Nicole Decostre (Mons/Belgium)#
Lipman and the Resistance to the Degradation of Enlightenment#
When it comes to Enlightenment, we immediately refer to the British, German and French philosophers of the eighteenth century.
Could referring to those Enlightenment ideas provide us with a better understanding of our present days and make us feel ready for the future?
Don’t we have our own enlightened thinkers, who are thriving on the richness of the technical and scientifically evolution that makes them different from the historical philosophers of Enlightenment, but on the other hand seem to be threatened by those achievements?
Are the problems and the values cherished at that time still current?
With the wars and the genocides of the twentieth century, are we not allowed to speak of a total upheaval of the idea of progress?
Are there new factors of our present evolution that would be hostile to Enlightenment?
What can be Lipman’s answer to those ancient and new challenges? The community of philosophical inquiry gives the opportunity to develop new ideas and gives new dimensions to the current ones while focusing on the knowledge and the experience of the participants.
Each of us could bring a new perspective on the behalf of the community.