Philosophical life and moral responsibility : wozu philosophie?

The intention of this paper is to ask if the commitment to a philosophical life, to the idea and ideals that define the choice of such a life, entails any necessary relation to a sense of moral responsibility or an ethical sensibility. The argument that there is such a relation is one that runs through the history of philosophy from Plato to Arendt. This paper begins with the claim that this relation is questionable and that to fully appreciate just what that means one needs to think about the character of the crisis that such a claim exposes. The aim of this paper is twofold: first, to ask whether hermeneutic theory might offer some new avenues for thinking through this question; and second, to make some comments about what one can learn from taking to heart the real force of the crisis driving this question about the relation of the personal and the philosophical.