ALL |0-9 |A |B |C |D |E |F |G |H |I |J |K |L |M |N |O |P |Q |R |S |T |U |V |W |X |Y |Z

Archive The Practice of Philosophy Articles

Search by tag : Philosophy for Managers: Reflections of a Practitioner by “Esa Saarinen”, Ordinary-Language Philosophy, The Renaissance in Metaphysics, The Demise of Linguistic Philosophy, Philosophy and Society, What is Philosophical Practice?


What is Philosophical Practice? PDF Print E-mail

Rating 0.0/5 (0 vote)

Philosophical life counselling in a philosopher's practice nowadays has become an alternative to the psychotherapies. It is an institution for people who are tortured by sorrows or problems, who can't cope with their lives or who think they somehow "got stuck"; who have questions they neither solve nor get rid of; who get along in the prose of their everyday lives but have a vague feeling of not really being challenged - for instance if they realise that their actualities don't meet their possibilities. In Philosophical Practice, people show up who don't just want to live or to get through but rather want to give account of their lives and who want clarity about their lives' shape, the from-where, in-what, where-to. Their demand quite often is to reflect upon the special circumstances, the peculiar entanglements and the somehow ambivalent course of their lives. In short: They visit a Philosophical Practice in order to understand and to be understood. It is almost never the Kantian question "How shall I live" which moves them, but more often the question of Montaigne: "What am I actually doing?"
Philosophy is not just "applied", for instance by treatring the guest's matters with Platon, Hegel or whomever: Readings are no recipees for healing. Is any sick person seeing a doctor in order to listen to a lecture in medicine? In the Philosophical Practice, nobody gets a lecture, is fed with sophisticated remarks or served with "theories". The question rather is whether the philosopher learned to understand and to be aware, whether he developed sensors for that what usually is overlooked and whether he has become able to feel at home even in deviant and unusal thinking, feeling, and judging, because only as fellow thinker and fellow feeler he is able to liberate the visitor from his loneliness - or forlornness -, and by these means might get him to change his opinions about life and his circumstances.
 
< Prev   Next >
[ Back ]
Copyright © 2009 The Practice of Philosophy | Home | Sitemaps | Privacy