In a fascinating paper, “Ask the Philosopher,” Dimitrios Dentsoras shows how philosophers were once integrally engaged in society as agents of practical advice on how to govern and indeed on how to live. Over the centuries, beginning in Roman times, this social role has diminished to a point where professional philosophers are largely socially irrelevant. What has changed? This paper outlines an argument that identifies a central contribution to its own demise that professional philosophy itself has made. That contribution has to do with how philosophical critique is conceived and operates. Philosophical teaching and publishing focus is on undermining opposing positions, or on eliminating opposition, rather than seeking deeper and genuine understanding. Examining certain elements of this eliminative function presents a possibility of seeing a renewal of philosophy’s previous functions of truth-seeking and accessing the Good.

In this short paper, I outline a non-standard account of what it feels like to have an intuition. According to this account, intuitive contents are ontologically ambiguous. Because intuition alone is liable to persuade us of both motivated inferences and necessary truths, it is not a reliable source of evidence. However, we would not be able to grasp the concept of necessity without intuitions. Hence, I do not think it is any good to ignore or quarantine our intuitions when forming judgments.

This paper defends a simple and surprisingly adequate definition of philosophy: as suggested by the “know thyself” imperative, philosophy is the “self-defining” discipline. The task of philosophizing is therefore best described as the task of self-defining. In responding to various objections, I defend four senses in which this definition holds. First, when other academic disciplines seek to define the nature of their discipline, they are generally recognized as exploring the philosophy of their discipline; only for philosophy is such an inquiry self-referential, remaining fully within the discipline itself. Second, while some genuinely philosophical topics do not explicitly involve self-defining, philosophy as a way of life always has self-examination at its core. Third, even though psychology may have largely usurped philosophy’s classical role as the guardian of self-knowledge, the goal of helping persons to refine their own self-understanding is still crucial for philosophers today. Finally, in a deep but paradoxical sense, genuine philosophy is self-authenticating. While Socrates’ maxim, “the unexamined life is not worth living” should not be taken too literally, it does correctly convey the fact that only an authentic life is really worth living.

This paper proposes an analysis of the relation between metaphilosophy and “first-order” philosophical inquiry based on pragmatism, specifically the holistic pragmatism developed by Morton White. It is argued that philosophy and metaphilosophy are mutually dependent and entangled and that it is, therefore, impossible to draw a sharp dichotomy between them. Rather, our metaphilosophical and “first-order” philosophical views and commitments constitute a holistic web that can only be critically examined as a totality.

Pierre Hadot is famous for his work on ancient philosophy, and the notion that ancient philosophia was conceived in the Greek schools as a way of life, including existential practices to reshape students’ beliefs, desires, and actions. Yet his last published book before his death in 2010 was the study N’Oublie Pas de Vivre, on the oeuvre of the modern German thinker and litterateur, Goethe. Hadot’s work throughout refuses to make a sharp distinction between ancients and moderns, interested rather, as in this last book on Goethe, on the way the notion of philosophy as a bios has been carried over into modern thought in figures like Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Montaigne, and even Kant. The paper is a critical reflection on Hadot’s conception of philosophy, suggesting he was as much ‘modern’ as ‘ancient’. Hadot’s final work on Goethe, we will argue, revealingly recasts his larger work on the ancients, and the singularity of his interpretation of classical Hellenistic and Roman thought.

Upward integration of higher education into the service sector strikes painfully the humanities and – especially – philosophy. Noticeable increase in research activity on sense of core questions of philosophy and its place in culture for the past five years can be regarded as indirect evidence for this trend. Another reason causing growth of corresponding publications lies in the controversies between processes of globalization and cultural variations, originating from different world-views. Current attempts to analyze them offer narrow – “two-dimensional” – models of the subject. It is not yet possible to carry out a strict border between information which is a part of weltanschauung and other knowledge. The author proposes a model which would unite current interest to the practical impact of philosophy with the analysis of the world-view structure. The paper represents three main ideas: 1) the structure of weltanschauung represents the decision-making situation; 2) historical types of world-views differ by the model of an explanation accepted in a picture of the world, way of justification of values and by the level of the agent’s freedom in execution or life choice programs; 3) the philosophy has been developing according to requests for rationalization of any part of world outlook.

In this paper, I attempt to argue for a different kind of philosophical discourse. Namely, I delineate a philosophical approach that can be defined in opposition to traditional philosophy, conceived as a more or less ahistorical and transcendental inquiry. According to this approach, exemplified in the thought of Richard Rorty, the different ontological and epistemological claims of philosophy are nothing but variations of the same metaphysical themes, constitutive of its very tradition. In order to present and argue for this point, I show how Rorty’s nominalist, conceptualist, and particularistic stance can be better understood in light of Raymond Geuss’ and Ian Hacking’s two metaphilosophical schemas. I also attempt to show how certain conceptual tensions that seem to emerge from the use of these schemas for understanding Rorty’s stance, can contribute to the critique of philosophy traditionally conceived.

I argue for a significant slowing down in philosophy. In today’s hectic world, the ‘slow movement’ has had a salutary effect in a variety of domains, from mental health to food and music. But the academic world, philosophy included, has yet to catch on. And this, in spite of the fact that university culture has become increasingly focused on productivity and performance, thus creating a managerialist ethos and an “academic Darwinism” where scholars are placed under pressure to “publish or perish”, with little opportunity to allow their thoughts to mature organically. In response to this commodification of philosophy, I offer an alternative: ‘slow philosophy’. Inspired by the Greco-Roman ideal of philosophy as a ‘way of life’ (in Hadot’s terms), the goal in such philosophizing is not only to inform but to transform every aspect of one’s being, to achieve the kind of wisdom which brings peace of mind and inner freedom, as well as deeper understanding. But this requires a slowing down: taking time with the texts we read and write, making time to read and re-read, not forcing the meaning or desiring immediate comprehension, not philosophizing in haste but in grace, in a wondering spirit of contemplative open-endedness and receptivity to the other – thereby opposing the current regime of seeking to get everything done at once.

Die neuere Fichteforschung interpretiert Fichtes Konzeption der intellektuellen Anschauung nahezu ausschließlich bewusstseinstheoretisch, besonders mit Blick auf das Problem des Selbstbewusstseins in der Philosophie des Geistes. Dabei wird übersehen, dass der Begriff der intellektuellen Anschauung für Fichte vor allem eine – dem Selbstverständnis der „Wissenschaftslehre“ entsprechende – erkenntnistheoretische Funktion hat. Mit ihm versucht Fichte zu zeigen, wie ein spezifisches Wissen a priori für ein einzelnes Subjekt möglich ist, indem er den Zugang zum philosophischen Wissen in der intellektuellen Anschauung verortet. Fichtes Konzeption der intellektuellen Anschauung sollte daher mit Blick auf jüngere Diskussionen eher in den Kontext der erkenntnistheoretischen Frage nach der Möglichkeit apriorischer Rechtfertigung bzw. der metaphilosophischen Fragen nach der Möglichkeit und dem Status philosophischen Wissens gestellt werden. Der Vortrag gibt einige Überlegungen zu einer solchen Kontextualisierung.

Je mehr man Philosophie als savoir-vivre versteht, desto geringer fällt das Konzept einer Metaphilosophie ins Gewicht. Unter Ablehnung einer künstlichen Hyper- und Hyponomisierung philosophischer Selbstbestimmungsmomente (sc. Metaphilosophie, Metaethik und Metametaphysik sowie Spezialethiken etc.) wird in diesem Beitrag ein transzendental-kritischer Pragmatizismus als umfassende Methode des menschlichen „Machens, Wissens, Handelns“ etabliert. Pseudo-theoretisierende Metabolisierungen philosophischer Einzelaspekte werden zwar als ausgezeichnete künstlerische Formen protreptischer Rhetorik gerne befürwortet, entbehren jedoch ernstzunehmender Relevanz für das Selbstverständnis philosophischen Denkens. Der entscheidende Nachweis für diese starke These wird in der performativ-reflexiven Legitimierung der Abstraktionsleistung dieses Beitrags selbst zu suchen sein.

Проблема бытия человека в мире – одна из главных проблем в философии М. Хайдеггера. Но такая многогранная тема не может быть в целостности схвачена в одной небольшой статье. В данной статье внимание обращено к самим фундаментальным основаниям человеческого бытия, к самому бытию, в котором становится возможным бытие человека. Бытие для людей в современном мире не является больше подлинной трансценденцией, как философия перестала для них быть истинным делом. Хайдеггер стремится вернуть фундаментальную философию. Он обращается к древнегреческому понятию φύσις, в котором скрывалось то, что еще полновластно определяло человеческое бытие. Φύσις, как самообразующее владычество, охватывает и держит в своей власти все в мире. Пусть постижения φύσις в современном мире может быть только через отрицание, через постижение Ничто.

Today, philosophy has lost its importance as “guide of humanity”. Why has it happen? Firstly, because the philosophy, as well as philosopher has changed the essence of philosophy - being “science” about wisdom, being wisdom, to live in accordance with the demands of wisdom. Philosopher cannot be an immoral, but, today he is obviously immoral, he is a same consumer of material benefits as every other human. To demand moral behavior from philosopher, today, is ridiculous: philosopher is dissolved in being that has lost its meaning. What to do in this case? It seems, one should return to intelligent life, especially, when any other attempt to live (to live out of sense, out of creation, out of comprehension) lead neither to success, nor to happiness, nor to the hope of meeting with. Moral - conscience – meaning of life are inseparable unity, a human in order to be a human being should join in himself these determinacies of being, otherwise – crash of human and humanity is inevitable. Today, the task set before the philosophy is to return its high importance, before philosopher is to recover the moral content of his service – these are the purpose and meaning of the present philosophy.

Ο όρος «παράδειγμα» (Kuhn) χρησιμοποιείται εδώ και χρόνια με αξιώσεις επιστημολογικής εγκυρότητας και στις μεταφιλοσοφικές έρευνες, δηλαδή στις θεωρητικές και στις φιλοσοφικές εργασίες, των οποίων το αντικείμενο είναι η ιστορική εξέλιξη και η ανάπτυξη του φιλοσοφικώς σκέπτεσθαι. Η αρχαία οντολογία και η σύγχρονη φιλοσοφία συγκροτούνται, ως δύο διαφορετικά «παραδείγματα» του φιλοσοφικώς σκέπτεσθαι, τόσο στο επίπεδο του περιεχομένου (της προβληματικής, των ιδεών και των επιχειρημάτων) όσο και στο επιστημολογικό επίπεδο της έκθεσης των ιδεών. Η αρχαία οντολογία, ως μεταφυσική έρευνα, η οποία καλείται να απαντήσει στο ερώτημα «από τί αποτελείται ο κόσμος» (η πραγματικότητα) και «ποιές είναι οι πρώτες αρχές συγκροτήσεώς του», θεμελιώνεται στην αρχή της ταυτότητας και αυτοπροσδιορίζεται ως φωνοκεντρική. Η σύγχρονη φιλοσοφία, ως μεταφιλοσοφική έρευνα, η οποία αναζητεί τη θεμελίωση της φιλοσοφικής ορθολογικότητας στην ανοικτή σχέση ανάμεσα στο πράγμα και στη γλώσσα, αυτοπροσδιορίζεται ως γραμματολογική σκέψη, πράγμα που σημαίνει ότι η γραφή (Derrida) καθίσταται η πρώτη αρχή του ίδιου του φιλοσοφείν. Κατά τον Hegel «φιλοσοφία είναι η εποχή της συνειλημμένη σε έννοια». Σε σύγχρονη ερμηνευτική διατύπωση ο εγελιανός ορισμός της φιλοσοφίας σημαίνει ότι η έννοια, ως συνείδηση του πράγματος, και η πραγματικότητα ταυτίζονται. Με μεταφιλοσοφικό κριτήριο τον εγελιανό ορισμό της φιλοσοφίας τόσο η αρχαία οντολογία, ως μεταφυσική έρευνα, όσο και η σύγχρονη φιλοσοφία, ως γραμματολογική σκέψη, συγκροτούν δύο διαφορετικούς τύπους φιλοσοφικής ορθολογικότητας (τα «παραδείγματα» του φιλοσοφείν). Ανάμεσα στα δύο αυτά «παραδείγματα» του φιλοσοφείν αναπτύσσεται μία διαλεκτική σχέση, η οποία συνεπάγεται δύο πράγματα: πρώτον ότι η ιστορική έρευνα της φιλοσοφικής παραδόσεως αντικαθίσταται από το μεταφιλοσοφικό αναστοχασμό, σύμφωνα με τον οποίο η περιεχομενική ένταξη της αρχαίας οντολογίας στην προβληματική της σύγχρονης φιλοσοφίας είναι η νέα συνθήκη του φιλοσοφείν και δεύτερον ότι η γραμματολογική ανακατασκευή του φιλοσοφικώς σκέπτεσθαι επαναπροσδιορίζει τη σχέση ανάμεσα στο πράγμα και στη γλώσσα με άξονα τη φιλοσοφική ορθολογικότητα, η οποία λειτουργεί ως πραγματολογική συνθήκη για την εμφάνιση νέων φιλοσοφικών αντικειμένων, όπως π.χ. είναι η επικοινωνία και η γλώσσα.