Education and Bildung in the Anthropocene: A cartography of a field of tension

This chapter investigates the tensions inherent in the relationship be-tween the Anthropocene, Education, and Bildung. Using Goethe’s Faust as an initial reference, for the transition from “Word” to “Act” as exemplifying the modern (Faustian) - knowledge–action paradox, the discussion positions Bildung amid en-during tensions among forms of meaning, knowledge, and responsibility. Drawing upon educational philosophy, didactics, and historical interpretations of Bildung, the chapter introduces the EBAN framework as a conceptual tool for mapping four key tensions : (A) anthropocentric Bildung versus ecocentric worldviews; (B) spe-cialized disciplinary knowledge versus planetary complexity; (C) individual self-formation versus collective interdependence; and (D) education as both a cause and a response to the Anthropocene crisis. Rather than treating these tensions as issues to be resolved, the chapter contends that educational research should ‘stay with trou-ble’ and see them as sites for negotiating educational paradigms in the Anthropo-cene. The chapter concludes by proposing that education in the Anthropocene can be reimagined as a situated practice of self-formation and collective engagement, informed by diverse approaches to knowledge, praxis, and care (Sorge). In conver-sation with process-relational philosophy, Bildung is presented not as aiming for mastery over the world but as an ongoing, participatory process of becoming with it.