E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 6, 2021

‘Beispiel’ as a Medium of ‘Bildung’:Günther Buck’s Interpretation of Kant
Yusuke MORIOpenDNA Research Labs Researcher
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to clarify the contents of Günther Buck’s ‘Bildung’ theory, with respect
to his concept of ‘Beispiel’ and his interpretation of Kant’s theory. In this paper, I present Buck’s
Beispiel’ concept as a medium of ‘Bildung’, the German word for education, and I suggest that
‘Beispiel’ is a mediator between the empirical and ideal worlds, between heteronomy and autonomy,
and between historicity and universality.
As a 20th century German pedagogist and philosopher, Buck was a student of Hans-Georg
Gadamer. Early in his studies, Buck passed away, leaving few published works, and his following has
been small. Interest in Buck has recently grown in Germany within pedagogy studies; however, therelationship between Buck and Kant has not yet been investigated.
This paper is organised into three sections. In the first section, I clarify the problem between
historicity and universality by examining Kant’s focus on the universality of morality and comparing
it to Gadamer’s emphasis on historicity. Then, I examine how Buck attempts to resolve this conflict.
In the second section, I investigate his concept of experience. While Buck’s theory of experience isinfluenced by Gadamer, it remains uniquely his own, especially with respect to universality. In thethird section, I establish Buck’s ‘Beispiel’ as a medium for education.
In conclusion, Buck attempts to solve specific pedagogical problems by engaging in the challengeof closing the gap between historicity and universality, and thus illuminates the transition fromheteronomy to autonomy. In Buck’s ‘Bildung’ theory, historicity and universality are united
harmoniously.
Key words
Günther Buck, Gadamer, Kant, Hermeneutics, Bildung

Correspondence:
Yusuke MORI, OpenDNA Research Labs Researcher. Email: ushimado1988＠gmail.com

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Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to elucidate Günther Buck’s (1925–1983) ‘Bildung’
theory in the context of his reception of Kant. I then show how the concept of ‘Beispiel’is a mediating device for the universality and historicity of ‘Bildung’ in Buck’s theory of‘Bildung’.
Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002) had the first decisive influence on Buck’s
theory of ‘Bildung’. Gadamer was Buck’s mentor and was known as the author of
Wahrheit und Methode. Buck’s theory of ‘Bildung’ is a continuation of Gadamer’s
philosophical hermeneutic position that ‘understanding’ is ‘the way of being itself’(GW2: 440). In that sense, it is legitimate for Pauls, a current leader of ‘Buck Studies’, toidentify Buck’s ‘Bildung’ theory as ‘hermeneutic Bildung’1. By relying on Buck’s theoryof ‘Bildung’, Pauls essentially re-critiques the position that restricts pedagogical research
to the empirical and its spheres, and it attempts to separate the normative aspects frompedagogy as ‘non-disciplinary’. Schenk, in her voluminous book, Praktische Pädagogik
als Paradigma (2017), clearly shares this position2, as she relies on Buck’s vision ofhermeneutical ‘Bildung’ in an ambitious attempt to establish a ‘practical pedagogy’ forcontemporary pedagogy. The significance of Schenk’s study is that it provides a detailed
interpretation that reveals the validity of Buck’s ideas to contemporary discussions bydrawing on his texts, showing their relevance to temporal problems of education, despite
Buck’s having remained the ‘implicitly acknowledged landlord’ of ‘Bildung’ theory3.
The current paper generally agrees with this position while interpreting Buck’s
thought from an alternate perspective. First, I focus on the difference between Buck andGadamer’s relationship, which has traditionally been understood as a continuum.
Although he was not a pedagogue himself, Gadamer’s thought contains several elementsof pedagogical issues, though there were not many previous works on the subject 4 .
1

In his book, Pauls, the leader of ‘Buck Studies’, relies especially on Buck’s work Hermeneutik und Bildung, anddescribes his conception of ‘action hermeneutics’ as a ‘hermeneutic theory of Bildung’ that takes on Gadamer’s
philosophical hermeneutics. cf. Pauls: 2009.
2
Cf. Schenk 2017.
3
Cf. Schenk/Pauls 2014: 9. This collection of essays, edited by Pauls and Schenk, includes contributions from many
German pedagogues, and indicates the high level of interest in Buck. The contents range from intrinsic readings of
key Buck concepts, such as negativity and hermeneutics, to comparisons with Dewey and discussions of theapplicability of Buck’s ideas to sociological methodology. However, ‘Buck Studies’ is still in its infancy, and there
is no solid image of Buck. Thus, it is necessary to continue to follow the research trends in this regard.
4
In Gadamer’s thought, too, the concept of ‘Bildung’ plays a role that cannot be overlooked, as it has an entry in
Wahrheit und Methode. Ozeki’s discussion is more detailed on this point. Grondin also discusses the relationshipbetween Gadamer's thought and education. Both agree on the following points. First, they both see the process ofhuman development as a process of opening one’s own perspective, which occurs through ‘dialogue’ with others.
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However, although Buck’s thought is a continuation of Gadamer’s philosophicalhermeneutic, there is a crucial difference between the two. This difference is not a hidden
criticism of Buck’s Gadamer but rather a ‘transformation’ such as philosophicalhermeneutics inevitably undergo when brought into the field of pedagogy. Thistransformation is an inevitable element of pedagogy. First, I focus on the differences
between the Buck and Gadamer, which have not been emphasised in previous studies.
Second, I focus on the relationship between Buck and Kant. To the best of my knowledge,
no previous studies have focused on interpretations of Kant. However, in Buck’s theoryof ‘Bildung’, Kant’s philosophy is so important that it can be considered in tandem withGadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. While Schenk’s work is remarkable for its
intrinsic analysis of Buck’s thought and for raising its contemporary significance, it does
not, by the author’s own admission, do enough to consider the relationship between Buckand the thinkers who had an important influence on him (Schenk 2017: 19). From thesetwo perspectives, the current paper aims to reveal an ideological linkage on which
previous studies have been inadequately focused and, by emphasising the immediateproblems of education, to bring the image of ‘Buck the Thinker’ to light in a different
way than previous studies.
Buck’s intention is neither to overcome Kant with Gadamer nor to criticise Gadamerin his reliance on Kant. Rather, he attempts to actively incorporate both into the context
of Bildung’ theory. Buck attempts to interpret the historicity of philosophicalhermeneutics and the universality beyond the experience of critical philosophy in aconsistent, non-contradictory manner. In so doing, the concept of paradigms plays animportant role as a medium for both. Buck’s concept of paradigms represents the processof the transformation of philosophical hermeneutics and critical philosophy as they meetin the magnetic field of pedagogy. Witnessing this transformation process is a modest
attempt of the current study.
In the following section, I briefly describe the path of this study. In the first section,
I take a pedagogical perspective to clarify the problems of Kant’s critical philosophy andGadamer’s critique of it. As I see it, this problem is related to the ‘aporia of autonomy andheteronomy’, which is important for pedagogy. Then, I depict Buck’s theory of ‘Bildung’as an attempt to mediate the conflict between ‘universality and historicity’ thatcharacterises this conflict between Kant and Gadamer. In the second section, I identify
the issues of ‘experience’ and ‘universality’ as cornerstones in Buck’s theory of ‘Bildung’.
Second, they emphasise the importance of what they call the ‘classical’ in this process. Third, they both characterise
it as ‘humanistic’. Ozeki 2002; Grondin 2012.
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Buck adopts the concept of experience from Gadamer but modifies it significantly tomake it part of his theory of ‘Bildung’. For Buck, experience and universality are
inextricably linked. The role of mediating this experience and universality is given to the
exemplars. Finally, in the third section, I reveal the moral dimension of ‘Beispiel’. This issignificant because the universality of ‘Beispiel’ includes a dimension of ‘universality’
not only in a mere theoretical sense, but also with a moral dimension. This section
clarifies the dimensions by focusing primarily on Buck’s interpretation of Kritik derUrteilskraft. The goal of this paper is to describe the process of ideogenesis in which thehistoricity of philosophical hermeneutics and the universality of critical philosophy
dissolve in Buck and emerge as a bi-directional theory of ‘Bildung’.

1. The Conflict Between Universality and Historicity
1. 1 The Moral Law and the Difficulties of Education
In this section, I first discuss the ‘paradox of freedom and education’ in Kant5. Moral
law is the prescriptive basis for freedom in Kant. For humans to be free and autonomous,they must be willing to obey moral law:
The autonomy of the will is the only principle of all moral laws and the duty tocomply with them. (...) Therefore, the moral law is the very expression of purereason, the autonomy of freedom. This autonomy of liberty is the only formal
condition that brings all ratings in line with the highest practical law. (Kant V: 33)
Universality, according to Kant, is based on moral law. It is the moral law that every
subject must willingly and unconditionally obey, and it is precisely in this respect that
universality is sought.
However, in the study of Kant, there is an attempt to understand this aporia in a consistent manner within theframework of Kant. For example, Tanida argues that Kant’s educational thought is not fully developed in pedagogy,
and that its true value lies in the concept of the ‘establishment of character’ in his theory of religion. Omori, however,argues that pedagogy has inherent value and focuses mainly on the concept of ‘moralisation’, but in so doing, heemphasises the difference between religious and educational theories in contrast to the position of Tanida and others.
Koch, like Buck, focuses on the concept of ‘inheritance’ in his interpretation. However, Koch sees ‘imitation’ andinheritance as disconnected, and autonomy based on custom and freedom as opposed to each other. Hirose has also
conducted an interesting study of Kant’s ‘Natural Geography’ in which he seeks the possibility of reconciling theempirical and the ideal and attempts to discover the possibility of overcoming the aporia of autonomy and otherness
in ‘geography education’, based on this. cf. Tanida 1994; Koch 2003; Omori 2013; Hirose 2017.
5

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However, from a pedagogical point of view, moral law is fraught with substantial
difficulty. If we follow this scheme, education is an operation to make unfree, transdisciplinary beings obey moral law, yet it is the greatest paradox that pedagogy
encounters in Kant. The question that arises is whether autonomy through education ispossible in the first place. In other words, even if it were possible, through education, toachieve autonomy through the actions of others, does it not go beyond the state oftransitivity because it is not caused by the self, but by others?
Kant does not believe that the transition is smooth from the empirical realm(heteronomy) to the ideal realm (autonomy). Rather, this transition is characterised as a‘revolution, a leap’ (Suzuki 2006: 24).
What makes the transition from trans-regulation to autonomy a ‘leapfrogging
revolution’ is that there is a gap that must be bridged between experience and ideology.
If taken to the extreme, this could lead to the negation of education, which is what Kant’s
position in his critical period seems to be approaching. The transition from transitivity toautonomy is not a gradual process of education, but it is instead a spontaneous renewalof the spirit.
Kant’s position is for strict dualistic separation of ideas and phenomena to ensure
the purity of morality. The ‘aporia of autonomy and heteronomy’ can also be understood
to be superimposed on it.
Gadamer critiques this separation of Kant’s experience and ideas. Hence, although
his argument does not directly address education, it contains important pedagogical issues.
1.2 Gadamer’s Criticism of Kant and his Defence of Convention
Gadamer critiques Kant in terms of the ‘historicity’ in which his philosophicalhermeneutics is grounded. Gadamer establishes ‘historicity’ as an omnipresent anddefining concept of existence. In his article, ‘Über die Möglichkeit einer phisosophischen
Ethik’, he attempts a critique of ethics based on Kant’s concept of dualism from thestandpoint of this historicity. Here, Gadamer’s position suggests the possibility of atransition from heteronomy to autonomy being a gradual process that is distinct from a‘leap’ or a ‘revolution’.
First, Gadamer characterises Kant’s ethics as a ‘dialectic of exception’ (GW4: 178)
regarding obligation and tendency. In other words, in Kant, morality is said to exist in the
opposition between ‘duty’, which is based on moral law—an idea—and tendency, which
is rooted in the empirical and sensible and on which duty triumphs.
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Gadamer, duty and propensity are not necessarily in opposition to each other. Rather, it isGadamer’s position that the two are in conflict in exceptional cases and that the selfimposed obligation of propensity via reason does not necessarily arise.
Gadamer argues against Kant’s ‘dialectic of exception’ by arguing for the ethicalimportance of ‘Sitte’ (customary virtues) as mediators between obligation and propensity:
I think there is another avenue worth examining. That is, a moral-philosophicalconsideration that chooses the usual case of customary compliance rather than the
exceptional case of conflict. (GW4: 180)
What Gadamer emphasises here is the rational character that conventions possess. In
Kant, conventions are seen as being opposed to reason because they offer an opportunity
for heteronomy, but Gadamer sees conventions and reason as harmonious.
The interpretation that Gadamer offers here is a critique of Kant’s ethics, which seek
to eliminate the empirical element from morality by contrasting Aristotle with Kant6. The
pedagogical significance of this critique is central to this study. According to Gadamer, torespect duty, one needs to respect convention. It is not a ‘leap’ or a ‘revolution’ that occurs
here. This therefore allows room for pedagogical intervention.
Addressing the issue of education here does not seem to be out of Gadamer’s own
interests. In the postscript to the sixth volume of his German translation of Nicomachean
Ethics, Gadamer writes:
The question that incidentally motivates us from the very beginning is: What is
ethical reflection? What is ethical reflection and how can it simultaneously serve
education? Aristotle’s writings repeatedly return to such questions. (Gadamer 1988:
65)
Gadamer emphasises the relationship between ethics and education, and his criticism ofKant relates to this relationship, in accordance with Aristotle. By following such a scheme,
Gadamer attempts to ensure the possibility of morality prior to reflection. This position isconsistent with Gadamer’s emphasis on the workings of preconceptions in understanding,and it simultaneously suggests the possibility of a transition from heteronomy toautonomy as a gradual process, unlike Kant’s position. Although Gadamer does notdevelop this issue pedagogically, Buck explicitly assumes this position.
6

Cf. Gutschker 2002: 189–254.

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However, even if we disregard the issue of education here, one major question
remains: is there a situation in which the universality of morality, as guaranteed by Kant,
has been recovered in Gadamer in favour of historicity? In other words, has universality
been recovered in historicity, and has it fallen into relativism?
Unfortunately, Gadamer does not provide a clear answer to this question. However,as I see it, Buck attempts to answer it in his theory of ‘Bildung’. This theory is apedagogical answer to Gadamer’s unresolved conflict between universality andhistoricity. From this perspective, the following section serves as a discussion on Buck’s
theory of ‘Bildung’.

2. The Structure and Universality of the Concept of Experience in Buck’s Theoryof ‘Bildung’In this section, I clarify the inner workings of the concept of experience in Buck’s
theory of ‘Bildung’, mainly in relation to universality. The problem discussed above of
the conflict between universality and historicity is an important motif in Buck’s theory of‘Bildung’, and it relates directly to the problem of ‘Beispiel’, which is the subject of thispaper. However, before delving into the issue of ‘Beispiel’, the purpose of this section is
first to clarify the concept of experience, which is a cornerstone of Buck’s theory of‘Bildung’. Buck adopted this concept of experience from Gadamer, but he modified it
considerably. Here, we can see traces of thought generation in which the philosophicalhermeneutics from Gadamer are drawn into pedagogy and reinterpreted through thefigure of the ‘conflict between universality and historicity’.
Buck concentrates on the concept of experience in his book, Lernen und Erfahrung,in which he presents a discursive history of the structure of experience in relation to theconcept of learning by referring to various thinkers.
As I examine above, Buck’s concept of experience receives its template from
Gadamer. More specifically, in Wahrheit und Methode, Buck uniquely incorporates into
his theory of ‘Bildung’ the ‘hermeneutische Erfahrung’ (hermeneutic experience) that
Gadamer describes as ‘occupying a key place’ (GW2: 445) in this major work. Therefore,
I will begin my discussion by exploring Gadamer's interpretive experience and how herecasts it.
In Gadamer’s concept of experience, the occasion of negativity is the first issue that

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is important for the current paper. Relying on Hegel7, Gadamer says the following:
When we say that we have had an experience in a subject, what this means is that
we have not seen things correctly before and now know better how they are. Thus,
the negativity of experience has an inherently productive meaning. Negativity isneither a mere deception to be detected nor a correction in that regard. Rather, it is amore expansive knowledge that will be acquired. (GW1: 359)
Negativity is not only viewed as an opportunity to correct the conventional way ofperceiving things, but it is also taken as an opportunity to make possible the acquisitionof a wider range of knowledge. Hence, negativity is not the end. Negativity also opens
up possibilities for new experiences, as follows:
The truth of experience is always linked to new experience. A person who is said tohave experience is not only made so by experience, but is also open to newexperience. (GW1: 361)
Negativity and openness are two key elements of Gadamer’s interpretive experience.
This includes a critique of the teleological view of experience in which there is a preexisting purpose, and experience arises accordingly. Therefore, although Gadamer relies
on Hegel to elaborate his concept of ‘interpretive experience’, he breaks with Hegel on
the last point. He holds that the perfection of experience lies not in closed knowledge but
in ‘the openness of experience, which is unleashed by experience itself’ (GW1: 361).
Buck’s concept of experience is essentially an inheritance of Gadamer’s interpretive
experience. However, ‘inheritance’ is not merely ‘appropriation’. Rather, it is to use thelanguage of hermeneutics, an ‘application’. Buck’s application of hermeneutic
experience to ‘Bildung’ seems to contain some very important pedagogical implications.
In contrast to Gadamer, who seeks universality in the openness of experience, Buckbrings to the fore the opportunity of universality in experience. Buck’s concept ofexperience as ‘epagogic’ (induction), expressed in the subtitle of the third edition of
Lernen und Erfahrung, points to universality. However, it does not imply a linear path

The following is a detailed study by Grondin on Gadamer’s relationship with Hegel regarding his concept ofexperience. According to Grondin, by relying on Hegel, Gadamer picks up the dimension of the historicity ofexperience and attempts to rescue the concept of experience that has been trivialised into the methods of modern
science. cf. Grondin 1982: 51–58.
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9from the individual to the universal as a methodology in modern science8. The hallmark
of Buck’s concept of experience is the seemingly contradictory situation in which theindividual is simultaneously given a universal. That is, Buck does not think of experience
as purely discrete, but rather that for it to be possible, the universal must be given inadvance, even if in an uncertain form:
Rather, we accept the individual in terms of the universal first. We do so even if, indoing so, we do not perceive the universal as clearly universal, and, on the contrary,
we are uncertain about whether it is really universal in the first place9. (Buck 1989:
39)
In other words, for Buck, the universal is not only an objective, but it is also an enabling
condition for experience; thus, ‘to relate to the universal is the essential function ofexperience’ (Buck 1989: 49). However, in Buck, as in Kant’s epistemology of categories,
the universal does not act only as a condition that makes experience possible; theuniversal is also dependent on experience (Buck 1989: 45). They are not unilaterallyinterdependent; rather, they are conditioned by each other.
Thus, experience is not, according to Buck, a process of mastering only the new.
After all, every new and unknown thing is already understood in some way. Such a priori
experience is recognised in Buck, as he emphasises these seemingly contradictoryfeatures of the concept of experience and turns them into the foundational concept of the‘Bildung’ theory. First, he points out the double meaning of experience as follows:
The expression ‘experience’ actually has a double meaning. This means, on the one
hand, an individual experiences and, on the other hand, the experience that takes
place behind this individual experience. (Buck 1989: 51)
To extend this, experience is both the experience of an unknown object and a new way

Yet, in this respect, Buck is not so far apart from Gadamer. As aforementioned, Gadamer’s concept of experience
also resists the trivialisation of scientific method, and he states in the introduction to Wahrheit und Methode that ‘theconcern of this book is to search for the experience of truth beyond the sphere of control of scientific methodology
in the omnipresent places where it is encountered’ (GW1, S. 1). This is consistent with Schenk’s characterisation of
the book’s concept of experience as ‘a non-empirical, natural, every day, pre-disciplinary or extra-disciplinary
experience of methodological and (natural) scientific experience’ (Schenk 2017: 180).
9
Buck illustrates this with an example of a linguistic expression used by children. According to Buck, children refer
to all men as ‘daddy’ and all women as ‘mommy’. From this, they learn that the words ‘dad’ and ‘mom’ do not referto ‘men in general’ or ‘women in general’ but to specific individuals. cf. Buck 1989: 39.
8

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Y. MORIof experiencing a known entity, since ‘every individualised horizon implies a broader andmore ambiguous horizon of universality’ (Buck 1989: 64). In other words, experience is
not just an encounter with new horizons; it is also the process by which the universality
contained therein becomes apparent.
‘Bildung’ can be depicted as a process of experience in which universality is
gradually revealed. What is important in this case, as in Gadamer's, is the ‘negativity ofexperience’. However, Buck emphasises a different point here than Gadamer:
The work of negative experience is that one becomes aware of oneself. What one
becomes aware of are the motivations that have guided one in one’s previous
experiences and of those motivations that have not been questioned. Negative
experiences, therefore, have the character of self-experience, which is first andforemost qualitatively open to new experiences. (Buck 1989: 80)
It is on this opportunity of ‘self-experience’ that Buck places stronger emphasis than does
Gadamer. The self, the subject of experience, can be inferred to be extremely important
to Buck, who took pedagogy as his discipline. Here, Buck follows Gadamer’s scheme ofthought but simultaneously develops his own ideas in a different realm.
This tendency becomes more apparent when Buck uses this concept of experienceas the basis for his discussion of ‘Bildung’, as follows:
Bildung is structured by its own interpretation in two ways. The first is that it
acquires and acquires the practice and meaning of action relations by acting on itself,
and the second is that it takes the form of an interpretation of practice to make theinterpretation premised on it more its own, to make it certain. This makes the actor
self-aware in a reflective way and makes him aware of his own practice. (Buck
1981: 14)
A step forward from ‘self-experience’ that is grounded in experience, or what might becalled ‘self-reflection’, has occurred in ‘Bildung’. In contrast to Gadamer, who follows
the position of subject criticism of Heidegger, Buck again takes the subject-oriented
position. This is only because Buck develops his own thought in pedagogy, which takes
the subject as an essential category rather than philosophically. In this way, we can see atransformation of thought that is inevitable for pedagogy.
While receiving such opportunities as ‘negativity’ and ‘openness’ from Gadamer,
Buck’s concept of experience is reinterpreted in terms of the subject’s ‘self-experience’.
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Furthermore, the concept proceeds to ‘self-reflection’ when the subject becomes‘Bildung’. Buck’s theory of ‘Bildung’ can be characterised as a constant process of thesubject’s self-reflection, within the conditions of historicity and towards universality.
The difference between Gadamer and Buck seems to lie in the difference between
the background philosophy and pedagogy of interest, rather than in the choice of whichof the two is correct. While Gadamer does not necessarily need the category of the subject,
the subject is essential to Buck as a pedagogue. In this sense, he differs from Gadamer in
his emphasis on ‘self-reflection’.
For this self-reflection by experience, the role of ‘Beispiel’ is to serve as a medium
for raising the subject to universality. However, the dimension of universality that
‘Beispiel’ possesses is not limited to the theoretical dimension but also includes a moral
dimension. That is, Beispiel serves to ensure the normality of actions in addition to
mediating the universality of experience. In this process, Kant’s interpretation plays animportant role. In the following section, I will explore Buck’s concept of ‘Beispiel’,
which ensures the universality of experience with a moral dimension, in light of his
Kantian interpretation.

3. Buck’s Interpretation of Kant and the Concept of ‘Beispiel’
Buck discusses ‘Beispiel’ in Lernen und Erfahrung, in which it functions as amediator of universals for individual experience and learning10. Moreover, the universals
that ‘Beispiel’ mediates, according to Buck, are not theoretically or conceptually
exhaustive:
Kant at least acknowledges how important it is that the Beispiel must be understoodin terms of its power to convey universals, which cannot be fully explained
conceptually. At least Kant acknowledges how important it is that we must be
understood from that power which conveys universals and which cannot be fully
explained, in that he gives to the example a special significance for aesthetic
judgment. (Buck 1989: 133)
According to Pauls, a model is an ‘induktion’ that mediates between teaching and learning and makes
understanding possible. In relation to this, Imai focuses on the ‘convincing introduction’ (einführende
Verständigung) in Buck’s thought and acknowledges the argument questioning the conditions that make learning
possible. Although Imai does not directly refer to exemplars here, he states that ‘exemplars are convincing
introductions’ (Buck 1989: 98). cf. Pauls 2010; Imai 2012.
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Here, Buck implies the moral dimension of the universality of ‘Beispiel’. He discusses
this intensively both in the first edition of Lernen und Erfahrung and in Kant’s Lehre von
Exempel, written in the same year. As the two would need to be read as complementary,
so to speak, Buck sought to clarify the moral significance of exemplars that could not be
fully discussed in Lernen und Erfahrung.
Buck, like Gadamer, criticises Kant’s philosophy from a position that emphasises
historicity. However, Buck takes the pedagogically specific perspective of ‘How can achild, who is not capable of rational reflection, reflect on moral law?’ He states:
Kant’s axiom excludes children from the possibility of being truly moral because
they are not capable of reflecting on moral law. This is because children are excluded
from the possibility of listening to moral law and reflecting on it in order to abide
by it. The axiom of Kant’s axiom excludes children from the possibility of being
truly moral. (Buck 1985: 7)
Here, Buck’s discussion of ‘Kant’s axiom’ can be interpreted as a solid dualism ofphenomenon-ideology in the critical period. However, Buck, like Gadamer, attempts toadmit the possibility of approaching morality from the empirical realm of ‘convention’,
which, in Kant’s case, is limited to the realm of transcendental freedom (cf. Buck 1985:
7). As such, the possibility of access to morality is also ensured for children who do not
yet have the capacity to reflect. In other words, the possibility of a transition fromheteronomy to autonomy—one that is distinct from ‘leaping’—is opened here. By
restoring the significance of ‘convention’ from a pedagogical perspective, Buck critiques
Kant’s philosophy from the standpoint of emphasising Gadamer’s historicity while
attempting to protect the ‘pre-reflective’ realm of morality.
However, if it is to be localised in convention rather than in principle, it will remainin the realm of the sensible and empirical and will not break free from the state ofheteronomy. Kant expresses his criticism of this position. ‘Beispiel’ and ‘Exempel’ havelong been an important part of education before Kant11. However, Kant criticises themoral significance of ‘Beispiel’ in the following passage:
If one were to borrow morality from a paradigm, nothing could be worse formorality than this. This is because every exemplar so presented must be judged
11

For more on this, see Buck’s description in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie. cf. Buck 1971: 818–823.

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beforehand to be worthy of a fundamental exemplar, or muster, according to theprinciple of morality. And the exemplars do not give us the concept of morality inthe first place. (Kant IV: 408)
Kant does not reject ‘Beispiel’ altogether12; rather, he makes ‘the viability of what the(moral) law commands unquestionable’ (Kant IV: 409) and provides the opportunity for
one to become aware of the moral law. Although there is a subtle difference, the emphasis
in Kant is not on examples, but on awakening oneself to moral law. An example is onlya trigger for this problem. This is clearly stated in Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (cf.
Kant V: 92).
Buck, however, takes the position of reemphasising the moral and educationalsignificance of ‘Beispiel’. It is important to point out here that Buck attempts to do thisby relying on the Kritik der Urteilskraft. Unlike Gadamer, who relied on Aristotle tocriticise Kant, Buck attempts to overcome the problems of Kant’s philosophy byinterpreting Kant intrinsically, and by focusing on the ethical possibilities in thediscussion of aesthetic judgments. In connection with this, Buck reviews ‘Beispiel’ thatwas not given positive meaning in the Kritik der praktischen Vernunft and Grundlegung
der Metaphysik der Sitten. The difference between Kant’s and Buck’s positions on
imitation is of particular importance. Kant dismisses imitation as a cause of heteronomy,
while Buck asks whether imitation causes transitivity. Buck states:
To be sure, mere imitation in the sense of copying behaviour is heteronomy, and in
the first place, conforming oneself to currently accepted conventions is not freeobedience to a grounded norm. But is the behavior of a child imitating a model
before he or she knows the principle in any case merely a crude reproduction of thatmodel? (Buck 1967: 180)
In other words, the act of imitating ‘Beispiel’ lies in the possibility of initiating moral
reflection, and it is certainly not a reflective act. In that sense, according to Buck, imitation
is not mere copying but ‘already contains a stage of free succession’ (Buck 1967: 180).
In order to establish that the ‘Beispiel’ of this imitation is not merely individual and
12

Yamaguchi emphasises the significance of ‘Beispiel’ in Kant’s practical philosophy, stating that ‘the deepest
significance of the example in Kant is that it makes possible the ‘comparison of ideas of how things should be’”
(Yamaguchi 2005: 34). Guyer, on whom Yamaguchi also relies, states that ‘the essential role of example in moral
education is to teach that while children are indeed morally free, they must also struggle with human limitations’(Guyer 2012: 133). Both arguments focus on ‘Beispiel’ but differ from Buck’s in that they do not recognise theinherent value of ‘Beispiel’ itself; rather they emphasise it as a trigger for a child’s ‘own’ moral awakening.
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empirical but is linked to the moral and universal, we need to return to the discussion of
beauty in the Kritik der Urteilskraft. Buck states, referring to Section 59 of the Kritik derUrteilskraft, that
What is important for Kant here (...) is the application of the notion of analogy to
the relationship between beauty and the moral good, that ‘beauty is a symbol ofmorality’. (Buck 1989: 118)In Kritik der Urteilskraft (Section 59), beauty is positioned as a symbol of morality.
That is, beauty is empirical, even as it contains an orientation toward morality. Moreover,the current study significantly notes that Kant’s statement that ‘hobbies make possible thetransition from sensible stimulation to habitual moral concern without a forced leap, so
to speak’ (Kant V: 354) suggests the possibility of a transition from experience to ideas
without a leap.
For Kant subjective universality is what underpins the universality of beauty.
Subjective universality is said to have a basis in subjectivity, as opposed to moral law.
However, this simultaneously ‘entails a demand on all others’ (Kant V: 353). Kant
introduces this peculiar concept of subjective universality in the Kritik der Urteilskraft toground the universality of beauty, which is different from morality.
However, Buck sees the ethical potential of this subjective universality and explains
it concretely through the concept of exemplars, as follows:
To be sure, no empirical exemplar can determine with certainty whether or not an
action has been done because of (moral) law. But ‘if it cannot be disproved’, it is‘fair’ to assume the sincerity of sentiment. (...) ‘Encouragement’ by Beispiel is basedon trust in the sentiments of others, and the behavior of others again becomes anexample. (Buck 1967: 177-178)‘Beispiel’ certainly does not constitute moral law but provides a ‘direction’ to moral law.
Thus, ‘Beispiel’ and ‘Exempel’ are manifestations of this direction, if not of moral law
itself, and in that sense they deserve to be called ‘exemplars’. They do not have ‘objective
universality’, yet they do have ‘subjective universality’ in the sense that those who receive‘Beispiel’ can approve of them. As shown in the above quotation, the logic used here
clearly has more affinity with the Kritik der Urteilskraft than with the Kritik der
praktischen Vernunft, despite the fact that it is concerned with morality. That is, Buck
attempts to apply Kant’s concept of subjective universality for aesthetic judgement in the
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15

realm of morality. Certainly, at this point, reflection on moral law has not yet arisen.
However, this raises the possibility that it will do so. Buck believes that this would allow
him to avoid the ‘aporia of autonomy and heteronomy’.
‘Beispiel’ is equipped with the passage to moral law. That is, ‘Beispiel’, which is
supported by subjective universality, contains both empirical and ideological elements
simultaneously. The relationship between ‘Beispiel’ and moral law can be superimposedon the relationship between ‘Idee’ and ‘ideals’ in the Kritik der Urteilskraft (Section 17),
as follows:
Idee essentially mean the concept of reason, and ideals mean individual
representations that are suited to ideals. (Kant V: 232)
In contrast to Idee, which is a transcendental rational concept, ideals contain Idee and areat the same time individual representations. That is, the moral law and ‘Beispiel’correspond to ideals and ideals, respectively.
From the perspective of a pedagogue such as Buck, an ‘ideal’ is needed for thisethical realm. Here, then, lies the question of how to awaken a child, an entity not yet
knowing the proper use of reason, into realising that direction. The concept of ‘Beispiel’
was introduced for this purpose. ‘Beispiel’ is rooted not only in the realm oftranscendental freedom but also in the realm of historical experience. For Buck, historical‘Beispiel’ is positioned as a mediator of experience and the Idee that allows for thetransition from heteronomy to autonomy.

Conclusion
This paper takes the conflict between universality in Kant and historicity in
Gadamer as its starting point, and it explores Buck’s attempt to mediate it in his theory of‘Bildung’. It can be concluded that the problem has been brought into pedagogy, andthrough the deepening of the notion of ‘experience’ and the reinstatement of the notionof ‘example’, it has led to the solution of the special pedagogical problem of autonomy
and heteronomy aporia.
Although I have focused on Buck in this paper, the ‘consistent mediation ofhistoricity and universality’ seems to be a challenge for the post-Gadamer generation in

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general, not solely for Buck 13 . However, I refrained from investigating this wider
perspective in detail due to space limitations. This paper confirms the argument that Bucktakes a more historically based approach than does Gadamer, consolidating it as a basic
pedagogical theory by emphasising the opportunity of ‘self-experience’ within theconcept of ‘experience’. Furthermore, by accepting Kant in his unique way through theconcept of ‘Beispiel’, Buck has attempted to avoid the label of ‘historical relativism’,answering the question of normativity and universality, which are essential to the conceptof ‘Bildung’.
This paper argues that Buck’s perspective views the transition from heteronomy toautonomy as a ‘gradual process’ rather than as a ‘leap to the point of revolution’. Thismeans that he does not take a strict phenomenon-ideology view of dualism, as Kant does.
However, this does not mean that Buck attempts to take a monolithic view of
everything. Gadamer’s overemphasis on historicity—even if unintentional—risks falling
into ‘historical relativism’ that recovers all things into it. To be sure, not everything
escapes historicity, as Gadamer says. Nevertheless, this does not indicate a kind of nihilist
worldview in which there is no universality and no distinction between autonomy andheteronomy. As a pedagogue, Buck must avoid the possibility of nihilism caused byhistorical relativism, the equivalence of all values. Through the concept of ‘Beispiel’,
Buck seeks to mediate both universality and historicity without falling into historical
relativism and dualism, forces which could make education impossible.

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One of the leading thinkers is Manfred Riedel. A disciple of Gadamer, like Buck, Riedel’s interpretation of Kant
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