The base of truth, be it scientific or philosophical,  is formed by analysis, synthesis, critique and dialogue. The thought out (or viewed, inspired) model of reality is shot at with critical questions from all perspectives. Only this will guarantee, that the model is a fitting representation of reality, that the model holds true. The sharper the critique, the harder the defeat of critique, the more on may relay on the quality of the solution. That makes the difference between science and propaganda and mere opinions.

Science is only one way of finding truth. Especially a science that knows the outcome of its research already when submitting the research proposal, is a weak, is a bureaucratic science. A science, whose main aim is to produce commercially useful knowledge, looses its objectivity. Politics cares as little for truth, as its job is, to get the power. The only truth business cares for is profit. Cunning strategies and economic (monopole near) power are much more promising in that field than truth. The media, guardians of public information, are running after news, presented as entertainment. (A fact that has not to be taken as negative only, because science and philosophy can be presented in an entertaining way as well!). So there remains a hole - and a strong demand for philosophy, that would have to fulfil many duties and would have much more importance, than it assumes today as academic discipline.

In the 20th century philosophy has been subdued by science, especially as its metaphysical aspects were more and more considered as not verifiable, what means not rational. This rationalisation tends to forget its strongly limited perspective. So does the economist only ask for knowledge, that help him to produce and to sell; so does the politician only ask for knowledge, that helps him to get the power; so does the natural scientist only ask for knowledge on things found in the nature; so does any scientist (especially any career-minded scientist) only ask for knowledge that belongs to his discipline and may raise his fame (or at least produce a new publication). That's why scientific knowledge remains island-knowledge, precisely as personal opinions and arguments.

The individual, looking for his place in society, a society, developing a common future through politics; needs orientation in that complex, confusing, often cynical, world. The more complex a system  is, the higher its demands in coordination and integration. "The market" is one cheap (and often not applicable) way out, as it only means: Leave the problems to those that have to solve them, because it hits them. This simplicistic market- ideology is but one of the dysfunctional simplifications ruling the public monologue of the media, as are the dualistic view of "left versus right" and "freedom versus the state".

This banalising populist approach is not only favoured by power-seeking politicians, but also by mass-media, that orient themselves at a mass-taste to be able to sell mass-opinions to the paying mass. Only 1/4 of press-articles, 1/5 of media, give reasons for political opinions and actions, so the majority of politics is not done by argumentation, but by statements, what is not really "reasonable". What concerns the quality of argumentation in the media, it is often restricted to the presentation of opposing arguments in the way: "x says - y says", but rarely presented as chain of arguments. So philosophy has not only to stand up against the splintered knowledge of sciences, but as well against indifference. Not economy, not politics, not science is looking for truth. That's still the job of philosophers [gr. philo-sophia: love of wisdom]. If they leave it to scientists, we will be submerged in an ocean of knowledge-crumbs. Philosophy tries to understand the whole, is searching for meaning and wisdom, not for progress and detailed knowledge. The foundation of philosophy is, that nothing of importance for common orientation, should be given a chance to avoid the philosophical quest for reasons and critique.

Interrelated thinking is the best mean against the violence of banality.

Interrelated thinking means, not to think, to argument and to decide on the base of selected, preconceived positions. For many people this is a disaster - and the end of clear positions. Does not already the Bible say: But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. [Mat 5:37].

Unluckily under complex settings the answer will often be: "may be, under condition a, b, c; but under condition a, b, d it might be the opposite." The loss of clarity is not as hard as it might look like, if we take knowledge more as orientation, as lighthouse, than as paved road. Seafarers do not all drive to the north, just because their compass is pointing to that direction. And seafarers are not lost without the magnetic compass, as they still now to use the polar star, the sun, the moon, to find their way. So humans will need different possibilities of orientation as well - and they have to know where they are and where they want to go! The economic north pole of business and growth is not sufficient. A compass is useless if you don't know where you are and where you want to go. Moreover there is neither one single way to arrive at some desired point, nor one single way to find out, how to go there. In between the yea and nay, in between black and white, in between good and evil, their are much larger fields than those extreme poles themselves indicate. That sounds a bit relativistic, yes, but lets take an example covering the field politics, economy, society and the individual: To care for one's own business, to take responsibility for one's action, for one's family, sounds good. Economy, society, state and religion would mostly agree with that. And still this set makes instantly clear, that in spite of this clear orientation, there are many decisions to be taken ever day: What is more important for me? My family or my company, my career, my job? If we look at state and society the problems get worse. Here families and companies are just two of many elements that are conditioning each other and depend on each other. Nevertheless business traditionally opposes the state, often even society, when those demand more respect for themselves or for nature. Its a constant fight of differing interests for dominance. And the problem is, that if one element wins the fight, the system will break down. In this game not one of the participants can claim dominance or exclusiveness. History presents us with many examples, how cruel the exclusive dominance of politics (in communism e.g.), of economy (in the Manchester-type liberalism), of society (in each narrow-minded traditional small-village society) and individuals (each dictatorship, be it political or economic). And its the same problem the free market has: Everyone tries to beat the competitors. The one that succeeds is overtaking the loosing firm or its share in the market and is growing - and the result is, that the free market, eaten up by global giants, disappears. (s. economy of scale)

Positivism dropped all search for the being, its primary reason and ultimate purpose, in favour of explaining structures, relations and processes. Philosophical speculation and religious gnosis gave way to the discovery of natural laws. The dominance of science led to a dominance of abstract rational thinking. But rational thinking is not the only way of thinking and not the only way of acquiring truth. Precisely because modern science limits itself to narrow academic fields, studied with a restricted methodology (s. Feyerabend), enormous amounts of knowledge get lost. Especially the intuitive knowledge, favoured by romanticism and gnosis, that leaves a place for emotions and spiritual longing (as Plato's idealism). Also lost is the knowledge of the unity of mankind and God, common sense and traditions.

Intuition solves many problems by itself, if given time and relaxed working conditions (as meditation). Intuition is not as mystical as one might imagine, as it creates new thoughts out of existing pieces - without a predetermined, most often without predictable, outcome and result. Depending on the pieces of knowledge available in the brain, conscious as well as unconscious knowledge, the results may look quite different and change suddenly. Intuitive knowledge, well probably all knowledge, is a bit "jumpy", if fed with new infos.

Intuitive knowledge seems to be located on the right side of the brain and is often associated with the female way of thinking, opposed, or better complementary, to the male way of thinking, the rational left brain thinking. That explains, why men often have difficulties to understand women (and why women often have difficulties, to understand each other and to create a common platform). Intuitive knowledge works a bit like neuronal networks, but with much larger potentials of self-construction (autopoiesis).

An other interesting form of thinking is the "thinking with the stomach". Indeed there are over 100 million neurons, more than in the whole spinal chord - but only 1% of the amount present in the brain. Those nerve-cells store unconscious memories of pain, wellbeing, success, failure, joy and pain. The thinking out of the belly is most often overestimated, especially by populist political leaders, because each belly has only its own and so very limited experience, an experience strongly influence by what one has eaten or drunk. 

Web-philosophy has a large advantage over science and logics: The jumpy, unsystematic and unrelated ideas, not grown out of logical relations or disciplinary perspectives, can be linked, woven into a whole - and checked for consistency!

Contradictions and errors will be visible and lead to a constant rephrasing, reshaping and refocussing of the bits and pieces, that are mostly results of descriptions made out of certain perspectives.

Web-philosophy can be tested on truth and logical reliability as well as science and philosophy. For that purpose not only the links, the networks, are important, but as well the pieces of thought that form the base of the intuitive solutions have to be determined. As intuition is largely an unconscious process, the determination of the decisive pieces of knowledge comes close to a kind of psycho-analysis. The dependency of intuition on knowledge present in the brain shows as well its limits: An empty head will only create empty thoughts, no matter how intelligent (fast thinking) he may be.

Now, let me give you an example, why I'm using this rather pleonastic term "web-philosophy". Pleonastic it is, because philosophy always tries to understand the whole - with its interconnections. Philosophical thinking is (almost) always the networking of thoughts that are born out of different perspectives. So why should I create that pleonasm? The answer is: Because philosophy does not seem to do its job (or better: philosophers their job).  The increasingly anomic state of our societies is used by polemic and populist politicians for their purposes, but does not seem to incite philosophers to create new orientations.

Let's have a look at the traditional virtues, one of the strongest fields of ethical orientation:

• prudence - the right measure between licentiousness and apathy

• justice - the right measure between doing wrong and suffering wrong

• courage - the right measure between recklessness and cowardice

• generosity - the right measure between pettiness and extravagance

• gentleness - the right measure between irascibility and the inability of a justified anger.

Virtues, seen as right measure, make it immediately clear, why there is most often no clear answer to complex questions and no simple way out of chaos and insecurity. Life always demands decisions between extremes. Each "philosophy" that emphasises too much on one-sided aspects, be it the nation, God, intelligence, material values etc. is not philosophy but mere PR, sectarianisms, fundamentalism. The philosophers job is not to beat the pr-drum for one of the extremes, but to find the right way between the extremes. Wisdom is the art of the right measure - an art that needs life long learning - seldom from books, most often from the life itself (and that's exactly the reason, why one surely gets old before wise, but not always wiser with increasing age.)

The "compass" of virtues shows us, that there is no either-or, no yea or nay, no clear good and evil, but only  hints, where the right way might be and how the right decision might look like. The free human being may and must decide, which road he or she wants to take. So people should not be asked, to which party they belong, which extremes the adhere to, but rather, in between which poles their grid of thinking is hanging and how large it is. The larger the grid, the more poles it is fixed to, the freer is the decision searcher.

Now, if you keep this image in your head, the image of a thinking (and decision) grid, hung up between juxtaposed poles, then you understand, what I mean with web-philosophy. The web, hypertext in general, allows us, to span and spin incredible grids of knowledge - and to subject them to testing in the same time. Hypertext-presentations allow to see things from different perspectives and to create multidimensional presentations. Most people and institutions still stick to one-dimensional presentations, limiting themselves to their own business (what is not an utterly bad thing to do ...). Philosophers might profit from that, and interrelate those one-dimensional presentations. This has two positive effects:

1. The interrelation allow to check, under which perspective, assumptions, context a theory, an opinion, a statement, is valid.

2. Embedding philosophical thinking in contemporary real world problems gives philosophy a new chance to reassume its duty and to give some wisdom a chance to develop.

Precisely because neither science nor politics or economics really care for truth, not to speak for wisdom, this duty stays with the philosophers. More truthful approaches would be most important in those fields that concern social development, so in politics.

I see the (ideal) state as organised forum of citizens. This forum has to deal with ever increasing complexity, what makes more and dialogues necessary. As this is a kind of mediation and mostly bound  to values, its not really the business of sciences (if we accept Max Webers separation of science from valuing and theory from practice), but the job of philosophy.

The current mess between epistemical, poietic and practical knowledge - and some ideas of sociologists, to re-philosophize their science 

The new millennium presents lots of complex problems to be solved by knowledge-workers and philosophers - but it presents us as well a useful tool as well, with the web.