The Parable of the Philosopher-King and the pragmatist. Two narratives of the end of Philosophy, and its relation to democracy, and the university

Abstract

Does democracy, understood as the moral horizon of western culture, require the end of philosophy as the ultimate foundational knowledge? Do all the narratives of the end of philosophy include the defeat of truth in favor of opinion, a transformation and subordination of the philosophical discourse itself to the form of coexistence that is considered most just, most open, most inclusive? In other words, must the question about what type of philosophical vocabulary and approach best serves human freedom be the most fundamental philosophical question? We then should have to ask philosophy the same terrifying questions Lenin put to freedom: philosophy yes, but for whom? To do what? In this essay all these questions are investigated through two narratives that theorize the end of philosophy with more that four hundred years of difference: Thomas Hobbes in The Leviathan and Gianni Vattimo and Richard Rorty. The game of mirrors that is established in this text tries to be a reflection about the nature of the philosophical discourse and its implementation in the university system inside the context of democracy in the twenty-first century.