Wilhelm von Humboldt

Filsuf

Humboldt adalah seorang filsuf terkemuka. Dia menulis On the Limits of State Action tahun 1791-2, walau buku ini baru diterbitkan tahun 1850, setelah dia meninggal. Buku ini merupakan pembelaan di antara yang paling berani dari kebebasan masa yang dijuluki the Enlightenment atau "Masa Cahaya", di mana budi pekerti dijunjung tinggi dan dijadikan dasar untuk mengecam penindasan dan kebodohan. Buku ini mempengaruhi buku John Stuart Mill On Liberty, yang memperkenalkan gagasan Humboldt di antara penutur bahasa Inggris. Sebetulnya, Humboldt menyusun garis-garis besar dari suatu versi dini dari apa Mill kemudian akan menjuluki "harm principle". Humboldt menguraikan perkembangan liberalisme dan peranan kebebasan dalam pengembangan individu dan pencapaian keunggulan. Humboldt mendesak agar peranan pemerintah dibatasi pada penjagaan keamanan.
Humboldt wrote a publication entitled ‘Ideas for an endeavour to define the limits of state action’ which was completed in 1792, but was not published in full until long after his death. The section dealing with education was published in the December 1792 issue of the Berlinische Monatsschrift under the title ‘On public state education’. With this publication, Humboldt took part in the philosophical debate on the direction of national education which was in progress in Germany, as elsewhere after the French Revolution.

Menteri Pendidikan

Sebagai menteri Pendidikan Kerajaan Prussian, Humboldt oversaw the system of Technische Hochschulen and Gymnasien. Humboldt’s plans for reforming the Prussian school system were not published until long after his death, together with his fragment of a treatise on the ‘Theory of Human Education’ which had been written in about 1793. Here Humboldt states that ‘the ultimate task of our existence is to give the fullest possible content to the concept of humanity in our own person [...] through the impact of actions in our own lives’. This task ‘can only be implemented through the links established between ourselves as individuals and the world around us’(GS, I, p. 283). Humboldt’s concept of education does not lend itself solely to individualistic interpretation. It is true that he always recognized the importance of the organization of individual life and the ‘development of a wealth of individual forms’ (GS, III, p. 358), but he stressed the fact that ‘self-education can only be continued [...] in the wider context of development of the world’ (GS, VII,p. 33). In other words, the individual is not only entitled, but also obliged, to play his part in shaping the world around him. Humboldt’s educational ideal was entirely coloured by social considerations. He never believed that the ‘human race could culminate in the attainment of a general perfection conceived in abstract terms’. In 1789, he wrote in his diary that ‘the education of the individual requires his incorporation into society and involves his links with society at large’ (GS, XIV, p. 155). In his essay on the ‘Theory of Human Education’, he answered the question as to the ‘demands which must be made of a nation, of an age and of the human race’. ‘Education, truth and virtue’ must be disseminated to such an extent that the ‘concept of mankind’ takes on a great and dignified form in each individual (GS, I, p. 284). However, this shall be achieved personally by each individual who must ‘absorb the great mass of material offered to him by the world around him and by his inner existence, using all the possibilities of his receptiveness; he must then reshape that material with all the energies of his own activity and appropriate it to himself so as to create an interaction between his own personality and nature in a most general, active and harmonious form’ (GS, II, p. 117). In the original text from which this section has been lifted without attribution, "GS" refers to: Humboldt, Wilhelm von. 1903–36. Gesammelte Schriften: Ausgabe Der Preussischen Akademie Der Wissenschaften. Bd. I—XVII, Berlin. (Cited as GS in the text, the Roman numeral indicates the volume and the Arabic figure the page; the original German spelling has been modernized.) "Gesammelte Schriften" means "Collected Writings".

Diplomat

Humboldt sempat menjadi seorang diplomat yang sukses antara tahun 1802 dan 1819. Dia menjadi menteri berkuasa penuh Prussian di Roma dari tahun 1802, duta besar de Vienna dari tahun 1812 selama perang Napoleon, di kongres Praha tahun 1813 di mana dia main peranan penting dalam menyusun persekutuan Austria dengan Prussia dan Russia melawan Prancis. Dia ikut menandatangani perjanjian perdamaian Paris dan perjanjian antara Prussia dan Saxony yang dikalahkannya tahun 1815, at Frankfurt settling post-Napoleonic Germany, and at the congress at Aachen in 1818. However, the increasingly reactionary policy of the Prussian government made him give up political life in 1819; and from that time forward he devoted himself solely to literature and study.