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Modern Socratic Dialogue and Resilient Democracy: Creating the Clearing for an American Bildung

100%

Mueller L.

Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture

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2020

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vol. 4

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issue 4

EN

This article puts forth Modern Socratic Dialogue as a pedagogical tool for cultivating an American Bildung. Beginning with Michael Hogue’s work on “resilient democracy,” an associational ethos that is vulnerable and based on our lived uncertainty. To further establish this American Bildung, I investigate what it means to be American. Drawing from the works of Michael Walzer and Gloria Anzaldúa, I establish that “American” means unfinished, pluralistic, and embraces ambiguity. The question of how to cultivate this pluralistic, ambiguous, and vulnerable Bildung is framed by the freedom and social bonds of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s theory of Bildung. For an American Bildung to flourish, freedom and social bonds can be presented and practiced in the form of Modern Socratic Dialogue – “truths” are created by the community of interlocutors, and problems and solutions are based on the experiences of the participants.

2

Through a Glass, Darkly: The Struggle of Perfecting Humanity

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Mueller L.

Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture

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2021

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vol. 5

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issue 1

162-168

EN

Preview/Review: Jennifer A. Herdt, Forming Humanity: Redeeming the German Bildung Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019), 312 pages./ Jennifer A. Herdt’s book Forming Humanity: Redeeming the German Bildung Tradition (hereafter FH) traces the post-Kantian secularization of Bildung from its roots in Pietism through its development into the human autocracy of Herder and Goethe, to the reconciliation and expression of the concept in Hegel. In the journey through the history of Bildung, Herdt specifically focuses on the role of Christianity in human formation, the tension between human formation and divine formation, and the failures of Kunstreligion to achieve the formation of humanity. Reforming Humanity is a meticulously researched foray into the history of a question that has haunted humans since it emerged as the Greek paideia: How do we form humanity? For any scholars of the German philosophical or theological tradition, or any scholars of the aesthetic purpose of education, Herdt’s book is a vital library addition.

3

The Will to Powerlift: Biophysical Reality and the Creation of Culture

100%

Mueller L.

Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture

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2021

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vol. 5

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issue 4

1-7

EN

Preview: There is an ongoing joke – often said with a sigh of despair – within various communities: those who struggle with mental health, or chronic pain, or disabilities of any sort. This joke might, in fact, be one nexus of these communities – what brings them together in irritation – and it goes like this: “Have you tried yoga?” The often-given unsolicited advice to “heal thyself” using physical movement speaks to a deeper issue at hand, one long-entrenched in our (at least, Western) mindset: physical movement is a cure for weaknesses, and one need only exercise to “get better.” There is a link between the strength and training of the body, and the cultivation of the mind – a link present from the gymnasiums in Plato’s Republic, to late nineteenth century strongmen like Eugen Sandow and Bernarr Macfadden, to “self-care” and “wellness” movements today. “Weakness is a crime! Don’t be a criminal!” went the slogan of American strongman and one of the “fathers” of the Physical Culture movement, Bernarr Macfadden. And fertile, indeed, was his influence on ideals of masculinity, femininity, the health of the nation, mental well-being, and moral aptitude.

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3 Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture

3 Mueller L.

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1 2021

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Modern Socratic Dialogue and Resilient Democracy: Creating the Clearing for an American Bildung

Through a Glass, Darkly: The Struggle of Perfecting Humanity

The Will to Powerlift: Biophysical Reality and the Creation of Culture