The aim of this interview has been to rekindle the debate surrounding the meaning and purpose of education in today’s society. Is a humanistic education still relevant in a world obsessed with scientific proof and driven by a problem-solving mentality, or is it becoming obsolete, as some experts in education seem to suggest?. While recalling, often humorously, his own experience as both a student and an educator, Vattimo stresses the importance of freedom for the emergence of critical thinking—or, better, actual (...) thinking; and since freedom has mainly been the prerogative of humanistic disciplines he warns against the ongoing tendency to subject all spheres of knowledge to the rigours of a scientific approach. (shrink)