what we are here for
Under the name of "Philosophie.ch" a non-profit organisation is constituted according to tart. 60 et seq. of the Swiss Civil Code. Its aim is to promote Swiss philosophy by:
- pursuing original research on philosophical questions of general interest and on the best ways to make them accessible;
- publishing the international philosophy journal Dialectica and organising its triple-blind refereeing processes, according to the best practices of the discipline, with a view to improving these practices;
- carrying out original research on the methods, aims and processes of triple-blind scientific publishing;
- publishing high-quality content of a philosophical nature that is of potential interest to a broader public;
- connecting, coordinating, advertising and promulgating such content published elsewhere;
- connecting, coordinating, advertising and promulgating events and activities that involve or produce such content;
- connecting Swiss philosophers (people working philosophically in Switzerland, as well as academic philosophers abroad who have a strong connection to Switzerland and making their work more visible and accessible.
"Swiss" Philosophy
In many places on the portal, especially in statements (such as the above) about our orientation, our goals and our intentions, we use the term "Swiss philosophy" or "Swiss philosophers". While we are also interested in scholarly engagement with the subject, in such contexts we understand the national adjective to be maximally broad: "Swiss" in our sense is any person who has been or is philosophically active in Switzerland and all persons who, by virtue of their biography, education, interests, career or work, have a connection to "Swiss" philosophers so understood. (So something like Manchester United.)
Credo
As philosophers, we believe in truth. The truth we believe in is hard to get, difficult to spell out correctly, often unverifiable and frequently beyond our ken, certainly individually, perhaps even collectively. This is why we believe in the absolute value of free speech and cherish the freedom of thought and of its expression as one of the greatest (potential) achievements of mankind. That is why we censor only when we must, i.e. are externally forced to do so. Everyone, here and elsewhere (but especially here), should always, under all circumstances and in all contexts be allowed to speak their mind.
Many opinions held in public discourse are stupid, dumb or evil: stupid those that contradict facts; dumb those that or whose expression violates epistemic values; evil those that deliberately or negligently violate and exclude. The combination of these attributes is frequent and the classification often contentious. The fact that we do not use any of the three as a criterion for exclusion does not mean that we are not convinced of their relevance or conclusiveness; it means that, in our opinion, the classification of other opinions according to such criteria is in turn part of the discourse that can be judged in this way and can be criticised accordingly. We, as philosophers, know that problems of content are not solved on the (so-called) meta-level, but merely repeated.
As philosophers, we believe that the truths we try to get at (professionally) are best ascertained by reason (rather than faith, prejudice, tradition, intuition or the like) and this is why we (try to) follow a regime of argumentative rigour, believing it the best way to collectively make progress in our scientific pursuit of truth. We believe that philosophy is an argumentative discipline and will only publish philosophical content that at least tries to be argumentative.