Johann Friedrich Herbart

Herbart as a philosopher Johann Friedrich Herbart was born on 4 May 1776 in the North German town of Oldenburg and died on 11 August 1841 in the university city of Göttingen. Between 1794 and 1797, he was a pupil of the philosopher, Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) at Jena University. However, the young Herbart soon distanced himself from the ‘scientific theory’ and practical philosophy of his mentor. He used the contradictions inherent in idealistic philosophy as a fruitful point of departure for the development of his own realistic philosophy. Nevertheless, Herbart remained true throughout his life to the rigorous style of thinking of his teacher Fichte. He too attempted to present the main elements of his philosophical writings as ‘deductions’. Herbart’s principal philosophical works are Hauptpunkte der Metaphysik (Main Points of Metaphysics) written in 1806; Allgemeine Praktische Philosophie (General Practical Philosophy) dating from 1808; Psychologie als Wissenschaft: neugegründet auf Erfahrung, Metaphysik und Mathematik (Psychology as a Science: on the New Foundations of Experience, Metaphysics and Mathematics) from the years 1824-25; and his Allgemeine Metaphysik nebst den Anfängen der Philosophischen Naturlehre (General Metaphysics, together with the First Principles of a Philosophical Theory of Nature), written in 1828-29. In his metaphysic, Herbart draws heavily on the theory of monads of Leibniz. Taking account of the problems raised by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason, Herbart attempts to grasp reality 2 through concepts in his metaphysical deductions. Herbart’s metaphysic comprises, in particular, a carefully thought-out psychology that is a milestone in the history of this branch of knowledge. Herbart was the first to use, with rigorous logic, the methods of modern infinitesimal calculus to solve problems of psychological research. In his view, psychology is rooted in experience, metaphysics and mathematics. His intention was to rival, in the new discipline of psychology, the discoveries made by Isaac Newton in physics. Admittedly, nineteenth century empirical psychological research did not follow in his footsteps. Herbart’s psychology did have an unmistakable influence, however, on the empirical psychology of Wilhelm Wundt and on the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud. Herbart’s practical philosophy is characterized by the fact that moral judgements are interpreted as a special form of aesthetic judgement. Moral judgements adopt an approving or reproving position on states of volition. Ethical ideas are nothing other than aesthetic judgements on elementary states of volition. The moral judgements of daily life can be corrected in the light of the ethical ideas of perfection, inner freedom, goodwill, justice and equity. Herbart’s working carreer began in the canton of Bern, Switzerland, between 1797 and 1800, and continued at Bremen from 1800 to 1802, at Göttingen from 1802 to 1809, at Königsberg from 1809 to 1833, and finally at Göttingen again from 1833 to 1841. In Switzerland he worked as a private tutor, in Bremen as an independent scholar and unofficial tutor, and in Göttingen and Königsberg as a professor of philosophy and pedagogics. In early 1809, he was appointed to take over the Chair of Philosophy at Königsberg University from Immanuel Kant’s immediate successor. The authorities in Königsberg were looking for a philosopher with a high scientific ranking who also had an understanding of education. In that spirit, the King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm III, approved Herbart’s nomination to Königsberg in the following terms: I [...] approve the appointment of Professor Herbart from Göttingen to teach philosophy at our university here, and I do so all the more readily as Herbart can play a particularly useful role in the improvement of our education system following the principles of Pestalozzi (Kehrbach, 1897-1912 (K 14), p. 13). The concept of educational teaching In the years between 1802 and 1809, Herbart already succeeded in making a name for himself not only as a philosopher, but also as a pedagogical specialist through his many publications. His work entitled Pestalozzis Idee eines ABC der Anschauung (Pestalozzi’s Idea of an ABC of Perception) was published in 1802. This was followed by Über die ästhetische Darstellung der Welt als das Hauptgeschäft der Erziehung (On the Aesthetic Representation of the World as the Principal Function of Education, 1804), and Allgemeine Pädagogik aus dem Zweck der Erziehung abgeleitet (General Pedagogics Derived from the Purpose of Education, 1806). The idea of educational teaching is central to Herbart’s theory of education which is founded on experience and on philosophical reflection. Like practical and theoretical educationalists before him, Herbart also makes a distinction between education (Latin: educatio) and teaching (Latin: instructio). ‘Education’ means shaping the development of character with a view to the improvement of man. ‘Teaching’ represents the world, conveys fresh knowledge, develops existing aptitudes and imparts useful skills. Herbart’s reforming pedagogics revolutionized the relationship between education and teaching. A new paradigm of pedagogical thinking and pedagogical action was thus created. Before Herbart, it was unusual to combine the concepts of ‘education’ and ‘teaching’. Consequently, questions pertaining to education and teaching were initially pursued independently. 3 Only at a second stage was an attempt made to determine how teaching could be supported by education and education could be supported by teaching. Herbart, on the contrary, took the bold step of ‘subordinating’ the concept of ‘teaching’ to that of ‘education’ in his educational theory. As he saw it, external influences, such as the punishment or shaming of pupils, were not the most important instruments of education. On the contrary, appropriate teaching was the only sure means of promoting education that was bound to prove successful. In Herbart’s own words, teaching is the ‘central activity of education’. His own thinking, personal experience and experimentation convinced Herbart of the astonishing effects of educational teaching: the individual who acquires a ‘versatile range of interests’ through teaching will ‘be capable’ of doing with inner ease everything that he ‘wishes’ to do after ‘mature reflection’. He will always keep his ethical ideal clearly in mind and, in his progress towards the attainment of that ideal, he will be able to rely on his own pleasure in further learning and on the dependable ‘strength of his own character’. Herbart’s activity as a private tutor in Bern, an educational adviser in Bremen, professor of philosophy and pedagogics at the Universities of Göttingen and Königsberg, and as the head of an experimental pedagogical institute attached to the University of Königsberg, was guided at all times by the concept of educational teaching. We shall now examine the process by which Herbart gradually developed the notion of educational teaching and see how this central concept of his educational philosophy has survived to the present day. The different biographical, theoretical and practical/pedagogical aspects which we shall be following up will gradually fuse together into a ‘profile’ which will reveal Herbart’s contribution to the progress of pedagogical thinking and to the reform of pedagogical action. Herbart’s concept of pedagogical science A Swiss student friend from Herbart’s Jena study days found him a post as a private tutor in Switzerland in the year 1797. Here, Herbart joined up with a circle of like-minded friends for whom Pestalozzi’s educational ideas met with an enthusiastic audience. Personal contacts with Pestalozzi were also established. In a publication dating from 1802, Herbart recalls his personal experience of Pestalozzi for the benefit of his readers: A dozen children between the ages of 5 and 8 were summoned to school at an unusual hour in the evening. I was afraid that I might find them ill-disposed and so witness the failure of the experiment which I wanted to observe. But the children came with no trace of reluctance and lively activity continued unabated to the end (Herbart, 1982a, p. 65). Herbart goes on to describe how Pestalozzi encouraged the children to occupy their mouths and their hands simultaneously; how he used repetition as a technique of speech training and, at the same time, gave the children materials to hold which were intended to make it easier for them to learn the skill of writing. The experience which the young private tutor brought back with him from Switzerland was not the only root of his educational theory. He was also stimulated by the pedagogical ideas of Fichte and Pestalozzi, which were soon to assume an original personal character in a thinker of Herbart’s stature. Herbart described two contrasting routes of pedagogical reflection. The first—that of analytical-pedagogical thought—begins with his own experience and experimentation. It leads initially to empirical pedagogics and then on to a philosophical theory of education. This route enables the concepts which dominate the range of experience of the person who starts out as a layman to be ‘explained’ in increasing depth and to be ‘made clear’ through an on-going process of philosophical 4 reflection. This route of pedagogical thinking makes philosophy dependent, if only partially, on pedagogics. The second route, that of speculative thinking establishing a synthesis, starts out from the principles of a philosophical system which already exists and develops a theoretical and practical doctrine of education from them. In this way, pedagogics became dependent on philosophy, and, in particular, on psychology and ethics. In his educational publications, the young Herbart preferred, with few exceptions, the analytical-pedagogical mode of thought. However, once he had developed his philosophical system in the middle years of his life and given it comprehensive expression, he allowed the speculative mode of thought that establishes syntheses to take priority. However, Herbart was thereafter unable to present an overall and conclusive view of his educational philosophy. In the two routes of pedagogical thinking, the ‘ends’ and the ‘means’ of education are both discussed. The investigation of the ends is co-ordinated with ethics, while the study of the means has a psychological slant. In his ‘General Pedagogics’, his central pedagogical work published in 1806, Herbart described this duplication of content that is encountered in both modes of thought, in the following terms: The intention with which the educator is to approach his work, this practical reflection, provisionally detailed down to the measures which our present state of knowledge suggests we should choose, is to my mind the first half of pedagogics. But there must be a second in which the possibility of education is theoretically explained and presented with its limitations in the light of changing circumstances (Herbart, 1982b, p. 22). Herbart’s complete pedagogical system would accordingly seem to consist of two sections, linked with ethics and psychology respectively. Both sections can be investigated analytically (starting out from teaching experience) and by synthesis (based on philosophical principles). The analytical and synthetic modes are contrasting types of thinking.