Donatella Di Cesare - The Political Vocation of Philosophy

Heraclitus said as much, and Plato backed this up in his great political dialogue, the Republic . It is not enough to think as in a ‘dream’, ónar , in a dreamlike condition. The thinking of whoever is alert, awake, in fact proves to be something quite different (see the Republic , 476c). The waking vision, húpar , is the very characteristic of philosophy, its distinctive trait, to the point of becoming its symbol. One can spend one’s life asleep, or else awake and keeping watch. Those who do not philosophise doubtless do live. But their existence is diminished, their participation in politics compromised.

Philosophy is a Greek word. It is the product of a compound: phileîn , to desire, to have the ambition, to love; and sophía , which, even before meaning wisdom, indicates knowledge. First of all, savoir faire , practical abilities. Like those of artisans, of they who know how to build ships, to play musical instruments, to compose verse, but also the abilities of the legislator or politician. When democracy is making itself felt, multiple competences are needed to get by in the city. For instance, it is necessary to be able to speak well, to defend oneself, or to intervene in debates. Here a new figure crops up: the figure of he who not only possesses some knowledge but is also prepared to sell it. This is the sophistés , an expert in both private and public life, the master of rhetoric, who teaches for money and who – shading into a negative meaning of this term – turns out to be an impostor and charlatan.

Standing up against the sophists are those in the city who, precisely because they are considered expert and capable, risk being taken for sophists. Socrates was first among them. But there is a profound difference in their case: for they do not boast of having any knowledge which they do not. What inspires Socrates’ questions is what he desires, not what he has. A desire for wisdom? Not exactly. It is difficult to believe that, as some suggest, the Greek word sophía is etymologically linked to saphés , which means clear, manifest. Yet Socrates not only does not claim to possess anything – least of all the truth; he moreover confesses that his burning ambition is to arrive at clarity. This knowledge of not knowing is the aporetic beginning of philosophy. Lovers of sophía – Plato repeatedly insists – are they who are driven by the desire to access knowledge, rather than be left obtuse and uncultured by ignorance. 1

The terms ‘philosopher’ or ‘philosophise’ appeared here and there already before Socrates, following the frequently recurring model of compounds with the prefix philo- . For instance, they appeared in a fragment from Heraclitus (B 35), in Herodotus’ histories (I, 30) as well as in the funeral oration that Thucydides has Pericles giving in memory of the soldiers who had fallen in the Peloponnesian war. ‘For we also give ourselves to bravery, and yet with thrift; and to philosophy, and yet without mollification of the mind’ (II, 40, 1). 2The two verbs philokaleîn and philosopheîn are proudly proclaimed. Fifth-century BC Athens aspired to the beautiful and to the clear. This anticipates a tópos that will recur frequently throughout this text: for just as what is beautiful is not useful, the sophía to which philosophers aspire evades any criterion of usefulness.

If for Thucydides philosophy was a peculiar prerogative of the Greeks, for Plato and for Aristotle it distinguishes humanity itself. All aspire to that knowledge of knowledges, to that non-knowledge which can provide the only basis for wisdom. Plato specifies its origin: thaumázein . 3To philosophise is, first of all, to look around oneself in wonderment, to interrogate, marvelled. More than an action, it is something one experiences. It is, therefore, a páthos , a passion whose hold one cannot escape. Whoever philosophises is ineluctably bewildered. And the inverse is also true: who does not feel bewildered cannot philosophise. The beginning is not a beginning, like when one sets some action going. For páthos is something one experiences: it comes from outside, is produced by another. What bursts into one’s field of vision is surprising, extraordinary, it has no place in the ordinary; it leaves everything out of sorts. Yet the philosopher passively allows herself to be taken away by marvel at what she has around her, which strikes and disconcerts her, in a crescendo. She does not remain stubbornly impassive, coldly indifferent. On the contrary, she is aghast. For what previously seemed obvious to her no longer is. At a stroke, all her certainties melt away and everything wobbles. A certain malaise is inevitable, here. The páthos of philosophy is a passion. It consists of allowing oneself to be disoriented. It is wonder that drives the desire to know, but this wonder itself serves to debunk the knowledge that has been learned (see Aristotle, Metaphysics , 982b).

But is this not, at least in part, also the approach followed by those who study nature? Such an objection seems more than justified. Aristotle describes the procedure followed by the scientist who, once he has arrived at understanding, frees himself from wonderment. But if this also applied to philosophy, then philosophy would itself end as soon as that destination had been reached. This conception prevails among those who see philosophy as, at most, a duplicate of science. Moreover, for them it is a duplicate that becomes ever more useless as science makes progress. At root, even the scientist stands bewildered faced with whatever unknowns he runs into. But what grips him is not passion, but rather his curiosity. He does not yet understand, but readies himself to observe, to survey, to examine. The Greeks termed theoría that contemplation of things which accompanies wonder.

The philosopher and the scientist would seem to advance in tandem, brought together by a shared wonder, a shared theory. Both stumble across something which they find striking, and which they thus try to observe. But the similarity stops there. For the scientist, the surprising represents a problem that can be resolved through method, on the basis of already acquired results, with a view to a more extensive understanding of the object, its qualities, its substance.

For the philosopher, too, wonder is connected to theoría . Surprised, she hones her sights. It is thus wonder that makes things visible. The philosopher – who is certainly not lacking in senses – opens her eyes. But philosophy demands that the eyes, having been opened, are then closed in order to allow for that singular way of seeing that is thought. Whoever philosophises closes her eyes and takes a step back in order to gather her thoughts, to avoid distraction.

Yet philosophy is not characterised by this marvelled turn toward some thing. Rather, what characterises it is the conversion of a gaze directed toward some theme which is at the basis of the disconcertment. Thus, the philosopher remains faithful to her wonder – which is radical, just like the question she poses. This consternation runs through all the Platonic dialogues and culminates, so to speak, in the embarrassment of not even knowing what is this I who does not know. Philosophy springs precisely from this embarrassment, which shakes whoever philosophises.

Science follows a straight path – one which, leaving behind it the surprising, the strange and the disconcerting, proceeds toward the disenchantment of the world. One obstacle after another falls down, while the understanding grows. Such is the progress of science. Philosophy does not follow this course. Still less does it settle – as some would claim – for providing a justification for science’s approach. Therefore, anyone who suggests that philosophy’s task lies in an accumulation of understanding, in the endeavour to justify scientific concepts, methods and aims or to offer some ‘ultimate foundation’ for them, misses the target.