if the answer is relevance…
then what is the question?
The question is: what doesn’t philosophy have?
Philosophy doesn’t have any relevance for the average person
on the street… Philosophy doesn’t talk about anything that
has relevance for the average person…the last time philosophy
has had any relevance for the average person was when
existentialism was current and that was over 60 years ago…
Philosophy now is about deconstruction and language
and game theory… nothing the average person knows or cares about…
who am I? what is my purpose? what is my relationship to the state/ society/ civilization…
is there a god and what does that mean to me?
these are questions that the thinking person wonders about and philosophy
doesn’t answer…
so how is philosophy suppose to become “relevant”?
by understanding its purpose…
philosophers think about the “big” questions because the
average person either doesn’t have the time, the energy, the
ability or the desire to think about these questions…
We think about these big questions for those who cannot…
and we must provide honest answers because if we don’t, who will?
we cannot rely on dogmatic answers or answers from authority…
we must create new understanding of what is important for people AND
be able to explain what that understanding is and why it is important…
and why is this? because we live in a different world then say, even Nietzsche did
and we must explain the differences in terms of our changing world?
for example, we live in an age of tremendous income inequality,
so what is this and why is it important for us to have income equality…
in this, we touch not only philosophy but economics and political theory…
people might hear about the fact that 9 people have as much wealth
as half the population of planet earth but they don’t know what this means
and why it is important? Philosophers must be able to explain this income
inequality and why it is a hazard and a danger to everyone on planet earth…
we must search for answers even if no one listens to us…
because even they don’t understand why it is important, we know
why it is important and we must explain and understand the world in
such a way that the world can understand it… which means without
the jargon and technical language that makes philosophy incomprehensible to
everyone who is not academically trained…( which is why I keep my language
simple and understandable… the form of what we say is as important as what we say)
so what answers do you want?
and how would you find those answers?
and what format would you use to ask those questions
and answer those questions?
Kropotkin