Laura Mueller

Philodemus’s On Frank Criticism offers a unique conception of friendship that relies on frank speech, or truth-telling. The ability to have frank conversations with one another is the heart of a conception of friendship in which we are seen, heard, and acknowledged. This is the friendship through which we become better citizens and better selves. In particular, Philodemus is offering this truth-based friendship to students and their mentors. Yet, one would be hard put to find such trust and deep friendship in the university philosophy classrooms of today. Our professionalized and content acquisition focused culture in the academy all too often inhibits fostering these kinds of relationships with our students. We begin the essay by tracing the roots of this kind of frank friendship in Plato’s Lysis, and then contextualize its emerging role in the ancient philosophical classroom by exploring its place in Philodemus’ Epicurean philosophical community at Herculaneum. We do so to see how such friendship moves beyond discourse and into practice. Next, we use Arendt and Foucault to unpack the public and private dimensions of frank friendship in the philosophical learning environment and its role in a good life and good politics. Finally, we show how the classroom practice of Modern Socratic Dialogue (MSD) can re-enliven frank friendship as a spiritual exercise in the contemporary university-philosophy classroom. Specifically, we argue that MSD is a particular method of dialogue suited for the public realm of friendship and that it contributes to the care of one’s soul, thus modeling in our classrooms a method of dialogue for both the public and private dimensions of life.

This article investigates the interrelated roles of education, morality, and philosophy in Kant as a response to the transactional view of humanity promoted by the spirit of capitalism, known as the “capital form.” This article investigates the effect of the capital form upon educational institutions and self-cultivation, or Bildung. Kant’s views on the role of education in moral development provide a path forward in the reconstitution of Bildung within persons. I argue that education serves a moral role in Kant, helping humanity achieve enlightenment – in direct contrast to the “un-enlightened” and uncultivated self created by the capital form. I turn to Kant’s views on education, focusing on the role of philosophy in moral development, and the cultivation of virtues such as modesty and appropriate self-love. Finally, I turn to contemporary pedagogical theory, providing practical examples of teaching techniques to help liberate students from their “self-imposed minority.”

We argue that the relationship between Kant’s theory of imagination and his moral philosophy has not been well understood. Missing is an adequate connection between his idea of sensus communis and the power of imagination to exceed the senses. This connection is close and important, and it has serious implications for how we are to apply and further theorize moral relations among human beings. Especially important in this regard is the ability among humans, in their social setting, to imagine other persons. We do this pre-cognitively, at the level of feeling. The effects of imagining other persons prior to all knowledge of them (as, for instance, rational agents), grounds the autonomy of other persons in a relationship that is far broader than knowledge.

This article investigates the relation between freedom, the public use of reason, and sensus communis, as discussed throughout Kant’s political writings and critical works. Kant’s discussion of the public use of reason, as put forth in "What Is Enlightenment?" is closely tied to his views on autonomy, most notably in the political sphere. However, Kant’s distinction between the public and private uses of reason relies upon sensus communis as discussed in the Critique of Judgment. The communicability achieved by sensus communis has a relevance not restricted only to Kant’s explicitly political writings; sensus communis is also what we might call “transcendentally significant.” In this article, I argue that the public use of reason—a use of reason achieved by sensus communis—is vital for reason itself to follow its own normative demands. I conclude that sensus communis itself grounds reason’s use for its own critique.