Philosophy and the Agora (an essayistic diagnosis of French and German
philosophy)
In this essay the author makes some assessments in connection with French and
German philosophy, respectively. Philosophy is nothing else but social
involvement, it is the raising of the voice in the agora. The French, unlike
the Germans, transformed philosophy into poetry and used it as a political
weapon at the same time. For them, philosophy is involvement and not analysis,
as it is for the Germans. Unlike the French, the Germans are characterized by
elitism. But elitism not as exceptional results, but as isolation in the ivory
tower of observers. For the German Geist, philosophy is phenomenology and
phenomenology is analysis. They take the classical forms of thought: analytics,
dialectics and logic and turn them into surgical knives (Kritik) for dissecting
the social, cultural, religious “reality”. The foundation of this way of making
philosophy is their elitist attitude, an attitude of detachment from the
convulsions of the world. The involvement of a German philosopher or university
professor in the life of the parties is the most serious violation of academic
taboos.
MIHAI D. GRIGORE
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