Online research in philosophy

If ‘power’ means cultural and political influence, philosophy has become a global world power. Philosophical argumentation and reflection constitute a non-economical, non-technological, and non-military power by the word that is capable of challenging the other powers, exposing lies and illusions, and proposing a better world as dwelling for humanity.Often the power of the philosophical word has been ignored, when philosophy was seen as pure description, pure reference, an innocent mirror, that forgets itself and make us present to things. However, if (...) philosophy has the power of the word, not all kinds of philosophizing are necessarily good for humanity. It can be very seducing for a group, and give food for mass suggestion making that appeals to the worst part of ourselves. We have learnt to understand how philosophy in itself may not only enlighten and liberate, but also seduce and manipulate. Today, philosophy has lost its innocence; we cannot philosophize without reflection on our linguistic practice. But we philosophers are not only called to understand ourselves. We must also contribute to developing an understanding of the power of the word more generally. And as citizens of the world, we must recognize that humiliation of others might be the most brutal violence we can practice without directly killing. (shrink)

The Ambiguity of Globalization -- The Paradox of the Nation -- The Utopia of Sustainability -- The Premodern Cosmopolitan -- The Modern Cosmopolitan -- Cultivation With and For Others -- Hermeneutics as Cultivation : Mimesis -- Philosophy of Education as Hermeneutics -- The Global Cosmopolitan.

Sociology was born as an attempt to delimit an object of investigation offered by society as a social reality. The ambition was that of "treating the social facts as things" (Durkheim) or of understanding and explaining the social relations by respecting an "axiological neutrality" (Max Weber). Today, however, we are in the presence of a new kind of sociologists, and they are by no means the less popular ones, who are not trying to avoid assessments in their analysis of the (...) present social world. I have in mind especially two sociologists, Ulrich Beck (Munich) and David Held (London). I will discuss in particular the view of sociology presented in a recent book of Ulrich Beck ( Macht und Gegenmacht im globalen Zeitalter , 2002, translated into French under the title Pouvoir et contre-pouvoir à l'ère de la mondialisation , 2003), and I will show some analogies between Beck and Held. Finally, I will try to identify the points that make the present sociological epistemology different from that of the great founders of this science. (shrink)

One often forgets that the economical, technological and military powers do not possess the monopoly of power in the world. Philosophical argumentation and reflection constitute a non-economic, non-technological and non-military power by the word that is capable of challenging the other powers, exposing lies and illusions, and proposing a better world as a dwelling for humanity.