Conclusion

Abstract

From our previous discussions it should have become evident that philosophy and man are interdependent. From man’s true nature as an essentially controversial, problematic and historical being, the nature of philosophy as an essentially critical, reflective and open discipline establishes itself. It also becomes clear that, because man is essentially controversial, problematic and historical, philosophy can in reality never abdicate. Where the deliberate attempt is made to abolish philosophy by reduction to the descriptive method (as in neo-positivism) or to one or other act of man (e.g., the act of self-creation in the midst of nothingness as in existentialism or the act of self-creation by changing the world through labour and other creative acts as in Marxism and neo-Marxism), this leads to the suppression in some form or another of the reflective and dissenting individual, and thus to an unauthentic way of human existence. Since, however, the attempt at the abdication of philosophy in whatever form does not really lead to its disappearance, because any such attempt takes place by philosophical reflection and emerges as another theory which is philosophical in character, philosophy, as a reflective science, cannot be replaced by any such attempt. Such an attempt is chiefly made with the aim of avoiding philosophical “confusion” and controversy.