Modern education arrives as truncated abstraction, ancient as self-formed universality
Evidence
The manner of study in ancient times differed from that of the modern age in that the former was the proper and complete formation (Durchbildung) of the natural consciousness. Putting itself to the test at every point of its determinate being, and philosophizing about everything it came across, the individual made itself into a universality that was active through and through. In modern times, however, the individual finds the abstract form ready-made (vorbereitet); the effort to grasp and appropriate it is more … the truncated (abgeschnitetne) generation of the universal than it is the emergence of the latter from the concrete variety of determinate being. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1016
Categorization
- DEFINE: Distinguishes the two study-forms key to Hegel’s account of how thought is transmitted — the truncated vs emerging universal.
- XREF: Connects to the reader’s plasticity work: education as received form (already shaped, ‘plastic’ but fixed) vs transformative formation. — connects to: Modern individuals receive abstract universality ready-made rather than forging it from concrete life; Ancient philosophical formation built universality from concrete experience; modernity finds it ready-made and truncated. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1016; University culture treats the self as emptied out once the classroom threshold is crossed — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 45
Broader Connections
- Ancient philosophical formation built universality from concrete experience; modernity finds it ready-made and truncated.
#expands(0.95) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1016 - Modern individuals receive abstract universality ready-made rather than forging it from concrete life
#expands(0.92)