2025
To all member societies, associations, and institutes of FISP:
World Philosophy Day, celebrated on the initiative of UNESCO, is approaching. In Paris and in cities around the world, philosophical festivals are taking place in celebration of the day. It is something truly worth celebrating.
Political and economic instability remains an undeniable challenge of our time. In addition, philosophy now faces a host of issues arising from the advent of AI. It has been only three years since the emergence of ChatGPT, and we find ourselves overwhelmed by its power and the speed of its development.
We have reached a point at which we must reconsider everything from the beginning—human existence, human life, and technological advancement. With human knowledge increasing exponentially, one might even wonder whether we stand at the threshold of a qualitative transformation in the civilization our species has built. In a situation where values and logics that once held sway no longer function as they used to, how are we to create new values and new visions of the future? Philosophers now face questions too large to look away from. Philosophy is caught in a dilemma: it cannot reject technology, yet neither can it blindly follow it. Can technologies capable of threatening the human species itself truly be handled within the frameworks of morality and ethics? Human curiosity often escapes the boundaries of morality, and thus we cannot dismiss the possibility of AI being misused. Ultimately, it seems that everything is given to us as a human problem—a matter of human choice.
On this World Philosophy Day, I hope we will reflect on the power of thought and the joy of thinking in the face of AI’s presence. Until now, human beings have cultivated a sense of self-worth as thinking beings, believing that this characteristic gave them a superior position over all other forms of life on Earth. From an anthropocentric worldview, we have long acted on this assumption, managing and using plants and animals according to human interests. Now, in a world where we coexist with beings more intelligent than ourselves, we must once again strengthen our reflective inner capacities and focus on thinking. How are we to live as human beings? What constitutes a truly human life? Such primal questions have become the most difficult ones, yet it is precisely these fundamental questions that philosophers should work to articulate. I believe that the mission of philosophy is not to give answers but to pose good questions—because the answer already resides within the question.
On this Philosophy Day, may everyone enjoy the pleasure of thinking. The future of philosophy will be the future of humanity itself.
President of FISP, Professor Heisook Kim
