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Nadin, Mihai, 1938-

"The Civilization of Illiteracy"

It involves awareness of oneself
and others, and the ability to identify similarities and
differences, to explain the changing dynamics of existence, and
to project the acquired understanding into the practice of
formulating new questions. Practical implications of
philosophic systems are manifold. Such systems affect scientific,
moral, political, cultural, and other human practical
experiences of self-constitution. They accumulate wisdom more
than knowledge. To this effect, we can say that the classic model
of philosophy remains a science of sciences, or at least the
alma mater of sciences. Philosophic systems are concerned with
human values, not with skills or abilities involved in reaching
goals defined by our rationality. Nevertheless, this status has
been continuously challenged from inside and outside philosophy.
The decline of respect for philosophy probably results from the
perceived omniscient attitude philosophers have displayed and
from their unwillingness to focus on aspects of human reason.
Philosophy has never been a domain for everyone. In our day, it
has become a discourse expressed, if not in painfully contorted
language, in a multitude of specialized languages addressed to a
relatively small circle of interested parties, themselves
philosophers for the most part. The change in the pragmatic
condition of philosophy is reflected in its current linguistic
equivocations.


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