Périn, Nathalie

For a new teaching of philosophy. François Châtelet’s Professors’ philosophy (La philosophie des professeurs) - 2019.


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To return to The professors’ philosophy, by François Châtelet, is to look at a book that asked in his time (1970) a question that J. Derrida and the Greph would also encounter a few years later about the place and function of the teaching of philosophy in the French educational institution. F. Châtelet thus appears as an original thinker when it comes to questioning the institutionalization of philosophy. His criticism of the renewed defense of this teaching and, more broadly, of philosophical transmission will not weaken (as in the very work of the philosopher). The singularity of this work, which is part of the critical legacy of thinkers such as P. Nizan, G. Politzer or J.-F. Revel, will not endorse lamentation or reaction, but will seek the problematic paths of a true defense and affirmation of philosophy within educational institutions. Freeing philosophy from ideology, as it appears through the programs and textbooks that support it, will be part of a renewed defense of this kind of taught thought. Philosophy would no longer form to common opinions, would no longer be the spiritual replacement of religion in the state formation of the citizen. But, by taking itself as the very object of its own criticism, philosophy would more than ever seek to discourage stupidity.