bildning och demokrati - att förmedla det partikulära och det universella

In this article the author. looks for new ways of investigating and developing“bildung” and democracy, from the preconditions of our time.“Bildung” anddemocracy are continuously reinterpreted in the historical process. An eternalproblem is that about the relation between the universal, for instance thehuman rights as possible values for all, and the particular, in form of the rightof local communities and identities to their culture from a recognition ofdifference. In a hermeneutic tradition“bildung” mediates between the univer-sal and the particular. In the normative discussion about a communicativedemocracy the problem has been focused. In the transition of the social scienc-es this problem is central. In order to investigate the problem in its complexity,it should be considered and developed from a richness of dissimilar perspecti-ves. Different intellectual currents of today like the hermeneutic, the communi-cative and the postcolonial are different attempts to mediate between the uni-versal and the particular. From these mediating efforts a democratic traditionof “bildung” can be researched and developed. This work demands both atheoretical development and empirical studies of its social conditions.