PopPhilosophy
From the analysis of the tv series to their dissemination, from the study of social media to their colonisation, from inquiries on sports practices to that of pornography, PopPhilosophy can be said in any ways1. Born as a Deleuzian project in the second half of the last century2, the philosophical investigation that in different degrees incorporates the pop element is now a well-established reality.
PopPhilosophy’s delegitimization
Despite this, or maybe because of this, it has yet to defend itself from the constant delegitimization to which it is subjected. Leaving aside the unpleasant circumstance of which the detractors of pop philosophy often take, for example, only the worst manifestations as the whole genre (stumbling into the so-called puppet fallacy).
It’s true that in the collective imagination, the task of philosophical thought is to deal with the most important questions about human existence and reality of everything. A constellation that would seem to exclude any reference to trivial objects of investigation, daily, trivial, not to mention the use of a language that is understandable, and appreciable, even from the layman.
Philosophy like a practice
Yet, it can be said that philosophy‘s primary intent is not to constitute itself in technical jargon, shared by an elect few and locked in an ivory tower. Rather, it tends to confront itself with reality, accepting the challenge, trying to develop appropriate tools to understand it. Instruments available to anyone who wants to learn them, in order to live more consciously and more happily in one’s own life. In this sense, rather than being a qualified theory and ennobled by the object it deals with, philosophy is a practice, a thought methodology that seems to resist being incorporated, but which can then refer to everything. In fact, it must.
The role of the philosopher
The precise duty of anyone who wants to call himself a philosopher is in fact not to exclude a priori any argument from his reflection. Nor, for this reason, can he fear that philosophy will be impoverished. In contrary, the inevitable confrontation of the human being with the reality that surrounds him gives further substance to philosophy. This is especially true when reality is complex, multidimensional, multi-perspective and chaotic, as the contemporary world is.
In all of this, “Pop” is not just a name for what most people are concerned with most of the time. An aspect of reality so cumbersome that it cannot be overlooked by those who should try to understand it.
[1]It is impossible to provide an overview of all its joints, but a good programmatic proposal is the one formulated by Simone Regazzoni in his introduction to Pop filosofia, Il melangolo, Genova, 2010, pp. 9-20.
2For an introduction, see: L. De Sutter, Qu’est-ce que la pop’philosophie?, PUF, Paris, 2019.
