The great significance of canons is that they initiate discussions about crucial issues concerning a discipline, issues of identity, of genealogies, and future perspectives. Today, the landscape of philosophical practice seems more colorful than ever. At the same time, it seems that philosophical practice has also become an umbrella term for various practices.
This is a challenge for both the community of philosophical practitioners and, even more, the people who consider to benefit from it. As I believe, to meet such a challenge means to never cease to ask what makes a practice philosophical. Only then, the importance of philosophical practice can be properly communicated. Canons are here a useful tool.
But what makes a practice philosophical? For an answer, it is important to look back to the roots, but not in order to seek for great antecessors, but in order to keep in mind what has qualified a practice as philosophical in recent and older history. It is often said that philosophy cannot be seen apart from the history of philosophy. I think the same applies to philosophical practice. Could philosophical practice be exerted without the consciousness of its history? Canons could provide an answer.