"The role of the philosopher" - Marco M.

The role of the philosopher

I've read an interesting article. It claimed that, just like poetry, philosophy cannot be taught. This made me question the role of the philosopher, if philosophy, as the article suggests, cannot be the subject of direct teaching.

What would the role of the philosopher be today, as yesterday? The philosopher should promote a "gymnastics of the mind", encouraging people to ask questions, see things from different perspectives, promote personal experience, seek the truth, and question whether that truth is absolute or relative.

Above all, he should be able to create new horizons (to see reality with totally different eyes) and, especially, represent a constant critique of power.

What has happened to the philosophers today? It's hard to answer. Some are impostors holed up in universities. They, with their academic titles (children of the idea that philosophy can be taught), do nothing but stuff atrophied minds with further information using incomprehensible language. Essentially, they create useless clones who will perpetuate their "work."

Others, also far from a true philosophy, are mere disseminators or work to justify and support the power they should instead criticize. Even worse, they sponsor the current nihilistic horizon, a product of the dreadful Enlightenment, as if it were the only possible one.

Yet, now more than ever, a genuine philosophy is necessary—something that awakens humanity in the non-human and acts as a clear divide between authentic human intelligence, capable of intuition and vision, and artificial intelligence.

m.m.