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🇦🇷 Argentina /Culture & Society

Darío Sztajnszrajber: “Philosophy helps us question why everything must always be useful”

From La Nación · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Interview Named sources Context piece
  • Argentine philosopher Darío Sztajnszrajber said philosophy questions the assumption that everything must have practical utility.
  • He argued that philosophy creates distance from everyday actions and opens space for more sensitive, critical and human perspectives.
  • Sztajnszrajber criticized the expectation that every activity should produce immediate performance, profit or accumulation.

For Darío Sztajnszrajber, philosophy begins with a question that resists the demand for usefulness: why must everything always serve a purpose?

In an interview with LA NACION, the Argentine philosopher, essayist, teacher and popularizer discussed the title of his book, ¿Para qué sirve la filosofía? He said the book does not resolve the question so much as use it to challenge the idea that usefulness should govern every part of life. “In a way, I do not answer that question in the book. What I take from it is whether philosophy is useful for something, to question why everything always has to be useful,” he said.

In a way, I do not answer that question in the book. What I take from it is whether philosophy is useful for something, to question why everything always has to be useful.

· Darío SztajnszrajberExplaining the question behind his book about the purpose of philosophy.

Sztajnszrajber argued that utility has become an overriding value, even though it is only one way of relating to things. Philosophy, he said, can unsettle that dominant position and recover a broader, more therapeutic role. “Philosophy adds another dimension to existence. It allows our existence, beyond being completely shaped by the principle of utility, to open itself to other perspectives, more sensitive, more critical, more contradictory and more human,” he said.

Philosophy adds another dimension to existence. It allows our existence, beyond being completely shaped by the principle of utility, to open itself to other perspectives, more sensitive, more critical, more contradictory and more human.

· Darío SztajnszrajberDescribing philosophy’s broader role in life.

He described the ability to step back from one’s own actions as a distinctly human capacity and as the origin of philosophy. That distance places people in a different relationship with what they do. He also called for a break with the idea that every human practice must generate immediate returns. “Life seems too short to require everything to produce a return,” he said.

He did not present profitability as the only possible way to live, but said it did not speak to him. When planning, productivity and utility become the terms used to understand happiness or love, he argued, something is lost.

Life seems too short to require everything to produce a return.

· Darío SztajnszrajberRejecting the idea that every activity must be governed by immediate utility.
About this summary

Originally published by La Nación in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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