Is (it) time to leave eternity behind? Rethinking Bildung's implicit temporality

Abstract

Motivated by Gadamer's identification of Bildung's ‘Vorbild-Bildung-Nachbild’ (model-process-result) structure, a historical tracing of the Christian messianic heritage in Bildung is conducted. As Bildung grows into an educational concept with global aspirations, this heritage might prove a substantial theoretical obstacle. As an alternative to the Christian messianic conception of time, Crockett and Malabou's concept ‘plastic time’ is presented. Whereas Christian messianic time collects its drive from the eternal which is (not) to come, plastic time collects its drive from the ‘synaptic gap’ instead, the creative and constructive space located and organised in the human body. Crockett and Malabou argue that plastic time might allow the deconstruction of Christianity, and, this article suggests, consequently also of Bildung. A formulation of Bildung that can go beyond Western thinking would be a shift that might have consequences for education generally.