Michael Hogue's American Immanence draws from some of the fundamental features of American philosophy: philosophy is not alienated from life, but rather, part and parcel of the structure of our experiences, a way of living. His notion of “resilient democracy” is particularly representative of this tradition of thought. Resilient democracy is, first of all, an ethos, grounded in “the collective experience of uncertainty and animated by the living desire to bring about a more beautiful world.”2 This ethos is an associational, relational one, and it is democratic because, for Hogue, it must be “empathetic, emancipatory, and equitable,” assuming that each member of the association can be enriched by other members” (AI, 172–73). Vital to this democratic ethos is its anti-foundational politics; we start not with an immutable reality, but rather with the vulnerable reality of our actual, political, experiences (AI, 176). We start with where we are, not...
Modern Socratic Dialogue and Resilient Democracy: Creating the Clearing for an American Bildung1
Laura J. Mueller is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at West Texas A&M University. Her research pertains to the intersection of philosophy of culture, philosophy of education, and philosophy as a way of life. Particularly, she is interested in education as creating and sustaining culture, and education as a method of self-cultivation. She is an editor for Eidos. A Journal of Philosophy of Culture, an open-access, international journal dedicated to the philosophy of culture, broadly construed.
Laura J. Mueller; Modern Socratic Dialogue and Resilient Democracy: Creating the Clearing for an American Bildung. American Journal of Theology & Philosophy 1 January 2022; 43 (1): 40–66. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/21564795.43.1.03
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