ASPECTS CONCERNING THE CRISIS OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM FROM ROMANIA

The present text discusses several aspects of the institutional crisis of philosophy in the Romanian educational system after 1989. On the one hand, at the level of university educational system, one may note the marginalization of philosophy programs, due to young people’s decrease of interest for those specializations that do not provide immediate benefits for rapid integration in and well-paid jobs on the labor market. This entails direct consequences for the type of financing and creates functional difficulties in the university system. On the other hand, the diminution
of the presence of philosophy at the level of high school curricula has given rise to a crisis manifested through the negative consequences on the necessity for humanist education of the young people, upon the social prestige of philosophy, and upon the possibility of philosophy graduates’ insertion on the labor market.

A STEREOTYPE: THE LACK OF THE SOCIAL UTILITY OF PHILOSOPHY

The way in which the relations among philosophy, religion and politics have been built and evolved in post-1989-Romania brought about the development of several stereotypes connected to the social inutility of philosophy, to the graduates’ difficulty in adapting to the requirements of the labor market, to the lack of importance of philosophy and of philosophical education. The present text signals the crisis of philosophy due to a series of factors such as: the difficulties that the philosophical discourse has in finding a place in the public debate, the negative perception of philosophy in the public mentality, the stereotypes concerning philosophy that the political representatives cultivate, and the lack of a labor market that would adequately value the competences and the expertise of the graduates in Humanities.