The passions in the mind of audience. Publics of popular philosophy.

Abstract:
Our paper will endeavor a discussion on the concept of audience of philosophical texts and
subjects having as starting point the observation of a paradoxical status of attention paid to
philosophy: on the one hand, publics seem to be receptive and sensitive to philosophical
issues, as one can conclude simply from investigating reader feedback columns, especially
online; on the other hand, important philosophers still debate on the importance and relevance
of the philosophy since they feel important negative changes have occurred compared to some
other moments in the history of philosophy.
Rorty, Schneewind and Skinner threw important dices during the 80s when decided to propose
the most prominent figures of the time to take positions (Philosophy In History. Essays on the
historiography of philosophy, Cambridge University Press 1984). Quantitative synthetic works
have been done since then, and I would like to mention and dedicate a little talk to the works of
Gracia, Jorge J. E., A Theory of Textuality : The Logic and Epistemology, State University of
New York Press, 1995, dedicated to the epistemology of texts, and then Texts: Ontological
Status, Identity, Author, Audience, SUNY Series in Philosophy State University of New York
Press, 1996, by the same author, with a consistent discussion on audience.
After noticing that philosophical audience became something like the 21st century philosophical
problem, I will try to bring some fresh ingredients into the problem. The concept of audience
brings so often different fields together. Popular texts and issues come from different sciences
and cultural phenomena and meet in the same passionate minds of public. Two creative and
provocative ingredients I shall use to debate on the concept of audience: Facebook and
Philosophy. What's on Your Mind, Edited by D. E. Wittkower, to deal on philosophy and popular
culture, and, second, the most praised bestseller written by the probably best known graduate of
philosophy of our time: the book Tribes by Seth Godin.
I hope a conclusion is possible concerning justification and possibility to argue on the relevance
of philosophical subjects today.