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The Free University: then and nowThe argument of freedom in historical and current HE discourse
Aksel Hugo, The Field Centre, Ruskin Mill Trust Richard House
IDEA
REVERSAL
RE-REVERSAL
The idea
Could a human soul reach an understanding in
which the conditioned and unconditioned - which means the definete and the infininte penetrated
each other, then such a soul would not be conditioned through anything else,
but through itself.
Henrik Steffens, 1809
-- because free we shall name what is conditioned in inner coherence with its
own nature.
Ibid.
Anyone is then, in ethical terms, an infinite sublime being, exhalted above all condition.
Ibid.
Therefore education is only directed towards ’the
common’ of all spirits, as the rich and fruitful soil,
out of which eveything individual, following its own laws, will flourish and shape itself.
Ibid
Es ist schwer, ein Bild von der Begeisterung und Größe dieser Schrift zu geben, in der zum
erstenmal der Gedanke ausgesprochen wird, daß sich in der Universität die Einheit des
wissenschaftlichen Strebens darstellt, wodurch der einzelne schöpferisch das Leben der Ideen in sich
erzeugt.
Eduard Sprangler, 1910 Festschrift zur 100 Jahre Humbolt Universität
It is difficult to give a picture of the enthusiasm and magnitude of this text, in which for the first
time the idea was spoken that the university expresses the unity of the scientific strife,
whereby each individual creatively generates the life of the ideas in himself or herself.
Eduard Sprangler, 1910 Festschrift zur 100 Jahre Humbolt Universität
According to Schelling, the understanding of the organic wholeness of the sciences must precede the constitution of a particular field of research. Whoever embarks to deepen a particular field of study, must learn to know the position this field
takes within that wholeness …
Ibid.
Therefore, the application of this idea to the universities through Fichte, Schleiermacher and
Steffens is only an individual manifestation of thoughts,
that Schelling first had kindled. …
And the form this idea takes is the same by all these thinkers: ‘The unity of the university is justified
through the unity of the idea.”
Ibid.
As long as the state is only external power, the ideal power of science must appear to it as an
alien competitor.
Thus, they were occupied by the burning question:
Will this state be able to hold freedom of teaching and research?
Ibid.
All rules one wants to convey to the student, can be condenced into one: “Learn only in order to be creative yourself!” Only through this godlike
capacity of being creative we are truly human, without it simply a smartly designed machine.
Ibid.
May the truth be one; the pathway to truth needs to be individual, and one can put no shackles on the free agility of the forces.
Eduard Sprangler, 1910 Festschrift zur 100 Jahre Humbolt Universität
The reversal
If choices of action are predetermined by a ”program” to be implemented, ethical awareness is
dimmed or eroded. Present neo-liberal educational policies may
contribute to such erosions of the conditions of the possibility of ethical action
in educational practice.
Dahlin 2010
The re-reversal
Retreat into spiritual values is unlikely to furnish much help in coping with Pandora.
NATURE might be a better guide, if we understand our own labours as part of its
being.
Richard Sennett, 2008
LEARN FROM HABITAT IN NATURE
to re-connect to location
Name space as the blind spot and
forgotten dimension of education
“Our place is part of what we are. Yet even a ‘place’ has a kind of fluidity: it passes through space and time …”
Gary Snyder
Situativity of perception and affordances of space. (Gibson 1977)*
Any learning arena is an invitation to engage with a particular kind of
intention - attention experience - emotion
impression - expression
Gibson, J. J. (1977). The theory of affordances. In R. Shaw & J. Brans- ford (Eds.), Perceiving, acting, and knowing: Toward an ecological psychology (pp. 67-82). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
LEARN FROM MIND IN NATURE
to reconnect thinking and deed
The lost connection between theory and practice is reconstituted in a double process where consciousness of the
activity of mind is connected to awareness of mindfulness in activity.
Hugo 2012
..the practical activity would be a thinking, the theoretical thinking a deed.
Novalis, In: Roder 1995
The artist is the synthesis of the theoretician
and the practician.
Novalis, In: Roder 1995
LEARN FROM AESTHETICS IN NATURE
a breathing of activity and reciptivity
Activity in a place does something to the space
it may evoke a new atmosphere
You would know there is a breathing process that has to take place between activity and receptivity
when something is performed.
Hugo 2012
LEARN FROM BECOMING IN NATURE
the becoming of genius
Man, his own maker.
Richard Sennet, 2008
A becoming, self-creating genius ... through schooling of will, feeling and
thinking.
Novalis, In: Roder 1995
Genius = talent for productive inspirations (Einfälle)
The genius has consciousness of the productive inspirations (Einfälle) ...
... lives attentive to (Blickwendung) very high spiritual creations.”
The same general gesture: in poetry (art),in thinking and in unfolding of life ...
the magically active I – from the realm of thinking into the realm of the will. ...
Through the act of conscious-exploration in performed-vocation
there is a yield of self-education
Hugo 2012
An inner schooling process is established, a vocational, situated cultivation of ones
self, not only for but through the material of the vocation. In short it is the path of schooling the self in encounter with the
situated vocation.
(Hugo 2012)
LEARN FROM DEATH IN NATURE
waiting in times of desintegration
When the forms of an old culture are dying, the new culture is created by a few people who are not afraid to be insecure.
Rudolf Bahro
Rather than inspiring and motivating us, hope has become a burden made heavy by its
companion, fear of failing
Thomas Merton
Only in the present moment, free from hope and fear, do we receive the gifts of clarity and resolve
Margaret Wheatley, 2009
My heart holds the image of us journeying in this way through this time of disintegration and
rebirth. Insecure, groundless, patient, beyond hope and fear. And together.
Margaret Wheatley, 2009
Independent of the changing outer circumstances, truly active in a sense of the whole …
no unfullfilled hope, no demolition of what seems dearest to you, no misunderstandings of the world are able to disturb the inner stillness, which - in all fermenting and entaglements of time – recognizes what announces itself inside you as the allmighty spirit,
who is the source of all wisdom, as well as who’s inner connection is the root of all freedom.
Henrik Steffens, 1809
Und der Künsler ist immer noch dieser: ein Tänzer, dessen Bewegung sich bricht an dem Zwang seiner Zelle. Was in seinen Schritten
und dem beschränkten Schwung seiner Arme nicht Raum hat, kommt in der Ermattung von
seinen Lippen, oder er muss die noch ungelebten linien seines Leibes mit wunden
Fingern in die Wände ritzen.
Rainer Maria Rilke