Althusser, who maintains that philosophy is dependent on science, also maintains something very strange, which is that philosophy has no history at all, that philosophy is always the same thing. In this case, the problem of the development of philosophy is an easy one: the future of philosophy is its past.
It sounds nearly like a joke to see the great Marxist Althusser as the last defender of the old scholastic conception of a philosophia perennis, of philosophy as pure repetition of the same; philosophy in the Nietzchean style as an eternal return of the same.
But what is this "same"? What is the sameness of the same, which returns in the a-historical destiny of philosophy? Behind this question we naturally find an old discussion about the true nature of philosophy. There are roughly two main tendencies. For the first one philosophy is essentially a reflexive knowledge. The knowledge of truth in theoretical fields, the knowledge of values in practical fields. We have to organize learning and the transmission of knowledge. And the appropriate form of philosophy is that of a school. The philosopher is a professor, like Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger and so many others., including myself, when you address me under the name of "Professor Badiou ".
The second possibility is that philosophy is not really a knowledge, that it is neither theoretical nor practical. It lies in the direct transformation of a subject, it is a kind of radical conversion, a complete change of life. And consequently it is very near religion, but by exclusively rational means; very near love, but without the violent support of desire; very near political engagement, but without the constraint of a centralized organization; very near the potency of artistic creation, but without the physical means of art; very near scientific knowledge, but without the formalism of mathematics, and without the empirical and technical means of physics. For this second tendency philosophy is not by necessity a matter of school, learning, transmission and professors. It is a free address of anybody to everybody. Like Socrates speaking to young men in the streets of Athens; like Descartes writing letters to Princess Elizabeth ; like Jean-Jacques Rousseau writing his confessions ; or also the Nietzsche or the novels or Sartre plays; or like, if you forgive me for a narcissistic touch, my own novels and plays.
The difference is that philosophy is no longer knowledge, or knowledge of knowledge. It is an action. One could say that what identifies philosophy is not the rules of a discourse, but the singularity of an act. It is this act that the enemies of Socrates called: "the corruption of young people ". And because of that, as you know, Socrates was sentenced to death. "To corrupt young people" is after all not a bad name for the philosophical act. If you properly understand "to corrupt". Here "to corrupt" means to teach the possibility of refusing any blind submission to established opinions. To corrupt is to give to young people some means of changing their minds about all social norms ; to corrupt is to substitute discussion and rational criticism for imitation, and even, if the question is a question of principles, to substitute revolt for obedience. But this revolt is neither spontaneous nor agressive inasmuch as it is a consequence of principles and rational critics. In the poems of the great French poet Arthur Rimbaud we find the strange expression: "Logical Revolts". That is probably a good definition of the philosophical act.
It sounds nearly like a joke to see the great Marxist Althusser as the last defender of the old scholastic conception of a philosophia perennis, of philosophy as pure repetition of the same; philosophy in the Nietzchean style as an eternal return of the same.
But what is this "same"? What is the sameness of the same, which returns in the a-historical destiny of philosophy? Behind this question we naturally find an old discussion about the true nature of philosophy. There are roughly two main tendencies. For the first one philosophy is essentially a reflexive knowledge. The knowledge of truth in theoretical fields, the knowledge of values in practical fields. We have to organize learning and the transmission of knowledge. And the appropriate form of philosophy is that of a school. The philosopher is a professor, like Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger and so many others., including myself, when you address me under the name of "Professor Badiou ".
The second possibility is that philosophy is not really a knowledge, that it is neither theoretical nor practical. It lies in the direct transformation of a subject, it is a kind of radical conversion, a complete change of life. And consequently it is very near religion, but by exclusively rational means; very near love, but without the violent support of desire; very near political engagement, but without the constraint of a centralized organization; very near the potency of artistic creation, but without the physical means of art; very near scientific knowledge, but without the formalism of mathematics, and without the empirical and technical means of physics. For this second tendency philosophy is not by necessity a matter of school, learning, transmission and professors. It is a free address of anybody to everybody. Like Socrates speaking to young men in the streets of Athens; like Descartes writing letters to Princess Elizabeth ; like Jean-Jacques Rousseau writing his confessions ; or also the Nietzsche or the novels or Sartre plays; or like, if you forgive me for a narcissistic touch, my own novels and plays.
The difference is that philosophy is no longer knowledge, or knowledge of knowledge. It is an action. One could say that what identifies philosophy is not the rules of a discourse, but the singularity of an act. It is this act that the enemies of Socrates called: "the corruption of young people ". And because of that, as you know, Socrates was sentenced to death. "To corrupt young people" is after all not a bad name for the philosophical act. If you properly understand "to corrupt". Here "to corrupt" means to teach the possibility of refusing any blind submission to established opinions. To corrupt is to give to young people some means of changing their minds about all social norms ; to corrupt is to substitute discussion and rational criticism for imitation, and even, if the question is a question of principles, to substitute revolt for obedience. But this revolt is neither spontaneous nor agressive inasmuch as it is a consequence of principles and rational critics. In the poems of the great French poet Arthur Rimbaud we find the strange expression: "Logical Revolts". That is probably a good definition of the philosophical act.
