Message from Ms Audrey Azoulay,
Director-General of UNESCO,
on the occasion of World Philosophy Day

21 November 2024

As philosophy places dialogue in pursuit of truth and justice at the heart of its practice, UNESCO is celebrating this major, universal and age-long contribution to peace on 20 and 21 November.

This year, World Philosophy Day seeks to highlight the role of philosophy in reducing social divides, which today pose such a threat to the idea of a shared world, held so dear by great thinkers.

Philosophy, the difficult endeavour of formulating the essential questions and striving to find answers that are always characterized by doubt – in the manner of philosophers from Socrates to Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, from Lao Tzu to Christine de Pisan, from Averroës to Bertrand Russell, from Søren Kierkegaard to Hannah Arendt – can strengthen bonds between those sincerely dedicated to this pursuit.

A discipline as well as a way of life, philosophy contributes to what Hartmut Rosa, who is giving a lecture at UNESCO Headquarters on 20 November, calls “social energy” – the vitality which alone can foster a sense of belonging to a unified community.

We must prepare the ground in order for philosophy – a necessarily collective exercise – to take root in each and every one of us from a young age. To this end, in partnership with Nantes University in France, since 2016, UNESCO is proud to have supported the world’s only Chair dedicated to the practice of philosophy with children and adolescents, thus helping young people to explore more deeply the existential questions that can intensely preoccupy them at their age.

The cardinal values of philosophy – critical thinking, dialogue and probity – inspire many of UNESCO’s actions, such as the UNESCO Recommendation on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Sustainable Development, which was unanimously adopted by our 194 Member States one year ago on 20 November 2023. It is through programmes like this, encouraging an understanding of otherness and mutual respect, that we will help young people to counter hate speech, and thereby help to build peace in their minds.

For UNESCO, philosophy is therefore much more than an intellectual exercise reserved for the few. It is a powerful tool to be placed in everyone’s hands, to build a future of dialogue, driven by the perpetual effort, renewed by generation after generation, not only to know oneself but also to know others and the world as well, with a view to creating a better life.

Kaynak: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000391953_eng?posInSet=3&queryId=b5056f76-8378-4022-a892-c7fa15327b23