The Faculty of Philosophy at San Raffaele University is located in one of the most important European centres of research, which places people, knowledge and health at the centre of its interests. It immediately understood philosophy to be a cultural activity with profound links to the pressing questions of our age. The faculty’s mission is therefore a critical rethinking of all forms of human action, starting out from the practices with which modern civilisation is weaved. A degree in philosophy indeed has a fundamental importance and utility if it enables us to think about our relationship with the world. Philosophy must be taught and practised as “concrete thought”.
The opposition between technical/scientific culture on the one hand and a humanistic/philosophical culture on the other loses significance from this point of view. Thought cannot limit itself to commenting on the first from the outside, but must rather sound out its presuppositions and models from the inside; likewise, on the other hand, understanding of the cultural past in all its complexity also represents an essential exercise for living in the present, experiencing it and understanding its peculiar knowledge.
