Aims of Education and the Total Human Being
Jaspers: Aims of Education
The total human being
Education is an aid to becoming a total human being. It takes place by allowing for the existence of the whole person.
Three modes of man as a being
- Man as pure consciousness.
- Man as intellect.
- Man as possible existence.
Passing through these phases is the most crucial aim of education.
Integrated aims of education
- If man is understood as a being, education is the concern for and protection of growing life, to be developed, enhanced, and brought to maturity.
- If man is understood as pure consciousness, education means leading him to clear perceptions, imparting usable knowledge, training in vital thinking, and disciplining him to take part in orderly dialogue with others.
Social aims of education
- Process of integration into the forms, structures, groups, and institutions of society.
- Individuality is enhanced through social integration into the structure.
Jaspers’s account of educational aims grows out of his account of human existence. A human being is not a single fixed kind of thing; they are a being who passes through several distinct modes of existence. Education’s job is to help the person through these modes and to integrate their individuality with the social structure they live inside. The article works through the three modes of being and the integrated aims that follow.
The total human being
Jaspers’s central claim about educational aims is short. Education is meant as an aid to becoming a total human being. It takes place by allowing for the existence of the whole man.
The word total is doing work. A partial education produces a partial human being: someone who has developed only some of their capacities while leaving others undeveloped. A total education aims at the whole person, with all the major modes of human existence developed and integrated. Not just the intellect, not just the body, not just the social capacities, the whole.
This is one of the few claims in Jaspers’s account that is straightforwardly aspirational. He knew that no education can fully achieve the totality he describes; the standard is too high for any actual school to meet completely. But the aim is the right aim. A school that aspires to it will produce more developed graduates than a school that does not, even if the totality is never fully reached.
The contrast with the older single-aim views is sharp. An education aimed only at producing workers leaves much of the human being undeveloped. An education aimed only at religious formation leaves other capacities undeveloped. An education aimed only at intellectual training neglects the body and the social and emotional life. Each of the single aims produces a partial human being. Only an education aimed at the totality has a chance of producing the kind of person Jaspers’s definition of education calls for.
The aim is the whole person with all major modes of human existence developed and integrated, not just one capacity
A partial education produces a partial human being: someone with only some capacities developed. A total education aims at the whole, not just the intellect, the body, or the social capacities. The standard is aspirational and no school fully reaches it, but a school that aspires to it produces more developed graduates than one that does not. Single-aim views (worker, believer, intellectual) all produce partial humans.
The three modes of being
Jaspers distinguishes three modes through which a human being can be considered. Education has to engage with all three.
Man as pure consciousness. The human being as the seat of awareness, sensation, perception, and the basic experience of being conscious at all. This is the most basic mode; without it, no further modes are possible.
Man as intellect. The human being as a thinker, reasoner, knower. The capacity to form concepts, to reason about them, to understand the world through ideas. This is the mode the older intellectualist tradition focused on, sometimes to the exclusion of the others.
Man as possible existence. The human being as a being who is not yet finished, who is becoming what they will be through their choices, who exists in possibility as much as in actuality. This is the existential mode, the one Sartre and other twentieth-century existentialists made famous. The person is not just what they currently are; they are also what they might become, and the might is real, not just imaginary.
The work of education, Jaspers says, is to pass the student through these three modes. The student starts mostly in pure consciousness (the basic awareness of the small child), develops the intellect through the work of schooling, and eventually comes into the mode of possible existence as the responsible agent of their own life.
The order is not strict. All three modes are present throughout life; the question is which is most active at a given stage. The educator’s job is to support the development of each mode as it becomes available and to help the student integrate the modes rather than letting any one dominate to the exclusion of the others.
A school that focuses only on the intellect leaves the other two modes undeveloped. A school that focuses only on the basic consciousness of the child leaves the intellect underdeveloped. A school that focuses on intellect and consciousness but does not help the student into the mode of possible existence leaves them unprepared for the responsibility of adult life. Each focus produces a different kind of partial human being.
Pure consciousness, intellect, and possible existence
(1) Pure consciousness: the seat of awareness, sensation, and the basic experience of being conscious; the foundational mode. (2) Intellect: the capacity to think, reason, form concepts, and understand the world through ideas. (3) Possible existence: the existential mode of being not yet finished, becoming what one will be through choices. Education passes the student through the three and supports the development of each as it becomes available.
Integrated aims by mode
Jaspers gives more concrete educational implications for two of the three modes.
If man is understood as a being, education appears as the concern for, and protection of, growing life that is to be developed, enhanced, and brought to maturity. The vocabulary is biological and is meant to be. The educator is doing for the developing person what a careful gardener does for a developing plant: providing the conditions in which growth can happen, removing obstacles, supplying what the growth requires. The work is patient and respectful of the natural pace of development.
If man is understood as pure consciousness, education means leading him to clear perceptions, imparting usable knowledge, training in vital thinking, and disciplining him to take part in orderly dialogue with others. Four components are stacked here. Clear perceptions: the student is helped to see what is actually there, not what they project or assume. Usable knowledge: the content given is content that can be applied to real situations, not just memorised. Vital thinking: the training is in thinking that is alive and connected to the world, not formal exercises disconnected from any use. Orderly dialogue: the student is disciplined to talk and listen with others productively, in ways that move thinking forward rather than just exchanging assertions.
The two sets of aims correspond to the two modes Jaspers makes most concrete. The third mode (possible existence) is the existential one, and the aims for it are the choice-freedom-responsibility commitments from the existentialism chapter. Together, the three sets of aims describe what an education aimed at the total human being actually does.
A teacher can audit their own work against the three. Are they providing the patient conditions of growth for the student as a developing being? Are they leading the student into clear perceptions, usable knowledge, vital thinking, and orderly dialogue? Are they supporting the student in coming into their own as a possible existence with real choices to make? A school that does all three is rare. A school that does at least the first two is doing real work.
Clear perceptions, usable knowledge, vital thinking, and orderly dialogue with others
Clear perceptions: helping the student see what is actually there, not what they project or assume. Usable knowledge: content that can be applied to real situations, not just memorised. Vital thinking: training in thinking that is alive and connected to the world, not formal exercises disconnected from use. Orderly dialogue: discipline in talking and listening with others productively, in ways that move thinking forward.
Social integration and individuality
Jaspers closes with the social side of educational aims. The educational process is one of integration into the forms, structures, groups, and institutions of the society. The student becomes a participant in the social structure they live inside; they take on the roles, relationships, and responsibilities that being a member of the society involves.
The integration is part of what makes the person a complete human being. A person who has not been integrated into any society remains a partial being, lacking the social dimensions of full human existence. Hermits and isolates are not the model; the integrated participant is.
The striking claim is what comes next. Individuality, Jaspers says, is enhanced through social integration into the structure. The two are not in opposition. A person who has not been integrated into a society has nothing for their individuality to be in relation to. Their individuality is undeveloped, because individuality is partly defined by the way a person differs from and engages with the social setting they are part of. A person well integrated into a society has a richer field in which their individuality can develop, because they have more contexts in which to be themselves distinctively.
This claim cuts against a romantic picture in which the individual is most themselves when they are most alone, most removed from society’s pressures, most undeveloped by institutions. Jaspers rejects the picture. The institutions, the relationships, the social structures are what give the individual a place to be themselves as somebody. A self with no such place is not a developed self; it is an undeveloped one.
The implication for education is balanced. The school’s job is both to integrate the student into the social structure and to help them develop their individuality. The two aims work together. A school that focuses only on integration produces conformists. A school that focuses only on individuality produces isolated people who cannot function in any society. A school that does both produces the kind of integrated individual that a healthy society depends on.
They work together; individuality is enhanced through social integration into the structure
The two are not in opposition. A person who has not been integrated into any society has nothing for their individuality to be in relation to. The institutions and relationships are what give the individual a place to be themselves as somebody. A school that focuses only on integration produces conformists; a school that focuses only on individuality produces isolated people. A school that does both produces integrated individuals.
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