The article offers a conversation with the ghost of the madman ‘Jacotot/rancière’: one of the possible dialogues between the ignorant schoolmaster and my own perplexities in what I feel to be an endgame. Is there any point at the present time, in the declining mercantilist university, in pondering once again the issue of the place of philosophy in institutions responsible for training people who will work in the sphere of education? ‘We’ knew the old words, so the article goes, but (...) now we are no longer sure they mean anything. And we are not keen to learn the new ones: we do not trust them, they are irrelevant to us. Moreover, we are sad and tired. All we feel is rage and impotence. Will we be capable of trying all the words once again: university, philosophy, education? Will we be capable of trying all the verbs once again: reading, writing, conversing, perhaps thinking? (shrink)