Abstract

We argue that, ideally, philosophy—as the love of wisdom—should not be practiced strategically. Among genuine lovers of wisdom, there should be no need for strategic skills; by “strategic” we refer to those skill used in the military and, by extension, in business and sports that involves deception, misrepresentation, the use of surprise to disorient opponents, and so on. We give regrettable examples of non-Christian and Christian philosophers using strategic skills. This paper is dedicated to the Muslim philosopher Morteza Mutahhari who gave his life for the practice of philosophy as the love of wisdom, shorn of strategy.