After the Endgames: What Was and What Is Philosophy?
From the introduction:
It does not seem the time for substantial definitions of philosophy, or thinking. Rather, we experience a proliferation of forms in which philosophy appears but their coherence, let alone unity, seems as doubtful as ever. Of course, the academic machine, or discipline, is alive and running and has developed well-functioning versions of professionalism, institutions, associations and publication formats with global reach and fungibility. The demand for ‘popular’ philosophy is rising and an ever-savvy non-fiction publishing industry is transporting snippets of classical thinking, but also loads of commonplaces and intellectual clichés into many corners of our lives. Then there are the many instances of rigorous thinking, questioning and problematizing, sometimes drawing on philosophical texts or on ‘theory’, sometimes not, in non-disciplinary, non-academic or in non-commodified spaces, in the arts and the cultural spheres, in politicized milieus. Then there is a growing sense that, for a long time, a much too narrow conception of what philosophy is and should be, has fatefully been restricted to a certain ultra-Western, ultra-male canon and has seriously distorted any real understanding of, or even sense for, real thinking beyond social and cultural exclusions. Clutter, indeed. […]
