THE RATIONAL UTOPIA
The first philosophers understood philosophy as philosophia, the love of wisdom. Sophia, the goddess of wisdom.
Conceptually, wisdom (sophia) contains two aspects: firstly, knowledge, and secondly, upright good conduct, in other words, the True and the Good. I would also throw in the Beautiful, sophia is after all the goddess of wisdom. The concept of philosophy therefore means the love of the unity between true human knowledge and good human conduct. The love of the unity of the true and the good represents the highest value of philosophy and is always for philosophy amor dei intellectualis.
The subject of this recognition is reason: the human being of philosophy is the "rational being".
Philosophy relies on the clarity of rational argument. Socrates’ claim that he knows nothing is not a celebration of ignorance but is an invitation to thinking, to "thinking together", to thinking with each other in order to find the truth together. Philosophers guide people who think; they lead them with the help of rational argument into the clear light of the true and the good.
A philosophical system is always founded on the tension between what Is and what Ought to be. The unity of the true and the good is the "Ought-to-be", the measure by which the ‘is’, the reality being (metaphysics), is evaluated. Philosophy arranges what merely is from the perspective of what ought to be.
The purpose of philosophy is to lead rational human beings with the help of rational thought to the recognition of what ought to be — to the realm of the good and the true. Something is only true for philosophy if every thinking person can recognise it to be true with the help of their own reason.
Philosophy’s goal is enlightenment.
Kant assigns to philosophy the role of realising nature’s plan for ‘universal enlightenment’ in the civil and political state. Enlightenment is for Kant "the human being's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity." It is the stage of humankind's maturity as rational natural beings. Immaturity is for Kant the "inability to make use of one's own understanding without direction from another.
We should have the courage to think for ourselves. This is expressed by the motto of the enlightenment - "Sapere aude" or 'Have the courage to use your own reason!' "Dare to be wise!" Dare to be a philosopher.
I would define philosophy as the ‘rational utopia’, ‘utopia’ because it is the ought to be of the true and the good that counts as the most real of all that exists, the ultimate reality which is opposed to mere existence, the ‘is’.
‘rational’ because philosophy offers this Utopia to those who think autonomously, to those who are disciplined and systematic thinkers capable of knowing the true and the good.