Susan L. Cocalis, "The Transformation of Bildung from an Image to an Ideal." Monatshefte 70.4 (1978): 399-414.

It is therefore in the figurative usage of the noun traced to the German reception of Shaftesbury's Characteristiks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711), that the aesthetic metaphors of the Platonic philosophical tradition became an integral part of the didactic process. The Pietists Spalding and Oetinger translated his middle of the eighteenth century and rendered the moral philosophy as follows:

inward form = innere Bildung

formation of a genteel character = Bildung

good breeding = Selbstbildung.

This specific usage was generally adopted by later translators, establishing Bildung as a technical term. Before we investigate the German concept, we should therefore locate it in the context of Shaftesbury's philosophy. In the Characteristicks Shaftesbury transforms Neo-Platonic religious ideas into a secularized religion of aesthetics. The universe for him is a continually changing work of art whose Creator is manifest in formal beauty. Thus human knowledge of moral truth (virtue) must be mediated by aesthetics and transmitted by the moral artist, a young male who has been educated in a non-institutionalized manner and who has been divinely inspired during states of enthusiastic contemplation (Schwärmen). Using the metaphors associated with bilden, Shaftesbury proposes a plan of education for the moral artist which would prepare him for a didactic role within society. Young men with pronounced aesthetic sensibilities, and of course adequate incomes, should "have seen the World, and inform'd themselves of the Manners and Customs of the several Nations of Europe, search'd into their Antiquities and Records; consider'd their Police, Laws, and Constitutions; observ'd the Situation, Strength, and Amusements; their Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Musick, and their Taste in Poetry, Learning, Language, and Conversation." In this manner the moral artist transforms his own life into a work of art and becomes a "virtuoso." At this stage of his development, he must communicate what he has learned through a moral, i.e., philosophical form of art based on the form of the Socratic dialogue, inductive reasoning, and the use of wit and irony. Only in this active role of the artist-philosopher-pedagogue can the virtuoso be honored by society as "a second Maker: a just Prometheus under Jove."  

 

Bildung would therefore signify a continuous process of passive formation and active forming of individuals who would instinctively act in the common interest to preserve the civil liberties necessary for the cultivation of the moral arts. In contrast to its purely subjective application in Pietism, Shaftesbury's secular concept stresses the individual's training for an active role in a greater community. Self-recognition is no longer the goal of development, but rather the means of fulfilling one's social responsibilities. Finally, the metaphorical role of the artist has become a real social function: the moral artist must assume responsibility for enlightening humanity through an aesthetic education(p.401)