And this would be, indeed, a fundamental aspect of what we intend here, a kind of inseparably ethical and educational corollary of this purpose. Affirming or denying the universality of philosophy is almost a case of anthropological optimism or pessimism, of confidence in a common disposition of reasoning beings, disposition that would be a consequence of the essential richness of language beyond the contingent differences that separate peoples, cultures, and civilisations, and even beyond the difference between adults and children. There is no doubt that this requires us to understand philosophical disposition to be an elemental attitude of the spirit that also manifests itself in the demand for scientific intelligibility. Certainly we cannot obviate the outright rejection that the thesis could face (see the presentation of section 2).
Without underestimating the importance of these objections, divergence seems to be hampered by a misunderstanding regarding what should be understood by the term philosophy itself. It is hard to imagine a place where man does not wonder about man and, therefore, a place without some form of philosophical anthropology. And this is perhaps valid for each and every one of the questions that have fed the history of philosophy. The point is not to affirm that certain modes of spirituality with weaker or stronger links to religious attitudes characteristic of a given civilisation are definitely a part of philosophy, but rather perhaps to indicate that, after the multiplicity of its objectives, the aforementioned arrangement indicated by Aristotle persists as an invariable factor. This is reflected specifically by the fact that a person unfamiliar at first with Greek-Western culture would have no difficulty (obviously with the necessary educational mediation) in acquiring the theories associated with such a culture.
Without a doubt other objections arise here; it is unquestionable that some of the universal questions posed by philosophy are also addressed by other symbolic forms such as art and religion, and naturally by science. The universality of the questions is not in itself sufficient argument in favour of the universality of philosophy. The problem of isolating the epistemological specificity of philosophy, at least confronted to religion and art, will therefore be one of the keys of our congress.
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But if philosophy has aspirations to universality, if the aim is “philosophy as an educator of humanity”, it is essential to wonder why so little importance is attached to philosophy in the basic training of citizens, starting with that of the so-called developed countries. Aristotle affirmed that a philosophical attitude was the prerogative of free men. But in this case the neutralisation of such a disposition in the immense majority of people constitutes an indication of the absence of effective freedom. The real reason for the lack of the universality of philosophy must be of a social nature: for the immense majority of human beings, the struggle to survive continues to take up the entirety of their existence. Under such conditions there is no chance of a general education according to philosophical requirements.
The foregoing implies that philosophy is intrinsically committed, it calls for a criticism of any illegitimate social order as a mere corollary of the vindication of itself. In the last World Philosophy Congress held in Seoul, the President stressed the importance of the event in the conviction that “the technological, military, and economic powers do not have a monopoly of world power”. In his view philosophy, given its ability to “expose falsehoods and illusions” generated by these forces and to propose “a better world for humanity to live in”, could establishes itself as a “counter-power”, the whole mission would be “fighting to create a world citizenship”. The question is to determine whether there is any possibility of this really happening, i.e. if philosophy can overcome the burden that the configuration of world powers represents for education in general.
In any case, the vindication of philosophy would continue to be valid even if the globalisation of the free market became compatible with the reduction of the huge economic differences between countries and between citizens within each country. As Professor Ioanna Kuçuradi declared in the aforementioned Seoul congress, this greater equity would only mean the effective generalisation of human rights if it were accompanied by a general education intended to develop in each individual the faculties characterising them as a human being. This is where philosophy comes into play: educating humanity through philosophy would be tantamount to making possible for each one of us to update the entire potential that characterises us as beings of reason. It simply would be equivalent to helping us to fulfil our humanity (education must fertilise an organ, but cannot be its substitute, as Plato had already pointed out).
