Classical Humanism and the Challenge of Modernity

Introduction

“Die [humanistische] Bildung war eine Provokation und mußte zur Auseinandersetzung her-ausfordern, die freilich diese Bildung nicht schwächte, sondern nur (…) stärkte.”

(Manfred Landfester, 1988)

The classical-humanistic ideal of education as outlined in the previous part of this book was so widely endorsed that it might reasonably be said to have been the dominant educational ideal in 19^th-century Germany. Yet, for all its popularity, classical humanism faced some serious challenges at three different levels. Firstly, within classical studies an approach to the ancient world arose that deviated in important respects from the traditional approach propagated by humanists like Karl Gottfried Siebelis. From the last decade of the ...