Teoria della formazione dell'uomo

The pages we now present in Italian translation constitute an early formulation of Humboldt's conception of Bildung, understood not simply as a path of learning and instruction, but as an inner, unified, and harmonious process of the individual, undertaken through education, instruction, and, not least, imagination. In his correspondence with Christian Körner, dating back to his weeks in Burgörner, Humboldt rethinks the concept of Einbildungskraft based on Kant's Critique of Judgment. Already at that time, the idea of education as a safeguard of individual spontaneity in the most extensive and rich plurality was gaining strength.