Mark Taylor argues that philosophy lost its way

This is an interesting essay by Mark C. Taylor at the Columbia University Press blog.

"...For art and philosophy to recover their missions, art must become more philosophical and philosophy must become more artistic in and through a rethinking of the interrelationship of art, philosophy and religion..."

Mark argues that the financialization of art has alienated art from a preferred mission of cultivating "personal, and by extension, social transformation." By analogy he argues that philosophers today, who try to become scientists, lose themselves in abstractions and specializations instead of focusing on a mission to address "human problems and real world issues."

Commenter Tyler Durden then argues that philosophy and art never had these missions in the first place.