Editorial - Philosophy in an Age of Crisis: Challenges and Prospects

• Authors: Czarnocka Małgorzata
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

We are pleased to present the third, last-but-one collection of writings devoted to the problem of PHILOSOPHY IN AN AGE OF CRISIS: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS. Like its predecessors, this collection is part of the International Society for Universal Dialogue legacy. Philosophy in its maximalist design has two complementary tasks. First, it is to present reality in its entirety and seek after its essence, not the individual features of objects, events, etc. Therefore, it has to “break through” the particularity of single events and objects to reveal their common base, i.e. the deepest level on which their reality is constituted. Secondly, it is to evaluate the existing human world and formulate visions for its future, mainly by forwarding ideas and values which initiate moral, social and cultural change, and the most radical of all: civilisationalchange. These two tasks—the recognition of the essence of reality and projecting change in the human world—are connected, because philosophy’s projects, ideas and normative undertakings mainly stem from its criticism of the existing human world and emerge in thought processes aimed at eliminating those of this world’s elements which are considered negative (morally, socially or otherwise evil, destructive, etc.). Philosophy’s reflection on the status quo of the human world and strivings to eradicate its endangering flaws effect in visions of global transformation and/or change in its individual spheres. Whereas intellectual forays into the fundaments of reality base on the anticipative evaluation of reality’s various aspects and phenomena; explaining reality contains a normative element, visible, for example, in decisions about the validity of certain aspects and the invalidity of others. Philosophy’s critical observations and visions of transforming the existing world are distanced—detached from individual features and events, the illusion of commonness, individual viewpoints and individual values. Moreover, they are impartial and abstract, which is connected with the contentual sophistication and conceptual hermeticity of philosophical discourse. Inthese three aspects—detachment, impartiality and abstractness—philosophy’s struggles with the world are superior to similar undertakings outside of philosophy, especially to ideological narratives or, most frequent today, crypto-ideologies “disguised” as objective and impartial. This last type of discourse is incessantly present in the indoctrinating content of the mass media and the ever-more-numerous “ideological” monographs and essays, where the ideological load is concealed under a veneer of adequately manipulated scholarlyerudition. The above-mentioned basic attributes of philosophy—its distance from contingency and commonness and its impartiality and abstractness—are often held to exemplify its remoteness from the world and hermetic enclosure in an “ivory tower.” However—as the philosophical legacy shows when seen in a proper light—the isolation theorem is a myth propounded by laymen who misunderstand philosophy and fail to see its all-pervading power to analyse, evaluate and form reality. In some countries today there are tendencies to brand philosophy as invalid and outdated, or “modernise” it into a shallow intellectual discourse with ideological traits, into one more way of shaping collective and individual awareness according to someone’s needs, values, interests or desires. An alternative proposal is to unite philosophy with religion as in medieval Europe, which de facto means its subordination to religion. In Poland such ideas are forwarded by conservative groups linked to and/or in control of the academic world. Such and related ideas aim to curb collective awareness, as truly open wisdom which creates new ideas in intellectual freedom would banish the defenders of the world’s present status quo to its peripheries. Philosophy’s hermetic conceptuality and content, its abstract character and non-commonness by no means distance it from the real human world. To the contrary. The above-reviewed approach to philosophy’s nature and tasks gave the ground for the International Society for Universal Dialogue project entitled PHILOSOPHY IN AN AGE OF CRISIS: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS. Dialogue and Universalism’s cyclic presentations of its findings base on the belief that philosophy today should pose an intellectual challenge to the main problems in the world’s crisis-torn regions. Its task is to identify them and propose ways of resolving them in a bid to reverse today’s adverse trends. The present civilisational crisis (visible, among others, in overpopulation, constant warfare, economic globalisation, the unappeased voracity and increasing rapacity of capitalism, migration, the climate crisis, mounting social inequalities, the extinction of ethnic cultures, the revaluation of moral standards and the emergence of new lifestyle trends) is accompanied by radical civilisational change, because humanity has simultaneously entered the information technology era, the era of the posthumanum and a time of deep change in the transcendental sphere: in art, science and religion. These changes and the mounting civilisational crisis are visible in all the spheres of the human world. They have deprived humans of the mainstays which until recently determined their existence. In consequence, the present condition of the world appears to humans as chaotic, full of turbulence and without a stable foundation (also in the axiological sense). Human awareness is marred by a deluge of post-truths, which in reality are falsehoods propounded in someone or other’s interest. The aim of education today is not to deepen human awareness or enable the broadest-possible fulfilment of human life, but to make humans into efficient crypto-slaves of postmodern society, cogwheels incapable of revolt who uncritically accept the status quo. Philosophical reflection is more vital during crisis and civilisational change that in stable times. Whether they realise it or not, humans desire to know the sense of their lives, and for this they need orientation in the world and the possibility to fall back on clearly-defined values and ideas, which function as guidelines and co-form the human identity. The earlier values, ideas and world-views disappeared when crisis undermined the foundations of the recently existing world. Philosophy reconstructs them or constructs them anew, thus enabling humans to cope with present and future reality. The present issue of Dialogue and Universalism contains a section devoted to dialogue, reflections on the transformation of modern art into a socially-committed field, and several essays which investigate new phenomena in the today’s human world.

• Publisher: Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk; Fundacja Filozofia Na Rzecz Dialogu
• Journal: Dialogue and Universalism
• Year: 2019
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 5-7

Contributors

author

Czarnocka Małgorzata

• IFiS PAN