How I understand Philosophy

Abstract

The paper consists in two parts. In the first part, the author explains his view of philosophy. The basis of a philosophic act is an intense aspiration of the entire human being for truth which is reflected in one’s thought and life as the orientation towards obtaining wisdom as a means of changing one’s life. In the second part, this approach is illustrated with an analysis of Michel Foucault’s and Pierre Hadot’s thesis that philosophy is a particular spiritual practice. The author contends that, in today’s world, the original philosophic reflection is being replaced by the enquiry into modes of philosophy. Back into the 19th century, Henry Thoreau said that there are now many professors of philosophy, but few philosophers. That is why the author pins his hopes for the future of philosophy on the reactivation of the personalist-existentialist type of philosophizing capable of rethinking the experience of a modern individual whose difficult integrity seeks to find here its personal voice.