What if God did not have first to be, since he loved us first, when we were not? And what if, to envisage him, we did not have to wait for him within… - Jean-Luc Marion

A great philosopher is always right and gives us to think even in what he does not manage to think, while a philosopher is limited to responding, hence to dissolving questions. There are three kinds of philosophers: those who do not respond to questions and hide them through ideology; those who respond to questions that they did not themselves raise and hope thus to clear up; and those who raise questions that no one ever thought of raising, insoluble questions that open the future. Descartes is one of these latter ones. That is why philosophy remains a continually open game.

While one must have a capacity for admiration, one shouldn’t be deceived about when to invest it. Providence must take you under her wing, and you must allow her to take you. The luck I had, together with some others, was to allow ourselves to be shaped at the right moment and with good minds. After a certain time, one is less deceived because once one has encountered true masters, one notices the small or false masters immediately; one is no longer easily trapped. Obviously one can speak of graduate studies—or even high school, for this can begin very early—as the moment when we are given the chance to encounter a master.

The icon and the idol determine two manners of being for beings, not two classes of beings.