The Issue of Formation in the Writings of Young Hannah Arendt: an investigation on Bildung

Abstract

With the exception of the text Crisis in Education, published in the 1950s, Hannah Arendt wrote directly about this subject in the writings of her youth, in the 1930s. However, her research problem had not yet been well delineated, and both texts dealing with the matter highlight the concept of formation (Bildung) instead of directly addressing education and its institutions. Our goal in this article is to investigate how the subject was addressed by Hannah Arendt prior to her immigration to the United States and what elements remain in her later works. In order to do so, we shall deal with two texts: (i) her review of German pedagogue Hans Weil's work, Die Entstehung des deutschen Bildungsprinzip, published in 1930; and (ii) The Enlightenment and the Jewish Question, from 1932.