ABSTRACT
Engaging in "political philosophy", or broaching it as a topic, today requires justification if not an apology. To be sure, the precarious condition of political philosophy has at no time been indicative of an actual or imminent demise of either philosophy or politics per se. The question raised in Martin Heidegger's essay What Is Philosophy? does not merely aim at the clarification of a school doctrine or particular philosophical standpoint; the issue is not merely to define the meaning of "analytical philosophy", or "linguistic philosophy", or even of "phenomenology", or "existential phenomenology". The crucial issue for Heidegger is the character of philosophy or philosophical inquiry – not so much the nature of particular answers or solutions offered at various times, including the era of classical Greece. Maurice Merleau-Ponty's address also corroborates Heidegger's account with regard to distinctive pitch or attunement pervading philosophy, "pathos" of wondering, which arises from a combination of a yearning for truth and an awareness of ignorance.
