#gabitaykoRefEd (David C. Schindler)
Ours is a decidedly non-philosophical, even anti-philosophical, age. This is not to say that we lack “philosophers,” of a certain sort; indeed, we have only too many. There is probably no age in history that has as many “professional philosophers” as we do, with scores of new PhDs waiting to compete for every slot that opens in the philosophy departments of scores upon scores of colleges and universities. Outside of the academy, we have an even greater array of “professional thinkers” of every sort. There is the novel phenomenon of the “think tank,” an institution whose employees are not paid to produce any tangible goods, but simply . . . to think. There is the rapidly growing sector of “white collar” labor, made up of those who work with their minds rather than with their hands, as do the “blue collar” workers. This sector includes, not only those whose thinking remains tied to industry in some respect—advertisement, management, and so forth—but those in more “liberal” fields, such as journalism, the aim of which is simply to communicate “what is going on in the world” and perhaps offering opinions on it, and the creative, exploratory work in science, computing, and technology. Moreover, the internet has opened up space for amateur, and not just professional, thinkers, and this space has been filled, in the blink of an eye, by an almost limitless number of “blogs,” covering any topic imaginable, or simply recording daily events or impressions. Indeed, our privileging of the conceptual and intellectual is manifest, moreover, in our obsession with childhood development and preparation for success in schools, not to mention the vast sums of money our government spends annually on education. All of this would seem to indicate that we have an unprecedented love of intelligence. Nevertheless, while it may be the case that our age is more cerebral, more abstract, more preoccupied with brain power, with intellectual capacities and skills, than any other age in history, it remains true that we are not philosophical. Indeed, our very abstraction and preoccupation with intelligence is a sign of the “forgetfulness” of philosophy. What do I mean by this?
—David C. Schindler
