Axel Honneth’s idea of a drawn-out process of education

Abstract

This article examines Axel Honneth’s interpretation of Hegel’s ‘ethical life’ as a conception of a ‘drawn-out’ process of education. Honneth’s formulations of ethical life, namely ‘personal relationships’, ‘market economy’ and ‘the democratic will-formation’, are an interesting reinterpretation of Hegel’s ‘family’, ‘civil society’ and ‘state’, an reinterpretation that – however – involves two risks. Firstly, in ‘the psychologisation of Hegel’s ideas’, Honneth considers that ‘a drawn-out process of education’ concerns merely the positive developmental processes, ignoring Hegel’s proposal of so-called ‘negative’ elements of Bildung such as compulsion, discipline and authority, which – Hegel argues – are necessary in the spheres of family and civil society. Secondly, Honneth contends that a drawn-out process of education has a homing, self-reconstructive nature, which leaves readers uncertain as to how upbringing, education and schools should be understood in that context. This paper critically amends Honneth’s perspectives and outlines solutions to Honneth’s interpretative risks, using Hegel’s own views on education and the school institute. Hegel’s work clarifies the distinction between upbringing and education as follows: upbringing is a family matter, while education is the task of civil society. These two ideas intermingle in Honneth’s recitations. Hegelian school theory also offers a topical, critical-content-useful interpretation of the application of those ideas for our contemporary institutes of education.

Keywords:

• Bildung
• Hegel
• Honneth
• school education
• Sittlichkeit

Notes

1. Honneth introduces the idea of ‘einen langgezogenen Bildungsprozeß’ or, in English, ‘a drawn-out process of education’. The English translation of Honneth’s German work might mislead readers to consider that Honneth encapsulates a process of education or schooling generally in his writing, which is not the case. Honneth’s ideas, I contend, resemble the notion of ‘Bildung’ more closely than they do a proposal for ‘education’.