In times of increasing globalization of education, its politicization and its instrumentalization for social and economic goals are eye-catching. One of the signs is a remarkable upcoming of mechanistic wording in the area of education like input-output, cost and productivity, management, accountability. The conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches that are applicable in global research, access and democracy in education favorize the competitive, economic creature (homo economicus), characterized by perfect access to information and by the infinite ability to make rational decisions, maximizing utility in terms of monetary as well as non-monetary gains. However, pedagogical practice, students and teachers give us many other images of the human. So do the different subjects at school. It is more than obvious that learning, pedagogy, bildung cannot be reduced to mechanics.

In this symposium we will ask the question what is specific to pedagogy. We will look back to what we make out as specifically pedagogical terminologies in different languages and traditions. In seeking to return education to its human roots, we will take a stance in the Faure report (1972), as well as in the foremost Continental-European educational subdiscipline of pedagogical anthropology: According to the Faure report, education should enhance the full expression of being human. From the pedagogical anthropology point of view, all education begins with an implicit image or ideal of the human. Beside the homo economicus there are uncountable homo-epitheta. Most of them were coined in the mid 18th century in imitation of homo sapiens. The homo aestheticus refers to Alexander Baumgarten’s (1750) theory of ‘sensible knowledge’ and Immanuel Kant’s (1790) ‘judgment of taste’; Homo loquens is a serious suggestion by Johann G. von Herder, taking the human species as defined by the use of language. We will follow up the hypothesis that by making these images or ideals explicit as approaches to education, learning and content, a first step is taken towards an understanding education as a fundamentally humanizing process. 

Carnevali, Barbara (2019). Two Baptisms and a Divorce: Homo Economicus Versus Homo Aestheticus. In: Social Appearances: A Philosophy of Display and Prestige, New York Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press, pp. 111-128. Faure, E.; Herrera, F. Kaddoura, A. R.; Lopes, H.; Petrovski, A. V. ; Rahnema, M.; Ward, F. C. (1972): Learning to be: The world of education today and tomorrow. Paris, London: UNESCO/Harrap. Retrieved 7 December 2023 fromhttps://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000001801.