MUSIC – HUMANITY – EDUCATION KARL HEINRICH EHRENFORTH AS PEDAGOGUE, SCHOLAR, THEOLOGIAN AND AGENT OF ASSOCIATION POLITICS

The main scientific and educational characteristics of Karl Heinrich Ehrenforth will be demonstrated based on his writings and political activities. Therefore, the article focuses on his philosophical foundation in cultural anthropology and phenomenology of life-world (lebensweltliche Phänomenologie). As a scholar and pedagogue he was always dedicated to the human (pupil) as well as the music. His thinking centered around the self-conception of music education based upon a bearing consensus about the fundamentals of cultural values in society. This attitude will be demonstrated by means of a brief analysis of his most influential publications such as the introduction and philosophical justification of the hermeneutic philosophy of understanding (Verstehen und Auslegen, 1971) and his seminal history book on music education (Geschichte der musikalischen Bildung, 2005) among others, and will be confirmed by his political involvement as president of the German Association of School Music (VDS) and his rootedness in Christian ethics. By this means, Ehrenforth appears as a scholar and educator who was grounded in humanistic intellectual history and became deeply influential on the after-war generation