PUOTA: FILOSOFIJOS ĮTEISINIMO PROBLEMA
SYMPOSIUM: THE PROBLEM OF LEGITIMATION OF PHILOSOPHY

Summary/Abstract: At the beginning, the historic premises of the problem are discussed. It is shown that the problem was initiated in the polemics between Socrates and sophists. The polemics influenced the Socratic way of ethical specification of philosophy, and philosophy was opposed to everyday life and thinking. The culmination of the problem was the trial of Socrates and its tragic conclusion which sent a message of warning to philosophers about the unlawfulness of their activity and its dangers. Plato was the first to realize the problem, and he made an attempt to solve it in the Apology of Socrates. A virtual procedure of immolation described in the dialogue could be treated as an effort of existential initiation of philosophy. However, in Phaidon he dealt with the axiological aspect of philosophizing, thus the issue of legitimation of philosophy turned into two problems: first, determination of the axiological constitution of philosophy; second, the compliance of this constitution with the axiological constitution of cosmos. Both tasks were treated in the Symposium where an attempt was made to legitimize philosophizing by associating it with the deity of Eros – the embodiment of love’s striving for beauty. The gathering described in the Symposium is interpreted by the author of the present paper as a non-formal procedure of legitimation. The speeches of the participants of the gathering are viewed as ways to provide foundation for the legitimacy of philosophy. Along with the analysis of the pre-Socratic speeches, the author also examines the historiographical, ontological, axiological, sociological, politological, phenomenological and psychological features of philosophizing.

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