Fear as 'Disclosure of Truths': The Educational Significance of An Existential-Phenomenological Insight

The article illustrates a particular existential-phenomenological view of the emotion of fear and its connection to self-educative process of grasping the world and gaining self-knowledge. According to this view, originally promoted by Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and in educational philosophy Otto Friedrich Bollnow (1907-1991), fear is closely connected to a specific understanding of 'unconcealment', or 'disclosure' of truths. In the article it is shown, that this understanding sheds special educational insights on the connection between fear and gaining knowledge.