Philosophy General
Where do we come from?
What are we?
Where are we going?
"Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?" are the questions with which philosophical reflection begins and with which it has always been confronted.
Do we have an answer to those questions?
Yes ...much more than any era before us ....
Philosophy has an answer to those questions and all disciplines that have developed from philosophy throughout its history have partial answers to those questions too.
For, example, physics can, nowadays, give an answer to the question "Why does matter appear in bound form?"
Like no other discipline, philosophy is closely intertwined with almost all human and natural sciences. These have arisen from philosophy and developed in attempts to distinguish themselves from this mother discipline.
Thus, what are we?
The very first answer that comes to my mind when I am asked this question is that we are a process of self-organization.
Some Thoughts on Integration
Why do I believe that integration is essential both on an individual and on a political level? On an individual level because I believe that best answer to the question "what are we?" is given by the conscious integration of certain attitudes that come naturally to us. If, to give an example, one participates as a beginner in a theatre interpretation course, the most natural response that comes to him, when his teacher asks him to play an interactive role is in 90% of cases: "no!"-- thing this that may turn out to be surprising, at first. For instance, the teacher asks to set up a duo scene based on a relationship. The other participant enters the scene and greets by saying "hello litte sister!". The beginner often replies as follows: "No, I'm not your sister, I'm your mother". This is just an example to trying to make clear that an aware individual immediately has a more integrated perception of the interpersonal communication mechanisms that could lead to devalue the other. The more experienced participant would probably answer "Hello Sarah!" avoiding disqualification of the other. Whoever hears thee answer "No!" in an interpersonal communication , feels disqualifies and devalued. Such no-answer is often interpreted as not-concerning the proper topic in question. The interlocutor feels denied, excluded and will probably either go away or fight for supremacy in the controversy, which will give rise to endless vicious circles or, respectively, to ever repeated attempts to re-establish parity in relation that could in the worst case steal lives.
Therefore consciousness, not in the philosophical sense of the term, but in the sense of "having awareness", is, according to me, the main way for an identity that is not build up around
clichés like the own profession, things that were passed on from the environment, in which one grew up, or socially shared common places, but on an active and free rethinking of all the attitudes that come, prima facie, naturally or involuntarily to us.
On a social political level …
