““…The 22nd World Congress of Philosophy (WCP) is to start in Seoul on 30 June this year, and its keynote idea sounds, I believe, like ‘Rethinking Philosophy Today’. It’s intriguing, isn’t it? Are you going to give us coverage of that remarkable forum on the pages of your Gazette? What questions are Russian philosophers going to submit for discussion? Are they going to put forward some ‘national idea’, and, if they are, what is that idea about?”

““The keynote of the Congress indicates that those who describe themselves as thinkers have only now come to realize that all previous discussions and research have failed to produce any tangible results, so at this point we are to review and rethink it all, which in practice means having to start from square one. If those philosophers suddenly learned that a right track towards understanding all the problems of humanity has been found, then at least there would be a way to understand all that present-day philosophical scrabble. But now there is only a tiny dot of optimism on the landscape of doubts.”

Such are the most typical words from the letters of our readers describing how they feel about the forthcoming philosophical event. As you can see, people are a little confused when they get to know the keynote idea chosen for WCP.

Indeed, the statement ‘Rethinking Philosophy’ is somewhat strange: what we get here is that philosophy is unable to develop as a science as it appears to have reached a deadlock; and thus it needs rethinking, i.e. abandoning previous ideas and searching for new ones. Obviously, not all of our readers are experts in philosophy, but there are many people who do care and thus express challenging and well-grounded ideas concerning human life and problems associated with it. They show practical approach and give certain recommendations, and that is what all those serious philosophical papers sometimes lack in their allegedly profound researches into social relations. Every day people find solutions to their personal problems with a glance to the circumstances and in the context of their life conditions, but they do not usually address anything generalized and uncertain.

In our today’s philosophical discussion we are going to try to make a synthesis of classical views with those of contemporary thinkers on the fluid life conditions in one separate country or community, as well as in the whole world.

First and foremost let us emphasize once again that, in our view, philosophy is to provide knowledge to human beings, so that they can use it to build a civil society based on human wisdom. Therefore the rethinking of philosophy implies rethinking our real life in all its social aspects; it means such rethinking where all the spheres of human existence are to be taken into account with no exception whatsoever. However, present-day philosophers dig real deep; they branch out and fraction philosophy and they bury themselves into intricate philosophical architectonics, so it is often the case when behind their academese we can neither make out the subject of research, nor its practical relevance. Obviously there are fears that we may have wandered too far into the maze that there is almost no chance for us to unthread it and get back to reality.

What we must do today as soon as possible is to rethink the idea about the value of philosophy as a method for developing thinking. It is more important (though much more difficult) to consider philosophy as a means of cognition of our social habitat. Philosophy today really looks like Plato’s world of shadows. Being completely dependent on bureaucrats in education, philosophers are now estranged from real life because of their futile attempts to prove to those bureaucrats that they are socially relevant and indispensable. The help-yourself-to-survive logic prompts them to master some abstract topics for candidate and doctoral theses rather than do serious research for the benefit of society.

At the same time the Russian society has amassed a wide range of problems including specific ones that require philosophical conceptualization. Thus, for instance, we hear every now and again about quick growth and progress almost in all economic spheres; but these achievements have no individual clarity. Numerous philosophical works full of most general or indefinite notions such as ‘culture’, ‘civilization’ or ‘progress’ mentioned here are equally indefinite or too general, whereas philosophy cannot exist by itself long enough without growing deep into human life.

Petr Struve, the Russian ‘political philosopher’, as he was called by his contemporaries, studied prominent philosophers’ ideas and principles of philosophical research and made a remarkable conclusion: ‘Outside the Absolute origin, human life is nothing but a blind game of blind forces’.

This maxim, as we see it, has a deep meaning as it brightly reflects the interrelation of philosophy and social processes. When a society is moving around the vicious circle (or is in ‘bad infinity’, as Hegel put it, meaning ignorance due to the lack of knowledge for dignified life), it is really playing blind games.

But what is that blind force whose games result in so many human tragedies?

What are those forces inside a man that can disarrange the whole social structure? What nuances of human physiology are ignored or neglected when government structures are formed? How is socio-economic policy to be carried out so that it can provide decent life standards? And finally, what is the absolute origin of man’s social life?

This is only a small portion of social questions that cannot be addressed without philosophy. However, one can form a basis for fundamental science only by persistent searching for a ‘certain natural plan’ (Kant), with its ultimate goal being a ‘perfect civil association of the human race’. The legacy of famous philosophers must not be wasted. But at present philosophers opt for some senseless word play, forgetting that the root of the word ‘philosophy’ is ‘wisdom’, which, in turn, means trueness, clarity and righteousness.

This understanding of philosophy is exactly what formed the basis of Plato’s ideas when he first studied the nature of individual virtue in the context of his teaching on the State. The main conclusion Plato made in his social studies (that justice is to be objectively reflected in the organization of a state as a norm of moral life) can be considered the first truly philosophical thought that opened the way for the social vision of the world. 22 centuries later, roughly, Hegel began to study morality and concluded that morality is a product of thinking. Having made an assumption that morality constantly develops, gains strength and eventually turns into an Absolute Idea, Absolute Knowledge and Absolute Subject, Hegel clearly formulated a stage pattern which human thinking follows to reach the level of wisdom.

We want to draw your attention once again to the fact that our aim here is to involve a maximum number of thinkers into our philosophical dispute and to show that philosophical knowledge that develops basic notions of human thinking and the formation of ethical social relations are actually and closely connected. But we should note here that the principle of a search for the sine qua non universal character of a phenomenon or an entity which has long been common practice in scientific research cannot be applied to thinking (notwithstanding the fact that this ability is inherent in every human being). Thinking cannot be universal, joint or pandemic; it can only be strictly individual.

No matter how many times people started philosophical debates about fundamental reasons for human problems, still, these problems will have to be addressed in the process of thinking, wisdom being its supreme form.

The history of philosophy is, in essence, the story of how people interpreted the notion of ‘human wisdom’ at different times. It would be naive to think that wisdom is a product of upbringing, education, traditions or culture. If we asked anybody to name a person whom he or she considers wise, very few people would answer quickly, let alone define their choice criteria. People tend to make that kind of choice much quicker if they are asked to proceed from the premises of morality and ethics, for they are driven by feelings and emotions, rather than knowledge which they do not have.

We are talking about the scientific notion of the Absolute Origin of communal life: it’s the knowledge to become an Absolute Social Law. The humanity is only on the verge of discovering it; and that will surely take time. But human existence without any social law cannot provide conditions for thinking to develop since social protection mechanisms can only be created on the basis of the ethical content of the evolution of human thinking. Here wisdom is to be singled out as a top priority for the national (and later universal) idea of social organization.

Why is philosophy attacked? Are the expenses for philosophy faculties, departments and institutes so great that they pose a threat to social resources? No, there is another reason. The blind force – the state – has always been aware of its imperfection and inability to rule. Every period of state organization always starts with the time to defend oneself and to attack, which is a chance for enrichment. And that chance has always implied the receipt of guaranteed creature comforts. But those in power always fear a social verdict of not having the right to rule, philosophers being the grand jury at all times.

Today the paramount objective of any society is to efficiently and effectively control its communal economy. But it cannot be quickly achieved. The philosophy potential is far from being great nowadays. It will take time for thinkers to recover their sight and, by reviewing the value of philosophy, to understand that the ‘blind force’ – the rulers – can be remodeled into government only using knowledge. We do not even need a congress to see that population growth will require the consolidation of wisdom and ethics to provide equitable distribution of resources on the planet called Earth.

Today one would find it absurd to tell those in power (not in wisdom, unfortunately) that they are wearing someone else’s shoes. Here we must once again refer to Plato and say that it did not take him long to conclude that a person of good morals and character cannot possibly belong to politics. A well-known incident with Socrates is a prime example proving it. But Plato’s conclusion was also proved by the whole course of history of the formation of state and even by today’s reality. Nevertheless, evolution cannot be stopped; and tomorrow will show that with the development of thinking a human society worthy of existence should follow the principle: ruling bodies are to be formed in accordance with the intelligence level of would-be rulers.

It must become clear to everyone that the state is to be governed by the wisest; their wisdom is to be measured by their developed thinking qualities, such as intellect and emotions together, clearly seen in their aptitude for education and creativity in science and art. Such people are, for example, academicians Vladimir Zakharov (a prominent physicist and a famous poet) and Anatoly Fomenko (a distinguished mathematician and an artist with a remarkable aesthetic vision of the world). There are many other people with a similar high level of thinking, but they are little known to the public. Instead, there are some other people known as the so-called ‘political elite’. In fact, they are in no way elite because that word defines something superior, of best quality, while politicians are typically ordinary people, gifted in their own way, but not equal to the task of running a state.

Creating the system of public administration according to the hierarchy of thinking is no fiction but a product of evolution understood as a natural systemic synthesis of matter that gave life to homo sapiens with inherent ethic code essential for social life. Moreover so, it is to be expected that evolution will take the path of gradual transition of humanity from the sphere of intellect into that of collective existence ethics. And the noosphere as a sphere of intellect – one of the most important qualities of human thinking which has proven its great potential with regard to unraveling secrets of the nature – is to include philosophical knowledge of how to organize the system of governance of social processes. This foundation of a new sphere – ‘ethicosphere’ - will, in its turn, become a major prerequisite for the transition of humanity into the sphere of self-organization, where individual human thinking will be substituted by a totally ethical substance which will come in the form of a single social organism. Human dignity will no longer depend on the environment because such a social organism will possess a collective human conscience capable of an immediate social response to a change in the living conditions of any member of the society.

Many constitutions declare that the state is a tool designed for the benefit of the society. Unfortunately, it is not so. The rulers are not always brought to justice, and it has always been the case. The constitutional norm proclaiming this country a social state is far from being implemented. Almost everyone in politics makes statements about his or her concern for people and their needs. But it is really enough to take a look at a large Russian family’s kitchen to see that many of such statements are just a lie. The blind force of the state mechanism, armed with modern techniques and devices, may pose a real threat to a person as well as to the whole humanity if a profit motive rather than wisdom is at the helm. Human ignorance can be confronted by no other force, but human wisdom. And wisdom is exactly the philosophy of virtue.

By Arnold Kazmin

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