The Human Telos Beyond the Instrumental Closure: The Contribution of Phenomenology and Existentialism

I would like to start my inquiry with an attempt of empirical description. Nowadays, at the level of factual considerations, it is possible to highlight the difficulties regarding any discourse about ends. In our contemporary historical situation, the tension towards a telos of thinking and acting is either reduced to a minimum or completely absent. The reason is to be found in several factors, both cultural and structural. At the cultural level, many ideals that had previously been considered as goals of the fundamental human commitment to transform reality have fall into disgrace. Even the key-value of democracy is hardly perceived as a universal model for political organisation. Because of the ways in which it has been proposed or concretely realized, democracy is surrounded by suspects and runs the risk of being perceived as an empty formula. The situation is even worse with regard to the possibility of endorsing ideals of equity or fair distribution of resources. On the one side, it is well known that inequalities among countries and within each country have grown in the last years, despite wealth increase in absolute terms. On the other side many fights for equality have failed. Why then should we aim at fulfilling ends that we cannot pursue? Looking at the hardness of empirical facts, would it not be better to abandon any utopia and learn the art of disenchantment?