My vote is for Schopenhauer

Beginning today and ending on August 5, the world's philosophers are converging on Seoul, South Korea, for the twenty-second World Congress of Philosophers, a gathering held every five years. Now, I'm used to hearing about philosophy conferences and symposia, where professional philosophers gather to share their latest work and learn from each other, but this is something different altogether, because a "congress" has governmental and legislative connotations.

And this, according to the World Congress of Philosophers website, is precisely what the event is about:

The first World Congress to be held in Asia, the Seoul Congress presents a clear invitation to rethink the nature, roles, and responsibilities of philosophy and of philosophers in the age of globalization. It is committed to paying heed to the problems, conflicts, inequalities, and injustices connected with the development of a planetary civilization that is at once multicultural and techno-scientific.

The topics are serious, and so is the intent. As Julian Baggini writes in the Guardian:

The official line seems to be that the world somehow needs philosophy if it is to deal with its great problems. In the first of four "congratulatory addresses," Han, the prime minister, said he thought it could help both environmental problems and the fight against terror. Lee Jang-moo, the president of Seoul National University, claimed it could teach us "the direction in which to steer the human destiny." Such hopes for philosophy are shared in high places: Koïchiro Matsuura, the director general of Unesco, told the congress, via video, about how Unesco was committed to fostering the teaching of philosophy around the world. He wasn't just being polite: Unesco even has a "philosophy strategy."

While we need, as Hannah Arendt aptly put it, "to think what we are doing" now more than ever, there is a sense of elitism here, a sense that philosophers, by their professional training, are entitled to speak and perhaps—as the name "congress" implies—even to rule. The philosopher king may be Plato's ideal, but it also suggests that ideas are somehow separate from the practice of daily life and from those not suitably "trained" to engage in complex thought.

But as anyone who studies rhetoric knows, ideas always have consequences, and people of all ages, educational levels, and IQs trade in ideas on a daily basis. To abstract intellectual life into the realm of the intelligensia both neglects this fact and, perhaps more important, keeps philosophers from learning about the fullness of the human experience—which, in the end, is ultimately what philosophy is about. Julian Baggini again:

If philosophy is indeed important, it is because it is not the preserve of philosophers. The professionalisation of the subject has disguised this once obvious fact. In the UK, for example, it is often thought philosophy is not an important part of the culture, but it's actually all over the place: in serious journalism, the work of thinktanks, and in ethics committees. It's just not usually called "philosophy." Indeed, if you want to be taken seriously, you'd be advised not to use the p-word at all. Oliver Letwin, for example, has a PhD in philosophy and has published a book on the subject, but he once told me in an interview that it would hinder, not help him, if more people knew this. (Sorry, Olly.)

So if we are to rethink philosophy, we should rethink first and foremost what it is and how it does and should inform wider debate. Those who have earned the title "philosopher" need to both accept that those who have not are equal participants in such a discussion, which also means being more willing to engage as equals in it.