ABSTRACT
In order to repair the capacity to believe in the public philosophy, it will be necessary to demonstrate the practical relevance and the productivity of the public philosophy. In the public philosophy an absolute right to property, or to anything else that affects other men, cannot be entertained. In the public philosophy, freedom of speech is conceived as the means to a confrontation of opinion- as in a Socratic dialogue, in a schoolmen's disputation, in the critiques of scientists and savants, in a court of law, in a representative assembly, in an open forum. There is no equivocation in the public philosophy about the principle of the defense of free institutions. Rational procedure is the ark of the covenant of the public philosophy. In the maintenance and formation of a true community the articulate philosophy is like the thread which holds the pieces of the fabric together.
