A philosophy is genuinely historical only by staying in contact with the simple masses

Evidence

The question posed here was the one we have already referred to, namely this: is a philosophical movement properly so called when it is devoted to creating a specialised culture among restricted intellectual groups, or rather when, and only when, in the process of elaborating a form of thought superior to “common sense” and coherent on a scientific plane, it never forgets to remain in contact with the “simple” and indeed finds in this contact the source of the problems it sets out to study and to resolve? Only by this contact does a philosophy become “historical”, purify itself of intellectualistic elements of an individual character and become “life”. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1189

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gives the criterion distinguishing genuine from merely specialist philosophy.
• XREF: connects to: Philosophical truths are valid only as expressions of a specific historical praxis