Why Philosophise?

This one has been hanging around on a bookshelf for a while and whilst I’ve grabbed a page or two I hadn’t sat down and read the whole thing until recently. I’d intended to read it and use it with some students as an IB unseen text but having gotten to the end I’m not sure it’s quite right for that purpose. Having said that it is a very interesting text and gives an idiosyncratic yet deeply scholarly approach to the title question. 

Composed and given as a series of lectures the oratorical style is clear throughout by Lyotard’s unique analysis of key terms and concepts often sheds new and provocative light on ideas than can often be seen as rather tired; the relationship between philosophy and history, the concept of a desire/love of wisdom, philosophy as transformative practice. What particularly struck me was how much of a living, breathing, contemporary concern philosophy is in France and within French culture.

Having been raised in the Anglophone world of philosophy I think that’s rather inspiring and something that is very different from my experience of philosophy as a rather niche academic concern. Lyotard’s mode of expression is as though he were contributing to a wider, public dialogue; one which everyone is automatically part of and one which people will all be able to access. I don’t think a similar work would be written in the anglophone world and texts that are, ostensibly, similar from writers in the UK are actually markedly different in spirit. That said, I think my rusty knowledge of Hegel hampered some of my reading but it’s a fresh and uniquely voiced text and well worth the (short!) read.