UNESCO hails philosophy as ‘force for individual and collective emancipation’

On World Day, UNESCO hails philosophy as ‘force for individual and collective emancipation’

Sculpture "The Thinker" by Auguste Rodin. World Philosophy Day takes place every November. Photo: Hans Andersen

19 November 2015 – Marking World Philosophy Day, the head of the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO) has stressed that sustainability calls for new ways of thinking about ourselves and the planet and as such, “philosophy and all the humanities will be essential.”

“The conviction that philosophy can make an essential contribution to human well-being, to addressing complexity, to advancing peace stands at the heart of World Philosophy Day,” UNESCO’s Director-General, Irina Bokova, said in her message for this year’s celebration.

Ms. Bokova pointed out that UNESCO puts philosophy forward as a force for individual and collective emancipation: “For to think, while reflecting on what it is to think, is to philosophize, and all of us do it constantly, driven by the truest motor of all human ingenuity – wonder.”

World Philosophy Day has been observed every third Thursday of November since 2002. According to UNESCO, philosophy is dialogue of wonder, across the ages, with art and literature, in social debates, on political questions, practiced by all, without specialized training, far beyond the classroom.

“We must raise the flag for philosophy as high as possible, to engage every woman and man, and especially every girl and boy. We need to share the wonder of philosophy more widely and differently,” the UNESCO chief said.

Ms. Bokova also noted that the agency was continuing its long-standing cooperation with the networks of philosophy teachers. “We are working to make philosophy, the most ancient of disciplines, reach broader audiences thanks to cutting-edge technologies,” she said. “For instance, through online teaching tools based on the 2015 UNESCO South-South Philosophical Manual.”

According to UNESCO, all activities celebrating this year's World Philosophy Day will emphasize the use of new communication technologies to engage global audiences. To celebrate the Day, many events will be hold in Paris, where UNESCO is headquartered, as well as in Dakar, Brasilia, and a number of other cities on all continents.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, agreed by UN Member States in September, created a new vision for people, prosperity, peace, and the planet for the next 15 years. Taking this to fruition, Ms. Bokova said, requires all the skills philosophy can hone, including rigour, creativity and critical thinking.

“Sustainability calls for new ways of thinking about ourselves and the planet. It requires new ways of acting, producing and behaving. Here again, philosophy and all the humanities will be essential,” she added.

Originalmente publicado em: UN News Centre

Women's Works (by Peter Adamson)

Peter Adamson thinks about the women in the history of philosophy.

Despite the ancient Oracle’s advice to ‘Know Thyself’, it’s only relatively recently that we philosophers have started wondering why so few of us are women. In fact, gender disparity among professional academic philosophers has now become something of a scandal. Various explanations are offered. Some blame pervasive sexism and the macho posturing that is typical of philosophical debate. Others suggest that the overly technical culture of modern analytic philosophy may drive away women, who are far too sensible to engage in such time-wasting. One way to test these hypotheses might be to find out whether the lack of female representation is consistent across all sub-areas of philosophy. I haven’t been able to find statistics on that, but my superficial impression is that the proportion of women may be somewhat higher among historians of philosophy than among analytic philosophers. This may seem ironic, given that in the earlier ages studied by those historians, women were even more shut out of the discipline than they are today.

Yet their exclusion was not total. The early modern period especially featured numerous prominent female thinkers, such as Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway. They were active in the mid-1600s, more than a century before Mary Wollstonecraft’s 1790 work Vindication of the Rights of Women (I’m guessing that this is the earliest philosophical treatise by a woman that most philosophers would be able to name).

If we look further back, we find that the history of women in philosophy is as old as the history of philosophy itself. In the time of the Pre-Socratics (6th C. BCE) there was Theano, an associate of and possibly the wife of Pythagoras. Plato famously argues in his Republic that women would be philosophers in his ideal city. He also puts philosophical speeches into the mouths of women in his dialogues, notably Diotima in theSymposium.

Aristotle is less open-minded on this score, to put it mildly. But some philosophical movements that emerged after him included women in their ranks – such as Hipparchia, a Cynic who helped cause some scandals of her own, with the help of her partner Crates. Then there was Hypatia, the pagan martyr who is perhaps the one really famous female philosopher of classical times.

Nor do we lack for women philosophers in the Middle Ages. Again, there is one particularly well-known female thinker in the period, namely Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179). But she is not the sole woman in an otherwise all-male period of thought. In the Thirteenth Century, Hadewijch and Mechthild of Magdeburg followed Hildegard’s example by describing mystical encounters with God; and the Fourteenth Century was something of a highpoint for women intellectuals, such as Marguerite Porete, Catherine of Siena, and Christine de Pisan.

By the way, non-European traditions have also featured women. We find several female disputants in theUpanisads (6th C. BCE onwards), for example.

Of course, it is not enough to acknowledge the existence of these women thinkers and then turn back to studying only their more famous male contemporaries. All of the figures I’ve mentioned, and many more besides, deserve careful attention from historians of philosophy. However, that attention should not focus solely on their gender. After all, when we study Aristotle or Kant, we don’t usually start with the observation that they were men; so why should we see Hipparchia or Hildegard as women first and philosophers second? Of course, gender was a lens through which they were invariably seen by the contemporaries who recounted their stories and preserved their works. When we learn something of the ideas of ancient female thinkers, it is usually because they were quoted on ‘women’s topics’ such as marriage and child-rearing. Hildegard herself drew attention to her position as a ‘mere woman’, chosen as a mouthpiece for God precisely because of her humble status. Yet we will understand Hildegard better if we compare her to male mystical authors of the same time, such as Bernard of Clairvaux, rather than by simply putting her in the company of women from other periods. Indeed, even other female medieval mystics, such as Hadewijch and Mechthild, make for a striking contrast with Hildegard. Writing only a few generations later, their works are very different from hers, being composed in vernacular languages and shot through with the tropes of courtly love literature.

If female philosophers are to be rescued from their undeserved obscurity, it will be by using the same tools that can illuminate male historical figures. We should discern the influences on which they drew; we should pay heed to the historical context that produced them; and we should take their ideas seriously. Of course the social position of women in late antique Alexandria is relevant to understanding Hypatia; but it’s less important to understanding her than contemporary developments in mathematics (her primary intellectual interest), or the confrontation between paganism and Christianity. Understanding each woman philosopher in her own terms as well as in her own time is not just about gender balance; it’s good history. And if this richer historical picture gives encouragement to women who are considering whether to devote their lives to philosophy, then an improvement in our understanding of philosophy’s past might just help improve philosophy’s future.

© Prof. Peter Adamson 2015

Peter Adamson is the author of A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, vol.1, Classical Philosophy (2014),vol.2, Philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds (2015), both based on his popular History of Philosophy podcast, and available from OUP. [Vol 1 reviewed this issue – Ed.]

Via Philosophy Now

Existentialist Values (by Robert Goodwin Olson)

“... Almost without exception the biographies of the great philosophers of the past reveal poignant personal tragedies. At an early age Plato was forced to abandon the political career for which he was by birth and social status destined, to sustain the loss through execution of his master and friend Socrates, and to go into exile from his beloved Athens. Later, his one practical political adventure, an effort to establish a sound and stable government in Syracuse, was a dismal failure. Epictetus was not only a slave by birth but was also lame. Spinoza was excommunicated from the Jewish community in Amsterdam where he had passed his early life, was obliged to earn his living in the tedious occupation of lens grinder, and died relatively young of consumption. Hegel was slow to mature as a philosopher, and although he finally achieved great popularity, his climb up the academic ladder was extremely laborious and frustrating. In his student days he was even subjected to the indignity of being told that he had no aptitude for philosophy.

Each of these men had strong personal reasons for doubting the possibility of self-fulfillment through wealth, fame and pleasure; and behind an often cold and impersonal mask traces of disappointment and bitterness are clearly discernible. If the die-hard ordinary man so choose, he could perhaps make out a plausible interpretation of the traditional philosophers’ value orientations as so many instances of sour grapes. The fact remains, however, that in the official expression of their ideas traditional philosophers tended to regard the values which they substituted for those of the ordinary man as sufficient to a complete and fully satisfying life. The sense of tragedy haunts their systems, but it does not ordinarily enter into them.”

(OLSON, Robert Goodwin. An introduction to existentialism. New York: Dover Publications, 1962, p. 13)