Why Modern Philosophy Needs a Humanist Revival: Battling Technology and Fragmentation

In today’s world, technology permeates every aspect of our lives, reshaping how we interact with the world and each other. But as Martin Heidegger famously observed, the essence of technology is not technological but a mode of revealing reality. This profound insight challenges us to reconsider our relationship with technology beyond mere tools and machines.

Philosophy itself faces a crisis of fragmentation. Specialized disciplines deepen knowledge but risk losing connection with philosophy’s original quest for wisdom and existential meaning. This scholasticism can reduce philosophy to erudition and critique, detached from life’s deepest questions.

Amid these challenges, there is a growing call for a renewed humanism — one that embraces transcendence within immanence. This means recognizing liberty, creativity, and value as essential human qualities and reclaiming philosophy’s role as a guide to living well.

This renewed humanism seeks to address the alienation and disorientation many feel in a technologically driven world, offering a path back to meaning, freedom, and ethical engagement.

Philosophers and cultural thinkers advocate for this revival, emphasizing that technology should serve human flourishing, not obscure it. They urge us to cultivate awareness of technology’s existential impact and to foster philosophical inquiry that bridges disciplines and reconnects with the soul’s needs.

By embracing this humanist revival, philosophy can once again illuminate the path forward, helping us navigate complexity with wisdom and courage.

Sources: Modern Stoicism on acceptance of mortality, Liam Thatcher’s review of Luc Ferry’s 'Learning to Live,' Systemtics.com on philosophy’s practical origins 3 , 4 , 1