| This dissertation is an analytical examination of the relation between a contemporary revolution in epistemology and democracy, our modern political revolution. That truth inheres as a property of dialogue and interpretive sentences among free people implies something largely unexplored in either the philosophical or educational literature: these contemporary revolutions require rare courage and character from the individual---to embrace interpretive and existential responsibility; to keep democracy from devolving into mob rule, truth from devolving into relativism or morality from descending into nihilism. Attention to presence rather than representation signifies a paradigm shift, accomplished not through metaphysics but through what is explored as a particularly democratic kind of dialogue; the primacy of individuals' presence to direct experience, increasingly beyond the strictures of identity and the limits of representation, is explored as a significant commonality in Gadamer's hermeneutics, Adorno's critical theory, and Buddhist philosophy. Inquiry in these terms invites radical receptivity and uncovers "ground of being", necessary for a new way of living in the world more eductive of soul. Dialogue based in inquiry marks not only the key to extraordinary and transcendent existence, but to normal democracy and mature democratic character. The culture of American public classrooms and schools, examined through both theoretical and experimental literature, should necessarily begin here, the heart of excellence and democracy. |
