Between Lebensphilosophie and Existential Philosophy

Abstract

In this book, we understand Bollnow’s pedagogical thought primarily in terms of “educational reality,” in terms of the “mood” associated with this reality, and also in terms of its “broken” and “guided” possibilities. The third chapter further lays the groundwork for the book’s exposition of these three educational realities or possibilities by explaining how Bollnow’s philosophy of education brings together Heidegger’s existentialism with Lebensphilosophie. The publication of Heidegger’s existentialist masterpiece, Being and Time, was an intellectual event of the first order in Germany of the 1920s, and it convinced the young Bollnow to work directly with Heidegger briefly in Marburg and Freiburg. Heidegger’s work places special emphasis on existential moments of crisis or Angst—ones characterized by an overwhelming mixture of fear, despair, and isolation in which the individual encounters his or her true individual and finite nature. Despite his deep appreciation of Heidegger’s work, in the final analysis, Bollnow saw such moments as being incompatible with educational values and goals. As a result, he emphasizes the countervailing significance of hope, which, unlike fear and despair, does not individualize and isolate, but affirms and binds one to life and to shared concerns and continuities. Hope for Bollnow lies at the core of Lebensphilosophie, which affirms human life and experience both in its unceasing change and vitality, and in its underlying continuities. According to Bollnow, the continuities of life and their hopeful affirmation have primacy in education—despite the critical clarity that moments of existential Angst can provide.