ABSTRACT Within a policy context, Europe is often described as a knowledge based economy, knowledge understood as fundamental for the European self-identity. The number of companies who regard themselves as knowledge producers has also increased and the role of the universities as leading knowledge producers has changed and they have become increasingly combined with the surrounding society. Altogether a new and complex landscape where knowledge serves many different and diverse purposes. Against this background the aim of this paper is to discuss the continental concept of bildung in terms of counter language. This is done both as a reaction towards global knowledge reductionism and as a definition of how to understand the concept itself. The paper takes its methodological point of departure in the critical discourse analysis (CDA) understanding bildung as a discursive practice. As a reconstructive methodology CDA provides a language to elaborate how people are shaped within discourses and reproduces them in different ways as well as how they can be part of their transformation. Traditionally theories of bildung have drawn on either Kant or Hegel but in this paper the angle is slightly different, although they still remain in the back. A theoretical framework is presented on how to understand bildung in everyday conversations as well as in more formal scientific practices taking pedagogy as an example. Bildung is not seen as an empty concept although it is not the content itself but rather the way it is approached that defines if a communicative practice is cultivating or not, or to what extent it might be regarded as cultivating. Bildung is discussed as a reciprocal approach where everyone must be prepared to revaluation of his or her previous understanding as well as engaged in the cultivation of others by using the possibility of counter language.