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Existentialism and Education: An Introduction to Otto Friedrich Bollnow

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327 1 What Can We Say with Any Certainty About Human Beings? 1
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329 2 From “Uncertainty” to “Deeper Understanding” 11

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3 Between Lebensphilosophie and Existential Philosophy 19
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4 Rationality of the Irrational 37
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5 Educational Reality 53
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6 Conclusions: Criticisms and Connections 95
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Biographical Timeline 105
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Index 113
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01

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03 CHAPTER 3
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Between Lebensphilosophie and Existential
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Philosophy
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15 Abstract The third chapter further lays the groundwork for the book’s
16 exposition of these three educational realities or possibilities by explaining
17 how Bollnow’s philosophy of education brings together Heidegger’s
18 existentialism with Lebensphilosophie. The publication of Heidegger’s exis-
19 tentialist masterpiece, Being and Time, was an intellectual event of the first
20 order in Germany of the 1920s, and it convinced the young Bollnow to
21 work directly with Heidegger briefly in Marburg and Freiburg.
22

23 Keywords Angst
Lebensphilosophie
Dilthey

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25

26 In this book, we understand Bollnow’s pedagogical thought primarily in

27 terms of “educational reality,” in terms of the “mood” associated with this
28 reality, and also in terms of its “broken” and “guided” possibilities. As
29 already indicated, Bollnow’s understanding of educational reality has its
30 roots in two philosophies or philosophical movements, Lebensphilosophie
31 and existential philosophy. Each of these philosophies clearly declares its
32 central concern in its name: life (Leben) and existence (or being). Brought
33 into close systematic interrelationship, existentialism, and Lebensphilosophie
34 form the basis for Bollnow’s anthropology or view of humanity. Indeed, it
35 is from his synthesis of Lebensphilosophie and existential philosophy that
36 Bollnow’s concept of educational reality emerges. As a first step in explor-
37 ing educational reality and its facets, this chapter introduces both philo-
38 sophies in some detail.
39

© The Author(s) 2017 19

R. Koerrenz, Existentialism and Education,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-48637-6_3
 20 EXISTENTIALISM AND EDUCATION

40 LEBENSPHILOSOPHIE: PHILOSOPHIZING “LIFE” ITSELF

41

42
Bollnow wrote introductory overviews of both existentialism (1949)
43
and Lebensphilosophie (1958) after World War II. In introducing
44
Lebensphilosophie, Bollnow begins with the rather loaded term “life.”
45
“What precisely does this word describe?” he asks. In the context of
46
Lebensphilosophie in the 20s and 30s, the term “life” carried the tone of a
47
bold declaration. It served as something akin to a battle cry against
48
abstraction in philosophy and rigidity in one’s own life and thought.
49
However, for Bollnow, the significance of this term only gives rise to
50
further questions—namely: Should “life” be understood or apprehended
51
as a thing or should it be seen instead as a process or a pursuit? In other
52
words, Bollnow asked whether life should be regarded as an object of
53
knowledge (Erkenntnis), an Erkenntnisgegenstand, or as a path of know-
54
ing, an Erkenntnisweg? With the first, life becomes a thing to be known
55
and appreciated as fully as possible. The point is “to apprehend life in its
56
full vitality and in this way to avoid inflexible forms of existence . . . [and]
57
abstract [forms of] reasoning,” as Bollnow puts it (1958a, 12–13). When
58
life is viewed as a process or way, the question becomes one of the path or
59
means by which the philosopher and others might confirm and affirm their
60
own existence as fully as possible. Bollnow imagines this being achieved by
61
regarding philosophy as an end in itself, as a kind of therapeutic exercise in
62
self-denial and (hopefully also) self-transcendence. It is a process, as
63
Bollnow says, in which one “abandon[s] oneself completely to the pursuit
64
of philosophy and through such exercise . . . raise[s] oneself above
65
the basest rational functions” (1958a, 12–13). In both cases—life as an
66
object or way—Lebensphilosophie is clearly not as much an academic exer-
67
cise in logic or abstraction as it is a commitment to an ideal or goal.
68
As Bollnow puts it, the ideal is to embrace the “totality of the spiritual
69
powers of humanity and especially the irrational power of emotion and
70
passion as opposed to the one-dimensional dominance of rationality”
71
(1958a, 4–5).
72
In its emphasis on vitality and its resistance to rigidity, Lebensphilosophie
73
is clearly on the side of the mutable and changeable, rather than on the
74
fixed or structured. It strongly echoes the ancient Greek philosopher
75
Heraclites’ observation about the impossibility of stepping into the same
76
river twice. This continuous flow presents difficulties for our ability to
77
perceive and understand it, particularly as a single “thing” or “object.”
78
Bollnow, for example, notes that it is
 3 BETWEEN LEBENSPHILOSOPHIE AND EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY 21

79 Impossible . . . to comprehend an existence that will be, and one will always
80 fail to recognize the process of becoming when he tries to do so. A certain
81
degree of Heraclitism lies at the foundation of every Lebensphilosophie.
82
(1958a, 13)
83

84 According to Lebensphilosophie, human beings exist unavoidably in the

85 forward march of time, and this underlies all human contexts and experi-
86 ences. At the same time as it embraces that which is open, flowing, and
87 uncertain, Lebensphilosophie also recognizes the ongoing human struggle
88 to gain stability, knowledge, and certainty as part of human reality.
89 Lebensphilosophie acknowledges and affirms the constant tension between
90 continuity and change in this context as unavoidable. As Bollnow empha-
91 sizes in his post-doctoral dissertation on F.H. Jacobi’s Philosophy of Life
92 (1933), life should not be (mis)understood simply as radical, unadulter- AQ1
93 ated openness, and gross uncertainty. Life is an eternally ebbing spring and
94 source of power, but it is also more than this: On the one hand, it
95 inevitably entails uncertainty and openness, but on the other hand, it
96 establishes itself in fixed and sometimes unchanging concrete forms. Life
97 is consequently always both flow and formation (see: 1958a, 33). “As an
98 intellectual exercise,” Bollnow explains, Lebensphilosophie “must acknowl-
99 edge reality as it exists in both its material and spiritual expressions.”
100 To explain this opposition of change and fixity in Lebensphilosophie, it is
101 helpful to turn to a figure central to this book—philosopher Wilhelm
102 Dilthey, who explained the productive aspect of life as eternal spring and
103 source of power in great detail. Besides being the supervisor of Herman
104 Nohl, Dilthey developed many concepts and constructs later taken up in
105 Lebensphilosophie. “Dilthey,” as Bollnow observed, “sees [the] formative
106 nature [of life] specifically in the reflexive expressions of life. When some-
107 thing expresses itself, it forms life itself” (1958a, 36). This “formation” of
108 life must be imagined as an inevitable process of creation and recreation
109 through the concretization of forms and the resulting chain of tangible
110 “expressions.” Such situations demonstrate the objectification that human
111 beings as intelligent actors have acquired via forms of expression through-
112 out history: in religious traditions, in social and political organization, in
113 legal institutions in artistic expression, in economics, etc. These objectified
114 expressions of life are as essential to humanity as is the vitality of “life”
115 itself. Bollnow put it this way: “only in the establishment of cultures does
116 the true nature of humanity become apparent. It evolves along with these
117 cultures and grows with each new accomplishment” (1958a, 41).
 22 EXISTENTIALISM AND EDUCATION

118 In the examination of anything that flows, anything that is open and
119 mutable, there arises the thought that the reality one confronts in such
120 an examination is only a single possible reality. This is determined by the
121 totality of the contextual influences in all of their randomness and
122 limitations. The same can be said of both the “process of recognition”
123 and the “thing to be recognized” that is associated with the
124 Lebensphilosophie’s conception of life as both object and process.
125 Someone who wishes to comprehend and make a claim about reality
126 and indeed about the reality of education can only do so from a specific
127 point in the flow of life and history. Likewise, a claim made from such a
128 perspective can only refer to a narrow contextual situation. Contingent
129 contextuality is bound to the processes of recognition within the
130 beholder as much as to the reality of the object of perception.
131 Statements regarding individuals, of course, are only possible as histor-
132 ical expressions. This limitation can be quite significant, especially when
133 considered in the broad frame of historical time. For example, at one point,
134 Bollnow refers to Wilhelm Dilthey’s pithy statement that “the human type
135 melts away in the process of history” (Dilthey, Volume VIII, 6). Any one
136 human being can ultimately only be comprehended only in the overriding
137 context of history and culture.
138 Generally, the great cultural institutions of humanity (religion, art,
139 scientific pursuit, law, and economics) can be thought of as forms of
140 expression in which the individual can and indeed must see his own
141 reflection. The inherited traditions are a mirror of sorts in which the
142 individual can learn something about herself and through which she
143 understands herself to be part of a larger human collective. It is a “typical
144 problem of Lebensphilosophie,” Bollnow observes, “to ask what the purpose
145 of these objective structures is in the life of an individual” (1958a, 76).
146 Bollnow would later integrate the interdependent relationship between the
147 individual and collective culture into his “System of Anthropological
148 Observation in Education” (Anthropologische Betrachtungsweise in der
149 Pädagogik, 1975b, 30ff.) making them the first two of three fundamental
150 principles for the interpretation of human learning processes. Certainly,
151 however, any insight into the interaction between individual and culture
152 is subject to uncertainty and relativism. The process of living remains open
153 and uncertain. The result, of course, is that once a cultural system can be
154 described as an expression of life in a certain form, it can never remain valid
155 for long. We can only be certain that we will never be certain of the “final”
156 form of human experience.
 3 BETWEEN LEBENSPHILOSOPHIE AND EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY 23

157 The fundamental philosophical response to this assertion, according to

158 Bollnow, has two faces. The optimistic approach underscores the common
159 claim to intellectual faculties that all human beings possess along with an
160 emphasis on broader continuities that unite them, rather than abrupt
161 changes that divide them. The other approach focuses on conditions of
162 uncertainty, contingency and the probability of significant discontinuity
163 that can be quite threatening. Life is at once a critical contextual source
164 and a concrete expression of existence. Finality in human endeavors can
165 neither be achieved nor recognized. Returning to the term “life,” Bollnow
166 brings both of these concepts together.
167

168
Life is, in a positive sense, inexhaustible. Not because we will never be able
169 to exhaust it with our limited terminology, but rather because the model of
170 a . . . quantum is completely inadequate. Life is a “source” that constantly
171 brings forth the new. It is a “root” that constantly sends out new shoots.
172 Generally speaking, it is “open” in its possibilities. And it is this positive
173 creative character of life that is expressed in terms describing unimaginable
174
depth. (1958a, 133)
175

176 In further discussions of the philosophy of life, Bollnow returns to an

177 opposition that was not invented by Wilhelm Dilthey, but that Dilthey
178 popularized and brought to a point: specifically the distinction between
179 the natural sciences and the human sciences (or sciences of the human
180 “spirit,” the Geisteswissenschaften). Dilthey’s statement that “we explain
181 nature, we understand the spirit” (Dilthey, Volume V, 144) is an indis-
182 pensable starting point in understanding this opposition. First, consider
183 explanations of nature: Humans try to simplify and dominate nature and
184 do so by reducing the complexity of natural expressions to the simplest
185 causal elements possible. The vast ocean is understood in terms of its
186 temperature or the parts per million of its saline content. This reduction
187 can be taken further to molecular, atomic, sub-atomic and quantum
188 particles and states. From these elementary categories, natural scientists
189 search for connections that fit together with clear laws that can be objec-
190 tified and quantified. These categories and laws can be said to stand apart
191 from human beings as something separate.
192 In the world that is governed by cultural patterns and continuities,
193 however, these scientific approaches are all but useless. In terms of under-
194 standing spirit, there are, in fact, no basic entities or laws from which one
195 can explain more general occurrences.1 Any “elementary particle” that
 24 EXISTENTIALISM AND EDUCATION

196 might be tentatively identified in the study of culture and mind ends up
197 itself being a complex networked whole. Zooming in on any one detail or
198 pattern reveals still further complexities, as if they were intricately inter-
199 locked into a repeating fractal pattern. The individual is woven into the
200 domain of culture and society. All individuals are bound to this domain
201 through the development of their minds, their intellectual faculties.
202 Humans can (and indeed must) learn “understanding” as a possible and
203 necessary means to comprehending the culturally shaped environment
204 that is also the explicit concern of the human sciences. This applies also
205 to any individual and his or her cultural human “world.” Citing Dilthey,
206 Bollnow explains: “The ‘origin of life,’ requires that the individual under-
207 stands his role as the creator of his own intellectual world. This is his own
208 work that only he is capable of understanding” (1958a, 79).
209 However, this human, cultural knowledge and understanding is in most
210 cases, not something explicitly taught and learned. It is exercised and
211 augmented every day and is in many respects as common and banal as to
212 be all but invisible. It arises from the internal connection between experi-
213 ence, expression, and understanding, and provides, for Bollnow, the
214 means through which life itself can be comprehended. It is difficult to
215 imagine a way of knowing more different from the examinations and
216 explanations of the natural sciences. Bollnow puts it this way:
217

218
[We] do not have to construct an intellectual world according to hypothe-
219 tical [causal] laws simply because it is, in fact, already internally transparent
220 as a world constructed by other human beings. We can understand this
221 world [of the human sciences], that is, we see the plausibility of its internal
222 components. In nature, the causal connections must be established in order
223 to explain. In culture the transparent connections between meanings must
224
be established in order to understand. (1958a, 137)
225

226 But this affirmation of the manifestly and transparently human and every-
227 day does not mean that Dilthey—and Bollnow after him—simply dis-
228 missed the natural sciences. Bollnow, of course, was first trained as a
229 scientist, and he saw the natural sciences as entirely relevant to the natural
230 world, just as the human sciences are needed in the domains of mind,
231 culture, and significantly, education. The division between these domains
232 and these “sciences” is justified by a formal characterization of the human
233 “being:” the individual is made unique by her mind, her intellectual
234 faculties. Everything that can be drawn out, affected, or influenced by
 3 BETWEEN LEBENSPHILOSOPHIE AND EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY 25

235 these special faculties must be observed with a set of tools quite unlike
236 those employed in the study of nature. Lebensphilosophie, Bollnow empha-
237 sizes, “must seek in its own standards for the evaluation of its own
238 philosophical interpretations. The fact that there is no truly ‘secure’ foun-
239 dation of such work, and that it cannot produce predictable results, reflects
240 the underlying nature of life itself” (1958a, 130).
241 Education for Bollnow is firmly located in the human sciences, but it is
242 concerned with experiences and realities quite different from other
243 domains of human reality—including economics, sociology, and perhaps
244 especially, psychology. It is concerned with a “reality” that is different
245 from others in that its character is above all “pedagogical” or “educa-
246 tional.” As it is outlined here, Bollnow’s pedagogical work represents an
247 attempt to very broadly organize or systematize this reality—always within
248 the limitations of the principle of “uncertainty” as outlined earlier—but
249 also building on the shoulders of giants. As already intimated, Bollnow can
250 be seen as inheriting and building on the foundation of generations of
251 philosophical work—figures like Hegel, Nietzsche and Dilthey whose
252 shared concern, as explained above, is the question of human becoming.
253 Speaking in terms of education in particular, this philosophical effort
254 can be said to begin with a contemporary of Hegel, Friedrich
255 Schleiermacher, who developed modern hermeneutics in the beginning
256 of the nineteenth century. Significantly, as someone who studied
257 Schleiermacher closely, Wilhelm Dilthey, stands later at the origin of
258 both the human sciences and Lebensphilosophie. And it is Dilthey’s student,
259 Herman Nohl, who not only completed a historical compendium of the
260 work Lebensphilosophie in education, but who also deeply influenced
261 Bollnow during his own postdoctoral studies, as Bollnow himself explains:
262 “The pedagogy of Nohl, which builds on the efforts of Dilthey, and which
263 in turn are based on Schleiermacher’s foundation, all articulated the mean-
264 ing of ‘educational reality’” (1958a, 130). This educational reality, as
265 Bollnow sees it, is the working out of the “necessary implications of
266 the approach of Lebensphilosophie for pedagogical thought.” In his own
267 1975 autobiography, Bollnow outlined Nohl’s basic approach by saying:
268 “Nohl articulated the original position of Lebensphilosophie; this is one that
269 sees all aspects of culture as being traceable back to their origins in life
270 itself and can be comprehended through their function in a living system”
271 (1975a, 99).
272 Educational reality for Bollnow is formed and shaped by individuals
273 and the expressions of the motivations of educational institutionalization.
 26 EXISTENTIALISM AND EDUCATION

274 It holds up a mirror to those participating in it, and it can be found in the
275 organization of school systems and curricula as well as in the most intricate
276 relations, moods and understandings of those leading their lives within it.
277 From the perspective of Lebensphilosophie, education is seen as a long-term
278 and integral task for which there are no neurological or technological
279 “quick fixes.” Given its firm placement deep within the continuities of
280 human culture and expression, it is not as if scientific research could find
281 solutions for human learning and education that are at once optimal and
282 unchanging. At the same time, we are constantly compelled to search for
283 optimal forms of education for the present because we are constantly
284 subjected to changing demands and historical contextuality. The establish-
285 ment of a stable but also responsive educational reality in an ever-changing
286 contextual environment requires vigilance and care. Continuous reform
287 that is responsive to a changing world, not the “silver bullets” of science
288 and technology, forms the surrounding conditions for Bollnow’s under-
289 standing of educational reality.
290 Despite the profound influence that Lebensphilosophie had on
291 Bollnow, he critiqued it on at least two counts. In the first, he criticizes
292 the “lack of clarity” in the “world view” of the philosophers of
293 Lebensphilosophie (1958a, 142). Above all, Bollnow objected to its “pas-
294 sivity” and its “ignorance [towards] conscious living” (1958a, 142) in
295 addition to its relative lack of determination and ambition. If the “human
296 type melts away in the process of history,” as Dilthey said, what could be
297 the basis for decisive individual action, critique or even broader historical
298 and social awareness? Bollnow wanted to be able to provide solid
299 grounding for the individual in education, and Lebensphilosophie, clearly,
300 makes this rather difficult. Bollnow’s second criticism is based on an
301 unflinching recognition of what one might call the shadowy side of life.
302 Life, in its moments of fragility and even cruelty, can be experienced as
303 dark and overwhelming, as something that we can neither control nor
304 comprehend. Moments of birth and death represent the most obvious
305 extremes in this sense. Lebensphilosophie, with its single-minded emphasis
306 on continuities and stabilities only tells one side of the story. Bollnow
307 instead emphasized to the idea that a human being always has a “double-
308 sided relationship with life” (1958a, 102). In the search for appropriate
309 ways to influence reality in general and educational reality in part, this
310 darker side of life cannot be ignored. And it is this darker side that is the
311 principle focus of existentialism—and of Bollnow’s own intensive
312 engagement with it.
 3 BETWEEN LEBENSPHILOSOPHIE AND EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY 27

313 EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY

314

315
As mentioned earlier, in his student days, Bollnow studied under Herman
316
Nohl and Georg Misch, who were both heavily influenced by Dilthey. It is
317
therefore not surprising that Bollnow eventually focused on one of
318
Dilthey’s main philosophical contributions, Lebensphilosophie. Bollnow’s
319
exposure to existentialism, as described in Chapter 1, intervened in his
320
graduate studies suddenly and unexpectedly. Martin Heidegger’s master-
321
piece Being and Time represented for Bollnow a kind of philosophical
322
crisis in and of itself—“a truly staggering event,” as Bollnow later recalled.
323
Being and Time significantly undermined the foundations upon which
324
Bollnow’s early philosophical and pedagogical work rested. It challenged
325
Lebensphilosophie quite directly—a challenge made all the more incisive by
326
recent events. Most obviously these included the catastrophe of World
War I, in which the mechanization of warfare had cruelly shattered con- AQ2
327

328
tinuities of history, culture, and of millions of human lives.
329
The publication of Being and Time, which Bollnow saw as a veritable
330
existentialist manifesto, led him to months of dedicated study, and also to
331
a reevaluation of Lebensphilosophie. In a sense, Bollnow associated the
332
name Heidegger exclusively with Being and Time: “When I speak of
333
Heidegger, I mean the man who wrote Being and Time” (1983, 25). In
334
the end, however, Bollnow evaluated his time with Heidegger in terms
335
that are distinctly ambivalent: “Despite my admiration of Heidegger, I
336
quickly realized that the path for my own explorations was still wide open”
337
(1975a, 98). Indeed, Bollnow’s relationship to Heidegger and especially
338
to existentialism was double edged. It consisted of a critical acceptance of
339
central Heideggerian concepts on the one hand and the constant revision
340
of existentialism’s more extreme characteristics on the other. In the final
341
analysis, Bollnow’s thought relies more on Lebensphilosophie than on
342
Heidegger or existentialism. After all, Bollnow ultimately left Heidegger
343
after some 18 months of study to return to Göttingen to complete his
344
study on F. H. Jacobi’s Philosophy of Life (1933) and to work under the
345
guidance of Nohl and Misch who themselves remained disciples of
346
Lebensphilosophie.
347
Bollnow’s view that Being and Time is the defining work of existen-
348
tial philosophy was not widely shared. Heidegger’s principle concern is
349
not with “existence,” but with “being”; and “being” suggests some-
350
thing stable rather than the predicaments, crises and Angst of existen-
351
tialism per se. At the same time, Heidegger challenged any such
 28 EXISTENTIALISM AND EDUCATION

352 simplifications by juxtaposing being with time: The “being” that we say
353 is ours is not really unchanging, but subject to the whims—and also
354 ravages—of “time.” In fact, the time-bound character of being, for
355 Heidegger, is its principle characteristic—hence the title of his book.
356 This is captured in Heidegger’s term “thrown-ness,” which underscores
357 how we are all thrown into this life, and are heading on a trajectory
358 toward our final end. And this end is the only thing that is truly our
359 own as individuals, meaning that ours is literally a “being unto death,”
360 as Heidegger put it. Heidegger refers to being in this specific sense as
361 Dasein (literally “there being”), which is frequently translated as “being
362 there” or “presence.” Dasein is present or “there” most emphatically in
363 that it is time-bound or temporal, and more generally in the sense that
364 it is aware of its own being, its own life and death. Heidegger thus
365 describes his investigation as: “The Interpretation of Dasein in terms of
366 Temporality and the Explication of Time as the Transcendental
367 Horizon of the Question of Being.” Dasein, in other words, is inter-
368 preted as time-bound, and time, in turn, is viewed in terms of the way
369 it ultimately bounds and thus determines Being.
370 Within Heidegger’s investigation, the key question becomes that of the
371 uniquely human relationship to Being. The nature of this relationship, the
372 question of human (or of Dasein’s) proximity and fidelity to Being, is of
373 paramount importance. Heidegger explains this in his own inimitable way:
374

375 Dasein is a being that does not simply occur among other beings. Rather it
376 is . . . distinguished by the fact that in its being this being is concerned about
377 its very being, a relation of being to this being. Thus it is constitutive of the
378 being of Dasein to have, in its very being, a relation of being to this being.
379 (Heidegger 1996, 12)
380

381 The relationship of Being to this being occurs through something that is as
382 prominent in existentialism as “life” is to Lebensphilosophie. This some-
383 thing is existence. “Dasein always understands itself in terms of its exis-
384 tence, in terms of its possibility to be itself, or not to be itself” (Heidegger
385 1996, 12). Existence, in other words, refers to the being of something in
386 particular, and for existentialism, this is the individual in his or her moral
387 condition.
388 Dasein or our being in the world, Heidegger is saying, can understand
389 itself in terms of either being what it is or in choosing to be something
390 else. The concern, and indeed, the danger lies in misinterpreting Being and
 3 BETWEEN LEBENSPHILOSOPHIE AND EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY 29

391 its possibilities, and thus losing touch with existence. This also means as
392 Bollnow puts it, that “existence cannot be understood as a simple ‘being’
393 at rest in itself, but rather as a greater relationship beyond itself—as
394 connection” (1949, 32). What kind of a “connection” might this be? It
395 is the connection of humanity to itself? In existential or individual terms, it
396 is a connection to itself in the form of the self being flung back to the
397 depths of its own self-awareness. The contrast between this brand of
398 existentialism and Lebensphilosophie could not be starker; it is not cultural
399 expressions that enable an appropriate understanding of humankind, but
400 on the contrary, our understanding of what is important—Being and
401 existence—begins when we turn away from such external expressions
402 and distractions.
403 In establishing a “self-connection,” the meaning of human existence
404 becomes a central issue for every individual, and it can only and ultimately
405 be addressed individually. This is because “existence is decided only by
406 each Dasein itself in the manner of seizing upon or neglecting such
407 possibilities” (Heidegger 1996, 12). Human potential, to simplify, springs
408 only from the awareness of one’s own existence. Indeed, daily interaction
409 with other human beings is precisely what can prevent this experience of
410 existence. A key Heideggerian term in this regard is “das Man,” translated
411 as: “the they,” “the one,” “people,” or “anyone.” It is an authority with
412 no real or specific source, and is expressed in everyday phrases like “they
413 said on the news,” “one doesn’t do that in polite company” “people drive
414 too fast” or “anyone knows it’s true.” The “they” in this sense represents a
415 possibility for Dasein that removes its existence from Being—a possibility
416 that Heidegger labelled as “inauthentic.” In its most extreme form,
417 Heidegger’s “the they” represents nothing less than the dissolution of
418 the individual (see: Heidegger 1996, § 27, 126ff.). It is a modality, as
419 Heidegger says, in which
420

421 Dasein stands in subservience to the others. It itself is not; the others have
422 taken its being away from it. The everyday possibilities of being of Dasein are
423 at the disposal of the whims of others. These others are not definite others.
424 On the contrary, any other can represent them. (Heidegger 1996, 126)
425

426 Individuals forfeit their own power and control through this subservience
427 to others, and this is especially powerful when these “others” are detached
428 from authority and abstracted as an indefinite “they.” Self-awareness of
429 how one is perceived by others is accordingly nothing more than the
 30 EXISTENTIALISM AND EDUCATION

430 objectification of oneself. The critical issue is that “the they” all too often
431 dominates “the self.” The danger for individuals is to lose oneself in “the
432 they” or to “fall prey to the world” in terms of “being absorbed in being-
433 with-one-another as it is guided by idle talk, curiosity, and ambiguity”
434 (Heidegger 1996, 175). However, when faced with one’s own morality,
435 this can all change: One can become aware of one’s actual, radical alone-
436 ness, since “no-one can take the other’s dying away from him,” as
437 Heidegger puts it (1996, 240). Being unto death then becomes the
438 foundation of the return of the self to his or her own existence. This
439 most radical of all human crises throws into doubt the immersion of the
440 self in the “world” and can potentially overcome gross distortions of Being
441 in the world of others. “The self of the everyday Dasein is the they-self,”
442 but it is to be clearly distinguished from “the authentic self” (Heidegger
443 1996, 129).
444 In this regard, the outside world is hostile to the individual in two
445 different ways. First, one is condemned in this world to experience a
446 number of crises and tragedies in one’s lifetime. Second, there is the
447 abstract but inevitable approach of one’s own death—the ultimate crisis
448 or catastrophe. Furthermore, continuity in one’s own lifetime is funda-
449 mentally impossible, while the certainty of death provokes a feeling of
450 acute dread as one stands before one’s own mortality.
451 Clearly, existentialism and Heidegger’s Being and Time is a philosophy
452 that is of and for the “resolute” individual—to borrow another
453 Heideggerian keyword. It is certainly not a philosophy for the gregarious
454 crowd or the close community, as Bollnow emphasizes:
455

456
The revelation of existence necessarily occurs in the loneliness of the indivi-
457
dual spirit. No community can assist in this realization. It can only hinder
458
the acceptance of the great burden of existence. (1949, 45)
459

460

461 For Heidegger, community, social interconnection and “the masses” all
462 conceal precisely what makes us authentically ourselves. Bollnow goes so
463 far as to say that “existence and the masses are actually mutually exclusive”
464 (1949, 48). But at this point Bollnow diverges from Heidegger, insisting
465 that human beings always and necessarily act within the framework of
466 social relationships—even when acting on their own. He sees these rela-
467 tionships as forming the necessary background for individuals to question
468 and seek their own existence. Existence for Bollnow is “always and
 3 BETWEEN LEBENSPHILOSOPHIE AND EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY 31

469 necessarily the existence of an individual cultivated in the soil of commu-

470 nity” (1949, 45).
471 Certain moods are also associated with these relationships. And here,
472 too, Bollnow is critical of Heidegger and of existentialism more broadly.
473 The “basic mood” or Stimmungsboden, as Bollnow calls it, of the existen-
474 tial philosophers is not a “cool, remote theoretical relationship to the
475 subject,” he says. This mood is also not the
476

477 warm feeling of security and closeness to the surrounding world of

478 Lebensphilosophie. . . . The emotional register of angst and desperation, of
479 apathy and boredom are the unique face of existential philosophy. (1949, 59)
480

481 Angst and crises, the questioning of reality and of one’s self—all captured
482 in the Heideggerian term Angst—are the means by which an individual is
483 knocked off balance and removed from unreflective existence. This emo-
484 tion is not about a fear of something in particular, but rather a more
485 indefinite, objectless “anxiety” or “dread” that is associated with a radical
486 freedom from the masses and from their conventions and expectations.
487 Bollnow explains that this Angst is experienced as “merciless alienation, as
488 being flung back out of all familiar contexts into the desolation of one’s
489 own ego” (1949, 26). Through Angst, human beings are “ripped from
490 their ‘fallen-ness in the world’ and are free to pursue their existential tasks”
491 (1949, 62). As Bollnow emphasizes, for existentialism, it is “only through
492 Angst [that] we can reach our actual existence” (1949, 62).
493 Whether it is this radical brand of existentialism or the softer contours
494 of Lebensphilosophie, it is always and ultimately about the search for the
495 human being for Bollnow. Bollnow, as emphasized in Chapter 1, is always
496 seeking the “anthropological,” particularly as it is relevant to education.
497 But the question we asked at the beginning of this book still stands: What
498 exactly is humanity? Existentialism answers this question not by appealing
499 to living cultural continuities, but by locating it within the individual who
500 is thrown back onto his—or herself through crises and Angst. External
501 relations and factors, from family to possessions and social roles, are not
502 only to be deeply questioned and examined, but they must also ultimately
503 be rejected as barriers to existence. In stark contrast with existentialist
504 despair and Angst, Lebensphilosophie’s emphasis on the underlying conti-
505 nuities of human life and culture offers a rather optimistic outlook. In
506 Lebensphilosophie, community, tradition, and convention are seen as sus-
507 taining the self rather than as robbing it of its essence. With its underlying
 32 EXISTENTIALISM AND EDUCATION

508 optimism, Lebensphilosophie positively affirms expressions of human beings

509 and one’s active involvement in human relations, while these same invol-
510 vements are anathema to existentialism.
511 So what then is humanity according to Bollnow? Is it life as described
512 by Lebensphilosophie or is it the resolute existence of existentialism?
513 Bollnow’s answer to this question—as is the case for a number of key
514 questions arising later in this book—is a clear but ultimately ambivalent
515 “yes, but. . . . ” Yes, humanity is life and cultural continuity in the sense of
516 the Lebensphilosophie, but at the same time, the existentialist account of the
517 individual, of one’s being in time, cannot be ignored. Ultimately,
518 Bollnow’s response to his encounter with Heidegger was to formulate a
519 critique of existentialism from the perspective of Lebensphilosophie.
520 Bollnow begins his critique with Heidegger’s notion of time. As with
521 many other Heideggerian notions—the individual versus the masses,
522 authenticity versus inauthenticity, existence versus “the they”—
523 Heidegger understood time in terms of diametric opposites: There is
524 fulfilled versus unfulfilled time. There is the existential moment of crisis,
525 insight, and authenticity, and there is immersion in inauthentic, common
526 day-to-day routine. As Bollnow puts it, there is the “the ‘authentic time’
527 of explicit existence and the ‘inauthentic time’ of the Da-sein fallen in the
528 world” (1949, 99). Authentic, fulfilled time is not measured sequentially
529 or quantitatively, but rather is seen in terms of critical isolated moments.
530 It is understood in terms of interruption and even catastrophe rather
531 than continuity. The much more continuous temporality in which indivi-
532 duals live, in which they engage in the ongoing process of social and
533 political interaction, is exemplified for Heidegger in apathy, boredom,
534 and distraction.
535 What does this dimension of “time”—and Heidegger’s broader cri-
536 tique of existentialism—ultimately mean for education? Again, in
537 response, Bollnow presents us with a carefully thought out but ultimately
538 ambivalent reply. Education cannot be understood primarily in terms of
539 crises and isolation, but at the same time, education would be impossible
540 without at least the possibility of these experiences. Only with
541 Lebensphilosophie acting as a substantial counterweight can education be
542 imagined. It is not the Angst and catastrophes of existentialism for
543 Bollnow, but the temporal stabilities emphasized in Lebensphilosophie
544 that provide the primary foundation for education. When one thinks of
545 education, one typically imagines relatively constant processes. What is
546 taken to be normal in the sense of regular daily experiences is a central
 3 BETWEEN LEBENSPHILOSOPHIE AND EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY 33

547 component in educational contexts. Education effectively becomes impos-

548 sible if the single framework available is one that values only the individual
549 in a situation of crisis, and that requires the outright rejection of relational
550 and cultural continuities.
551 At the same time, it is the case that some educational approaches
552 actually do emphasize the importance of discomfort, difficulty, apprehen-
553 sion, and even crises. Transformative adult learning, for example, is based
554 on the idea that an initial “disorienting dilemma”—one that can be
555 triggered by a “significant life crisis”—should lead to a “self-examination
556 with feelings of fear, anger, guilt or shame” (Mezirow 2009, 94). Thus, in
557 an abstract theoretical sense, it may be possible to imagine an education
558 built upon the harsh events and emotions foregrounded by existentialism.
559 It is undeniable that situations involving emotions like despair and Angst
560 can lead to truly educational experiences. Almost having a fatal accident on
561 the road can change one’s driving, or the death of a family member can
562 radically affect one’s outlook on life and relationships. But obviously, these
563 kinds of events are themselves entirely undesirable.
564 Another important consideration is that crises and feelings of Angst—
565 and the existential return to the self associated with it—cannot be artifi-
566 cially caused, planned, or induced, and certainly not in the context of an
567 “education.” For this reason, Angst plays no role in the foundation of
568 Bollnow’s educational conceptions; neither in his understanding of “life”
569 nor of “educational reality.” Bollnow instead asks about the existential
570 “learning” moments that inevitably occur in one’s life and seeks to under-
571 stand emotions that might be a part of these. His answer is shaped by his
572 allegiance to Lebensphilosophie: Objectless anxiety and despair represent
573 the most extreme negative expressions of ongoing emotional dynamics
574 and possibilities. Of course, our emotional lives also include feelings like
575 joy, trust, comfort, and acceptance. Indeed, it will become clear later that
576 emotions like joy and acceptance can be seen as the positive counterpoints
577 to Angst and despair—with acceptance playing an especially important role
578 in what Bollnow calls “harmonious educational reality.”
579 Yet another problem for Bollnow is again to be found in the under-
580 standing of time articulated by existentialism. In this case, what is
581 important is not the individually experienced time of crisis and Angst
582 versus stretches of apathy and boredom, but historical time that con-
583 nects successive human generations. Bollnow points out that there is
584 no possibility for “progress” over time within the existential experience.
585 The process of rejecting the external to confront one’s self is an act that
 34 EXISTENTIALISM AND EDUCATION

586 must be undertaken as if for the first time by every generation, by every
587 individual. The best possible result of this repetition is always the same:
588 the recognition of one’s own existence. “Here something uncondi-
589 tional must occur. Something disconnected from the flow of history
590 that remains constant in time” (1949, 106). But how can we under-
591 stand our ability to learn from the collective past, and to make changes
592 to improve both ourselves and our society over time? Here again it is
593 Lebensphilosophie, with its emphasis on the continuity and accumulation
594 of human cultural expression over time, that provides an effective
595 counterweight to existentialism. Each human being clearly does not
596 start over from scratch. Whether in infancy, childhood, or adulthood,
597 we benefit vastly from those around us, and what they bring from
598 others and from their own past. These supports come not only in the
599 form of care and support for others, but also as bodies of knowledge,
600 technologies, conventions, and carefully honed practices. The possibi-
601 lity of living in some sort of stark, resolute isolation from all of this is
602 on many levels entirely impossible.
603 Yet at the same time, to be able to think critically about what those
604 coming before us have done, written, and discovered, to recognize the
605 limitations and contradictions—as well as the important achievements—
606 that might be found in these continuities, some critical distance is neces-
607 sary. There need to be moments when one might be removed—even if just
608 to a small degree—from immersion in the continuous flow of the human
609 world, its conventions and meanings. Only in this way is it possible to get a
610 sense of what might really have changed over time, and where our current
611 failings might lie. This is where Bollnow’s “yes . . . but” again comes into
612 play. Existing experiences of crisis and isolation, despite their deeply
613 difficult nature, can serve as effective vantage points for the individual
614 evaluation and revision of rules and personal values that one follows in life.
615 In this sense—and in the senses affirmed by existentialism in general—
616 crises and Angst are presented not as entirely negative or destructive
617 forces, but ultimately as means to an end. In addition to bringing us closer
618 to our own existence, despair and Angst effectively force us to detach
619 ourselves from our relation to the external world, and to examine both
620 ourselves and this world critically. However, these distressing emotions
621 allow us to challenge the external world as long as they are counter-
622 balanced by stabilities and continuities so that they do not overwhelm us.
623 Ultimately for Bollnow, human “being” is “existence” at the same time
624 as it is also “life.” Both existentialism and Lebensphilosophie, in other
 3 BETWEEN LEBENSPHILOSOPHIE AND EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY 35

625 words, are needed to understand education as an enterprise that gives rise
626 to that which is both sustaining and continuous as well as that which is
627 critical and novel. Education is about that which sustains culture, but it is
628 also about more than the simple reaffirmation and reiteration of what
629 already exists. Important aspects of experiential reality cannot be ade-
630 quately described through Lebensphilosophie’s one-sided affirmation of
631 everyday existence and cultural accomplishment. Any approach to every-
632 day experience, Bollnow came to believe, must also recognize the impor-
633 tance of dealing with the deeply negative and the completely unexpected.
634 What Bollnow takes from existentialism is not a one-sided affirmation of
635 its starkest extremes, but the full range of existential possibilities. It is in
636 this synthesis that Bollnow’s unique contributions to education and edu-
637 cational reality lie.
638 However, before concluding this chapter, and preparing to discuss this
639 “reality,” it is important to recognize that Bollnow’s unique pedagogical
640 interpretations of existentialism and Lebensphilosophie are precisely that,
641 interpretations. When it comes to existentialism, Bollnow not only draws
642 on Heidegger, but also on figures such as the psychiatrist and philosopher
643 Karl Jaspers and the mystical Bohemian poet Rainer Maria Rilke.
644 Bollnow’s existentialism, however, is one rooted in systematic analysis
645 and not simply on the juxtaposition of various perspectives.
646 Understanding, he believed, is gained through the investigation of pro-
647 blems and not through personal allegiances.
648 All the same, Bollnow’s interpretations of Heidegger have been
649 regarded rather critically. Recently, for example, Ulrich Wehner described
650 Bollnow’s approach as involving a “double break” with Heidegger’s most
651 fundamental assumptions (Wehner 2002, 145). It is a break from the
652 study of being, known as “ontology,” to instead focus on “anthropology”;
653 and it is a break “from phenomenology to ethics,” as Wehner puts it
654 (116). Bollnow, in short, parts ways with Heidegger in emphasizing the
655 human instead of Heidegger’s notion of Being—one which Heidegger
656 retrospectively clarified as actually being anti-humanist. Bollnow also
657 addresses (ethical) questions of right and wrong instead of the more purely
658 philosophical questions of the time—which Heidegger defined as ulti-
659 mately phenomenological in nature. This “double break” from
660 Heidegger can also be seen as an attempt by Bollnow to make the rather
661 harsh character of existentialism more palatable for the field of pedagogy.
662 Wehner goes so far as to say that Bollnow actually “does not offer a
663 systematic analysis of existential philosophy, but instead provides a revision
 36 EXISTENTIALISM AND EDUCATION

664 and rehabilitation of Lebensphilosophie” (2002, 141). He concludes that

665 “Bollnow was never as concerned with existential pedagogy as he was
666 with the establishment of pedagogy in an existential context” (Wehner
667 2002, 99).2
668 It seems that Bollnow himself was aware of what one might call his
669 “creative misinterpretation” of Heidegger. Bollnow admits in one inter-
670 view to having produced a one-sided interpretation of Heidegger and
671 underscores his allegiance to the Lebensphilosophie. “I was unable to find
672 access to [Heidegger’s] ontological approach using my own understand-
673 ing of existence and may have misunderstood him” (1983, 25). However
674 his reading of Heidegger might be viewed, Heidegger of indispensable for
675 to Bollnow’s thought—especially for his conception of “broken” educa-
676 tional reality.
677

678

679
NOTES
680 1. “Spirit” or Geist does not refer so much to spirituality or religion in these
681 references as it does to mind, intellect, consciousness, or the “human” itself
682 —as it does in the term Zeitgeist. For example, G. W. F. Hegel’s 1807
683
masterwork, the Phenomenology of Geist, has been translated as the
684
Phenomenology of Mind.
2. Wehner goes on to critique Bollnow’s treatment of specific ideas and themes
685
from existentialism as “neutered,” as serving only as a means of constructing
686
one aspect of Bollnow’s notion of educational reality. Such a treatment,
687
Wehner further argues, reduces existentialism to a pale shadow of itself, and
688
hinders the possibility of a more complete and well-rounded “pedagogy of
689 existence” (cf. Wehner 2002, 127).
690

691

692

693

694

695

696

697

698

699

700

701

702

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