This essence is the philosophy of knowledge for personal and social well-being aspects of the contribution. In the Introduction to "What is philosophical counseling practice or philosophy?", I described the ancient philosophy has been caring for the soul and tradition of self, in the last twenty-five years has been the revitalization of philosophers and others up. "Philosophy of psychological analysis," "philosophical counseling hotline", and "personal well-being and Philosophy Cafe" is a contemporary German philosopher Gerd B. (...) Achenbach, British theologian Chad Varah, and the French philosopher Marc Sautet these ideas for specific application situation. In the "philosophy of charity", I argue, the possibility for all practical philosophy, the charity as a necessary test of suspicion. (shrink)

This paper presents a dialogue between a psychotherapist whom we will call Lilly, and Ross Channing Reed, Ph.D., a philosopher and philosophical counselor. Lilly begins by asking Ross a series of questions regarding philosophical counseling and his approach to working with her. Ross discusses his philosophy and approach to philosophical counseling, what it is like to provide counseling for a therapist, and the educational nature of philosophical counseling. Topics addressed include the nature (...) of unarticulated trauma, the repetition compulsion, moral evil, the narrative construction of a human life, the potentially debilitating effects of moralizing about feelings, the importance of humor, spirituality and philosophy, embodiment, the arts, and Alice Miller’s concept of the “Enlightened Witness.” Next, Ross asks Lilly a series of questions relating to her personal and professional journey prior to and during philosophical counseling. Lilly reveals that she spent significant time in therapy with a psychologist prior to philosophical counseling. She discusses why she sought counseling from a philosopher, how philosophical counseling has been beneficial in her personal and professional lives, and how philosophical counseling has been different from other forms of counseling. (shrink)

The article addresses a common difficulty of counselors in confronting clients with the problems in their thinking and behavior in a way that they could start benefiting from a constructive self-reflective state in the long run, a state that would replace the common tendency to hide oneself, to blame, to victimize or to repress aspects of their humanity connoted as negative in order to maintain a positive self image. The highlight is on the main characteristics of efficient confrontations (...) with oneself and others, so as to engender reasoning competence training without an unnecessary loss in the quality of the consultative relationship. Working in psychotherapy and having progressively integrated more philosophical work into this professional practice, the author puts together a few concepts and ideas that are likely to facilitate the processes in the psychotherapeutic and the philosophical approaches to intrapsychic and interpersonal dialogue. (shrink)

Outlined are several ways in which philosophical knowledge can contribute to personal and social well-being. In the introduction, "What is Philosophical Practice, Counseling, and Psychoanalysis" I describe how the ancient philosophical tradition of care for the soul or self has been revived among philosophers and others in the last twenty-five years. The sections "The Philosophical Counseling Hotline" and "Personal Well-being and the Philosophical Café '" are accounts of specific applications of ideas of (...) the contemporary German philosopher Gerd B. Achenbach, the founder of the international philosophical practice movement. In the conclusion "Philosophical Benevolence" I argue for benevolence as a skeptical touchstone for philosophy in practice. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Sunyata and Otherness:Applying Mutually Transformative Categories from Buddhist-Christian Dialogue in ChristologySusie Paulik Babka“The universe is expanding,” the physicists tell us. “But doesn’t an expansion of something mean the presupposition of boundaries?” my naïve mind inquires, thinking too much in terms of discrete substances. Can “something” expand “into” nothing, “into” emptiness? Shot through with “dark energy” (the name an intellectual signifier allowing physicists to speak of the ineffable), the immensity (...) of the universe teaches a lesson in humility before mystery and the radically new. Dark energy makes up 74 percent of the universe and is responsible for increasing the rate of the universe’s expansion; it may be explained as the energy of empty space, or space devoid of matter and gravity. Although an unobservable phenomenon, dark energy penetrates the known universe as that which counteracts gravity’s relationship to matter, causing a negative pressure in regions of the universe devoid of matter to expand. Hence, the energy of emptiness is the reason for the universe’s expansion; emptiness is the reason reality is better described by rapid change and impermanence than stasis and immutability.While it would seem that these developments do not impact religious thinking, the Dalai Lama and others have argued that because science helps us understand the nature of reality, it affects the paradigm in which we consider the veracity of religious ideas. In his words, “if scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.”1 This is a bold statement, challenging both East and West to consider that when derived from only one source, even our most treasured religious ideas are narrowly conceived.The Western worldview has kept pace neither with the challenges of cosmic and subatomic physics nor with a more sophisticated global community. Since Parmenides in the pre-Socratic era, Western thought has been dominated by Greek philosophical categories, in which the perfection of beings is regarded in immutability and stasis, and things ideally tend toward independence or self-sufficiency. These categories [End Page 73] not only are inadequate to describe reality discovered through scientific means but also fail to articulate the meaning of the religious and cultural encounters taking place between East and West. Writes Joseph O’Leary, “The encounter with Buddhist thought enhances the hermeneutical task of theology, by opening up the possibility that Christian truth today can be more luminously presented in a discourse influenced by Buddhist analytical methods and ontological insights than in the old frameworks formed in dialogue with Greek ontology.”2Deconstructing substance ontology in the West suggests not only that science is a valuable conversation partner to religion but also that religions be conversation partners with each other. Christians should consider how divine or ultimate reality is manifest in other religions and abandon claims to exclusive truth. As Joseph O’Leary argues,The religions need each other, whatever their utter self-sufficiency on the plane of abstruse theological claims. The religions, as human historical trajectories, are inevitably marked by incompleteness and tragic failures. The tensions between them are not to be suppressed by dogmatic self-affirmation, but to be interpreted as the tension of “truth” itself, making itself felt within the finitude and brokenness of the human language striving to express it.3Truth for the Dalai Lama is “pursued by means of critical investigation,” requiring conversation with modern thought forms as well as both religious and secular Western traditions. If Christian theology is to be relevant today, it must continue to deconstruct the classical metaphysical categories that impede the appreciation of what is possible or true, especially in the encounter with non-Christian and non-Western thought, culture, and religious practice. Interreligious encounter necessitates the questioning of ontotheology, the classical metaphysical logic that refers to the rational basis for naming God, the supreme being, with supreme attributes, such as eternity, immutability, omniscience, and omnipotence. Ontotheology is related to the substance ontologies that describe the relation between God and the world and East and West in terms of dualism that according to Paul Knitter “so stresses the difference between two realities, so separates them... (shrink)

Hate speech is one of the most important conceptual categories in anti‐oppression politics today; a great deal of energy and political will is devoted to identifying, characterizing, contesting, and penalizing hate speech. However, despite the increasing inclusion of gender identity as a socially salient trait, antipatriarchal politics has largely been absent within this body of scholarship. Figuring out how to properly situate patriarchy‐enforcing speech within the category of hate speech is therefore an important politico‐philosophical project. My aim in this (...) article is twofold: first, I argue that sexist speech, though oppressive, is not hate speech. Second, I argue that misogynistic speech is hate speech, even when it is intradivisional. This is important because recognizing that the concepthate speechapplies to certain forms of patriarchy‐enforcing speech is another step in clarifying what is wrong with the practice, and how bad it is in relation to other abuses. Consequently, this article provides a more nuanced account of the kinds of expressions that can and should count as instances of hate speech. (shrink)

This paper articulates a dilemma posed by philosophical counseling literature that presupposes diagnostic recognition. In addition, guests often bring self-ascribed mental health diagnoses from their previous experience, and requests the philosophical counselor to de-diagnose or otherwise reinterpret their problems. Although philosophical counselors can do this, we cannot skirt philosophical diagnosis. The paper’s thesis is that it behooves philosophical counselors to differentiate these types of diagnosis and to know when we are doing one or (...) the other, including the utilization of diagnostic recognition. Anecdotes from the author’s philosophical counseling sessions are included to illustrate the discussion. The paper concludes that the space of philosophical diagnosis is neither incommensurate with, nor incompatible with clinical diagnosis. On the contrary, the space of philosophical diagnosis ought to harbor the possibility of clinical diagnostic recognition. The philosophical counselor’s repertoire of diagnostic intuitions should cultivate the intuitive recognition of clinical prototypes. (shrink)

Philosophical counselling, Ran Lahav and others claim, helps clients deepen their philosophical self‐understanding. The counsellor's role is the minimalist one of providing the client with the philosophical tools needed for reflective self‐evaluation. Respect for the client's autonomy entails refraining from intervening with substantive moral criticism, theories, and methods; the client's ways of working out fundamental questions like ‘Who am I and what do I really want?’cannot be assessed by the counsellor in terms of their truth‐value, (...) but only in terms of whether they reflect the client's autonomous choice to express him/herself in a certain way. I argue that this view, which is informed by an anti‐realist account of self and life‐history, undermines the distinction between self‐knowledge and self‐deception. Once interpretive and criteriological free rein is given to the client, and once personal, pragmatic and aesthetic considerations take precedence over truth‐value, then the way is left open to clients to generate the most morally convenient self‐interpretation to suit their current needs. I defend the view that truth matters in philosophical counselling; more specifically, that there is a basic distinction between true and false forms of self‐understanding. To do this, I offer a broadly realist account of self and reflective self‐evaluation. If this is right, then philosophical counsellors shoulder a significant burden of responsibility in helping their clients achieve an accurate, defensible, action‐guiding and truth‐oriented self‐understanding. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I develop a theory of philosophical counseling and teaching. It is the outcome of my holding the tension of my practical and theoretical viewing points. Holding the tension is a term which Maurice Friedman coined to counter the idea of dichotomous either/or thinking and any attempt to synthesize thought into unity or fusion. ;This dissertation focuses on Buber's notion of the dialogical, which implies acknowledging the other's otherness. Buber's notion of other is diametrically (...) opposed to the post-modern notion of other. The difference lies in the fact that Buber's notion of the not-I is rooted in trust, whereas the post-modern notion of denial and exclusion is rooted in distrust. ;This difference is of great importance, especially as it affects fields like counseling and teaching. In both counseling and teaching, it is important to be able to acknowledge the other as other, and to be able to meet the other while holding one's own ground. Yet, one can only do so when one can trust the other's otherness through an act of implicitly understanding his otherness. In any field which affects learning and teaching, we deal with different styles of discourse. It is my contention that a topic-centered discourse style distrusts what is implicitly understood and requires that it be made explicit. It cannot be relied upon for any kind of accuracy or coherence. Topic-associating trusts and relies on what is implicitly understood. In my work as both philosophical counselor and teacher I try to restore the notion of working on the basis of understood trust, and on the basis of responding to people's otherness. ;In this dissertation I present illustrations of my work as philosophical counselor and as an instructor in the Upward Bound College Prep Academy at the University of Illinois. These are examples of actively bringing trust back into the interaction between teacher/student or counselor/counselee. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Self and Its Body in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit by John RussonRobert BermanJohn Russon. The Self and Its Body in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. Pp. xv + 199. Cloth, $60.00To intoduce his account of the human body, Russon places two epigraphs at the front of his book, one from Diogenes Laertius, the other from Artaud. The first tells (...) of Zeno, seeking the oracle’s counsel about how best to live and advised to “mix his flesh with corpses.” What sounds like a recommendation to practice necrophilia, Zeno cleverly interprets to mean that he ought to spend his life reading old books. The second likens culture to a new bodily organ, radicalizing Merleau-Ponty’s view that the blind man’s cane is an extension of his body. Diogenes’ anecdote and the surrealist’s aphorism extend the conception of the human body beyond its ordinary boundary. Literally, Artaud’s culture is no bodily organ, nor is Zeno’s hermeneutically active mind a body which, flouting the law, mixes with the corpus of ancient authors, and experiences, at one Phaedrus-like remove, forbidden pleasures of dialectics.If Russon is a Zenonic reader and Hegel an ancient, then his book enacts the oracle’s advice correctly spun. However, it is clear, despite its title, that this is not Russon’s only aim. At the outset Russon distinguishes his project from that of Hegel’s 1807 Phenomenology of Spirit (PS); whereas Hegel presents the experience of consciousness, Russon’s project is to develop a “phenomenology of the body” or “science of the embodiment of consciousness” (3), whose central concepts are the “three logical determinations of … phusis, hexis, and logos” (8). Despite this contrast, Russon claims to follow the method he takes Hegel to have adopted in PS, intending “by rigorous argument to comprehend … the human body” (3), to “display the self-development of the internal dynamism of the concept of the body” (4). Yet, while initially insisting on the difference between his and Hegel’s projects, he actually holds that PS is “implicitly” such a phenomenology of the body; hence, he wants to extract from it “the philosophy of the body that is there implied” (3) and to show how it rationally comprehends human embodiment. If making the implicit explicit describes the work of interpretation, then his book is as much an essay in Hegel interpretation as it is a self-standing phenomenology of the body. Russon mixes his interpretive with his Hegelian systematic aim, but these are distinct, and he grants the latter priority. If one rejects his interpretive claim about Hegel’s project, Russon’s systematic claims about the body should remain unaffected, and assessable in their own right, even if not implicit in PS. What are these claims?Russon’s central gambit is to understand the human body in terms of embodiment, and embodiment in turn via the activities of the self-conscious self. Since he argues that these activities essentially involve recognition, thus are inherently social, the “whole [End Page 636] functioning world of social, cultural life will have to be recognized as the body of the properly human self,” while the natural body “of mere human life” is “not yet the body of the human proper” (9). Accordingly, Russon organizes his systematic claims about the human body into three parts: A. treats propaedeutically the “Hegelian concept of self-conscious selfhood” (8), B. handles the body as social institution; and C. deals with the culminating “absolution of the body” in which the self knows itself in its embodiment as self-conscious self.Russon’s project prompts questions about his Hegel interpretation and his conception of the human body. PS is skeptical, but preparatory: its immanent critique of interrelated knowledge claims serves to expose and undermine the principle of the opposition of consciousness which they assume; acceptance of that principle, Hegel argues, is the chief obstacle blocking the way to systematic philosophical knowledge, precisely because it leaves philosophy defenseless against skeptical challenges to the very possibility of such knowledge. This construal of PS conflicts with Russon’s interpretive claim that it is implicitly a science of the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Dialectic and Dialogue: Plato's Practice of Philosophical Inquiry (SPEP Studies in Historical Philosophy)Rosamond Kent SpragueFrancisco J. Gonzalez. Dialectic and Dialogue: Plato's Practice of Philosophical Inquiry (SPEP Studies in Historical Philosophy). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1998. Pp. 418. Paper, $29.95.What this rich and independent-minded book asks us to do is to give serious consideration to the question, "What, in Plato's view, are we doing when we (...) philosophize?" (1) If we employ our own conceptions of philosophy as the models for formulating and discussing specific Platonic questions, we may be imposing upon him ways of thinking that are foreign to his thought. To do this is particularly distorting in the case of dialectic.Gonzalez has chosen to confine himself to the early and middle dialogues, so that his book is a direct challenge to the work of Richard Robinson. Of the important views that have more recently arisen, Gonzalez allies himself most nearly with the non-doctrinal approach, but not to the extent of embracing scepticism. There is much philosophical knowledge in the dialogues, but such knowledge is primarily non-propositional. As for the esotericist and the developmentalist, both are misguided in proceeding on the assumption that Plato is attempting to formulate definitions and to arrive at a systematic philosophy; they regard the dialogues as treatises, which they are not. As Gonzalez quite justly inquires, "can there be any form of writing less suited to presenting a systematic philosophy than Plato's dramatic dialogues?" (4)In contrast to Robinson, who relies on the analysis of passages taken out of context, Gonzalez focusses mainly on whole dialogues, taking them to be dramatic portrayals of dialectic at work. He begins with detailed studies of the Laches and Charmides. In both cases, Socrates starts with ordinary knowledge (in the persons of the title characters), but "clearly intends to transcend it" (20). Neither will he accept "the 'sophistic' understanding that attempts to substitute definitions for this experience" (21) on the part of Nicias and Critias. The knowledge sought by Socrates by means of the dialectical method is shown to thave three characteristics: it is "knowledge how," it is "self-knowledge," and it is "non-propositional" (61).The next chapters consider three presuppositions of Plato's dialectic: words (in the Cratylus), arguments (in the Euthydemus), and images (in Republic X). All three are necessary to the dialectical enterprise, but, like ordinary knowledge in the aporetic dialogues, are transcended.Gonzalez' confrontation with Robinson naturally requires that he address the topic [End Page 113] of the method of hypothesis in the Meno, Phaedo, and Republic. This is a method that does yield propositional results, but it remains at the level of poion ti and fails to provide similar knowledge of the ti. Gonzalez' interpretation of the divided line is of particular interest here: as he sees it, dialectic is not intended as simply an extension continuous with the method of hypothesis. To take it this way is, with Robinson, to collapse dialectic into mathematics, making the former as deductive as the latter. The good (which "is not for Plato an exclusively moral term" 216) is "already there before the inquiry as the ground of its possibility" (236); this is what "unhypothesized" means. The movement of thought is circular, but not with a vicious circularity; "reflexivity" is the term preferred.To my mind the most rewarding and most convincing section of the book is the concluding chapter on the philosophical digression in the Seventh Letter. (The issue of authenticity is not significant, since, if the Letter is a forgery, "this forger had a better understanding of Plato than many other scholars, both ancient and contemporary" (246). Although "the subject of this wisdom simply cannot be expressed in words" (252) (and here Gonzalez emphasizes that Plato means spoken as much as written words), there is no contradiction in being able to talk or write about it. If "our only means of attaining true knowledge of a thing have the defect of being unable to express this nature" (263), Plato suggests an up and down movement which transcends this defect. The nature of this movement he describes as tribein, a process... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 13.1 (2005) 104-108 [Access article in PDF] A Response to Estelle R. Jorgensen, "Four Philosophical Models of the Relationship Between Theory and Practice" Randall Everett Allsup Teachers College, Columbia University Each of the four philosophical models that Estelle Jorgensen has put forth contests, adheres to, or adjusts the hierarchical relationships between dualities, specifically the theory and practice of musical learning. The dichotomy (...) model faces binary associations head on, splitting existence however defined into dualisms like "this/that," "us/them," and "mind/body." Models of polarity, according to Jorgensen, accommodate dualities by buffering edges, emphasizing the interconnectedness of binary relationships. The fusion metaphor is exemplified by Paulo Freire's notion of praxis in which action and reflection are welded together to create hope for a new world, one free of the oppression and conflict that is inherent in binary relationships. The dialectical model is contrapuntal by nature, Edward Said would say.1This relationship highlights our postmodern devotion to différence by embracing the tension created through inclusion so that "this is with that," "we are with them and they are with us," and "mind is with body, just as body is with mind."2Perhaps there is a fifth model, a new kind of relationship where the oppositional or hierarchical nature of binaries co-exists peacefully without tension. [End Page 104] Such an arrangement is, I think, an outgrowth of capitalist democracy—it is, most especially, representative of our global, information age. This type of relationship is problematic philosophically, we will see, lacking as Jorgensen has outlined "logic evidenced in principles," "internal consistency," and "coherence within a unity or whole." Likewise for Bennett Reimer, this new mind-set fails the test of philosophical scrutiny, unconcerned as it is with a "reasoned, structured set of propositions."3 Whether philosophy or mind-set, this new arrangement has as much to do with freedom and free markets as it does with the particular conditions of both modernity and postmodernity.In the novel, White Noise, by Don DeLillo, the postmodern condition is represented in part by an "Airborne Toxic Event," a cloud of gas, Nyodene D, which floats above a tranquil All-American college town.4 A sense of crisis is felt, but felt obliquely and no one knows exactly what harm has been done. In Albert Camus' The Plague, by contrast, the disease that infests the North African town of Oran acts to awaken its citizenry, confronting the populace with the moral imperatives to fight or flee.5 Perhaps the metaphor of quarantine symbolizes the hard boundaries of modernism.Capitalism seeks to dissolve conflict. It operates silently, in the realm of social production, like a cloud of gas. Denise, Jack Gladney's daughter in White Noise, mumbles over and over in her sleep, "Toyota Corolla, Toyota Celica, Toyota Cressida...."6 There is a sense of ontological change, that the expanding reach of media, information, and technology rewires the way we think, the way we dream. Tensions are willed away. The expansion and survival of market shares, after all, depend on the peaceful erosion of boundaries—boundaries that demarcate what we learn, what we buy, and who we are.Questions about what this new system means—this new mind-set—are explored in a book called Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.7 These writers posit a global world of communication, cooperation, and affect, where an increase in hybrids creates a kind of "omniversality" where the virtual, natural, and ideological converge.8 In the dialectical relationship that Jorgensen shares with writers like Paulo Freire and Maxine Greene, there is no acceptable synthesis, no peaceful co-existence, between oppressors and oppressed. While according to Freire, the oppressed may internalize or house characteristics of the oppressor. In the global world of capital, the oppositional nature of the Other is replaced by niches or fragments, dissolving differences into marketing opportunities, really. That the avant-garde no longer exists is proof of this new state.As the essentialist nature of the Other fades away... (shrink)

This paper recounts experience from the author’s philosophical counseling supervision experience. The paper then gives an overview of the narrative turn in bioethics, showing how the bioethical narrative turn disputes the assumption that client case notes can provide reliable empirical information about what happens in philosophical counseling sessions. The paper concludes that interpretation by philosophical peer reviewers is an in-eliminable aspect of peer review. Accountability for our counseling practices and improvement in them requires that (...) we avoid a solipsistic stance and submit in some way to the interpretive interventions of other philosophical counselors. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the narrative aspect of Seneca’s idea of self-transformation. It compares Seneca’s viewpoint with some modern notions of the narrative self to highlight some parallels and significant differences between the ancient and modern conceptions and it establishes the reading of some parts of De Brev. Vit. in the context of other passages as concerned with the narrative self. The paper argues, amongst other points, that in Ep. 83.1–3, Seneca extends the practice of (...) meditatio (ethically directed self-examination) by incorporating the construction of a narrative self into this process, in dual roles, as examiner and examined. It concludes that Seneca expected us to avail ourselves of a similar self-assessment based on a dialogue with philosophical texts. (shrink)

The debate between Jurgen Habermas and Charles Taylor is reflective of the enduring conflict between liberal philosophy with its emphasis upon freedom, equality, and legal rights, and Aristotelianism with its accent upon the cultivation of virtue, personal responsibility and shared notions of the Good. Though grounded in opposite ends of the philosophical spectrum, both men remain critical of the burgeoning effects of instrumental rationality and the social atomization and anomie it continues to generate; both understand the extent to which (...) the self is a social construct and the role of interpersonal intersubjectivity in the development of their individual and collective identities; both argue for the centrality of certain goods in maintaining a minimal degree of social cohesion; and both affirm that the crucial feature of human life is communication and its dialogical character. ;To overcome the adverse manifestations of our positivistic ethos with its over-reliance upon purposive-instrumental reason, each has responded with a countervailing notion of rationality---"phronesis" or Aristotelian practical reason for Taylor and "communicative reason" for Habermas. Each's choice of reason has led to profound differences in their respective notions of the self as well as fundamental incongruities in their moral and political philosophies. In the interest of preserving the autonomy and integrity of the individual while yet affirming universal justice, Habermas argues for the formalism of a "proceduralistic" ethics. Taylor, on the other hand, advocates a "substantialist" one, a communal ethics that arises from out of people's deepest moral intuitions; an ethics bound up with historical values and ideals that stresses the cultivation of virtue and shared notions of the common good. ;I argue that although Habermas's "communicative action" with its focus upon intersubjective communication helps to bridge the competing philosophies of communitarianism and classical liberalism, a basic incommensurability still persists. However, rather than being mutually exclusive, there needs to be a creative, dialectical tension maintained between them whereby each continues to inform and influence the other. In this way, a postmodern ethics rooted in dialogue and communication can be constructed which maintains people's integrity and autonomy while similarly addressing their multiple needs and concerns, but also an ethics grounded in one's deepest moral intuitions which remains sensitive to the concrete, historical, and particularistic distinctions which differentiate their identities. (shrink)

The self is a historical and cultural phenomenon in the sense of a dialectically evolving narrative construct about who we are, what our borders and limits and capacities are, what is pathology, and what is normality, and so on. These ontological and epistemological narratives are usually linked to grand explanatory narratives like science and religion, and are intimately linked to cosmological pictures. The “intersubject” is an emergent form of subjectivity in our time which reconstructs its borders to include the (...) other, and which understands itself as always building and being built through a combination of internal and external dialogue. The shift from monological to dialogical discourse is both a product and a producer of the intersubject, and is in turn made possible by a shift—underway for the last one hundred years or so—in the human information environment. The major educational innovation which reconstructs theory and practice for the intersubject—community of philosophical inquiry (CPI)—assumes, following field and systems theory, that any group gathered together is an interactive system. It also assumes that the fundamental forms of growth and development both of the individual and of the collective take place through a process of communal deliberative inquiry into meaning, resulting in the reconstruction of beliefs, values, and discourses on both an individual and a collective level. CPI is a process in which subject and object are both active and passive, shaping and being shaped, determining and determined, in and through their transaction. It assumes that its interlocutors are in a relation of both mutual and self-interrogation. As the phenomenon of the intersubject gains credence in human culture, philosophy is gaining power as an educational idea in the elementary and high school classroom. Communal philosophical dialogue is the discursive space where the subject’s fundamental assumptions about self, world, knowledge, belief, beauty, right action and normative ideals enter a dialectical process of confrontation, mediation, and reconstruction. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes between two conceptions of philosophical counseling. The one focuses on the clarification of the individual's psychological and philosophical self and the other on the transcendence of that self. A comparison of the latter conception with the self-transcendence that takes place through Zen Buddhism contributes to the examination of the question of whether philosophical counseling can indeed overcome potential psychological obstacles to attaining a transcendent aim. Possible influences of the (...) integration of psychological intervention into the philosophical search for transcendence are also discussed. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes between two conceptions of philosophical counseling. The one focuses on the clarification of the individual’s psychological and philosophical self and the other on the transcendence of that self. A comparison of the latter conception with the self-transcendence that rakes place through Zen Buddhism contributes to the examination of the question of whether philosophical counseling can indeed overcome potential psychological obstacles to attaining a transcendent aim. Possible influences of the (...) integration of psychological intervention into the philosophical search for transcendence are also discussed. (shrink)

Eoin Carney | : Continuing on from recent discussions on the overlap between Paul Ricoeur’s philosophy and care ethics, this article will aim to clarify the status of practice in Ricoeur’s work. I will argue that even though Ricoeur’s philosophy is indeed marked by its “desire for a foundation,” as care ethicist Joan Tronto has pointed out, this aim is more of a fragile wager than a principle, and is always at risk of being overturned by practices and other (...) worldviews. I will demonstrate this point by arguing that Ricoeur’s hermeneutic approach to practice leads to the view that objective methods of knowledge and explanation are always grounded by the broader hermeneutic task of practical understanding and care for the self; in moral reasoning, Ricoeur’s analysis of the conflict between respect for the rule and respect for persons results in his prioritizing of respect for the singular other rather than the universal rule, meaning that the other can always disrupt and reorient universal or foundational modes of reasoning; and finally within healthcare relations Ricoeur aims to develop an alternative understanding of respect that places it in a dialectical relation with care. These practice-oriented readings of hermeneutics, morality, and respect aim to open up a dialogue between care ethics and philosophical approaches that have often been placed outside of care ethics. | : Poursuivant les récentes discussions concernant les recoupements entre la philosophie de Paul Ricoeur et les éthiques du care, cet article a pour objectif de clarifier le statut de la pratique dans l’oeuvre de Ricoeur. Je soutiendrai que même si la philosophie ricoeurienne est bien marquée par un « désir d’un fondement », ainsi que l’éthicienne du care Joan C. Tronto le souligne, cet objectif repose plus sur un pari que sur un véritable principe, et risque toujours d’être renversé par les pratiques ou d’autres visions du monde. Je démontrerai cela en soutenant trois arguments. 1) L’approche herméneutique de Ricoeur concernant la pratique mène à penser que les méthodes objectives de connaissance et d’explication sont toujours soutenues par une tâche herméneutique plus large de la compréhension pratique et du souci de soi. 2) En ce qui a trait au raisonnement moral, l’analyse de Ricoeur sur le conflit entre le respect de la règle et le respect de la personne accorde la priorité au respect de l’autre singulier plutôt que de la règle universelle. Ainsi, l’autre peut toujours perturber et réorienter l’universel ou les modes fondateurs du raisonnement. 3) Réfléchissant aux relations thérapeutiques, Ricoeur tend à suggérer une nouvelle compréhension du respect qui se place dans une relation dialectique avec le souci. Ces lectures – de l’herméneutique, de la moralité et du respect – orientées vers la pratique ouvrent la voie à un dialogue entre les éthiques du care et des approches philosophiques que l’on considère souvent éloignées de celles-ci. (shrink)

In the current climate of high-stakes testing and performance-based accountability measures, there is a pressing need to reconsider the nature of teaching and what capacities one must develop to be a good teacher. Educational policy experts around the world have pointed out that policies focused disproportionately on student test outcomes can promote teaching practices that are reified and mechanical, and which lead to students developing mere memorisation skills, rather than critical thinking and conceptual understanding. Philosophers of dialogue and dialogic teaching (...) offer a different view of teaching, one that counters mechanical, transmissive or ‘monologic’ teaching. In this paper, I seek to extend the notion of dialogic teaching as a method of supporting social and moral learning processes. Specifically, my focus is on answering the question: What capacities must a teacher have to engage students dialogically? Drawing on Paulo Freire and other contemporary philosophers, I examine dialogic interaction as involving a way of ‘being with learners’ and put forth three teacher capacities necessary for dialogic teaching: self-critique, narrativity and building community. I then examine further what is concretely entailed in the practice of dialogic teaching using research in educational psychology. I aim to highlight how dialogic teaching, unlike monologic teaching, involves the teacher's active ability to support learners’ identification and exploration of their own blind spots—that is, the limits of knowledge and ability—and those of others. Following this, I consider implications of my discussion for international policy on teacher assessment. I close the paper with considerations for future research on teacher capacity and teacher evaluation. This paper contributes to our understanding of teacher capacity and the nature and aims of good teaching. (shrink)

This volume describes the main theoretical aspects of this practice based on an open-ended dialogue between a philosophical practitioner and a client or a group ...

In this article, I report on my reading of a debate between two practitioners and scholars of philosophy with children – Karin Murris and Darren Chetty. The parts of their exchanges I have chosen to focus on relate to a children's book called Tusk Tusk by David McKee. Their respective arguments raise questions for me about the relationship between the starting text and issues of importance in the wider world. Although Chetty sees benefits in using picture books, he appears to (...) believe there is an over-reliance on fables and other magical tales and that alternative starting points could be more suitable for exploring complex social issues with historical dimensions. Murris, on the other hand, seems to appreciate the lack of historical perspective that is evident in many of her preferred picture books. She values their ‘universal’ and ‘magical’ aspects because they stimulate ‘rhizomatic’ dialogues that are spontaneous and non-hierarchical. In this commentary I trace what, to me, are the most significant lines of argument put forward by Chetty and Murris. In response, I suggest some practical ideas for choosing texts and ‘reading against the text’ – a term both writers use. I also ask and answer the question: ‘In sessions of philosophical dialogue, should adults bring to children for consideration issues they regard as important or refrain from doing so?’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Estelle R. Jorgensen, “Four Philosophical Models of the Relationship Between Theory and Practice”W. Ann StokesEstelle Jorgensen has written a most interesting paper contrasting four different concepts of the relationship between theory and practice, and pointing out the advantages and disadvantages of each. Each approach introduces insights that the others have missed, but is not sufficient in itself to explain all the relationships between theory and practice. (...) In response to the concept of "dichotomy," I am also sympathetic to the attempt to distinguish practice and theory because it identifies two important constituents of experience, and it provides a fruitful way of investigating the relationship between the two concepts. However, I believe that a concept of dichotomy may put the two categoriees in too distant a relationship with each other. This distance may prevent us from recognizing the "interconnections and cross-fertilizations" that are often possible between them.The idea of "polarity" opens up the possibility of focusing on the ground [End Page 102] between the two concepts. It also provides a framework for allowing "practice to bubble up into theory," and "theory to bubble up into practice." Given that a theory may bring about a range of different practices and that practices may be based upon a range of differing theories, one needs to be able to move easily between the two worlds. Imagination, intuition, and rational thinking all contribute to our understanding of the relationship between the two concepts. In this situation of polarity one should not expect to find "a theory perfectly translated into a particular practice, or a practice drawing entirely and fully on one particular theory."I am also sympathetic to the view that "theory without practice is mentalism," and that "practice without theory is activism or instrumentalism bare of guiding principles," but like Jorgensen I find the concept of fusion the least helpful of the four concepts. Given the fact that very rarely (if ever) is theory perfectly exemplified in practice, or practice based solely upon one specific theory, the concept of fusion in many instances is too absolute. I am open to the suggestion that moral principles as well as aesthetic ones should guide the practice of music education despite the difficulties that a multiplicity of perspectives opens up. I also agree that democratic ideals can offer us one way of guiding the decisions made in the classroom and can offer a rallying point for persons coming from different ethnic, religious, political, and cultural backgrounds.The dialectical approach opens up a way to negotiate among differences of opinion and beliefs that influence practice. It assumes that there is no one perfect perspective on the relationship between theory and practice. The dialectical approach provides (1)a framework to investigate the theories and practices of which practitioners are aware, (2)opportunities to examine how practitioners adjudicate them, and (3)explanations of how and why they decide to act "in their particular lived situations." In contrast to the ontological approach, I like Jorgensen's epistemological approach to the investigation of theory and practice. It offers another perspective in addition to the influence that ontological theories can have in guiding music education practice.My view of the ideal relationship between theory and practice is one that acknowledges the differences between the two concepts, but allows for a variety of relationships between the two. It is one that recognizes that theory should influence practice and that practice should influence theory in an ongoing and continuous reciprocal exchange. It entails being sensitive to a variety of theories and particular practices, and being skilled at being able to pick which particular theory or theories best explains the practice observed.In addition to the concepts of dichotomy, polarity, fusion, and dialectic, another possible concept of the relationship between theory and practice might be based upon Michael Lewis, Margaret Sullivan, and Linda Michalson's view [End Page 103] of the "cognitive-emotional fugue."1 This perspective has the advantage of being very flexible. The authors describe emotion and cognition as being neither separate nor independent processes. "Rather both are elements of a continuous, inseparable stream of behavior like the parts of a fugue in which the theme is often lost... (shrink)

This book, the first of its kind, offers a comprehensive introduction to the philosophy and practice of Zen Buddhism. It is written by an academic philosopher who, for more than a dozen years, practiced Zen in Japan while studying in universities with contemporary heirs of the Kyoto School. The book lucidly explicates the philosophical implications of Zen teachings and kōans, and critically compares Zen with other Asian as well as Western religions and philosophies. It carefully explains the original (...) context and sense of traditional Zen teachings and practices, and compellingly applies them to our twenty-first century lives. In addition to explaining the practice of Zen meditation, its twenty-four chapters treat perennial philosophical topics such as the self, nature, art, morality, language, peace, and death, as well as basic Buddhist teachings such as the four noble truths, the middle way, the no-self and true self doctrines, karma, mind and no-mind, rebirth, Nirvana, and the various meanings of the term “Buddha.” The chapters frequently engage Zen in interreligious dialogue with Christianity and with other religions and schools of Buddhism. The Zen inspired modern philosophies of the Kyoto School are introduced in one chapter and frequently referenced throughout the book. The concluding chapter reviews the entire path of Zen practice and enlightenment with an in-depth commentary on the beloved Zen classic, The Ten Oxherding Pictures. The book can be read in its entirety as a coherently organized introduction to the philosophy and practice of Zen, or chapters can be read independently according to the reader’s specific interests. While based on decades of scholarly study as well as practice and teaching, it is written in an accessible and engaging style. It is designed to be read by college students and lifelong learners as well as scholars and practitioners of the world’s great philosophical and spiritual traditions. (shrink)

This book presents a fictional dialogue among four former college friends about Oneness and self-realization. News of the sudden death of a relative occasions their discussion. One friend, a devotee of the Advaita or non-duality school of Hindu philosophy, seeks to short-circuit the pain and suffering characteristically associated with anxieties about human mortality. According to her, to be is to be the ultimate ineffable undifferentiated Being, the birthless and the deathless—the One. The other friends, whose philosophical attitudes (...) are broadly pragmatist, relativist, and realist, inquire into her views. While the pragmatist looks to the advaitist for guidance about meditative practices, she does not renounce human existence. She welcomes the joys and satisfactions as well as the burdens and pains of human existence. In turn, the relativist is skeptical about theories that aim to reach beyond one’s historical, cultural or personal frame of reference. On his view, to be is to be in relationship, especially with other human beings. Finally, the realist seeks objective, frame-independent truth. In addition, he holds that the world is comprised of individual objects and their properties. Accordingly, he finds the idea of Oneness to be incomprehensible.“In this probing dialogue, Michael Krausz does what rarely is done. He brings Hindu and analytic philosophy into conversation with each other. Moreover, he does this in a way that clarifies contrasting views about the reality of the self and the nature of the world. Oneness and the Displacement of Self sheds welcome new light on a topic of enduring interest.”― Mary Wiseman, The Graduate Center, City University of New York. (shrink)

Romand Coles here explores the writings of Augustine, Foucault, and Merleau-Ponty in order to fashion an ethos that emphasizes the value of dialogical relationships between the self and others. In his view, each of these thinkers has made significant contributions that must figure in any reconsideration of the relationship between the self, ethics, and power. Whereas Augustine saw depth as the dimension of freedom and truth, according to Coles's reading, Foucault regarded depth as "that dimension in which we (...) rout out the other and constitute ourselves in light of hegemonic norms implanted deep within us." After drawing out those aspects of Foucault's thought which point toward a "dialogical artistic ethics," Coles explores Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of depth, arguing that it elucidates the "intercorporeality" of the world in a way that emphasizes the value of our dialogical relations with different others. In conclusion, he brings the three thinkers together to assess their rhetorical and philosophical similarities and differences, and to argue against the tendency to see all postmodern thought as nihilistic and incapable of developing an ethico-political stance. Coles's highly original work seeks to provide an alternative to the positions that have structured most recent debate in political philosophy. Thus, his book points up difficulties in both the individualist and the communitarian readings of politics and ethics, even as it seriously explores the ethical dimensions and possibilities of postmodernist thought. His attempt to develop an ethos based on a specific conception of selves and the world enables him to cast provocative light on the continuing dialogue between rationalists and relativists about the nature of both selves and our social and political institutions. (shrink)

My dissertation, “Love, Self-Constitution, and Practical Necessity,” offers an interpretation of love between people. Love is puzzling because it appears to involve essentially both rational and non-rational phenomena. We are accountable to those we love, so love seems to participate in forms of necessity, commitment, and expectation, which are associated with morality. But non-rational attitudes—forms of desire, attraction, and feeling—are also central to love. Consequently, love is not obviously based in rationality or inclination. In contrast to views that attempt (...) to fit love into existing models of practical reasoning, I argue that love participates in a unique form of practical necessity, different from both moral and psychological necessity, yet bearing resemblances to each. Distinctive to this type of practical necessity is a direct appeal to another particular person that cannot be delivered in third-personal terms—that is, a non-moral yet normative type of expectation on another person. This type of expectation is predominant in loving relationships, but can also make better sense of the experiences of humor and beauty, as well as attitudes like forgiveness, gratitude, and agent-regret. I treat Immanuel Kant’s discussion of the experience of beauty in the Critique of Judgment and Christine Korsgaard’s work on self-constitution as fruitful starting points for this account of love. I conclude that our loving relationships enable us to have distinctive personal selves, and provide support for this account of love by offering a complementary theory of grief. In Part One of the dissertation, I focus on two prominent approaches to love characteristic of the sentimentalist and rationalist traditions. I begin with the work of David Hume, which treats desire (understood as something like a simple impulse or craving) as the paradigmatic mental state, and emphasizes our personal and affective dimensions. Hume has the valuable insight that loving someone affects our sense of ourselves. But Hume’s view becomes unsatisfying when he claims that love is essentially enfeebling, implying that to love is to be passive toward and readily overcome by another person. While this indicates Hume’s awareness that love involves being open and receptive to another person, the problem is that love is also a demanding attitude. Hume lacks the conceptual resources to offer a nuanced view of the self, in which we can—with one attitude—be both demanding of and vulnerable to another person. Hume’s model of a desire-based deliberative process has recently been revived in Harry Frankfurt’s discussions on love and rationality. Frankfurt, however, goes beyond Hume’s picture of the self by introducing a notion of “identification,” which he offers to make sense of our apparent ability to commit ourselves decisively to certain projects or people. I argue that active powers like identification and commitment cannot be accommodated within any basically Humean moral psychology. Such abilities, and with them the possibility of love, depend on something closer to a Kantian conception of rational agency. I next focus on the work of Kant, who provides the substantial counterpart to Humean-inspired moral theories, but is not known for his insight into our emotional lives. In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant divides love into “practical love”—what we experience when we are morally motivated to help someone—and “pathological love”—what we experience when we feel fond of something. But in reality, we experience love neither as a mere preference for another person, nor as something that generates the kind of demands that would be binding on any rational creature. David Velleman attempts to remedy the deficiency of Kant’s dichotomy. Velleman offers a Kantian theory in which he describes love and respect as two ends of a continuum of attitudes that it is morally appropriate to have toward people. Velleman’s view has the peculiar implication that everyone deserves the love of everyone else, and I argue that this is a fatal flaw. Like Kant and Velleman, Korsgaard characterizes personal love as involving the treatment of other people as Kantian ends-in-themselves to a heightened degree. Korsgaard, though, also contends that our individual identities depend upon our personal relationships, and I take this position seriously for the remainder of the dissertation. Ultimately, however, characterizations of loving relations as subsets of moral relations can account for the authority of the demands of love, but not its particularity. The major conclusion of Part One is that any attempt to understand love primarily on a model of practical reasoning with which we are already familiar is doomed to fail. Our experience of love calls for a theory of a unique type of practical necessity. In Part Two I take seriously the possibility that love is simultaneously inescapable (in something like the way morality is supposed to be), and yet ineluctably personal. In love, we experience an engagement with a person as essentially particular, rather than as an instance of a rational agent in general. To make sense of this direct attachment to an individual, I argue that love involves distinctive forms of expectation and disappointment. When those we love let us down, they hurt our feelings, which is not a response to a failed prediction, but nor is it a reaction to a moral insult or offense. According to Peter Strawson and Stephen Darwall, second-personal moral reactive attitudes (such as resentment) always have third-personal analogues (such as indignation). In contrast, I argue that the type of hurt feelings associated with love is a second-personal reactive attitude that does not have a third-personal corollary. I take this as evidence that the expectations involved in love are not objective in the way that the moral is objective. Nor, however, is love a matter of mere preference. On my interpretation, Kant introduces this different type of expectation in the Critique of Judgment. Whereas he characterizes moral judgments as universally communicable, judgments of beauty implicitly involve only second-personal address: I appeal to your direct experience with a particular object. This provides the conceptual space for an account of love according to which it involves a uniquely second-personal form of practical necessity. I contend that the second-personal addresses we make in love are appeals to strengthen the intimacy implicit in the loving relationship, and I identify three interrelated dimensions of that intimacy. First, those we love have the standing to interpret us in a constitutive manner. We fine-tune and make determinate the character of our concerns and interests in part by accepting the interpretations provided by those we love. In that way, the people we love have the normative power to constitute who we are. Second, we share a perspective with those we love in a way that is not reducible to or derivative of our independent perspectives. Loving someone centrally involves the activity of forming concerns together, and we do this in a mode best understood on the model of playing a spontaneous game or improvising music. Finally, being loved enables us to see ourselves as distinctive and special, because the concern those who love us have for us does not track the objective merit of our characteristics. These dimensions of the intimacy that characterizes a loving relationship reveal what it is that we appeal for in love, and how we are hurt when our appeals are rebuffed. In broad terms, this dissertation advocates the recognition of a non-moral yet normative type of expectation, which is predominant in loving relationships. Humor and beauty, too, make more sense when understood in terms of this non-moral yet normative type of expectation, as they involve appeals to others that are more than mere predictions of, but less than rational demands for, a certain kind of response. Introducing this alternative notion of expectation into the discourse of moral philosophy can shed light on other common attitudes that are clearly normative, but defy translation into objective, third-personal terms. Such attitudes include certain experiences of pride and shame, apology and forgiveness, the bestowing of mercy, gratitude, agent-regret, and perhaps a basic sense of trust we have in others. Ultimately, I situate love in respect to grief, which demonstrates my theory’s ability to make sense of related dimensions of our emotional lives. The people we love and grieve over give us a sense of who we are as distinctive, particular individuals, as the three interrelated dimensions of intimacy in loving relationships reveal. Consequently, grief is best understood as a type of practical disorientation—namely, a disorientation that involves the loss of the personal self. I present my account of grief against the type of account that would draw philosophical conclusions about the nature of love and grief from empirical psychological data alone. In particular, these data indicate that we recover quickly from the deaths of loved ones, and Dan Moller draws the philosophical conclusion that those we love fulfill certain roles in our lives and are replaceable. In contrast, I contend that while we should acknowledge the truth of the objective judgment, made in the third-person, that we will likely recover after the deaths of those we love, it does not follow that we must affirm such a claim from the internal perspective of one person who loves another. As a result, the case of love and grief supports a general claim concerning the proper work of moral philosophy, which is that the understanding of ourselves gained through empirical data is not a substitute for the normative conclusions that are revealed through first-personal reflections on our relationships. (shrink)

The current state of Ukrainian society is characterized by socio-economic instability, there are dynamic, unique processes in which each person is involved. In this connection, there are increasing demands on the professionalism of specialists in the field of practical psychology, their philosophical counseling in the context of postmodernism, aimed at helping people become the subject of their life, work, social and value relationships, to teach them to find meanings and maximize self-actualization. This is represented in the change (...) of priorities in the professional development of practical psychologists, its focus on the development of specialists' subjectivity, their ability to independently solve professional and life tasks. An important role in enhancing the development of professionalism is the understanding of the essential characteristics of existential professional activity, expressed most often in professional meanings and values. The basis of a meaningful professional and personal life is the key ability of the practical psychologist to see and accept the needs of the profession and life and to find the most correct explanations for them. The purpose of the article is to investigate the importance and necessity of the activity of a practical psychologist, its peculiarities, the study of types of psychological aid: counseling, psychological rehabilitation, correction, psychotherapy, training, education and prevention; as well as the need to identify the main areas of professional activity of practical psychologists in the context of postmodernism. (shrink)

This edited volume comprehensively examines the critical ethical challenges that arise in the practice of counselling and psychotherapy. It translates philosophical positions and professional ethical guidelines in a way that can be applied to practice. The various chapters focus on specific ethical issues that emerge in working with a range of different client groups; for example, children, couples and families. While some ethical imperatives are common across the board, others could be more closely associated with certain client groups. Practitioners (...) might experience uncertainty in working with vulnerable client groups; for example, lesbian/gay/transgender/intersex (LGBT) clients, or persons who report intimate partner violence. Several chapters raise questions, provide information and additional resources to enhance ethically informed practice. Chapter contributions also highlight the ethical dilemmas that might be unique to certain contexts; for example, private practice, schools and consultation-liaison settings. This volume also addresses contemporary and relatively less understood playing fields like 'digital ethics' related to therapist-client interface in the internet space and the navigation of ethical dilemmas in the newly emerging field of employee assistance programmes which address mental health needs in the corporate sector. Written by experienced practitioners of psychotherapy, and culturally contextualized, this is a valuable resource for academics and practitioners interested in psychotherapy and counselling. (shrink)

This essay argues that what makes Michel Foucault’s oeuvre not only stand apart but also cohere is an assiduous philosophical practice taking the form of an ongoing yet concrete self-modification in the medium of thought. Part I gives an account of three essential aspects of Foucault’s conception of philosophical activity. Beginning with his famous characterization of philosophy in terms of ascēsis, it moves on to articulate his characterization of philosophical practice as a distinct form of meditation, (...) differing from both Cartesian meditation and Hegelian meditation, as it aims to stand vigil for the day to come and operates as a preface to transgression. Part II begins the articulation of crucial traits left implicit in this understanding of philosophy by turning to Foucault’s in-depth investigation of philosophy in Antiquity during his lectures at the Collège de France in the 1980s. First, it develops how philosophy here begins to constitute and distinguish itself by establishing itself as an activity that has a privileged relationship to truth and truth-telling as an unremitting, existentially determining challenge for the philosopher. Further, it instantiates how Platonism elaborates the need for a sustained ‘auto-ascetic’ ethical non-compliant differentiation as the condition of possibility for accessing and stating truth, and then describes how the assertion of an ethical differentiation and attitude in Cynicism takes the form of an insistent combat for another world in this world. Finally, it underlines how the ethical-practical philosophical work upon oneself in Antiquity is developed in an ongoing critical and political exchange with others. Part III indicates how ethical differentiation according to Foucault remains an essential precondition for the practice of philosophy and is further developed in the modern age. This is particularly perspicuous in Kant’s determination of the Enlightenment, in the attitude of modernity exemplified by Baudelaire, and in the history of revolt since the beginning of early Modernity. On this background, Part IV develops how philosophy as an ongoing meditative practice of self-modification leads to an affirmative critique, confirming the virtuality of this world in order to investigate the potentiality in the examined. In this manner, the essay presents Foucault’s philosophical practice as well as an outline of the history of ideas of a seemingly alternate, yet still agenda-setting conception of philosophical practice today. (shrink)

This essay argues that what makes Michel Foucault’s oeuvre not only stand apart but also cohere is an assiduous philosophical practice taking the form of an ongoing yet concrete self-modification in the medium of thought. Part I gives an account of three essential aspects of Foucault’s conception of philosophical activity. Beginning with his famous characterization of philosophy in terms of ascēsis, it moves on to articulate his characterization of philosophical practice as a distinct form of meditation, (...) differing from both Cartesian meditation and Hegelian meditation, as it aims to stand vigil for the day to come and operates as a preface to transgression. Part II begins the articulation of crucial traits left implicit in this understanding of philosophy by turning to Foucault’s in-depth investigation of philosophy in Antiquity during his lectures at the Collège de France in the 1980s. First, it develops how philosophy here begins to constitute and distinguish itself by establishing itself as an activity that has a privileged relationship to truth and truth-telling as an unremitting, existentially determining challenge for the philosopher. Further, it instantiates how Platonism elaborates the need for a sustained ‘auto-ascetic’ ethical non-compliant differentiation as the condition of possibility for accessing and stating truth, and then describes how the assertion of an ethical differentiation and attitude in Cynicism takes the form of an insistent combat for another world in this world. Finally, it underlines how the ethical-practical philosophical work upon oneself in Antiquity is developed in an ongoing critical and political exchange with others. Part III indicates how ethical differentiation according to Foucault remains an essential precondition for the practice of philosophy and is further developed in the modern age. This is particularly perspicuous in Kant’s determination of the Enlightenment, in the attitude of modernity exemplified by Baudelaire, and in the history of revolt since the beginning of early Modernity. On this background, Part IV develops how philosophy as an ongoing meditative practice of self-modification leads to an affirmative critique, confirming the virtuality of this world in order to investigate the potentiality in the examined. In this manner, the essay presents Foucault’s philosophical practice as well as an outline of the history of ideas of a seemingly alternate, yet still agenda-setting conception of philosophical practice today. (shrink)

A NUMBER of things are immediately striking about Roderick Chisholm’s way of doing philosophy. He is an analytic philosopher who is quite ready to cite at some length such diverse thinkers as Thomas Aquinas, Franz Brentano, Alexius Meinong, and Edmund Husserl. He unabashedly calls much of his work "metaphysical." His sources and conclusions mark him as something of a maverick, but his philosophical style is quintessential contemporary American establishment. These crosscurrents seem at least potentially exciting. They promise a richness (...) of perspective as well as exactness and clarity in argument. It has become commonplace to deplore the lack of dialogue among the main philosophical "schools" of this century—the analysts, the phenomenologists, etc. In Roderick Chisholm America has produced a philosopher who has consistently refused isolationism even when it has seemed hopelessly fashionable. (shrink)

Tagore and Gandhi shared a relationship across 26 years. They argued about many things including the means for the attainment of swaraj/freedom. In terms of this central concern with the nature of freedom they came fairly close to an issue that has perhaps dominated the (European) Enlightenment. For the Enlightenment has sought to clarify what is meant by individual freedom and attempted to secure such freedom to the individual. This article argues that the Tagore-Gandhi debate can perhaps be reconstructed around (...) the issue of freedom and the collective. Gandhi was able to employ the idea of collective action with conceptual and practical ease. He seemed to have felt no tension between individual freedom and the notion of the collective of which an individual becomes a part in his/her attempt to deal with the contending ‘other’ and secure his /her freedom/swaraj. To understand Tagore’s opposition to the Gandhian idea of swaraj this article draws a philosophical parallel between Tagore and Kant on individual freedom as primarily the freedom to reason. Tagore’s argument seemed to have centered on the insight that the location of the individual in a collective hypostatized self in order to protect his or her freedom from ‘others’ reaffirms the self other divide. The insider-outsider exclusionary dynamics that are generated not only consolidate such distinctions as external to (and outside of) the collective self, but they also initiate internal dynamics that create the ‘silenced insider.’. (shrink)

Dialogue is a seminal concept within the work of the Brazilian adult education theorist, Paulo Freire, and the Russian literary critic and philosopher, Mikhail Bakhtin. While there are commonalities in their understanding of dialogue, they differ in their treatment of dialectic. This paper addresses commonalities and dissonances within a Bakhtin-Freire dialogue on the notions of dialogue and dialectic. It then teases out some of the implications for education theory and practice in relation to two South African contexts of learning that (...) facilitate the access to education of disadvantaged groups, one in higher education and the other in early childhood education. (shrink)

Independent on Sunday October 2nd One of the country's lead­ing philosophical counsellers, and chairman of the Society for Philosophy in Practice (SPP), Tim LeBon, said it typically took around six 50 ­minute sessions for a client to move from confusion to resolution. Mr LeBon, who has 'published a book on the subject, Wise Therapy, said philoso­phy was perfectly suited to this type of therapy, dealing as it does with timeless human issues such as love, purpose, happiness and emo­tional challenges. (...) `Wise Therapy, is part of a series aimed at promoting an integrative attitude as its ethos. Among all the many perspectives of psychotherapists and counselors, philosophy needs to take its place and needs to find its voice. Tim LeBon has provided an effective means by which counselors can bring philosophy into their work with clients' - APPA journal `Tim Le Bon's Wise Therapy is a comprehensible and well argued book dealing with the practical therapeutic applications of philosophical research that may well be of interest to philosophers but -- as the author himself intends -- will be of most obvious benefit to therapists and counselors, both by informing their dialogue with clients in new ways and by helping them become more informed about ways to resolve the ethical dilemmas arising within the context of their own work' - Metapsychology `A fascinating workshop for therapists and clients, backed up a thorough degree if philosophical acuity' - Journal of the Society for Existential Analysis `I strongly recommend the book for philosophers as well as practitioners, teachers, students and supervisors in counselling and psychotherapy' - Self and Society `Provides some additional and valuable arrows for the therapist's quiver' - Irvin Yalom, author of Love's Executioner `Like Aristotle, Tim LeBon examines what is said and extracts what is best from it…. There are many fascinating exercises designed to bring out and enlighten the client's values, conception of the good life, well-being, happiness, pleasure, and the proper place of reason in life…. Wise Therapy is well written and engaging. The case histories are illuminating examples of therapeutic techniques at work, the thought experiments are well designed, and the philosophical position adapted from the internal debates of the philosophers is level headed…. I recommend it highly to philosophers with an interest in counselling, and psychological counsellors with an interest in philosophy' - Jeff Mason, The Philosophers' Magazine `Tim LeBon has… authored a text which should become a staple on the philosophical counsellor's bookshelf…. Wise Therapy is a concise, well-written book…. His ability to relate philosophical concepts to counselling concerns is admirable and attests to the skill and knowledge he possesses as a working counsellor. But, by far the most important part of Tim LeBon's book to PC is the last chapter, "The Counsellor's Philosophical Toolbox"' - Craig Munns in The Examined Life ` Tim LeBon has done a good job of offering practical approaches to some of the most important and vexing issues that arise in counselling…. Tim LeBon's book contains helpful suggestions, practical information, and useful examples, and would make a good addition to the library of any counsellors willing to allow philosophy to turn mere client sessions into wise therapy' - Peter Raabe, Practical Philosophy Wise Therapy is an original and practical guide to how philosophy can benefit counselling and psychotherapy. Tim LeBon argues that therapy, informed by philosophy, can help clients make better decision and achieve emotional wisdom. He uses philosophical approaches to explore issues of right and wrong, the emotions and reasons, well-being and the meaning of life, and develops a 'counsellor's toolbox' of techniques that can help practitioners apply the wisdom of philosophy to good therapeutic practice. For counsellors who may find philosophical approaches to therapy useful, this work addresses key philosophical topics - the emotions, free will, the meaning of life and ethics. It is jargon-free where possible and assumes no previous philosophical training. From The Independent, 16th November 2004 Plato is my agony aunt It was the end of a love affair that broke her heart. Could the wisdom of the great philosophers show her how to be happy again? Claire Smith tries a novel form of therapy "The unexamined life is not worth living," Socrates said. Nor is the life you're left with after your boyfriend has left you for another woman - at least, that's how it felt in October last year when mine broke rank and went off with an art student from Cleveland, Ohio. We were over there for the opening of his new art exhibition. He'd flown over four days before me and had met her at a party. Supposedly, they "connected". The five months that followed were a roller-coaster of confusion, vitriol and despair. I knew there'd been problems in our relationship. We saw the world very differently; he delighted in the charm of the ordinary, I wanted maximum divinity. He walked; I galloped. He drank tea; I loathed the stuff. But, along the banks of the Thames, we'd made a promise to always stick together. Our love was something unique: "transcendental", I called it. And besides, we recycled. Surely a commitment to save the world would save our relationship? Alas, no. So there I was, a woman scorned. Hell truly hath no greater fury. And what made it worse was that I still believed in our transcendental love. If I wanted to change the way I was feeling, I needed to alter the way I was thinking. But how? A few bottles of wine and a sharp blow to the head might have done the trick. Fortunately, there's an older, more trusted way of turning your head on its head that counsellors are starting to use: philosophy. The idea of employing Plato as an agony aunt was begun in 1981 by the German philosopher Gerd Achenbach. Although philosophy spends a lot of its time asking real-life questions that affect real-life people - What is happiness? And is it always wrong to lie? - most of the debate goes on in ivory towers. What Achenbach and subsequent philosophers including Tim LeBon, the chairman of the UK's Society for Philosophy in Practice, wanted to do was "give practical application" to this gigantic library of great thoughts. So how does it work? Like most types of therapy, you sign up for a set of sessions. "Two would give you a new perspective on one issue; six would help you to make a major life-decision, like a career change; with 12 you can start to rethink your entire life philosophy," explains LeBon. Each session lasts 50 minutes and costs £50 - and, no, you don't have to have any previous knowledge of philosophy. "If you think of Friends, it would suit Ross and Chandler more than Joey," LeBon says. "It's for anyone who wants to make their emotions more intelligent. Or for those who have tried other kinds of therapy, and want something more cerebral." The first session begins with the patient venting off about whatever's troubling them. The rant over, the counsellor then picks out some key concepts that are crucial to the problem - in the case of heartbreak, it is love and happiness that come hurtling to the fore - and then gets the patient to define what they mean. So, what is love? What is happiness? To kick-start the patient's thinking, LeBon describes what a great philosopher had to say about it. In my case, he tells me what Plato wrote about love in his Symposium: that to stop man fighting the gods, Zeus decided to cut each human in two, so they would lose their strength. "This, then, is the source of our desire to love each other," Plato said. "Each of us is a 'matching half' of a human whole, because each was sliced like a flatfish, two out of one, and each of us is always seeking the half that matches him." This method of probing what we might think are "obvious" ideas, such as love and happiness, was devised by Socrates in the squares of Athens. "The only I thing I know is that I know nothing at all," he boasted. What Socrates showed was that although many of the thinkers of his time thought they knew what justice, happiness and goodness meant, their understanding was tied in to their personal agenda and world view, and, what's more, when pushed, their ideas often contradicted themselves. A bit like me on love. Whereas part of my understanding of love was something that gave life meaning, made it worth living and bound us together, I also believed that true love was "transcendental": that it was out of this world, and it didn't matter if the two people who loved each other couldn't get along in the day-to-day. Love was bigger than the mundane. But when it came to the next stage of the therapy, critical thinking - "to check out whether your assumptions stand up to examination" - I walked head first into a contradiction. If I think love's purpose is to make life worth living, but then say it's irrelevant to daily life, surely my two ideas of love are not compatible? As the cogs in my brain start to creak into motion, I feel myself taking a step back from my predicament: thinking about how I've been thinking. This idea I had of transcendental love might have started off as a romantic dream. But when the relationship stopped working, and I found myself feeling trapped and frustrated, I used it to justify the mechanics of a relationship that just didn't work in the daily grind. I used it to lie to myself. In the final stage, LeBon gets me to start thinking about how to go forward. "You can't change what has happened," he says. "You can't change that he's left you, or how you behaved in the relationship. So, as the Stoics did, let's work on controlling the controllables: the things that you can change." To work out what can be changed, he gets me to try out a thought experiment, a method often used in philosophy to imagine other worlds where people can have different codes of behaviour. Thought experiments shatter your preconceived ideas of how the world should be and let your imagination run wild to how the world could be. "I find Viktor Frankl very useful here, the Austrian psychiatrist and concentration-camp survivor who actually believed that everything in life happens for a purpose," LeBon says. "Suppose this break-up did happen for a reason that will work to your benefit," he suggests. "What might that be? The answer might be that you can now focus on something important that was denied in the relationship. Or - the Hollywood version - so you'll meet someone who is really right for you." Temporarily freed of any sense of responsibility for the relationship that was, and its sorry demise, the list came fast. I could now travel more; he didn't like me travelling on my own, but too often he didn't want to go anywhere, preferring to stay in his studio and make art. I'd love to meet someone with a similar sense of adventure to mine. For the first time in two years, I was being honest with myself about what I really wanted - listening to those voices that we all have inside our heads, and too often try to muzzle. So did philosophy save me? Well, I'm now dating a travel writer I have to run to keep up with. I still haven't got over the fact that my replacement came from Cleveland, Ohio. But I guess I never will. Tim LeBon can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] A FEW WORDS FROM THE WISE Compiled by Ed Caesar · "At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet" - Plato · "There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness" - Friedrich Nietzsche · "That man shall live as his own master and in happiness who can say each day 'I have lived'" - Horace · "The good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue... Moreover this activity must occupy a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make spring, nor does one fine day; and similarly one day or a brief period of happiness does not make a man supremely blessed and happy" - Aristotle · "There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than friendship" - Thomas Aquinas · "Whatever you do... love those who love you" - Voltaire · "Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination" - Immanuel Kant · "Happiness is a state of which you are unconscious. The moment you are aware that you are happy, you cease to be happy" - Jiddu Krishnamurti · "Love is an ideal thing. Marriage is a real thing" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe I shrink, therefore I am Therapy has many answers, but some questions require the help of a philosopher, says Clint Witchalls Sunday November 21, 2004 The Observer Danny had worked in the City of London for 10 years. As a research analyst, stockbroker and fund manager, he'd made a lot of valuable contacts, earnt a lot of cash, and learnt some important business skills. However, as he approached his mid-thirties, he no longer felt good about himself or what he did for a living, and he found his colleagues cold and unfriendly. A chronic illness made him realise his mortality, and he began to reassess his priorities. Danny had been struggling with his career conundrum for nearly five years when he met David Arnaud, a philosophical counsellor. After a few soul-searching sessions, Danny arrived at a decision. Today, he teaches economics to sixth-formers, and he loves it. 'It's a much better lifestyle,' he says. Many people are turning to philosophical counsellors to get answers to questions such as: 'How do I make sense of myself?' 'What is important to me?' 'Where am I going?' These are perhaps not the sort of questions that require psychiatric intervention, but Arnaud, who recently completed the first empirical study of philosophical counselling in the UK, has found that within just five sessions the majority of clients, with important decisions to make, tend to move from a state of concern and confusion to a resolution. Modern philosophical counselling can be traced back to 1981, when the philosopher Gerd Achenbach opened the first practice near Cologne. Achenbach referred to the new discipline as 'therapy for the sane.' Today, there are hundreds of philosophical counsellors around the world, with the movement particularly strong in the US, Britain and the Netherlands. 'The dilemmas people face aren't always primarily psychological,' says Alex Howard, a philosophical counsellor from Newcastle. 'If people face problems that are social or economic, it doesn't make sense to define their problems in purely psychological terms.' Tim LeBon, a founder member of the Society for Philosophy in Practice (SPP) and author of Wise Therapy, adds: 'We are faced with far more life choices than our grandparents, yet have far fewer resources to deal with them. Our grandparents may have gone to a priest or to other family members for advice; most people don't trust these solutions any more and so want to make their own well-informed, well thought-out choices. Philosophical counselling can help these people - people in mid-life crises who are wondering how to make the most of the rest of their life. People who want to take stock of their values.' Where stressed executives might once have been prescribed a course of tranquillisers or antidepressants, they can now get a dose of Bertrand Russell instead: 'Success is too dearly purchased if all the other ingredients have been sacrificed to obtain it.' While some philosophical counsellors do recommend books for their clients to read, most sessions are about helping the client identify faulty thoughts. For example, a briefing in Aristotelian logic might show a client why their beliefs are erroneous. The person might infer that they're a screw-up because they've screwed up. The counsellor could point out that they're making an error called 'fallacy of composition' - that is, what's true of the part isn't necessarily true of the whole. In philosophical counselling, problems aren't pathologised as they are by the psychiatric profession, and the dialogue between client and counsellor is more like a meeting of equals, compared to many therapies where the client is treated like a patient and seen as someone who is, in some way, inadequate. 'Anybody can benefit from philosophical counselling,' says Howard. 'But it does require someone who is willing to take stock.' Lou Marinoff, author of international bestseller Plato Not Prozac! has done much to promote philosophical counselling. 'Some people who have stabilised their neurochemistry and validated their emotions now wish to examine or re-examine the criteria of their beliefs, the principles of their conduct, or the meaning of their lives,' he says. 'With whom shall they do this? Psychologists and psychiatrists can shed light on such issues - as can rabbis, priests, imams and gurus. Philosophers are now rejoining the ranks of helpers.' LeBon believes certain therapies (such as cognitive behavioural therapy) don't go far enough in helping their clients. 'For instance, if you are anxious about your relationship, a cognitive therapist would try to dispute your catastrophising and jump to conclusions to make you feel less anxious,' says LeBon. 'A philosophical counsellor would do this, but would also look for existential meaning in your anxiety - perhaps you really don't want to be in the relationship and that is what your anxiety is telling you.' LeBon also gives short shrift to psychoanalysts. 'There's very little evidence for the Freudian unconscious, and it's time to move on to more intellectually satisfying and helpful therapies,' he says. However, Alain de Botton, the man who popularised philosophy as self-help, isn't ready to bury psychologists and their ilk just yet. 'The truth is that psychoanalysis grew out of philosophy - it's not some completely new idea, and in fact, done properly, psychoanalysis is philosophical anyway. It may even be dangerous to the mental health of some people to suggest a philosopher rather than a properly trained analyst. The knowledge of analysts when it comes to many emotional problems is now much greater than that of most philosophers.' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004. (shrink)

In this article, I suggest that combining resources from philosophy and psychology can yield useful tools for philosophical counselling. More specifically, I argue for three theses: a) Iris Murdoch’s notion of just attention and Marshall Rosenberg’s method of non-violent communication are interestingly compatible; b) engaging in non-violent communication serves to support one’s endeavors to acquire the kind of clear vision Murdoch thinks doing well by others requires; and c) non-violent just communication would be beneficial to both counsellors and counselees (...) and thus a useful resource for philosophical counsellors. (shrink)

Philosophical counseling is an educational activity in which philosophers engage in dialogue with clients who wish to address questions or manage problems that arise during the course of everyday life. This chapter offers three contrasting perspectives on the question of what philosophical counselors do: first, an institutional scope of practice for philosophical counseling; second, an anecdotal list of common issues for which clients seek philosophical counseling; and third, a heterogeneous set of views by (...) several pioneers of philosophical counseling. From what we have seen thus far, it may already be clear that there exist both parallels and anti‐parallels between philosophical counseling and psychotherapy. First and foremost, anyone who wants to become a philosophical counselor should earn an accredited graduate degree in philosophy in whichever area of specialization captures their interest. (shrink)

Levinas is a thinker for the future, concerned with the future. He inverts the priority of the declaration of the French Revolution "Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood", by designating "brotherhood" first among modern European society's most cherished values. Levinas sees brotherhood as the fundamental condition of our shared humanity and as the foundation of freedom and equality. Thus, he presents himself as a Western thinker who sets modern thought on its head and at the same time enriches it. His radical view of (...) the other, responsibility, subjectivity and the Infinite remains a challenge, today more than ever. Calling out to both religious and secular seekers alike, Levinas asks for an alert and critical dialogue of the ethical and metaphysical meaning of our inter-human and social relationships. In this work, a new generation of philosophers, ethicists and theologians embark on a conversation with Levians, with due appreciation for his genius and uninhibitedness in their questioning. The intermediaries in this provocative dialogue are: Hannah Arendt, Henri Bergson, Anders Nygren, Paul Ricoeur and Hans Urs von Balthasar. The following themes are thus treated: - ethics as liberation and redemption beyond the self - time, duration and alterity - freedom, society and politics - desire between eros and agape - 'good enough' parenting and family ethics - conversational processes and pastoral counselling - asymmetry and reciprocity between the self and the other - modern humanism vs. post-modern anti-humanism as an inspiration for a renewed secular humanism - suffering, death and euthanasia - perspectives and boundaries of interreligious dialogue - the (im)possibility of a Christian interpretation of Levinas' Jewish-inspired thought - a new Christian theology of Trinitarian praxis. This volume likewise includes contributions by: Roger Burggraeve, W. Wolf Diedrich, Annemie Dillen, Thomas Folens, Glen Morrison, Marianne Moyaert, Marina Riemslagh, Anya Topolski, Emilie Van Daele, Jean Vanheessen, Sophie Veulemans and Torben Wolfs. In this book Levinas is presented as an 'extra-ordinary' other who awakes into vigilance the conscience of not only the contributors, but the readers as well: one speaks and the other responds differently. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism (禅道の千路) by Bret W. Davis (review)Steve G. LoftsBret W. Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism (禅道の千路)There is no shortage of books on Zen from almost every imaginable angle. And so, what makes Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism (禅道の千路) by Bret W. Davis unique (...) enough to take up and read, and even re-read? And who should read it? The answers to these questions depend on who you are and what you are looking for. If you are simply curious about what Zen philosophy and practice is or is not, a student, a professor looking for a textbook on Zen Buddhism for your course, or a practitioner seeking to deepen your understanding of what it is that you are practicing, then you will almost certainly enjoy and profit greatly from this book. Davis brings to the page over thirty years of active engagement with Zen Buddhism as a practitioner, teacher of philosophy and Zen Buddhism, and scholar. Davis provides his reader with an accessible, comprehensive, and well-documented introduction to the teachings and practices of Zen Buddhism. What makes this introduction stand out and be particularly effective is that Davis provides us with a scholarly and philosophical account of Zen Buddhism that is animated by his personal experience as a long-term practitioner in Japan at the Rinzai Zen monastery of Shōkokuji and as a teacher and director of the Heart of Zen Meditation Group at Loyola University Maryland. However, as the Japanese subtitle of this work, 禅道の千路, makes clear, there are “a thousand paths of the way of Zen,” and Davis is careful to show us the paths he has traveled while leaving it to the reader to find their own paths along the way.In the course of the book’s twenty-four chapters, Davis provides his reader with a clear account and philosophical interpretation of [End Page 159] the core teachings of Buddhism (the four noble truths, impermanence, the no-self doctrine, co-origination and interconnection of the one and the many, nirvana and samsara, the great death, and so on), always relating his theoretical explanations to the concrete perspective of the practice of Zen Buddhism. His account of Zen Buddhism situates it in the historical tradition of Buddhism as it was transplanted from India to China, from China to Japan, and today from Japan to other places in the world. Davis connects these teachings to the practice of Zen, providing readers with a concrete and firsthand introduction to such Zen practices as zazen (seated meditation), kinhin (walking meditation), sanzen (interviews with a teacher), koān work, and samu (meditative work), and to the Zen practice of cultivating naturalness (jinen) in and through such art forms as karate and flower arrangement (ikebana), the Japanese aesthetics of “cut-continuance” and wabi-sabi, as well as Zen-inspired gardens, painting, and music. The book also explores a number of classical and contemporary philosophical issues from the standpoint of Zen Buddhism: the problem of the one and the many, the ethical relation to the other, the problem of evil, the nature of love, freedom and determinacy, what is God, our relation to nature, and so on. Finally, the presentation of the core teachings of Zen Buddhism and the discussion of philosophical issues is undertaken in and through an intercultural and interreligious dialogue in which the similarities and dissimilarities between different cultural and faith traditions are explored and used to help illustrate the unique standpoint of Zen Buddhism. One can mention here Chapter 12 titled “Dying to Live: Zen, Pure Land Buddhism, and Christianity.” This synoptic view of Zen Buddhism is presented in an elegant, personal style that is clear, concise, and expresses a genuine passion and spirit of openness. In copious endnotes, Davis has also provided the reader with a wealth of material for further study that has been judiciously selected from good English translations of readings in the classical works as well as contemporary scholarship. Finally, with an eye to the use of this text in a classroom or in study groups, Davis has... (shrink)

The practice of ‘Philosophical Counselling’ (henceforth ‘PC’) is growing. But what exactly is PC? The variety of attempts to define PC can be summarised in terms of three overlapping sets of opposites: practical versus theoretical definitions; monistic versus pluralistic definitions; and substantive versus antinomous definitions. ‘Practical’ definitions of PC include descriptive accounts of its actual practice. ‘Theoretical’ definitions exclude such accounts. ‘Monistic definitions’ refers to definitions of PC that define it in terms of the work of one specific philosopher (...) or approach in philosophy. ‘Pluralistic’ definitions draw on the work of a variety of philosophers or approaches. ‘Substantive’ definitions are definitions that purport to say what PC is, while ‘antinomous’ definitions of PC say what it is not . My aim is not to define PC definitively. The aim of this article is rather to: (i) provide an overview of the wide variety of efforts to define PC; and, (ii) briefly suggest a preliminary understanding of PC that seems to cover most of the other definitions thereof. For David Fourie (1946-2013). (shrink)

A particular notion of reason has pervaded studies of practical action throughout the whole tradition of western philosophy up to Wittgenstein and Heidegger. This notion has been centrally located in contexts other than the specific study of practical action itself.This essay examines the relation of reason and practical action by reviewing Habermas' and Husserl's theories of the relation between discourse and action (I), and then proposing Garfinkel's ethnomethodological studies of practical action as an alternative to Husserl's and Habermas' preoccupation (...) with the primacy of theoretical discourse (II). In a final section I shall interpret Garfinkel's studies, following his own suggestions as studies in practical ethics, and make reference to similar themes in philosophical ethics (Ill). (shrink)

In chapter 14 of Zahavi’s recent book, Self and Other, the notion of shame is discussed. In feeling shame one experiences oneself as experienced by others. For Sartre, that experience in itself is sufficient for shame, as one experiences oneself as determined in the experience of others and hence as shamefully not self-determining. But Zahavi introduces an extra condition for shame, which is a ‘global decrease in self-esteem’. This paper questions the need for this condition and (...) argues that seeing oneself as shameful in the eyes of others needs to be spelt out in a pragmatist way in terms of certain shame-involving practices rather than in a purely phenomenological way. (shrink)

In this book Sergey Horujy undertakes a novel comparative analysis of Foucault s theory of practices of the self and the Eastern Orthodox ascetical tradition of Hesychasm, revealing great affinity between these two radical subject-less approaches to anthropology. As he facilitates the dialogue between the two, he offers both an original treatment of ascetical and mystical practices and an up-to-date interpretation of Foucault that goes against the grain of mainstream scholarship. In the second half of the book Horujy transitions (...) from the dialogue with Foucault to his own work of Christian philosophy, rooted in -- but not limited to -- the Eastern Christian philosophical and theological tradition. Horujy s thinking exemplifies the postsecular nature of our contemporary period and serves as a powerful invitation to think beyond religious-secular divides in philosophy and Eastern-Western divides in intellectual history. (shrink)

Self-understanding is to a great extent defined by narrative: who we are as human beings is determined by the stories we, and others, tell about ourselves. Yet many are unable to compose coherent personal narratives, as their experiences do not fall within the scope of an accepted conceptual framework. Survivors of trauma are particularly apt to fall into this “narrative rift,” where there can be no words to describe, and hence can be no assimilation of, their experiences. Using the (...) example of child sexual abuse, and drawing on the work of Bass, Spence, Schafer, and Guignon, I propose an examination of the nature of narrative fragmentation itself. Philosophical counselling may succeed where psychoanalysis might not: for where the latter has theoretical commitments to specific narratives, the former, through its reluctance to force epistemological or metaphysical assumptions on the narrator, may well facilitate a more comprehensive self-understanding. (shrink)

The last two and a half decades has seen the emergence of philosophical counseling. While it is practiced in many countries comparatively little has been said on its general character. In this paper I will seek to understand philosophical counseling by exploring its points of convergence to and deviation from its complimentary parts – philosophy and counseling. The practical and applied orientation of philosophical counseling seems worlds apart from what many consider to exemplify (...) philosophy – theoretical, intellectual and abstract concern with foundational questions. Given this it is worth exploring how philosophical counseling coincides with what is understood in academic circles as philosophy. On the other hand, the field of counseling has largely been the domain of psychology. Given the influence and orientation of the practice it would seem likely that philosophical counseling would be significantly different from the common conception of psychological counseling, but in what ways? Understanding how the practice lies in relation to the discipline of philosophy and psychological counseling will go some way to grasping its nature. (shrink)