Filosofia e storia. Viste da un filosofo parziale e pieno di pregiudizi

“At school, apart from scientific subjects, you only really study history. If you studied classics, you will have noticed that you didn’t study Italian literature but the history of Italian literature. The same applies to the history of Latin literature and the history of Greek literature. Then you didn’t study philosophy but the history of philosophy (with the same history teacher). And you didn’t study music or visual arts, but art history. And of course you studied history – political, military, cultural, economic, social… There is only history. In secondary schools other than classical secondary schools, the humanities programmes are reduced, to a greater or lesser extent, but they follow the same general criteria, because at the time when the basic guidelines for the ministerial programmes were established, the classical secondary school was the model for all the others. But how else should the humanities be studied? The curricula, which are still inspired by historicist philosophy, are a serious obstacle for intelligent and innovative teachers who seek to make school an exciting experience for their students. In this book, I have tried to show that the historicist approach, with its exaggerated emphasis on history and parallel underestimation of technical and scientific knowledge, imposes a monotonous intellectual diet on students. It does not encourage them to read the classics or to devote themselves seriously to the arts. It does not teach them to write. Above all, it does not teach them what it means, in theory and in practice, in philosophy as in life, to take a position on the basis of arguments, evidence and reasoning, weighing up the pros and cons and listening to the reasons of others.