Many of us know that classic question posed by philosophers and others about the real world, in the form of: What is the real world? However, the closest answer is that this world is the lifeworld (Lebenswelt) (Husserl) that surrounds us (Monde ambiant), the factual world (Monde de la facticité) (Heidegger). What can be described as the world of life is the world that every science, whether theoretical or practical, takes for granted as a teleological formation—existing "of itself," always-already (toujours-déjà), and ever-enduring. Furthermore, everything that has emerged and continues to emerge from humanity on an individual or collective level is part of it. It is a world in which everyone lives, including scientists whose "theoretical work" belongs to it so that they can employ it; specifically, it sits "at the foundation." It is not a mere content, but is given to them in advance each time, yet it belongs to the Ego—an omnipresent perplexity, always in continuous movement, constituting the field of all projects, goals, teleological horizons, and higher-level work horizons [Husserl (E.): Appendix XVII, in: The Crisis of European Sciences].

Among the paradoxical aspects is that what expresses human life begins from outside life itself, diverging from the lifeworld. For instance, the fields of education and training express this paradox and divergence through their technical nature. In these fields, individuals are prepared to perform specific tasks according to technically presented programs (i.e., in a manner where the subject cannot be distinguished from the predicate, nor the beginning from the end). Thus, the task of education becomes requiring the individual to acquire skills, habits, and behaviors that are automatically applicable without the need for critical thought, receiving them through rote instruction as ready-made formulas without learning their historicity, formation, or procedures. Detached from their original source, they apply them in all their technical details without contemplating their meaning. The more skillfully and proficiently this behavior is executed, the more enslaved to it the individual becomes: habit kills creativity, and technique kills inquiry into the formation and historicity of the given—which ultimately destroys freedom and free consciousness in creativity and achievement.

This applies even to higher education levels in universities, not just in vocational trades [Husserl (E.): Teleology in the History of Philosophy]; the technical character extends even into the human sciences. Moreover, the sole link connecting different departments and faculties at the level of universities and training institutes is the institution itself merely as a formal entity. This results in raising barriers between different departments and even between disciplines belonging to the same broad science, reflecting the overwhelming prevalence of technical methods. Consequently, alienation among scientists and specialists spreads instead of forming an "intersubjective community." This manifests in the presence of specialists and scientists possessing immense capabilities within their fields, yet lacking the slightest knowledge of what is happening in other scientific and cognitive domains.

There are scientists who do not even know how to deal with the simplest problems of daily life. For them, everything in daily life—in accordance with their alignment of technology with science and reason—is solved through mechanical skills. This means their horizon is extremely narrow when viewing their problems, whether scientific or everyday ones. This is what prevailing mechanistic concepts in the current era are responsible for, causing the scientist to lose all appreciation for the necessity of questioning that which relates to an open-horizon life with other dimensions in the context of overarching meaning—that is, questioning the general horizon that unites every specific science standing in its isolated independence.

This stems from neglecting vital questions of general and comprehensive meaning, after abandoning questions that guide the course of scientific research. Such research escapes the hands of scientists, leaving them interested in sciences only from within—a tendency that places questions of meaning, purpose, freedom, and responsibility outside the domain of science.

This presents a graphic picture and a geographical map of what is currently occurring in the reality of distressed sciences, filled with anxiety toward life in a world ruined and corrupted at its core—a scientific core understood in terms of technology or naive mechanism that has forgotten to return to daily life in its simplicity and open horizons. Philosophy alone, alongside the human sciences, is capable of revealing the clear picture embedded in the landmarks of science, removing its obscurity and clearing the path forward to unite scientific efforts until achieving the model of total philosophy. For specialization—about which we often complain—is not a flaw in itself, as it is necessary within the framework of total philosophy, just as it is necessary to establish a technical method within every discipline. However, the real danger lies in separating theoretical art from philosophy, or denying the possibility of theoretical philosophy—the theoretical attitude—"such that theoretical contemplation, arising within a closed unity regarding all practice, is called upon to serve, in a new way, a humanity that lives its concrete existence initially and always in a definitive manner" [Husserl (E.): The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology].

Prof. Dr. Mourad Gouasmi