ABSTRACT
As part of a genealogical diagnosis of the problem, I turn to the ‘Humbodtian moment’ to which our modern research university owes its origins. I examine the cultural-intellectual milieu of German Romanticism and the idea of education as Bildung (self-formation) that emerged in late 18th-century Prussia. My task here is to investigate the necessary conditions and the antecedent conceptual repertoire that gives rise to this specific model of education that undergirds the modern university. How did the intellectuals of the times think about education and from where did they draw their resources? What was the specific conception of education that arose and what was its relation to the larger culture? What notions of inquiry, formation and knowledge were developed? – are some of the questions addressed. The chapter focusses on some of the intellectual thinkers of the period who actively draw from their intellectual tradition to articulate a common conceptual framework for the idea of the university. It shows how the notion of formation articulated as the actualization of the self or one’s will depends non-trivially on pre-existing theological schemes. The chapter explores the lines of thinking that cut across several authors that continue to frame debates even today.
