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Dare to be wise!

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 1 month ago

 

Dare to be wise! - Reclaiming Philosophy from the Anatomists of Thought.

 

 

 

 

Alexander Pagidas

 

We finish high-school and know more about mathematics than we do of ourselves. Yet knowing ourselves is more important than algebra. Current education is not meant to create free, creative and mature individuals, but to create workers for the requirements of the market. The majority of universities try to give you an education that will supply you with a career – not a good life. Careers, as the etymology of the word betrays (which means: road for carts), are meant for carts not for human beings. I am not denying exceptions. But a few exceptions only prove the dominance of the rule.

 

In my educational path, after switching from Marketing to Sociology and eventually to the discipline that claims to study the good life, Philosophy, I encountered the same thing. I finished my BA and MA in philosophy and still had a gnawing feeling that I hadn’t learned what I needed to know about myself and the world I’m living. I stopped enjoying philosophy. It had become an activity that had no relation to myself or everyday life. It dawned on me that Philosophy as done in most universities is philosophy divorced from life.

 

The current situation is as Thoreau expressed it in his book Walden: “Nowadays we only have professors of philosophy and not philosophers. Because once it was admirable to live, while now it is admirable to profess.” The reason why I didn’t go for a PhD is because the vast majority of Universities prepare you for becoming a professor of philosophy, not a philosopher. The former teaches philosophy, the latter lives it. The former argues about who said what, the latter searches for the truth beyond authorities and bibliographies. Of course, those pairs are not mutually exclusive, but most academic philosophers do the one without doing the other.

 

Philosophy is vast. It is the mother of all sciences and more. Because it expresses a way of being rather than merely some method. It is a way of open-mindedness, willingness to experiment and discover; to find not just what is good, but why it is so; the effort to transform ideals to practice; to understand who we are and what we can become; it is nothing less than the active engagement with the most important issues of our lives. It is not just the analysis of concepts, as some contemporary philosophers would have you believe, but ultimately the quest for a better life. That is why philosophy will always be relevant. Because only a few want to merely analyse concepts while everyone wants to live a better life.

 

In this talk I'll tell the story of how philosophy unwittingly condemned itself to irrelevance by divorcing itself from life; what are the broader cultural consequences of that divorce and what do we gain by seducing her back to life.

 

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