Reborn from your ashes, phoenix Philosophy

Some days ago I read an article on the New York Times by Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle called “When philosophy lost its way”. In it, both philosophers talk about the decline of philosophy and what should be its future. I found their reasoning very interesting and, as I agree with their conclusions, I’ll develop this article resuming what they said and adding some thoughts of my own.

According to both philosophers, the decline of philosophy started in 19th century when it was institutionalized inside the academic setting. The reasons behind this change can be found in the rise of the scientific method and the modernisation of knowledge research in the university structure. Then, it began the period of what we can call disciplinary philosophy, which is the one still functioning. It was characterized by the use of scientific modus operandi for the knowledge production, the restriction of its usage to the theoretical world, withdrawal from the practical problems solution and confinement of it into the expert community. As a consequence, its present utility has fallen into a mere ancient theory analysis discipline.

Nevertheless, this isn’t the true nature of philosophy. In order to follow its original purpose we should expand its range to other non-expertise hands, touching every kind of knowledge (from the political philosophy to the philosophy of architecture). Just when it can reach every kind of discipline in order to search for answers about the good model of life it would have reached its good path. Because philosophical knowledge is humanistic knowledge, and lately, it has adopted the structure of scientific model of production, which however, works differently.

So, we must find another way to adapt it to its needs and requirements. One of them is that its disciplines and specialisations aren’t lineal or independent from each other. Even though this specialisation might be needed to certain levels, its learning must be treated as a hole. It means that the range of philosophy should widen to any kind of knowledge, and it should be treated by any wise enough or intelligent person, not just its closed community of experts. Also, it means that its language should adapt itself to a new way of broadening the ability of understanding its contents to all society. As well as at the same time, the study of its classical texts should be maintained to reach further knowledge from classical authors. The final goal should be the creation of a new source of humanistic knowledge going beyond specific disciplines, and studying the whole range of its varied spectrum.

Finally, all together this we would achieve more tools to improve the use of science and modern technology, that nowadays is yet able to do great things but it is also capable of evil ones. So, we would be capable to reach a better use of our progress.