Perhaps I begin by affirming that philosophical thinking is one of the components, indeed one of the drivers, of critical consciousness in our minds, for critical consciousness can only be philosophical. Why? Because the value of philosophizing stems from asking questions and standing in awe before events, the truths of life, things, and changes. One who possesses the faculty of philosophizing cannot let things pass by unnoticed; meaning, they must pause for a long time with critical scrutiny and mental reflection. In their skull, a multitude of questions resound and very few answers! And as Aristotle said: 'Wonder is what drives us to philosophize... because mental wonder means the awakening of the mind, the opening of the intellect, and its inclination to question.' And is philosophical wonder, which is the first test of philosophizing, limited to staring eyes, furrowed brows, a grimace, and then standing passively before existences, visible things, and daily life events? No, that is not what is meant, of course. Wonder here is a human trait, and every human is a philosopher. It means here the yearning for knowledge, like Socrates' first wonder when he walked the streets, talked to people, asked them, argued with them, provoked them, and knew that others might be more knowledgeable than him but not more daring and courageous. Every time he acquired new knowledge, springs of longing and challenge burst in his eyes, and he became more convinced that he did not yet know. So he would set off through the streets of Athens in a new search for knowledge, for truth, for virtue, his heart almost bursting with joy and ecstasy. Here lies the secret of philosophy, then: it is the tireless search for knowledge and the secret of existence and its conscience.

Among the signs of not philosophizing is the absence of wonder. The unwondering human is the dullard who deludedly believes they are the all-knowing one, i.e., the human who possesses absolute truth and static certainties. The prevailing opinion is that philosophizing is a plunge into abstract concepts and absolute notions hanging in the sky, or a search for essences, substances, and intangible truths. This opinion is inaccurate. Rather, I say that in the last century, all these concepts and notions were brought down to earth, to the bottom of reality, and tested in the context of daily life. Many philosophical concepts and mental reflections turned into tools for understanding reality, analyzing it, and probing its structures, such as Descartes' concept of doubt, Kant's concept of critique, and Marx's concept of change. The philosophical concepts produced by these philosophers and others, in their relentless pursuit to change reality, were exploring reality and meta-reality, nature and metaphysics, laying the first foundations of becoming, process, and change. The mind that proceeds in the light of philosophical thinking is an enlightened mind that cannot accept things as they are, nor can it accept the logic of intellectual guardianship. Immanuel Kant says: 'The enlightened human is the one who emerges from the state of intellectual immaturity to the human capable of thinking independently of others.' Here, philosophical thinking is not only determined by emerging from the state of mental immaturity regarding existence, life, and the universe, but goes beyond that to interpret this existence and every new existence, and to give it an ethical meaning – that is, to search for its human conscience, to interpret the meaning of humans, and to analyze their potential and capabilities, thereby transcending (i.e., philosophical thinking) the necessity of interpretation and analysis to the necessity of transformation and change.

Why does philosophical thinking become necessary for the formation of critical consciousness? Because philosophical thinking swims in spaces of freedom and emerges from the grip of the familiar and prevailing, and breaks the shackles of entrenched traditions. This emergence and mental launch is itself a liberation from the dogma of the static intellectual moment, and it is simultaneously a rebellion against the stillness of the civilizational moment, against the completeness of truth, and the certainty and inevitability of history. And because philosophical thinking is necessarily creative thinking, it strives to view existence and changes from multiple perspectives, turning them over on all faces and possibilities – that is, it takes every event and every change in its relativity, not absoluteness. It is also necessarily causal thinking, not desirous thinking, meaning it searches into the roots of things and their first emanations. Thus, it is the first foundation of scientific research, and this is one of the bases of critical thinking. And because philosophical thinking is analytical thinking – it observes, then analyzes, then deduces – it is undoubtedly rational thinking, and rationality and institutionalization are features of critical thinking. Consequently, it opens up to the entire human intellectual and cognitive accumulation and bases its conclusions and concepts on it. Hence, it is necessarily pluralistic: it accepts the other, differs with them, but engages in dialogue with refined dialectics. How does philosophizing become possible? How can philosophy become an educational and intellectual need again, active and influential in our daily lives? Some say that the necessity of philosophy has disappeared in the age of the information revolution we currently live in, i.e., the age of the triumph of science. Therefore, philosophy in its old movement and in the scene of its grand theses has been negated, reached its historical end. Science has no need for new philosophical premises, and life does not need new philosophizing nor tolerate the luxury of mental reflection on self-evidences, existences, and changes. Science and scientific production have replaced philosophy and abolished that middle ground between religion and science! So, does this grim view of philosophy withstand the urgent need for philosophizing in our contemporary world? This talk may stir up a lot of dust in our Arab intellectual field, and it seems to refute the claim of our current need for the value of philosophizing and philosophical creativity. But the question that arises here is: Are we not currently in a state of evident intellectual immaturity? Are we not still subjected to a dual intellectual guardianship? In my estimation, emerging from the state of historical intellectual immaturity civilizationally undoubtedly begins from its cultural and intellectual field, by resuming philosophical discourse anew and by reviving the drivers of philosophical creativity that have died down and become encrusted since philosophy and its practice were placed under suspicion and in the circle of heresy. This can only be achieved by restoring the entire Arab philosophical/Renaissance heritage in its rationalist, enlightenment milestones, and the necessity of killing it through research, examination, and digestion, then transcending it to a renewed intellectual horizon open to the future.