Vom Grund und Gegenstand der Erziehung

Abstract

Civil society essentially is public space. But public opinion, by its nature, is divided. Science is able to reduce this domain of dissent; it is public knowledge. Its apogee in modern times was the political event par excellence. Its coercive power resides in its systematic proceeding from assuring its logical foundation to the conceptual seizure of its object. The rearing of the forthcoming generation is a task of most public concern. Though, pedagogy will never be founded in scientific theory, as at its ground there is no fact, but a problem, which cannot be proved, but just posed and postulated. And its object will never be seized, as it is „Life itself“, which cannot be analyzed, but just told in stories and shown in pictures. The ways of pedagogy are not logical, but esthetical. By virtue of its practices and by its place in society, it is art and not science.