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187 3 Kant’s Idea of Education To develop the account of the program of education which Kant offers , in this chapter we begin by following out Kant’s path from popular modes of instruction and his criticism of these to his own articulation of an idea of education that in its “form befits humanity” and develops the human natural aptitudes. In the process, Kant’s own conception of human nature (and where and why he parts company with his contemporaries ) comes into view. From his correspondence, to his lectures, to his critical writings and essays, we see the pervasiveness of the pedagogical project for Kant’s thought. An analysis of what it is to have an “idea” per se (in its critical sense) gives us the basis for examining what it is to have an “idea of education” for which the Bestimmung des Menschen, the vocation and determination of humanity, is its guiding principle. We conclude the chapter by tracing out Kant’s own references within his critical philosophy to its pedagogical role and questions. This sets the stage for the analysis (in chapter 4) of its Methodenlehren and the further extrapolation of the formal, transcendental principles of education (interpreted as articles for a cosmopolitan education). Critical Engagement of EighteenthCentury Concepts and Principles of Education In a 1778 letter to Christian Wolke, then director of the Philanthropin, Kant clearly states his conception of education.1 While a named critic of the school (a Königsberg chaplain, Wilhelm Crichton) “sees theoretical 1. Besides some initial communiqués with Basedow, Kant maintained correspondence with the school’s two main directors, Joachim Heinrich Campe (1746–1818) and Christian Heinrich Wolke (1741–1825), offering them his heartfelt encouragement. In this same letter to Wolke in August 1778, Kant commends him as the one in whom all hope has been placed by the supporters of the school, the “idea” of which (he asserts) gladdens the hearts of all who share in it (Ak 10, ¶125, 220). 188 A T T E M P T A T A P E D A G O G I C A L I N S T A U R A T I O N learning (Schulwissenschaft) as the only thing needed,” Kant writes that he himself by contrast holds “the formation (Bildung) of human beings, both in regard to their talents and their character” to be “the only thing necessary” and goes on to affirm that both these aims are well served at this institution under Wolke’s direction (Ak 10, ¶125, 221).1 His testimony that he understood his own life’s work to consist in just such efforts to bring about the Bildung of his students was equally explicit (as we saw in our introduction). His unwavering praise for the school and its directors is repeated in both his lectures on anthropology and on pedagogy.2 In the latter Kant distinguishes between such needed experiments in carrying out a “plan of a purposive education” (again naming the Dessau institute as exemplary)3 and the necessary idea of an education which develops all the “human natural aptitudes,” an idea which “must be admitted to be true”; as an idea it is a “concept of a perfection not yet found in experience,” a concept of an education which in its own “form befits humanity” (P 451, 443–45).4 Its guiding principle is the “idea of human1 . Karl Vorländer, Immanuel Kant. Der Mann und das Werk (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1977), 220–30; Schmid et al., Geschichte der Erziehung, 235–38;Ak 25, 2.1:792. For a summary of Basedow’s principles of education and an indication of how they accord with Kant’s views, see Munzel, Kant’s Conception of Moral Character, 266–73. Besides the communications with Basedow, Wolke, and Campe, the correspondence appearing in vol. 10 of theAcademy Edition includes Kant’s July 17, 1778, letter to Wilhelm Crichton, seeking to persuade him not only to change his views on thePhilanthropin to positive ones, but even to take over the handling of the subscriptions to its journal and other matters, which Kant had been doing himself. There is correspondence as well with August Rode, with Friedrich Wilhelm Regge (whom Kant persuades to go to Dessau to be of service to the Philanthropin), and with Johann Ehrmann, a teacher at the school. 2. In 1776 and 1777 Kant publicly hailed the school as an “institution of education” whose founders were “dedicated to the well-being...

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