Emerson's 'Self-Reliance' and Political Self-Education

Autor/in	Boman, Léa
Titel	Emerson's 'Self-Reliance' and Political Self-Education
Quelle	In: Journal of Philosophy of Education, 56 (2022) 6, S.878-888 (11 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0309-8249
DOI	10.1111/1467-9752.12627
Schlagwörter	Moral Values; Social Responsibility; Political Science; Educational Philosophy; Ethics; Individualism; Political Attitudes; Deception; Independent Study; Political Power; Feminism; Personal Autonomy; Accuracy; Criticism; Essays; Authors + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Moral value; Ethischer Wert; Soziale Verantwortung; Staatslehre; Politikwissenschaft; Politische Wissenschaft; Bildungsphilosophie; Erziehungsphilosophie; Ethik; Individualismus; Political attitude; Politische Einstellung; Täuschung; Selbststudium; Politische Macht; Feminismus; Individuelle Autonomie; Kritik; Essay; Aufsatzunterricht; Author; Autor; Autorin
Abstract	This paper studies how Emerson's 'Self-Reliance' offers a meaningful account of political and moral self-education in Western democracies. Emerson's moral perfectionism involves an ethical, political and democratic individualism that needs to be reconsidered. This paper explores a perfectionist interpretation of the modern forms of self-education as political and ordinary practices, first with the case of conspiracy theories, which express an individual desire for self-education but appear as the result of a lack of self-reliance and a failure of political self-education, and then through the explicit claim to self-education made by activists in ecological, anti-racial or feminist organisations, which embodies the democratic need for self-reliance. These two examples reveal a new kind of efficient and ordinary political power at the edge of civic commitment. This leads us to define an alternative conception of pedagogy, in which equality in self-reliance matters. This also underlines our moral and ordinary political responsibility and challenges the traditional philosophical opposition between personal and public, subjective and universal. This paper underlines the accuracy of Stanley Cavell's interpretation of Emerson's 'Self-Reliance' in order to provide a perfectionist interpretation of activism. It also opens a new crossed perspective between the French and American approaches. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01