form of mere difference. In order for the past to be seen as otherness in the sense of a challenge to ones own views, the historian must transpose herself into the past. 12 If this claim is correct, Gadamers alternating claims that otherness and application is central to Bildung would perhaps not constitute an ambiguity after all. I shall return to this issue in what follows.

4. Hegel on the Power of Bildung

When stressing the importance of otherness for Bildung Gadamer argues that: The universal viewpoints to which the cultivated 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 presuppositions form a horizon ( Horizont ) by means of which otherness is approached and that if there are shared concerns or views in cases 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 perspectives of others. But Gadamer still insists that the fusion of horizons does not permit the individual to wholly abandon her own particular standpoint precisely insofar as the horizons 568

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confronting each other are fused (TM, 290; GW, 1:295). Still less does the fusion abandon any particularity, and in this respect it resembles the perception of oneself from another point of view, as well as the application of the other through the transposing of oneself into his or her situation.14 But it could of course be argued that Bildung does not always consist in (1) a fusion of horizons. Nor need it consist in (2) a detached point of view on self only through the other horizon. Bildung can also, or so it would seem, mean (3) reflection on the possibility that both horizons (or even all horizons) are questionable. A detached consideration of this kind would transcend both horizons in a way that cannot be described either as their fusion, or as the perception of oneself from the other point of view, or (finally) as the application of the other to ones own concerns. Now, Hegel seems to affirm the possibility of (3) and thereby differ from all of Gadamers alternating positions in this respect. But Hegel describes (3) in somewhat different ways; sometimes he suggests that it amounts to an uncommitted having of different particular standpoints that does not affirm any one of them unreservedly.15 Elsewhere, however, he suggests that Bildung may take the form of an even more radical form of detachment that does not contain particularity at all. I now turn to a discussion of these two different senses of Bildung in Hegel, referring to them as (3a) and (3b), respectively. Otherness can involve contrariety, contradiction, a source of tension, or difference. Having irreconcilable desires is otherness in the first sense. Thus, for example, I may wish to study philosophy but also economics, and I can abstain from studying both, but the choice of one of them excludes a choice of the other. Similarly, two beliefs can be contraries in the sense that both can be false, but both cannot be true. By contrast, the truth of a belief implies the falsity of its contradiction. Alternatively, of course, the divergence of beliefs may amount to mere difference, which is not a source of tension insofar as there is no rivalry involved. Whereas Hegel sometimes seems to hold that (3b) above is possible and that it occurs through a pure negation that contradicts any particular point of view, Gadamer asserts, as we have seen, that (1) takes place through another horizon that involves contrariety or a source of tension.16 As we have also seen, Hegel holds that the other is initially seen not as another self but as not being oneself, that is, as ~F rather than G , where F is oneself. This dismissal treats the other as contradiction, not as contrariety or difference. But Hegel also describes the negativity (Negativitt) represented by otherness as a vehicle of Bildung ; the fact that the other does not share ones habitual views permits them to be reflected on. 569

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But in order for this to occur one must take the other seriously instead of seeing him or her simply as not being oneself. As I have already indicated, Gadamer often argues that Bildung is induced by the particular perspectives of others, and he even suggests that it consists in the affirmation of them. Thus, we are possessed [eingenommen] by something [otherness] and precisely by means of it are we opened up [ aufgeschlossen] for the new, the different, the true ( PH , 9; GW , 2:225, italics added). Hegel, by contrast, sometimes argues that Bildung (3b) is a form of pure negativity, which amounts to an activity without substrate, as it were, and that the detached point of view that this permits does not contain particularity even in the sense of (3a) (PS, 10; PG, 18. See also PM, Zusatz to 378). This is not a perception of oneself from the standpoints of others or a fusion of ones horizon with that of the other. This Bildung is a pure negativity in that it negates any particular standpoint, not from another standpoint but in virtue of being the absence of any particular standpoint at all. Hegel distinguishes between determinate and abstract negation (EL, 147; E, 130 (91)). A determinate negation either retains 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 another point of view in either of the ways that Gadamer invokes when describing Bildung in terms of (1) or (2). According to Hegel, the particularity of ones cultural context can be related to transformatively, in which case, for example, political institutions are changed in accordance with an alternative conception of social life. But context can also be related to in 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 positive actuality [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 particularity 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 an alternative conception of it, there is contrariety, whereas in the case of the negative will there is contradiction, for the person both is and is not particular, that is, she both is and is not a member of her culture. Now, this claim is due to Hegels notorious view that contradictions are not merely features of language. Spirit can endure ( ertragen ) its contradiction and thereby differs from other

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things, which cease to be as a result of their contradictory nature (SL, 23738; WL, 1:23223). According to Hegel, the I is free from particularity in the sense that it says I of itself in the same sense as anyone can say this (PS, 314; PG, 280). The I as universal (which Hegel calls the pure I) thereby resembles the term this, which is indifferently (gleichgltig) applicable to any entity ( PS, 6062; PG , 6566). But the pure I contradicts the cultural particularity which the individual also is. However, by contradiction Hegel also refers to tensions and conflicts ; there is in this sense a contradiction between the childs lack of rationality and his potential having of it, and this functions as a vehicle of Bildung ( LHP , 1:2122). There is an otherness belonging to Spirit as such, consisting of a future state of rationality, which Spirit attempts to make actual and which conflicts with its present state. This is neither contrary nor contradictory; it is not the case that each thing is in either the potential or the actual state involved but not in the other, and they may both exist at the same time in the same subject. But the otherness of the potential state is no mere difference either insofar as it is a vehicle of change; the potential challenges the actual in such a way that a new state is attained. The relation between the universality of the pure I and the particularity of cultural context can also, or so it would seem, be seen as a source of tension rather than as a contradiction in a logical sense. Thus, Hegel makes the following claims on the relation between thought and cultural context, claims that suggest that the particularity of such a context cannot be discarded in the strong sense of pure negativity or contradiction (3b above) but that it may be had in an uncommitted way through Bildung (in sense 3a): But if philosophy does not stand above its time in content, it does so in form, because, as the thought and knowledge of that which is the substantial spirit of its time, it makes that spirit its object (LHP, 1:54). Philosophy is its time comprehended in thoughts (EPR, 21; GPR, 15). What Hegel means by this is not easy to say, but he seems to have something like the following in mind: the form of unreflective assent of the first stage in the triad of Bildung is overcome in such a way that particularity (the content), through being made the 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] of his 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 find satisfaction for the interests belonging to its own particular time ( LHP, 1:45, emphasis added). The relation of thought to context must involve certain common interests and concerns, not shared presuppositions as such. In retaining such interests, 571

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the individual may use the presuppositions of context without unreservedly (or irrevocably) conforming to them, or even trying to justify them. Similarly, a legacy of presuppositions is required by the activity of Spirit, but this legacy is eventually degraded 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 requires self-recognition in otherness. He thereby seems to hold that this process depends on the horizons involved sharing certain concerns . A shared tradition, which provides the necessary framework for a fusion of horizons, is homogeneous insofar as certain questions are posed by its members, but it only indicates the answers ( Vorzeichnen von Antworten ) to these questions without dictating them (DD, 111; GW, 2:370). However, despite this occasional convergence between Gadamer and Hegel, Gadamer most frequently differs from Hegels position. As Gadamer says: I do not at all deny that if one wants to understand, one must endeavor to distance oneself from ones opinions on the matter [ Sachmeinungen]. Still, I think that hermeneutic experience teaches us that the effort to do so succeeds only to a limited extent ( TM , 56768; GW , 2:466). And when Gadamer argues in this way, he rejects the idea (which he elsewhere seems to embrace) that Bildung is possible even in the weak sense of affirmation of the particular standpoints of other historical contexts.

5. The Triad of Bildung Revisited

The foregoing discussion has attempted to show that one way of understanding Hegel is to see him as arguing that the individual is neither Gadamerian particularity in the sense of retaining both the content and form of particularity (i.e., both the presuppositions induced by the historical context and the assent prevalent in this context), nor pure negativity.20 As we have seen, Hegel holds that determination is negation and that negation is determinate. Particularity cannot, this claim seems to imply, be discarded in the strong sense of pure negation, but determinate negation reduces particularity to a mere property (PM, Zusatz to 410). Instead of being his or her particularity, the individual now comes to have it in a less committed, unreflective way at the second stage in the triad of Bildung . And this corresponds to Bildung in sense (3a). Similarly, the subject initially sees herself as a property of culture. Thus, the individual understands herself as being her culture or some other particularity on her part. This mode of thought has not yet arrived at the notion that the subject has her participation in culture in the form of a predicate (Prdicat) ( PS , 453; PG, 400). That is, it has not yet reached the second stage in the triad of Bildung, at which the unreflective form of 572

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assent is overcome, and particularity thereby had in an uncommitted way.21 Hegels analysis of habit ( Gewohnheit ) is conducted in similar terms. Habit, Hegel says, reduces particularity to a property ( 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 to be a difference between the Bildung of ancient and modern times; the former, he tells us, consisted in raising the individual from sensuous apprehension to the universality of thought, whereas the latter must free the individual from the fixity of the abstract form that he or she finds ready-made. Hegel says: Thoughts become fluid when pure thinking, this inner immediacy , recognizes itself as a [mere] moment [as an aspect and not as the whole], or when the pure certainty of self abstracts from itselfnot by leaving itself out, or setting itself aside, but by giving up the fixity of its self-positing [ das Fixe ihres Sichselbstseztens] (PS, 20; PG, 28). Bildung and its detached point of view on self consists, Hegel seems to say, not in pure negativity (leaving the certainty or affirmation of self out), but in an uncommitted use of what was formerly affirmed in an unreflective way. As a result, the fixity (unreserved affirmation) of the ungebildete person is overcome. However, the individual is finally reconciled with particularity in reflectively coming to see it as her own being and not as a mere property at the third stage in the triad of Bildung . The second stage in the triad of Bildung is not its culmination, as we have already seen. Hegel says:
Every self-consciousness knows itself as universal, as the possibility of abstracting from everything determinate, and as particular, 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 the previous section) calls the pure I, reconciles the particular with the universal. The particular is universal insofar as determination is negation. In this sense, affirmation (or the lack of Bildung) is never unconditional, or at least never final. Conversely, the universal is particular insofar as negation is determinate. It is for this reason, Hegel argues, that, for example, the adolescent and certain forms of cultural critique wrongly believe themselves to turn against family and society without realizing that what they criticize is what makes them possible.23 This is so not only in the sense that social factors are conditions of possibility of critique, but in the sense that there

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are shared presuppositions involved in these cases. The presuppositions of cultural critique unnoticeably remain the same as those of its target, and there is thus nothing inconsistent or fundamentally 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 its property. Detachment is not real, not even in the sense that the individual tries to detach himself while failing to do so, and when interpreted in this way Hegel is not very far from a Gadamerian position. But a difference between Hegel and Gadamer remains insofar as Hegel holds that the dependence on particularity is at last reflectively and rationally grasped; the adult eventually grasps that there is no ultimate conflict or even distinction between self and family, or between self and society. In Gadamer there is no equivalent to this, although Gadamer, too, insists that, for example, authority is legitimate in most situations. But in order for this assumption to be justified, Gadamer does not require that the individual herself in each situation (or even ever) grasps the rationality of authority.24 As we have seen, Hegel holds that the second stage in the triad of Bildung involves recognizing the other as such and that this permits an uncommitted having of ones own particularity. By contrast, Gadamer implies that the individual is her historical 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] philosophical 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. slightly modified; GW, 1:307)

When arguing thus, Gadamer holds that subjectivity is a property of substance and not the reverse. Subjectivity is a property that historical context (substance) has; historical context is not a property that the individual and her subjectivity has. And Gadamer stresses that this substance does not consist in a vehicle or material of thought that may be related to in an uncommitted or wholly reflected way (in sense 3a of Bildung), and even less can it be discarded altogether so that an absence of particularity is attained (in sense 3b). To use Hegels terminology, Gadamer denies both that pure negativity is possible and that the presuppositions of context can be degraded to a mere material of thought.

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Hegel and Gadamer on Bildung

Both the fusion of horizon and self-perception from another point of view contain, Gadamer holds, particularity. And in each case, a form of assent remains. A fusion of horizons is perceived by those undergoing it as offering a better view of the subject matter involved; the same situation obtains when the individual relates to herself through another standpoint, which she perceives as a challenge to her habitual beliefs. Thus, in the case of dialogue, it is not simply a matter of leaving the subject [ Sache ] undecided. Someone who wants to know something cannot just leave it a matter of mere opinion, which is to say that he cannot hold himself aloof [distanzieren] from the opinions that are in question (TM, 368; GW, 1:373). According to Gadamer, the relation between thought and its historical context involves transformation ( Verwandlung ) rather than mere alteration ( Vernderung ). 25 Alteration has traditionally been understood as causing the properties of an underlying, enduring entity to change. Transformation amounts to total change, whereas alteration leaves the entity undergoing it basically untouched. Alteration touches only upon what a thing has , while transformation changes what it is . And Gadamer implies that contextually induced presuppositions are not mere properties that the individual has but something that she is. As Gadamer says: In fact history does not belong to us; we belong to it [wir gehren ihr] (TM 276; GW, 1:281). In this way, even the weaker form of Hegelian Bildung, consisting in the degradation (as Hegel says) of particularity into a mere material or property that one has , is denied. It is in this way that Gadamer most frequently (but not consistently) argues that Bildung and its corresponding sense of otherness always contains a residue of self.26

Abbreviations
Works by Hegel
E Enzyklopdie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (1830). Gesammelte Werke. Herausgegeben von der Rheinisch-Westflischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Band 20, ed. W. Bonsiepen, H.-C. Lucas, and U. Rameil (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1992) Encyclopaedia Logic, trans. T. F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting, and H. S. Harris (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1991) Elements of the Philosophy of Right, ed. A. W. Wood, trans. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts , Smtliche Werke , Band 6, ed. G. Lasson (Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1911)

EL EPR GPR

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Anders Odenstedt LHP Lectures on the History of Philosophy , 3 vols., trans. E. S. Haldane and F. Simson (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995). References to volume number are by Arabic numerals. Phnomenologie des Geistes, Gesammelte Werke, Band 9, ed. W. Bonsiepen and R. Heede (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1980) Philosophie der Geschichte, ed. E. Glans and K. Hegel (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1848) The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (New York: Dover, 1956) Hegels Philosophy of Mind, trans. W. Wallace and A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971) Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit , trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977) Hegels Science of Logic , trans. A. V. Miller (London: Allen & Unwin, 1969) 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: Felix Meiner, 1985)

PG PhG PhH PM PS SL WL 1

Works by Gadamer
DD Destruktion and Deconstruction, trans. R. E. Palmer and G. Waite, in Dialogue and Deconstruction. The Gadamer-Derrida Encounter , ed. R. E. Palmer and D. P. Michelfelder (Albany: SUNY Press, 1987) Gesammelte Werke , 10 vols. (Tbingen: Mohr, 198695) References to volume number are by Arabic numerals. Hegels Dialectic. Five Hermeneutical Studies , trans. P. Christopher Smith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976) Philosophical Hermeneutics , trans. and ed. D. E. Linge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976) Truth and Method, 2nd rev. edn., ed. and trans. J. Weinsheimer and D. G. Marshall (London: Sheed & Ward, 1989)

GW HD PH TM

Notes
1 See Hegels Nuremberg speech of 29 September 1809, in Gesammelte Werke , Band 10, vol. 1. Nrnberger Gymnasialkurse und Gymnasialreden (18081816), ed. Klaus Grotsch (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 2006), 45565. 2 Ibid., 46162. Hegel describes Spirit as alienated from itself (der sich entfremdete Geist ) when discussing Bildung ( PS , 294; PG , 264. This is the section heading on this page: Der sich entfremdete Geist.

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Hegel and Gadamer on Bildung 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 our own culture and permits us to no longer simply take it for granted. Similarly, Gadamer describes what he calls historical consciousness (geschichtliches Bewusstsein) as alienation (Entfremdung ). According to Gadamer, this consciousness emerged in the nineteenth century in philosophers such as Wilhelm Dilthey as a result of an increasing interest in history. Due to this interest, the natural (unreflective) identification with ones historical context is, Gadamer holds, disturbed insofar as it becomes seen as one such context among many others without any special status; see TM, 275; GW, 1:280; TM, 65; GW, 1:70 71. 3 In his account of Bildung , Gadamer explicitly invokes Hegels dual stress on the importance of the alien and familiar character of the ancients; see TM, 14; GW , 1:19. Hermeneutics, Gadamer similarly says, is based on a polarity of familiarity and strangeness. The true locus of hermeneutics is this in-between [ Zwischen ] ( TM , 295; GW , 1:300, italics in original). 4 That the encounter with other cultures immediately gives rise to uncertainty is of course too simplistic a view, and Hegel elsewhere shows that he is well aware of this, as we shall see. 5 For Gadamers interpretation of this aspect of the masterslave dialectic, see HD, 63; GW, 3:55. 6 A tendency to describe unfamiliar norms as an absence of norms as 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, see my 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 of Bildung, a reconciliation due to 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 the concepts of the understanding insofar as they are said by Kant himself to be inapplicable to the thing itself, and this setting of their limit presupposes access to the other side of this limit, however imperfect this access may be. Hegel argues that reality and negation (concepts of the understanding in Kant) sublate themselves (sich aufheben ) when applied in isolation. Reality (determination) is negation. For instance, red has its identity in virtue of not being green. Conversely, negation is determinate; not red differs from not green and does not simply refer to an absence of red. The finitude of the understanding thus does not consist in the fact that we employ the concepts of reality and negation and that they are inapplicable to the thing in itself, as Kant thought, but in these concepts themselves and in the fact that they are inapplicable 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 otherness, see the next section. 13 The fusion of horizons overcomes, one might say, both the neglect of otherness of the historically unaware individual and the subsequent

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Anders Odenstedt sense of the sheer otherness of the other, and thus rises to the third stage in the triad of Bildung. Rortys description of Gadamer is partial in stressing the way in which Bildung on Gadamers view is a sense of the relativity of descriptive vocabularies to periods, traditions and historical 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 of Gadamers other claim that the purpose of Bildung is application (Anwendung )the return to oneself through otherness in a fusion of horizons. 14 To be sure, a fusion of horizons should perhaps be understood as going beyond mere combination , i.e., as resulting in something that discards both original horizons instead of simply enlarging or revising them. The problem is this: should a fusion of horizons be understood as 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 its original components. By contrast, water is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen; they are transformed in being joined. Indeed, Gadamer sometimes describes the fusion of horizons in a way that suggests that it is a compound : it consists, he tells us, in rising to a higher universality [hheren Allgemeinheit] that overcomes not only our own particularity [Partikularitt] but also that of the other (TM, 305; GW, 1:310). 15 As we shall see in what follows, Hegel holds that the having of particularity means being able to distance oneself from it instead of unreflectively being it. 16 Mere difference and contradiction do not, or so it would seem, contain that shared basis that Gadamer describes as a precondition of the fusion of horizons. And in the case of contrariety, it would seem as if the fusion must be a compound and not an alloy, to use the terminology introduced above, since two contrary alternatives cannot both be true. They must therefore be transformed so as to form a coherent conception. 17 Hegel refers to the final stages of the French Revolution in this passage. For Hegel on the French Revolution, see also the section called Absolute Freedom and Terror [ Schrecken ], in PS , 355ff.; PG , 316ff. 18 But why would the notion that a form of particularity is possible to justify count as reflection? Because even trust is a mode of reflection ( EPR 191; GPR 134 (147)). Insofar as I trust something, Hegel seems to say, I have already (however plainly) raised the question whether it is trustworthy. 19 Hegel here seems to invoke Aristotles view that form and matter are relative, so that what is form on lower ontological levels is mere matter on higher levels. See Aristotle, The Physics , trans. P. H. Wicksteed and F. M. Cornford (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929), 194b. 20 For a similar interpretation, see Rdiger Bubner, Essays in Hermeneutics and Critical Theory , trans. E. Matthews (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 60. 21 It might of course be argued that claims such as I have a terrible headache are not signs of a form of detachment, through which the headache is observed in an uncommitted way. But Hegel holds that even

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Hegel and Gadamer on Bildung the perception of a particular state (such as a headache) as an insurmountable limit that is impossible to ignore requires that the subject is not immersed in this state and thus has it instead of being it. This is one version of Hegels claim that limits are transgressed through the awareness of them, a claim discussed in section 3 above. Hegel thus 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, this seems to mean that a sentient creature is not a collection of states but distinct from them and that this is a prerequisite of their being experienced as limits. If a sentient creature were immersed in its particular states, that is, if it were them as opposed to having them, it would 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 perceived by the stone itself as a limit. And there is in the stone nothing that perceives 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 sense involves a possession or a property. It stands halfway between abstract negation (pure negativity) and immersion (unreserved affirmation). Or as Malabou puts it: Habit emerges as a liberating process, saving the soul from the two forms of dissolutioneither lost in the emptiness of ideality [abstract negation] or absorbed in a determinate part isolated from 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 in the relation between nature and Spirit: If I duplicate myself and am object to myself, I am a division between what is mine and myself; I know myself in and as this opposition. Hence I am not tied to my biological life; I have a life [instead of simply being it], which means I am free from it (for example, I can risk it for the sake of something higher) (Alfredo Ferrarin, Hegel and Aristotle [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001], 233). Or as Hegel himself puts it: I have these limbs and my life only in so far as I will it ; the animal cannot mutilate or destroy itself, but the human being can (EPR, 78; GPR, 56 (47), first italics added). 23 As 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 and authority [ Gewalt ] of the individual exercised over the substance, which is thereby superseded [ aufgehoben ], is the same thing as the actualization [ Verwirklichung ] of the substance ( PS , 29889, trans. modified; PG, 268. See also PS, 21; PG, 29). Culture, Hegel here seems to say, does not change through the otherness of emancipated individuals. Their critique is a symptom of cultural change and not the cause of such change. But why does Hegel call culture substance? On his 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 on feeling and not on reflection (PM , 255; E, 497 (518)). This is part of the ethical substance, which underlies the reflective individual. Substance has of course traditionally referred to that which supposedly underlies a things properties. In this sense, Hegel, too, holds that there is something that has us more than we have it in

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Anders Odenstedt 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 to the better insight of others [anderen] (TM, 279, trans. modified; GW, 1:284). For an interesting discussion of this difference between Gadamer 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, see TM, 111; GW, 1:116. This distinction is made by Gadamer in a discussion of aesthetic experience, but he clearly sees a structural parallel between such experience and the effect of being historically situated. 26 I would like to thank Ingvar Johansson, Pr Sundstrm, Sharon Rider, Bertil Strmberg, and the participants in the seminars in Theoretical Philosophy at Uppsala University and Ume University for valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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