The common fate of the European man and philosophy

Abstract

From the antiquity, science and philosophy have formed an inextricable unity and also from the period of Renaissance philosophy and the modern scientific spirit have influenced the destiny of the European man. But the contemporary crisis of philosophy, according to Husserl, results from the fact that it has lost its own essence and ceased to be the force of the fundamental transformation of man. So the European man cannot rely any more on philosophy as the medium of universal liberation. Showing the actuality of Husserl's ideas from The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology the author considers that it is of crucial importance to overcome this crisis by founding of new philosophy, which would be appropriate to 'the spiritual Europe'. Science, as well as philosophy, must revindicate their vital power from politics, returning to the hellenistic ideals, that are also stressed by Husserl, too. Since the crisis of European values originates in the crisis of its science and philosophy, and that crisis is common to philosophy and the European man, the essential connection between them should be re-established by reviving the hope in the inappreciable value of the community of the European man and philosophy through the discovery of a new image of philosophy in the time when it seems that it has lost its former significance.