Practicing Philosophy 144388104X, 9781443881043

Table of contents :
Table of Contents......Page 5
Introduction......Page 9
I......Page 11
II......Page 30
III......Page 50
IV......Page 65
V......Page 73
VI......Page 89
VIII......Page 135
IX......Page 155
X......Page 171
XI......Page 190
XII......Page 211
XIII......Page 228
XIV......Page 241
XV......Page 262
XVI......Page 277
XVII......Page 288
XVIII......Page 311
Contributors......Page 323

Citation preview

Practicing Philosophy

Practicing Philosophy Edited by

Aleksandar Fatić and Lydia Amir

Practicing Philosophy Edited by Aleksandar Fatić and Lydia Amir This book first published 2015 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2015 by Aleksandar Fatić, Lydia Amir and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-8104-X ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-8104-3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 I.................................................................................................................... 3 Ancient Philosophical Reflections on Two Conceptions of Happiness Dimitrios Dentsoras II ................................................................................................................ 22 The Philosophical Practitioner as a Co-Researcher Finn Thorbjøn Hansen III ............................................................................................................... 42 The Meaningfulness of and Satisfaction from Dialogues in Philosophical Practice: Considerations of Content and Methodology Anders Lindseth IV ............................................................................................................... 57 A Practical Philosophy of Vulnerability, Fallibility, and Finitude Lydia Amir V ................................................................................................................ 65 Philosophy Revalued in Mental Healthcare Peter B. Raabe VI ............................................................................................................... 81 Philosophical Practice from Feminist Perspectives Vaughana Feary VII ........................................................................................................... 102 Philosophical and Cultural Pluralism Ora Gruengard VIII .......................................................................................................... 127 Philosophical Counseling and Contradictions Esther Ramharter and Donata Romizi

vi

Table of Contents

IX ............................................................................................................. 147 Philosophical Practice through the Lens of Post-Metaphysical Thought Marjan Ivkoviü X .............................................................................................................. 163 But Is It Philosophy? Critical Reflections on Social Reasoning and Café Philosophy Michael Picard XI ............................................................................................................. 182 Philosophical Practice in Japan Tetsuya Kono XII ........................................................................................................... 203 Intention, Narrative, and Philosophical Practice Young E. Rhee XIII .......................................................................................................... 220 Women: As Victims, As Healers Dena Hurst XIV .......................................................................................................... 233 A Woman’s Life and Loves: Archetypal Psychology, the Myth of Eros and Psyche and the Seven Goddesses of Greek Mythology—A Tale for Our Time Martha C. Beck XV ........................................................................................................... 254 What Does the ‘Sublation’ of Moral Consciousness Mean for Philosophical Practice? On the Institutional Dimension of Therapy in Hegel’s Philosophy Rastko Jovanov XVI .......................................................................................................... 269 Should Philosophical Practice Concern Itself with Genocide? The Institution of Group(s) and Genocidal Acts Petar Bojaniü XVII ........................................................................................................ 280 Experiential Philosophical Practice Jose Barrientos-Rastrojo

Practicing Philosophy

vii

XVIII ....................................................................................................... 303 The Transactional Aspect of Philosophical Counseling Aleksandar Fatiü Contributors ............................................................................................. 315

INTRODUCTION

The idea for this book arose from a conversation with Sam Baker, Cambridge Scholars Publishing editor, in the offing of the 13th International Conference on Philosophical Practice, which was held in August 2014, in Belgrade. Indicatively, the title for the conference was ‘Philosophical Practice as a New Paradigm in Philosophy’. Indeed, as soon as the idea for the book was broached, it became clear that the contributions would present the breath of philosophical practice so as to illustrate the limits of the new paradigm, rather than focusing on a single stream of philosophical practice. Thus the present book brings together contributions dealing with a wide array of fields of philosophical practice, ranging from philosophical counseling to philosophical cafés to teaching to corporate and even judicial consultancy. The obvious advantage of such an approach is that it stimulates thought on the many fields in which philosophical practice holds promise; the obvious disadvantage is twofold: first, the present collection cannot delve into any of the specific fields of philosophical practice in-depth, and second, it inevitably brings views which, while relevant to philosophical practice, are not necessarily shared by the editors. With both advantages and disadvantages in mind, the reader can hopefully appreciate the potential of practicing philosophy professionally outside academia for an array of practical fields of human life and professional work. The editors have worked on this book through some trying times in their personal lives, as well as in the development of the philosophical practice movement. The latter has faced directional challenges, which is part of the evolution of most fields, and an expansion in the sense that parts of the academia, especially in Great Britain, have started to focus on philosophical practice independently of the philosophical practice movement itself. Both latter developments are welcome: they hold promise for the development of the field which will both test and improve its current quality and engage a broader array of professional philosophers in it. The preparation of this book was conducted in Serbia and in Israel, for the most part. The Editors are grateful to all the colleagues who have contributed their authoritative views on their fields. Special gratitude is

2

Introduction

due to Ms. Bojana Simeunoviü, a young philosopher, who has contributed to the preparation of this volume in both substantive and technical respects more than can be acknowledged in an introduction to a volume. Belgrade and Tel Aviv, 13 June 2015.

I ANCIENT PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS ON TWO CONCEPTIONS OF HAPPINESS DIMITRIOS DENTSORAS

Ancient eudaimonism In a moment of dramatic honesty during his Apology, Socrates turns to his judges and offers a description of his divine calling, which brought him infamy and, eventually, a death sentence (Apology 29d). Two activities are mentioned. The first is doing philosophy, which Socrates vows never to stop, even under penalty of death. The second is imploring Athenians to abandon their pursuit of wealth and reputation, and to devote themselves to the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, instead. For Socrates, the two activities are faces of the same coin. Philosophy’s goal is not merely to discover truth. It is also, and perhaps primarily, to guide people through life, help them set their priorities right, and train them to be successful in attaining what is most valuable. With respect to one’s priorities, Socrates is adamant. What really matters, and what one should pursue primarily, if not exclusively, is not money or fame, which most Athenians seem to be after, but knowledge and virtue. This is a radical position that clearly did not get Socrates, Athens’ ‘gadfly,’ many friends, as his predicament shows. But, more inflammatory than the claim that Athenians have all their priorities mixed up is Socrates’ reason for constantly hammering his moralism on Athenians’ heads. Socrates does not merely challenge his fellow citizens’ right to seek what they feel will make their own lives happy, the kind of liberty that modern liberal societies take for granted. Neither does Socrates present the imperative to seek virtue as a God-given commandment, demonstrating the kind of divinely inspired self-righteousness that sealed the fate of countless prophets. Rather, Socrates seems to insult the Athenians’ ability to reason, by making the claim that seeking money and honor is the wrong way for becoming happy, and by implying that Athenians are stupid for

4

I

adopting goals that are detrimental, rather than beneficial, to their own happiness. With his mix of argument and irony, Socrates tries to convince Athenians that virtue is necessary for enjoying any benefit from possessions, while money and fame by themselves are useless without wisdom and virtue. A characteristic example of how Plato’s Socrates understood philosophy’s role in guiding people towards things that are truly beneficial and contributing to happiness appears in Euthydemus, where Socrates tries to convince young Clinias to devote himself to the pursuit of philosophy and virtue. Socrates begins his exhortation in Euthydemus by making the apparently self-evident claim that all men wish to do well (Euthydemus 278e). Moreover, Socrates notes, every person seems to have an idea of what doing well, or being happy, requires. As Clinias admits, most people think of being happy as a state of possessing many things that are good, such as health, bodily strength and beauty, power, honor, and money. To this, they may add intellectual ability (perfected by wisdom), and even some moral and social excellences, and the benefits that accompany them (friends, social esteem, etc.). Not surprisingly, this is, more or less, the kind of list that the average person would compose today, if asked about what good things would make them happy. Up to this point, philosophy seems to have little to offer to the pursuit of happiness, except instrumentally by finding ways to best achieve the goals that one sets. But Socrates has something completely different in mind. So, he goes on to show to Clinias that the centrality of happiness in our daily endeavors, choices, and pursuits contrasts with the lack of reflection that we often demonstrate in deciding what is valuable and can truly contribute to our happiness. 1 This is a malady, Socrates thinks, which only philosophical thinking and devotion to wisdom and virtue can amend. 2 Clinias’ list of good things mentioned above appears common-sense, but also demonstrates an evident looseness. Some of the goods included in the list, such as money and good fortune, are clearly instrumental. Others, such as good reputation and professional success, seem to be desirable 1

Happiness is, obviously, not the only thing that plays into our decision-making process and our subsequent actions. Moral and social commitments, settled practices, peer pressure, and many other factors influence what we do and how we do it. Nevertheless, our happiness seems to be an important, if not the most important factor, at least for most of us. 2 Cf. Socrates’ reaction to Callicles’ view that happiness comes with being able to satisfy whatever one may desire, in Gorgias 491e, discussed by White 2006: 7.

Ancient Philosophical Reflections on Two Conceptions of Happiness

5

more for their causes (achieving something great, or being good at one’s job), rather than for themselves, even if one would prefer that great deeds and professional achievement be recognized. Is there any way to place all these seemingly disparate pursuits in a neat hierarchy, with all intermediate goals being means to a further end, or at least components of a single goal? Socrates in the Euthydemus seems to think so, taking his model from goal-directed crafts, such as generalship or medicine. For Socrates, the end-goal of all action is happiness, just as the end-goal of generalship is victory and of medicine health. All intermediate pursuits are valuable only if they contribute to this end-goal. Otherwise, they are indifferent, or even harmful, as one can see in cases of people who use their wealth for harmful pleasures or their power to oppress others.3 If one is to achieve happiness, one has to re-evaluate all pursuits and goals in line with a hierarchy of goods that places happiness at the top.4 And this can only be achieved by adopting a philosophical attitude similar to the one Socrates exercised his whole life. The thought that all of human action can and should be broken down to a series of means towards the single overarching goal of happiness is the basis for ancient eudaimonism. According to the theory’s most recognized proponent, Aristotle, the purpose of philosophical ethics (the science of human conduct) is to provide the right description of our ultimate end, i.e. happiness, as well as a blueprint of how happiness can be attained.5 The driving thought in Aristotle’s eudaimonism is that well-being (Greek eudaimonia) is a value term denoting an intrinsically good quality, which characterises the course of one’s life, and does not occur merely in isolated instances. For Aristotle, whether one is happy or not is something that can be objectively assessed by an outside observer, according to a set of moreor-less fixed criteria, the same way that someone’s health can be objectively ascertained. And, just as in the case of health, the assessment of happiness requires an expert (the virtuous person, exemplified by the philosopher), who knows what criteria should be used.

3

For a similar point, see also Meno 88c. Aristotle makes such a point in Eudemian Ethics1214b6, discussed by White, 2006: 12. 5 See Nicomachean Ethics (1094a23), where Aristotle outlines the importance of the science that can provide us with the knowledge of the good. 4

6

I

Modern accounts of happiness The Aristotelian conception of happiness as a state that characterises one’s life and is achieved when certain (objectively determined) conditions are met appears in the majority of philosophical approaches to happiness, up to the modern period. However, beginning with Hobbes’ famous rejection of the Aristotelian highest good ('the felicity of this life consists not in the repose of a mind satisfied') and his claim that happiness is nothing other than 'a continual progress of the desire from one object to another, the attaining of the former being still but the way to the latter', philosophers have been moving towards description of happiness as the satisfaction of one’s desires.6 These desires, of course, are subjectively determined and may vary from person to person. Moreover, their satisfaction is not some stable and lengthy state, but may vary in intensity and duration. Bentham’s utilitarian theory clearly expresses the modern conception of happiness and the way this conception is related to moral philosophy. According to Bentham’s Greatest Happiness Principle, an action is morally right or wrong 'according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question'.7 While Bentham proposes a scientific method of measuring the different aspects of happiness (its intensity, duration, purity, etc.), the core of his notion of happiness is a subjective positive feeling of satisfaction, invariably referred to as utility or pleasure. Mill’s version of utilitarianism seeks to introduce differences in the quality of pleasure that take us back to the ancient, 'objective' notion of happiness (most strikingly, if somewhat crudely, through Mill’s image of a dissatisfied Socrates next to a satisfied pig).8 However the main thought remains that what can make someone happy differs from person to person, according to their varying preferences, goals and aspirations, social and personal attachments, etc. Contemporary accounts of happiness, for the most part, tend to describe it rather loosely as a positive psychological state that may be caused by a range of things, from reflecting on one’s life achievements, to reacting to personal circumstances, to doing nothing at all and simply letting the

6

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Ch. XI. On this development, see Kraut (1979). For a description of the contrast between the Aristotelian naturalistic understanding of happiness and the modern focus on feeling happy, see also Belliotti (2004: 41). 7 Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation I.II. 8 John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism II.

Ancient Philosophical Reflections on Two Conceptions of Happiness

7

brain’s chemical predispositions manifest themselves.9 According to this conception of happiness, being happy is primarily the same as feeling happy, and, as in the case of most feelings, there can only be a loose description that partially portrays the subjective character of the experience. Such an understanding of happiness as a positive feeling reflects common usage. When my wife walks in the room saying ‘I am so happy!’ I take her to mean that she is feeling happy. If her face were to be drooping when she utters the words, I would take her to be ironic, not to mean that she is really happy even though she does not feel happy. Given its popular use, it is no surprise that the conception of happiness as a positive psychological state is adopted by contemporary psychologists and numerous self-help professionals, who provide advice on how people can become happier. What people want is to feel happy, or, more often, to stop feeling unhappy. This is what their counselors also aim at through a variety of techniques that aim at changing people’s perceptions of their circumstances and life quality (through positive psychology, for example), at encouraging choices that are more likely to bring about happy feelings (stressing less about work, spending more time with friends and family, etc.), or at influencing the brain’s chemical balance directly, through the use of drugs. On the other hand, alternative accounts of happiness as an objectively assessed state that includes more than a subjective feeling, or an evaluation of one’s successes and failures, are adopted by most major religions, based on dogmatic principles that give a definitive description of happiness (usually some otherworldly state), and of the ways happiness is best attained (usually by following certain rules and rites).10 Where do philosophers fall in this division? Although philosophers acknowledge the existence of the two different conceptions of happiness, they often do not insist on any one of them being proper and correct.11 In fact, much of contemporary philosophy tends to say less about happiness and how it can be attained than one would have expected, given the 9

There are many different terms used for this positive quality, with definitions of these terms often varying. The most common term among psychologists is ‘subjective well-being’. The term is supposed to capture not only positive feelings of pleasure, but also evaluations of how well one’s life is going, from their subjective point of view. 10 For such a view, see Lewis (1972), especially the essays ‘We Have No “Right to Happiness”’ and ‘Answers to Questions on Christianity’. 11 For a clear account of this division, see Dan Heybron’s entry on happiness in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/happiness/#ClaOurInq), also in Heybron (2013).

8

I

centrality of happiness in everyday life. Unlike philosophical moral theories, which retain their vigor, and often their absolutism, there are relatively few philosophical descriptions of the good life, and even fewer attempts by philosophers to offer practical advice towards it, as Socrates and his successors did in antiquity. The reasons for such an attitude are, to a great extent, the same reasons that have led to the abandonment of ancient eudaimonism by modern philosophy. Aristotle’s account of happiness, as well as those of Plato, the Stoics, and most other ancient philosophical schools, are based on natural philosophy, theories of human nature, and metaphysical assumptions about the world and the divine. These theories have been long abandoned, of course, taking with them the accounts of happiness that depended on them. The most important among them is the abandonment of the teleological account of the world and human life. While human beings undoubtedly have a whole number of dispositions and natural endowments, such as the desire for food and shelter, the enjoyment of sex, and the need for care, there seems to be no goal (single or otherwise) that our nature directs us towards, just as there is no goal that the universe is trying to fulfill. Unlike philosophical ethics, which can be developed even without a definitive theory of (human) nature, as Kant has shown, normative theories of happiness of the kind that ancient philosophers developed are tied to a theory of human nature and a notion of human fulfilment. But there seems to be no such theory, leaving us with a multiplicity of values and goals that each one can pick as representing what happiness is all about. A further reason for the abandonment of ancient theories of happiness has to do with the rise of political liberalism in modern Europe and North America. Plato’s ideal republic, and to some extent Aristotle’s best regime, are based on the thought that citizens are by-and-large unable to set the proper goals for their own lives, and need to be told what they should pursue, by a wise and benevolent ruling class. Epicureanism and Stoicism adopt a more liberal political scheme, where no single authority establishes every citizen’s occupation and life-goals. But they also offer a patronizing scheme where only a privileged class of sages is able to determine its proper life-goals, while most people are not able to determine what is best for them, and should be prevented from pursuing the (mistaken) goals they may happen to adopt. In contrast to the ancient Greeks, the modern liberal state, as envisioned by the American Founding Fathers and their Enlightenment predecessors, is based on people’s right to pursue happiness as they conceive it, in

Ancient Philosophical Reflections on Two Conceptions of Happiness

9

whichever way they find appropriate, as long as they do not impede the same pursuit by others. A part of the right to pursue happiness is the right to choose what will make one happy. Happiness cannot be attained only by reading books and looking at art; one can also be happy by taking a walk, watching football with friends, or going to the mall. Any attempt to impose a conception of happiness by rulers, religious leaders or philosophers, violates people’s right to liberty, and could lead to alienation, by trying to make people act in ways that conflict with their innermost desires.

Ancient happiness revived While ancient eudaimonism is still considered, by and large, as outdated as the theories of human nature that went with it, some aspects of ancient moral theory have enjoyed a comeback in the past decades, as what has come to be called ‘virtue ethics’.12 While much of virtue ethics stems from dissatisfaction with modern deontological and consequentialist theories, a number of virtue theorists rightly point it out that the moral theories of Aristotle, Plato, the Stoics, and Epicurus, contain insights into the nature of human action and value of morality that are as useful today as they were then.13 Some contemporary philosophers have even presented ancient philosophical theories of happiness as paradigms that could help modern people overcome some of their most persistent problems and achieve a more fulfilling and happy life.14 Any attempt to revive ancient theories of happiness, and to make practical recommendations based on them, is bound to face two serious challenges. The first is that of divorcing the ancient accounts of happiness from the natural and metaphysical theories that gave rise to them, which are rightly 12

Although virtue plays a significant role in the moral theories of many modern philosophers, such as Hume and Kant, there had seemed to be little interest in reviving ancient eudaimonism, until the appearance of Anscombe (1958). In the following decades, virtue ethics has enjoyed a significant growth, and is now considered a third major normative ethics theory, next to deontological/Kantian ethics and consequentialist/utilitarian theory. 13 There is a long list of scholars who make a strong case for the value of ancient philosophy in answering contemporary moral philosophical questions. Among the most influential, see Hurka (2001), Hursthouse (1999), MacIntyre (1985). 14 See, for example, Becker (1998). For attempts by psychologists to apply ancient eudaimonism in a contemporary practical context, especially within the framework of positive psychology, see Cohen (2003), Robertson (2010).

10

I

rejected by modern science and philosophy. The second difficulty arises when we compare the ancient philosophical descriptions of happiness with the contemporary popular understanding of the concept. Aristotelian eudaimonia, Stoic apatheia, or Epicurean ataraxia, might fit the formal requirements of happiness set by philosophical reasoning, but they seem very distant from how the vast majority of people view happiness today. Socrates, the Stoics, and Epicurus may have had little regard for common opinions on happiness. After all, part of their philosophical agenda was their attempt to drastically revise public perceptions of happiness, as Socrates’ attitude in the Apology amply shows. But why would anyone today bother with such accounts of happiness, which try to satisfy some formalistic philosophical and logical conditions, rather than really expressing what people think being happy is all about? The remainder of this paper attempts to provide an answer to this question. Starting with the observation that popular conceptions of happiness have not changed much since Socrates’ time, I show that the ancient philosophical conceptions of happiness address many common intuitions and try to combine them in a logically consistent manner. The main point of contention is the attempt by ancient philosophers to combine the two conceptions of happiness (i) as a value term denoting an objectively and intrinsically valuable quality and (ii) as a positive subjective feeling. Ancient philosophers try to combine the two conceptions in intentional terms, through a single unitary account of happiness. Happiness is what all our actions ultimately aim at. Such an ultimate goal must contain not only some subjective feelings and preferences, but a set of views about the world and what is valuable in it. Certain kinds of feelings, such as pleasure, might be part of this general goal. However, even pleasure is dependent on our judgments regarding what is valuable. I discuss this theory and raise some objections from the contemporary point of view. These objections are directed against both the ancient formulations of the ultimate end, as well as the very claim that there is such a thing as happiness. I conclude with some suggestions about how to make use of the ancient conceptions of happiness that, on the one hand, take into account the brain’s complicated decision-making mechanism, and, on the other, pay respect to the quest for a unitary account of happiness.

Happiness as the ultimate goal of action Everyday life has changed dramatically since Socrates walked the streets of Athens. Yet, for all the technological, intellectual, and moral

Ancient Philosophical Reflections on Two Conceptions of Happiness

11

developments of the past millennia, it seems that little has changed when it comes to the question of what we all really want, what is worth striving for, and what gives meaning and purpose to our lives. Very much like the ancient Athenians, people today think that happiness is what we all want. Moreover, the popular conception of happiness seems to have remained, more or less, the same throughout the centuries: it consists today, as it did earlier, in the possession of good things such as good health, financial security, a family, a circle of friends, public recognition, and participation in a flourishing, well-functioning and just community. The common conceptions of happiness and the intuitions accompanying them provide a starting point for philosophical reflection in Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic philosophers.15 And while ancient philosophers do not treat these intuitions as self-evident, or even necessarily correct, they are willing to build their own accounts of happiness based on them, rejecting the intuitions that are logically contradictory along the way. The distinction between two kinds of happiness, subjective and objective, is one of the common intuitions that invited the ancients’ philosophical reflection. The ancient philosophical vocabulary does not include a term for what we would call lifesatisfaction, or even the concept that ‘happiness’ expresses in its common usage as a subjective pleasant feeling. Rather, the ancients seem to have understood the subjective conception of happiness under the general concept of pleasure (hêdonê). Part of the broader concept of pleasure are the pleasant feelings that arise from the satisfaction of physical desires, such as eating and sex, entertainment, and pastimes. But there is also an intellectual kind of pleasure that accompanies significant accomplishments, life milestones, or even the reminiscing of memorable experiences.16 Such a pleasure is a rather steady and continuous state that accompanies the truly happy and blessed life — the kind of life we should all aspire to. Without a doubt, such pleasure is something desirable. But it does not quite amount to true happiness as the contemporaries of Plato and 15

On common conceptions being the starting point for philosophical reflection in Epicurus and Stoicism, see Diogenes Laertius (10.33), Epictetus, Discourses, 1.22. Cf. Aristotle’s treatment of eudoxa, commonly held views on a variety of topics that invite philosophical reflection and, often, amendments of rejection. 16 Even the Epicureans, who believed that all pleasure and pain (ultimately) originate from the body, accept pleasures of the mind that stem from recollecting past pleasures or looking forward to future ones. In fact, they thought that the ability to properly direct one’s thought and maximize the pleasures of the mind was the best way to become happy. On this, see Cicero, De finibus 1.55௅57.

12

I

Aristotle understood it under the concept of eudaimonia. There are a number of reasons for this. One has to do with the fact that eudaimonia was conceived by the ancients as a quality that characterised the whole of one’s life, or at least a big part of it, contrary to the feeling of pleasure that might accompany single events. The popular story of Solon, who refuses to proclaim King Croesus the happiest man alive until he has seen Croesus’ end, expresses such an attitude.17 Furthermore, the religious undertone of the term eudaimonia itself (literally meaning having or being accompanied by a good guardian spirit (daimon)) points at an external, objective evaluator — and providential provider — of happiness.18 Being happy for the ancients was being blessed by the gods, and such divine good grace was not merely bestowed upon those who experienced a subjective and temporary feeling of elation or satisfaction. Such religious connotations are by-and-large missing from contemporary understandings of happiness. The central intuition remains the same, namely that happiness may include a subjective positive feeling, even do so as a necessary condition, but extends well beyond it, in order to include the possession of goods that are objectively valuable. Robert Nozick (1974: 42-45) attempted to capture this intuition through the Experience Machine thought experiment. According to Nozick, most people would refuse to enter an experience machine that simulates a world where all our desires are satisfied, and where we live in perpetual bliss. Nozick’s reason for this view is that we do not merely want to believe (falsely, in the case of the experience machine) that everything in our life is going the way we want it, but we also want this to be the case. There may be a number of reasons for this. Nozick mentions our (presumably intuitive) desire to do some things and not only experience them, the fear that by plugging into the machine we — in a sense — lose ourselves, and the desire to live in something deeper than a man-made reality. Part of our intuition may also stem from our cognitive aversion to falsehood. In any case, the intuitions 17

The story is narrated in Plutarch’s biography of Solon, in his Parallel lives of noble Greeks and Romans 93-94. For a discussion of the Solon story, see Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (1100a15). The conclusion that Aristotle reaches is that happiness has to be a stable trait, so that the happy person cannot be represented as ‘a kind of chameleon’ changing from happiness to unhappiness along with his fortunes. 18 Cf. Aristotle’s discussion of blessedness (makariotes) in Eudemian Ethics (1215a10, 1179b9), which describes the perfect happiness of the gods, and Nicomachean Ethics (1101a8), where the blessedness of humans is liable to horrible misfortune and can be lost as a result, unlike happiness (happiness cannot be lost, since the blessed person will never act wrongly).

Ancient Philosophical Reflections on Two Conceptions of Happiness

13

behind the choice to stay out of the experience machine run deep, involving thoughts about who we are, and what is valuable and worth pursuing in life. These are intuitions that we often use in evaluating the lives of others. We tend to pity the delusional person who thinks he is Napoleon and is planning the conquest of Europe; we do not envy him for experiencing a feeling of grandeur, even if we recognize that the subjective emotional state of such a delusional person is not very far from the emotional state of Napoleon himself. The fact that he is not Napoleon, even if he thinks so, makes all the difference in the world with respect to how we evaluate this person’s happiness. The intuition behind Nozick’s Experience Machine is also present in Plato’s Republic. According to Plato, people are not satisfied with possessing what merely appears to be good. Rather, they want what is truly good. Similarly, they are not satisfied with having a true belief about what is good, but desire knowledge of true goodness (Republic 505d). The most telling parallel is that between happiness and physical health. We do not merely wish to feel well and healthy. Rather, we wish to be really healthy (Republic 445a.). Nobody would choose disease over health, even if the disease was accompanied by dozens of pleasure-generating medicaments and ointments. Similarly, we do not want a subjective feeling of happiness, but to be truly, objectively happy. Very much like the cancer patient who blissfully smiles under the influence of morphine, the alcoholic, or workaholic, who proclaims to ‘feel great’ although his life is ‘objectively’ unhappy by any external standard, should be pitied and not lauded or set as an example. The unconditional superiority of objective over subjective happiness is one of the central intuitions behind ancient eudaimonism, as well as part of the contemporary understanding of happiness (if one is to agree with Nozick). Why do we offer such superiority to constitutional, rather than emotional happiness? Part of the reason has to do with the relative instability that emotional happiness possesses. People on antidepressants or other moodmodifying medication are well aware of this. They may feel happy now, but this can quickly change, even with no significant change in their actual lives. The most important reason for the superiority of constitutional, ‘objective’ happiness, however, comes from the very conception of happiness. The subjective pleasant feeling of being happy may be something desirable, but it is dependent on, and subordinate to, a state of the world that we have chosen to pursue. We feel happy when we marry, have children, get promoted, etc. because we are now married, a parent, and a manager, and because we consider these states to be good and

14

I

desirable. If it turned out that we only mistakenly thought that we possessed all these goods, the rational response would be to reconsider our (past) happiness. The devoted housewife who lives a seemingly happy family life in the suburbs, only to find out that her husband has had a series of mistresses throughout their marriage and that all their possessions had been acquired through drug trafficking, does not merely lose her current happiness. She comes to doubt that she has ever been happy, and rightly so. Her past illusive happiness was due to the mistaken belief that she had a loving and law-abiding husband. Without these external goods, there should be no happiness. Otherwise we end up with the cyclical and problematic view that she was happy merely because she felt happy. The problem of identifying happiness with a positive feeling becomes most evident when we consider the main function of happiness in ancient eudaimonism, namely its providing an overarching goal that our actions aim at. The large majority of the ancient philosophical schools considered pleasure — their equivalent to subjective happiness — to be a problematic overarching life goal. This was not due solely to their teleological theories of human nature and the world at large, although these metaphysical views played a central role in the rejection of pleasure as the highest good. Even if one were to be completely neutral with regard to our naturally appropriate goal — if one were to pick whichever life goal they wanted, without considering any of them ‘naturally better’ than the other, and if one simply proclaimed the pleasure that comes from achieving one’s goals to be the ultimate good, one would be getting things backwards.19 It cannot be that my goal in trying to win the Nobel Prize is the pleasure that I will feel when I do so. The potential pleasure itself can only come about if I consider winning the Nobel Prize to be a worthwhile cause that warrants a feeling of self-satisfaction, and my opinion on the value of winning the Nobel Prize is based on independent reasons that have nothing to do with pleasure. Wanting to win the Nobel Prize for the pleasure that this will bring about, without considering the Nobel Prize something valuable on independent grounds is simply bad reasoning.20 We are now at the point of being able to spell out and evaluate the main idea behind ancient philosophical eudaimonism. According to the theory, the distinct feature of human action is that it is goal-oriented in a way that 19

This is the thought expressed in Kraut (1979: 177). For a similar account, also see Goldstein (1973). 20 For the opposite view, see David Gauthier’s view discussed in McFall (1984: 603).

Ancient Philosophical Reflections on Two Conceptions of Happiness

15

is reflective, reason-based, and structured. At the highest level of the hierarchical structure of one’s goals stands happiness. In order to function as such an overarching goal, happiness cannot be simply some subjective positive emotion or evaluation of one’s life. Such an emotional state is completely uninformative as a general goal. After all, our judgments about what will bring self-satisfaction and pleasure must be based on thinking about what we find valuable and good. Hence, the general life-goal has to be some state of the world where one enjoys a certain character and position in life that is deemed valuable and choiceworthy. Spelling out what this state should be requires, at least to some extent, a substantial metaphysical and moral theory about what is valuable and worth pursuing in life. Our projected feeling of self-satisfaction and happiness is inevitably tethered to our life-goals. In addition to this thought, many ancient philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, and to some extent the Stoics, suggested that the life goals that function as our substantive description of happiness have to go beyond the satisfaction of basic needs, or simple pastimes. This is not because one could not imagine a life where one seeks nothing other than easy-to-reach pleasures. Rather, such a life would leave out much that is valuable in life. Surely, we do not think that great artists, statesmen, and scientists devoted their lives to the pursuit of something that has no value. If that is so, then similar achievements should be part of everyone’s overarching life-goals, to the extent possible.21 Ancient philosophers considered this need for happiness to include a significant degree of achievement. A moral and intellectual excellence, aretê, was seen as a necessary condition for happiness. Correspondingly, they presented philosophy as guidance towards the achievement of genuine objective happiness, i.e. as guidance towards moral and intellectual excellence, and not merely as an instrument for enhancing one’s emotional states. Even the psychological advice that Stoic philosophers, such as Epictetus and Seneca, offered in helping people with life’s challenges and disappointments was supposed to be part of a process of moral development towards a virtuous disposition, i.e. towards becoming a certain kind of person. 21 The basis for this claim seems to lie on an objective, third-person account of value. We do not admire virtuous people and want to become like them because they seem to have what they think is valuable. When we hear of grand and heroic acts, we do not shrug our shoulders and say: ‘Good for them! If this is what they wanted and what made them happy, I am glad they managed it.’ Rather, we seem to think that what virtuous people do is good and valuable in an absolute manner. By doing so, we must imply that virtuous actions are something we also aspire to.

16

I

At this point, a note needs to be made regarding two ancient descriptions of happiness that seem to diverge from the objectivist account given above. The first is the adaptive theory offered by some Socratic philosophers and the second is Epicurus’ hedonism.22 The adaptive theory maintains that the best way to achieve happiness is by limiting one’s desires to what can be achieved. This is the way of life advertised by the Cynics.23 It is also how one could interpret some of the Stoic Epictetus’ moral claims, especially the view expressed in his Manual (Enchiridion) that we should accept whatever is not in our power to alter. This is what most people nowadays associate with the Stoic attitude. However, the Stoic view, and to some extent that of the Cynics, is not supposed to merely provide a strategy for satisfying one’s desires and thus reaching subjective well-being. Rather it is meant to harmonise our desires with nature. Therefore, for the Cynics as well as for the Stoics, knowledge of nature and agreement with nature are necessary prerequisites for developing an immunity to frustration and thus achieving a full happiness. It is nature, rather than some subjective preferential ordering, which provides the human end that constitutes happiness. On the other hand, Epicurus’ hedonism might seem to allow for some degree of subjective variation on what constitutes one’s happiness. His claim that ‘all pleasure qua pleasure is good’, and the view that happiness is the state that results from experiencing pleasure and satisfying one’s desires, seem to imply that people, who might find pleasure in different things, can be happy in different ways.24 However, Epicurus also contends that nature determines not only that pleasure is the good, but also which pleasures should be pursued and can lead to happiness.25 He also explicitly denies that a life of eating, drinking and sex can be happy, or that such pleasures can be part of a hedonist’s goal. So in his Letter to Menoeceus (Diogenes Laertius 10.132) he claims: ‘for it is not drinking bouts and continuous partying […] which produce the pleasant life, but sober calculation which searches out reasons for every choice’. This may be because Epicurus thinks that partying is a bad strategy for reaching any 22

On the adaptive strategy and how it was adopted by the Socratic philosophers of the Hellenistic period, see Terence Irwin’s treatment of what he calls ‘one-sided Socratics’ in Irwin (2007: chapters 2௅4). 23 On the Socratic tradition of the Cynic movement, see Irwin (2007: chapter 4) and Long (1996: 28௅46). 24 See Epicurus, Key doctrines 8, Cicero, De finibus 1.32. 25 For the division of pleasures into natural and empty, see Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus: 127.

Ancient Philosophical Reflections on Two Conceptions of Happiness

17

kind of lasting pleasant feeling. Or, he might think that partying is not really pleasant at all, even though it might appear so. Rather than being a subjective feeling that can accompany a variety of activities, Epicurean pleasure seems to follow more the naturalistic account of the other ancient philosophical schools, who endorsed an objective evaluative account of happiness.

Objections, replies, and conclusions For all its philosophical justification, one cannot help but notice that the model of happiness offered by ancient philosophers seems quite out of line from our modern understanding of what constitutes a happy and valuable life. Socrates’ moralism, Plato’s elitism, Aristotle’s obsession with the life of study, and the Stoic complete lack of emotions seem both out of reach for ordinary people, and fundamentally unappealing to many. This is not simply a mismatch between two different historical periods. Even in their own time, philosophical accounts of happiness were treated with reservation, if not all-out rejection. This might make one wonder about the extent to which these accounts can be taken seriously at all. Their elitism and stringency seem to promise little happiness to people who are not or might never be able to become sufficiently virtuous. According to the Stoics there was hardly a man alive who was truly happy. Aristotle also seems to reserve the possibility of happiness for only a select few intellectuals, while Plato assigns full happiness only to the rulers of his perfect (and fictional) state. How could such an untenable condition function as a goal? The best response, it seems, is to argue that such extreme demands do not need to be taken at face value. Philosophical happiness aims at providing an ideal that our actions should work towards. Such a mark has to be set high. For even if we fail to reach all the way, making considerable progress towards the goal of full happiness should result in a life that is meaningful and well-lived. Moreover, most ancient philosophical schools seem willing to accommodate less-than-perfect stages of the development of virtue and provide guidance on how to progress through them.26 The only condition is that one does not abandon the ultimate goal of fully virtuous, ‘objective’ happiness.

26

Cf. the Stoic concept of the person who is progressing towards virtue (prokoptôn), or Plato’s account of the lesser happiness of the lower parts of the ideal city.

18

I

The second objection against the eudaimonistic account of happiness is not directed against any particular description of happiness, but against the basic idea that our actions are, or at least should be, directed towards a goal that we set through a process of deliberation and evaluation, which we aspire to be valid objectively. Presumably this is an intuition that we all have, and it lies behind the refusal to enter an experience machine. However, as contemporary research is psychology consistently shows, there is little evidence that people really arrange their actions and choices in such a manner. This may account for the considerable difference between the life choices and actions that people make, and what philosophers, both ancient and modern, prescribe. Ancient philosophers often take this difference in life choices to be indicative of an unreflective, non-philosophical, and deeply flawed attitude. On the other hand, these are exactly the kinds of issues that contemporary counselors and psychologists mostly occupy themselves with. Surely contemporary scientists do not think that the people’s common worries and aspirations are simply misguided and should be flatly ignored. The common tendency to associate happiness with a positive emotion rather than a state of the world that can function as an overarching goal is not merely the product of a lack of reflection on our actions. Contemporary research on the brain’s function has shown that the brain makes decisions based on a complicated mechanism that employs two different systems.27 The first is a rational deliberating system, which we employ when we contemplate important life decisions macroscopically. The second system is more intuitive, much quicker, and less reflective. It is the system often employed in short-term and quick decisions. The decisions that it makes are based on heuristics that involve emotional reactions. In essence the second system does what philosophers would find backwards and nonsensical: it tells us to try and win the Nobel because it will feel good to do so, just as it tells us that eating and having sex are good and choiceworthy because they are pleasant. Since the second system if much faster than the first, in essence, most of our short-term choices and actions are done for the ‘wrong’ reasons. For the most part, this goes unnoticed and produces no problems in our choices and actions. But the unreflective, intuitive system is also victim to common heuristic fallacies and cognitive biases.28 For this reason, it may guide people in the wrong 27

This is the two-system model that Daniel Kahneman defends in Kahneman (2011). 28 For a list of such heuristics and biases, see http://www.psychologyconcepts.com/category/biases-and-heuristics/

Ancient Philosophical Reflections on Two Conceptions of Happiness

19

direction, even if they are rationally aware of the wrongfulness of their way. This picture of the brain’s decision-making mechanism explains, to some extent, people’s unwillingness or failure to act according to a rationally laid-out long term plan. But one cannot simply suppress the intuitivebased decision-making mechanisms, as ancient philosophers suggested we do with the lower, irrational parts of the soul; after all, intuition is as much part of who we are as rationally reflection is. It would, therefore, be more beneficial if we were to train the non-reflective system to recognise and avoid common fallacies, thus shaping the right intuitive responses to external perceptions. To a great extent, this is what contemporary psychology and counseling try to do. Some of their techniques are similar to techniques employed by ancient philosophers, such as the Epicureans and the Stoics, who put emphasis on training oneself to find pleasure in the right things, and avoid emotional excesses. There are also further lessons to be taken from ancient philosophy. One is the realization and awareness of the fact that happiness, as the overarching goal that our lives should aim at, cannot be the mere enjoyment that follows the achievement of our intermediate goals, but something more substantial: a stable state that we reach when we make objectively recognized achievements. Another one is the need to reflect rationally on our actions and place them in their proper perspective. This may not necessarily help with controlling our emotional responses to events in our lives. Telling someone that a break-up over a trivial issue is nothing bad, since the kinds of relationships that matter are not affected by trivialities, may not make one feel less disappointed. It could, however, affect one’s future actions. Rather than skulking, one may choose to do something else that really matters; take a course or volunteer for something, for example. Doing so will have a real effect on one’s happiness, even if it does not feel so immediately. We can all distinguish between being happy and feeling happy. This is especially so in the case of unhappiness: we have no trouble envisioning someone whose life is really miserable, but he is feeling fine because he had four dry martinis, or has been keeping up with his medication. But we can similarly think of a successful person suffering from depression claiming that her life is happy and meaningful, but she feels terrible because of her depression, the same way that she would feel if she had just broken a leg. Knowing that one’s life is meaningful and happy is, by itself, important enough to warrant all of one’s attention and effort. The feeling

20

I

might not immediately follow. Just as in Kantian ethics every person can behave morally, even those with the worst predisposition, every person can be truly happy, even those prone to feeling depressed. This, if anything, is the lesson ancient philosophers tried to give us. Even in the most adverse and painful circumstances, such as Epicurus’ disease or Socrates’ ordeal, true happiness is available for as long as one’s acts aim right and steadfastly.

References Anscombe, Gertrude E. M. (1958). ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’. Philosophy 33: 1–19. Aristotle (1984). The Complete Works of Aristotle. 2 vols. Edited by Jonathan Barnes. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Becker, Lawrence C. (1998). A New Stoicism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Belliotti, Raymond A. (2004). Happiness is Overrated. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefeld Publishers. Bentham, Jeremy (2007). An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Mineola: Dover Philosophical Classics. Cicero (1931). De finibus. Translated by H. Rackham. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cohen, Elliot D. (2003). What Would Aristotle Do? New York: Prometheus Books. Diogenes Laertius (1925). Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Translated by R. D. Hicks. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Epictetus (1925). Discourses. Encheiridion. Translated by W. A. Oldfather. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Epicurus (1926). The Extant Remains. Translated by C. Bailey. Oxford : Clarendon Press. Goldstein, Irwin (1973). ‘Happiness: The Role of Non-Hedonic Criteria in Its Evaluation’. International Philosophical Quarterly 13: 523௅534. Heybron, Dan (2013). Happiness: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hobbes, Thomas (1996). Leviathan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Oxford World Classics. Hurka, Thomas (2001). Virtue, Vice, and Value. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ancient Philosophical Reflections on Two Conceptions of Happiness

21

Hursthouse, Rosalind (1999). On Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Irwin. Terence H. (2011). The Development of Ethics: A Historical and Critical Study Volume I: From Socrates to the Reformation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kahneman, Daniel (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Kraut, Richard (1979). ‘Two Conceptions of Happiness’. The Philosophical Review 88: 167௅197. Lewis, Clive S. (1972). God in the Dock. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Long, Anthony A. (1996). ‘The Socratic Tradition: Diogenes, Crates, and Hellenistic Ethics’. In The Cynics, edited by R. Bracht Brahnan, MarieOdile Goulet-Cazé, 28௅46. Berkeley: University of California Press. MacIntyre, Alasdair C. (1985). After Virtue. London: Duckworth. McFall, Lynne (1984). ‘Happiness, Rationality, and Individual Ideals’. Review of Metaphysics 38: 595௅613. Mill, John S. (2007). Utilitarianism. Mineola: Dover Publications. Nozick, Robert (1974). Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books. Plato (1997). Complete Works. Edited by J. M. Cooper, D. S. Hutchinson. Indianapolis: Hackett. Plutarch (1976). De communibus notitiis, De Stoicorun repugnantiis. Translated by H. Cherniss. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Robertson, Donald (2010). The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT); Stoic Philosophy as Rational and Cognitive Psychotherapy. London: Karnac. White, Nicholas P. (2006). A Brief History of Happiness. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

II THE PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTITIONER AS A CO-RESEARCHER FINN THORBJØN HANSEN

This essay is not about Philosophical Practice as a modern place for ‘guests’ who wish to work on their personal issues and problems. Rather, its aim is to introduce another area where the philosophical practitioner unfolds his or her ‘art’ – the human science research. For many years I have worked with the special kind of philosophical practice I have developed, a wonder lab.1 There, professional practitioners learn how inquire into their own practices and lived experiences through a Socratic Community of Wonder and through a special ‘philosophical way of living’ in their daily professional lives. As a researcher employed at a university as well as a trainer and practitioner of philosophical practice and counselling I have found it intriguing to combine my skills and virtues as a Socratic midwife with what I call ‘phenomenological-oriented action research’. I believe that contemporary qualitative and action research should find ways to enlighten and disclose the tacit and ontological dimension of a professional practice (say nursing or designing).2 Those involved in human science research usually reach only the dimension of the epistemological and empirical fact, but according to Maurice MerleauPonty, phenomenology “must stick close to experience, and yet not limit 1

Wonder Lab is a research unit at the Centre for Dialogue and Organization, Aalborg University. It is one out of part of four labs under Dialogue Labs: http://www.kommunikation.aau.dk/forskning/vidensgrupper/cdo/dialogue_labs/. 2 My work with phenomenological-oriented action research has been developed through two 3-year research projects. The first was in co-operation with and sponsored by a Danish School of Design where the question was about the relationship between wonderment and creativity (Hansen 2014). The second sponsored project was on a Danish Hospice where we inquired into the question: In what way do wonder-based and philosophical questioning in palliation can qualify the existential and spiritual care.

The Philosophical Practitioner as a Co-Researcher

23

itself to the empirical but restore to each experience the ontological cipher which marks it internally’ (Merleau-Ponty, 1964: 157). But how do we do that? Many academic and traditional philosophical phenomenologists do that behind their desk through reading and writing at distance from the real life and the lived practice. A few phenomenologists find this not sufficient and call for a more practice-oriented writingphenomenology (van Manen, 1990, 2014) and real-time ‘dialogical phenomenology’ (Halling, 2008). I follow these new attempts to break with the traditional academic understanding of phenomenology but I want to go one step further by focusing on the action-dimension of doing phenomenology with the practitioner-in-the-field. This I do through special designed ‘wonder-based actions’ and Socratic ‘Communities of Wonder’ between me as a researcher, and the professional practitioners as ‘co-inquirers’. In this essay I focus especially on how doing philosophical practice among professional practitioners in their own work place may get them into living a more ‘philosophical life’ within their practices. And by doing that they become ‘living windows’ for seeing into what Merleau-Ponty called the ‘ontological cipher’ in their professional life and practices. I begin by using Michel Foucault’s notion of parrhesia and Emmanuel Levinas’s notion of philosophy as ‘the wisdom of love at the service of love’ in order to explain how the Socratic dialogue and its maieutics can be seen as a practice for the parrhesiast and an expression of this kind of loving relation with the world. I then distinguish between a Foucauldian parrhesia, focusing on an active approach to ‘ethical self-care’, and a Levinasian parrhesia, which is a more passive and ‘hearken’ kind of wonderment approach. Both kinds of approaches can be seen as part of a ‘deed’, however. And, action understood as this kind of ‘two-sided deed’ may be a way to realize how we, as philosophical practitioners, can evolve as action and qualitative researchers in a more Socratic and ontologicallyoriented way with co-inquirers within a specific professional practice. Thus, the questions I address in this essay are: How can research-oriented philosophical practitioners use philosophical practices to help the professional practitioner become a Foucauldian and Levinasian parrhesiat, or ‘truth-teller’? How can Socratic midwifes enable them become ‘truthtellers’ within their own lives? And, how can ‘the philosophical life’ become a lens for the phenomenological-oriented action researcher?

24

II

Some thoughts about Socrates as a Parrhesiastes In the last 4–5 years of his too-short life, Michel Foucault was deeply engaged in the understanding of philosophy as ‘a way of life’ and as an ‘art of existence’. Inspired especially by Pierre Hadot (1995) and Jan Patocka (2000), Foucault describes how Socrates and the Ancient philosophers do not approach philosophy primarily as a theoretical practice and discipline (in search of knowledge through assertions and proportions, mathemata as it is mainly done by professional philosophers today) but more as a practical exercise in being present and as an expression and unfolding of what it means to live a ‘philosophical life’ driven and led by love or eros and through a practical search of wisdom made possible through askèsis, that is, through concrete daily training and exercises. Foucault talked about philosophy as an aesthetic and existential and even spiritual practice by describing it as ‘Ethical Self-Care’, ‘Aesthetics of Existence’, ‘Practices of Freedom’, and living ‘a Philosophical Life’. He elaborates on the notion of Socrates as a Parrhesiast or ‘truth-teller’ in Fearless Speech (Foucault, 2001b [1983]), and in his 1981–1982 lectures on the hermeneutics of the Subject from the Collège de France (Foucault, 2001a; Foucault, 2005). Foucault makes a distinction between the primarily political (democratic and citizen-oriented) parrhesia and the philosophical parrhesia. It is the latter kind that is associated with the theme of the care of oneself. As Foucault writes: ‘By the time of the Epicureans, parrhesia’s affinity with the care of oneself developed to the point where parrhesia itself was primarily regarded as a techne of spiritual guidance for the “education of the soul’” (Foucault, 2001b: 24). What characterizes a Parrhesiast are five things, Foucault tells us: frankness, truth, danger, criticism and duty. The person who speaks the truth is known for his or her frankness. The person speaks from his or her heart, openly and without any filter. Etymologically, parrhesiazesthai means ’to say everything’. Nothing is hidden when the Parrhesiast speaks. And when he or she speaks the truth, we hear this person’s own opinion and actual beliefs –– where he or she ‘stands’, so to speak. Such parrhesiazesthai involves a risk and a full-scaled ignorance of what may happen. In parrhesia there is an identity between the one who speaks and what is said in that moment, and this moment (kairos) of self-disclosure is imbued with a hope that what is said might change the world or the person

The Philosophical Practitioner as a Co-Researcher

25

(even the speaker himself) for the better, that is, to live a ’truer life’ (vraie vie). When Foucault talks about truth in connection with the Parrhesiast he makes a further distinction between scientific truth and epistemological truth claims (truth as discourse or general truth production), on the one hand, and truth as it is lived and experienced, on the other hand. Foucault is one of the greatest sceptics of the 20th Century when it comes to truth claims in science, philosophy, religion, institutions or politics. But as sceptical as he is of these kinds of ‘epistemological’ and ‘dogmatic’ truths, he nevertheless strongly believes in the notion of truth. As he writes: ‘I believe too much in the truth not to suppose that there are different truths and different ways of saying it’ (Foucault, 1989: 314). Thus, when late Foucault talks about the difference between ‘the Care of the Truth’ and ‘Truth as a Discourse’ we should understand the first form of ‘truth-telling’ according to his description of Ancient philosophy as a way of life, and as a practical, ethical and spiritual care of the self. To get a better idea of how the philosophical Parrhesiast departs from other kinds of ‘truth-tellers’ Foucault also makes a sharp distinction between the Parrhesiast’s understanding of truth and other modalities of speaking the truth. These include the Scientist’s truth discourse (seeking facts and objective knowledge) and the Prophet’s view on Truth (when trying to talk as an anonymous mediator between a ‘Higher Speaker’ –– God, Logos, Nature, Destiny, etc. –– and common people). There is also the Wise Man’s insight into the Truth (who speaks out of himself and from his own being, who has ‘The Knowledge’ in a spiritual sense, although he is often silent when asked too directly) as well as the Teacher’s approach to truth (he too has knowledge, but his knowledge is technical and utilitarian; he wants to be direct and clear in communication and to transfer this techne-knowledge to his students). Compared to the four other modalities of speaking the truth, the Parrhesiast says not what will be (the Prophet), what is (the Wise man), what is empirically or analytically evident (the Scientist) or how things can be handled effectively trough insight in the tradition of skills (the Teacher). The Parrhesiast speaks truth when he reveals to the listener the listener’s own truth, the listener’s ethos. As Edward McGushin (2007) explains, the Parrhesiast speak in ways that provokes the listener to listen to himself, or to get into a new relationship with himself. And that relation is not a technical or epistemological relationship but rather an ontological

26

II

or spiritual one. Importantly, in the act of parrhesia (in contrast to the act of cognition), the subject does not appear for itself and for others as an object, and as an object of true discourse, but as a concrete way of experiencing truth in the moment. It is truth understood as an ethos through askèsis, through living a philosophical life. Furthermore, to speak the truth is for the Ancient philosophers closely connected to the person’s moral character. As Foucault formulates it: ‘…truth-having is guaranteed by the possession of certain moral qualities: when someone has certain moral qualities, then it is the proof that he has access to truth –– and vice versa’ (Foucault, 2001b: 14). These ‘moral qualities’ are closely related to the necessary ‘self-transformation’ and moral and spiritual ‘conversion’ that must take place in the person’s life in order for the person to gain access to the truth. And this selftransformation is a ‘spiritual act’, Foucault tells us. Spirituality in this specific sense, McGushin explains to us, is ‘…a particular way of experiencing the relation between the subject and the truth of being’ (McGushin, 2007: 39). Access to the truth is, Foucault says, ‘…access to being itself’ (Foucault, 2001a: 184). Thus, we understand spirituality in the Foucauldian sense as the acts, moments and events that give us access to ‘being itself’. And when that act or event happens to the subject, wondrous beauty and peace seem to appear and shine from that person, Foucault tells us. Truth, according to spiritual experience, ‘…is that which illuminates the subject; truth is that which gives the subject beatitude, the truth is that which gives the subject tranquillity of soul’ (Foucault, 2001a: 17–18). But compared to the Wise Man the Parrhesiast does not hold The Truth in a more general, secure and knowing sense. When the Parrhesiat speaks the truth or in truth, he or she does not possess or have the truth, like the Wise Man thinks he has. The Parrhesiat must always struggle in every particular situation and moment to get access to the truth by putting himor herself ‘in-to-the-open’ and unknown in these vulnerable moments. Something is calling in that particular moment and context, and the selftransformation and action has to be done in order better to hear and get into a dialogue with this ‘calling’. This calling seems to come from some sort of unique ‘otherness’ in that particular moment and context. And it is the ability to catch that moment and calling that is the spiritual movement. This moment and movement can also be experienced as dangerous by the subject because to hear the call of being demands that the subject (the autonomous, self-reflective and intentional subject) put him- or herself at

The Philosophical Practitioner as a Co-Researcher

27

risk when moving into the open and the unknown or towards the ‘radical otherness’. Foucault writes: Spirituality holds that it is necessary that the subject modify itself, transform itself, displace itself, that it must become, in a certain measure and up to a certain point, other than itself in order to have the right to access to truth. The truth is only given to the subject at a price that puts into play the very being of the subject itself. (Foucault, 2001a: 17)

I said that Foucault saw five things that characterize a Parrhesiast: frankness, truth, danger, criticism and duty. When Foucault talks about criticism of the Parrhesiast we must understand that the Parrhesiast never works with ‘positive proportional truth’ or from a ‘positive ontology’. The Parrhesiast is sceptical of human language. Thus the ethos of the Parrhesiast is to point to a truth or being which is not yet fully unfolded or congealed in the language, through a thought, a metaphor, a word or a concept. Therefore one could say that criticism in this sense takes its departure from a strange kind of ‘negative ontology’, where the truth always hides when truth is spoken of in positive and clear definitional terms. This kind of parrhesian criticism can also be pointed towards the Parrhesiast himself (ethical care of the self) or towards other persons or institutions, which do not care enough for the truth or for themselves. Thus it is a criticism (and self-criticism) that is raised of the interlocutor as well as of the speaker himself. Dialogue, and especially the Socratic form of dialogue, is a major technique for the philosophical Parrhesiast, when wanting to create this ‘inviting space’ for ‘negative ontology’ or truth to happen in the dialogue or ‘in-between’ the interlocutors. This ‘space in-between’ can emerge in dialogue with another person or in a dialogue with the public or society as such. In those moments when the Parrhesiast feels a call ‘to speak up’ he or she also experiences this act or deed as his or her duty, that is, to tell the truth regardless of the danger that he or she puts him- or herself into. Parrhesia could also be at play when telling a beloved friend a truth about himself that might spoil a friendship, or it could be telling a truth that must be said in an organization that one works in, or to the public, whether or not that might lead to dismissal or public disapproval. Now, in Foucault’s eyes, Socrates was an icon of the way a Parrhesiast thinks and acts. Indeed, Socrates lived a philosophical life and saw philosophy as a practice of ethical self-care, and repeatedly exemplified the courage to put his own fundamental assumptions, his social status and his life at risk through his dialogues and communities of wonder with

28

II

Athenian citizens. Following Foucault’s and Jan Patocka’s reception of Plato and Socrates as a kind of ‘negative platonism’ (Patocka, 1996, 2002) we understand that there is a close relation between the parrhesian move and the Socratic wonderment. In the moment of Socratic wonderment we do not know anymore where to go on the epistemological level and yet, on the ontological level, we seem to hear a ‘call’ –– a truth speaking to us –– and we must react or answer this call. This ethical and ontological call is paramount when wanting to understand what I will describe as the doubletracked parrhesia. On the one hand, we see that parrhesia is guided by an enigmatic call of being and a Socratic eros towards that call, and on the other hand by a human personal will and personal training (askèsis) to get access to this ontological call or truth.

The transcendence in communication and ‘truth-hearken’ (Levinas) Before we go on to see how the philosophical practitioner can work in the field of qualitative research as a kind of parrhesiast, and maybe also as a cultivator of spaces of parrhesia among his co-inquirers, I would like to dwell for a moment on an enigmatic and passive dimension of parrhesia. And that is the call of being, and the eros, upon which Foucault only talks in a peripheral way. As Pierre Hadot has noticed, ‘the description M. Foucault gives of what I had termed “spiritual exercises”, and which he prefers to call “techniques of the self”, is precisely focused too much on the “self”, or at least on the specific conception of the self’ (Hadot, 1995: 206-207). Whether or not one agrees on that is immaterial for this essay. Suffice it to mention here that this ‘passive dimension’ of parrhesia is more elaborated in other philosophies, such as Levinas’s. If the subject that is driven by parrhesia is not a subject in a modern (Cartesian) sense, as Foucault indicates, that is, an autonomous agency driven by cognition and knowledge, then how are we to understand the self in the ethical self-care? If the subject is rather a de-centred self which constantly comes ‘in-to-being’ in dialogue with an otherness (a call), then how can we understand an ‘ethical agency’ driven by a call and a particular ‘passivity’, vulnerability, receptiveness and responsibility that seems to emerge from such a calling? Levinas writes in his book Otherwise than Being, Communication is an adventure of a subjectivity, different from that which is dominated by the concern to recover itself, different from that of coinciding in consciousness; it will involve uncertainty. It is by virtue of its

The Philosophical Practitioner as a Co-Researcher

29

eidos possible only in sacrifice, which is the approach of him for which one is responsible. Communication with the other can be transcendent only as a dangerous life, a fine risk to be run. These words take on their strong sense when, instead of only designating the lack of certainty, they express the gratuity of sacrifice. (Levinas, 1998: 120)

Levinas emphasizes too that we have to put ourselves at risk (‘a risky uncovering of oneself’) in order to get into a true (‘transcendent’) relation with the other or the otherness of the world. Language comes in a certain way always after the ethical event. In other words, the ethical relation comes always before any speaking, cognition and deliberate judgement. As Anna Strhan (2012: 46) writes on the Levinasian way of understanding language and the ethical call and response of the other: ‘Language depends on the self’s exposure to the other, risking the uncertainty of the other’s response’. And Michael Morgan (2007) elaborates further on this when saying: Language involves concepts and universality; universality requires singularity; singularity for human beings only occurs as the proximity of one person to another, the face-to-face. Language and meaning are developments from the foundation of a unique I encountering a unique other … This is what he [Levinas] calls the ‘saying’, which is the ground of all speech, communication, thought and conceptualization. (Morgan 2007: 131)

Philosophy, Levinas reminds us (with inspiration from Heidegger), has to serve this saying. Levinas also relates himself to Ancient philosophers, when he emphasizes that to speak truthfully or ‘from within truth’ the person has first to be present and in relation with the other or the world through the mediation of an ethical character or event. Levinas maintains that Ethics (the responsibility for the other) is prior to ontology (in the traditional philosophical understanding of that term as ‘theory of being’) and epistemology (the cognition of the other). Before we see, describe and decide why and how we will relate to the Other, we already relate. It is the contact, the face-to-face-meeting and proximity of the other (or the otherness of the world, this flower, this unique chair) that calls us into being. It is not the intentionality, agency and deliberations of the subject that creates presence and an ethical relation. It is, Levinas posits, the proximity of the other itself that creates or evokes an ethical intentionality in or from the situation itself. In this contact one may experience love and responsibility and react immediately upon that, if one approaches the other

30

II

–– the face and proximity of the other –– openly, vulnerable and as an enigma, a deep mystery and wonder (Levinas, 1988). This kind of Levinasian parrhesia differs from the Foucauldian parrhesia, because the emphasis in Levinas’s thinking is on the person’s ability or readiness to hear ‘the ethical call’ in the relation or the situation. It is a special kind of passivity and receptiveness, a ‘hearken’ and a vulnerability and openness towards the other, that nurtures the Levinasian parrhesia. One could even say that behind the Levinasian parrhesia one finds a reversion of the traditional meaning of philosophy as ‘the love of wisdom’ (philo-sophia), when Levinas underscores that it should be the other way around: “Philosophy is the wisdom of love at the service of love” (Levinas 1998: 162). We do not hear in the writings of Levinas much about how we can train ourselves in our daily lives in order to practice ‘ethical care of the self’, or the ‘wisdom of love’, or to get a better sensitivity for the ‘call in the situation’. Foucault, on the other hand, seems much more eager to suggest how we can learn ‘ethical self-care’ practices through philosophical and spiritual exercises of the Ancient philosophers. But perhaps Hadot is right when he says that Foucault has a tendency to put too much emphasis on the self and the pro-active and intentional willing and doing in the ‘philosophical life’? Maybe a less ‘intentional’ approach would help a trainee in philosophical practice become more alert to and immersed in what Levinas describes as the transcendent and ethical (loving) dimension of our lives. For my own part I would prefer to say that each of the two kinds of parrhesia, the Foucauldian and Levinasian parrhesia, is important, and that they are complementary to each other. I suggest that the word deed is a good notion that illuminates the issue at stake.3 In the Foucauldian parrhesia the person makes a deedful action when he or she deliberately and actively stands up to defend what he or she cares for and believes to be true and worth fighting for, and by doing that he or she will often be taking a risk, personally and publically. In the Levinasian parrhesia the person acts spontaneously and in a self-forgetting way in a careful (loving) reaction to a sudden ethical call in the situation or relation. Like the Foucauldian parrhesiast this person too reacts to something, which he or 3

Elsewhere (Hansen 2015c) I have elaborated on Wittgenstein view on ‘the deed’ as the most pre-linguistic origin of the language game and life form, and compared it with Wittgenstein’s notion of ‘wonderment’.

The Philosophical Practitioner as a Co-Researcher

31

she sees as truth or really cared for, but the Levinasian parrhesiast reacts spontaneously to a call and maybe afterwards with a bit of surprise about his or her own reaction and action. Some might say that the Aristotelian understanding of phronesis and the kind of self-forgetting deed in this Levinas sense seem to be equivalent. In modern reception of phronesis this deed and practical wisdom and judgement in the concrete situation primarily is seen as something connected to a kind of practice or handicraft or profession on the background of what the public (polis) recognizes as the common good. However, reading Hans-Georg Gadamer (1986) we acknowledge that Plato also used the word phronesis when he talked about dialectics and that both Plato and Aristotle connected phronesis to a higher (ontological or metaphysical) good that was not to be identified with polis but rather with cosmos or life or being as such. To philosophize through dialectics is, Plato tells us (see Gadamer, 1986), to find the right word at the right time and place and spirit. It is not only a question of rhetoric and finding forceful critical arguments and rigorous logical analysis. It is about ‘attuned thinking’ and much more a question of finding words that are true to or in harmony with how one lives and thinks right now in the very moment (kairos) of speaking and thinking. By having this ‘musicality’ or sensibility of the ‘true word’ in the dialogue, the ‘phronetic dialectics’ can bring the thinker or interlocutors into what Foucault describes as ‘a Dorian mode’, that is ‘…a kind of ontological harmony where the logos and bios of such a person is in harmonic accord’ (Foucault, 2001: 100). This was in fact, if we follow Foucault, the purpose of the philosophical parrhesia, and for the Socratic Parrhesiast, to find or create a meaningful wholeness between thought and life, thinking and existence. This was to live a philosophical life. And Levinas might not be in disagreement with that. After all, Levinas in his later years describes himself as a Platonist (Levinas, 1987) primarily in relation to the idea of the Good and its radical otherness, its transcendence, which also was so central in the philosophy of Plato (Cederberg, 2005).

What do qualitative researchers do? And what would a Socratic research interview be like? But let us now get back to the main question of this chapter: How can a philosophical practitioner engage in human science, and especially, how

32

II

can action and qualitative researchers be engaged in philosophical practice –– or as Foucault would say in ‘living a philosophical life’? I begin with a 2007 article written by my colleague Svend Brinkmann from the Centre for Qualitative Studies of the University of Aalborg, ‘Could Interviews Be Epistemic?’ (Brinkmann, 2007). In the article he criticizes the widespread and current use of qualitative research interviews as a kind of ‘Qualitative Opinion Polling’. He proposes to replace these kinds of research approaches with knowledge-producing and ‘epistemic interviews’, which are led by a Socratic dialogue form, that is, a shared inquiry where both the researcher and the respondents participate in the inquiry. Brinkmann especially criticizes the phenomenological approach in qualitative research (Giorgi and Giorgi, 2003) for only relying on the interviewee’s ‘lived experiences’ in a way that seems mainly to display the person’s own opinions and idiosyncratic preferences. Brinkmann encourages the qualitative researchers to dig deeper into the assumptions taken for granted in these lived experiences and personal opinions, and make critical reflections on the assumptions while being with the interviewee. Thus he advocates a Socratic and critical reflection upon and a dialogue about the interviewee’s own answers and narratives during the interview, which inherently transforms the interview into a shared inquiry and dialogue. By insisting on that, Brinkmann also defends a position whereby the research interviewer is not only seeing him- or herself as a neutral data collector, that first starts the research analysis for real when the researcher has returned home to his research chamber. Brinkmann encourages the ‘Socratic interviewer’ to move from the sediments of doxa to the deeper layer of episteme, and to further relate these epistemic findings to the state of the art in science as well as to the civic debate about the common good in a society or local community or a concrete professional ‘community of practice’ (Wenger, 1998). As I have explained elsewhere (Hansen, 2015a), I agree with Brinkmann that during the interview and not mainly after it, we should let the analysis of the qualitative and phenomenological-hermeneutic interviews and the testing of the respondents’ as well as the researcher’s statements happen. But I argue that Socrates’ elenchus (his way of dialectical conversation) did not only have the purpose of bringing human beings from a state of opinion to a state of knowing in an epistemological sense. He also wanted his interlocutors to get into a state of ‘touched not-knowing’ (that is, a

The Philosophical Practitioner as a Co-Researcher

33

fundamental wonderment or thaumazein 4), which could tune both the Socratic interviewer and the interviewee into an ontological relation and dialogue with the phenomenon as it is in that particular moment emerging between them. And that event would often be expressed or displayed in the moment of shared wonder between the two. I take therefore a different avenue than Brinkmann to qualify the qualitative research interview, and especially to describe how a Socratic research interview and action research can be understood. I follow Christine Dinkins (2005), to whom Brinkmann (2007) refers as a substantiating part of his argumentation, but where Brinkmann talks about Socratic thinking from a social constructive and socio-cultural and ‘pragmatic epistemology’ (Brinkmann, 2012: 31) Dinkins certainly takes another road. As she writes: ‘A Socratic-hermeneutic interview can remain true to the goals of Gadamerian and Heideggerian hermeneutics by following the model of Socrates’ teachings’ (Dinkins, 2005: 128). Having said that we also recognize that when Brinkmann claims that the main thing in the Socratic dialogue will ‘… not be the narrative of the individual’s life or his or her experience but rather people’ epistemic practices of justification” (Brinkmann, 2007: S1128). Dinkins necessarily will have to reject that as an insufficient description of the Socratic dialogue. There is –– if we follow Gadamer and Heidegger –– namely another ontological kind of ‘thinking’ (Heidegger, 1976) –– in the Socratic midwifery, which Socrates through his playful and wonder-based dialectics help his interlocutors to redeem. And it is this kind of thinking and maieutics that Dinkins (and Smyth et al., 2008) wants us as qualitative researchers to put in play with in our research interviews. Dinkins does not, though, talk about philosophical wonderment (thaumazein) but about an ‘aporetic experience’. The Greek notions of thaumazein and aporia can be seen as quite different concepts, where the first relates to a dawning recognition of an ontological and confidential relation with the world or a calling of ‘the Good’, which cannot be articulated in or captured by clear concepts, definitions and epistemic analysis. Aporia on the other hand is a term for an epistemological dead end or uneasiness. That Dinkins chooses to talk about aporetic experiences rather than experiences of wonderments could be a sign that her interpretation of the Socratic dialogue and elenchus leans more towards an epistemological interpretation of definitions and language analysis, which 4

For an excellent phenomenological study and discussion of the phenomena of wonderment, see Rubinstein 2011 and Vasalou 2012.

34

II

is how Brinkmann reads her. However, I think that would be a mistake because of her very clear positioning towards a Heideggerian and Gadamerian interpretation of the Socratic maieutics. So maybe ‘aporetic experiences’ and thaumazein is in her interpretation one and the same thing when she writes: The co-inquirer is likely to go home and think on the phenomenon more, thus gaining insights into her own life and experiences.The researcher should embrace the frustration and longing brought on by the aporetic void, and she should look inside herself to identify what she is still searching for […] By paying careful attention to this aporetic experience, the researcher can continue to be led by the ongoing inquiry, taking these questions and letting them guide her in her next interpre-view. (Dinkins, 2005: S143)

What speaks furthermore for a more existential and ontological interpretation of what Dinkins names ‘Socratic-hermeneutic interpre-viewing’ is the wondrous statement, that the GPS, so to speak, of a Socratic dialogue is based in the interlocutors’ relation to their most dearly held belief of what is Truth, Good and Beauty. As Dinkins notes: ‘Socrates seems to believe that the degree to which a belief is held dear reflects how likely it is to be a true belief’ (Dinkins, 2005: 139). This is, when we reflect upon it, a very strange and evocative statement. Why, by following what we existentially experience as what we really love, will this lead us to a deeper phenomenological and hermeneutic understanding of our world, the phenomena and ourselves? But this seems to be a premise for Dinkins when describing what is at stake in a ‘Socratic-hermeneutic interpreviewing’: Each person, when he is honest with himself, can evaluate which beliefs he holds more dearly than others. Furthermore, Socrates believes that the more dearly held a belief is, the closer it is to genuine understanding. Therefore, if two or more people in a shared inquiry examine their beliefs, search out conflict, and reject the belief which they hold less dear, they will move closer and closer to deeper understandings. (Dinkins, 2005: s.121)

This kind of ‘love-based’ philosophizing and Socratic inquiring reminds us of Levinas when he says: ‘…philosophy is the wisdom of love at the service of love’. The relation between love and wonder, love and deed, and love and knowledge in a Socratic dialogue is an intriguing subject. But we have to leave that here for now in order to get back to the main question of how the qualitative researcher can be inspired by and do concrete work with philosophical practices.

The Philosophical Practitioner as a Co-Researcher

35

When Dinkins (2005) writes about Socratic-hermeneutic interpre-viewing she associates this activity with one-to-one-sessions rather than group sessions. When she writes about a ‘shared inquiry’ it is serial and point wise ‘sharings’ where the different interviewees do not meet each other. The so-called progression in the ‘thinking’ can then only be seen by the researcher herself who –– like a bee going from flower to flower –– picks up the philosophical nectar (which Dinkins explicitly calls ‘information gathering’). And in the researcher’s ‘research camber’ this ‘nectar’ then becomes ‘honey’ after some intense reflections and solitude discoveries and research processing. I argue in the next section that we can also work with Socratic group settings and places of shared inquiries where the researcher is just one individual and an equal member of this Socratic community of wonder.

Socratic communities of wonder and the structure of the Wonder Lab-in-the-field There are attempts to get into a more practical and dialogical approach with phenomenology and qualitative research, as I noted in the introduction. What I miss in these approaches, however, is a more actionoriented, inter-active, field-engaging and symmetrical dialogue-relation with the professional practitioners who have invited me to help them inquire into their own practices. What I am asking for, therefore, is a slightly different form of hermeneutic phenomenology that we may call Socratic and ‘action-based phenomenology’. I have learned from experience that the best research –– or at least the best inspirations or ‘callings from the field’ –– can emerge while being with the practitioners in their own environment not just for a day or two but during a longer period, if that is possible. Such kind of ‘action-based phenomenology’ or phenomenological-oriented action research is not to be confused with social anthropology or ethnomethodology or other forms of participatory observations in qualitative research. It can rather be found in the discipline of action research. Some action researchers look at the phenomenological way of listening to the life world of the practitioners as ‘co-inquirers’ (Coulter, 2002; Senge and Scharmer, 2006; Brohm, 2009). But nobody to my knowledge has taken up the idea of involving philosophical practice understood as ethical self-care (Foucault) or spiritual exercises (Hadot). Especially, the idea of creating spaces for a philosophical life to emerge among co-inquirers in a Socratic and phenomenological-oriented action research seems to me a very promising experiment.

36

II

Therefore, let me now shortly describe how I practice the kind of Wonder Lab and Socratic Workshop of Wonderment (SWW) with which I work in my action research. I attempt to bring three fundamental ‘world-disclosers’ into play: the phenomenological, the hermeneutic and the Socraticdialectical and deconstructive momentum. I agree with John Caputo (2002) who eloquently says: ‘Deconstruction is the hope for a justice and friendship to come which the eye of the phenomenological intuition has not seen, which the ear of hermeneutic hearing has not heard’ (Caputo, 2002: 522). It is another kind of ‘hearken’ that Levinas and Jacques Derrida (which Caputo here refers to) are asking for when philosophizing. The phenomenological intuition can so easily become an expression of a congealed form and perception of the lived experience. And the hermeneutic understanding can be so packed with good intentions between the interlocutors that the unexpected and (seen from the fusion of their horizons) impossible cannot be seen or hoped for. And yet, what Levinas and Derrida (probably also Foucault) are trying to awaken in us is also a longing and hope for the impossible, for something to come. Not hope in the sense that ‘if only this or that could happen’, but what Caputo calls ‘hope against hope’. It does not in the current paradigm make sense at all to hope, or to hope for a specific event, but it is exactly against this ‘reasonable hope’ that Derrida and Levinas bring in their kind of ‘epiphanic hope’. They do this in order to nurture a careful openness for the fundamental wonder and the incoming Other. How do we prepare ourselves for such an ontological openness towards the other or otherness of our world? In an interview Derrida answers: ‘I am trying, precisely, to put myself at a point so that I do not know any longer where I am going’ (Rubenstein, 2011: 133). This is a very precise description of the ethos in the Socratic communities of wonder and Wonder Labs that I try to practice with my co-inquirers in their organizations. To come to such a dis-orientation can be very rewarding, especially if this kind of philosophical dis-orientation is experienced in a safe and trustful atmosphere with the other companions. The Czech existential phenomenologist and philosopher Jan Patocka has a wonderful phrasing that captures the uniqueness of these moments. He calls these moments of communion, wonder and existential and philosophical disorientation a ‘solidarity of the shaken’ (Patocka, 1996: 134). The Wonder Lab and Socratic Workshop of Wonderment (SWW) is designed upon this background with the following structure or five momentums:

The Philosophical Practitioner as a Co-Researcher

37

1. The phenomenological ‘Dark Room’: the sharing, telling and writing of phenomenological narratives and anecdotes from the professional practitioners’ own lived experiences –– taking their departure from something that has made a great (and still enigmatic) impression on them. Where is the heat of the moment in the lived experience, what is at stake in that moment, and what is it that especially is calling us? 2. The Philosophical Secret Camber: writing an essay in Montaignan style for themselves, having an inner philosophical dialogue in solitude with themselves about the basic, tacit philosophical assumptions and values of the lived experience that is taken for granted in the lived experience they have described in the first momentum. What is the prior philosophical question or wonderment that this lived experience calls you to reflect upon? What is the underlying philosophical theme that the phenomenological description and critical reflection upon the tacit assumptions in the lived experience have brought to the surface? 3. The Cathedral: the practitioner’s ‘little narrative and phenomenological impression’ and ‘little personal philosophical wonderment’ are now lifted into the cathedral of the Grand Narrative and Wonderment of humanity on the chosen theme. Which great artists, writers or philosophers could be interesting to get into a dialogue about this theme and this specific personal philosophical wonderment? The group members give their inspirations and suggestions to the member whose turn it is. Here the Socratic dialectics, virtues and dialogue forms are presented for the participants in order for them not to get into an answer-seeking mode, but a mode of being that will deepen and qualify the personal wonderment even more. 4. The Camber of the Heart: This is the place where each practitioner returns to her- or himself in an existential sense. Who and where am I in all these great thoughts and ideas? How do I live these thoughts and ideals in my own life? This momentum draws on more spiritual and contemplative exercises in the spirit of Hadot (1995) but it also makes use of more aesthetical forms of expression and playfulness. 5. The Deed: In this momentum the participants turn back to their ‘Platonic Cave’, their daily practical and hasty work life. They are asked to share their thoughts and visions about how in the coming future one can change the organization, structures, environment or

38

II

work habits in order to be able to live a more ‘philosophical life’. How can we reorganize our daily life so that we can better take care of the ‘subject’, which was the focus of the present wonder-workshop? And how can we nurture in our daily work life (and maybe also in our private lives) that kind of Socratic dialogue form and wondrous questioning that we have experienced during the journey through the Socratic community of wonder? In what way might that sharpen our ears for the call of the situation and relation in our work with other people and relation to our living world as such? These are briefly stated the structure and direction of the Socratic Workshop of Wonderment that I have tried out in different professional settings. A more thorough description of the five momentums and the different exercises I have developed for each momentum can be found elsewhere (Hansen, 2015b).

Conclusion In this essay I have proposed a new direction for the practice of philosophy. I have encouraged the philosophical practitioner also to go to research by becoming a Socratic interlocutor and facilitator of communities of wonder and of practices of living a philosophical life among professional practitioners. I have argued that what I have termed phenomenological-oriented and Socratic action research can be understood as a way of letting ‘the philosophical life’ come alive among professional people in order for them to see the invisible or hear the tacit and more existential and ontological dimensions of their professional life through ‘their wondrous eye’. When focusing on these tacit ontological and ‘phronetic’ dimensions in professional practices I can as a researcher only act as a kind of Socratic midwife in the hope that the practitioners will start looking at their own practices with wondrous eyes from within their own lived experiences and the life world. Only they have access to these insights. This is something I as a philosophical practitioner cannot gain direct access to. But furthermore, when following the radical thoughts of late Foucault and Levinas, we see that to live a philosophical life as a professional practitioner, the professional practitioner must learn to listen and get into a wondrous dialogue with his or her own lived experiences and life impressions as if these life experiences and impressions were ‘interlocutors’ talking to the practitioner themselves! So in a way as a

The Philosophical Practitioner as a Co-Researcher

39

Socratic researcher my wondrous questions to the practitioners are only a kind of prelude to what will become the genuine research questions and dialogues, which only the practitioners themselves can have with their own lives. If I can help to establish a Socratic community of wonder among the practitioners whereby they can share their life experiences and wonderments and reflections, I can also gain access to a ‘truth-telling’ from within these practitioners’ life world, which I would otherwise as a traditional action or qualitative researcher never be able to. I have also shortly described how I in practice do that. Thus, what I have been aiming at in this article is to show how we can talk about being a ‘philosophical practitioner-in-research’, and why we have to be aware of the strange and enigmatic relation there is between deed, love and wonderment in phenomenological-oriented action research.5

References Brinkmann, Svend (2007). ‘Could Interviews Be Epistemic? An Alternative to Qualitative Opinion Polling’. Qualitative Inquiry 13 (8): 1116–1138. —. (2012). Qualitative Inquiry in Everyday Life: Working with Everyday Life Materials. Los Angeles: Sage. Brohm, Rene (2009). ‘A Sense of Participation. Proximity in Action Research’. Paper presented at ’OLKC 2009’, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 28–28 April 2009. Caputo, John (2002). ‘Good Will and the Hermeneutics of Friendship: Gadamer and Derrida’. Philosophy Social Criticism 28 (5): 512–522. Cederberg, Carl (2005). ‘Levinas’ Platonism’. Slagmark 45: 73–88. Coulter, David (2002). ‘What Counts as Action in Educational Action Research’. Educational Action Research 10(2): 189–206. Dinkins, Christine (2005). ‘Hermeneutic Inter-viewing and Interpreting’. In Interpretive Studies in Healthcare and the Human Sciences, Beyond Method: Converging Conversations of Philosophy, Methodology and Epistemology, edited by Pamela Ironside. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Foucault, Michel (1989). Foucault Live – Interviews. Translated by John Johnson. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).

5

For those who are particularly interested in a practical description of how I concretely work with Socratic Communities of Wonder and the so-called Socratic Workshops of Wonderment (SWW) please read Hansen (2015a).

40

II

—. (2001a [1982]). L´hermenéneutique du sujet: Cours au Collège de France, 1981–1982, edited by Frédéric Gros. Paris: Le SeuilGallimard. —. (2001b [1983]). Fearless Speech, edited by Joseph Pearson. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e). —. (2005). The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the College de France 1981–1982, edited by Frédéric Gros. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1986). The Idea of the Good in PlatonicAristotelian Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Giorgi, Amedeo, and Barbro Giorgi (2003). ‘The Descriptive Phenomenological Psychological Method’. In Qualitative Research in Psychology, edited by P.M. Camic et al. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Hadot, Pierre (1995). Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault. Oxford: Blackwell. Halling, Steen (2008). Intimacy, Transcendence, and Psychology: Closeness and Openness in Everyday Life. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hansen, Finn Thorbjørn (2012). ‘One Step Further: The Dance between Poetic Dwelling and Socratic Wonder in Phenomenological Research’. In Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, special edition, edited by K. Galvin, 1–20. —. (2013). ‘Finn Thorbjørn Hansen’. In Philosophical Practice: 5 Questions. Edited by J.B.L Knox and J.K.B.O. Friis. Copenhagen: Automatic Press/VIP. —. (2014). Kan man undre sig uden ord? Design- og universitetspædagogik i kreative videregående uddannelser. Aalborg: Aalborg Universitetsforlag. —. (2015a) in print. ‘Det sokratiske forskningsinterview’. In Metodefetichisme, kvalitative metode på afveje - ophav, kritik, nye perspektiver, edited by Karen Munk. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. —. (2015b) in print. ‘The Call and Practices of Wonder. How to Evoke a Socratic Community of Wonder in Professional Settings’. In The Socratic Handbook, edited by Michael Noah Weiss, 217-244. Wien: LIT Verlag. —. (2015c) in print. ‘Om Wittgenstein som humorist og eksistentiel fænomenolog’. In Kierkegaard og eksistentiel fænomenologi, edited by Mogens Pahuus. Aalborg: Aalborg Universitetsforlag. Heidegger, Martin (1976). What is Called Thinking? New York: Harper Collins.

The Philosophical Practitioner as a Co-Researcher

41

Levinas, Emmanuel (1987). ‘Signification et Sens’. In Levinas: L´humanisme de l´autre homme. Paris: Livre de poche. —. (1988). The Provocation of Levinas: Rethinking the Other. Routledge: London. —. (1998). Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence. Pittsburg, Pennsylvania: Duquesne University Press. Lindseth, Anders (2005). Zur Sache der Philosophischen Praxis. Freiburg/München: Verlag Karl Alber, McGushin, Edward (2007). Foucault’s Askésis: An Introduction to the Philosophical Life. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Morgan, Michael (2007). Discovering Levinas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Patocka, Jan (1996). Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History. Translated by Erazim Kohák. Edited by James Dodd. Chicago, IL: Open Court. —. (2002). Plato and Europe. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Rubenstein, Mary-Jane (2011). Strange Wonder. The Closure of Metaphysics and the Opening of Awe. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Sallis, John (1995). ‘The Place of Wonder’. In Double Truth, edited by J. Sallis, 191–210. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Senge, Peter, and Carl Otto Scharmer (2006). ‘Community Action Research’. In Handbook of Action Research, edited by Peter Reason and Hilary Bradbury. London: Sage Publications. Smythe, Elizabeth A., Pamela M. Ironside, Sharon L. Sims, Melinda M. Swenson, Deborah G. Spence (2008). ‘Doing Heideggerian Hermeneutic Research: A Discussion Paper’. International Nursing Studies 45 (9): 1389–1397. Strhan, Anna (2012). Levinas, Subjectivity, Education: Towards an Ethics of Radical Responsibility. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. Van Manen, Max (1990). Researching Lived Experience: Human Science for Action Sensitive Pedagogy. London: Althouse Press. —. (2014). Phenomenology of Practice. Meaning-Giving Methods in Phenomenological Research and Writing. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Vasalou, Sophia (ed.) (2012). Practices of Wonder: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers. Wenger, Etienne (1998). Communities of Practices. New York: Cambridge University Press.

III THE MEANINGFULNESS OF AND SATISFACTION FROM DIALOGUES IN PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE: CONSIDERATIONS OF CONTENT AND METHODOLOGY ANDERS LINDSETH

In the dialogues of the Philosophical Practice, the life experience of the visitor or guest can be examined in such a way that the person can orient herself or himself better in life. As a research method, Philosophical Practice is not a finding out of everything that is the case in the guest’s life but rather a clarification of what is at stake in his or her life. If that is successful, the dialogues are experienced as meaningful and deeply satisfying. In this essay, this experience of the meaningful and the satisfying is taken as an example to illustrate the way of investigation in Philosophical Practice. A primary reflection presents the experience of the meaningfulness of and satisfaction from dialogues of Philosophical Practice, a critical reflection shows that this experience is essentially about the importance of being heard in life, and finally, a theoretical reflection discusses what it could mean to be understood as a human being.

What is to be investigated? Philosophical Practice dialogues are moving, often exciting and can be experienced as deeply satisfying both by the guest and the practitioner. This does not mean that they are always easy or just beautiful; dialogues about difficult life issues can also be satisfying. How can we understand the meaningfulness of and satisfaction from dialogues in Philosophical Practice?

The Meaningfulness of and Satisfaction from Dialogues

43

The question of what makes the dialogues of the Philosophical Practice meaningful and satisfying might cause objections and concerns that are not only typical of the scientific way of thinking of our time but are also interesting from the perspective of Philosophical Practice. To deal with them can help clarifying what is at stake in Philosophical Practice, as well as in philosophizing in general. This essay first discusses the objections to the question and then gives an answer to the question of the meaningfulness of and satisfaction from the dialogues. Finally, it addresses what makes the dialogues of the Philosophical Practice philosophical and not just therapeutic. The first objection might be: Are the dialogues of the Philosophical Practice really meaningful? Can this claim be supported by evidence? And by what criteria is the meaningful to be determined? This first concern is followed by a second one: Even if the dialogues are meaningful, then the meaningfulness of and satisfaction from the dialogues in Philosophical Practice can only be given in the experience of practitioners and their guests, and that experience is subjective. To specify it further may lead to unfounded generalizations of random experiences, if these experiences are not investigated and documented by empirical research. Only such investigations can determine not only whether and to what extent the dialogues of the Philosophical Practice are experienced as meaningful, but also whether we can see a common pattern in the experiences of the meaningful. From these two objections a third one arises: If dialogues are experienced as meaningful and satisfying, one can hope that they are helpful. But is what is helpful not exactly the therapeutic (instead of the philosophical)? If the question is how we can understand that the dialogues of the Philosophical Practice are meaningful, satisfying and helpful, then the Philosophical Practice becomes a specific form of therapy and loses sight of the philosophical. Concerning the first objection, it has to be stated clearly that this essay does not intend to pass judgment on the dialogues that are performed in the many Philosophical Practices all over the world. These very different dialogues are not the subject of this investigation, rather, this essay is about a specific experience that can be made in such dialogues: that they are meaningful and satisfying. This meaningful and satisfying is the topic of this essay, not the dialogues as empirical facts. The meaningfulness of and satisfaction from the dialogues is the exciting thing to be understood.

44

III

With this statement, we immediately reached the second objection: the meaningful and satisfying can only be experienced subjectively, and we do not know anything definite about such experiences if we do not investigate them empirically. Although this objection ignores something essential, it still cannot be easily dismissed. It is typical of the dominant view in the empirical sciences which deal with the ‘positively given’, i.e. the empirically and factually given. What is overlooked is the dimension of meaning in which we have part when the given reveals itself. We overlook it because it is too close to us and too self-evident. But precisely this self-evidence puts our understanding to the test. How So? This question requires an exact answer.

Two kinds of approaches to the phenomena of life and the world The positively given are the phenomena of the world that can become the subject of investigation. They are objects that we can perceive, experience, recognize, and understand. To such recognition that what is given reveals itself, the phenomena reveal themselves (from the Greek phainomenon, meaning ‘that which reveals itself, that appears’). The phenomena can be of a material, physical, chemical, biological, physiological, or genetic nature, they can be things and artefacts, but they can also be of a psychological, social, cultural, historical, existential, religious, ethical or still another nature. They are empirically given in different perspectives, they can be empirically examined in the given contexts. The dialogues of the Philosophical Practice are also phenomena that can be studied from different perspectives. Depending on what we want to know about them, they can be considered as phenomena of social or spiritual nature or otherwise. And the satisfactory or unsatisfactory of such dialogues is also given empirically. It can be examined and understood psychologically, sociologically, anthropologically or otherwise. There is nothing wrong with investigations of that what is positively given. We often need the knowledge that such studies can produce in order to cope with a world in which the phenomena are of importance. However, we can still easily overlook something essential, something crucial. It is the simple fact that we must already understand what we want to study in order to make a study possible. Of course we do not know beforehand what we want to find out; that would make the study superfluous. But we need to know the phenomena we investigate, we must be familiar with

The Meaningfulness of and Satisfaction from Dialogues

45

them in order to explore them. This knowledge of the phenomena and being familiar with them is the condition for defining them in a meaningful way and for investigating them empirically. Our familiarity with the phenomena not only enables us to enunciate meaningful questions and issues, it also enables us to communicate in a meaningful way about issues, problems and investigations. It can hardly be denied that, as human beings, we are familiar with the phenomena of the world prior to any examination of them. We have to have such a familiarity, otherwise we would not have a common world that we might argue about or agree upon. However, the importance of this familiarity with the common world can be understood and evaluated very differently. On the one hand we can very naively assume that, out of this familiarity with the world, the truth of the phenomena and the good of life will reveal themselves if we only believe the right things and behave properly. On the other hand, we might also take the opposite position which assumes that the commonality of the human apprehension of the world is simply due to our common physical and psychological nature; we just experience the world in similar ways, we have similar feelings in it, and we have similar thoughts about it. However, this commonality of feeling and thinking can not be trusted in any way unless we examine more thoroughly, preferably scientifically, everything we assume from and in this world. We can consider these two assessments of the familiarity with the world as extreme opposites, although we know them well –– from the more or less fundamentalist faith on the one hand and on the other hand from a science which considers as noteworthy nothing but the positively given. We can trace back the first extreme to the early days of mankind, the second extreme is primarily a modern phenomenon. In both cases, philosophical thinking is required in order to expose the extremes and to do justice to the plausible. Philosophy has always questioned the naivety of faith, also in the Middle Ages when it had felt committed to religious faith. For a philosophical thinking worthy of this name, the truth accessible to the subject has never been an uncritical truth. And when the modern positivist and naturalistic science prevailed in the universities of the nineteenth century, philosophical reactions emerged in the form of hermeneutics and phenomenology. From the perspective of philosophical hermeneutics, we can only understand on the grounds of our pre-understanding, from our being familiar with and involved in life and in the world. We need to know the phenomena that are

46

III

given to our apprehension, our knowledge, in a primary way through our experience from the inside in order to determine them more accurately. Mathematics demonstrates the importance of the internal perspective. Edmund Husserl (cf. 1975) was originally an academic mathematician, and it contributed to his phenomenological awakening when he realized that his contemporary psychologists wanted to psychologically explain mathematics as mathematical-mental behaviour. Such explanation, even if successful, would be pretty uninteresting for the mathematician, since it would not contribute to his mathematical knowledge and skills. A mathematician is a good mathematician if he is familiar with some of the large and diverse world of mathematics and if he can understand its situation. The mathematician first has to see the solution of a mathematical problem in his mind before he can accurately demonstrate and prove it. To be a mathematician means to deepen a first-person perspective. One tries to grasp the phenomena from a personal familiarity with them; it would be completely beside the point to obtain data from the outside. Of course you can recognize somebody else’s solution to a problem, but that is of no help as long as one cannot understand the solution for oneself. The phenomena of mathematics, numbers, geometric shapes, the algebraic structures and so on, and the mathematical definitions, axioms and theorems can indeed be regarded as naturally given mental entities, but the science of mathematics is not about them as empirical phenomena but rather about the meaningful relations in which they are incorporated. We have a primary reference to the dimension of meaning in mathematics, although it requires considerable mental effort to penetrate and to illuminate this dimension of meaning. Whereas some mathematicians have an amazing access to new ideas, most of them are probably slow and patient workers in the world of mathematics. The supporting and moving foundation of this science seems to remain a mystery. The empirical sciences are devoted to the task of investigating the phenomena of the world as positively given entities. They gain information about the phenomena, they gather empirical data and try to identify structural and causal correlations in the data. The fact that we already need to know the phenomena in an everyday experience of the world in order to examine them empirically-scientifically is not considered as important, because the human familiarity with the world is seen as a merely subjective and unreliable access to it, which at best gives us some ideas that may prove fruitful in empirical research. This self-understanding of empirical sciences might be called positivistic. It is solely directed on

The Meaningfulness of and Satisfaction from Dialogues

47

the positively given and overlooks –– to say it again –– something essential. Not only is the importance of the daily access to the world's phenomena denied, positivism (cf. Przybylske 1989) overlooks especially that the primary familiarity with the world can itself be a field of investigation. The primary but limited understanding of the world’s phenomena can be deepened and expanded. Not only can we better understand the world’s theoretical relations, we can also better understand how we can act wisely and how we can produce masterfully all the things we need in life. Such understanding is the capacity to comprehend and to orientate oneself in life contexts. The empirical sciences start from a methodically secured observation of the world, but we live in this world before we can observe it methodically. We know the world’s phenomena from the beginning by our acting in life. We experience the world –– and this tangible and immediately intelligible world is called lifeworld in phenomenology (cf. Husserl 1976 part 3A). This is a difficult concept, because there is not such a thing as my lifeworld and your lifeworld, as some claim, but there is only the common, tangible and intelligible world we call the lifeworld. Of course we have different positions in it and thus unequal knowledge of it, but we are always able to communicate in and about the common lifeworld and thus to understand it. But at the same time the lifeworld is not separated from the empirical or other world. There is no such thing as a pure lifeworld. When we speak of it, we want to emphasize that we already know the world before we deliberately think about it or start investigating it, leading to theories and explanations of it which we often do not easily understand. However, the lifeworld does not remain unaffected by our scientific investigations. Today's lifeworld is by far more technological than the one 200 years ago and by far more information-technological than just 20 years ago. But when it comes to what is important in human relationships, things in today’s lifeworld might not differ that much from the one 2000 years ago. The lifeworld changes, but it can be doubted whether there is a progress like in the technological world. One might discuss whether it is fruitful to speak of the lifeworld, but what can not be doubted is the fact that there are two almost opposite perspectives of research: We can focus on the phenomena in a perspective from the outside, in which it is important to find out what is the case, or we see the phenomena in a perspective from the inside, which means that we want to understand them in the contexts with which we may be familiar only through participation in life. Then, we do not want to know what is the case, but understand what is at stake from our participation.

48

III

We want to understand what is important in life contexts or –– in more phenomenological terms –– want to understand the essential meaning of the phenomena. Positivism fails to recognize –– to emphasize it again –– not only the importance of this second task, but also how much mental effort and work it requires to tackle it. This work is of reflexive nature, located in the area of thought, of philosophizing. So how can we examine what is at stake? For Plato and in the period thereafter until the modern era, a dialectical method was decisive that saw its ideal in mathematics (cf. Schmitt, 2008), whereas the project of modernity since Descartes relied on a method of reflection which aimed at attaining certainty (cf. Descartes, 1931). By transcendental reflection, Kant has clarified the conditions of the possibility of true knowledge and of good actions (cf. Beck 1960), and the philosophers of German Idealism followed him boldly (cf. Schulz, 1981). The philosophers of hermeneutics have emphasized the circularity of understanding and the importance of culturally rooted and effective prejudices (cf. The Gadamer Reader, 2007), while the phenomenology of Husserl has developed a number of methodological steps, from epoché over eidetic and transcendental reduction to phenomenological reduction (cf. Bell, 1990, Part II). The optimism of a phenomenological approach ‘to the things themselves’ was countered by Heidegger’s idea that thinking is reflecting that what is thought about, and that what is thought about always eludes a deliberate grasp of the thinking. Thinking requires calmness and patience; we need to wait until the time for decisive insights is ripe. Thus, the question of being in the metaphysical tradition of the West can be understood only depending on what the time allows to see or not to see, and this question of being dependent on the time has been, according to Heidegger, forgotten more and more since the Presocratics. This has the practical consequence that we can not wait to see human beings revealing themselves in their nature, but that we prefer to objectify and to classify them according to the categories of our knowledge (cf. Heidegger, 1954, 1987; Lindseth, 2005: 148–164). Many other approaches of the philosophical tradition deserve to be mentioned. Basically, philosophy is about how to understand what is at stake in life, what is essential in life or in the world. Finally, only the approach of Martin Buber should not remain unmentioned. Buber has pointed out very impressively that the first-person perspective, which is necessary to understand what is of crucial importance in life, gains its deeper meaning only in view of a Thou that essentially moves and carries

The Meaningfulness of and Satisfaction from Dialogues

49

us. Not only other people but also nature and the spiritual content of life, in art, in religion, in history, in culture, can move us in such a way that we are grasped by the basic word I-Thou, while experiencing the world’s phenomena puts us into the basic word I-It (cf. Buber, 1973).

Philosophical practice as a method of investigation: How do we know that the dialogues in philosophical practice are meaningful and satisfying? These approaches, just briefly mentioned here, of examining what constitutes the essential relationships in human life still have their validity. They are still important. Now, if a method from the Philosophical Practice’s point of view should be presented, it can actually be fully understood only as an extension of the above approaches. For reasons of space, it is not possible to develop in great generality the method of Philosophical Practice for clarifying questions of life. Instead, it shall be described by way of example, which in turn fits well with it because it can justifiably be called a method of the exemplary, a method for clarifying life questions from life’s specific situations and problems (On the method of Philosophical Practice as dialogical counselling, see Lindseth, 2010). The question of this essay is: How is the meaningfulness of and satisfaction from dialogues in the Philosophical Practice to be understood? The question is based on the experience that the dialogues of the Philosophical Practice are meaningful and satisfying. This experience has been made and can be studied empirically as a phenomenon in time and space. However, we are not concerned with the factual experience but rather with its essential meaning. What is this experience, basically? So we start with a subjective experience, but we do not remain stuck in the subjective, we rather want to understand the essence of the experience, we want to understand the thing which is at stake in this experience, and this thing is inter-subjectively accessible, located in the common lifeworld, so to speak. However, talking like that might be dangerous, because the essential meaning of the experience is not given in the form of an opinion of it. We may have different opinions about the meaningfulness of and satisfaction from dialogues in the Philosophical Practice, and these opinions may even be in accordance with the essence of the experience, but nevertheless the essence is not to be confused with an opinion. It is easy and fast to come up with an opinion, but the essential meaning of an experience needs to be perceived and experienced, and then it is not really easy to say what its meaning is. We must refrain from immediately

50

III

knowing in order to perceive sufficiently. The knowledge that we may have is to be put aside, to be ‘put into brackets’ (in phenomenological terms), in order to try again to find words that can capture the essence of the experience. This is an endeavour that requires caution, deliberation, and prudence. This may sound good, but what does it mean in practice? How can we pursue such a venture? The slogan of phenomenology is: Describe! If we simply describe the phenomena, we do not fall prey to an opinion that might be random, emotional, entangled in interests. But how can we describe life phenomena, such as the phenomenon of the meaningfulness of and satisfaction from a dialogue in the Philosophical Practice? The answer is: We need to tell that experience. Only then can we realize whether we succeed in expressing what we have felt and experienced. In the Philosophical Practice, the experience is expressed in the dialogue, but for research purposes it might be fruitful to write down the experiences, because then it becomes even clearer what is true in the story to some extent and what is not yet true and needs to be retold. The written narrative of experience is not quite the same as writing a story. Once we aim at writing a story, we are guided by standards to what the story should look like, or perhaps even more, what it should not look like. Telling from experience, however, is an attempt to express the experienced and the perceived by words. Such narration must allow itself to be subjective, biased, emotional, and redundant. Thus, it is the task of the philosopher to help ensure that the crucial elements of the narration are allowed to show themselves, so that the story gets to the point. As a method for the study of what is at stake in life, Philosophical Practice starts with telling from an experience. Something has been experienced that has left an unforgettable impression, usually something disturbing and incomprehensible, but it can also be something we wonder about, such as the experience that dialogues in the Philosophical Practice may be deeply satisfying. The guest is searching for words that can express the experience, and the philosopher is moved by the guest’s story and follows his narration. But this narration is not only a moved and moving flow, it is quite a reflexive process, because all the time it must be perceived whether the narration is coherent, whether it meets the thing at stake in the experience. We can call this reflection a primary reflection, because it produces a story which can be thought about later, when the guest and the philosopher reflect together what the narration is about. This reflection, trying to see the essence of the story in its context, and therefore also trying to distinguish between the true and the false of the story, can be

The Meaningfulness of and Satisfaction from Dialogues

51

called critical reflection. What follows quite naturally is a theoretical reflection, which links insights from the critical reflection with thoughts from philosophy, art, religion, theology, literature, history or from psychology, sociology and anthropology.

Primary and critical reflection According to this method, we will examine the meaningfulness of and satisfaction from dialogues in the Philosophical Practice. We will not reproduce the primary reflection of narration from experience through a case history, but we will implicitly assume it by appealing to an experience that we all know from life: How important it is to be heard. We all have experienced that we have met or perhaps visited a person and tried to tell him something or communicate with him, but then it became clear that the other is not open to what we say. Then we lose the desire to reveal us. If it's not something personal what we have on our mind, we can usually pretty easily cope with the lack of responsiveness of the other; but if we try to say something important, it might feel insulting if we are not listened to. Perhaps the other has shown willingness to listen, so we began our story, but then we realize that what we say does not reach him. This is hurtful; we feel rejected. Sometimes we may be dependent on the help of the other; then we can not easily escape the conversation but must try to express ourselves in such a way that we can unfold our concern. Here, it helps to be educated and articulate. An example of this may be the contact with the health care system. We approach a busy and complex system with many skills and procedures and rather meet the interest of obtaining valid information about illness and discomfort instead of an openness to listen to what we have on our mind. Of course, we can accept that, and more readily if we are met in a friendly way, but it is still not that easy to present oneself. It is not about finding an appropriate expression, we can only hope that the treatment to which we subject ourselves will be to our benefit. We also know the opposite experience: we are listened to with openness and receptivity for what we are trying to say. We meet someone who is interested to hear what we have to say, and thus it is easy to talk. We are invited into the room of an attention in which our narration can find its voice. Then, we find words for what we want to say, words which are often striking and perhaps surprising. We are heard and therefore hear ourselves. This can mean that only then we realize what we are saying and what we are really concerned with. The life that is expressed in what has

52

III

been said thus gets a chance to reshape itself in the dialogue. It may well be that we say something we have said before, maybe even many times. Then we know what we are saying. However, we can know it too well. We have concluded before we even start speaking. But if the words find an attentive listener, something happens. They get a new determination. We listen to our own words anew. We are almost infected by the attention of the listener, who hears what has been said as something new. Suddenly, what has been said attains the quality of a novelty. This might explain what often happens in such a dialogue: that afterwards both partners are in a better mood than before. And not only because in the dialogue something important was touched, but because you came into a movement that has released life forces. One feels revived. This is in contrast to a process in which one attempts to classify what has been said in the framework of a system of theoretical knowledge, e.g. of medical, sociological or psychological nature. So far we can understand the importance of listening in the Philosophical Practice. When we experience the dialogues to be particularly useful, it has to do with the fact that we feel listened to –– and thus understood.

Theoretical reflection But what do we mean when we claim to understand a person? To shed light on these issues, I will discuss the thinking of Hans-Georg Gadamer. In his philosophical hermeneutics, Gadamer emphasizes very impressively that the understanding must perceive the message of a text, the character of an expression, the spirit of an action, the effect of a work, the language of a thing and so on, and that it does not have the freedom to determine the essence of the being that expresses itself. That what expresses itself has to be understood in its expression, but in its being it remains something mysterious for the understanding and something unintelligible in itself. Gadamer writes that because the freedom of understanding must limit itself, the understanding proceeds to the essential, namely where it gives up its claim, i.e. of the incomprehensible. I am not talking about some pious modesty before the inscrutable, but an element of our moral life experience that we all know: understanding in the relationship of I and Thou. As experience shows, nothing impedes a genuine understanding of I and Thou more than somebody’s claim to understand the other in his being and his opinion. To be ahead of all the other’s expressions by means of ‘understanding’ has actually no other purpose than to keep the other’s claim at arm’s length. It

The Meaningfulness of and Satisfaction from Dialogues

53

is a way not to be told anything. But where one is able to be told something, where he recognizes the other’s claims without understanding it in advance and thus limiting it, he is obtaining real self-knowledge. Then, he gains new insights. A true extension of the ego, imprisoned in the narrowness of experiencing, does not lie in the sovereign understanding, as Dilthey says, but rather in encountering the incomprehensible. Maybe we never see so much of our own historical being as when we are touched by the breath of very strange worlds of history. The fundamental character of historical being is apparently to be meaningful, but in the active sense of the word; and the essence of history is to allow yourself to be touched and moved by meaning. From that alone a real connection between I and Thou grows, and from that alone the binding powers of the historical fate emerge between us and history (Gadamer, 1993: 35).

What does Gadamer say in this, as I think, particularly exciting section of a lecture from 1943? He puts understanding in relation to its boundaries. Understanding is no real understanding unless it stops before the incomprehensible and therefore realizes its own limits. Only then it can become real understanding. Gadamer makes this understandable and plausible from the dialogical understanding between human beings. Do we already know ‘the other in his being and in his opinion’, we are no longer open to what the others expresses through word and deed but keep it away from us. ‘But where one is able to be told something, where he recognizes the other’s claims without understanding it in advance and thus limiting it, he is obtaining real self-knowledge. Then, he gains new insights’. Thus, the danger of understanding lies in aiming at clarifying everything in advance, in aiming at understanding everything, or at least the most important, and thus in neither perceiving nor acknowledging the Other’s claim to be meaningful. In professional helpers’ relationships that risk is particularly great, not because the sympathetic helpers do not want to understand, but because they want to understand too strongly, because they claim as much as possible to possess a sound knowledge of the needy ‘in his being and in his opinion’. But this means that they do not really recognize his claim to be meaningful. They are not really ready to be told something that does not fit into the framework of their own prior knowledge. Gadamer calls upon an experience we all know: If we think to know in advance what it is when we are dealing with another human being, we do not really learn anything new for us. We might get some additional information that we need to adjust to our (more or less) fixed framework of understanding. But if we want to learn something new, something that concerns us and could even change us, we must recognize that the Other

54

III

expresses something important, something that we can not know in advance. Then we need to engage in what the Other says, does and wants. We must dare us to engage in a dialogue in which we might be even wrong. We must be willing to be told something. What this experience that Gadamer calls upon is actually about becomes even more apparent when we ourselves are the ones that are not understood. If we are misunderstood and can correct the impression, then the problem may be small. And if the conservation is about self-evident things, or if it is only about facts, being understood is usually not a personal problem. Not being understood can become much more sensitive if what we have on our minds and express is not taken seriously. Then we are not listened to and not recognized. Crucial for feeling understood is the willingness of the Other to soak up what we express by word and deed, but also by our presence, without claiming to know beforehand what it is or should be about. It is crucial that the expression may make an impression on us. An all-too-secure knowledge, as well as an overly defined expectation, would impede the impression, which is bodily felt but which has not yet gained an understanding of the Other, in its process of unfolding. This previous knowledge would make an understanding out of the feeling almost superfluous. Thus, it would not go along with the movement of my self-expression, since it would already know what is going on. Thus, in the attempt to express myself I would not only not be recognized by this knowing conversation partner, I would even be misunderstood. If my conversation partner knows in advance what it is or should be about, I experience that my expression does not really count, and therefore it becomes difficult to find orientation in it. But if the Other listens to what I say, I can hear it for myself and get an impression of it. Then I find myself in my expression. Thus, listening to the Other can be seen as a kind of judgment on my expression and my life: if my expression is heard and recognized, it is justified and may find its own way; if this recognition is lacking, the expression is lost, unless it finds refuge on an island of recognition, which is located elsewhere in the flow of striving for understanding. If I want to do justice to the Other’s claim to be meaningful by means of understanding, I need to stop before the limit of understanding, before the Other in his being and in his opinion. This stop means recognizing the Other’s life which expresses itself. The unfolding of the expression is the requirement I have to endure while understanding. I do this by allowing the expression of the Other to make an impression on me. I do not keep him away from me, but I'm willing to feel him and thus to be approached

The Meaningfulness of and Satisfaction from Dialogues

55

by him. The Other appealing me remains the incomprehensible; I can understand him only in his claim and expression. This understanding is a recognition of the authority of this claim and of this expression. In this expression, I see (with Gadamer’s words) the ‘fundamental character of historical being’ to be meaningful in the active sense. This meaning of the Other calls upon my recognition. It demands from me a readiness ‘to be approached by meaning’. Thus we see that what is at stake in Philosophical Practice is the meaning of the guest. That this meaning gets recognition and (re)gains its way is what is meaningful, deeply satisfying and helpful in the dialogues of the Philosophical Practice. This makes them more therapeutic than some therapies that consider persons in need as deficient substances that are difficult or impossible to restore. The dialogues of the Philosophical Practice thus do not become unphilosophical, but on the contrary truly philosophical.1

References Beck, Lewis White (1960). A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bell, David (1990). Husserl. London and New York: Routledge. Buber, Martin (1973). Das dialogische Prinzip. Heidelberg: Verlag Lambert Schneider. Descartes, René (1931). Meditations on First Philosophy. In The Philosophical Work of Descartes, Volume 1, edited by E. S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1993). Das Problem der Geschichte in der neueren deutschen Philosophie. In Gesammelte Werke, Band 2, HansGeorg Gadamer, 27–36. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Heidegger, Martin (1954). Was heißt Denken? Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. —. (1987). Zollikoner Gespräche. Edited by Medard Boss. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. Husserl, Edmund (1975). Logische Untersuchungen. Erster Band, Erstveröffentlichung 1900, Husserliana XVIII. Den Haag, Niederlande: Martinus Nijhoff.

1

The essay has been translated from German by Dr. Patric Neubauer.

56

III

—. (1936). Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, Erstveröffentlichung 1936, Husserliana VI. Den Haag, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff. Lindseth, Anders (2005). Zur Sache der Philosophischen Praxis. Philosophieren in Gesprächen mit ratsuchenden Menschen. 2nd edition 2014. Freiburg, München: Verlag Karl Alber. —. (2010). ‘Von der Methode der Philosophischen Praxis als dialogischer Beratung’. In Methoden Philosophischer Praxis. Ein Handbuch, edited by Detlef Staude, 67–100. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. Przybylski, Hartmut (1989). ‘Positivismus’. In Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, Band 7, edited by Joachim Ritter and Karlfried Gründer, 1118–1122. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Richard E. Palmer (2007). (Ed.) The Gadamer Reader: A Bouquet of Later Writings. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press. Schmitt, Arbogast (2008). Die Moderne und Platon. Zwei Grundformen europäischer Rationalität. Stuttgart, Weimar: Verlag J. B. Metzler. Schulz, Walter (1981). Vernunft und Freiheit. Aufsätze und Vo Vorträge. Stuttgart: Reclam.

IV A PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY OF VULNERABILITY, FALLIBILITY, AND FINITUDE LYDIA AMIR

One of the tasks of philosophers who consider philosophy also as practical is to answer the needs of their contemporaries for meaningful worldviews, values to live by, and ideals of wisdom to which they can aspire. No other discipline can do this, and, as various fields depend on such a comprehensive vision of the good life, this task remains within the responsibility of philosophers nowadays much as it has been in the past. The alternative spirituality that philosophic worldviews convey have inspired individuals who shun from established religions. More than ever, it is important today to offer alternatives not only to religions, but also to the type of lax mysticism the New Age provides. And, contrary to the widespread belief also among philosophers, we do not necessarily have to turn to Eastern philosophies for practical ideals of wisdom. It is the task of practical philosophers to create new worldviews that help making sense of the human condition as we currently know of it, illuminated by the updated knowledge that science represents. In this essay, I introduce such a worldview and explain how it promotes the more practical goals of the practice of philosophy, such as bridging the distance between thought and life, addressing the whole individual, enabling personal transformation, grounding an ethics to live by, and providing other professionals who work with people with a much needed vision of the good life. Such of worldview is necessarily skeptical. Its skepticism makes it compatible with various forms of belief, rather than knowledge, whilst

58

IV

remaining faithful to the rationality to which philosophers are committed.1 It grounds an egalitarian vision and an ethics of compassion without the metaphysical assumptions that Christian, Buddhist or Schopenhauerean ethics require. Inner transformation is inherent in it since it holds the key to bridging thought and life. It enables peace and happiness by showing the way to self-acceptance, and thus answers contemporary needs as well as perennial ones. It inscribed itself within all previous philosophical attempts to address the human condition by indicating a resting-place to the human being within the universe in accordance with our current state of knowledge.

The human condition Practical philosophers gently introduce their clients, much as philosophers welcome their students, into the human condition. Far from shunning from the general, the client and the student are invited to enrich their concrete existence by thinking about the human condition in philosophic terms and enjoying the wealth of knowledge philosophers and other thinkers have devised. This movement is not complete unless the student or client implements in his life the outcome of the communion in the abstract and the general he enjoyed with other human beings through a philosophical practitioner’s introduction to philosophy. The human condition is characterized by a tension between our desires on the instinctual, emotional and intellectual levels, and our awareness of the impossibility of fulfilling them for practical as well as principled reasons. This tension is noticed in the relations we entertain with the world, with others, and with ourselves. Significant here are Albert Camus’s vision of the absurd in The Myth of Sisyphus (Camus, 1959 [1942]), Jean-Paul Sartre’s description of the clash between me and the other, between the individual and the group (Sartre, 1957 [1943]), and Immanuel Kant’s view of metaphysical questions as necessarily arising from the nature of reason, yet transcending reason’s power of answering them (Kant, 1929: xviii). But various additional thinkers, philosophers and writers have described this basic tension as a tragic human

1

For the emotional difficulties of accepting skepticism according to various philosophers, and the skeptical features of the worldview presented here as well as humor’s role in making it palatable, see Amir 2014c.

A Practical Philosophy of Vulnerability, Fallibility, and Finitude

59

predicament feeding on unresolvable conflicts.2 The intra-psychic aspect of the conflicts within myself, between myself and the other, and between myself and the world that constitute my everyday experience need not always be construed as tragic, however. Through the use of self-referential humor, those intra-psychic conflicts can also be considered as comical incongruities,3 which I do not need spontaneously to enjoy but which I can learn to accept as constitutive of the contradictory being I am. Repeating these transmutations from the tragic into the comical enables me to notice and eventually accept, first with ambivalence then slowly with joy, the inevitable aspects of the human condition. Joy enables withstanding the inner conflicts which are constitutive of the human being. It impedes solving away the problem which the human is by rejecting part of his constitution, as most religions and philosophies have

2

The tragic paradigm is a view of life that sees existence individually or collectively as structured in terms of polarities, oppositions, contradictions, and their collisions (Hyers, 1996). The tragic opposition may be seen within the individual, between persons or groups, in the very nature of things, or all three. At the individual level, we have a predilection for reading the psyche as an internal struggle between contending forces. The heart of the tragic is the divided personality, and the theme of the inner torment of the tragic psyche has had a long history, from Sophocles’ King Oedipus, through Plato, St. Paul, the Middle Ages, Shakespeare, the Romantics, Fyodor Dostoevsky, till Sigmund Freud. Michel de Montaigne, Blaise Pascal, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Lev Shestov, Miguel de Unamuno, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Georges Bataille, Clément Rosset and Cioran, among others, have elaborated on the tragic sense of life. Literature is significant here, as tragic philosophers are not only rare but some of them use other genres than philosophic treatises to advance their theses. The tragic sense of life has been portrayed in Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness, Maxwell Anderson’s Winterset, Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom, O’Neil’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, Melville’s Moby Dick, Camus’ The Stranger, Sartre’s Nausea and No Exit, to name a fraction. 3 Not every tragic incongruity can be perceived as comical by the person who is in the midst of experiencing it, however; and some comical situations are independent of any underlying tragic incongruity. Yet most intrapersonal tragic conflicts, I believe, have the potential to transform themselves into comical incongruities, as theories of humor imply, histories of the dramatic genres and relations between the tragic and the comic indicate, and humor’s relations with melancholy and suffering exemplify. For a fuller explanation, see Amir 2014.

60

IV

done till now.4 Either desires were discarded or reason, which tells us at what price they can be fulfilled, or both. In order to develop a taste for reality, a systematic use of humor as a tool servicing truthfulness enables delving into the tragic and transmuting it into joyful and peaceful living. The consequential epistemological benefits are important for a philosopher: As I discard what I cannot withstand, I necessarily sabotage self-knowledge as well as knowledge of others and of reality. The ethical benefits follow from a truer vision of the ambivalent self I am, especially in my relations to others. It enables to tolerate harmoniously the tension between self-recognition and other-recognition which many thinkers, such as Georg Wilhelm Hegel and Sigmund Freud, posit as necessarily conflictual (Benjamin, 1988: 53–54).5 The need to accept myself as necessarily conflictual in my relations with myself, the others and the world, together with my incapacity for selfacceptance, lead to the general realization that we are doomed to fight 4

We may want to leave the basic conflict which constitutes the human condition unresolved when the price of resolving it requires relinquishing either our rational or cognitive powers, or renouncing the desires we identify as characterizing us no less than our reason. Most religious and philosophical solutions to the basic human predicament require renouncing one or more aspects of our humanity as we know it, however. Theories of redemption, or peace of mind, either Eastern or Western, religious or non-religious, can be divided into general types, the first type negating desire, the second making light of reason’s limitations, and the third denigrating both desire and reason. The first type of theories encompasses worldviews that urge us to renounce our desires. Among others, it includes the Buddhist and Hindu views of release, Schopenhauer’s theory of redemption, which is influenced by the former, the Hellenistic schools of Epicureanism and Pyrrhonism, and even the view on emancipation of such a balanced philosopher as Bertrand Russell. The second type of theories promises a partial or full satisfaction of desires while disparaging reason’s limits. It includes all answers to metaphysical questions, religious theories, and various philosophies that encourage the satisfaction of our desires at the expense of other human beings, whose similar right is brought to us by reason. The third type of theories denigrates both desire and reason. It is exemplified by Taoism and some forms of Western mysticism, but also by those philosophies that overstep reason’s power while denigrating desires, such as Stoicism and Kant’s view of the good life as a life lived according to the categorical imperative. See Amir 2014b, and Amir 2014. 5 American Psychoanalyst Jessica Benjamin elaborates on the problems involved in domination as described by Hegel and Freud, and yearns for a healthy yet difficult way of maintaining the tension between myself and the other (Benjamin, 1998: 53–54). I suggest that humor helps maintaining this tension. See Amir 2014.

A Practical Philosophy of Vulnerability, Fallibility, and Finitude

61

against the rules of the game: we are the butt of an anonymous joke. This egalitarian vision empties all self-centred, comparative and competitive emotions. It grounds an ethic of compassion, rivalling with philosophic as well as religious theories which found it at the price of unwarranted metaphysical assumptions. A new-found harmony within this self-knowledge answers one’s thirst for peace and fulfils the ambitious goal of philosophy itself: resolving alienation by finding a place within the universe for the human being which answers also his need for specialness.6 We are the ridiculous human being, homo risibilis, the being who cannot accept the simultaneous levity and seriousness constitutive of his life. This accounts for the necessary and impossible task which is the human condition in the tragic vision. Unless we make this task possible by acknowledging its conditions, we are doomed to suffer, and thus, make others suffer, much more than necessary. Freedom predicated on self-knowledge and self-acceptance is noticeable by joyful peace which frees us to act, unpreoccupied with internal conflicts, on others’ behalf.7

6

The worldview I propose here amounts to a harmonious congruence with myself, others, and the world, a situation that all philosophies seek to establish in their attempt to overcome alienation (Cooper, 1996: 5). By considering conflicts as normal because they are constitutive of the complex being I am and the complicated relations with and in a world I do not fully understand, Homo risibilis echoes Heraclitus’ phrase: “They do not understand that in being at variance with itself that it coheres with itself: a backward stretching harmony, as of a bow or a lyre” (Diels and Kranz, 1972, Heraclitus, B51, 80). In his impressive World Philosophies: An Historical Introduction, David Cooper cites Wordsworth’s poignant description of the tension latent in conflicting emotions which is the spur to philosophical thought: ‘The groundwork of all true philosophy is the difference between…that intuition… of ourselves, as one with the whole… and that [of] ourselves as separated beings, [which] places nature in antithesis to us’ (Cooper, 1995: 5). Many of the world philosophies attempt to resolve this tension by offering accounts of human beings that do justice to the uniqueness of the species yet without rendering its members freaks, outsiders, or strangers in the world. What hardly any philosopher of the first rank has done is to ignore the tension. If Cooper is right about the initial philosophical spur, the view proposed here inserts itself in the history of philosophical attempts to overcome alienation, and does it successfully, I believe, without unwarranted assumptions or other unnecessary difficulties. 7 For a fuller exposition of this thesis, see the third chapter (from p. 319 onwards) of my monograph, Humor and the Good Life in Modern Philosophy: Shaftesbury, Hamann, Kierkegaard (Albany, NY: States University of New York Press, 2014;

62

IV

Change Far from being a deus ex-machina for the human condition, humor is constitutive of the philosophic consciousness.8 The intra-personal communication required by the inward practice of philosophy divides a person into eiron and alazon, ideal and reality, philosophical self and societal creature. Philosophical practice is self-education. All successful self-education needs a dialectic of self-acceptance and change, that is, of compassion and aggression which humor combines.9 As we cannot change that which we do not acknowledge, the first step is self-knowledge. The ambivalent attitude which humor represents (true and false, serious and farcical, compassionate and critical), enables us to allow into consciousness previously unwelcome thoughts, feelings or desires. Humor alleviates the tension between conflicting aspects of the self, enabling thus to hold contradictions and playfully modify its constituents. Inner change follows from the internal dialogue between reason, emotions and desires which self-referential humor is.10 The most significant aspects of our being are the most difficult to accept. We necessarily reject vulnerability, fallibility, and finitude for it anguishes us. The competition which society forces on us makes us concentrates on our tiny differences instead of on our common lot. The dramatic consequences of projecting our unwanted features onto others lead to fear and hatred of those who are perceived as vulnerable and fallible. Shame of our finitude and disgust at our mortal body transpires in the rejection of

paperback edition, 2015). For its usefulness in the practice of philosophy, see Amir 2012 and Amir 2014a. For practical exercises of implementation, see my essay, ‘The Tragic Sense of the Good Life’ (2015a). 8 This is why Socrates, the epigone of the philosopher as educator, is humorous. For the intrinsic relation of humor and philosophy, see Amir 2013, and for a more accurate version of philosophers’ attitude toward humor than usually rendered, see Amir 2014d. 9 For the necessity of criticism to be humorous, see the third Earl of Shaftesbury’s views, which constitute the first chapter of Amir 2014. For the relevance of criticism to rationality, see the relation of Popper’s thought to Shaftesbury’s views on rationality, highlighted in Amir (forthcoming), ‘Shaftesbury as a Popperian: Critical Rationalism before its Time?’ Analiza I Egzystencja: Czasopismo Filozoficzne. 10 For a fuller vision of self-referential humor, see Amir 2014: Chap. 3, Amir 2012 and Amir 2014a.

A Practical Philosophy of Vulnerability, Fallibility, and Finitude

63

others who embody those unwelcome aspects of our existence.11 Self-acceptance predicated on change based on initial self-acceptance is necessary for all of us.12 That which rational understanding cannot accomplish by itself, humor helps implementing in emotions and desires.13 The result is a coherent behavior grounded on a more adequate vision of oneself. This is a life-long process, but its benefits are proportional to the efforts we invest in it.

Concluding remarks Like the Taoist fisherman’s net and the Buddhist’s raft, which can be discarded when no longer needed, the worldview proposed here can even be more easily forgotten than these mighty philosophies. It serves practical goals without unwarranted and thus incumbent knowledge. It is invaluable for practical philosophers invested in self-education as well as for the form of self-education that philosophical counseling is. Both timely and untimely, it is a vision to live by till new findings hopefully challenge us again.

References Amir, Lydia B. (2012). ‘Humor in Philosophy – Theory and Practice’. Philosophical Practice, vol. 7(3): 1015–1029. —. (2013). ‘Philosophy’s Attitude toward the Comic – A Reevaluation’. The European Journal of Humor Research, vol. 1(1): 6–21. —. (2014). Humor and the Good Life in Modern Philosophy: Shaftesbury, Hamann, Kierkegaard. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. —. (2014a). ‘Homo Risibilis’. Philosophical Practice, vol. 9(3): 1487– 1497.

11

For the devastating outcomes of shame and disgust, as well as humor’s success in working with them, see Amir 2015. 12 The diseases of self-esteem are notorious for their toxicity. But we are all guilty of faulty self-love predicated on misguided self-knowledge. The significance of practices for self-esteem is explained by the French psychiatrist, Christophe André (André, 2006). He uses Buddhist meditation for this purpose, however, whilst I propose humor as a better tool for that as well as for other purposes. 13 For practical exercises of implementation of each step of this thesis, see my essay, ‘The Tragic Sense of the Good Life’ (Amir, 2015a).

64

IV

—. (2014b). ‘The Value of Dissatisfaction – Maintaining the Tension that Unites Desires and Reason’. Axiology and Ethics, Special Volume for the 23rd World Conference of Philosophy: 46–57. —. (2014c). ‘A New Skeptical Worldview for Contemporary World Cultures’. In World Culture Development Forum 2013, edited by Jian Chang, 337–363. Beijing, China: Social Sciences Academic Press. —. (2014d). ‘Taking the History of Philosophy on Humor and Laughter Seriously’. The Israeli Journal of Humor Research: An International Journal, vol. 5: 43–87. —. (2015). ‘Philosophic Humor for Women – (and Men): Fighting Shame and Disgust’. In Women in Philosophical Counseling: The Anima of Thought into Action, edited by Peter Raabe and Luisa de Paula, 83–94. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield. —. (2015a). ‘The Tragic Sense of the Good Life’. In Socratic Handbook: Methods and Manuals for Applied Ethics and Philosophical Practice, edited by Michael Weiss, 97–128. Münster: Lit Publishing. André, Christophe (2006). Imparfaits, libres et heureux: Pratiques de l'estime de soi. Paris: Odile Jacob. Benjamin, Jessica (1988). The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination. New York, NY: Pantheon Books. Camus, Albert (1959 [1942]). The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. Translated by O’Brian, J. New York, NY: Vintage Book. Cooper, David E. (1996). World Philosophies: An Historical Introduction. Oxford, UK and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Diels, Hermann, and Walther Kranz (1972). Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. 16th editting. Dublin and Zurich: Weidman. Hyers, M. Conrad (1996): The Spirituality of Comedy: Comic Heroism in a Tragic World. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Kant, Immanuel (1929 [1788]). Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Kemp Smith, N. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press. Sartre, Jean-Paul (1957 [1943]). Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology. Translated with an introduction by H. E. Barnes. London: Methuen.

V PHILOSOPHY REVALUED IN MENTAL HEALTHCARE PETER B. RAABE

In the province of British Columbia (BC) in Canada many so-called liberal arts courses are once again under attack in the name of fiscal restraint. One of the main targets tends to be philosophy. Philosophy is becoming increasingly under-valued, and often completely devalued. The main argument in this essay is that it is a mistake to believe that a philosophy degree does not lead to a job in ‘the real world’ other than teaching. In fact philosophy is instrumental in the treatment and ‘cure’ of mental illnesses. Unfortunately, while there is abundant evidence of its usefulness, philosophy’s role in mental health has been obscured by mental health professionals under the generic term ‘talk therapy’. Today’s educational institutions are sadly neglecting to teach their students that philosophy is foundational to professional expertise in the various ‘jobs’ within the field of mental healthcare. And this attitude is reflected in our political institutions.

I Our provincial government is shifting education funding from the arts courses to the trades courses in order to, in their words, prepare students for ‘real jobs’ when they graduate. The BC government’s plan, titled Skills for Jobs Blueprint: Re-engineering Education and Training, will see provincial funding for post-secondary education be both universally decreased, and increasingly tied to labor market information and workplace targets. On September 29, 2014 a University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) website item quotes Dr. Mark Evered, President of UFV, as saying,

66

V The current [provincial] government message remains focused on cost containment, fiscal discipline, and balanced budgets. Provincial funding to the post-secondary sector is in the midst of a 50 million dollar reduction over three years with 25 million dollars apportioned to 2015/16, the third year of reductions. At the same time, the cost of delivering high quality post-secondary education continues to rise.

The government has also instructed universities to redirect 25% of their diminishing funding to programs that produce graduates for ‘high demand occupations’, often referred to as ‘the trades’. As a result some universities are reducing the number of philosophy courses offered, and not replacing full-time philosophy faculty when they retire. Others are combining their philosophy departments with other departments, and still others are seriously considering shutting their philosophy departments down completely. This isn’t surprising given that the general impression in many Western societies is that philosophy is completely useless to working-class citizens. The most common argument used in its defense — that philosophy is useful in all employment fields — is just too weak in its generality to be taken seriously by government and university administrators. If it’s true that science and technology courses are the ones that lead to jobs for graduates, then students ask, ‘What’s the point of taking a humanities course such as philosophy?’ This was the central question under discussion at the 2nd World Humanities Forum held in Busan, Korea in November, 2012. The conference was sponsored in part by UNESCO — the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization of Korea — under the general theme of ‘The Human Sciences and the Healing of Civilizations’. Sixty-six presenters from all around the globe discussed various problems faced not only by their own people, but by the entire population of the world. And the one thing all their presentations made clear is that the natural sciences — that is, the scientific activity of recording, sorting, and studying facts — is not going to give us what we need to deal with many of the serious problems faced by humanity today. For example, on the topic of the environment the question was asked, ‘What is it that humanity ought to value?’ This is not a question that science can, or even wants to, answer. It was also pointed out that while medical science has been doing an admirable job attending to the various physical ailments in the human population there seems to be a considerable lack of research, knowledge, resources, and appropriate treatment directed at attending to non-physical mental health problems.

Philosophy Revalued in Mental Healthcare

67

The point that all presenters came back to is that the humanities, including philosophy, shouldn’t be required to defend their existence to their university administrators. Even a cursory glance at what is taught in the humanities courses reveals that they deal with issues far more important to human life than mere empirical facts. They deal with issues such as social transformation (democracy, justice, gender equality, industrialization, technology, health care, human rights), corporate ethics versus profit, globalization versus local prosperity, knowledge creation, information ownership and exchange and personal privacy, gay rights and religion, the purpose of education, avoidable hunger and poverty and the richest one percent, industrial militarism, the colonization of small states by super powers’, and art as a necessity of life. None of these topics can be adequately addressed with empirical scientific research or facts. But all are crucial to human well-being, not to mention the survival of our species. The humanities, and especially the contents and skills taught in philosophy classes, are an essential part of both human development and personal prosperity. But the current fiscal arguments made by governments is that the teaching of practical knowledge and its technical application should supersede abstract knowledge and intellectual skills in educational institutions. So in order to defend the assumed ‘mere intellectualizing’ inherent in philosophy against resource cutbacks there must necessarily be some sort of evidentiary argument that this discipline does indeed train students in the kind of knowledge that has a solid practical application in the world of employment. The belief that philosophy instructors only train students to become philosophy instructors, who in turn train the next generation of students to become philosophy instructors, is a misconception. But it is also a pervasive stereotype which contaminates the advice given to students by school career counsellors. Because governments are currently forcing learning institutions to focus on preparing students for ‘the work force’ philosophy instructors are having to defend against the perceived uselessness of philosophy not only to save their individual courses but also their collective existence. As long as philosophy is perceived by governments, school administrators, and students as irrelevant to attaining non-academic employment philosophy departments will see a continuing decline in enrollment. This will result in them being seen as an unnecessary burden on shrinking university budgets, and this will in turn justify departmental budget cuts, reduction in courses offered, and ultimately department closures. But philosophy can be rescued if it can be shown to have unambiguous ‘real world’ application, and an intrinsic

68

V

value to some sort of ‘real world’ job, career, or profession other than teaching. In a statement to faculty at the University of the Fraser Valley, Provost and Vice President Academic Eric Davis said, ‘Health and wellness programming will draw on the experience of faculty in sociology, psychology, kinesiology, and nursing’. Unfortunately, and not surprisingly, there was no mention of philosophy. But there is no reason why philosophy should be left out of health and wellness programming. In fact it fits well into the ‘job training’ model of education because it has a thoroughly practical application in the field of mental healthcare. But most university administrators have no knowledge of this. The task of informing an educational institution’s administrative staff that philosophy is fundamental to the practice of mental healthcare is not as simple as saying, ‘By the way, did you know philosophy is at the heart of mental healthcare?’ To some philosophy instructors this rhetorical question may seem to be stating the obvious, but to most school administrators this is a perspective on the relationship between philosophy and mental healthcare with which they are completely unfamiliar. It leaves them wondering, ‘What does philosophy have to do with treatment for mental illnesses?’

II In the profusion of literature surrounding the topic of ‘mental illness’, and in the practice of psychiatry and psychotherapy, it is not uncommon to find references to the mind and brain as though they are identical organs and interchangeable objects. This misrepresentation is in fact used to justify the prescription of psychotropic medications that alter the brain as though this were treatment for the mind. But the brain is a biological organ, much like the liver or a kidney. It is the material container for the mind. On the other hand, the mind is non-biological. It's what is found within the brain. The mind is not a natural object like the brain. There are no contents ’in the mind’ because the mind simply is the contents of the brain. It is in fact incorrect to refer to the mind as an ’it’ because there is no tangible ’it’ that serves as a point of reference. Without the brain there can be no mind; but without the mind there can still be a brain. You can make up your mind but you can’t make up your brain. In his book The Mind and its Discontents Grant Gillett gives a very effective definition of what the mind is all about. He writes,

Philosophy Revalued in Mental Healthcare

69

A mental life is a narrative construct or product of the integrating activity of a concept-using subject as a person in relation to others…. Thus, acting and relating are the foundations of the psyche [or mind] rather than merely receiving, assembling, and connecting representations (Grant, 2009: 138).

What Gillett means is that a mental life consists of non-material ’narrative’ elements such as beliefs, values, fears, assumptions, and so on that we each have as individuals. A brain of some sort is universal to all living creatures, but each creature does its own thinking and thereby develops distinctive mental elements that are unique to itself. These propositional mental elements define each person as an identifiable individual among others. They are what metamorphoses human biological components into a particular person, and what affects how that person processes the input from other people and the world in which he or she is situated. The malfunctioning physical brain may be restored to health with surgery, electric shock, psychotropic medications, and so on, but the distressed or ‘disordered’ mind requires something quite different. Obviously, the troublesome beliefs, values, fears, assumptions and so on which constitute the distressed or ‘disordered’ mind can’t be healed with physical treatments such as surgery or electric shock, or biological chemical remedies such as medications. Troublesome mental content must be changed through the process of cognition. Thinking is what changes the mind. And effective thinking can be assisted with discussion. And the therapeutic effects of discussion can be enhanced by a discussion partner who is trained in its art and craft. This is when professionals trained in counselling and psychotherapy are called on. Psychotherapy is ‘…today’s way of thinking about things with a doctor’ (Warme, 2006: 41).

III In his book, titled Daggers of the Mind, medical doctor and psychiatrist Gordon Warme writes that conversations between a psychiatrist and the patient don’t focus on symptoms at all …and in the sense that our patients tell us about their understanding of the world, the conversations are about philosophy. Once patients have legitimized their presence in our offices by talking about symptoms, it’s their view of life that gets talked about (Ibid: 16).

Over the past two decades many treatment outcome studies have shown that the conversations, the so-called ‘talk therapies’, that take place in counselling and psychotherapeutic sessions are the most effective

70

V

treatment for not only resolving seriously troubling issues, but for longterm effect and benefits.1 In his 1997 book Philosophy and Psychotherapy Edward Erwin explains how and why counselling and psychotherapy — both talk therapies — are actually more effective in the long term in the treatment of so-called mental illnesses than any of the psychotropic medications so commonly prescribed today. His conclusion was corroborated when a study, released in 2014, which reviewed 101 clinical trials in Britain, found that a talk therapy named cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is more effective and more long-lasting in treating social anxiety disorders than medications. CBT, pioneered by Dr. Aaron T. Beck, is the therapeutic practice of philosophy under a clinical-sounding name that helps people manage their problems by changing the way they think and behave. The study, involving more than 13,000 participants, compared different types of psychological therapy with a number of psychotropic medications such as various antidepressants and benzodiazepines. The research was carried out in collaboration with Oxford University and University College London.2 Its conclusion was that CBT on a one-to-one basis is the most effective treatment for this ‘mental illness’. A variety of other studies have also found that talk therapies in general are the most effective in helping suffering individuals recover from diagnosed ‘mental illnesses’ such as depression, compulsive and addictive disorders, post-traumatic stress disorders, and even paranoid schizophrenia. Pauline Enright, an Australian student studying philosophy with me by correspondence, wrote in an e-mail, ‘I’m working as a counsellor and although I work primarily with Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), this [philosophy] course is taking me further and is more challenging than what I’ve done in CBT so far. I don’t mind this as it will sharpen my skills [as a counsellor] no end’. Since CBT is philosophy renamed with a clinical sounding label, it seems obvious that the effectiveness of CBT will be further enhanced if the therapist employing it has an understanding of the contents and practice of philosophy. All so-called talk therapies are basically philosophy with psychologicalsounding titles. Philosophy is the foundation on which all talk therapies are based. But while counsellors and psychotherapists are trained in the art 1

See, for example, Enright, 1997: 1811–1816; Frank, 1999: 219; Rothbaum, 2006: 123, 132, 143, 160, 204, 208, and 254. 2 BBC item located at http://www.bbc.com/news/health-29367062.

Philosophy Revalued in Mental Healthcare

71

of inter-personal communication, empathy, and listening skills they often lack adequate training in philosophy. They are taught the various counselling and psychotherapeutic methods without gaining an understanding of the philosophy underlying those methods. On the other hand philosophers often lack the inter-personal communication skills and empathy required of a good counsellor or psychotherapist. In his 1942 introductory address at the Conference for Psychology in Zurich, Switzerland, Carl Jung told his audience, I can hardly draw a veil over the fact that we psychotherapists ought really to be philosophers or philosophic doctors — or rather we already are so, though we are unwilling to admit it because of the glaring contrast between our work and what passes for philosophy in the universities (Erwin, 1997: 47).

Academic philosophy gained the reputation of being dry, abstract, lacking in empathy and human compassion, more interested in tidy hypothetical cases than complex real-life problems, largely unconcerned with women’s issues, and generally obsessed with technical details. The so-called practice of philosophy in colleges and universities has, for the most part, deteriorated into shuffling specialized terminology and disputing trivialities. The typical standpoint of the academic philosopher is exemplified in one of Bertrand Russell’s earlier Lowell lectures delivered in Boston in 1914. He said that the aim of philosophy is the theoretical understanding of the world, 'which is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilized men’ (Russell, 1993: 36). Philosophy students are typically uninterested in using their philosophical knowledge and skills to help ordinary people deal with their mental suffering and distress. It’s no wonder then that the administrators of educational institutions are skeptical of the claim that the practice of philosophy can be useful to humanity. But while philosophy students may be disinclined, counselling, psychotherapy, and social work students are more than willing. Unfortunately, counselling, psychotherapy, and social work students are rarely, if ever, made aware of the fact that philosophy has played a central role in the origin and development of the methodology they are learning.

IV Interestingly, but not at all surprisingly, the many psychotherapeutic approaches developed by well-known theorists and practitioners — as

72

V

Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Rollo May, Erich Fromm, Ronald D. Laing, Alfred Adler, Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis, Viktor Frankl, Carl Rogers, Irvine Yalom, Adolf Meyer, Norman Cameron, Harry Stack, and many others — were heavily influenced by, and often based on, the theories and practices of both ancient and contemporary philosophers. Freud references Plato when describing the work he does with a patient’s dreams. He follows Plato’s lead in describing the mind as tripartite. He then changed Plato’s labels from ‘appetitive’, ‘rational’, and ‘spirited’ parts of the soul or mind to ‘id’, ‘ego’, and ‘super-ego’ (Freud, 1957: 153). Carl Jung relies on the philosophy of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra to come to an understanding of what he believed to be the unconscious aspects of his patients and the drive to self-transformation and ‘self-overcoming’. Psychoanalysts such as Rollo May were routinely using philosophical techniques and ideas as a part of the counselling process as early as 1953. May appeals to philosophers Réné Descartes, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Jean-Paul Sartre as he describes his therapeutic method as one in which the client comes to a ‘consciousness of self-identity’ (May, 1953). Erich Fromm uses philosophers Karl Marx and George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel as a springboard to an understanding of the human condition, socalled sick individuals, and sick societies (Fromm, 1962). In another work he appeals to early philosophers Thomas Aquinas and Baruch Spinoza to reinforce his perspective on human struggles and human desire (Fromm, 1976). Ronald D. Laing references Jean-Paul Sartre’s writings, Martin Heidegger’s Existence and Being as well as his Being and Time, and Søren Kierkegaard’s The Sickness Unto Death as he explains how human sorrow is the result of ’the creation of a false self’ rather than living ’authentically’ (Laing, 1990). The French philosopher Henri Bergson has had a significant effect on the psychological theories of schizophrenia. The writings of German philosophers Wilhelm Dilthey, Edmund Husserl, and Martin Heidegger have been instrumental in the development of phenomenological psychiatry. Psychiatrists Adolf Meyer, Norman Cameron, and Harry Stack found valuable insights within the philosophy of American pragmatism. In fact the two areas in philosophy that had the most influence on Western psychiatry in mid-20th century United States are phenomenology and

Philosophy Revalued in Mental Healthcare

73

pragmatism (Morris, 1959: 52). Psychoanalytic authors such as Winnicott, Minkowsky, Horney, Kohut, Langs, and even Freud have existential elements in their theories even though their work dealt with psychoanalytic concepts (Deurzen-Smith, 2000). The pioneers of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy were typically thoroughly educated in philosophy, and borrowed extensively from that field while developing their various therapeutic methods. But today’s students who are preparing for careers in counselling, psychotherapy, and social work are often merely taught the various methods or techniques without having an adequate knowledge of the philosophy which informs them. In her essay titled ’Existentialism and Existential Psychotherapy’3 psychotherapist Emmy van Deurzen-Smith finds it somewhat surprising that philosophy and psychotherapy don’t have a more distinguished history of co-operation. She wonders why today’s psychotherapists have failed to note the central importance of philosophy to the practice of their own profession, and why they haven’t drawn on philosophy as a means for understanding their clients’ predicaments. She laments the fact that psychotherapists on the whole have neglected the study of philosophy, which they often simply dismiss as irrelevant to their practice.

V Some writers in the field of psychotherapy insist that the content of the therapeutic discussion, which is commonly referred to as ‘talk therapy’, is not nearly as important as the personality of the therapist. In his book The Great Psychotherapy Debate: Models, Methods, and Findings, Bruce E. Wampold, Professor of Counselling Psychology and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, argues that in ‘talk therapies’ the ’specific ingredients’ of any therapeutic approach are not as important as the relationship between the therapist and client (Wampold, 2001). But the problem with this conclusion is that it’s based on data gathered at a time when schools of psychotherapy were more concerned with a supposedly scientific approach to the patient as a bundle of symptoms needing treatment than as a human being asking for assistance. Until the late 1980’s students of counselling and psychotherapy were 3

Available at http://www.existentialanalysis.org.uk/assets/articles/Existentialism_and_Existentia l_Psychotherapy_Emmy_van_Deurzen.pdf

74

V

taught ‘mirroring’ and other techniques similar to the so-called ‘neutral’ and ‘zero-affect’ approaches to patients found in classical psychoanalysis. It’s no surprise that in that cold, analytic, clinical environment patients would say that they found a friendly and caring therapist to be more agreeable. But given that talk therapies are meant to be remedial — they are about talking with patients or clients in order to alleviate their emotional distress, clarify and resolve a life problem, reach a difficult personal goal, or make a moral decision — surely a background knowledge and a basic skill in philosophy would constitute a ‘specific ingredient’ that is perhaps more beneficial to therapeutic practice than the therapist’s pleasant demeanor. Psychologist Peter Bankart also writes that a therapist’s theoretical orientation, therapeutic method, choice of technique, and professional allegiance make no difference to the outcome of psychotherapy. He argues that only one variable predicts the relative success of the therapeutic process: ‘personality, personal style, and “psychological presence” of the therapist’. He refers to research which reveals that what helps the client most is ‘a caring, competent, and skilled practitioner’ (Bankart, 2007: 19). This raises the question, What does he mean by ’competent’ and ’skilled’? It seems that Bankart is contradicting himself. On the one hand he says that theoretical orientation, therapeutic method, choice of technique, and professional allegiance make no difference in outcomes, and that the common factors of personality, personal style, and ‘psychological presence’ are what make a good counsellor or therapist. And on the other hand he argues that the practitioner requires competence and skill. Surely he can’t mean that personality, personal style, and ‘psychological presence’ are forms of competence and skill? There’s something missing in his explanation of what competencies and skills a therapist ought to have that will lead to successful outcomes. In his essay titled ’Philosophy and Therapy: Professional Training and Certification’ Sam Brown creates a similar contradiction, arguing that most of the efficacy in counselling is attributed to the empathetic bond between client and counsellor. The therapist, must, however, be well-trained in the theory and practice of their own modality. Outcomes improve with training and experience, regardless of approach (Brown, 2012).

Like Bankart, Brown fails to explain why it is essential that therapists be well-trained in the theory and practice of their own modality when the method or approach is supposedly irrelevant, and empathy seems to be

Philosophy Revalued in Mental Healthcare

75

what is required the most for a good outcome. The focus on the personality of the therapist by both these authors leaves a huge explanatory gap as to why the therapist needs any sort of training at all, and can’t simply rely on the beneficial effects of his or her kindhearted personality. Contrary to Bankart’s and Brown’s assertions, John Hunsley and Catherine M. Lee, both Professors of Psychology at the University of Ottawa, point out that more recent research data shows that the alliance between the patient and therapist in fact ’accounts for only about 5% of the variability in the outcome of treatment’ for both adults and youths (Hunsley and Lee, 2012: 659). This certainly calls into question the claim that the therapist’s personality is what counts! It clearly shows that a nice personality may be necessary to good mental healthcare practice but it is not sufficient. A similarly misguided belief in mental healthcare is that no particular therapy has been shown to be more effective than any other. This is also contradicted by more recent research data. Hunsley and Lee report that recent extensive meta-analysis of a large amount of research data has shown that ’the cognitive-behavioral set of treatments was more efficacious than were other treatment approaches’, and that ’for most conditions, the outcomes of different treatments are not equivalent, and at present, there is strongest support for the efficacy of CBT [CognitiveBehavior Therapy]’ (ibid). Since the literature claims that competence and skill of some sort, beyond a nice personality, are in fact what make an effective therapist it raises the question, What sort of competence and skill should counsellors or therapists possess? Jerome and Julia Frank write that the similarity they see in improvement rates for all forms of psychotherapy seems to indicate that a common feature is present in all of them. But they don’t suggest that simple empathy or a friendly bedside manner is this common feature (Frank and Frank, 1999: 19). Again, what might this common feature be? It’s very likely that it’s the therapist’s philosophical knowledge and discursive aptitude. An effective philosophical style in therapy would fit the criteria of a competence or a skill. In fact, as mentioned above, a philosophical style such as is found in the cognitive-behavioral (CBT) set of treatments has been clinically proven to lead to improvements in the client or patient (Hunsley and Lee, 2012). But a clinical approach that is very similar to, or fortuitously resembles, philosophy is not the same as a philosophically trained clinician’s inclusion of philosophical content and a philosophical discursive style in his or her practice.

76

V

The general lack of philosophical competence in the majority of mental healthcare providers would explain why it has been argued that no method has yet ’consistently been shown to be more effective than any other’ and why there are similar improvement rates for all forms of counselling and psychotherapy. But it may also be that researchers have simply attributed the effectiveness of some mental healthcare practitioners to their personality, personal style, and ‘psychological presence’. It may be that in searching for the best clinical traits in practitioners, the psychologicallytrained researchers who collected the data were incapable of recognizing the philosophical knowledge and philosophical skills in those practitioners who were in fact the most effective. It is therefore very likely that a solid education in philosophy would make any ‘talk therapist’ more effective, with more improvement in treatment outcomes, than a mere reliance on an affable personality.4

VI Philosophy courses offer knowledge and skills not available in typical psychology or counselling courses. For example, students in philosophy are taught more than two dozen techniques for ethical decision-making, and how to apply them. They learn how to spot a variety of errors in reasoning — called fallacies — in both their own thinking and in that of others, and how untangling a fallacy can quickly resolve many confounding issues. They come to understand that emotions, intuitions, and feelings don’t simply erupt randomly and chaotically, that there is always a reason for an emotion, and that once the reasons for a troubling emotion has been dealt with the emotion will subside. They’re taught how to think about power and fairness in the political system, in their community, and in their families. They learn — and help others — to think about what is real and what is not, which includes not only the ‘grand universal questions’ but also down-to-earth matters like personal identity, self-determination, and the dubious reality of so-called mental illnesses. And they learn how to detect truth and falsity, in what people say, in what they do, including the grandiose claims made about the effectiveness of medications for the brain. They learn how to appraise their own values, beliefs, assumptions, fears, and so on in order to be better able 4

The argument in this section is based on Chapter 8 of my book Philosophy’s Role in Counselling and Psychotherapy. See Raabe, 2014: 234–236.

Philosophy Revalued in Mental Healthcare

77

to choose rationally which ones to keep and which to discard, and then help others to do the same. This, and much more, is what is included in the sort of education that can’t be found in trades classes, science labs, and most psychology courses. Philosophy courses engage students in the act of becoming fully human, beyond just being producers and consumers. And when philosophy is taught to students of counselling, psychotherapy, and social work it helps them to become better able to help others who are struggling to overcome the mental suffering and distress that prevents them from being all they could be. Philosophy’s death has been announced on various occasions by a number of important individuals throughout history, including philosophers themselves, as well as world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking. Such declarations show that even the world’s brightest often have a limited understanding of what philosophy is all about and what it can do. Perhaps the most damning denunciation has been the allegation of its uselessness. This is because those who make this claim don’t recognize its substantial role in mental healthcare. Psychology is a so-called soft science. It involves the study of human development, behavior, and malfunction. But it is largely based on the empirical sciences. Clinical psychology is the application of scientific knowledge to problems of the biological brain and its various functions. But counselling and psychotherapy are not concerned with either the functioning or malfunctioning of the material brain. They deal with the mind, which is not a material organ. This is why educational institutions ought to focus much more time and resources on philosophy courses because it is this discipline, and not psychology, that is the foundation of mental healthcare. It is in counselling, psychotherapy, and social work that one can find philosophy’s most obvious practical application — but only if one is willing to look there. Clients who visit counsellors, and patients who go to see psychotherapists, present problems they have been struggling with from a variety of areas such as religion (personal beliefs), politics (which includes inter-personal relationships), ethics (moral decision-making), metaphysics (concerning what is real and what is imaginary), epistemology (issues involving the difference between knowledge and belief), logic (what conclusions follow from what assumptions), aesthetics (beauty in things as diverse as personal appearance and love), existentialism (self-determination and autonomy),

78

V

feminism (equality between the sexes), and emotions and feelings. These areas are covered extensively and in depth in the courses offered in philosophy departments. Any practitioner who has not taken at least some of these courses is like a tradesperson lacking the tools of the trade. Beyond being merely an unspoken set of personal principles that individuals live by, the practice of philosophy includes accurate empirical knowledge, an understanding of the history of ideas, the ability to think and discuss critically and creatively, the ability to make both moral and beneficial pragmatic judgments, on-going self-scrutiny, and a discursive style that is respectful of diversity in all it various forms. For those counsellors and psychotherapists who may not have much more to offer their clients and patients than empathy and an amiable bedside manner the study of philosophy can be an important improvement in the quality of the mental healthcare they offer. Any mental healthcare provider will have far more in his or her ‘toolbox’ to draw on after having studied philosophy. What’s required is a paradigm shift away from the view that philosophy is a dispensable abstract academic diversion to seeing it as a primary and vital component in the preparation for a career in mental healthcare. Courses in philosophy don’t compete with what’s offered in counselling, psychotherapy, or social work departments. Philosophy is an enrichment of the practices they teach. By recognizing it as the foundation of mental healthcare, philosophy departments will be revaluing this important and useful discipline which may otherwise soon be lost from our universities. This doesn’t at all mean that philosophy departments should abandon their theoretical courses, and instead only offer philosophy as a facet of mental healthcare. On the contrary, the relationship between theory and practice is reciprocal. In the same way that instruction courses must necessarily precede the practice of any of the trades, the contents of philosophy must be studied before the skill of philosophy as a therapeutic discourse can be put into practice. So, rather than replace theory, what the new approach to philosophy — as the foundation of the practice of mental healthcare — will do to philosophy departments is give them the much improved standing in the universities that comes from teaching courses that are relevant to, and applicable to, occupations in the ‘real world’. Counselling, psychotherapy, and social work are ‘jobs in the real world’ for which a knowledge of the content and practice of philosophy is crucial. Therefore departments of philosophy ought to promote the fact that

Philosophy Revalued in Mental Healthcare

79

philosophy should be studied by students who are considering careers in the field of mental healthcare. To be properly prepared, these students should be encouraged to major, or at least minor, in philosophy. One of the most serious problems facing today’s graduate students of philosophy is the lack of future employment in the field. But this scarcity of jobs is only a genuine problem if working in philosophy is narrowly defined as teaching in a college or university. The perception that a philosopher is always someone who teaches in an institution is a fairly recent development within the history of philosophy. In fact philosophy did not begin as an academic subject at all. It was originally considered a practice, a way of life, and a means by which to help people better their lives.

VII On a side note, in addition to job preparation, doing philosophy with university students, and even with pre-university students, can help prevent the onset of the kind of misery that could be diagnosed as ‘mental illnesses’. The study of the content and practice of philosophy not only helps students deal with past or currently distressing issues, it helps to fortify the student’s ‘mental immune system’. The student’s knowledge of the content of philosophy and the ability to reason cogently acts as a kind of ‘inoculation’ which helps to reduce the probability of future situational ‘invasions’ that can cause the sort of suffering and distress that typically leads to the diagnosis of a ‘mental illness’. In philosophical mental healthcare, initial avoidance and early intervention are much more effective than reactive counselling or psychotherapy. Members of philosophy departments should encourage their school administrators to recognize the importance of philosophy as a practice outside their liberal arts departments. Philosophy will be revalued by relocating it at the heart of careers in mental healthcare, and thereby in the center of the everyday working world. If philosophy is to have a strong presence in schools it is the job of philosophy instructors to bring to the attention of liberal arts course advisors and student career counsellors that not only did ‘talk therapy’ evolve from ancient philosophy, but that today’s students of counselling, psychotherapy, and social work should have solid education in philosophy.

80

V

References Bankart, Peter C. (2007). Talking Cures. Mason, OH: Thompson Press. Brown, Sam (2012). ’Philosophy and Therapy: Professional Training and Certification’. In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Philosophical Practice. Kangwon National University: Humanities Institute vol. II: 147–170. Deurzen-Smith, Emmy van (2000). Everyday Mysteries: Existential Dimensions of Psychotherapy. New York: Brunner-Routledge. Enright, Simon J. (1997). ‘Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Clinical Application’. British Medical Journal 314: 1811–1816. Erwin, Edward (1997). Philosophy and Psychotherapy. London: Sage. Frank, Jerome D. (1999). ‘Psychotherapies: A Different Perspective’. In The Challenge to Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, edited by Stefan de Schill and Serge Libovici. 130–145. London: Jessica Kingsley. Frank, Jerome D., and Julia B. Frank (1999). Persuasion and Healing. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Freud, Sigmund (1957). General Introduction to Psychoanalysis. New York: Simon & Schuster. Fromm, Erich (1962). Beyond the Chains of Illusion. New York: Simon & Schuster. —. (1976). To Have or to Be. New York: Harper and Row. Gillett, Grant (2009). The Mind and Its Discontents. New York: Oxford University Press. Hunsley, John, and Catherine M. Lee (2012). ‘Prognosis and Psychological Treatment’. In Coping with Psychiatric and Psychological Testimony, edited by David Faust, 653–667. New York: Oxford University Press. Laing, Ronald D. (1990). Self and Others. New York: Viking Penguin. May, Rollo (1953). Man’s Search for Himself. New York: Dell. Morris, Charles (1959). ’Philosophy, Psychiatry, Mental Illness and Health’. In Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 20(1): 47–55. Raabe, Peter (2014). Philosophy’s Role in Counselling and Psychotherapy. New York: Jason Aronson. Rothbaum, Barbara Olasov (ed.) (2006). Pathological Anxiety: Emotional Processing in Etiology and Treatment. New York: Guilford Press. Russell, Bertrand (1993). Our Knowledge of the External World. New York: Routledge. Wampold, Bruce E. (2006). The Great Psychotherapy Debate: Models, Methods, and Findings. New York: Routledge. Warme, Gordon (2006). Daggers of the Mind. Toronto: Anansi Press.

VI PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE FROM FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES VAUGHANA FEARY

Introduction1 Despite the fact that 'Feminist Philosophy' is now a regular course offering in most philosophy departments, as well as women's studies programs, to date philosophical practitioners have devoted comparatively little attention to feminist philosophies, or to any special concerns which may arise in doing philosophical counselling with women and multicultural groups. To my knowledge I was the first philosophical practitioner to publish journal articles on these subjects, and the American Philosophical Practitioners Association (APPA) is the only association to offer some training in this area (Feary, 2001, 2003). Despite progress for women in the last decade, I will show in the theoretical parts of this paper that philosophical counselling from feminist perspectives with some, but by no means all, clients may sometimes be more helpful to women than more traditional approaches. Before turning directly to theory, it is worth noting a few common sense reasons for thinking feminist approaches might be useful. Although the status of women has been improving since the Women's Movement of the 1960s, which made opportunities available to women which had been previously denied to them, women are still in many respects treated as second class citizens even in the West. For example, the best paying jobs in science, technology, engineering and math fields (STEM jobs) are overwhelmingly still dominated by men (Fluke, 2014: 2–3). Even wholly positive change brings about some inevitable personal, family, and 1 This article is based, in part, upon earlier articles (Feary, 1994; 2003; 2013). * I would like to thank Sara Ellenbogen for her editorial help.

82

VI

multicultural conflicts about the roles, virtues, and obligations of contemporary women, as well as questions about what substantive changes organizations need to make in responding to women's needs in a changed and changing environment. Women continue to suffer from gender inequality in the workplace. According to the 2014 Shriver report, the average woman in the US is paid only 77 cents on the dollar compared to remuneration for men; the percentages are even lower for African American women (64 cents), and Latina women (55 cents) (Alter 2014). Nearly two thirds of minimum wage workers are women, and these women characteristically get no paid sick leave and little job flexibility, even though they are still the main caretakers of children and aging parents (Morgan and Skelton, 2014). The Institute for Women's Policy Research projects that the gender wage gap in the US is only projected to close in the year 2058, so that the majority of women working in the US today will never see equal pay in their working lives (Hegewisch and Hartmann, 2013). Further, violence against women is still a major problem worldwide. In a 2014 UN Global Review, researchers found that, although probably only 13–14 per cent of cases are reported, 35% of women worldwide have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from either an intimate partner or non-partner (UN Women, 2015). At the time of the review, an estimated 250 million girls had been married below age 15, with physical immaturity leading to numerous medical problems including pregnancy deaths from inadequate care. The review also showed that trafficking traps millions of girls in modern day slavery with 98% of an estimated 4.5 million of those entrapped being forced into sexual exploitation. Finally, the review showed that as late as 1998, between 40 and 50% of women in European Union countries experience unwanted sexual advances, physical contact or other forms of sexual harassment at some time in their working lives and that as late as 2006, probably 83% of girls in the US (ages 12– 16) have experienced some form of sexual harassment in public schools. What implications do the continuing problems women face have for philosophical practice? Philosophical practitioners can play a critical function in exposing misconceptions society has had about women as well as in correcting distorted visions women have sometimes had of themselves. In what follows I will show that adopting a feminist orientation to philosophical counselling and using some of the tools provided by feminist philosophies can be useful in counselling marginalized women (e.g., poor, incarcerated, or immigrant populations),

Philosophical Practice from Feminist Perspectives

83

as well as mainstream women still trying to break through barriers created by practices and institutions created under patriarchy which do not serve the interests of women. It is hoped that philosophers serving as consultants can also take a role in promoting social and organizational changes designed to finally provide what John Rawls would call 'fair equality of opportunity' where women with similar talents and willingness to work can enjoy prospects of success comparable to those of their male counterparts (Rawls, 1971). Counselling from a feminist perspective is one way practitioners can fulfil the role of activist and help women not merely to understand, but also to change their world.

A feminist perspective in philosophical counseling and the use of feminist philosophies As Aleksandar Fatiü has argued, philosophical practice can serve as a new paradigm for philosophy, and methodological cross fertilization will serve as some evidence of a paradigm shift (Fatiü, 2014). I hope that demonstrating the usefulness of feminist philosophical counselling can result in a more hospitable climate for feminist thought in academia, which will in turn perhaps end the cold shoulder philosophical practice has so far turned to academic feminist philosophy. I am not a feminist philosopher, nor do I think that that all problems of all women necessarily involve issues stressed in feminist philosophies. Philosophical counselling is an art, and part of the artistry of the philosophical practitioner is the skill to see when feminist philosophies might be relevant (e.g. as in virtue theory) and when even feminist issues like addressing sexual harassment in the workplace might be more profitably painted with a broader brush. I do think that philosophical counselling from a feminist perspective, and using feminist philosophical theories can sometimes be useful for our clients. As a working definition, 'counselling from a feminist perspective' means recognizing that historically women have been subordinated, marginalized and silenced and that some women still are. It means recognizing that we must further expand the discourse to listen to the voices of all women, including the voices of women behind bars as well as in corporate offices, if we are to understand how gender, race, class and ethnicity continue to condition women's lives. It means recognizing that we have obligations to work for the liberation of all, not only all women, but for all of those people who, like women, have existed on the margins and who continue to be oppressed, in varying degrees by powerful institutions and practices which do not, as yet, contribute to human

84

VI

flourishing. I have argued elsewhere that one conception of what it means to be a philosophical practitioner is to be a social activist, and I agree with Marx that the role of philosophy is not merely to understand the world, but also to change it (Feary, 2013: 52–55). Counselling from a feminist perspective is one way to help women effect a revolution both from within and from without. What are the advantages of counselling from a feminist philosophical perspective and using feminist theories? 1. Philosophical counselling from a feminist perspective avoids the individualizing trend of much counselling. This is the truth in the old feminist slogan, ‘The personal is the political’. It illumines the sociopolitical context in which many of our clients problems arise. 2. Feminist philosophies explore new and neglected areas of philosophy. Most of traditional philosophy has dealt with universal or public issues — e.g. the nature of justice, wisdom, the good, knowledge etc. Feminist philosophies, by contrast, deal with many questions of private and domestic life about which many clients often seek counselling (e.g., ‘Is the institution of marriage good for women?’, ‘What duties do we owe parents and children?’, ‘Is adultery immoral?’, etc.). Feminist philosophers have also identified and addressed social problems adversely affecting women (e.g. date rape, domestic abuse, sexual harassment etc.) and shown how lives are conditioned by considerations of gender, race, class, and ethnicity. Finally, feminist frameworks have supplemented and criticized non—feminist theories in a variety of ways, in some cases showing where traditional theories about women (e.g. women and virtue) are just out and out wrong. Much of this material is relevant in counselling women. 3. Philosophical practice from a feminist perspective can raise new questions about psychology's purported value-neutrality. As I have argued elsewhere, a great deal of psychotherapy rests on suppressed theories and values which are philosophically problematic (Feary, 2013: 54–55). One of these is a tendency toward privileging a kind of social atomism which attributes supreme importance to autonomy, as opposed to relational and contextual approaches to personal and moral issues identified by Carol Gilligan and others as being more characteristic of women’s lives (Gilligan et. al., 1991). Psychotherapy is not value neutral, and the values it does espouse are often inimical to

Philosophical Practice from Feminist Perspectives

85

the values and lives of women and the ethnic groups to which many belong. 4. Philosophical counselling from a feminist perspective also avoids oversimplification of identity issues. No doubt, psychological accounts are important parts of the story, but social factors are also important. As Charles Taylor has pointed out: Our identity is partly shaped by recognition or its absence, often the misrecognition of others, and so a person or group of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or society around them mirror back to them a confining or demeaning or contemptible picture of themselves. Non-recognition or misrecognition can inflict harm, can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone in a false, distorted and reduced mode of being (1994: 32).

Philosophers can draw from rich veins of feminist philosophies, as well as from social and political philosophy, to explain identity problems as they appear in philosophical counselling sessions with women. At the very least, they can help women to articulate for themselves what it means to be an African-American, Hispanic, Asian or Moslem woman, and how to negotiate conflicts between the values of mainstream and minority cultures. 5. Philosophical counselling from feminist perspectives avoids some of the problems of feminist psychotherapy. Feminist psychotherapy is based not merely on feminism, but also on specific feminist frameworks or philosophies; these differ from one another in major respects. Unlike philosophical counselling, the client is given no opportunity to decide which, if any, feminist philosophies illuminate her specific life problems. This is a major drawback because psychotherapy does not explain its theories or encourage clients to question them; psychotherapy tends to be opaque, whereas philosophical counselling tends to be transparent. In the case of feminist psychotherapy, this is a serious objection because there may be very radical differences in approaches sheltering under the umbrella term ‘feminist’, and because feminist psychotherapists are usually insistent that only feminist methods will suffice for women clients. To conclude this section, there are innumerable non-feminist psychotherapies and philosophical counselling perspectives which are helpful to women clients, but there are many advantages in practicing philosophical counselling from feminist perspectives; as a consequence

86

VI

feminist perspectives deserve more attention from philosophical practitioners than they are currently receiving. Hopefully a forthcoming collection of essays edited by Peter Raabe and Luisa De Paula (2015), Women and Philosophical Counselling, will remedy this state of affairs. The following case studies from my own practice offer examples from individual counselling and corporate consulting where adopting a feminist perspective or looking at feminist issues benefited clients and contributed to social change.

Case one: The woman inside For about a decade I was doing philosophical counselling with groups of women in correctional facilities and for about five years I was also teaching a feminist philosophy course at a nearby university. Each semester I held a trip for the university class to a nearby correctional facility to hold a collaborative class session with women offenders. One purpose of the trip was for students in my university class to begin to understand the kinds of problems marginalized women in the US still encounter and recognize that feminism should be alive and well. Another purpose was to empower women offenders. As a consequence, women in my feminist philosophy class asked me if they could serve as mentors for women in prison as inmate participants had requested of them. The end result was that a mentoring program was set up to be independent from university classes and run under my supervision as Program Director for Excalibur: A Center for Applied Ethics. Excalibur is a small New Jersey non-profit created by ex-students of mine and financed by AT&T and grants from other sources. Under the auspices of Excalibur, I trained and directed women volunteers from previous classes with me to serve as mentors for women in the correctional facility. As part of the training, I did group philosophical counselling with prospective mentors and inmates, and then paired individual mentors and inmates to do further sessions together. There were two goals of the project. The first was for mentors and offenders to use feminist philosophies to achieve insight into their own lives. The second goal was for each pair to explore their respective conceptions of the good life and what virtues were important to them. A few comments must be added about the connection between these two goals. The revival of virtue ethics was largely the result of the work of Elizabeth Anscombe (1995) and Alastair MacIntyre (1992). Anscombe in her article

Philosophical Practice from Feminist Perspectives

87

'Modern Moral Philosophy' argued that modern ethics 'should relinquish its preoccupation with moral rules and obligations and instead concern itself with a philosophical-psychological investigation of what it is to be human'. MacIntyre (1992) in After Virtue, like Anscombe, believed that we need to return to an Aristotelian tradition of the virtues. According to MacIntrye a virtue is a learned quality internal to practices. Practices are human activities rooted in a social tradition which has standards and goods internal to them, human life is made up of such practices, and so, without the virtues, we would not enjoy a fully human life. Only a certain kind of self is compatible with such virtues; it is a concept of self which links birth to life to death, as narrative beginning to middle to end. He then goes on to say that: The virtues, therefore, are to be understood as those dispositions which will not only sustain practices and enable us to achieve the goods internal to practices, but which will also sustain us in the relevant kind of quest for the good, by enabling us to overcome the harms, dangers, temptations and distractions which we encounter and which will furnish us with increasing self knowledge and increasing knowledge of the good (Macintyre, 1981: 91).

Presumably, philosophical counselling about virtue would help a client to focus on how she should live and what kind of person she wishes to be, and encourage her to consider issues within the context of her entire life, character, and values. This kind of counselling is especially appropriate for clients with major life problems such as those of women offenders. While virtue ethics should be helpful in counselling, feminist philosophers were quick to point out that MacIntyre completely failed to see that there is no area as rampant with gender prejudice as the history of virtue ethics theory. With dismal regularity, giants of the western philosophical tradition (e.g. Aristotle, Kant, Rousseau, Hume, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and others) had almost uniformly harped on the same three themes in discussing women and virtue. First women are incapable of, or deficient in, the ability to reason morally and hence also in moral virtue (especially justice). Second, women cannot, or should not, develop the same moral virtues as men. Third, the virtues women can and should develop are those that make them useful to men (Tuana, 1992). Rousseau, for example is a philosopher exemplifying all three themes. Rousseau argued that as women were incapable of developing autonomy and therefore moral virtue, they could, but should not, develop the same non-moral virtues as men (‘a brilliant wife is a plague to her husband, her

88

VI

children, her friends, her valets, and everyone’) and therefore, as Rosemarie Tong points out dryly, Emile is schooled in moral virtues such as temperance, justice, and fortitude, while the hapless Sophie is schooled not in moral virtue, but in non-moral virtues, specifically the feminine psychological traits of patience, docility, good humour, and flexibility (Tong, 1993: 1). Moreover, feminist philosophers also pointed out that the problems in virtue ethics were not easily fixed because traditional virtue theories were gender-coded, the virtues associated with masculinity were privileged, a sharp division was made between public and private spheres, and the virtues tied to femininity were assigned wholly to the private sphere. Different feminist philosophers proposed different resolutions to these problems. Some argued that virtues traditionally coded to femininity, or other feminist virtues, like Carol Gilligan and Nel Nodding's 'caring', or Sara Ruddick's maternal virtues, should be extended to the public sphere (Noddings, 1984; Gilligan, 1982; Ruddick, 1989). Some, like Susan Moller Okin in Justice, Gender and the Family (1989), argued that virtues traditionally associated with masculinity (like justice) should be extended to the private sphere of the family. Some, like Grace Clement (1996), argued that traditional masculine virtues like justice and autonomy can be reconciled with feminist virtues like caring. Still others, like Annette Baier (1994), argued for the centrality of other virtues, like trust. Thanks to philosophical practice, and feminist philosophies' criticism of virtue ethics, women finally gained a place in the conversation about virtue. Narrative approaches in counselling women are especially important because women must be allowed to tell their stories about virtue, and virtue conflicts, if we are to assess the legitimacy of contemporary feminist and non-feminist meta-narratives about virtues, and for philosophical practitioners to decide what role in individual counseling and organizational consulting they should play. Turning now to the specifics of Case One. I will use the pseudonyms, Carmelita (for the mentor) and Jazz (for the female offender) for the two women involved in this case. I suggested to Carmelita that she use ideas from existentialist and socialist feminist philosophies in mentoring Jazz. Carmelita already had exposure to these philosophies from a class with me, and Jazz had some idea about them from group philosophical counseling in her correctional program with me. Additionally, prospective volunteer mentors and women offenders with whom they might be paired attended groups with me prior to being paired for one-on-one sessions.

Philosophical Practice from Feminist Perspectives

89

Existentialist feminism is attributable to the work of the great French feminist, Simone de Beauvoir, for whom the oppression of women is understood in ontological terms. In her book, The Second Sex (1952), de Beauvoir begins with Jean Paul Sartre's view of human relationships as explicable in terms of rival consciousnesses, but according to de Beauvoir, it is men who appropriate freedom and the role of self for themselves. To preserve their unlimited freedom, men define women as ‘Other’, relegating them to the sphere of unfreedom, immanence, the body, and, ultimately, the world of objects, a world de Beauvoir transcends through writing. Yet woman as Other is always perceived as a perpetual threat to men's freedom and hence to control her, men must continue constructing myths about her nature. For existentialists, the supreme moral virtue is authenticity and, for women, authenticity requires understanding the myths, including myths about virtue, which men have constructed to control them. Only when, to invoke de Beauvoir's quotation from Rimbaud, ‘the infinite bondage of woman is broken, when she will live in and for herself’, as opposed to living as Other, will she be genuinely free (de Beauvoir, 1952: 263). By contrast, the core of socialist feminism is, of course, Marxist theory and the supposition that the causes for the historical oppression of women are economic causes attributable to the institution of private property, the development of class society, and capitalism. Socialist feminism, however, also emphasizes that patriarchal as well as economic institutions must be subjected to radical critique. For Marx, unlike de Beauvoir, there is an organic relationship between the individual and the state. As a consequence, breaking the stranglehold of ideological myths is a collective enterprise involving the development of class consciousness and ultimately, a revolution from without rather than from within. For Marx, virtue theory, like the rest of morality, is to be dismissed as a form of ideology, 'so many bourgeois prejudices behind which lurk just as many bourgeois interests'; by showing the relationship between morality and ideology, Marx claimed to have ‘broken the staff of all morality’. (Wood, 1991: 111–112). At the same time, however, Marx has a great deal to say about the vices of capitalism and the bourgeoisie. Vice, for Marx, consists in alienation resulting from capitalism. Thus, both Existentialist and Socialist feminist perspectives, despite their differences, emphasize the destructive role of myth in reinforcing existing power relations. MacIntyre, therefore, is quite correct when he says that

90

VI

'mythology [...] is at the heart of things’, and that '[...] the telling of stories has a key part in educating us into the virtues’ for, he claims, ‘I can only answer the question: “What am I to do?” if I can answer the prior question: “Of what story or stories do I find myself a part” (MacIntyre, 1992: 201). If MacIntyre is right, then one must conclude that women can only answer that question by understanding the myths in which we find ourselves a part: Eve and Mary, Matriarch and Jezebel, Demeter and Persephone, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, Pamela and Moll Flanders, Jane Eyre and Anna Karenina, Virginia Wolff's ‘angel in the house’, and, of course, the Superwoman who encompasses them all (Collins, 1992). The case study involving Carmelita, and a woman the other inmates called Jazz, illustrates women's confusions about virtue from the perspective of Existentialist and Marxist feminism. Both were women who saw themselves as Other. Both struggled with the problem of alienation within the context of public and domestic labor. Both subscribed to myths which did not contribute to human flourishing. Carmelita and Jazz had other elements in common. Both were young women in their late twenties. Both were women of color; Carmelita was Puerto-Rican and Jazz was African American. Both were exceptionally beautiful women. Both grew up poor. Both were adult children of abusive alcoholic fathers. Both had uncomplaining hard working mothers they regarded as saints, but with whom they had very troubled relationships. Both were unhappy with their situation in life. Both had substance abuse problems. Carmelita and Jazz were also very different. Carmelita claimed to be happily married, had a very responsible job as executive secretary to a corporate vice-president, and was a leader in the Latino community. Jazz had been living with a drug dealer prior to her arrest on a drug charge, had been unemployed and on welfare, and greeted most of the inmates in lockup as old friends. Carmelita was incredibly hardworking. Jazz had no interest in work whatever. Carmelita described herself as sometimes feeling ‘tired and empty’, and that her life was meaningless. She said she hated her job, and worried about her husband's desire to start a family when she did not 'feel very maternal'. She was also worried because she had started drinking and it seemed to be getting out of hand. Jazz was unhappy because she was in a correctional facility and because she kept relapsing when she was out, selling drugs to feed her addiction. This time she was expecting a long prison sentence. Jazz's mother was

Philosophical Practice from Feminist Perspectives

91

dead, but she had an aunt who was caring for her baby. Jazz claimed her baby was better off without her and did not contribute to the aunt's support. I concluded that the fact that they both came from alcoholic homes contributed to the myths they subscribed to about their own identities. Carmelita was the classic hero child, while Jazz was the classic scapegoat, characters which emerge in alcoholic households (Beattie, 1986). Hero children keep the family going by assuming responsibility for mundane tasks and by pleasing everyone. Scapegoats reject traditional values, act out in unproductive ways in response to family chaos, and then are blamed for family problems. I also surmised that their allegiance to myths about work and family, acquired in the process of being cast in these roles, were at the root of some of their unhappiness and substance abuse. I also thought that Carmelita and Jazz would be a perfect match for one-to-one mentoring sessions. During group counselling with me it became apparent that both women's philosophies about work and family were deeply colored by forms of alienation. Carmelita expressed her philosophy when she complained that she hated her job because the work did not fulfill her. She was only working for the money. Her job paid well, but she was tired of dealing with the petty jealousies of other secretaries who did not like a Latina earning more than them. She loved her husband and her mother, who lived with them, but claimed that they both made her feel guilty because she could not be ‘as good a wife and mother’ as her own mother, whom she deeply admired. Her mother had toiled long hours at low paying jobs all her life, but had deferred to her alcoholic husband, kept an immaculately clean house, taken care of three kids, and never complained. Carmelita said she was disinterested in sex because she was always tired, but did not see how she could manage her job (which involved long hours) and the baby her husband wanted. Jazz expressed still deeper alienation from work and family. When I asked her what kind of work she was doing when she was arrested and what kind of work she might like to do when she was eventually released, Jazz snapped, ‘didn't have a job and don't want one’. ‘But if you think you can have everything you want, fast and easy, what are the consequences of that?', I asked, expecting some wry recognition she'd ended up arrested for dealing drugs again.

92

VI

‘Oh yeah! Same song — consequences — well, the consequences are that unlike my mama, I'm having some highs in my life in my life-Phly clothes. Phly cars, and phly dudes. Mama, she be working all day mopping floors for some white bitch, then taking care of a lotta screaming kids. Bitching at me all day, and praying all Sunday just to make rent. Miss Mama since she died! Miss her a lot even if she did say I was nothing but trash. But I'm not Mama. Me? I'm gonna have a life!’. During the remaining sessions of group counselling, and still more in the one-to-one mentoring sessions, Carmelita and Jazz came to see their life problems as stemming from alienation resulting from allegiance, conditioned by economic class, to myths about the 'superwoman'. For them to be 'feminine', to be virtuous, to be the 'good woman' was to be the 'superwoman' represented by their mothers, poor women who functioned magnificently in the public and private sphere as ‘Other’, satisfying the needs of others. Carmelita tried to live the myth. Jazz tried to run from it. Both became alienated from work, from other employees, from family, from their bodies, and from their own genuine needs in the process. And both tried to fill the void with substance abuse. At the conclusion of the one-on-one mentoring sessions, I asked Carmelita and Jazz which virtues they thought they needed to achieve the good life. Both said they needed to think more about their respective conceptions of 'the good life', but they were now agreed that finding meaningful (and legal) work they would enjoy doing was part of it. Carmelita had ideas for starting her own business, which would give her greater flexibility and more scope for using her creativity than her current corporate job. Jazz grudgingly admitted that if she had any hope of staying out of prison and enjoying a good life, she needed to use some of her time in state prison to get some job training; she was already checking on a cosmetology course offered by the prison to which she would be transferred. In mentoring Jazz, Carmelita tried to encourage Jazz to take some responsibility for her child and to suggest that a relationship with a child did not have to seem like a ball and chain, and could be very different from the relationship Jazz had experienced with her mother. Carmelita realized that prisons destroy families and helped Jazz to set up a program where Jazz and other female offenders could have contact visits with their children. In the process, Carmelita decided that when she was really ready, perhaps she had some maternal impulses after all.

Philosophical Practice from Feminist Perspectives

93

Carmelita said that she thought 'realism and balance' were the essential virtues she needed for the good life for her. As for the virtues Jazz needed for a better life, Jazz in her inimical style may have come even closer to the heart of things. 'Its feeling like a whole person', she said, 'stead of a lot of pieces of garbage scattered around'. Given centuries where women were treated as second-class citizens, rapid social change, and continuing inequalities, for women to achieve an integrated life and consciousness as well as to maintain self-respect can often be a challenge. This case illustrates merely one example where feminist philosophies and what women have to say about virtue can clearly be very helpful in meeting such challenges.

Case two: Sexual harassment 2015: Why corporations still don't get it In 2014, I was contacted by what I shall call the North Eastern Division of a multinational corporation to do sexual harassment training. Despite costly sexual harassment policies adopted almost universally in the US and the fact that the American approach now was serving as a model for programs in the EU and other parts of the world, I found that little had changed in corporate cultures since my first article on sexual harassment had appeared in 1994 (Feary, 1994). Since the 1970s, when American feminists spearheaded by radical feminist, Catherine Mackinnon, succeeded in defining sexual harassment as a form of sex discrimination prohibited under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, corporations (including the one in this case) have been required by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and state enforcement agencies to have a sexual harassment policy in place. Revisions in corporate sentencing guidelines now reduce corporate liability in the event of conviction when companies have state of the art ethics policies in place (Feary, 1994). According to a 2015 EEOC press release, sexual harassment litigation is increasing (EEOC 2015). While there is a decline in 'quid pro quo' cases, cases which involve an employee's submission to granting sexual favors as a condition of employment benefits, the so called 'hostile work environment' cases are on the rise. According to case law and EEOC regulations, a 'hostile work environment' occurs when inappropriate and unwelcome sexual conduct is so pervasive that it would materially alter

94

VI

terms and conditions of employment for any 'reasonable woman'. Lewd cartoons, derogatory and suggestive remarks, obscene jokes, fondling and unwelcome touching, etc. can create 'hostile work environments', and employers have paid heavy damages for allowing them to continue: in 1998 Mitsubishi agreed to pay $34 million, plus several more million dollars in individual suits to settle sexual harassment claims (CCN Money, 1998). As I suspected, there were several 'hostile workplace' lawsuits pending in the North Eastern Division with the prospect of heavy punitive damages being imposed during an especially sensitive time during a takeover bid. I submitted a proposal, which the corporation accepted, signed a more extensive confidentiality agreement, and began training. The first part of the training was focused on showing managers and other employees (in separate groups) that pervasive assumptions in the business community about sexual harassment were wrong (Feary, 1994: 658). In particular, I taught trainees to recognize that sexual harassment is not wholly a gender, culture or communication problem, and it is certainly not 'much ado about nothing'. The second part of the training focused upon showing why sexual harassment is a serious moral problem in the business community. In both parts of the training I devoted about two thirds of my time to working with groups of middle managers. I have found most infractions before training, and the greatest impact after training, to derive from this source. We began with the tired old joke, 'business ethics is an oxymoron'. In fact, poor ethics is very bad for business in the form of unwanted publicity and litigation. Numerous examples from the same industry were provided to illustrate this point. Next we turned to a prevalent assumption that managers only need to become concerned about ethics violations when there is a likelihood of publicity or litigation. Instead, I showed from numerous studies by independent researchers that most harassment cases are unreported to management anyway, and that when suits are eventually filed, they are often filed in large clusters, suggesting that a log jam will break with dire consequences for any company that is not proactive at the first whiff of trouble. We next explored complaints often heard at the management level that the concept of sexual harassment is ‘murky'. Participants discussed EEOC definitions and provisions; I asked what parts if any, baffled them. The few puzzles, mainly about third party liability and harassment of men, were addressed. Next, we looked at paradigm cases of sexual harassment of males from prior legal cases, followed by discussions about various borderline situations from hypothetical cases I created, thus providing enough training to anticipate

Philosophical Practice from Feminist Perspectives

95

possible future court decisions. Finally, I discussed the role of gender, culture, feelings, and communication in sexual harassment cases. I suggested that while such factors may causally explain some cases of sexual harassment, treating sexual harassment primarily as a gender, cultural or communication problem is a mistake. Too much emphasis on gender and culture only creates dissension and reinforces stereotypes, as if genders and cultures engage in monolithic thinking, and as if sexual harassment is only a woman's problem or an artifact of a puritanical culture. What is needed to encourage compliance with sexual harassment guidelines is to promote a recognition that sexual harassment is a moral problem and universally wrong. In Part Two of the training, I began training participants in some rudiments of meta-ethics, including the nature of moral judgment and the characteristics of a good moral theory (i.e. logical coherence, impartiality, consistency with basic moral intuitions, explanatory adequacy, and concern with the facts), emphasizing that moral judgments and theories are not simply a matter of feelings and cultural values. I then taught trainees to recognize why instances of sexual harassment are morally wrong, illustrating my arguments with specific cases. First, sexual harassment is morally wrong because it physically and psychologically harms victims, and because environments, which permit sexual harassment, encourage such harm. Even liberal moral theories acknowledge that harm to others is our strongest reason for restricting liberty. Some sexual harassment cases associated with hostile work environment involve rape or physical assault, and both quid pro quo harassment and environmental harassment can cause sexual harassment trauma syndrome (headaches, nausea, tiredness, etc.). State common law claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress often accompany suits under Title VI 1; both require medical and psychiatric testimony to substantiate such claims (Crull, 1991). Finally, sexual touching qualifies as sexual harassment under EEOC guidelines (even when it is confined to a single severe incident). Cultures and institutions which fail to set limits upon unwanted sexual touching (i.e., touching parts of the body associated with sexual response) are encouraging further physical abuse and disrespect for women (Dodds, et. al., 1992). Second, Edmund Wall (1991) is quite correct in emphasizing that sexual harassment violates privacy rights. Suffice it to say here that in the US there is a constitutional right to privacy first recognized by the Supreme Court in Griswold v. State of Connecticut 381 US 479,85 S Ct. 1678

96

VI

(1965), a case involving the sale of contraceptives. In that case the Court found that there is a right to privacy emanating from penumbras surrounding the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments which create zones of privacy (Feary, 2001). Presumably unwanted sexual touching would violate zones of privacy; if our homes cannot be invaded, presumably our bodies should be doubly sacrosanct (Wall, 1991: 371–385). There are also specific rights to privacy; William Brenkert and Joseph Des Jardins (1985) argue that the information a person (or institution) is entitled to know about an employee is confined to the sort of information which pertains to the employee's ability to perform his job. Given that sexual matters are irrelevant in assessing an individual's ability to perform a job, privacy rights seem to preclude any inquiries by managers about the sexual lives of their employees outside of the workplace, and to provide a clear moral justification for discouraging sexual conversations within it. Third, in the US, there are certainly historical and causal correlations between sexual harassment and discrimination. While sexual harassment is an emotionally charged issue in every community, it is especially charged in those that have suffered from discrimination. Black men have been victims of vicious sexual stereotypes, which have led to lynchings resulting from wholly unjustified sexual allegations, and historically black women have been targets of sexual abuse not only by white men, but also by men of their own race. Recent studies verify that women, and especially women of color earning low wages, still constitute the group most likely to be victimized by sexual harassment, and that they are usually harassed by men occupying positions of superior authority, thus substantiating feminist Catherine MacKinnon's vision of sexual harassment as a gendered expression of power. Given the complicated connections between discrimination, violence, inequalities in power, and sexual misconduct, corporations have a duty to insist upon sexual propriety in the workplace in order to protect any employee from further discrimination. Fourth, sexual harassment violates liberty rights. John Rawls (1971: 69) believes that in a just society 'Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for all’. Sexual harassment restricts liberty. A 1979 Working Women's Institute study found that 24% of sexual harassment victims were terminated, probably for complaining, while another 42% left their jobs (Crull, 1985: 2) From what I hear in my practice from working women, little has changed. This is especially a problem in traditionally male dominated fields (e.g. the police, auto workers, construction, etc.).

Philosophical Practice from Feminist Perspectives

97

Fifth, sexual harassment violates rights to fair equality of opportunity. John Rawls (1971: 83-90) argued persuasively that in a just society there should be roughly equal prospects of success for everyone similarly motivated and endowed. There is a wealth of evidence to suggest that women do not enjoy fair equality in the workplace and that sexual harassment is part of the problem. Sexual harassment stress syndrome, resulting from quid pro quo and environmental harassment, impairs job performance. A hostile work environment undermines respect for women making it difficult for them to exercise authority and command respect. Pornography, sexual conversation, sexual and sexist jokes, girlie posters, and the like, are morally objectionable because they violate women's rights to enjoy fair equality of opportunity. They are especially objectionable in any workplace associated with criminal justice; the very life of a woman police or correctional officer may depend upon her ability to command respect from sexually abusive people. To insist that women protest sexual harassment in a public forum, and to fail to institute grievance procedures which protect their privacy only exacerbates the damage already done. It may create resentment among male colleagues, discourage men in positions of authority from serving as mentors to women, irreparably damage victims' prospects from developing warm working relationships with colleagues and for expanding their professional networks, and perhaps, worst of all, impair their prospects for securing employment elsewhere. Sixth, sexual harassment demonstrates the kind of disrespect for persons, which is incompatible with Kantian and Rawlsian conceptions of respect. Respect for persons surely involves respecting every person's rights to be unharmed by others, and to enjoy equal rights to liberty, privacy, and fair equality of opportunity. Seventh, sexual harassment is morally objectionable because it undermines utilitarian justifications for the very free enterprise system upon which the business community depends. The moral justification for such a system is that it supposedly maximizes freedom and efficiency. We have already seen that sexual harassment curtails freedom. It is also inefficient. According to a Merit Board survey, sexual harassment cost the federal government at least 267 million dollars in a two-year period. The estimate was based upon conservative conclusions about the costs of job turnover, sick leave and loss of productivity (Paludi and Barickman, 1991: 148). A 1985 Working Woman survey estimated the cost of harassment for a typical Fortune 400 company of 23,784 employees to be nearly $7 million per year, but it is much more now (Paludi and Barickman: 149). It

98

VI

also estimated that the costs of permitting sexual harassment were over thirty-one times the initial costs of preventing it. Finally, a traditional argument for insisting that the socio-economic inequalities of capitalism are morally justifiable consists in claiming that there is fair equality of opportunity and that permitting inequalities ultimately contributes to the benefit of all. Sexual harassment violates rights to fair equality of opportunity and, by doing so, creates inequalities which are disadvantageous to all. Sexual harassment is not merely a woman's problem. It is still a problem for the entire business community. I was retained by North Eastern Division in the Spring of 2015 to consult with the Director of Human Resources about how they should use my methods in subsequent training as a part of their permanent sexual harassment policy. There had been no further sexual harassment litigation, and a small decrease in sexual harassment claims; these had been resolved on the managerial level through administrative action. There were too many variables to conclude what impact my training had but upper management had concluded that my training methods encouraged employees to take sexual harassment seriously and promoted a less litigious atmosphere when problems did arise, because the values at stake were clear and had the support of all levels of management.

Conclusion Women participate in many narratives: the personal stories women tell about their own lives, the meta-narratives philosophers tell about women, and the myths about women's issues that appear in social and organizational cultures. These narratives are all crisscrossing threads in the fabric of women's lives. As caring philosophical practitioners, we can help to insure that all women create their own authentic patterns, and become authors of their lives.

References Alter, Charlotte (2014). ‘11 Surprising Facts About Women and Poverty From the Shiver Report’, (internet) available at http://time.com/2026/11-surprising-facts-about-women-and-povertyfrom-the-shriver-report/ (Viewed 13 April 2015). Anscombe, Elizabeth (1995). ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’. In 20th Century Ethical Theory, edited by Stephen M. Cahn and Joram G. Haber. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Philosophical Practice from Feminist Perspectives

99

Baier, Annette (1994). ‘What Do Women Want in a Moral Theory?’. In Virtue Ethics, edited by Rodger Crisp and Michael Slote. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Beattie, M. (1986). Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself. New York: Hazelden Press. Brenkert, George G. (1985). ‘Privacy, Polygraphs and Work’. In Contemporary Issues in Business Ethics, edited by Joseph Desjardins and John J. McCall. Belmont Calfornia: Wadsworth Publishing Company. Clement, Grace (1996). Care, Autonomy and Justice. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Collins, Patricia Hill (1992). ‘Mammies, Matriarchs, and Other Controlling Images’. In Feminist Philosophies, edited by Janet A. Kournay, James Sterba, and Rosemarie Tong. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Crull, Peggy (1991). ‘The Stress Effects of Sexual Harassment on the Job’. In Academic and Workplace Sexual Harassment, A Resource Manual, edited by Michele A. Paludi and Richard B Barickman, 133-144. Albany, NY: State University of New York. ‘CNNMoney’ (1998). (internet) Available at http://money.cnn.com/1998/06/11/companies/mitsubishi (viewed 1 April 2015). De Paula, Luisa and Raabe, Peter (2015) (eds.). Women and Philosophical Counseling, The Anima of Thought in Action. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books. Des Jardins, Joseph R. (1985). ‘An Employee's Right to Privacy’. In Contemporary Issues in Business Ethics, edited by Joseph R. DesJardins and John J McCall. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company. Dodds, Susan M. et. al. (1992). ‘Sexual Harassment’. In Moral Issues in Business 5th edition, edited by William W. Shaw and Vincent Barry, 464-471. Belmont, California: Wadswoth Publishing Company. EEOC Press Release (2015). ‘Workplace Harassment: Still a Major Problem’, (internet) available at http://www1.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom,/relade1-14-15.cfm (Viewed 5 April, 2015). de Beauvoir, Simone (1952). The Second Sex. New York: Random House. Fatiü, Aleksandar (2014). 'Philosophical Practice as a New Paradigm in Philosophy'. Philosophical Practice 9, 3:411-413. Feary, Vaughana (1994). ‘Sexual Harassment: Why the Corporate World Doesn't Get It.’ Journal of Business Ethics 13: 649-662.

100

VI

—. (2001). ‘Philosophical Dialogue and Multicultural Values in Counseling and Practice”. In Thinking Through Dialogue: Essays on Philosophy in Practice, edited by Trevor Curnow. Opted, Surrey, United Kingdom: Practical Philosophy Press. —. (2003). ‘Virtue-Based Feminist Philosophical Counseling’. Practical Philosophy 1: 7-26. —. (2013). 'Vaughana Feary'. In Philosophical Practice, 5 Questions, edited by Jeanette Bresson Ladegaard Knox and Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen Friis, 3-61. United States and United Kingdom: Automatic Press. Fluke, Sandra (2014). ‘New Women's Issues’, (internet) available at http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/08opinion/fluke-women-rights/ (Viewed 8 March 2014). Gilligan, Carol (1982). In a Different Voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gilligan, Carol, Rodgers, Ann, and Talman, Deborah (1991). Women, Girls and Psychotherapy: Reframing Resistance. New York: The Haworth Press. Hegewisch, Ariane, and Hartmann, Heidi (September 2014). ‘The Gender Wage Gap 2013’, (internet) available at http://www.iwpr.org/initatives/pay-equity-and-discrimination (Viewed 13 April 2014). MacIntyre, Alastair (1981). After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame Press. —. (1992). ‘Virtue Ethics’. In Encyclopedia of Ethics, edited by Lawrence C. Becker and Charlotte B. Becker. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. Morgan, Olivia, and Skelton, Karren (eds.) (2014). The Shriver Report, A Woman's Nation Pushes Back from the Brink. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. Berkley, CA: University of California Press. Okin, Susan Moller (1989). Justice, Gender and the Family. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company. Paludi, Michele and Barrickman, Richard B. (eds.) (1991). Academic and Workplace Harassment, A Resources Manual. New York: State University of New York. Rawls, John (1971). A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ruddick, Sara (1989). Maternal Thinking: Towards a Politics of Peace. New York: Basic Books.

Philosophical Practice from Feminist Perspectives

101

Tong, R. (1993). Feminine and Feminist Ethics. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company. Tuana, N (1992). Women and the History of Philosophy. Dallas, Texas: Paragon. Taylor, Charles (1994). ‘The Politics of Recognition’. In Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, edited by Amy Gutmann. Princeton: Princeton University Press. UN Women (2015). ‘Fact and Figures: Ending Violence against Women’, (internet) available at http://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/endingviolence-against-women/facts-and-figures (Viewed 10 May, 2015). Wall, Edmund (1991). ‘The Definition of Sexual Harassment’. Public Affairs Quarterly, 5, 4: 371—385. Wood, A. (1991). ‘Marx Against Morality’. In A Companion to Ethics, edited by Peter Singer, 110-125. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

VII PHILOSOPHICAL AND CULTURAL PLURALISM ORA GRUENGARD

Philosophical counselors have different opinions about the nature of an appropriate philosophical counseling. There is no agreement among them with regards to the nature of an appropriate debate about that. They disagree even with regard to the appropriateness of such debates. Some accuse others of ‘non-philosophical intolerance of alternatives’ when the latter criticize approaches that do not leave room for the examination of philosophical alternatives. They reject critical attitude for its being ‘judgmental’ precisely when it expresses discontent with approaches that do not allow the counselee to be properly ‘judgmental’, i.e. examine critically options that are suggested by their counselor (or, for that matter, the psychotherapist that is unaware of his philosophical biases). Such criticism is sometimes due to sheer misunderstanding. Some of the socalled philosophical counselors seem to lack a philosophical background. Sometimes it is motivated by reasons that have nothing to do with the nature of philosophy or counseling: They might be psychological (such as a genuine ‘debate-anxiety’)1 and they might be political (such as the will to propagate philosophical counseling in general by presenting it to the ‘lay’ public as something that is beyond debate). Sometimes, however, such criticism reflects a philosophical conviction that the alleged intolerant and judgmental attitude fails to be pluralistic, and disregards or disrespects individual or cultural differences. The present paper ignores the issue of psychological plurality and examines some aspects of the presuppositions of the cultural-pluralistic creed. It explores, in particular, the claims that

1

For example the suspicion that disagreement with one's opinion, aim, scale of values or behavior means a negative judgment of one's basic worth as a human being. Some counselors, who were trained as "empathic" psychotherapists, mistake criticism for antipathy.

Philosophical and Cultural Pluralism

103

philosophy and philosophical counseling should be culture-dependent, culturally loyal and yet tolerant to other cultures. Pluralism is justifiable by many philosophical reasons. The same reasons seem to justify pluralism in philosophy itself, and, by the same token, in philosophical counseling. None of those reasons, however, justify the claim that ‘everything goes’. Some options do not or rather should not. A general review of current debates about the pluralistic implications of contemporary philosophies of science, language, hermeneutic, culture, politics, ethics, esthetics or religion could, logically, be the starting point of the argumentation. It seems, however, that dealing, as a case study, with what seems to be a specific cultural group would be less repetitive for those that are already acquainted with the theoretical issues and less tedious for those preferring analyses of concrete examples. Such a perspective also enables critical thinking about claims that are sometimes made by participants in philosophical counseling conferences, such as the claim that philosophical counseling should alleviate the ‘modern malaise’ by enabling a ‘return to tradition’, and, in particular, heal the wounds of ‘Western influences’ by returning to the ‘non-Western cultural roots’, or the claim that philosophical counseling should be interpreted as guidance towards a ‘religious revival of Western traditions’. As philosophy, in the West as well as the East, is the field of discourse where conventional views, whether religious and whether non-or anti-religious, are called into question, the attempt to ‘mobilize’ philosophical counseling for the revival of a specific tradition is, however, arbitrary. It is as arbitrary as the ‘modernist’ pretensions to overcome all the particular traditions and embody the ‘most advanced achievements’ of ‘universal’ philosophical thinking. It is as problematic as some ‘post-colonialist’ attempts to foster ‘cultures’ that are allegedly specific to some ‘non-dominant’ groups. A study of debates of a specific cultural group may show how dubious is the assumption that philosophy is the elaboration of dogmas and principles, or the belief that ‘cultural groups’ are homogeneous entities that share dogmas and principles. It may support the conclusion that pluralistic philosophical counseling should neither attempt to foster dogmas that allegedly represent ‘cultures’ nor propagate cultural relativism. The choice of the specific ‘cultural group’ was triggered by a claim made by a participant in a recent conference: ‘Only Christians have succeeded to integrate their faith into a comprehensive philosophy’. It is a wrong claim, which disregards deep differences in dogmas as well as attitudes among the main Christian churches, and ignores the variety of old ‘heresies’ that still exist in some Middle Eastern or African Christian churches. It also

104

VII

fails to distinguish between the dogmatic dictates made by some religious authority and the collection of worldviews that are partially shared by members of a cultural group. It seems, moreover to assume that people whose ancestors accepted the dictation of some integrating authority, while they themselves do not share the ‘integrated’ worldview, should be ‘philosophically counseled’ to ‘return’ to their alleged ‘roots’. It fails to recognize the efforts made by some Non-Christian philosophers in order to integrate their respective faith within some ‘comprehensive philosophy’. It echoes thereby the Eurocentric prejudice that only (European) Christians had an access to Greek philosophical traditions, and Christian rather than, say, Judaic or Muslim, thinkers, are the inheritors of ‘the Greek legacy’. It is blind both to Greek philosophical views and practices that are incompatible with Christian ideas or ethos and the impact of Anatolian, Persian or other non-Greek influences on the Christian family of worldviews and practices. And, last but not least, it fails to understand that ‘integrating religious dogmas within a comprehensive philosophy’ is not the only way to make philosophical discourse relevant to the current concerns of members of specific ‘cultural groups’ that, despite the shared cultural heritage and religious background of their members, are not homogenous. The group studied in this paper is accordingly a group whose religious wise ‘failed’ to philosophize ‘comprehensively’, and ‘preferred to concentrate their intellectual efforts on the interpretation of its religious laws’. Philosophers within that group – ‘the Jews’ (but it also applies to ‘the Muslims’) were, of course, sometimes preoccupied with the systematic integration of their faith within a comprehensive metaphysics (or vice versa). Yet, the truth is that, on the one hand, cultures whose religions are rule-oriented and whose laws are considered as Divine dictates invest more intellectual energy in the interpretation of the ‘legal’ aspects of their sanctified texts (where those commands are allegedly registered) than cultures which share a religion that pretends to have overcome the need for laws. It is true, on the other hand, that the former, whose social coherence and solidarity is supposed to be guaranteed by the acceptance of common practical rules, are less anxious than the latter to establish consensus on the level of religious dogmas. It is, perhaps, also true that revolutionary groups that pretend to have overcome the need for laws might not be satisfied with unity on the level of credo declarations, and tend to seek cohesion by attempts to form an entire worldview, confirmed by the authorized councils of ‘the church’, ‘the congregation’ (or, as in the case of modern social revolutionaries, ‘the party’) and imposed on all the group members. It is, however, far from being certain

Philosophical and Cultural Pluralism

105

that such groups do not eventually let ‘the church’, ‘the congregation’ or ‘the party’ elaborate rigid rules of conduct that are interpreted conservatively by their dominant institutions. Finally, it is certainly wrong to assume that groups that pretend to follow strictly their ‘written rules’ never try to re-interpret them in new, revolutionary, ways. The arbitrariness of the dichotomy is currently illustrated by the disagreements and conflicts between and within different mostly Muslim countries. Yet, as the stereotype that seems to had been created when Saint Paul was still busy with his attempts to differentiate the nascent Christianity from the Judaic approaches (i.e., the image of the ‘Jewish rabbis’ as ‘strict and nonphilosophical legalists’), seems to persist, it might be interesting, as well as philosophically relevant to consider some stories that are relevant to the history of debates among Jews within the rabbinical tradition – or against it. The stories are about a historical figure Rabbi Akiva (RA), a famous and admired Rabbi, contemporary of (the historic) Saint Paul. The stories, or rather legends, come from later sources.2 The first story is about a conversation that takes place in the ‘heavenly academic conference’. In such mythical gatherings the souls of departed pious, or ‘the just’, are ‘spending their time’ in studying, i.e. interpreting, the Torah in the presence of the Holy [One] Blessed [Be] He (HBH). That heavenly ‘institute’, which echoes, perhaps, Neo-Platonic myths about the contemplative life of eternal souls, is an allegorical fiction, which is often referred to in later, ‘Oral’, compilations of the ‘Torah’, in cases of interpretative disagreements. The ‘Written Torah’ that is studied there is believed to be eternal and primordial (just like the Platonic Ideas). It is (like the World of Ideas) both the plan according to which the HBH3 proceeds in ‘creating worlds’ (in this respect He resembles the Demiurge), as well as determining (like the Biblical God) destinies of individuals and nations, and the source of regulations for appropriate behavior. Some of 2

The stories, which are scattered in the Mishna or Talmud, are very short, but in order to analyze them in their cultural context I need to add some lengthy explanations. 3 According to the Cabbala, a much later creation whose roots are, however, very ancient, the HBH is an aspect of the One and Infinite Divinity. He is neither an inferior nor a competing demiurge, neither created nor emanated, but he, rather the unknowable Infinite, is involved with creation and providence. He is immaterial and imperceptible, but he is referred to in anthropomorphic terms, as the "sovereign of the worlds", "our father", the giver of the Torah to human beings and the "judge that reads their hearts".

106

VII

its moral demands are imposed on all ‘the descendants of Noah’, but most of the ‘instruction’ (in Hebrew: torah) is directed to the people that is ‘in alliance’ with the HBH. The literal text of the ‘eternal Torah’ (which was ‘dictated to Moses on Mount Sinai’) is that of the Pentateuch, i.e., the first five books of the Bible. But, in order to explain the explicit laws and show the ‘eternal wisdom’ that those books allegedly transmit, one should rely not only on the literal meaning of the laws, promises, threats prophecies and narratives that are included explicitly in that compilation; one should also ‘discover’ in those books and the other parts (of the Jewish canonized version) of the Bible, whatever is their content or form (historical narratives, prophecies, parables, love poems, liturgies, proverbs or philosophical reflections) implicit analogies, paradigms, hints, as well as secret messages. The HBH, who intervenes from time to time in the interpretative controversies, ‘enjoys himself’ by ‘tying crowns to the Torah’, i.e. ornamenting its letters. Those letters can be ‘untied’ and ‘retied’ into new words or phrases, and thereby the texts are ‘deconstructed’ and ‘reconstructed’ into new meanings.4 That wisdom, Midrash, has been elaborated in different ways for different purposes. The mystic tradition, which would eventually develop to the Cabalistic lore, pretends to explicate by such techniques hints and secrets not only about ‘the deep meaning’ and the hidden functions of ‘written laws’ that might seem arbitrary or obsolete, but also about the nature of the divinity, the purpose of the creation, the symbolic side of the created worlds, the mission of the Jews, the coming of the Messiah, the resurrection of the dead, the nature of salvation, and the Divine providence or Justice in ‘this world’ and ‘the world to come’. Its far-fetched interpretative versions allowed dealing with philosophical as well as religious issues behind the veil of myths and mystical metaphors, and under the wings of the ‘Divine Presence’ as well as hosts of angels (Atlan, 1999). The original and the most important role of that kind of hermeneutics is, however, to show that the ‘Oral Torah’, i.e. current interpretations of the ancient laws of the ‘Written Torah’, which are based on up-dated practical considerations and logical as well as moral analyses (and are not immune to external and foreign influences), ‘follows’ only from the canonized texts. And thus, despite the ever-growing difference between the halakhot (i.e., the "legally" binding "oral" interpretations of the literal meaning of the "written laws"), the former are "discoverable" in the "written" texts. Exegetic disagreements, which are possible even when the reading of the 4

It is not anachronism: Derrida has invented the neologisms, and changed the philosophical justification, but he, like Levinas, was inspired by the ancient art of Talmudic exegetics

Philosophical and Cultural Pluralism

107

texts is very conservative and pretends to be strictly literal, are under such interpretative freedom simply inevitable. The metaphorical participation of the HBH in the parabolic heavenly meetings has, accordingly, a jurisprudential role: He is the judge in exegetic disputes. He helps "the learning souls" in heaven and the interpreters of the laws in the earthly Yeshivas to determine the appropriateness of a suggested adaptation of existing laws to new situations, the adequacy of procedures for argumentation for alternative proposals, and the justifiability of criteria for legal and legislative decisions. In the first story Moses (i.e., his soul) sees the HBH "ornamenting" the Torah's letters and asks him why he is doing that. The HBH say that he does it for RA, so Moses goes to the heavenly Yeshiva to listen to that rabbi and the members of the Sanhedrin, the council of the seventy wise, arguing about the meaning of some biblical phrases, in the process of explication of some of the "Mosaic laws". Moses does not understand what they are talking about, for what RA says is not written (literarily) in the Torah. But he hears a "heavenly voice" saying that the law, as it is interpreted by RA, is the biding law—halakhah—“that (had been dictated) to Moses in Sinai". Moses realizes that RA understands better than him the deep meaning of the phrases. He asks modestly the HBH why He accorded him rather than to RA the honor to receive directly from his Mouth the text of the heavenly book. The HBH tells him to shut up, as He does what He wants. Moses understands God's answer only when he learns about RA's martyrdom (Talmud Bavli, Kodashim, Menachot, 29:2.). RA, according to other legends, was born to a humble family, worked as a shepherd and stayed illiterate till the age of forty; whereas the Biblical Moses, descendent of the priestly tribe of Levy, grown up in the Egyptian court and a rival of its wise magicians, was over and above that a prophet, i.e., a person to whom the HBH has chosen to reveal directly some of His opinions, attitudes, plans, wishes or demands. Moses is, moreover, considered in the Jewish tradition, in which the authority of the prophets is (theoretically) above that of priests, kings and rabbis, as "the father of the prophets"; i.e. the greatest. If we take into account the possibility that the creator of the legend was somehow aware of the parallelism between the Platonic philosopher that returns to the people in the cave in order to guide them in light of his synoptic Ideatic vision, and Moses, who, after the revelation on Mount Sinai, returns with the "instruction" to the people in the desert, we may assume that Moses was considered by him not as a mere transmitter of the Divine decrees but as the wise that understands them. The historical RA, who was born more than a millennium after the

108

VII

death of the legendary Moses, could not be considered a prophet: According to the rabbinical approach, "after the destruction of the temple (of Jerusalem) only the fool are [or seemed to be] endowed with prophetic abilities". Yet the legend tells us that the opinion of RA, who, as other legends tell, became eventually the "teacher of 24000 students", was not just wiser than that of Moses, it was Moses' law itself: In other words, the HBH, by his "playing with the letters", was legitimating the rabbinical non-literary reading of the Holy Scriptures, where words and letters can be taken out of their contexts, the orders of letters be exchanged etc., in order to "tie" the new understandings that are constantly emerging in the study of the "Oral Torah" to the Moses' "Written Torah". The legend is not only about the shattered authority of the author, a "postmodern" position that was actually taken for granted by the rabbinical tradition. It is also not only about pluralism, as the rabbis, for whom the (Written) Torah has "seventy faces" (i.e., can be understood in "seventy" different ways), did not need any Derrida or De Man in order to conceive the possibility of hermeneutic variety. It is about the greatness of RA, who is considered as the founder of the principle that every innovation should be based on the "written Torah". It is about the legitimacy of "wild" reinterpretations of sanctified ancient texts in the service of legal positions that fit the current moral norms better than the literary meaning of the "written laws" and respond better to actual problem situations5. It is relevant to the issue of loyalty to one's culture, by showing that a cultural heritage may be respected and yet re-interpreted in new ways. It is relevant to philosophical counseling because in such counseling we often need to re-interpret old philosophical ideas, sometimes even "wildly", in order to adapt them to the world and the current problem situations of the counselees. We can also propose to the counselees a reinterpretation of texts that are sanctified in their traditions in ways that are more congruent with their current standards. We can, e.g., propose to counselees with a Muslim background Islamic interpretations of their "Islamic identity" that are more congruent with the values that they share with her non-Islamic environment than the allegedly authentic version of the Islamic "fundamentalist" preacher. 5

The most famous saying in this regard is: "Turn it and turn it again, for everything is in it’ (Avot, 5, 21). It should be acknowledged that more than one attempt was made to limit the "everything" to "everything that is acceptable" to the limiting interpretative school, and added that no Jewish school had the political power to impose its decisions on the others.

Philosophical and Cultural Pluralism

109

The multiplicity of "faces" of the Written Torah, which, similarly to the sanctified scriptures of other religions or ideologies, may serve as the basis for different and sometimes contradictory positions, The rabbis were therefore preoccupied not only with the gap between "Moses'" and "RA's" understanding, but also, and perhaps mainly, with the differences between the interpretations of different contemporary rabbis. Although they shared the mythical metaphors of heavenly beings and institutions, they did not necessarily share the beliefs with regards to their existence—or authority. As interpreters of laws they needed, however, practical agreement on the appropriateness of interpretations, and criteria for decision which alternative among the biblical or the rabbinical versions should be accepted as the binding rule. They therefore developed, over and above the art of Midrash, logical rules of inferences: They were interested in analogical inferences from Biblical stories that supposedly illustrated some cases that were somehow relevant to the actual cases to which the discussed rule should apply. When they could not find supporting precedence in the Biblical texts, they "tied" to them, by means of some or other Biblical phrase, borrowed or invented stories about biblical, historical and fictive protagonists, and did not omit non-flattering anecdotes about themselves. They were also interested in logical inferences from prior rabbinical controversies and the reasons for the resulting decisions. "Studying the Torah" meant for them studying the dialogues of former interpreters and participating in the former as well as the actual debates, learning to apply correctly the rules of inference and choose reasonable criteria for decisions. That approach, which sometimes finds expression in genuine philosophical discussions, is, of course, very different than the attitude of most Biblical protagonists or authors. It is reasonable to assume that just as their celestial imagery reflected Mesopotamian and Persian influences, their logical discussions echo the impact of Hellenic philosophical dialogues as well as that of Roman jurisprudence. Those early rabbis, whose Hebrew-Aramean language is dotted with Persian, Greek and Latin words, would never admit it. They strived to differentiate the "Jewish people" from that of its neighbors and rulers, whom they perceived as unenlightened heathen and, sometimes, cruel oppressors. Studying philosophy is as active and participating as studying the Torah. Philosophical counseling should be, similarly, a participation in past or on-going philosophical dialogues, and examination of philosophical controversies, which embody alternative approaches and options (in ways that are understandable to the counselee and relevant to his or her problem situation). Counseling in which the counselee is advised to adopt the

110

VII

approach of a single thinker is not philosophical, even if the thinker is a philosopher. The rabbis therefore discussed meta-rules. In their debate they called into question even the legendary "proof" for the superiority of RA's understanding over that of Moses, the judgment expressed by the "heavenly voice". Thus some "counter-legends" suggest that the overruling criterion for the binding re-interpretation is the opinion of the majority rather than a celestial voice, (i.e., an allegedly prophetic or mystic revelation), miracles, the rabbi's reputation or conventions. Other stories suggest that, in cases of harmful majority opinion, the law of the majority should be overruled by moral principles. It is instructive to note that the Biblical phrase that is "re-tided" in order to support that position—"follow the majority"—is actually a part of a sentence that seems to say the contrary: ‘Do not follow the majority’; but the whole context (which was well known to the participants) from which both were ‘un-tied’, is the phrase: ‘You are not to testify in a lawsuit so as to follow the majority and pervert justice’ (Exodus 23: 2). The participants could therefore understand that the speaker suggests that majority opinion should only decide which rule should be practically applied in case of disagreement about the interpretation of the law; however majority opinion is neither the criterion for factual truth nor for moral justice. There is, in fact, a rabbinical explicit agreement that juridical debates about factual truths are to be settled empirically, i.e., by examination of the logical consistency of the independent testimonies of at least two reliable witnesses. There is also a tacit agreement that there is no agreed procedure for the settlement of disagreements about philosophical truths, whether in moral and whether in theological and metaphysical matters. And indeed, the abstract arguments as well as the witty proverbs and picturesque parables of the debating rabbis, which reflect their interest in such matters, also reflect deep disagreements on the level of philosophical, theological, historical and moral presuppositions of the participants. The decision which of those presuppositions are preferable, are, in principle, beyond the range of the authority of the rabbinical institutions. In this respect the rabbinical tradition of interpretation, and any other jurisprudential "merely interpretative" tradition, resembles the philosophical tradition with its endless controversies in a non-authoritarian framework much more than the tradition of religious councils that determine, in many branches of the Christian world and some of the Muslim versions, which dogmas should prevail and what is the right doctrine. It should be

Philosophical and Cultural Pluralism

111

acknowledged, as both rabbis and philosophers have noticed, that the participants in those controversies are not necessarily equally intelligent. I do not suggest thereby that individual Jewish rabbis are more or less intelligent philosophers than the individual participants in Christian, Muslim or Communist councils. I also do not claim that rabbis are never authoritarian and dogmatic or that priests, sheikhs, ayatollahs or socialist leaders are never tolerant to doctrinal dissent. I maintain, however, that traditions of open debates are more philosophical than traditions of transmitted doctrines, even when the controversies seem to be only about legal "formalities" or earthly "trivia", while the imposed doctrinal consensus is about heavenly issues, metaphysical matters and universal theories of human history. It is also more philosophical than traditions of some so-called philosophical sects that used to preach or illustrate by their acts, like Diogenes, their shared convictions (even when those convictions regard moral, existential or spiritual issues). The interpretative debates exemplify an approach that is often more relevant than metaphysical meditations to philosophical counseling, for in such counseling the issue is very often the need to choose among possible approaches the one that not only helps in the best way the counselee in his or her problem situation, but is also an approach that he or she chooses, adopts rationally and can justify morally. Philosophical counseling should, however, be different from the "conferences" of all the above-mentioned groups, including the rabbis, as all of them are closed groups that are open only to the "initiated". All of them, moreover, do not "initiate" people that belong to "wrong groups", and most important, despite occasional remarks with regards to the wisdom of the "naïve pious", they do not consider "laymen", even if they are from the "right group", as partners for possible philosophical conversations. Philosophical counseling is not philosophical unless the counselee is treated as a philosophical partner.6 The interpretation of laws may be also involved with the "discovery" of principles, and in particular moral principles "behind" the written laws, or rather, the need to define principles for their re-interpretation. This leads me to the second story about RA. That story refers to a debate about an arch-principle of the Torah; i.e., the basic moral principle according to which the Mosaic laws ought to be interpreted and applied. Hillel the Old, 6

By "turning it again and again" one can find in the Written or Oral Torah (and in the texts of other traditions) some traces of open and egalitarian attitude, yet my claim should be taken as an illustration of a critical attitude to one's cultural legacy: One should be selective.

112

VII

who had preceded RA by some generations, has already suggested a "summery" of the Torah for some "nagging Babylonian" that thought that it could be done and understood ‘while standing on one foot’, i.e., without the lengthy process of exegetic study (Talmud Bavli, Moed, Shabat, 71: a). He told the Babylonian in Aramaic: ‘Do not do to your friend what you hate when it is done to yourself’, and added: ‘and go and complete the rest’. The "summery" was a citation of an existing proverb, perhaps of a foreign origin, that is known to us from the Greek version of an ancient Jewish book (Tobias, 4: 16). The ironic addition, which actually means: ‘but you have to study the whole Torah and its interpretations, in order to understand how to apply it’, is originally rabbinical. It is therefore important to note that Hillel was right not only with regards to the Torah but also with regards to philosophical counseling: People may expect that someone "summarizes" it for them in a neat proverb, teaches them some algorithm or illustrates it by a vignette, but if the teacher does not add the "go and complete the rest" clause, he or she is not telling them honestly what genuine philosophical counseling, or indeed philosophy itself, is involved with. Studying the Torah meant, in Hillel's world, not just learning texts by heart and repeating interpretations, but discussing it with others, teachers, fellow-learners and students, in a living dialogue that gives room to new questions, dilemmas, perspectives, solutions - and controversies. It is the same as the study of philosophy, and it should be applied in studying and practicing philosophical counseling. Therefore RA, who had allegedly spent "twelve years" in studying "the rest" with his teachers and fellows, and another "twelve" with his students, and still did not complete it, certainly agreed with Hillel's addition. But he found that his rule was morally insufficient, and suggested instead, as "a great rule", the Biblical phrase ‘You should love your friend as yourself’ (Leviticus, 19: 18). In both versions the expression that is used (the Aramaic (your) haver and the Hebrew (your) re'a, which I translate by "(your) friend"7 means not only a friend, but also "another one (like you)". RA disagrees, not only with the reliance on an "external" wisdom, but also, and mainly, with Hillel's criterion (hate rather than love) and the moral wrongs that might be done when proper distinctions between self and other are lacking. This purely philosophical and still on-going debate, which at the case of RA echoed perhaps Judaic polemic against the Pauline ‘Love rather than Law’ position, could occur also in discussions among Muslim or Christian exegetes of their respective sanctified 7

Rather than the ‘your close’ or ‘your neighbor’ in the Greek or Roman versions of Jesus' citation of the same phrase (Mathews 22:39)

Philosophical and Cultural Pluralism

113

scriptures. It shows more than the former examples that integrating a religion with a comprehensive metaphysical system is not the only way of making philosophy religiously relevant: Continuous attempts to reinterpret it according to re-examined moral principles, and on-going debates about the nature of moral criteria are, to my mind, a higher degree of a philosophically oriented religion—and more generally: philosophically oriented attitude to one's cultural heritage - than dogmatic transmission of articles of faith, theological doctrines or other wise conceptions of ancient teachers. For that reason the instructive point of the story is not the level of RA's philosophical or moral achievements, but the remark of his fellow, Rabbi Ben Azzai, who suggested, instead, the phrase: ‘This is the book of the descendants of Adam’ (or, according to an alternative translation, ‘the book of the generations of man’) (Genesis 5: 1). All the participants in that debate knew that the whole Biblical sentence from which RA's phrase was cited is: ‘You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor [in the Hebrew: friend] as yourself’ (Leviticus 19: 18). Some could therefore think that "your friend" should be interpreted as "any other person of your specific group". The participants also knew that the phrase cited by Ben Azzai continues originally with the explanation: When God created Adam [i.e., man], he made him in the likeness [image of] God [or, according to RA's reading: In the image [of the primordial (ideal) Man] God made him]. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them [Adam and Eve] and named them “Adam” [i.e., human]. When Adam had lived one hundred thirty years, he became the father of a son in his likeness, according to his image…. (Genesis 5: 1-3).

In other words, Ben Azzai was insisting, perhaps in response to Christians’ claims or in an attempt to prevent misinterpretations by some other rabbis, that the proper interpretation of "(your) friend" is any other descendent of Adam, who was created, just like you, in the image, rather than anyone from your neighborhood, people, religious community, political entity, intellectual circle, social class or culture. RA himself (who has said elsewhere, ‘Beloved is man, for he was created in the image’, probably did not share the ‘your group’ interpretation (Talmud Bavli, Nezikin, Avot 3: 14). But even if he did (as some of his interpreters insist), the story still tells us that in that culture, where the great interpreter can "explicate" the message of the greatest prophet better than the prophet himself, the less famous fellow-learner of the great interpreter can do it even better…

114

VII

I do not suggest that, since Ben Azzai's explication, the rabbinical interpretations of the rules have always been governed by universalistic morality. Some have and others have not, just like most interpretations of religion and ideologies with universalistic pretensions. The same holds with regards to other distinctions, such as those between clergy and laymen, religious teachers and their students, pious and sinners, men and women, etc. Some phrases in the sanctified texts support discriminations while others do not, and any inheritor that pretends to represent their legacy represents, in fact, only a selection of its aspects. Culturally speaking, the variety as well as the selection are still greater, as the cultural heritage that is shared by the members of communities with a shared religious background contains rules and customs that are perhaps wrapped in religious terms but are neither dictated by their religion nor necessarily in harmony with its declared positions, as well as beliefs and practices that challenge them openly. Cultures, to use Wittgenstein's metaphor, are collections of "language games" whose resemblance to each other is just a "family resemblance" (Wittgenstein, 1995; see also Gruengard, 2007). One does not inherit an entire culture, just as one does not inherit all the forms of nose that can be found among his cousins. There is no difference, in this respect, between the religious and the nonreligious inheritor, the fanatic or the moderate, the conservative or the reformist, the pedant observer of rules and customs that are prevalent in his community, and the "traditionalist" who observes negligently only some of them. Last but not least, nowadays there is no difference between the so-called fundamentalist, who pretends to return to the "original" and "pure" version, or his arch-enemy, the "assimilated"—the "selfHellenizing" in the rabbis' jargon, who is ready to absorb "alien elements" and adapt them to his cultural background. From a philosophical point of view the difference is between individuals that make the selection consciously and those that are motivated unreflectively by personal feelings or experiences of "revelation" or follow blindly leaders or conventions. From that perspective it is also important to distinguish between selections that are guided by philosophical ideals, such as rationality or morality, and those that are made according to other considerations, such as popularity or political advantages. A philosophical counselor should therefore learn about the cultural background of the counselees not only in order to be able to talk with them in terms of their "language games" but also in order to remind them that there are other "language games" in their cultures, and enable them to make more deliberate and morally better choices

Philosophical and Cultural Pluralism

115

without "losing their cultural identities". In other words, the counsellor helps clients to make their autonomous cultural self-identification. The selections of the rabbis (as those of Christian and Muslim wise) were not free from non-philosophical considerations. At RA's time—after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, and the end of rituals that were performed there, the dispersion in other countries, the loss of the relative autonomy, the impact of Hellenized neighbors, the Roman dominion with its repetitive attempts to oppress the rebellious Jews by prohibiting the practice of their religion, and finally, the variety of religious fractions, and challenging "heresies" and non-theistic groups among the Jews themselves—the concern of the rabbis was not only to adapt the old laws to their norms of rationality and morality but also to guarantee the survival of their people. They did it by attempts to create new codes that would unify the Jews and distinguish them from others, replacement of the inapplicable rituals by symbolic acts and discussions of the "true meaning" of the laws that command their performance, addition of prohibitions, as protective "fences" against disobedience to inconvenient rules or to rules that were arbitrary by rational or moral criteria (whose original aim was probably to distinguish and separate Jews from others). National considerations were also the reason for the re-interpretation of Biblical historical narrative as well as its promises and prophecies, including the development of the idea of a chosen people. An elite of interpreters was fostered who would be able to re-interpret rules and adapt them to changing conditions and yet, avoid all "alien influences" and base their work "entirely" and "exclusively" on the written Torah and its oral interpretation, which is allegedly transmitted uninterruptedly from one generation of "Torah students" to the next, starting with the lessons that Moses allegedly gave to his assistant and follower, Joshua…8 The tension between an interpretative approach that allows the "discovering" of "seventy faces" and therefore renovation, on the one hand, and the will to conserve national unity by uniformity of rules and avoidance of "alien" elements, on the other hand, gave birth to the next story about RA.

8 The early Christian and Muslim wise, with similar pretensions to rely exclusively on transmissions of revealed messages and their reliable interpretation, were interested in spreading their faith to other nations, and that was one of the reason for rejecting rules that distinguished the national group of the founder of their religion.

116

VII

The story was originally about mystic "ascents to heaven" or "descents to the celestial chariot". Those ancient rabbis, like their contemporaries and followers in other ancient cultures around the Mediterranean, could move quite easily between mystic exercises and linguistic analyses (or acrobatics). They could equally easily invent stories about mystical experiences in order to express metaphorically ideas about things that "according to the Torah"9 humans are not allowed to inquire. The mystic celestial "trips" were, perhaps, an attempt to arrive at a kind of Platonic "synopsis" that is beyond logical discourse, and discover "visually", up to the point that is possible for humans to visualize and permissible to the wise to discuss, the "mysteries of the Torah" with regards to divine matters. The linguistic endeavors were attempts to connect prophetic visionary "revelations" in the sanctified scriptures (such as the "chariot" and the angelic animals "underneath the chair of honor" in Ezekiel 1 and "hints" at celestial "palaces" whose "innermost room is beyond access", in Song of Songs, Isaiah, Enoch and other texts). They thereby created their own combinations of Judaic beliefs and metaphors with metaphysical ideas and religious imagery that could be found in the regional bazaars: Hellenic and Roman, Babylonian and Assyrian, Persian and Egyptian, Gnostic and Christian (and later also Muslim)10. Well, RA and three others great rabbis entered a garden (the word that designates that garden, pardes, borrowed from Iranian, signified both an earthly orchard and the heavenly paradise). One of the four died in that journey, another lost his mind, the third, who had ‘cut the plants’, came out ‘other’. Only RA came out ‘whole and sane’ (Talmud Bavli, Moed, Hagiga, 14:2). Many generations later, when the Jewish bookshelf was already heavily loaded not only with exegetic and mystical texts but also with philosophical writings, the word 'pardes', written in vowel-less Hebrew prds, was read as the acronym of four Hebrew words that signify four levels of reading of holy scriptures: pshat (literal), drash (which is sometime allegorical), remez (anagogical, the described events are read as "signs" for future spiritual events) and sod (decoding mystical secrets). The journey of the four became an adventure in different ways of reading. Under the cover of interpreting the sanctified texts, some of those wise,

9

Or rather the apocryphal book of Sirach: ‘Do not pry into things too hard for you or examine what is beyond your reach’ (21). 10 I am relying on studies of the history of religions from non-religious perspectives, such as Pines (1996).

Philosophical and Cultural Pluralism

117

similarly to Christian and Muslim exegetes, went far beyond the written.11 And yet they insisted that not every re-interpretation is valid: One might die, loose one's mind, become "other". One does not need to share the rabbinical concern for "orthodox" interpretations or the admiration for RA's alleged mystical talents, in order to appreciate the depth of the insight that some "heterodox" readings are indeed "other". That insight applies not only to religious texts. I finally arrive at the central theme of the paper: the limits of pluralism. In mathematics, e.g., we admit the possibility of an alternative arithmetic system. Yet some manipulations of numbers are not an alternative arithmetic. The later rabbinical "acrobatics" with the Hebrew letters, for example, is involved with the assumption that different Hebrew words or phrases have the same secret meaning because the sums (according to the Hebraic notation) of the numerical values of their letters are equal. But that numerology is no more arithmetic than the use of a formal notation by Lacan is algebra. Similarly, we recognize the possibility of alternative scientific theories, but some theories, for example those that are nowadays proposed by followers of religious traditions that are not committed to any scientific "game", are not scientific alternatives. Even when the creationist beliefs, which are taken for granted by the rabbinical tradition, are nicely reduced to a philosophical theory about a super-intelligent designer, it is not a scientific alternative to evolutionist theories of the origin of the biological species. Biologists might be dogmatic, but they are ready to think of the possibility of data that are incompatible with their explanations, while the creationist, whose non-testable faith in a creator may, God knows, be true, is not ready to conceive of facts that might be incompatible with his conception. We are more or less ready to admit the possibility of alternative historical narratives. The narratives in the rabbinical tradition are not historical narratives. They are used there as parables for ‘internal use’: They exemplify religious, moral, juridical and national positions undependably of the belief in their historical truth; the narrators therefore felt free to invent legends and interpret Biblical narratives as if they were fictions. 11

Modern interpreters of the allegedly implicit ‘subtexts’—Marx, Freud, Jung, Bart, Foucault, Derrida, etc.—cannot but envy their imaginative inventions. As they did it in the context of debate rather than insights of solitary Gurus, they were also to be envied for their pluralistic openness to disagreements.

118

VII

Therefore, even when a story reflects historical events it is not an alternative to any narrative that is presented as the fruit of a systematic historical research. In this respect the rabbinical narrators are similar to historians that knowingly fabricate historical data and create narratives (or counter-narratives to dominant versions) in order to serve, according to their understanding, the cause of their group (and perhaps enhance their own power). It is not an alternative to narratives that are perhaps biased by the limited perspective of the historian and because of that miss aspects and omit evidence that seem irrelevant to his/her group of reference. Such narratives are perhaps biased, mistaken and misleading, but they are, on the whole, written in good faith. I insist on such distinctions because I believe that pluralistic openness to a variety of historical perspectives should not be confused with historical relativism, and believe that it is relevant to the practical roles of philosophers. The presentation of "counter-narratives" is nowadays a popular tool in political struggles within and between social, national and cultural groups, a tool that, to my mind, fans the flames and obstructs dialogues. Philosophers can enhance more tolerance by sharing with nonphilosophers the "secret" that the texts that allegedly provide the philosophical justification for using such a tool (texts of Marx, Nietzsche, Foucault, Fanon, Said etc.) can themselves be read in different ways, and under any interpretation are a matter of debate rather than a holy "written Torah". It is their basic role, as philosophers, to reveal to the "naive" and "blind" that there is no "philosophical authority" in the matters in which they deal—or in any other matter. The political engagement of the "counter historians", who often criticize "the liberal democracy", leads to the next point: We all know that there are many approaches to the issue of liberty and more than one interpretation of democracy. The rabbinical preference of the "opinion of the majority" is, however, not a kind of a democracy: The smallness and exclusiveness of the group in which that seeming democracy reigns is the minor reason. The main reason is the traditional conviction that the HBH, via his "Torah", and not the people, is the sovereign, and its interpretation by the small group of those who are supposed to know how to interpret his rules—or his Will, his Love, Mercy or what not—rather than the choices of human beings, is contrary to the basic idea of any democracy. It is rather a Platonic variant of a theocracy, where the priests whose alleged wisdom consisted in the ability to influence the Gods are (partially) replaced by the wise that know how to interpret their alleged texts. Here I leave in peace the rabbis, whose Ultra-Orthodox follower do not even

Philosophical and Cultural Pluralism

119

pretend to establish a democracy "of the Jewish kind", and pass to the Sunni Muslim Brothers, or the Shiite "republican" ayatollahs, who speak of an Islamic one. Their positions should not be confused with that of the bandit fundamentalists, that pretend to represent the "authentic religion", and with disrespect for both Western modernism and Islamic exegetic traditions, prefer the "sword" of the early Islamic conquerors to any "book" of Islamic wise. They can be compared instead to the leaders of communist parties: "Popular democracy" was another name for "dictatorship of the proletariat", where the leaders "of the proletariat", the allegedly majority group, pretended to rule in its name, and know not only what was good for it, but also what it would have chosen "if it had already been liberated" of its "false consciousness". In fact they imposed on it and on the other "classes" their own opinions, aims and values and limited drastically the political freedom and personal liberties of all the groups. An "Islamic republic", or "a democracy that is "culturally adapted to Islam"12 can be another name for a similar "theocratic dictatorship". All those "democracies" promise, indeed, freedom from something or other that is considered bad, but they all limit liberties that are cherished not only by "egoistic, individualistic liberal bourgeois Westerners" but also by their own citizen. They not only ignore the opinions and wishes of religious minorities, they also disregard the opinions and wishes of those that belong to the majority group, who share their background, but not their interpretations of their common legacy. They believer that that group has to accept living according to the Sharia laws, respect their interpretative authority and agree to restrictions and punishments even if the majority within that group is ("still") non- or anti-religious13. I believe that

12

Asad (2003) pretends to base the option of a culturally adapted Islamic democracy on Foucault's ‘genealogical’ criticism of Western individualistic liberal democracy, which was allegedly born in sin and fails to realize its pretensions. He explains there why freedom of criticizing Mohamed and the Qur'an etc. as well as women's liberties should be limited in the non-individualistic Islamic culture. Foucault's analysis certainly does not lead to Asad's anti secular and anti-liberal conclusions. And, as another writer of a Muslim background comments in response to a paper in which Asad justifies terrorism: Adopting Foucault's methodology is its application, as Foucault did, on one's own culture. 13 When a member of the Muslim Movement in Israel, which believe that the country should be governed by Muslims, but "as a democracy", was asked in a conference whether they aim to impose the Sharia’s' laws, he answered: "You, Jews, do not have to worry; we shall not do it unless Muslims are 70% of the population." He did not considered the possibility that even in the case of being the biggest Muslim faction within that majority, say 30%, the other 70% of that very

120

VII

philosophical debate may contribute a lot to the confusions with which that discourse is involved, but, unfortunately, they seem to have access only to circles that already allow calling dogmatic convictions into questions… We are all aware, finally, that philosophy is not a homogeneous field. There are various approaches to philosophy, styles of philosophizing, perspectives and selections of themes, criteria for appreciation of theses, attitudes to ambivalence, paradox and doubt. Some philosophers claim that some problems that intrigue other philosophers are trivial or still worse, pseudo-problems. Some blame the others for failing to call the obvious into question or, inversely, abandoning the reliable common sense. Some accuse the others with avoidance of ask "the" true question or, on the contrary, refusal to recognize its meaninglessness. But no philosopher, not even the most religious philosopher, would accept that the exegetic linguistic "acrobatics" is philosophy. Moreover, although we often do not hesitate to refer to conceptions and worldviews that are presupposed without being examined as philosophies, we do expect that the explicit parts of a philosopher's worldview will be coherent and non-arbitrary, and assume that she is aware of the possibility of calling into question the implicit parts. We expect the philosopher; even when we disagree with her specific positions, to be aware that alternative worldviews are possible, and that she might be asked for her reasons for preferring it to some others. We expect her, in particular, to make her own exploration and arrive by her reasoning to her personal position, and for that very reason we expect her to understand that another philosopher may arrive at another position, and not interfere by any means beside that of a rational (even if not conceptual) debate with his freedom to do that. The rabbinical tradition is dotted with discussions of philosophical questions; but as the following stories about the "other" demonstrate, it is not a philosophical tradition. The "other", Elisha Ben Avuyah, formerly a fellow-learner of RA and an important rabbi, was a "mega sinner": In the picturesque language of the pardes story he saw in his mystic vision an important angel sitting instead of standing in the presence of the HBH's "chair of honor", and concluded that there are two independent heavenly authorities, and that was the reason for his "cutting the plants", i.e., refusing to observe the Torah's rules. The legend explains that the sitting angel, whose place in the heaven heterogeneous majority group might be as worried as the non-Muslim minorities… (He said it before the ‘Arab spring’ and its troubling consequences).

Philosophical and Cultural Pluralism

121

hierarchy was very high (but he was demoted for his responsibility for the "other's" error), was the one who is, among other things, recording the good deeds of the Jews (and therefore has the exceptional privilege to sit). Jews, as the rabbis believed, did not have an automatic access to the "world to come", as in the case of any other humans it depended on the "final balance" made by the HBH. The legend was addressed to an audience that was acquainted with RA's saying that the HBH, who loves the Jews, punishes them for all their sins in "this world" so that the "weighted sum" of their "good deeds", on which depends their receiving of a place in the "world to come", will not be reduced in the final calculation, while the others, i.e., their wicked prosecutors, receive all the rewards for their good deeds in "this world", so that nothing will improve their negative final balance... That statement, whose purpose was probably to encourage Jews to observe their rules despite the dangers, was made in reaction to the Roman prosecution of the rebellious Jews by prohibiting the observance of their religious rules, when the "just" (i.e., observant) Jews were suffering for their piety while the "wicked" non-Jews, the prosecutors, were not punished. RA, who supported the revolt and identified its leader as the Messiah, was among the "ten Martyrs" that were tortured to death for disobedience to such a prohibition. The "other", as we can gather from other stories about him, did not share the Messianic hopes and opposed the revolt. Under the prevailing conditions his refusal to observe the rules was sufficient for his accusation with betrayal. He went, however, even further, and despite the brutal suppression of the revolt he befriended Romans and got involved in the study of "Greek wisdom" and "heretic theories". The story about his failure to identify the sitting angel is, accordingly a condemnation of his politico-religious position, and his refusal to justify self-endangering zealot behavior and wrap it with theological justifications. His greatest sin, however, was his being a philosopher: He called into question not only the zealot ideology, but also the belief in providence. He was, of course, not the first to have noticed the difference between the promised rewards to the "just" and the "wicked" and their actual fate. But instead of "arguing" with God, as did Abraham, or "reproaching" him for his "seeming injustice", as did Jeremy and Job, or asking him modestly, as does Moses in the legend told above, he challenged the human belief in divine justice. He was not ready to accept explanations that protect the theory against any possible refutation, such as the presentation of the suffering as a test, the consolation, like that of RA, that the "account would be settled justly" in "the world to come", or the "discovery" by some creative rabbis of "sins" that justify the suffering of the "seemingly" flawless just. He did not think that such

122

VII

explanations were relevant to cases of lethal accidents that happened precisely when the pious was doing the good deed, or torture to death of observant Jews precisely because they were observing the allegedly divine rules14. The alternative pious position, according to which humans cannot understand the divine justice, did not satisfy him. It is not clear whether his interpretation of the vision as seeing two independent authorities means, as some stories about him suggest, that the alternative worldview that he had adopted was a Gnostic duo-theism, for other stories suggest that he opted for an atheist Epicureanism. In any case he went beyond the permissible limits of doubt and denied the Judaic monotheism. As a philosopher he was not just exploring theories: he drew his own practical conclusions: There was no reason to observe rules just because they are written in the Torah. The rabbinical tradition conserved very few sayings of the "other" before his "journey" in the pardes. He is mentioned as a great Rabbi mainly in order to discuss the possibility of repent (the legends say that he refused even to try it, for he believed to have heard a divine voice saying that everybody can successfully repent except for "the other"). One legend tells that his loyal student continued to learn from him despite the interdiction; it does not say what he learned, but rather suggests that it is permissible to learn from sinful sources if one "eats the content of the pomegranate but throws away its peel" (Talmud Bavli, Moed, Hagiga, 15: 2). Ben Avuya was not the only "other" in the Jewish history. The rabbinical establishment, which had eaten the content of many foreign fruits, but hid the peels, and gradually, with the accumulation of new compilations, lost its residence, and managed, during long periods, to out-cast from the "Jewish people" individual Jews that neglected the observance of the rules, with or without the adoption of other religious creeds, and groups that preferred non-rabbinical interpretation of the Torah. But that approach, which guaranteed, despite various unsettled controversies, practical uniformity as long as the non-orthodox were a small minority, stopped to be effective under the impact of modernization. But since the seventeen centuries various aspects of modernization process have led, gradually, more and more descendants of rabbinical communities to forsake partially or completely the observance of the rules, call into question the rabbinical 14

When Moses, in the same legend, learns of RA's ‘death for the sanctification of the name [of God]’, he finally understands that his own ‘privilege’ of receiving and transmitting the Torah was a lesser prize than that ‘privilege’ of the still greater RA…

Philosophical and Cultural Pluralism

123

authority, cast doubt on the belief that the Torah has a divine origin,. The greatest challenge to the Orthodox camp is, however, not the growing number of Jews that choose to assimilate or even convert, but the growing number of Jews that insist on that they are loyal to "the religion of Moses, but their people is the local people rather than the Jewish one, or the Jews that insist that they are part of the Jewish people, but are religious only in a reformed version or not religious at all. They do not accept the rabbinical authority, believe that that tradition lost its resilience and is unable to adapt to the new world, and observe at most some of the traditional rules. Yet many among them consider themselves as inheritors of the Jewish cultural heritage, which they interpret in non-orthodox ways, and try to integrate it not only with modern ideas, values and customs, that are borrowed from external sources, but also with ancient conceptions that had evolved within the Jewish culture but were rejected as "other" by the rabbinical establishment. As a reaction to such trends some groups of Orthodox, the Ultra-Orthodox groups "that are anxious to keep God's commands" and "keep the flame alive", and "save the soul of the nation" pretend to be loyal to the tradition "as it always was", but are constantly adding new restrictions and customs in order to raise walls against "assimilation" and "immorality" that are still higher than the old ones, and in particular than those that are raised by rival ultra-orthodox groups... and are therefore in conflict not only with the rebellious reformers and nonreligious, but also with orthodox groups that are open to some or other degree to modern ideas and values. Both orthodox and ultra-orthodox share, however, the conviction that the non-religious groups, which by the criteria of RA's time are as "others" as Ben Avuya and later rebels like Spinoza or Heine, should not be out-casted (an act which would exclude nowadays the great majority of the Jews from the "Jewish people), but rather "educated": They actually bypass traditional ex-communicating rules by the claim that that majority, the decedents of non-religious Jews, are like a "captured baby [that grew up] among the gentiles" and therefore did not have the chance to learn about his ancestors religion rather than "heretics", "Epicureans", "self-Hellenizing" traitors, etc. Modernist groups, secular as well as religious reformist, that see themselves as equal inheritors of the "Jewish people's legacy" like to refer to the time of RA, when rabbinical Judaism was beginning to reform the earlier tradition, and the debating rabbis were proposing alternative approaches and options. They are selective: they praise some of the ideas of RA and his companions, such as moral principles and open dialogues, but ignore or reject others, such as the their beliefs with regards to "the world to come", the divine providence, the angels, the mystical "assents",

124

VII

the opposition to foreign influences, the exclusion of women or (if they belong to the non- or moderate nationalist camps) the messianic zeal and the suicidal nationalism—and they support their selections by some Biblical or Talmudic sayings or legends that seem to express their views. The Orthodox blames them for taking those sayings or legends out of their contexts (although "untying" and "retying" words, i.e., taking them out of their context, is the basic exegetic technique of RA's followers). They claim, as psychoanalysts tend to do with regards to Freud's writings, and some communists with respects to Marxian texts, that the "non-initiated" do not know how the texts should be read. But the Orthodox, the Ultra no less than the moderate, are doing their own selections: While some UltraOrthodox reject, e.g., RA's support for a "false Messiah", oppose to Jewish statehood before "the coming of the [true] Messiah" (which is always imminent but always in the future) and insist on the (later) rabbinical prohibition of any martyrdom that does not prevent idolatry, incest, or bloodshed, some others believe that the Messiah might already be among them, and some extreme nationalist Orthodox share RA's patriotic zeal and life-engendering activities. No group represents adequately all the opinions that are attributed to RA, or the entire family of "language games" that form together the very vague and not necessarily coherent "Jewish culture". The ideal of cultural pluralism lies, in fact, on a confused and very vague basis. It presupposes that a culture is a kind of "language game" whose rules are clear to the "native" players and cannot be judged by those that play "natively" other games. By ignoring the fact that that a culture, even a religious one, is a family of such "games", it also ignores the possibility that some of its "games" are also "played" in some other cultures, and therefore some of its players may share more games with some members of other cultures than with some members of their "own" culture. It also ignores that cultures (and indeed, languages) are, unlike games, ever changing, and their "syntax", "semantics" as well as "pragmatics" are dynamic. Its "RAs", under in their historical context, interpret the "Biblical" language, the interpreters of the "RAs", in their relevant contexts, have to interpret their "Mishnaic" as well as the "Biblical" in a "native" languages that reflect, to some or other extent, the influences of other "languages", for they are always, in some way or other, in some or other of their activities, in contact with players of other "games", whether the others are allies, enemies, foreign rulers, subordinates, immigrants or hosts. It ignores Wittgenstein's own distinction between the invalidity of judging moves in one game according to rules of another game, and the moral validity of judging that some games are evil. Wittgenstein suggested

Philosophical and Cultural Pluralism

125

that some cultures are bad15. We can qualify it and suggest that some interpretations of a "culture" may be bad, and some selections of its legacy might be biased by morally bad preferences. We therefore cannot justify the claim that philosophy is, and should be, "culturally dependent" just as we cannot accept the notion of "culturally adapted" democracy, as long as those "dependency" and "adaptability" are designed to limit the freedom of access to inner and outer cultural resources,, critical thought, expression and participation in theoretical controversies about principles, rules and their interpretations, and practical discussions about their practical applications. In other words, our cultural selections inherit, perhaps, presupposed and un-examined philosophical positions. But our cultural self-identification should be based on a critical philosophical examination. The philosophical counselor can learn from the experience of that story that cultural pluralism exist within cultures as much as between, and if he can deal with members of his own cultural group that interpret the common legacy differently than he does, he should not be deterred by cultural pluralists, post-colonialists or other relativists from holding counseling conversations with members of other cultures, or criticize colleagues that reject criticism in the name of pluralism.

References Asad, Talal (2003). Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Atlan, Henri (1999). Les étincelles de hasard Tome 1: Connaissance spermatique. La Librarie du XXIe siècle. Gruengard, Ora (2007). ‘Language Games and Serious Matters: Cultural Pluralism, Relativism and Rituals in the Media’. In Philosophy of the Information Society, Papers of the 30th International Wittgenstein Symposium August 5 – 11, 2007 Kirchberg am Wechsel, Volume XV, edited by Herbert Hrachovec, Alois Pichler and Joseph Wang, 78-80. (internet) http://www.academia.edu/885899/Reading_Wittgenstein_Texts_Conte xts_and_Hypertexts (viewed 1 September 2014). Mufti, Aamir R. ‘Talal Asad on “Violence, Law, and Humanitarianism”: A Response’. (internet) 15 See my analysis of Wittgenstein's approach to cultural pluralism in Gruengard (2007).

126

VII

http://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/talal_asad_on_violence_law_and_h umanitarianism_a_response (viewed 1 July 2014). Pines, Shlomo (1996). ‘Studies in the History of Religion’. In The Collected Works of Shlomo Pines, edited by Guy G. Stroumsa. Jerusalem: Magnes. Talmud Bavli, t. Avot (s. Nezikin) —. t. Hagiga (s. Moed) —. t. Menahot (s.Kodashim) —. t. Shabat, (s. Moed) http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Talmud/talmudtoc.html (viewed 1 November 2014). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1995). On Certainty. Edited by G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright. Translated by Denis Paul and G.E.M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell.

VIII PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELING AND CONTRADICTIONS ESTHER RAMHARTER AND DONATA ROMIZI

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) —Walt Whitman1

Introduction ‘Odi et amo’ wrote the Latin poet Catullus2 (1st century BC). He apparently felt love and hate at the same time for the same person (who he called Lesbia), and the poem highlights through pregnant brevity how a contradiction may be simply and immediately present in terms of feelings, while reason cannot account for it (nescio, sed fieri sentio: ‘I have no idea. I just feel it’3). ‘You wonder, perhaps, why I’d do that?’ the poet asks, imagining that his interlocutor would wonder about the contradiction. But would we really wonder how the poet feels? Are contradictory feelings really all that surprising? Not particularly. Nearly everybody has this experience, and one probably would not insist that feelings should be noncontradictory. Contradictions between (or among) feelings (C1) are not the main topic of this paper anyway. A further kind of contradiction that is widely experienced is the one between our will or values and our behaviour (C2): ‘I do not understand 1

Song of Myself, Part 51, v. 1324–1326, in Whitman, 1965: 88. ‘Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris? / nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior’ (‘I hate and I love. You wonder, perhaps, why I’d do that? / I have no idea. I just feel it. I am crucified’). Catullus, 2005: 190–191. 3 Catullus, 2005: 191; our emphasis. 2

128

VIII

what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do’, as is expressed perfectly in the Bible (Romans, 7:15, New International Version)4. Note how even this description emphasizes the disorientation of reason (‘I do not understand’) with respect to the living experience of contradiction. Finally, in her book entitled Humor and the Good Life in Modern Philosophy, Lydia Amir points to a similar, fundamental (existential) conflict experienced in human life — that is, (C3) ‘the tension between one’s desires and one’s capacity for fulfilling them on the instinctual, emotional, and intellectual levels’, or ‘the [tragic] gulf between aspiration and achievement’5. The present paper focuses on a different type of contradiction: that between opposite and coexistent beliefs (C4). Obviously, in concrete cases of Philosophical Counseling it may well be that contradictory beliefs have some relationship with contradictory feelings, incoherent behaviour, or tragic inner conflicts. Contradictory beliefs may be the root, or the symptom, of these latter forms of conflicts. To what extent and how (C1), (C2), (C3) and (C4) may relate to each other is an interesting question, which nevertheless cannot be given a general answer, and which we shall not deal with in this paper. Of course, depending on the answer to this question, what we shall say with respect to (C4) may be seen as more or less relevant also with respect to (C1), (C2) and (C3). In the following, we will deal with the issue of contradictory beliefs, particularly with regard to Philosophical Counseling: both voices from the philosophical tradition (with no claim of being exhaustive!) and concepts developed by philosophical practitioners will be considered, in order to make clear what a wide range of resources for dealing with contradictions is available to the philosopher who may wish to engage in Philosophical Counseling. Among the philosophical practitioners, we devote special consideration to Ben Mijuskovic and Gerd Achenbach, and this for two main reasons: first, 4 Another wonderful description of this kind of inner conflict is available in Chapter 4 of John Steinbeck’s masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath, where the preacher tells Joad about his own experience of being unable to avoid acting against his own faith and principles. See Steinbeck 1993: 23–28. 5 Amir, 2014: 219–20. Amir emphasizes how humor is a key feature that makes us humans capable of living with such unresolved conflicts without turning to forced solutions.

Philosophical Counseling and Contradictions

129

because the issue of contradiction plays a central role in their concept of Philosophical Counseling and, accordingly, it is given special consideration in their writings; second, because their approaches to Philosophical Counseling are so different that by looking at them one can get an impression of the variety of the positions one can adopt in Philosophical Counseling with respect to the issue of contradiction.

Preparation for the end, to begin with: Montaigne's contradictory beliefs about death Let us now consider a concrete example of contradictory beliefs concerning a matter that is quite relevant for life and, therefore, for Philosophical Counseling: death, or rather, one’s personal attitude toward one’s own mortality. In one of his beautiful essays,6 Michel de Montaigne recommends thinking of death, particularly our own death, again and again, in order to prepare us for it. Many people, he says, try to escape the fear of death by avoiding the thought, but this—he argues—is just stupid.7 We should instead take a way quite contrary to the common course. Let us disarm him [i.e. death] of his novelty and strangeness, let us converse and be familiar with him, and have nothing so frequent in our thoughts as death. Upon all occasions represent him to our imagination in his every shape […] (Montaigne, 1952: 30–31).

Here, Montaigne is perfectly in tune with the older stoic ‘spiritual exercise’8 of preparation for death. Moreover, the aim of the exercise is not just (1) to be always prepared for death because it could happen at every moment. According to Montaigne, the contemplation of death also has (2) a more profound meaning for life and (3) a special relationship 6

Montaigne, 1952, Book I, Ch. XIX, ‘That to study philosophy is to learn to die’. ‘The end of our race is death; 'tis the necessary object of our aim, which, if it fright us, how is it possible to advance a step without a fit of ague? The remedy the vulgar use is not to think on't; but from what brutish stupidity can they derive so gross a blindness?’ (Montaigne, 1952: 29). See also Montaigne’s critical description of the ‘vulgar use’: ‘They go, they come, they gallop and dance, and not a word of death. All this is very fine; but withal, when it comes either to themselves, their wives, their children, or friends, surprising them at unawares and unprepared, then, what torment, what outcries, what madness and despair!’ (Montaigne 1952: 30). 8 See Hadot, 1995. 7

130

VIII

with philosophy. The contemplation of death has immediate consequences for one’s way of living, since it provides the contemplator with a special kind of inner freedom: The premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty; he who has learned to die has unlearned to serve. There is nothing evil in life for him who rightly comprehends that the privation of life is no evil: to know how to die delivers us from all subjection and constraint (Montaigne, 1952: 31).9

Finally, Montaigne points to a special relationship between the preparation for death and the activity of philosophizing: first, because philosophy, like death, elevates our soul beyond our body; second, because philosophy helps us to not fear death.10 In sum, in the essay we have referred to so far, Montaigne argues for the thesis according to which one should prepare oneself for death by thinking of it again and again. Moreover, he values philosophy because of its ‘affinity’ to this kind of contemplation. Since these statements pertain to the realm of normativity and values, they have consequences for the conduct of life. For this reason, it is not just conceptually surprising, but even existentially confusing, to read entirely opposite considerations by Montaigne in another of his essays.11 Here, he criticizes in an almost sarcastic way Seneca’s effort to cope with the stoic exercise of preparing for death,12 and even disdains philosophy in favour of precisely those vulgar folk he had so vehemently criticized: these common people — Montaigne says now — are the ones who really know how to cope with death: for them, death is something usual and natural,

9

Admittedly, this profound passage would deserve a further analysis, which, however, is beyond the scope of this paper. 10 ‘Cicero says — [Tusc., i. 31.] — “that to study philosophy is nothing but to prepare one's self to die”. The reason of which is, because study and contemplation do in some sort withdraw from us our soul, and employ it separately from the body, which is a kind of apprenticeship and a resemblance of death; or, else, because all the wisdom and reasoning in the world do in the end conclude in this point, to teach us not to fear to die’ (Montaigne, 1952: 28). 11 Montaigne, 1952, Book III, Ch. XII, ‘Of physiognomy’. 12 ‘To see the trouble that Seneca gives himself to fortify himself against death; to see him so sweat and pant to harden and encourage himself, and bustle so long upon this perch, would have lessened his reputation with me’ (Montaigne, 1952: 504).

Philosophical Counseling and Contradictions

131

and they do not give thought to it13. Due to their conformity to Nature, Montaigne argues, these ‘beasts’ can teach us ‘how to live and how to die’, while science and knowledge bring along only misleading sophistications.14 Consequently, Montaigne criticizes the exhortation, as formulated by Seneca and other philosophers, to prepare for death and he contrasts this exhortation with some quite pragmatic considerations. For instance: If you know not how to die, never trouble yourself; nature will, at the time, fully and sufficiently instruct you: she will exactly do that business for you; take you no care — […] If we have not known how to live, 'tis injustice to teach us how to die, and make the end difform from all the rest; if we have known how to live firmly and quietly, we shall know how to die so too. They may boast as much as they please: ‘Tota philosophorum vita commentatio mortis est’; [‘The whole life of philosophers is the meditation of death’ — Cicero, Tusculanae Quaestiones, ii. 30] but I fancy that, though it be the end, it is not the aim of life […] (Montaigne, 1952: 509– 510).

The contradiction is evident: Montaigne ends up criticizing the same authors (Seneca and Cicero) whom he had quoted with approval in the essay we previously mentioned. More significantly, he appears to hold contradictory beliefs: on the one hand, he believes that we should prepare for death by thinking often of it; on the other hand, he believes that we should not care about death while we are living. How would (or should) a philosophical counselor deal with such contradictory beliefs, if Montaigne were a counselee and his contradiction were to emerge in the context of a consultation? Should Philosophical Practice, like traditional argumentative philosophy, aim at eliminating contradictory beliefs, e.g. by helping the counselee choose one of them and rejecting the opposite one?

13

See Montaigne, 1952: 504: ‘To what end we so arm ourselves with this harness of science? Let us look down upon the poor people […]’, or 510: ‘I never saw any peasant among my neighbours cogitate with what countenance and assurance he should pass over his last hour; nature teaches him not to think of death till he is dying; and then he does it with a better grace than Aristotle […]’. 14 See Montaigne, 1952: 509.

132

VIII

Struggling with contradictions Views of Philosophical Counseling inspired by analytical philosophy would doubtless conceive of contradictory beliefs as a problem that should be cleared away. Such a view is developed, for example, by Ben Mijuskovic in his article, ‘Some Reflections on Philosophical Counseling and Psychotherapy’ (Mijuskovic, 1995). In this article, Mijuskovic illustrates — to put it in a Kantian fashion — the conditions of possibility for Philosophical Counseling, that is, a series of conditions which have to be fulfilled by Philosophical Counseling as such and which, therefore, catch its essence and distinguish it, for example, from a psychotherapeutic setting. These conditions, in turn, imply a certain Menschenbild: Mijuskovic’s starting point is the description of human beings as rational creatures holding a belief system that could even be defined as axiomatic. Each personal belief system is rooted in what Mijuskovic calls ‘fundamental assumptions’, or ‘first principles’. These are fundamental beliefs with the following characteristics: (a) They refer to the ‘big questions’ about reality and/or human nature — that is, they correspond to the particular stance one takes with respect to general and fundamental dilemmas, like ‘determinism vs. freedom’, ‘relativistic vs. absolutistic conception of ethical principles’, ‘materialism vs. idealism’, etc. (b) They have not been chosen by the person who holds them on the basis of rational grounds, but rather are ‘the result of passional decisions’ (here, Mijuskovic endorses a kind of voluntarism). (c) They are akin to the first principles of an axiomatic system. All other beliefs derive from them, which means that all other beliefs of the person can be traced back to these fundamental ones.15

15

‘[…] these ultimate beliefs, or first principles, are the result of individual passional decisions. In my view, philosophical Counseling itself is based upon this unargued premise, this basic presupposition, namely, that each of us “wills”, or “chooses” or “opts” for a certain starting point, principle, or basic assumption, which then serves as the philosophical ground for the rest of our belief system. The choice, or decision, between mutually exclusive first principles, which deals with reality and/or human nature, always presents itself as an option between at least two (but sometimes more) opposing candidates’ (Mijuskovic, 1995: 87).

Philosophical Counseling and Contradictions

133

On the basis of this Menschenbild, Mijuskovic conceives of Philosophical Counseling as a dialogical work on the belief system of the counselee— that is, as a dialogue having a cognitive rather than an emotional nature: ‘What makes a treatment philosophical rather than psychological is that its focus revolves around the individual’s first principles rather than centering on the subject’s emotional distress’ (Mijusikovic 1995: 94). As already mentioned, according to Mijuskovic, Philosophical Counseling has to fulfil a set of conditions in order to be considered a genuine philosophical dialogue. These conditions are the following16: (1) ‘Recognizing that the choice of the first principles derives from the agents’, and that it is not, for example, the result of unconscious and uncontrollable forces.17 (2) ‘That the ensuing system developed from these first principles must adhere to the laws of consistency and non-contradiction’ (Mijuskovic 1995: 88, our emphasis) (3) ‘That both the principles and system are intersubjectively communicable and shareable, rather than being personal and uniquely private’18. (4) ‘That they are open to questioning, challenges, attack, or criticism’.19 Mijuskovic’s conception of Philosophical Counseling, as defined by these assumptions, is rooted in that particular, longstanding philosophical tradition which aims at transcending subjective emotions and opinions, and at reaching an inter-subjectively valid dimension of universality and

16

See Mijuskovic, 1995: 88–90. Here, Mijuskovic wants to contrast philosophy with psychotherapies, but one may object that according to his view the agent chooses his first principles through ‘passional decisions’, and passions could also be seen as uncontrollable forces. 18 See Mijuskovic, 1995: 85: ‘[...] at the clinic where I work, I conduct a weekly men’s group [...] The main focus and pivotal center of the discussion is always the universal features of loneliness and intimacy. In this sense, I consider the group to be engaged in philosophical Counseling than psychotherapy’. 19 Again, Mijuskovic’s intent is to distinguish Philosophical Counseling from psychotherapy: according to him, in a psychotherapeutic setting, ‘[...] the patient would be distressed to have his or her thoughts and feelings systematically challenged and criticized precisely because these views are not intended to be universal truths but rather personal impressions’ (Mijuskovic, 1995: 89). 17

134

VIII

necessity.20 In light of such a tradition, philosophy is a rational endeavour pursued by rational human beings mainly through argumentative dialogue. Such a dialogue aims at inter-subjectively valid truths and is ruled by inter-subjectively valid norms (logical laws). Correspondingly, Mijuskovic acknowledges Philosophical Counseling to be a dialogue with a normative character, in which the counselee’s belief system is subjected to conceptual examination (and, if necessary, criticism), with a particular focus on its logical consistency: ‘the criterion of validity in philosophic counseling’ Mijuskovic argues, ‘remains an ideal of consistency and intersubjective communicability’ (Mijuskovic, 1995: 99).21 Mijuskovic is not the only philosophical counselor to follow this ideal; so does, for example, Oscar Brenifier.22 This model of Philosophical Counseling has some virtues. In particular, it defines clearly the range of action of philosophy, provides us with a clear-cut differentiation of Philosophical Counseling from psychotherapies, excludes (or aims to exclude) any influence of the counselor on the counselee other than an influence through argumentation (and, thus, through the rational and autonomous consensus of the counselee). Mijuskovic’s model also holds some advantages for the counselor. In fact, she does not need to get emotionally involved and is provided with quite a clear methodology that promises to be efficient and helpful23: The counselor may ask the counselee some questions, until she finds a contradiction. Then, the counselee has to decide how to avoid the contradiction, and, at the end of this process, his state of mind should be better organized than before.

20

On the relationship between this tradition and Philosophical Practice see also Tarca, 2003. 21 If we assume that contradictory propositions are less, or even not, understandable for subjects other than the one who formulates them, then it becomes evident that there is a strong relationship between the criterion of consistency and the one of inter-subjectivity. 22 See the videos of his philosophical consultations on the following website (retrieved: November 4, 2014): http://www.pratiques-philosophiques.fr/videos/consultations/?lang=en 23 This is an advantage only insofar as one endorses a conception of Philosophical Counseling as something which should, at the end of the day, solve problems or, more generally, help the counselee in some respect. This is not obvious: Achenbach, for example, would not endorse such a conception, and in Italy a distinction has been made between ‘Counseling filosofico’, which aims at solving the counselee’s problems, and ‘consulenza filosofica’, which is not committed to this aim (see Berra, 2012).

Philosophical Counseling and Contradictions

135

In fact, according to Mijuskovic, the final aim of Philosophical Counseling is the ‘conceptual satisfaction’ (Mijuskovic, 1995: 99, point 7) of the counselee.

Living with contradictions At this point, a look at Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy suggests itself. Wittgenstein, who can be seen both as a part and as an opponent of the tradition that Mijuskovic represents, shares with Mijuskovic a positive valuation of conceptual satisfaction: ‘Thoughts at peace. That's what someone who philosophizes yearns for’ (Wittgenstein, 1984: 43e). But is consistency necessary for this peace? Wittgenstein's answer differentiates: (i) Not always is it necessary to avoid every contradiction. Although — or rather because — Wittgenstein utters the following remarks with respect to mathematics, they are also relevant for Philosophical Practice. But you can’t allow a contradiction to stand!—Why not? We do sometimes use this form in our talk, of course not often—but one could imagine a technique of language in which it was a regular instrument (Wittgenstein, 2001: 370). For might we not possibly have wanted to produce a contradiction? Have said — with pride in a mathematical discovery: ‘Look, this is how we produce a contradiction’? Might not e.g. a lot of people possibly have tried to produce a contradiction in the domain of logic [...]? These people would then […] be glad to lead their lives in the neighbourhood of a contradiction (Wittgenstein, 2001: 211).

Even in logic and mathematics, it does not go without saying that and why we have to avoid contradictions, and even in logic and mathematics there could be a contradiction between emotions and rationality, as in the example that we are asked to imagine by Wittgenstein. But Wittgenstein does not promote irrationality: (ii) There are situations in which we do try to avoid a contradiction; these are the situations in which we would not know our way about otherwise. Can we say: ‘Contradiction is harmless if it can be sealed off’? But what prevents us from sealing it off? That we do not know our way about in the calculus. Then that is the harm. And this is what one means when one says: the contradiction indicates that there is something wrong about our calculus. It is merely the (local) symptom of a sickness of the whole body.

VIII

136

But the body is only sick when we do not know our way about […] (Wittgenstein, 2001: 209). A philosophical problem has the form: ‘I don't know my way about’ (Wittgenstein, 1953: §123).

A contradiction bothers us if it disturbs our orientation in life, if it disarranges large parts of our thoughts, habits and attitudes. Not every contradiction is a philosophical problem; moreover, not every contradiction is a problem for Philosophical Counseling. (iii) Anyway, the law of non-contradiction is in general not, as Mijuskovic seems to hold, something that offers quick help: Something very different is sometimes required in order to come out of an impasse. A confession has to be a part of your new life (Wittgenstein 1984: 18e). Men have believed that they could make the rain; why should not a king be brought up in the belief that the world began with him? And if Moore and this king were to meet and discuss, could Moore really prove his belief to be the right one? I do not say that Moore could not convert the king to his view, but it would be a conversion of a special kind; the king would be brought to look at the world in a different way (Wittgenstein 1969: § 92).

Confessions and conversions — think of Descartes or Rousseau, for example — have a longstanding tradition in philosophy. Although some of these conversions are described as happening all of a sudden, a closer look at the following development of the respective philosopher in many cases shows that the conversion actually takes some time. Achenbach points out that conversion can also be seen as a preliminary step for convincing someone. He refers here to Socrates converting his interlocutors by preparing ‘their hearts’ before coming up with arguments.24 (iv) Moreover, the law of non-contradiction does not apply without restrictions. Wittgenstein strongly objects to Mijuskovic's condition (4). It is essential to our basic principles that they are not in toto open to criticism and doubts: That is to say, the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn (Wittgenstein, 1969: § 341).

24

Achenbach, 2010: 112.

Philosophical Counseling and Contradictions

137

The idealist's question would be something like: ‘What right have I not to doubt the existence of my hands?’ (And to that the answer can't be: I know that they exist.) But someone who asks such a question is overlooking the fact that a doubt about existence only works in a language-game. Hence, that we should first have to ask: what would such a doubt be like? And don't understand this straight off (Wittgenstein 1969: § 24).

In sum, Wittgenstein warns us not to overestimate the universality of the law of non-contradiction. Indeed, there may be contexts that allow for contradictions to persist and for people who can live well with them. Even Mijuskovic’s aim of ‘conceptual satisfaction’, upon closer examination, makes room for both, feelings (satisfaction is a feeling rather than a belief) and subjectivity. What makes a particular counselee ‘conceptually satisfied’ could be unsatisfying for others, and vice versa. Let us go back to Montaigne. Clearly, he had quite a relaxed and liberal attitude with respect to contradictions. This attitude is embedded in a relativistic and sceptical conception of truth that leaves room for contingency, change and suspension of judgment and which is evident in even the title of his Essays: I cannot fix my object; ‘tis always tottering and reeling by a natural giddiness: I take it as it is at the instant I consider it; I do not paint its being, I paint its passage; not a passage from an age to another […] but from day to day, from minute to minute. I must accommodate my history to the hour: I may presently change, not only by fortune, but also by intention […] whether it be that I am then another self, or that I take subjects by other circumstances and considerations: so it is, that I may peradventure contradict myself, but […] I never contradict the truth. Could my soul once take footing, I would not essay but resolve: but it is always learning and trial.25

Montaigne would thus probably have no particular ‘dissatisfaction’ with respect to his contradictory beliefs about death; he would explain them away saying that he has just changed his mind,26 or that he was 25

Montaigne, 1952: 388. See also Montaigne, 1952: 447: ‘The contradictions of judgments […] neither offend nor alter, they only rouse and exercise, me […] When any one contradicts me, he raises my attention, not my anger. […] [M]y imagination so often contradicts and condemns itself, that ‘tis all one to me if another do it […]’. Note how Montaigne here is open to criticism (Mijuskovic’s fourth criterion) precisely because he does not see contradictions as a problem. 26 It seems that Montaigne radically changed his mind (and his heart) about how to deal with death, as a consequence of a riding accident (see Bakewell, 2010, Ch. 1). However, he never corrected his Essays correspondingly, as he would have done

138

VIII

considering things from different perspectives, or that he just does not really know how to deal with the perspective of death, and was only ‘essaying’ two possibilities. Should a counselor compel such an unsteady counselee to commit to a consistent position? Such an endeavour could possibly be helpful in some cases, but Montaigne’s words — ‘I may peradventure contradict myself, but […] I never contradict the truth’27 — point to a concept of truth that does not imply formal consistency but rather may even result as incompatible with formal consistency, and which we may call ‘authenticity’. What if a counselee, compelled to the effort of reaching formal consistency, were to draw away from authenticity? What if logical consistency is reached at the price of emptying the beliefs of their real reference? What if consistency proves to be only an artificial arrangement that just embellishes the surface, while the underlying truth implies contradictions and confusion? According to views like that of Mijuskovic, a contradiction actually does not exist as a ‘thing’ in its own; there are only contradictory propositions, and the reason why they contradict each other is that one is true and the other is false. The task, then, is to find the true proposition, and the law of non-contradiction is a reliable tool for Philosophical Counseling. But there may be other views, like Wittgenstein’s one, according to which contradiction ‘is something’: It can be the object of study or contemplation, feelings can be addressed to it, and, at least, we can have some sort of awareness of it as an ‘it’. From such a point of view, contradictions are not just a conceptual problem concerning propositions, but rather the manifestation of something real.

Cultivating contradictions The idea that contradiction is an essential feature of reality, as well as the recognition that reality has a dynamic character (as pointed out by Montaigne), are at the bottom of Hegel’s concept of dialectics. It is not surprising, therefore, that these ideas also characterize the philosophical stance of Gerd Achenbach, since the German philosopher and official had he believed that he had now finally discovered the right way of dealing with mortality. He let the contradictory opinions about how to deal with mortality stay, even if he otherwise kept revising his Essays till his death. 27 See also Montaigne, 1952: 389, where Montaigne declares that there is still something that cannot be the case in his work, something, he says, ‘which I often see elsewhere, that the work and the artificer contradict one another’.

Philosophical Counseling and Contradictions

139

founder of Philosophical Practice has a philosophical background in Hegelian, and, more generally, in German idealist and romantic philosophy. Achenbach’s concept of reason, to begin with, differs essentially from the concept of rationality. In Achenbach’s view, the Hegelian idea of dialectics should persuade philosophical counselors to abandon the presumptuous will of eliminating everything unreasonable: What Hegel thought as the concept of dialectic movement, opposes the presumptuousness of ignoring the ‘irrational’, as well as the decisiveness to bring it to terms [in German, literally: to bring it back to reason]. Philosophical Practice is the insolent demand on philosophy to maintain this insight.28

Moreover, Achenbach does not conceive of reason as an antipole with respect to feelings or emotions, as his recurrent references both to Blaise Pascal’s raison du coeur and to Hegel’s concept of a ‘thinking heart’ (denkendes Herz)29 show.30 Consequently, Achenbach sees Philosophical Counseling as an encounter between two human beings, neither of whom shuns emotional involvement: ‘One does not understand the other only through sentences — rather, one understands a human being as a whole human being’31. In the context of such an encounter, the dialogue does not primarily focus on the examination of beliefs and the testing of arguments32. The dialogue 28

Achenbach, 2010: 58 (‘Was Hegel als Begriff der dialektischen Bewegung dachte, opponiert der Überheblichkeit, das “Unvernünftige” zu ignorieren, ebenso wie die Entschlossenheit, es “zur Vernunft zu bringen”. Philosophische Praxis ist die Zumutung an Philosophie, diese Einsicht zu bewähren’). Since there is no official English translation of the texts by Achenbach that we are quoting in this paper, we have translated the quotations ourselves. However, for the purpose of transparency and precision, we also report the original German version. 29 An instance of Hegel’s integrative conception of mind and feelings is to be found in his Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences (see Hegel, 1894: 93), in which he speaks of ‘truth’ as ‘the rationality of the heart’. 30 See, for example, Achenbach, 2009: 153. 31 Achenbach, 2010: 98 (‘Man versteht den andern nicht allein mit Sätzen — sondern mit sich selbst, den Menschen durch den Menschen.’). Achenbach also refers to Rousseau’s passage from the Confessions (Book II), in which the French philosopher admonishes: ‘it is ever a bad method to attempt to read the hearts of others by endeavoring to conceal our own’ (Rousseau, 1796: 150) 32 Achenbach likes to quote Feyerabend’s rhetorical question: ‘What is the use of an argument that leaves people unmoved?’ (Feyerabend, 2002: 16).

140

VIII

instead consists primarily in the narration of longer and shorter stories33, in the joint meditation of life experiences, in the consideration and discussion of examples, and — if it comes to a counsel at all—it would be in Walter Benjamin’s sense of Rat: ‘[…] counsel is less an answer to a question than a proposal concerning the continuation of a story which is just unfolding’ (Benjamin, 1999: 86). In this framework, it is not surprising that the normative dimension typical of argumentative philosophy and possibly entailed in Philosophical Counseling becomes more soft, gentle, and complex. A philosophical counselor, according to Achenbach’s concept, would not demand from the counselee that he expresses and justifies his beliefs in a way that must fulfil the criteria of inter-subjectivity, consistency and universality. On the contrary, in Achenbach’s view, the counselor has to meet the challenge of understanding the counselee in his uniqueness and individuality. The individuality of the counselor also plays a major role in Achenbach’s concept of Philosophical Practice, for both philosophy and Philosophical Practice are said by him to exist concretely only in the shape of the individual philosopher herself: ‘The concrete form of philosophy is the philosopher: and he, the philosopher as an institution in a case, is the Ph.P.’34 In sum, ‘The centre of Philosophical Practice […] are two “beings” […], two individuals, who are not variations or modifications of a universal, normatively conceived being called human being’.35 Achenbach’s scepticism towards arguments and his exaltation of individuality (probably also related to his fondness for Romanticism) do not imply that no criticism should be allowed in Philosophical Counseling36. On the contrary, Achenbach sympathizes with Adorno’s and

33

See Achenbach, 2010: 385–387, where Achenbach illustrates his conception of Philosophical Counseling by referring to the figure of Scheherazade, the storyteller from One Thousand and One Nights. 34 Achenbach, quoted in Marquard, 1989: 1307 (‘Die konkrete Gestalt der Philosophie ist der Philosoph: und er, der Philosoph als Institution in einem Fall, ist die Ph.P.’). 35 Achenbach, 2010: 92 (‘Die Mitte der Philosophischen Praxis [...] sind zwei “Wesen” [...], zwei Individuen, die nicht etwa Varianten oder Modifikationen eines allgemeinen, verbindlich gedachten Wesens Mensch sind’). 36 For instance, Achenbach refers to Popper, according to whom it is ‘necessary to try to improve our philosophies by criticism. This is the only apology for the continuing existence of philosophy which I am able to offer’ (Popper 1972: 33; Achenbach, 2010: 16).

Philosophical Counseling and Contradictions

141

Habermas’ idea, according to which philosophy is nowadays possible only as critique, and argues: Rather than deeming itself capable of giving requested answers and conducting itself as if it continued to be certain of the absolute and as the representative of the unconditionally valid, [...] philosophy remains conceivable and at the same time necessary only as critique. As critique, however, that does not simply affirm itself as the 'fury of disappearance' (Hegel) […].37

This conception of philosophy moves away from that tradition which we recalled above in commenting on Mijuskovic’s position, insofar as it renounces orienting itself towards the ideal standard of an absolute and universal validity of truths and norms. Instead of a criticism that relies on universal standards of logical consistency, Achenbach seeks a ‘wholesome’ (heilsam) critique38— that is, ‘a naming of the false, which does not paralyse, but strengthens confidence, which does not make discouraged, but courage’.39 Note that in addressing the issue of criticism, we have already returned to the topic of contradiction; for what else is a criticism other than a contradiction (contra dire) generated by the critic with the expectation that his interlocutor would abandon his own thesis in favour of the new antithesis? But, again, does criticism have to assume the form of an aut-aut? Should the counselor bring the counselee to abandon his belief, once the criticism

37

Achenbach, 2010: 52–53 (‘Statt sich erfragter Antworten mächtig zu dünken und aufzutreten, als sei sie weiter des Absoluten gewiß und Repräsentantin des unbedingt Gültigen [...], ist Philosophie denkbar und nötig zugleich nur mehr als Kritik. Als Kritik nun allerdings, die sich nicht als “Furie des Verschwindens” (Hegel) nur noch selber affirmierte [...]’). 38 With respect to the difference between ‘criticism’ and ‘critique’ it is interesting to consider the following criteria, proposed by the writer Julie Reeves: [1] ‘Criticism finds fault/Critique looks at structure.’ [2] ‘Criticism looks for what's lacking/Critique finds what's working.’ [3] ‘Criticism condemns what it doesn't understand/Critique asks for clarification.’ [4] ‘Criticism is negative/Critique is positive (even about what isn't working).’ [5] ‘Criticism is vague and general/Critique is concrete and specific.’ [6] ‘Criticism has no sense of humor/Critique insists on laughter, too.’ Reeves, 2002: 65. 39 Achenbach, 2010: 109 (‘[...] eine Nennung des Falschen, die nicht lähmt, sondern Zuversicht bestärkt, die nicht mutlos, sondern Mut macht’).

142

VIII

has shown it to be unsound? In referring to a passage by Blaise Pascal,40 Achenbach shows rather an affinity with Montaigne’s kind of perspectivism: When we wish to correct with advantage and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true, and admit that truth to him, but reveal to him the side on which it is false. He is satisfied with that, for he sees that he was not mistaken, and that he only failed to see all sides.41

This kind of critique not only acknowledges to the counselee the recognition he deserves, but — in contrast to the static character of logic — it sets the thoughts in motion. While the ‘logical treatment’ of contradiction brings the thought process quickly to an end by the endorsement of one alternative and the rejection of the opposite one, the dialectical way of dealing with contradictions utilizes them as resources to help the counselee out of the perspective in which he is stuck, and, moreover, opens the way to an appreciation of the complex character of reality. An instance of this dialectical process is found in Chapter 2 of Achenbach’s Vom Richtigen im Falschen, entitled ‘On living with contradictions’.42 This chapter is devoted to the narration of one of Achenbach's experiences as a counselor. We shall reconstruct it here in a brief and obviously incomplete way. A young man came to Achenbach and told him about the many investigations he had been pursuing for many years in order to find the truth about religion and to understand if he could be a believer. In the course of his investigations, he was confronted with so many contradictory positions, so many absurd ideas, so many people telling lies and doing horrible things that he was now in a state of terrible confusion and disorientation. Achenbach’s approach to this case may be summarized in the following steps: (1) ironic radicalization: ‘why seeing contradictions, lies and misdeeds only in the field of religion? They are to be found in every field of human life!’43; (2) antithesis/negation: ‘…but there are also good people, like Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa, or even uncle XXX. Everywhere there are not only bad people and deeds, but also good people and deeds’. At this point, Achenbach raises the crucial question (3): 40

See Achenbach, 2010: 100. Pascal, 1952: 173 (Pensées, Section I, n. 9). 42 Achenbach, 2014, Ch. 2: ‘Vom Leben in Widersprüchen’. 43 Please note that this direct speech and the following ones are not direct quotations from Achenbach’s book. 41

Philosophical Counseling and Contradictions

143

‘Should we say, therefore, that there are good people and deeds, on the one hand, and bad people and deeds, on the other — and that the world is composed of good and bad, true and false things?’ The young man agrees: Probably, he would endorse the principle of non-contradiction and think that something good cannot, at the same time, be bad, and vice versa. But Achenbach claims, ‘No, it is not so’, and opens (4) a dialectical perspective through a long series of examples of things and deeds being good and bad at the same time. Thus, we can very well say, for example, that the invention of cars has been a good thing (cars are useful) and that it has been a bad thing (see the statistics of deaths because of car accidents): The invention of cars has been both, a good and a bad thing, even if the two beliefs formally contradict each other. Achenbach, one could say, reacted to the counselee’s confusion by showing him that, in a sense, he was not confused enough. We would not call this ‘solving a problem’, but the new sense of dynamical complexity evidently awoke in the young man a lively interest in new questions (e.g. ‘Is there anyone being that bad, that she may not be forgiven in any case?’) and in this way helped him out of his impasse.

Concluding remarks The question about how to deal with contradictory beliefs emerging in the context of Philosophical Counseling does not admit a standard, universal answer: One may want to struggle with contradictions in order to solve them, but one could also notice that the counselee is perfectly capable of living with them; one can even cultivate them, that is, make them fruitful and see them as a sign of the inexhaustible richness of life. The counselor will do well to adjust her reaction to the particular nature of the contradiction in question, to the context in which it is embedded, and, above all, to the particular counselee and his own way of looking at it and perceiving it. Therefore, it is all the more important to appreciate the wide range of different perspectives on contradiction offered by the philosophical tradition. In this paper, we could not offer a complete review of all philosophical positions concerning the issue of contradiction — neither all those endorsed by philosophical counselors, nor all those developed by the ‘traditional philosophers’. We focused on Ben Mijuskovic and Gerd Achenbach as representatives of quite opposite conceptions among the practitioners, while, with respect to the ‘traditional philosophers’, we devoted special attention to Montaigne and Wittgenstein, and only briefly

144

VIII

mentioned some others, like Hegel or Pascal. But the list of philosophers that we could have considered is unlimited. Faced with the counselee’s contradictory beliefs, the philosophical counselor could think of Heraclitus and suspect the contradiction to be only apparent, while dissolving at a more profound level of reality. From the sceptics, the counselor may hear that for every opinion there is always an opposite and equally plausible one, and learn to be careful and suspend judgment. Aristotle could suggest not trying to solve the contradiction by seeking a general truth in matters of life, but rather by looking at the concrete special case. A utilitarian perspective could possibly allow the counselee to solve the contradiction by talking himself into whatever is better for him. And so on. One could suppose prima facie that the counselor is on safe ground if the counselee contradicts himself, because then the counselor knows what to do: Ask the client to resolve the contradiction by deciding for one option and dropping the other. The law of contradiction is a useful tool for philosophical practice, indeed. Nevertheless, as we hope to have shown, a closer look at the philosophical tradition, as well as at different conceptions of Philosophical Counseling, offers a great variety of possible attitudes towards contradictory beliefs, so that the counselor herself has to assume the responsibility of deciding, in each concrete situation, how to deal with the counselee’s (as well as with her own) contradictions.

References Achenbach, Gerd (2009). Lebenskönnerschaft. Köln: Dinter. —. (2010). Zur Einführung der Philosophischen Praxis: Vorträge, Aufsätze, Gespräche und Essays, mit denen sich die Philosophische Praxis in den Jahren 1981 bis 2009 vorstellte. Köln: Dinter. —. (2014). Vom Richtigen im Falschen: Auf Wegen philosophisch inspirierter Lebenskönnerschaft. Köln: Dinter. Amir, Lydia (2014). Humor and the Good Life in Modern Philosophy: Shaftesbury, Hamann, Kierkegaard. Albany: State University of New York Press. Bakewell, Sarah (2010). How to Live, or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer. London: Chatto and Windus. Benjamin, Walter (1999). Illuminations. London: Pimlico. Berra, Lodovico (2012). 'L’identità del Counseling Filosofico: rapporti con la consulenza filosofica e la professione di psicologo'. Rivista Italiana di Counseling Filosofico 8: 34–40.

Philosophical Counseling and Contradictions

145

Catullus (2005). The Poems of Catullus: A Bilingual Edition. Translated by Peter Green. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Feyerabend, Paul (2002). Against Method. London and New York: Verso. Hadot, Pierre (1995). Philosophy as a Way of Life. Oxford: Blackwell. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1894). Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind: Being Part Three of the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences. Translated by William Wallace. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Mijuskovic, Ben (1995). ‘Some Reflections on Philosophical Counseling and Psychotherapy’. In Essays on Philosophical Counseling, edited by R. Lahav and M. Da Venza Tillmanns, 90–100. Lanham: University Press of America. Marquard, Odo (1989). ‘Praxis, Philosophische’. In Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, Vol. 7. Basel: Verlag Schwabe. Montaigne, Michel (1952). The Essays. Edited by W. Carew Hazlitt. Translated by Charles Cotton. Chicago, IL: Encyclopaedia Britannica. Pascal, Blaise (1952). The Provincial Letters. Pensées. Scientific Treatises. Translated by W. F. Trotter. Chicago, IL: Encyclopaedia Britannica. Popper, Karl R. (1972). Objective Knowledge. An Evolutionary Approach. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Reeves, Julie (2002). Writing Alone, Writing Together: A Guide for Writers and Writing Groups. Novato, CA: New World Library. Rousseau, Jean Jacques (1796). The Confessions of J.J. Rousseau, Citizen of Geneva: Part the First. To which Are Added, The Reveries of a Solitary Walker, Vol. 1. London: G. G. and J. Robinson. Steinbeck, John (1993). The Grapes of Wrath. New York and Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf. Tarca, Lucio Vero (2003). ‘Filosofia ed esistenza oggi. La pratica filosofica tra episteme e sophía’. In La filosofia come stile di vita. Introduzione alle pratiche filosofiche, edited by R. Màdera and L.V. Tarca, 111–120. Milano: Mondadori. Whitman, Walt (1965). Leaves of Grass. New York: New York University Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953). Philosophical Investigations. Edited by G.E.M. Anscombe, Rush Rhees. Translated by G.E.M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell. —. (1969). On Certainty. Edited by Georg H. von Wright, Rush Rhees, R., G. E. M. Anscombe. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell. —. (1984). Culture and Value. Edited by Georg H. von Wright. Translated by Peter Winch. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

146

VIII

—. (2001). Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. Edited by Georg H. von Wright, Rush Rhees, G. E. M. Anscombe. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell.

IX PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE THROUGH THE LENS OF POST-METAPHYSICAL THOUGHT MARJAN IVKOVIû

In this paper, I argue that one important quality of philosophical practice, understood primarily as a proceduralist therapeutic discipline, can be grasped through the notion of post-metaphysical thought as articulated by Jürgen Habermas and Richard Rorty in their dealing with the relationship between philosophy and social critique. The aim of the paper is modest: to point out the ’post-metaphysical spirit’ of the fundamental methodological premises of philosophical practice, which I consider to be independent of the actual substance of therapy, and to address some broader implications of this post-metaphysical spirit. My analysis is intended as an external reflection on philosophical practice with individual clients (philosophical dialogue) outlined in the works of Lou Marinoff, through the optic of the Habermasian-Rortian epistemological perspective. Jürgen Habermas’ and Richard Rorty’s work provide two influential and partially opposed answers to the question whether a post-metaphysical theoretical social critique is possible, or whether we should relegate social critique to other fields, such as art (Habermas, 1992, 1990, 1987, 1984; Rorty, 1999, 1989). The two authors present different modalities of the term ’postmetaphysical’, which I define as the ’weaker’ and the ’stronger’ version in light of their respective epistemological and ontological implications, while attempting at the same time to identify their common ground. The optic of social critique and normative foundations is chosen as the point of entry into the post-metaphysical problematic for the reason that such a perspective throws into starkest relief the fact that Habermas and Rorty, as exemplars of post-metaphysical thought, are by no means antirational, disengaged from the public or opposed to the practical use of philosophy. Their shared ambition is to theoretically safeguard rational

148

IX

argumentation, reflexivity and dialogue from any kind of foreclosure by an exercise of authority that would be above dispute (religious, metaphysical, or expert). My intention is to show that post-metaphysical thinking understood along these lines is not antithetical to philosophical practice; quite the contrary: the anti-metaphysical methodological spirit of philosophical practice that I will attempt to reconstruct could be seen as a guarantee of its vitality in the face of the challenges of professionalization and politicization. My approach to philosophical practice as a dialogue with individual clients is grounded primarily in the work of Lou Marinoff, the author who has so far offered the most elaborate and systematic theorization of philosophical practice as a therapeutic procedure (Marinoff, 2002, 2000). Upon presenting the two conceptions of post-metaphysical thought, Habermas’ and Rorty’s, I will examine some crucial traits of philosophical practice with individual clients against the background of Rorty and Habermas. I will argue that philosophical practice as a discipline is characterized by a basic pragmatic, proceduralist and anti-authoritarian methodological spirit, which contributes to its ability to resist all kinds of rigidifying tendencies. This methodological trait of philosophical practice makes it an attractive non-authoritarian alternative to disciplines such as psychoanalysis or psychiatry, and even equips it with a certain non-conventional ’political’ potential in terms of the pragmatist anti-essentialist conception of ’edifying’ philosophy (after all, sustained work on the enhancement of people’s self-reflexivity is an intrinsically political activity). By way of conclusion, I suggest that the post-metaphysical spirit of philosophical practice itself can in certain situations become a substantive contribution to therapy. Let me first present my understanding of post-metaphysical thought as articulated in Habermas’ and Rorty’s work.

Habermas and Rorty: Post-metaphysical thought between immanence and contextualism Situated reason: Habermas’ linguistic turn Within the contemporary debate about the proper normative foundations of theoretical social critique, two influential conceptions of postmetaphysical thought have emerged: Jürgen Habermas’ and Richard Rorty’s. The first conception has been articulated within the context of Jürgen Habermas’ ‘linguistic turn’ in critical theory, more precisely his attempt to

Philosophical Practice through the Lens of Post-Metaphysical Thought

149

normatively ground critical theory in a historically ‘immanent’ conception of reason defined as the property of human linguistic interaction. This approach is opposed to the first-generation Frankfurt School’s reliance on a ‘monological’ and subject-centred concept of reason understood as a property of human consciousness (Habermas, 1990). As Joel Anderson argues, whereas the first generation had (at least initially) looked to various forms of economic, political, cultural or psychoanalytic ’crisis’ as sites of emancipatory impulses, Habermas focused on free interpersonal interaction as it was found in ordinary life and, specifically, in the pragmatics of coming to an understanding with someone about something, to serve as the key source of emancipatory impulses (Anderson, 2011: 36).

While the first-generation critical theorists (Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Fromm, Benjamin, Löwenthal) developed powerful forms of social critique through the normative lens of a philosophy of history, Habermas’ theoretical efforts were directed toward a less radical but more philosophically plausible variant of social critique. Habermas’ linguisticpragmatic foundation of critical theory, the ’linguistic turn’, allows for an intersubjectivist, dialogical and historically situated conception of reason to take shape: as Habermas argues, ’the reciprocal interpersonal relations that are established through the speaker-hearer perspectives make possible a relation-to-self that by no means presupposes the lonely reflection of the knowing and acting subject upon itself as an antecedent consciousness. Rather, the self-relation arises out of an interactive context’ (Habermas, 1992: 24). Communicative reason, Habermas argues, is situated and ’transcendental’ at the same time. It is historically situated by virtue of being the property of our historically evolved capacity for linguistic interaction, i.e. the interpersonal exchange of assertoric, normative and expressive statements within the practical context of everyday social interaction oriented toward reaching a consensus. Communicative reason is ’transcendental’, on the other hand, in the sense of presupposing some universally valid ’strong idealizations’ as the very preconditions of linguistic interaction. These idealizations consist in the interactive partners’ claims to the transcontextual validity of their statements: as Habermas’ points out, ’what the speaker, here and now in a given context, asserts as valid transcends, according to the sense of his claim, all context-dependent, merely local standards of validity’ (Habermas, 1992: 47).

150

IX

The crucial premise of Habermas’ theoretical perspective is that these counterfactual idealizing presuppositions of communication operate as social facts within the empirical reality, structuring the rules of linguistic interaction and thus our entire social world. According to Habermas, the ’validity claimed for propositions and norms’ is ’accepted or rejected with real implications for social interaction’ (Habermas, 1992: 139). The three universalizing claims to the validity of our linguistic statements: to the factual truth of our assertoric statements, the normative rightness of valuerational propositions, and the ’truthfulness’ of expressive ones, constitute the essence of the situated, yet context-transcending rationality of language: they constitute an empirically effective communicative reason (Habermas, 1992, 1987, 1984). Habermas thus manages to attain a very important goal of critical theory: to anchor the social critique of modernity in its very legacy, or rather, in its normative potentiality already present (effective) in our institutional reality. The fundamental premise of the empircial effectiveness of communicative reason enables Habermas to construct an entire social-theoretical system (the theory of communicative action) on the grounds of this central conception in the form of a ’reconstruction’ of the logic of everyday linguistic interaction. ’The universal pragmatic presuppositions of communicative action’, Habermas argues in a social-ontological vein, ’constitute semantic resources from which historical societies create and articulate, each in its own way, representations of mind and soul, concepts of the person and of action, consciousness of morality, and so on’ (Habermas, 1992: 192). Moreover, the explanation of the structure of social reality by means of an empirically effective communicative reason enables Habermas to reformulate the project of critical theory, i.e. the normative anchoring of social critique in an anti-essentialist, proceduralist and immanent foundation: in the conception of rational communication oriented toward the reaching of an ’uncoerced consensus’. For Habermas, communicative reason is the ’standard for evaluating systemically distorted forms of communication and life that result when the potential for reason that became available with the transition to modernity is selectively utilized’ (Habermas, 1992: 50). On the basis of the sophisticated normative foundation of critique defined by the concept of communicative reason, Habermas has been able to theorize social domination as a complex of the ’systematic distortions of rational communication’ by ’power’ and by the imperatives of material social reproduction (Habermas, 1987, 1984).

Philosophical Practice through the Lens of Post-Metaphysical Thought

151

Habermas’ linguistic-pragmatic conception of post-metaphysical thought is free of substantive philosophical speculation regarding the essence of human subjectivity; however, as we have seen, Habermas does not give up the task of identifying universal, trans-contextual properties of social reality (communicative reason as the universal logic behind all concrete ’semantic resources’ of social action) and the corresponding universal causal mechanisms in history (rationalization of worldviews, the emergence of the ’systemic’ logic of action-integration, etc.) (Habermas, 1987). These traits of Habermas’ perspective imply that he is still positivist to a considerable extent, even if he is no longer ’metaphysical’ in his understanding of language, self, and the normative criteria of social critique.

Contingency: post-metaphysical thought in Rorty’s neo-pragmatism A stronger, contextualist and thoroughly nominalist conceptualization of post-metaphysical thought within the debate on social critique can be found in the neo-pragmatist perspective of Richard Rorty (Rorty, 2007, 1999, 1989). From Rorty’s perspective of a ’liberal ironist’, a theorist who is constantly aware of the ultimate contingency of his own deepest normative commitments but treats them as no less valuable and legitimate for that, Habermas’ grounding of critique in a universalist explanatory and normative concept of communicative reason is still an example of metaphysical thinking, despite the historical situatedness of the rationality of language. ’As seen by contextualism’, Habermas admits, the concept of communicative reason is ’too strong because even the borders of allegedly incommensurable worlds prove to be penetrable in the empirical medium of mutual understanding’ (Habermas, 1992: 116). Rorty does not agree with Habermas on the universality of communicative reason: in Rorty’s own words, the difference between his and Habermas’ visions of postmetaphysical thought boils down to the fact that Habermas still insists on seeing the process of undistorted communication as convergent, and seeing that convergence as a guarrantee of the ’rationality’ of such communication. The residual difference I have with Habermas is that his universalism makes him substitute such convergence for ahistorical grounding, whereas my insistence on the contingency of language makes me suspicious of the very idea of the ’universal validity’ which such convergence is supposed to underwrite (Rorty, 1989: 67).

152

IX

Rorty’s conception of post-metaphysical thought is founded on nominalism and historicism: for Rorty, a ’metaphysicist’ is an epistemological realist, a historical teleologian and a normative essentialist, someone who ’believes in an order beyond time and change which both determines the point of human existence and establishes a hierarchy of responsibilities’ (Rorty, 1989: xv). While language in Habermas’ perspective already loses its representational essence, Rorty goes much further: he subscribes to Donald Davidson’s nonreductive behaviourist view of linguistic practice presented in ’A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs’, which develops the concept of ’passing theory’ to explain the irreducible contingency of linguistic practice, and to argue that there is no universally identifiable logic of communication (such as Habermas’ ’idealizing presuppositions’ embodied in validity claims). As Davidson explains, I have distinguished what I have been calling the prior theory from what I shall henceforth call the passing theory. For the hearer, the prior theory expresses how he is prepared in advance to interpret an utterance of the speaker, while the passing theory is how he does interpret the utterance. For the speaker, the prior theory is what he believes the interpreter’s prior theory to be, while his passing theory is the theory he intends the interpreter to use (Davidson, 2006: 261–2, emphasis added).

The crux of Davidson’s argument is that passing theories (the way we interpret concrete linguistic statements) ultimately cannot be derived from prior theories (the internalized structure of the rules for using language) because we develop passing theories over the course of interaction in order to grapple with contingent apsects of speech, such as the use of ’malaproprisms’ (words that our interlocutor wants us to interpret differently from their literal meaning), as they arise: ’we must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language users acquire and then apply to cases’ (Davidson, 2006: 265). The appropriation of Davidson’s radically contextualist account of language allows Rorty to take post-metaphysical thought further than Habermas, as Rorty treats the rationality of our practice of language as not only ’immanent’ in the sense of historically ’situated’, but also as historically and procedurally contingent. Rorty advises us to ’limit the opposition between rational and irrational forms of persuasion to the interior of a language game, rather than to try to apply it to interesting and important shifts in linguistic behaviour’ (Rorty, 1989: 47). Davidson’s argument is the foundation for Rorty’s conceptual apparatus centred around the binary opposition of the literal/metaphorical use of language

Philosophical Practice through the Lens of Post-Metaphysical Thought

153

(corresponding to Davidson’s prior/passing theory distinction), whereby individual as well as social change depends on the actors’ ability to ’literalize new metaphors’, i.e. to redescribe themselves and the surrounding world, rather than their ability to ’understand’ a reality independent of themselves by applying new concepts that better correspond to it. In terms of grounding social critique, Rorty’s Davidsonian perspective argues for a thoroughly contextual and pragmatic understanding of our ’normative foundations’ of critique. Rorty cites in this respect an excellent passage from Oakeshott’s On Human Conduct: ’a morality is neither a system of general principles nor a code of rules, but a vernacular language. General principles and even rules may be elicited from it, but (like other languages) it is not the creation of grammarians; it is made by speakers’ (Oakeshott, 1975: 78–79, in: Rorty, 1989: 58). A particular moral worldview, in Rorty’s terminology, presents the ’final vocabulary’ of a given person, a set of normative propositions that cannot be justified in a noncircular manner (Rorty, 1989: 73). For the ’liberal ironist’, Rorty’s ideal social critic, ’nothing can serve as a criticism of a final vocabulary save another such vocabulary’ (ibid: 80). Rorty’s perspective on social critique, in comparison to Habermas’, can be defined by three main imperatives: 1) The distancing from both realism (a trait Rorty shares with Habermas), in the sense of the theorist’s claim to an insight into the structure and dynamics of the social reality that exists prior to, and independently of, any ’ordinary’ actor’s interpretation of this reality; and from the socialscientific positivism of conventional social critique, represented by a theorist’s ambition to provide a generalized causal explanation of the structure and dynamics of the social reality which would be valid across time and space. At this point Rorty goes substantially beyond Habermas, who holds on to a positivist imperative of articulating a ’grand’ social theory. In Re-Presenting the Good Society, Maeve Cooke, for example, argues in a Rortian vein that critical theory should treat social-theoretical considerations as auxiliary with respect to the more fundamental ’ethical vision’ that the theorist puts forward (Cooke, 2006). 2) The second criterion of the strong, Rortian definition of postmetaphysical thinking requires social critique to be grounded in a fully historicized (non-teleological) perspective on social change, i.e. it requires the full acknowledgement of the contingency of history and social dynamics; and 3) the normative foundations of a post-metaphysical

154

IX

critique in the Rortian sense would also have to be free of any substantive philosophical speculation (e.g. a theory of the subject and/or a social ontology), as any such speculation would be incompatible with the premise of a thoroughly historical, contingent nature of the human self, social reality and moral progress. The principal disagreement between Habermas and Rorty, as one might observe, concerns the nature of language and situated reason: the counterfactual ’universalizing presuppositions’ of linguistic interaction, the three types of ’validity claims’, constitute for Habermas the transcontextual, universal rules of linguistic practice. However, the distancing from the realist, representational approach to language and the endorsement of a ’consensual’ theory of truth and an immanent view of rationality constitute the common ground of Habermas’ and Rorty’s critiques of ’metaphysics’ and what I would call their shared postmetaphysical sensitivity. Both authors strongly subscribe to a proceduralist critique of social domination: a critique of any attempt at restricting a rational debate about social arrangements or any individual normative commitments by means of ’power’, the exercise of irrational and indisputable authority, as well as by ’totalizing’ forms of social critique and visions of the good society that claim an epistemologically privileged access to the world. Let us now take a look at the methodological orientation of philosophical practice as presented in the works of Lou Marinoff against the background of this shared Rortian-Habermasian outlook that I have tried to reconstruct.

The post-metaphysical spirit of philosophical practice Lou Marinoff proposes that we understand philosophical practice, to an extent, as a reaction to the post-metaphysical turn in philosophy and its multi-faceted consequences, some of the most prominent ones being the excessive professionalization and academic isolation of philosophy in the analytic tradition and the expanding ’political indoctrination’ in the continental one (Marinoff, 2002: 43–45). Wittgensteinian language philosophy, as well as different contemporary currents belonging to the contintental tradition such as deconstructionism and neo-Marxism have, according to Marinoff, contributed (in different ways) to a contemporary marginalization of philosophy and the loss of its appeal to the broader public. The common denominator of these analytic and continental

Philosophical Practice through the Lens of Post-Metaphysical Thought

155

developmental trends in philosophy that Marinoff’s critique points at is anti-realism, a central tenet of post-metaphysical thought. In my understanding of Marinoff’s perspective on philosophical practice, however, the defining trait of this therapeutic discipline, as opposed to disciplines such as psychoanalysis, lies in its foremostly proceduralist and pragmatic rather than substantive and diagnostic approach to the human subject. ’By getting a handle on their personal philosophies of life, sometimes with the help of great thinkers of the past’, as Marinoff explains, ’[people] can build a framework for managing whatever they face and go into the next situation more solidly grounded and spiritually or philosophically whole. They need dialogue, not diagnosis’ (Marinoff, 2000: 4). A fundamental characteristic of philosophical dialogue is its methodological plasticity and adaptation to the client’s idiosyncratic circumstances, rather than scientistic standardization and the subsumption of the client’s case to a generalized pattern of diagnosis: ’philosophical practice is more art than science and proceeds in a unique fashion with each individual’ (ibid: 37). The philosophical practitioner expresses what we might call a 'hermeneutic’ interest in the meaning of a particular act, dilemma or problem of her client, in contrast to the psychiatrist’s or psychotherapist’s positivist interest in understanding the causes of these phenomena. The practitioner is focused on the present and future implications of the client’s own understanding and possible rearticulation of such meaning. For example, in the context of a chess game, Marinoff points out that instead of asking the causal, psychiatric and psychoanalytic question ’what made you make that move?’ the philosophical counselor asks ’what meaning, purpose or value does this move have for you now?’ and ’what bearing does it have on your next move’ (Marinoff, 2000: 18). The counselor takes seriously the client’s perspective much like the post-metaphysical, antipositivist social critic who takes seriously the normative commitments and perspectives of ’ordinary’ social actors. Both figures are decidedly ’antiauthoritarian’ in their epistemological outlook, and are not prone to reducing the meaning of an individual’s act or pronouncement to more or less hidden causes (or ’interests’, in the case of the social critic). The premises and guidelines of philosophical practice as a therapeutic process are not based in a substantive theory of the subject or the social world, but are informed by a pragmatic, anti-essentialist aim of tackling everyday human problems without providing an explanation of the mechanisms of subject-formation, the pathologies of the self, and the

156

IX

requirements for their overcoming. On the one hand, philosophical practice, as conceptualized by Marinoff, is not substantively postmetaphysical in either Habermasian or Rortian sense: the therapist should not try to convince a client to adopt a nominalist, historicist and contextualist epistemological and ontological outlook. A substantively post-metaphysical philosophical practice would amount to something akin to the late Wittgenstein’s conception of ’philosophy as therapy’ (Wittgenstein, 2009): it would require the therapist to demonstrate to the client that her ’philosophical’ problems are no more than instantiations of a confused and unclear use of language. The therapist in question would have to act in a strongly epistemologically authoritarian way. On the other hand, philosophical practice is also not substantively ’metaphysical’ in the sense of being epistemologically and ontologically realist, positivist and essentialist, as such a foundation would require an equally ’authoritarian’ role of the philosophical practitioner. The practitioner would have to either present to the client the correct (presumably their own) metaphysical worldview as the guideline to the solution of the client’s philosophical problems, or would have to teach the client the best possible ’methods’ for conducting an independent investigation into metaphysical truths. A ’metaphysical’ philosophical practice would be characterized by a plurality of schools; however, this pluralism would be of a different kind than the one we actually find in the discipline today. It would not be based in disagreements as to the best procedures for tackling human problems in everyday life, but would result from disputes regarding metaphysical truths and the conceptual apparata that best correspond to them, much like the positivist disagreements within contemporary psychiatry regarding the ’true’ scientific understanding of human psychology and the best methods for influencing the causal mechanisms behind it. Due to its proceduralist and pragmatic orientation, philosophical practice is thus neither metaphysical nor post-metaphysical in substantive terms; however, I would argue that, for this very reason, philosophical practice is characterized by a post metaphysical spirit. Due to its orientation towards the concrete, the contingency of everyday life, its experimentation with methods, a commitment to non-structured and egalitarian dialogical reasoning, a rejection of the psychoanalytic concern with causes, a focus on the present and an imperative of resisting standardization and scientization, philosophical practice can be considered post-metaphysical in its methodological orientation, regardless of a particular practitioner’s epistemological and ontological convictions or the particular philosophical

Philosophical Practice through the Lens of Post-Metaphysical Thought

157

contents (arguments, concepts, perspectives) he or she uses in therapy to ’awaken’ the client’s ’inner philosopher’ (Marinoff, 2000). The very commitment to awakening a person’s inner philosopher points toward the therapist’s conviction that the client has a capacity for reflexive selftransformation, a capacity we have encountered in the Rortian perspective under the name of ’self-redescription’. The imperative that the practitioner refrain from imposing a particular philosophical outlook on the client corresponds to the post-metaphysical rejection of epistemological authoritarianism, a rejection shared by Habermas and Rorty. The imperative is entirely in agreement with the Rortian warning that one should not attempt at delegitimazing or destroying the earlier mentioned ’final vocabularies’ of ordinary people. As Rorty argues, ’most people do not want to be redescribed. They want to be taken on their own terms – taken seriously just as they are and just as they talk’ (Rorty, 1989: 89). The crucial point for Rorty is that the unwarranted authoritarian ’redescription’ of a person’s final vocabulary can be perpetrated by metaphysical and anti-metaphysical (’ironist’ in Rorty’s terms) philosophers alike, albeit from opposite directions: ’but notice that redescription and possible humiliation are no more closely connected with ironism than with metaphysics’ (ibid: 90). There could hardly be a better justification for the procedural character of philosophical practice and the role of the therapist as facilitator rather than ’lecturer’ of the client’s reflexivity in either a metaphysical or post-metaphysical sense. The anti-authoritarian outlook of philosophical practice corresponds with the neo-pragmatist conviction that our normative judgement of other people’s standpoints, and normative argumentation in the public space in general ,should limit itself to pointing out the internal inconsistencies in our interlocutors’ arguments. Instead of telling a client what to do, the therapist attempts to ’help a client ascertain whether a proposed action is consistent or inconsistent with the client’s own belief system or worldview’ (Marinoff, 2002: 13). As Marinoff argues, ’philosophical dialogue between counselor and client is a vehicle for exploring the client’s noetic world, with a view to developing a philosophical disposition that enables the client to resolve or manage his problem’ (Marinoff, 2002: 81). The counselor’s exploration of the client’s philosophical outlook with a pragmatic intent, as well as his strategy of pointing out the internal inconsistencies in the client’s ’final vocabulary’, are quite incompatible with a ’metaphysical’, representational and essentialist climate of dialogue. The incompatibility is perhaps best captured by the following Rortian distinction: we could say that the anti-

158

IX

authoritarian philosophical therapist does not ask the client the ’transcending’ realist question ’how do you know’, she asks the immanent question ’why do you talk that way’ (Rorty, 1989: 51). The practitioner’s attitude of exploration and her pragmatic readiness to experiment with the sources in the philosophical tradition as she addresses the idiosyncratic problems her clients are facing, toghether with the rejection of standardized procedures and scientization of therapy, correspond to the Rortian distinction of the ’metaphorical’ and literal uses of language, where experimental, ’metaphorical’ use of concepts and arguments is the motor of personal change. Philosophy is used within the therapeutic process as the facilitator of the client’s self-transformation, since, as far as I understand Marinoff, the overcoming of a particular philosophical problem always requires some degree of the client’s ’redescription’ of herself and her circumstances in the Rortian sense. Philosophical practice as conceptualized by Marinoff is definitely opposed to certain implications of the strong, Rortian post-metaphysical position which seems to favour a general withdrawal of theory from everyday interactive life, and the restriction of theorizing to the realm of individual ’self-creation’. Quite the opposite, philosophical practice retains confidence in dialogical reasoning as the best means for personal selftransformation and improvement. What philosophical practice is particularly successful at, however, is precisely the transformation of Rortian solitary process of ’self-redescription’ through linguistic innovation into a dialogical enterprise. This is why philosophical dialogue, in its methodological orientation, manages to synthesize the best aspects of the Rortian and Habermasian post-metaphysical thought. The main reason behind Rorty’s scepticism towards any employment of philosophy beyond the context of individual reflection and redescription is his strong liberalism: his conviction that the private/public distinction cannot be superseded through any philosophical efforts, and his view that philosophy has little to contribute to the public realm as the motor of progressive social change. ’The closest we will come to joining these two quests [for private perfection and justice] is to see the aim of a just and free society as letting its citizens be as privatistic, ’’irrationalist’’, and aestheticist as they please so long as they do it on their own time – causing no harm to others and using no resources needed by those less advantaged’, Rorty argues (Rorty, 1989: xiv). Any attempt to employ philosophy in a quest for the good society would necessarily come at the expense of our individual freedom and the quest for ’self-creation’.

Philosophical Practice through the Lens of Post-Metaphysical Thought

159

Philosophical practice again shares to a considerable extent this liberal post-metaphysical sensitivity with respect to the private/public dichotomy, given its individualist approach to human problems and its aim of facilitating the client’s attainment of a private ’equillibrium’ rather than greater social justice or a more acute consciousness of injustice (Marinoff, 2000). Just as the philosophical counselor does not attempt to explain her client’s problems causally in light of her individual past, she does not try either to trace the ’noetic’ problems of her client to wider social-structural conditions and determinants, as does, for example, critical theory or neoMarxist social critique. I suspect this is because the latter approach would definitely require at least a residuum of a positivist ’diagnosis’ of social reality and epistemological authoritarianism, still present for example in the ’weaker’ post-metaphysical outlook of Habermas. Philosophical practice, with its stress on open-ended dialogical reasoning, is, I would argue, closer to the pragmatist, Deweyan notion of the ’edifying’ role of philosophy, in which the philosopher does not provide blueprints for social change but contributes, as an engaged intellectual, to a gradual general rise in the level of the citizens’ self-reflexivity, the only long-term guarantee against injustice, domination and irrationality. Philosophical practitioners are educators, Marinoff argues: ’the philosophy professor and the philosophical counselor are both educators. The contemporary difference, not drawn by the ancients, is between theoretical love of wisdom, literally philosophy, and practical applications of wisdom, literally phronesis’ (Marinoff, 2002: 94). This is precisely the post-metaphysical approach to bridging the gap between the public and private, in comparison to the ’Enlightenment rationalist’ one where philosophy is the direct ’handmaiden’ of emancipation. I would argue that philosophical practice in the broad sense, including different forms of group therapy, such as ’Socratic dialogue’ and ’Philosopher’s Cafe’, has a potential to develop further in the direction of an ’edifying’ discipline relevant to the public sphere, and I would definitely agree with Marinoff that the ’relevance of original pragmatism to philosophical practice deserves a volume of its own’ (Marinoff, 2002: 44).

160

IX

Post-metaphysical spirit as a therapeutic component and socially emancipatory trait of philosophical practice I have tried to show that the methodological orientation of philosophical dialogue, with its interwoven communicative-rational and neo-pragmatic tenets, can be adequately explained and normatively justified precisely as the expression of the Rortian-Habermasian common post-metaphysical outlook, informed to a greater (Rorty) or lesser (Habermas) degree by a scepticism towards an epistemologically authoritarian, positivist, correspondentialist and hierarchical temperament of disciplines such as psychiatry or classical psychoanalysis. I would even suggest, by way of conclusion, that the post-metaphysical spirit of philosophical practice can under certain circumstances itself become a therapeutic component of the dialogical process, if its fundamental premises, as discussed above, are made more explicit in the context of the conselor-client interaction without at the same time transforming them into the substance of a dialogue, i.e. imposing them on the client. The cases I have in mind are those (I presume not so infrequent) situations in which the client is inclined to treat the counselor in a ’consciousnessphilosophical’ manner: to observe her from a ’metaphysical’ point of view as someone more ’rational’ (in an essentialist sense of the word) and therefore in closer contact with timeless truths independent of human beings. In such cases, even if the therapist shares the realist temperament of the client’s ’final vocabulary’ and has nothing to object to it, what is at stake are the crucial procedural premises of philosophical dialogue which I identified as post-metaphysical in spirit. The dialogical reasoning inherent in philosophical practice and the facilitating of the client’s self-reflexivity, I have tried to argue, can hardly be conducted within a ’metaphysical’ (realist, positivist, and essentialist) climate which fosters hierarchy, expertise, and epistemological authoritarianism. The therapist could then resort to a strategy of drawing attention to and making more explicit the underlying premises of the dialogical process, while at the same time conducting a ’substantive’ conversation on a given topic. The danger of transforming the form of the dialogue into its substance would of course be there, but it would certainly be in the experimental and improvisationaffirmative spirit of philosophical practice if the therapist exercised an ’art’ (rather than ’science’) of balancing the procedural and the substantive in order to safeguard the vitality of the therapeutic process. Marinoff’s arguments that philosophical practice is a counterweight to, even a remedy (a ’social judo’) for the negative social effects of anti-

Philosophical Practice through the Lens of Post-Metaphysical Thought

161

metaphysical developments within contemporary philosophy might suggest that philosophical practice is incompatible with a predominantly anti-realist orientation (Marinoff, 2002: 46). I have tried to show that philosophical dialogue as a procedure can actually be considered as more compatible with the Habermasian-Rortian post-metaphysical outlook than with the more conventional representational-positivist paradigm of therapy which would, in my opinion, inevitably press the discipline (even if only in the long run) toward standardization, hierarchy, and epistemological authoritarianism, all the negative tendencies of professionalization that the movement very much strives to avoid. However, my argumentation has not at all been opposed to Marinoff’s view of philosophical practice as ’social judo’. On the contrary, it seems to me that it is precisely the postmetaphysical procedural spirit of the discipline which enables it to counter, within public space, both of the most socially detrimental, antirational consequences of the substantive post-metaphysical turn in 20th century philosophy: the excessive professionalization of education exemplified by contemporary analytic philosophy, on the one hand, and the ever greater turning of education into ’political indoctrination’ represented by epistemologically authoritarian ’post-metaphysicists’ of all provenances. The post-metaphysical spirit, I would argue, is what keeps philosophical practice from gradually sliding into either of the two camps.

References Anderson, Joel (2011). ’Situating Axel Honneth in the Frankfurt School Tradition’. In Axel Honneth: Critical Essays, edited by Danielle Petherbridge, 31–58. Brill: Leiden. Davidson, Donald (2006). ’A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs’. In The Essential Davidson, edited by Ernie Lepore and Kirk Ludwig, 251– 265. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cooke, Maeve (2006). Re-Presenting the Good Society. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Habermas, Jürgen (1992). Postmetaphysical Thinking. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. —. (1990). The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. —. (1987). The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 2: Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason. Boston: Beacon Press. —. (1984). The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Boston: Beacon Press.

162

IX

Marinoff, Lou (2002). Philosophical Practice. San Diego: Academic Press. —. (2000). Plato, not Prozac!: Applying Eternal Wisdom to Everyday Problems. New York: HarperCollins. Oakeshott, Michael (1991). On Human Conduct. Oxford: Oxford University Press (Clarendon Paperbacks). Rorty, Richard (2007). Philosophy as Cultural Politics: Philosophical Papers, Volume 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. (1999). Philosophy and Social Hope. London: Penguin Books. —. (1989). Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2009). Philosophical Investigations. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

X BUT IS IT PHILOSOPHY? CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON SOCIAL REASONING AND CAFÉ PHILOSOPHY MICHAEL PICARD

‘Socrates was almost continually in men's sight’ —Xenophon

Philosophy existed before the universities; but one might be excused today for thinking it does not exist outside them. Public philosophy is not the counterpart of private philosophy, nor philosophy about what is public, nor is it simply philosophy in public, as it would be if it were only philosophical expertise on display for the public. Public participatory philosophy is or aims to be philosophy conducted by the public. Such was the ambition of Marc Sautet (1995), who opened his Café pour Socrate in 1992 at the Café des Phares in Paris. His imitators have been legion, and today there are innumerable café philos, not only in France or Europe, but in several cities in North and South America, Australia, Asia and elsewhere. There is no need here to recount the slow, steady but impressive extent of this spread, but one can legitimately wonder about its depth. The question before me in this paper is by what right such public conversations may be called philosophy. The question is critical, and it has often been raised with a tone of dismissal. It is a question with special resonance for me, given my long involvement as a facilitator of participatory philosophy for the public. So in the interests of both self-disclosure and pragmatic clarity I ought perhaps to begin by briefly recounting that personal context, so that the question I raise is properly appreciated and my conditions for an answer are made more plain. Secondly, the question clearly presupposes some conception of philosophy. That is, we need criteria that can at least demarcate what sorts of activity constitute philosophy, if not also serve to

164

X

rate its quality or depth. We want to know under what conditions certain public conversations amount to philosophy, and in particular whether a public without philosophical expertise can be made to philosophize. We need a sufficient condition of philosophy in a café. The minimal assumption made in this paper is that reasoning, though not itself that sufficient condition of philosophy, is nevertheless bound up with it. Accordingly I distinguish some relevant conceptions of reasoning that seem to bear on the context. Finally, I look at the implications for facilitation of one of these conceptions, and end by formulating recommendations for generating philosophy in the open.

Trials and errors: Philosophy in a Café Early in 1997, provoked by owners of my neighborhood café, who taunted me with a Sunday Telegraph article on Sautet's café-philos, I opened a weekly series of moderated public participatory philosophy sessions in a coffee house in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The dialogue series, which I called Café Philosophy, continued for over twelve years, ran to over 500 sessions, and became something of a city institution. I then left Victoria, but I have continued similar sessions more or less monthly as part of the Simon Fraser University's Philosophers' Café program, which got its start around the same time, in 1998. That program, which currently boasts about two dozen venues and facilitators, won the 2012 World Universities Forum award for Best Practices in Higher Education. The program has been embraced by SFU administration as key to its community engagement strategy. In my own mind, in the beginning, I never had any doubt that what I was doing was philosophy. Nor was I ever questioned about whether it truly was philosophy, though I knew such questions were asked by the local academic philosophers, none of whom (with one sole exception) ever attended the event or lent it any visible support. It so happened that, after about five years of Café Philosophy, an enthusiastic member opened his nearby home to participants, and the après café was born. This informal gathering occurred each week after the café conversation, and sometimes, in pockets at the party, the theme of the evening was further pursued. The après café became a sister event, and greatly increased the number of regulars and the depth of their mutual bond and commitment to the event. Fast forward seven years, and the social and affiliative dimensions of the group had overwhelmed any critical edge Café Philosophy might have originally possessed. This social dynamic was by no means the only factor

But Is It Philosophy?

165

in this deterioration. In the facilitation too the conflict between the competing demands of inclusivity and of criticality was too often managed with social rather than logical aims. Late attempts to reinsert a critical dimension were ineffective. Thus the question, "But is it philosophy?" was in the end painfully evident to me. Certainly I could make philosophy of it, and in it, but my participants themselves could not be said to be regularly or deeply philosophizing. It had become a fun-club. (The change efforts just mentioned were self-consciously an attempt to make the events more philosophical. They are detailed in an Appendix, which reproduces a message to Café Philosophy participants sent out on. It shows an urgent concern with the fading philosophical character of the conversations, and a suite of interventions to prevent it.) The change of cities allowed for a break and a new beginning. My participatory philosophy sessions continued with a new public under the aegis of SFU's award-winning Philosophers' Café Program. This remarkable program, created by Yosef Wosk, was first conceived for only a single venue (‘beyond the threshold of the campus’, as Wosk used to say), but later expanded to dozens of locations on the public's own ground, outside the academic sanctuary with its steep barriers of entry. In a recent interview, Wosk (2013) also called it ‘academic rigour with a communal mask’, and likened it to Socrates in the market-place, conversing with anyone who would join him. Yet though it was Socratic, it was not, according to Wosk, especially philosophical, except in the most generic (non-disciplinary) sense. The Philosophers' Café program was then part of Continuing Studies, now Life-Long Learning, and, like its predecessor in Victoria, it has never been affiliated or even associated with SFU academic philosophy. It seems steep barriers are as hard to climb down as up. Today the SFU program exists under different direction, and it has been transformed in purpose. It is now a salient prong of the university's community engagement strategy. This change has meant featuring more SFU graduate students and faculty as facilitators, so that the university is better represented to the public through the sessions, which still mostly take place off campus. The program's new strategic role has also entailed dropping the cover charge (always a suggested donation), since faculty and students did not like handling cash from the public on behalf of the university. More than ever, those facilitating are unlikely to be philosophers and many have little to no academic background in philosophy. As far as I know, no faculty member of the academic

166

X

department at SFU has ever facilitated a (regular) Philosophers' Café event. Instead the university's expertise in a variety of other disciplines is showcased for the public, who engage and participate at will. Beyond the requirement of an evident non-partisan attitude, no special facilitation training is given or assumed, still less is any philosophical expertise required, though in point of fact several moderators are professional philosophers, either from the community or from SFU, but outside its philosophy department. There are, therefore, notable exceptions, but it is safe to conclude that, generally speaking, there is nothing especially philosophical going on at these Philosophers' Cafés, nothing beyond the generic or non-disciplinary sense they originally represented. The strategic role of the program for the institution has meant that the Philosophers’ Café (an SFU trademark) is more about SFU than it is about philosophy. One final point may be mentioned here to complete the relevant personal context to my question. I have on invitation recently joined the Engaged Philosophical Inquiry Consortium (EPIC), a regional network of researchers and practitioners focused primarily on philosophy for children (P4C). Apart from a few scattered experiences, I personally have no formal background in P4C, but clearly public participatory philosophy is, or intends to be, engaged philosophical inquiry. Despite this limited background, I have, with the hope of guidance and help of EPIC colleagues, undertaken to participatory philosophy projects in local area elementary and high schools. In particular, I expect in the coming year to set up and create a community of inquiry in a local elementary school around social and emotional learning objectives that the school has adopted. I won't to any significant extent comment further on P4C in this paper, but I do want to take note of an interesting question parallel to mine that has arisen in this related field of philosophical practice. EPIC was established by the Vancouver Institute of Philosophy for Children, an affiliate of the US Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children, credited with launching in 1974 the North American P4C movement. In British Columbia, Canada, philosophy has been a high-school curriculum option for less than a decade, but several local philosophical initiatives at elementary and middle school levels are already underway. EPIC brings together teachers, philosophers and empirical researchers to promote P4C locally and to conduct research into its effectiveness. A paper by EPIC principals Weber and Gardner makes it clear that a problem precisely parallel to mine is emerging in their field (2009; see also Turgeon 2011). P4C has established a relatively broad foothold in America and Canada (compared to public café philos), but

But Is It Philosophy?

167

internally a question of professionalism has arisen. The question: Is it really philosophy? There is an existential (read: budgetary) threat to demonstrate that philosophy is an effective pedagogical intervention. Empirical research on P4C has been and is being conducted now, but it is evidently predicated upon the assumption that what goes on in P4C is indeed philosophy, rather than some less-critical, generic or nondisciplinary namesake. In response, Weber and Garner (2009) argue for a global 5-course standard for P4C training. I go no further into this controversy here, and in the remainder say little about P4C. In the present context it is sufficient to lament the backward state of the professional organization of the proponents of café philosophy, relative to that of the P4C community. Empirical measurement of the influence on participants of café-style philosophy, and establishing global standards of training, are research desiderata far beyond the foreseeable reach of proponents.

The criterion of philosophy: Generic vs. standard reasoning Our question is by what rights public dialogues on philosophical issues are instances of philosophy. What is required, evidently, to address this question is a criterion of philosophy. It is equally evident that no consensus exists on what that should be. I am reluctant to wander into such a quagmire. But it is not necessary to define what philosophy really is in order to say whether it is happening in a given conversation. Reliable markers will suffice for present purposes. What is required is some insight into what makes conversations into philosophy — more exactly, what makes public participatory café-type conversations into a practice of philosophy. We have encountered already a generic sense of philosophy, but this is precisely non-disciplinary, and so does not help to understand how these conversations can be a properly philosophical practice. Now I assume that at least part of what is at stake here is the role that reasoning plays in what passes for public participatory philosophy. This by no means novel assumption does not in fact advance the argument much at all, at least until some further account of reason is given. But I'd like now to sketch three contrasting conceptions of reason that are or might be at play in public participatory philosophy. I will draw what implications I can from each about public participatory philosophy as philosophy, and then gather recommendations at the end for a more philosophical café philosophy. I rely in what follows on the very interesting work of political philosopher, Anthony S, Laden (2012; 2012b). Extending and applying his

168

X

terminology, I shall call these three accounts of reasoning: the generic, the standard, and the social. By generic reasoning I simply mean reasoning that is not specifically philosophical. The word is meant to capture the aspects of reasoning that in public conversations are generically philosophical, in the sense I have been developing. Philosophy has no monopoly on reason, which is evidently involved in such diverse contexts as everyday work and life decision-making, policy debates, art or cultural criticism, public relations and marketing, courts of law, scientific research and mathematical proof. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to identify the common characteristics of such diverse activities, and I will not try this. A series of family resemblances leads not very smoothly from common-place to the recondite. My point, perhaps trivial, is that regular conversations can involve reason in a variety of forms without being philosophical. Indeed, public participatory dialogue, whatever else it may be doing, is bound to involve generic reasoning of some of the mentioned varieties. But spontaneous, solitary, unscrutinized and unguided displays of public thinking, without further specification, are not yet tantamount to philosophy. If each contributor merely voices their own self-satisfied opinion or puts their positions and reasons on show for others, those others may get a glimpse of that contributor’s line of thinking, or even come to understand how each speaker has arrived where they are. Yet such an encounter is not yet philosophy, at least not paradigmatic of the discipline, at best a very remote family resemblance. If it is Socratic at all, it is only Socrates in the market place among regular people, for there is no irony, no elenchus, no paradox, no philosophy. If it is merely generic reasoning that is on show, welcomed in the name of inclusivity, and never inspected or assessed, we can call this philosophical only by rendering philosophy fangless and bland. In this light it is no surprise that academic philosophers have in local experience shown such little interest in public participatory philosophy. Unless a more robust notion of reasoning is seen to be at work in participatory philosophy, it is really only philosophical by courtesy. My own personal crises of method arose when I realized this courtesy was eventually required in regards to Café Philosophy, the events I myself ran, for the social dynamic reasons outlined above. I believe that currently at best this superficial meaning of philosophy applies to most SFU Philosophers’ Café programs. Let me immediately qualify the above claim in two respects. First, as I have already conceded, there are several salient exceptions, as I have

But Is It Philosophy?

169

philosopher-colleagues in the SFU program, and I am aware they do philosophy at these events. Nevertheless, as mentioned, the majority of facilitators have little if any philosophical background. My critique parallels the concern raised within the P4C movement about how philosophical they are on the ground, given the limited philosophical depth of most trained practitioners. The solution to that problem would be weightier philosophical training credentials for practitioners. It is not easy to see how that solution could be implemented in the case of public (as opposed to school) participatory philosophy, as café philosophers today have so little professional organization. Nevertheless the response must be to up our game. Secondly, my point is not really about how philosophical the facilitator is. In my own crises of method, I never doubted that what I was doing as a facilitator was philosophy. I wrote philosophy essays weekly and was able to develop a voice as writer in relation to that community, which led to a number of philosophy books (Picard, 2007; 2012; 2014; 2015). The problem I am trying to raise is neither a personal nor an organizational critique of facilitators, but a methodological one. I want to know how to facilitate reason, so that the participants are doing the philosophy. It is not enough to display philosophy or even get it out there in a form the public can consume. The challenge is to get the public to produce philosophy. Of course, the question how to get the public doing philosophy devolves again to a question of facilitation method. The issue is not whether the facilitator is philosophizing deeply enough, but whether the facilitation is such that participants are philosophizing deeply enough. My participants’ failure to philosophize is really my failure to elicit philosophy from them. To move beyond the generic sense of reasoning, I rely on the recent work of Anthony Simon Laden. Laden has articulated a ‘standard picture of reasoning’ in contrast to a social form of reasoning. The so-called standard picture frames a clear conception from within the heterogeneous variety tolerated within what I have called generic. Laden characterizes it as ‘calculation, broadly conceived’ (Laden, 2012b: 16) and as ‘calculating, deducing, problem-solving and judging’ (Laden, 2012: 8). The picture is ‘standard’ in the sense that it is ‘the one described by most academic work in philosophy and the social sciences about reason’ (Laden, 2012b: 17). I am reasoning according to this picture when I am working out the implications of a moral commitment, or figuring out whether the evidence in front of me is sufficient to justify my belief in the truth of a proposition, or figuring out how best to accomplish my aims given the obstacles I face (Laden, 2012: 9).

170

X

Reasoning occurs in episodes like these, all of which can be done solo or in interaction with others. On the standard picture, reasoning is episodic and social interaction is nonessential. As these three typical instances of reasoning suggest, the standard view would take as paradigmatic the discussions that take place in a lively academic philosophy seminar, or in print in academic philosophy journals. Of course the standard view of reason is not intended to be tantamount to philosophy, but it would seem to match self-descriptions of many academic philosophers concerning their intellectual activities. As these examples also indicate, the standard picture also includes episodes of reasoning in everyday situations. According to Laden, with this sort of reasoning we ‘figure things out and reach judgments’, as when one encounters an obstacle that requires reasoning to get around. ‘Reasoning is thus seen as a response to having an end in view. It pictures the activity of [giving] reasons as end-directed, episodic, fundamentally individual and aspiring to decisiveness’ (Laden, 2012: 9). Being decisive entails that alternatives are to be defeated and one judgment to emerge as superior. Reason has the authority of command, in that the objective delineation of reasons commands universal respect. Reason is serious and without play. Those who ignore it stand outside of reason. The point of reasoning is the end to be achieved, and once it is achieved, the reasoning too comes to an end. Reaching the conclusion of the argument concludes the activity of reasoning. Reason is never idle. Although its goals may be shared, the activity of reasoning takes place in one mind, even when it is influenced by other minds. Reason is monological. Before taking up a third conception of reason, I offer a few observations about public participatory philosophy from the perspective of the standard account of reason. The near absence from public participatory philosophy of reasoning according to this standard view gives academics a good reason to dismiss these popular sessions as not really philosophy. Free public discussions are often multi-stranded and multi-directional. What one person says is often logically unrelated to what the previous speaker has just said, even when it is thematically related. Inquiry remains unorganized and not concerted. Even where some degree of emphasis is put on argument and reasoning, these sessions are disjointed and do not flow like a seminar, where opposing positions may face off and struggle for supremacy. Instead of a limited space where only the victor can stand, the space is opened to all voices present, which means the weaker, less well-thought out views are given an airing in the expectation that there will be no intellectual shaming. Argument and evidence, though not

But Is It Philosophy?

171

irrelevant, are downplayed to the extent that consensus and decision need not be reached and are not the aims. Continuity is maintained, not by the thread of argument, but by a spirit of inclusion, by hewing to a theme, by emphasizing controversy and uncertainty. The disjointed character of these public conversations, though perhaps a product of the aim of inclusivity, may be seen as a failure of responsiveness. At the time, however the problem seemed rather to be a failure of logical connectedness. Put differently, when my personal methodological crisis arose, my first attempts to address the problem involved shoring up the standard view of reasoning (see Appendix.) I appointed a number of impartial critical listeners to offer logically instructive commentary while maintaining positional neutrality. To this end I set up Logic Cafés, which were smaller side meetings during the week, which examined the nature of argument and the problem of argument evaluation. These sessions were a complete failure. Not only did few attend, they did so irregularly, so we were perpetually starting over and made no sustained progress. Moreover, the dedicated listeners showed little capacity to exhibit impartiality, and even less logical sophistication. I also experimented with bringing in knowledgeable experts for specific topics. This appeal to authority contrary to intention effectively endorsed the ‘authority of command’ with which the standard view imbues reason. The visiting experts were enjoyed and appreciated, but they did little to enhance the philosophical prowess of participants. I also tried for a time to have oppositions as topics (love-hate, rather than just love or hate) in order to bring out the logical and semantic complexities involved in our topics. There was no discernible effect. As I completed my 12th year and 500th session, I was stuck and so was our group. Fortunately opportunity came along that took me to another city and gave me a chance to start over.

Thinking talk: Philosophy as reasoned conversation I would like now in the third place to examine what Laden calls a social picture of reasoning, and to explore whether this alternative conception of reasoning might shed light on the question of the philosophical status of public participatory dialogue. Laden's social account of reasoning identifies ‘reasoning as the responsive engagement with others as we attune ourselves to one another and the world around us’ (Laden, 2012: 8). It is ongoing engagement, rather that essential episodic. The activity has a point, but not an end. Attunement is not achieved once for all, never needing further adjustment. On the

172

X

contrary, ‘reasoning is a (perhaps the) central activity of living together’ (Laden, 2012: 12). Clearly, ‘reasoning so pictured is not a morally neutral activity’ (Laden, 2012: 14). On the contrary, ‘On this social picture of reasoning, the value of reasoning is that it allows us to build truly reciprocal and thus shared relationships to one another, to live together and not merely side-by-side [“as independent agents"]’ (Laden, 2012: 20). The hope is that we can construct together shared spaces of reasons we may then inhabit together. For Laden (2012b), the social picture of reasoning is essential to understand and encourage citizenship and civic engagement. It is vital to democracy itself. These claims locate reasoning in a broader political context (compare the critique of idleness in the Appendix), and clarify that Laden's social picture of reasoning is value-laden, if not end-directed. Reasoning is a form of responsive engagement that promotes social attunement, or living together well. Specifically, on Laden's model, attunement/reasoning takes place through ongoing social activity consisting largely in the issuing of invitations to take what we say as speaking for the others present as well (Laden, 2012: 10௅11). This social practice is akin to casual conversation, also a norm-governed social interaction that is value-laden but not necessarily end-directed. Laden writes that ‘Reasoning in [his social] sense turns out to be a species of conversation, and like conversation, to be shaped by norms that do not specify its end’ (Laden, 2102b: 19). The norms governing reasoning do not originate externally to the activity of engaged conversation; rather they are internal to it, much like constitutive norms, such as the rules of chess, which define the very activity in question. Laden calls such norms characteristic norms. Although anchored in the activity, characteristic norms are nevertheless unlike constitutive norms in not being strictly necessary conditions. Furthermore, characteristic norms are rather like norms of excellence (e.g., strategies for playing chess well), but then again unlike them too, for they sometimes stand in contradiction to strategic norms. Characteristic norms are needed for social practices like conversation that are less rule-governed than chess; they permit wiggle room or play in the constitutive norms and the norms of excellence. With such looser, non-essentialist norms, Laden frames his social picture of reasoning. Specifically, Laden points to several characteristic norms that make engaged conversation into reasoning. Justice cannot be done to Laden's nuanced and wide-ranging treatment here. It is enough for present purposes to provide a list of the norms he discusses, with some suggestive

But Is It Philosophy?

173

parenthetical comments based on Laden's discussion as they may relate to café conversations or other public participatory philosophy events. Some of these norms apply qua conversation, others apply qua reasoned or engaged. Operative norms of conversation include: agreement (including referential or other semantic forms agreement, so we can speak with each other); unity (in the form of shared and partially shared spaces of reasons; in conceptual pacts"’ and shared forms of life); sincerity (in the invitations offered); equality (that we may share authority and live together democratically; bears on reciprocal responsiveness and mutual answerability, for conversation is not one-way). Laden goes on to specify certain characteristic norms of reasonableness that make for genuine engagement in conversation. They spring from his conception of reasoning as reciprocal invitations to take each others' words as speaking for each other, while yet remaining open always to criticism. The norms of reasonableness are: intelligibility (or the non-idiosyncratic nature of our reasons/invitations to the other); reciprocity (enacting equality through mutual responsiveness; all reasons are 'we'-reasons); and good faith (sincerity in speaking for others). The significance of certain of these norms for facilitation of public participatory philosophy is discussed in the next section. First a few further comments that elaborate Laden's account of reason on its own terms. According to Laden, the basic gesture of reason is sincere invitation to others to accept what we say as also speaking for them, an invitation which of course they may refuse. Sincerity in this context goes beyond honestly believing that what I say is true; I must also mean the invitation sincerely. Moreover, sincerity of invitation also demands that, if you refuse my invitation, your refusal must make a difference in how the conversation continues. This vulnerability to be moved by what others say reflects the norm of equality, since the reasons you give for refusal must now be taken seriously by me; for example, by my adjusting my invitations to accommodate your reasons. If you are not free to refuse, or if your refusal makes no difference to what I say, the norm of equality is violated, and what we are doing is no longer reasoning together or even conversing. But if your refusal is likewise an invitation to me to accept your reasons, then I may in turn either reject, or accommodate by reshaping my claim. At play here is a norm of reciprocity, and by going on in this way we aim to construct together a space of reasons we can both inhabit.

174

X

Reasoning is engaged conversation, specifically conversation governed by key norms of sincerity, reciprocity and equality, where each of us, while having skin in the game, speaks not for our self only but for others as well. Thus the authority of reasoning is no longer the (vertical) authority of command, as on the standard picture, but an (horizontal) authority of connection. As we mutually adjust on the basis of equality, we come to know each other better, and may find ourselves, or the space of reasons we inhabit, changed as a result of the interaction. On the standard view (and in much university philosophizing) we aspire to decisiveness, and typically attempt to assemble a set of reasons, which cannot reasonably be rejected. If I am successful in this, your rejection of my view is evidence of your unreasonableness; whereas, on the social picture, the aim of decisiveness is abandoned and replaced by an openness to be changed by rejection of the other. The norm of equality demands of me that I trust my interlocutor and not demote them to the status of unreasonable when he or she fails to accept my position as decisive. Reasoning on the social picture is a form of reciprocal answerability. In this way we do not merely inhabit a shared space, but we have built it together. Laden writes: According to the standard picture, it is because the space of reasons has a fixed, objective structure that we can all enter and it is thus public. According to the social picture, it is the public nature of the activity of reasoning that gives rise to a stable and formally structures space that we can inhabit together (Laden, 2012: 17, footnote 12).

Aiming at decisiveness, the standard view of reasoning typically assumes the universality of reasons. Thus my knock-down argument for metaphysical realism is meant to show your philosophical idealism is mistaken. On Laden's social picture, universality is no longer understood as “objectively valid for all”, but rather as “speaking for all”, as an extension of the plural subject, the ‘we’, that each interlocutor is speaking for. My claim and my reasons for my claim are offered to you to accept as well; I invite you to accept my claim and my reasons as also speaking for you. While you may refuse, your reasons for doing so are also offered as speaking for me. It is this plural subject that puts the social in social reasoning. Invitations, unlike monological arguments aspiring to universality or decisiveness, are essentially social entities. Moreover, universality is not jettisoned on the social picture, but is simply reconceived as maximal inclusivity of the underlying plural subject, rather than maximal generality of the reasons considered in themselves.

But Is It Philosophy?

175

Implications for facilitation The conversations that take place at public participatory philosophy are prima facie attempts at reasoning as conceived by the social picture. It is also true, however, that those conversations generally fail to live up to the norms that frame that conception. Where they do fall short, the social picture supports clear and potentially helpful recommendations on how to improve. By contrast, Café Philosophy conversations fail in all of the criteria laid down by the standard theory. They are not end-directed, nor episodic in the relevant sense, and they did not aspire to decisiveness. They rarely involve ‘calculating, deducing, [or] problem-solving’. As conversations, of course, they are essentially social, and so not ‘fundamentally individual’, in the sense Laden carefully lays out. But if they are social by nature, they just as clearly fail to be as engaged and socially responsive as the social picture demands; from that angle our Café conversations often were too individualistic, too much a platform for uncritical individual self-display. Yet in failing to live up to the ideal norms of the social picture, we can see how to go about improving in the direction of greater reason and deeper philosophy. By contrast, there is no recovery from failure to meet the demands of the standard picture. We began, stayed and remain beyond that pale. A neutral observer of public participatory philosophy might well describe Café Philosophy as Laden describes reason on the social picture, in terms of ‘the responsive engagement with others as we attune ourselves to one another and the world around us’ (Laden, 2012: 8). In an essay for participants on wisdom (reprised in Picard, 2014), I argued that there was indeed learning at our events, not so much about the topic, but about each other, about the community. Nevertheless, the coincidence with Laden's words is more or less semantic accident; for, whatever might have been true of our conversations, it was not what Laden means by ‘responsive engagement’ and ‘attunement’. That is evident when one contemplates the basic gesture of that responsiveness and attunement and reasoning, namely, reciprocal invitations to speak for each other. This we did not do at Café Philosophy, nor has this been an express goal in my facilitation since those sessions ended. Of course, to recommend one's own example or tout one's own stance, broadly construed, is an invitation to others to accept what one says. Perhaps all recommendations are invitations; but they are not all sincere invitations. Nor are they necessarily intelligible in the sense of Laden's norm. Self-display (or the soap-box problem) and recommendation of oneself as an example for others, is hardly the sort of reciprocal invitation Laden had in mind. In asserting ourselves and our

176

X

own views, we may have invited recognition by others, but we did not invite others to accept what we say as speaking for them as well. There is no reciprocity here. We shared opinions, not the vulnerability of relationship. If, as Laden contends, the ‘value of reasoning is that it allows us to build truly reciprocal and thus shared relationships to one another, to live together and not merely side-by-side’ (Laden, 2012: 20), then it must be said that there was in the end very little value to our reasoning, by which we risked and built nothing together, and that we remained merely side-by-side. In my experience, we are not, in public participatory philosophy, reciprocally answerable to each other. To the extent that we are not speaking for others, we do not have to honestly speak for ourselves. Sincerity suffers without accountability. If I am speaking for myself, I am safe. If I say what seems to me, I am insulated from scrutiny and cannot be refuted, for seeming is private. But if what I say must ideally speak for you as well, then I am vulnerable to the dangers of correction and of having to learn to see something with new eyes. Thus the social picture of reasoning, unlike deductive argument, offers a logic of discovery. Vulnerability was missing at Café Philosophy — we were not liable to be changed by what others said. At times, in relations to certain individuals, the collective stance of refusal to entertain what that person was saying was as palpable as it was routine. When that happens, what they say makes no difference to what is said next. On the social picture, this fact condemns what took place as unreason. We may have often been touched, but rarely moved, by what others said, in the sense that our positions shifted. This failure to speak for the other is a violation too of the norm of good faith. We recognized lack of coincidence of reasons, but there was no obligation to speak for others or retract/adjust what we said in the search for something to say together. Indeed such an obligation makes little sense in a context where individuals are assumed to be speaking their own unique truth, and differences are meant to be celebrated, not overcome. All-too-Canadian perhaps, at times we even apologized to each other for our private position, excusing the others to go on maintaining their own inscrutable viewpoint, despite what we say being so for ourselves. On Laden's social picture of reason, things look different. If all reasons are we-reasons, then it must be the job of the facilitator to call out, rule out and weed out all I-reasons, all private or idiosyncratic justifications. In other words, higher standards of mutual intelligibility are also required. We were often content to observe that we live in different constructed spaces, and infrequently sought to construct shared reasons together. We

But Is It Philosophy?

177

cannot enjoy the fruit of a shared construction when we are content to share that we have our own constructions. There is no side-by-side engagement. How can I sincerely speak for others when it is not my place to do so? And how can public participatory philosophy be a place we must speak for others while welcoming people in to speak for themselves? These questions pose problems for facilitation. How can we welcome people to be vulnerable? If more vulnerability is required, if we need more skin in the game, we run a risk of reducing our public interest by increasing conversational quality. Laden's social picture would seem to predict otherwise. On his theory, moves that enhance trust and good faith should enhance reasoning. This is an empirical question deserving further research. The norm of equality prevailed at Café Philosophy, but in the end I complained that participants were too dependent on me to philosophize (see Appendix). We welcomed one and all, but lacked cultural diversity and skewed to the elderly; thus we were evidently not as welcoming as we could be. If equality is a virtue, we were not vicious, but fell short of excellence. The norm of equality as conceived on the social picture of reasons places far greater demands on conversations than we ever aimed at. But it seems reasonable to hypothesize that facilitation-induced changes that enhance good faith and reciprocity would increase equality. At Café Philosophy, participants were not in fact answerable to each other. We were not in general offering to speak for each other. Put differently, but equivalently, there was no plural subject. Thus it was impossible to be moved by what others say, in the sense of a responsive adjusting of one’s stance within a shared space of reasons. As a facilitator, I did not seek to establish, maintain or deepen the ‘we’ for which each of us needed to offer to speak. Someone who ‘merely articulates his own position without regard to how that informs the shape of some plural subject’ may well be reasoning on the standard picture, but is decidedly not doing so on the social picture. It is up to the facilitator to bring isolated subjects and their reasons back to the plural subject that is in the room (or beyond it), to lead the conversation in the direction of attunement, and to guide participants to ground the authority of what they say in the connection amongst those present. The facilitator needs to focus not only on the changing shape of the space of reasons collectively inhabited, but also to ensure those who live there are doing so freely, without sacrificing or silencing those aspects of self that do not fit neatly into that space.

178

X

Some of these self-critiques articulate the doubts I had at the time in an unexpected language (see Appendix). That language also points new ways forward not suggested by those contemporary doubts. The critical questions are these: Does public participatory philosophy generate relationship value? Does it build together spaces of reasons we can inhabit together? Are we sharing anything beyond the experience and our time? Are we inviting others to join us in our stance while remaining reciprocally answerable to those others? Are we as vulnerable to each other as that demands? Are we not only or at most touched, but also and at last moved? What must facilitation be like to achieve such goals? Further work is necessary to sort out the full implications for facilitation at public participatory philosophy. A few general recommendations emerge here and appear in the Table 1.1 below. Table 1.1. Aims and Values for Facilitators: • Ensure participants start with statements they can stand behind, then subject their reasons to the scrutiny of others. • Treat contributions as invitations to others to accept, and solicit others to accept or account for rejection; return to the first participant to accept or reject or adjust in turn. • Seek ‘we’-reasons; police and eliminate idiosyncratic reasoning and all ‘I"’-reasons; bring isolated individuals together into plural subjects. • Seek to establish, maintain or deepen the ‘we’ for which each contributor needs to offer to speak. • Check in with others regarding intelligibility of speaker's claims. • Verify participants have understood what is meant by words, not just what words mean. • Ensure responsiveness by holding speakers to claims and refutations and by promoting extended interactions to allow for adjustments and attunement. • Enhance trust to manage participant vulnerability while maintaining welcoming climate for the public. • Aim explicitly at constructing a shared space of reasons and double check that some participants are not silenced into sharing.

The foregoing discussion of public participatory philosophy has highlighted several critical questions for facilitation methodology, and from these now emerge several lessons for facilitators who aim to increase the depth of reason at public participatory philosophy dialogues. Related empirical questions and theory-driven hypotheses have also been formulated. The lessons are formulated here as values or aims to be

But Is It Philosophy?

179

realized through the dialogue. Future critical theoretical and empirical research as well as many failed practical attempts will be necessary before these broad aims can be honed into teachable concrete facilitation techniques.

Appendix The document below was produced as part of a change process undertaken at Cafe Philosophy in response to perceived reduction in conversational quality. It is included here to document and illustrate some of the practical difficulties encountered, as well as initial (though ultimately failed) attempts to address those difficulties. It is argued above that the social picture of reasoning better accommodates both the problems and the prospects of public participatory philosophy.

The Grand Council has convened twice, and speculated alternative futures, imagined concrete changes. Much has been set in motion, and rest is not foreseen. But dimly, despite the din and clamour, new contours are emerging, new desiderata discerned. Café Philosophy will continue to be public participatory philosophy, street-level dialogue on topics of general interest, a blend of community and intellect. But it also needs to bust out of its rut, set out on new paths, attract a more diverse following, and challenge itself and society. If the itch of philosophy is to be truly felt, our comfort and complacency will have to be sacrificed. This requires a wholesale re-creation of our weekly causerie, and a destruction of old and untoward habits of thought. Café Philosophy has become too idle, too shallow, too bland, too dependent on me. It must become more relevant, more philosophical, more diverse and more autonomous. These four are the criteria for change I have in mind. Café Philosophy will become more relevant by turning our collective capacity to inquire into timely controversies alive today locally and globally. We will explore the philosophical aspects of real issues, framed to highlight divisions in our society and aimed at bringing those divisions together. Relevance will be achieved by choosing gripping issues known to society at large, but also by concerted and organized efforts to get spokespeople from divergent but invested perspectives to attend. This includes experts and academics, but also cultural and religious voices as well. The plan is to entice a pluralistic smattering of informed voices to participate in dialogue with members of the public who show up on a Wednesday to participate. But Café Philosophy should never become a panel discussion, or a subservient question-and-answer session with an

180

X

elevated body of perfected experts possessed of and dispensing technical information. I will use important and divisive controversies to draw out invested interests on all sides who are prepared to appear in public and — like their counterparts on other sides of the argument— dialogue with us on equal footing with members of public who are participants at Café Philosophy. Café Philosophy will remain a circle conversation with roving wireless mic. On the other hand, perhaps we have gone too far and too comfortably into social embrace. The spirit of philosophy is also a critical spirit, an independent thinking through of things, an insistent doubt. Too easily we read/watch the news or government officials or credentialed experts and nod along agreeably, letting politeness spoil logic. Have we lost the art of disassembling an opponent’s argument with grace and without making it personal? Can we defend each other's right to contradict each other, without abandoning our cherished, though unshared, beliefs? And equally we must ask: can we hear our own ideas dismissed as rubbish without taking it as a personal attack (for I am not, in the end, my ideas). A cadre of critical listeners, adopting impartial attitudes, will offer polite but logically instructive commentary, maintaining positional neutrality while improving the local acumen of philosophers-in-training. Outside training for participation on this bench of non-judgment is being arranged, but work is still at a dream-like stage. To become more philosophical, Café Philosophy must adopt a critical as well as a reconciliatory style. We must not accept anything at face value, but nor may we hold our differences at bay. We must come together despite our differences, and not rest content with a bland comfort zone where anything goes. But in order that differences may come together, they must at least come. Diversity of culture, education, discipline, and style must be asked to come out to topics they can identify as their own. A small number of broad themes will be set for the fall season, each theme covering a handful of questions, enabling consecutive and deeper treatments of subjects. Participants will also have more time to read and process divergent topic-related information that will appear on the caféphilosophy.com website in the topic schedule, gathered by invitees and others with energy to spare. This information will reflect a diversity of perspective, not a songsheet of facts from which we must all sing. And just when you are thinking that only a brave or foolhardy wizard could facilitate such an event, I want to emphasize once more that facilitation is henceforth open for all or part of the evening. Skills of

But Is It Philosophy?

181

facilitation will be added to those of critical listening and logical analysis to the competency set at Café Philosophy, which will then demonstrably be a training ground for philosophy in addition to a great place to get a cup of coffee. ‘If the old temple of Café Philosophy must be destroyed, let a new temple be erected in its place’.

References Gardner, Susan T. (2011). 'Teaching Children to Think Ethically'. Analytic Teaching and Philosophical Praxis 32, 2: 75-81. Laden, Anthony Simon (2012). Reasoning: A Social Picture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —. (2012b). 'Taking the Engagement in Civic Engagement Seriously', (internet) available at http://www.uic.edu/cuppa/ipce/interior/TakingCivicEngagementSeriou slyFinalFY12.pdf (viewed 15 November, 2014). Picard, Michael (2007). This is Not a Book: Adventures in Popular Philosophy. London: Quid. —. (2012). Philosophy: Adventures in Thought and Reasoning. Revised and expanded edition of This is Not a Book (2007). New York: Metro. —. (2014). Philosophy A to Z: Essays for Café Philosophy. LeanPub.com —. (2015). Contrariwise: Conceptual Tensions in Everyday Life. LeanPub.com Sautet, Marc (1995). Un café pour Socrate: Comment la philosophie peut nous aider à comprendre le monde d'aujourdh'hui. Paris: Robert Laffont. Turgeon, Wendy C. (2011). ‘The Place of ‘Philosophy’ in Preparing Teachers to Teach Pre-college Philosophy—Notes for a Conversation’. Analytic Teaching and Philosophical Praxis 32, 2: 68-74. Weber, Barbara (2008). ‘J. Habermas and the Art of Dialogue: The Practicability of the Ideal Speech Situation’. Analytic Teaching 28, 1: 1-8. Weber, Barbara and Gardner, Susan (2009). ‘‘Back to the Future’ in Philosophical Dialogue: A plea for changing P4C Teacher Education’. Analytic Teaching and Philosophical Praxis 29, 1: 25-31. Wosk, Yosef (2013). Recorded audio interview of Yosef Wosk on SFU's Philosophers' Cafe Program, conducted by Mano Daniel and Michael Picard. Unpublished.

XI PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE IN JAPAN TETSUYA KONO

Introduction In this paper, I would like to give a summary report on the current situation of philosophical practice in Japan. Philosophy for/with children and philosophy café are two of the most popular forms of philosophical practice in Japan. However, I would like to point out that science café can be a form of philosophical practice when organized by philosophers in collaboration with scientists. I will first describe the history and circumstance of these two forms: philosophy for/with children and philosophy café. Later, I would like to focus particularly on the practice of philosophy café in Tǀhoku (North-eastern) region of Japan, which has been explosively active since the earthquake and tsunami disaster on March 11, 2011. Finally, I shall introduce Toshio Kuwako’s unique and important philosophical practice named Dangi, which is a Japanese word signifying ‘collective argumentation’ or ‘rational discussion’. Kuwako, a professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology, and his colleagues have conducted philosophical dialogue meetings for 15 years aimed at consensus-building in areas where political, economic, and cultural conflicts, in particular the conflicts concerning local environmental issues, have been prominent. First, however, I shall introduce the concept of philosophical practice.

Philosophical practice and its late introduction in Japan Philosophical practice means, broadly, a contemporary movement in practical philosophy, which provides guidance and information to help people lead a better, examined life through dialogue. According to the web page of the Society for Philosophy in Practice, the typical application of philosophical practice includes philosophical consultancy, Socratic dialogue, guided inquiry, including philosophy for/with children, decision-

Philosophical Practice in Japan

183

making, business ethics, philosophical interventions in organizations, and philosophical counselling (‘Society for Philosophy in Practice’, 2015). The clients of philosophical practice are individuals, groups, and organizations, including companies. Socratic dialogue has been a major method of philosophy since ancient Greece and Rome, but has periodically declined in importance. Its revival as a movement was initiated by the German pedagogue and politically engaged philosopher at the University of Göttingen Leonard Nelson (1882௅1927). Nelson used Socratic dialogue as a method both for philosophizing and for teaching philosophy during the 1920s. Nelson’s practice of Socratic dialogue is characterized as a collective endeavour to pursue truth through dialogue (Nelson, 1949; Ota, 2012; Terada, 2001; 2002). The aim of Nelson’s method is binary: to deepen the understanding of a philosophical theme, and to develop the participants’ ability to think by themselves. The basic characters of the Socratic dialogue can be summarized as follows: ࣭ All the participants speak out their own thought, not an opinion based on authority. ࣭ The theme is gradually abstracted from a concrete experience. The dialogue usually starts from the examination of specific examples based on personal experiences. ࣭ The dialogue has priority over agreement among the participants. ࣭ With cooperation by all participants, the dialogue advances stepby-step. ࣭ An opinion, inference, and/or question proposed in the course of dialogue are examined consistently throughout the dialogue. ࣭ All participants jointly make efforts to reach a judgment that all can agree on. It seems that all forms of philosophical practice such as philosophical consultancy, philosophy for/with children, philosophical interventions in organizations, and so on inherit most of the characteristics of Nelson’s Socratic dialogue, in spite of the differences in their actual method of practice. Early in the 1980s Gerd B. Achenbach first founded a private practice in the suburb of Cologne and gave people private consultations about the problems and questions in their lives. Achenbach’s approach is called ‘philosophical counselling’. The term ‘philosophical practice’ in the

184

XI

narrow sense is identified with ‘philosophical counselling’. Nevertheless, it is neither psychotherapeutic nor medical in nature, since the purpose of Achenbach’s practice has been to support a person’s use of philosophy to develop their own thinking about their issues. His ideas and method have spread in Europe and other regions of the world after the mid-1980s. At present, a number of professional societies or associations for philosophical practice are active in various countries, including the German society, the International Society for Philosophical Practice, and those in Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Israel, Italy, Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK, the United States, and so on. However, the introduction of philosophical practice to Japan was very late. Even today there is no official, professional society for philosophical counselling in Japan. I have never heard of anyone practicing philosophical consultancy or philosophical counselling for individuals in Japan. It is well known in the areas of business ethics, nursing ethics and engineering ethics that dialogue about relevant issues with stakeholders and outside of the organization has remarkable effects on bringing about morally sounder decision-making and making the organization more ethical (Araragi and Kono, 2007; Fudano, 2009). However, Japanese researchers in these domains of applied ethics did not realize for a long time that philosophical dialogue can be applied to business matters such as decision-making, interventions in organizations, and leadership issues. Some philosophers and ethicists, as well as business people, have just begun to realize the efficacy of philosophical dialogue for businesses and are trying to introduce it into companies as means for ethics education, leadership training and personal consultation. Thus, philosophical consultancy, philosophical counselling and philosophical dialogue for businesses are not yet developed in Japan. Instead, two forms of philosophical practice are becoming popular: philosophy café and philosophy for/with children. A simplified version of Socratic dialogue is often used as a method in philosophy café and philosophy for/with children. I will explain the history and present activities pertaining to philosophy café in section four. I will briefly explain the present conditions with regard to philosophy for/with children in the next section.

Philosophical Practice in Japan

185

Philosophy for/with children Philosophy for children was founded by Matthew Lipman, who established the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children at Montclair State College in 1972, in order to help children learn how to think for themselves (Lipman et. al., 1980; 2003). According to Lipman, philosophy is not a purely intellectual pursuit. Philosophical inquiry is also meant to explore the ethical, political and aesthetic dimensions of one’s experience and to improve judgments and action within these dimensions. Therefore, philosophy education should develop not only children’s ability to think critically and creatively, but also their caring and sympathetic attitude towards people, life, and objects in the world. Lipman emphasized the crucial role of ‘a community of inquiry’ for philosophy education, since authentic critical and creative thinking with a caring attitude grows only in collaboration with others. The idea of a ‘community of inquiry’ was first introduced by C. S. Peirce and subsequently developed and broadened by John Dewey. Lipman applied the idea of a community of inquiry to school education as a method for dialogical and reflective pursuit of the truth. Lipman’s educational ideas and method came to be called ‘P4C: philosophy for/with children’. Now, P4C has spread out all over the world. Although Lipman started P4C in the early 1970s and the International Council of Philosophical Inquiry with Children (ICPIC) was established already in 1985, Japanese philosophers and teachers had not been interested in engaging with the idea of practical philosophy education for a long time. It was Kiyokazu Washida and his colleagues at the Department of Clinical Philosophy at Osaka University who first introduced P4C. Washida is one of the most famous philosophers and phenomenologists in Japan; his essay-style philosophical books are full of vivid sensitivity and heuristic perspectives, enabling the reader to see ordinary things in a different way. Washida’s work is held in high regard in Japan. Washida and his colleagues established the Department of Clinical Philosophy in 1998, for the purpose of making philosophy in the university more practical and with a view of applying it to problems of everyday life. The attendance by professors and graduate students of the department at the international conference on philosophical practice in 1999 encouraged them to pursue the practice and the theoretical investigation of P4C. The department started a philosophy class at a public school in the Osaka area in 2001, and at a private school in Kyoto in 2002. A philosophy class using a genuine philosophy for children method was held at a public

186

XI

elementary school in Nishinomiya, the Hyogo prefecture, and has continued to be practiced ever since. Around the same time, some other professors and teachers were paying attention to P4C also in the Kansai areas such as Osaka and Hyogo. Some professors focused on P4C as a means of citizenship education, and provided dialogue-based classes inspired by P4C at an adjunct junior high school. The Department of Clinical Philosophy of Osaka University invited Gareth Matthews and Tim Sprod to give lectures, workshops, and exhibition classes in schools in 2004. The influence of the ideas and method of Thomas Jackson, Professor at the University of Hawaii, was also considerable for the Osaka group. Jackson’s ‘Hawaiian’ method emphasized the community-making process in P4C, as well as on the facilitation of caring and sympathetic attitudes in children. The pupils and students of our society often need help to gain self-confidence, selfaffirmation, trust, mutual respect, engage in an emotional connectedness with others, and to develop a sense of being accepted in society, along with the will to contribute to society. The education for ‘curing’ these problems must take place before developing their intellectual abilities, such as critical and creative thinking, since the emotional, affective dimensions are the fundamental basis for any intellectual development and children’s motivation to learn. Many practitioners of P4C, including myself, have realized that creating a community of inquiry in the classroom reliably contributes to the development of children’s caring attitudes, mutual respect, and a sense of community. Following the pioneering practice of P4C in the Kansai area, some schools in the Tokyo area introduced P4C classes over the past several years. At present there are a couple of private schools in the Tokyo area, which offer P4C as a regular course. P4C is included in their curriculum as a subject for first- and third-year students. In each school, the conductor of the class is not a regular schoolteacher but a visiting instructor who is experienced in P4C. The professors of some universities in Tokyo, such as the University of Tokyo, Rikkyo University and Sophia University organize symposiums and workshops for those who wish to practice P4C; many teachers, parents, and graduate students come to participate in such workshops. The professors and graduate students of the relevant universities are also often invited to public primary and secondary schools to offer special classes in philosophy education. The classes are often for one or two times only, usually as a special unit within the curriculum on literature, social studies, moral education, or science.

Philosophical Practice in Japan

187

I myself have conducted P4C classes in primary and secondary schools in the Tokyo area. I normally organize the class through the following steps: (i) decide the theme for the dialogue then formulate the philosophical question about the theme, (ii) conduct small group (4௅6 persons) discussions and (iii) discussion by the whole class. The general themes which children tend to select are not too different from those adults would: i.e. they wish to talk about the meaning of life and issues such as happiness, death, friendship, human relations, emotions, morality, rules, etc. However, there is significant difference between the specific topics which children choose and those of adults: children show a strong interest in questions of epistemology, ontology, cosmology, and anthropology, such as ‘What is there outside the universe?’, ‘What is time?’, ‘Does the universe have a purpose?’, and ‘What is the essence of human beings?’. Children are more philosophical than adults. From my own practice and experience, I can say that children are generally able to participate in philosophical dialogue and think creatively and critically about virtually any theme. However, philosophical thinking is more than just critical and creative thinking. It is a practice of knowing oneself, examining one’s own opinions and values. It is also a practice of knowing the difference between oneself and others, the otherness of others, and respecting others’ different opinions and values. These aspects of thinking have an important ethical meaning. This latter aspect of philosophical thinking is more important for moral education than the former, because children learn thorough the experience of discussion and the dialogical process brings solidarity to the group and, by extension, to the community. The dialogue facilitates the attitude of mutual respect and self-esteem at the same time. It is important, however, to emphasize that dialogue is for expressing opinions, and is not predicated upon finding a one ‘true’ answer. Almost all children enjoy participating in philosophical dialogues. They report that ‘It is interesting to discuss a theme where there is no definite answer’, or ‘to listen to others’ opinions that are different from one’s own’. Equally they say that it is ‘interesting to express one’s opinion freely’ And ‘know that their friends have unexpected opinions’. They find ‘responding to others’ questions and objections difficult, but interesting’. In this new movement in Japan, P4C is introduced mainly in private schools; moreover, the central actors of this movement are philosophy researchers, not schoolteachers. There are a few cases where P4C is

188

XI

introduced into a public school following initiative by teachers, and in some primary and secondary schools teachers are starting to adopt P4C within the subject of social studies. The translations of theoretical books and textbooks dealing with philosophical practice and philosophical dialogue have also increased. Some major works by Lipman and Gareth B. Matthews have been published (Lipman, 2003; 2013; Matthews, 1980; 1983; 1987), and many textbooks or manuals by Oscar Brenifier (2004; 2006) and Brigitte Labbé (2000; 2004) have received a high reputation. Japanese philosophers of education have published theoretical or introductory books in the field (Morita, 2011; Kono, 2014). Considerable philosophy readings for adolescents have been produced by Japanese philosophers (Nagai, 1996; Ikeda, 2003), which can be used as materials for P4C. Kiyotaka Naoe and Mitsugu Ochi (2012) have recently published a series of textbooks for ethics classes in high schools, which are organized so to be used for class discussion and debate. Despite the rising popularity of P4C, the Japanese public education system still sticks to the authoritarian teaching style of knowledge transmission; its ethical or moral education is not far from value indoctrination with no reflective or critical thinking. Thus, many Japanese parents, especially younger parents with younger children, are realizing that a new education which P4C offers places far more importance on thinking and communication, skills which they perceive as necessary for their children far more now than was the case in the past. They also see that philosophical dialogue facilitates the cultivation of such abilities. They also realise that dialogues and a critical, reflective thinking are necessary not only for their children’s personal development, but also for creating a better democratic society in a globalizing world. Some parents have established non-profit organizations that practice P4C outside of schools.

Philosophy café and science café in Japan Another popular form of philosophical practice is philosophy café. Marc Sautet (1947௅1998) founded Café philosophique in Paris in 1992 as a forum for philosophical discussion. Sautet’s book, Un Café pour Socrate was immediately translated into Japanese (Sautet, 1995; 1996; 1998). Christopher Phillips’s Socrates café was also translated into Japanese in 2003 (Phillips, 2002; 2003). Some introductory and practical books about Philosophy Café have recently been published by Japanese authors (Ogawa, 2011; Matsukawa et. al., 2014).

Philosophical Practice in Japan

189

In 2000, researchers at the Department of Clinical Philosophy of Osaka University held a philosophy café for the first time in Japan. In Osaka, the first regular philosophy café named Jikken Tetsugaku Kafe (Experimental Philosophy Café) was founded in 2001; it is ordinarily held in a restaurant or a café bar in the heart of Osaka city, and has been carried out more than 100 times so far. The themes of the café are mostly questions of ordinary life such as ‘What is the value of life?’, ‘What is freedom?’, ‘Is love still possible?’, ‘Is violence an essence of humans?’, ‘Shame’, ‘Anxiety’, and so on. The year 2005 was an important year for philosophical practice in Japan, as other philosophy cafés were founded then, including Café-Philo, one of the most active cafés in Japan, where graduate students and graduates of Osaka University organize meetings and serve as moderators. As newspapers, TV programs, books, and magazines brought up this new activities called as philosophy café, more people have begun to show their interests, participate in the cafés, and finally some of them have tried to organize the café by themselves first with the help of the experts. Now we have more than 30 groups of regularly held philosophy café in various parts of Japan, i.e. in the 20 prefectures such as Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Chiba, Tokyo, Saitama, Kanagawa, Toyama, Gifu, Shizuoka, Aichi, Mie, Shiga, Osaka, Hyogo, Yamaguchi, Fukuoka, Nagasaki, and Kagoshima. Almost all cafés are held in a large city with more than hundreds of thousands of population. Some of them are organized under the direction of professors of philosophy or ethics or sociology and their graduate students, while others are organized by non-professionals who like philosophy. The most active groups hold their café once a month, others once in two or three months. According to their web site, each café has about from 10 to 30 participants for each session; and the participants change according to the topics selected. Most cafés announce the opening and call for participants on the website, often using social networking services like Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites. The venue is often a restaurant, coffee shop, café-bar, a room in a public hall or a community centre, and sometimes in a university. The theme of respective cafés are also varied; most of them are related with the questions in the way of life and moral issues such as meaning of life, death, happiness, health, freedom, love and friendship, family, human relations in workplace, control of emotions, moral behaviours, rules and laws, self- identity, self-determination, autonomy and independence, gender and sexuality, marriage and divorce, suicide, education and school problem, work and profession, money, retirement, and recent news topics. Seen from the website of those philosophy cafés, some cafés like to treat

190

XI

topics from political or social philosophy, while it is relatively rare that the issues concerning epistemology, ontology, cosmology, and language are selected as a topic, although they are favourite topics for children. The method and the way of discussing in the cafés are various and different according to the organizers: in some cafés, they practice Neo Socratic Dialogue, often in its simplified version; they discuss to find consensus on some topic through the examination of the concrete experience of participants. In other cafés, they invite a philosopher to give a talk on a topic and then start to discuss about it with all participants. In some cases, they read a requested book or a paper in advance, and decide the theme of dialogue about it. In other cases, the organizer gathers the participants without proposing any theme and a theme is decided by the participants. Some cafés continue to treat the same topic; others change the topic each time. Some practitioners, in collaboration with artists, dancers, actors and actresses, curators of museum, and movies theatres, facilitate philosophical dialogue after participants watch paintings, sculptures, movies, dancing or performing. The participants discuss what they experienced in watching artistic works or performance. The artists, dancers, curators, and performing artists who collaborate with philosophers, themselves enjoy talking with the participants, and can find a new perspective to their own artistic activities. This kind of art-philo café is of course possible also in school education. I think that 2005 is an important year for philosophical practice also because science café began to flourish in this year. Science café is recognized as first organized by Duncan Dallas in Leeds, the UK in 1998, being inspired by Sautet’s Café Philosophique. The aim of science café is not simply to disseminate scientific knowledge or information from scientists to citizens, but to put sciences into a cultural, social, and civic context. Citizens try to understand accurate scientific knowledge about the theme and the specialists of science try to understand the meaning and the influence of their scientific research and technology introduced in the ordinary life of citizens and the society. Therefore, the essence of science café resides in the mutual understanding and the bilateral, interactive communication between scientists and citizens. Science café is distinguished from philosophy café. A science café needs one or more specialists of the topic selected for the café and their scientific knowledge in order to discuss rationally on the basis of the facts, while a

Philosophical Practice in Japan

191

philosophy café does not need any special philosophical knowledge about the topic; rather at the philosophy café, participants and facilitators have to avoid not only showing off the knowledge on the history of philosophy, but also arguing on the basis of the authority. In spite of the differences, science café has been often initiated by philosophers, in particular, specialists of applied ethics. The rapid development of contemporary sciences provokes many ethical and social problems: for example those of brain death, organ transplantation, euthanasia, infertility treatment, surrogate mother, terminal caring in medical science, those of generecombination foods, clone, human body remodelling, in bioscience; those of energy problem, air-water pollution, forest deconstruction, global warming, etc. in environmentalism, those of privacy and information control in information science, and so on. Science café was relatively quickly introduced in Japan after the first science café by Duncan Dallas in the UK. Issues such as the conflict between scientific progress and profit, and the public’s perception that even where there is progress, they public rarely benefit from, has provoked a distrust of sciences of general public. There is arguably an absence both of trust in, and understanding of sciences. This distrust is now so serious in Japan as in other countries that the specialists of science and technology have felt it necessary act by attempting to achieve accountability for citizens in order to regain the trust in sciences and scientists. Tadashi Kobayashi, a specialist of philosophy of science and history of science in Osaka University began to organize some consensus development conferences for technology assessment by citizen participation; there scientists and general public discussed together about the social, political, and ethical meanings of science technology in contemporary society (Kobayashi, 2004; 2007). Hokkaido University made a new program named Communication in Science & Technology Education & Research Program in 2005. The program has the purpose of creating a place where scientists hear the interests and the point of view of general public, and converse with them on even ground as equal partners. Around 2005, many science cafés and consensus development conferences have been held in different places in Japan by ethicists as well as scientists. Science Technology White Paper of the year 2005 pointed out that it is necessary to bring up a person playing a role of bridging a ditch with experts of science-technology and the general public. The next year, in the Science-Technology Week of April 2006, the Science Council of Japan organized science cafés with 21 places all over Japan, and sent its members as topic providers. This project had a significant influence on the

192

XI

further dissemination of science café. I think that we can count science café as a form of philosophical practice in a larger sense when organized by philosophers in collaboration with scientific experts.

Philosophy café in the disaster areas The disaster that befell Tǀhoku region on March 11th 2011 would be memorized as one of the most tragic disasters of the 21st century of Japan. The disaster is threefold: earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima power plant accident. The damage from the earthquake was relatively small, while tsunami triggered by the earthquake was extremely destructive; more than 18,000 people were killed or missed. Any natural disaster is a consequence of human neglect in some aspects; this is also true of the 2011 Tǀhoku disaster (sometimes referred to in the media as ‘The Great East Japan Earthquake)’. The preparations for what would be possibly the biggest tsunami ever (at least in human history) were not enough although the historical records have taught us that over 30 meter tsunami have struck several times at the region in the past (Atomic Energy Society of Japan and Governmental Fukushima Accident Investigation Commission, 2014; Hirokawa, 2011). However, needless to say, the biggest problem to result from the events of March 11th 2011 is the Fukushima nuclear power plant accidents. Tokyo Electronic Power Company (TEPCO) has continued to ignore the opinions of those who had pointed out the danger of a nuclear plant built at the region where big earthquakes are frequent. TEPCO did not take quick measures in response to the disaster, and was too slow and reluctant to share the facts about the actual damage and the possible danger, when damage and danger was discovered. The Japanese government had not prepared a comprehensive crisis management system to be ready for this kind of emergency situations. Some government funded scholars spread excessively optimistic information. Even now polluted underground water still continues to leak out from the subsurface of the plants to the ocean; it will take several decades to decommission a nuclear power plant completely; and it takes hundreds of thousands of years to make radioactive waste free of damage. The regions where nuclear power plants are built are economically depressed and depopulated, and have to depend heavily on subsidies from TEPCO. The accident is the second or third neglect to the economically weak rural area of Tohoku. All sorts of problems of politics, economics, and science

Philosophical Practice in Japan

193

technology in the Japanese society were the factors that contributed in creating the Fukushima crisis. After the disaster, the Japanese people seem to begin to realize that the techno-science and related industries should be democratically governed and over seen by all kinds of stakeholders, and never be left solely to the specialists of science and the government officials. In a democracy, they are, persons should be treated not merely as objects of legislation, as passive subjects to be ruled, but as autonomous agents who take part in the governance of their society. Deliberation is the means by which these democratic agents take part in by presenting and responding to reasons, or by demanding that their representatives do so (Gutmann and Thompson, 2004). The Japanese people now come to realize how philosophical and political arguments about public issues are important for the advancement of democracy, because the fundamental problem of Fukushima accident resides in the lack of argument or deliberation about what to do with the energy and its risks. The recent interest in philosophy café, science café, and even P4C in Japanese society represents the bitter reflection on the danger of the dependence of citizens on the ‘specialists’ and ‘bureaucracy’ and the lack of participative citizenship among Japanese people. Several months after Fukushima accident happened, Japanese philosophers tried to support the people of the disaster areas in their own philosophical ways. The committee of philosophy of the Science Council of Japan has organized an open symposium named ‘The Responsibility of Scientists concerning Nuclear Power Plant Disaster’ on September 18th 2011, where philosophers and ethicists invited the specialists of nuclear power and of radiology in order to discuss the actual insufficiency and the necessity of information supply, accountability, and the risk communication for general public from the side of scientists. At the same, practical philosophers, including our group, have begun to hold philosophy cafés in the disaster areas. The conditions and circumstances of the sufferers of the Tohoku disaster are widely different; they cannot and should not be homogenized, grouped under the same category. For most residents of the northern seafront areas, it was mostly earthquake and tsunami caused problems; their areas are not so seriously affected by the Fukushima accident. For most residents of the inland areas of Fukushima prefecture, the main issue is power plant pollution. Many survivors of March 11th disaster experience multiple problems such as:

194

XI

1. Emotional problems caused by the loss of beloved persons, hometown, home, work, and regional human relationship by the disaster. 2. Problems caused by living as refugees in temporary housing or new house. These problems concern unemployment, housekeeping, insufficient conditions of temporary housing, the difficulties in non-habituated life, education for children, hardship for elder people, and so on. 3. Having no or little clear outlook for the future; the outlook of the future is both personal and regional; it relates to the personal decision whether one moves to a new place or go back to one’s destroyed hometown, as well as to the regional decision whether some towns should be reconstructed or abandoned, how to reconstruct the towns and its industries, and so on. 4. Political and economic conflicts among the local residents in terms of the pursuit and the suits of the responsibility of the disaster and accident, collective claims of the reparation to TEPCO and Japanese government, the reconstruction plan of the disaster local areas. 5. Individual, family, and psychological problems cause by the conditions of 2-4. The aim for practicing philosophy cafés is not to find the solutions for the above mentioned problems; it is naturally impossible for philosophical dialogue only to give solutions to those complex problems as the participants of a philosophy café all have different situations difficulties. However, philosophy café can provide local people and other Japanese with opportunities first to be aware of these problems, to reflect on them collectively, and to suggest possible solutions for each participant. Since the topics of philosophy café are more abstract and its way of discussion is rational and impartial, then people can talk and discuss freely without worrying to fall into political opposition or emotional quarrelling. As far as I know, several regular philosophy cafés, which specialize in the disaster problems, have been held after 2011 in Sendai City in Miyagi Prefecture, Morioka City in Iwate Prefecture, Fukushima City and Minami-Soma City in Fukushima Prefecture. Other philosophy cafés have been held as special events under the direction of some universities or libraries. The group of Osaka University came to Tohoku area to hold cafés many times. One of the most active cafés Kangaeru Teburu (Thinking Table), organized by Sendai Mediateque, has been held more than 40 times from just only some months after the disaster up to now.

Philosophical Practice in Japan

195

The themes of these cafés in the disaster areas are, for example ‘What does it mean to live in the disaster area?’, ‘Disaster and native place’, ‘What is “reconstruction”?’, ‘Who are the victims of the disaster?’, ‘What must we know about radioactivity?’, ‘Earthquake and nursing’, ‘What is “support”?’, ‘Disaster and education’, ‘What does it mean to record and describe the disaster?’, ‘What is human bond?’, ‘Disaster and foods’, ‘Energy problem’, and ‘Discrimination’. They sometimes used movies or literatures as materials for dialogue. My colleague and I have organized philosophy cafés a couple of times in Iwaki City in Fukushima Prefecture in collaboration with Iwaki City Library. Iwaki city is located in the southern part of the coastal region of Fukushima Prefecture. Iwaki has relatively not been so damaged from the earthquake and Tsunami, but some part of it is designated as an evacuated zone from radioactivity pollution. A large number of people took refuge from the evacuated zone of Iwaki city and are living in the non-evacuated zone in Iwaki city. The venue of the café, Iwaki City Central Library, is also located in the non-evacuated zone. On December 22nd 2012, I held a philosophy café in a conference room of the Central Library. The theme was ‘Thinking about our life and society after the disaster’. The conditions of the participants were very different; some were refugees from the evacuated zone, while others were residents of the non-evacuated zone, which accepted many refugees. I cannot summarize the complex context of the two-hour talk with 20 people, but one thing that my colleagues from Tokyo and I were interested in was the difference of the opinion about the future outlook of the evacuated zone between the elder participants and the younger. Elders maintain that they should abandon their hometown, especially the younger generation, in order to start a new life in a new place while the younger participants expressed their hope to reconstruct and go back to their hometown. I don’t know if this is a general tendency of refugees anywhere or merely a special, accidental case by the participants for this time. My colleagues have held a philosophy café also in Iwaki this year (2014) on the occasion of campus festival of Iwaki Meisei University. Thirty people, students and graduates from the University, and Iwaki citizens participated in the dialogue, whereas 20 people were just watching the café from outside, including about 10 primary and mediate school students. The theme was ‘What is the area where it is easy to live in?’ They used a simplified Neo Socratic Dialogue as a method, starting from listening to several participants’ concrete experiences, and then categorizing and analysing them in order to find the common features or similar structure.

196

XI

The dialogue clarified the important factors for ‘the area where it is easy to live in’ are reassurance, safety, and room (or margin) in life, and hope for change and progress. The third factor, room in life, which some refugees pointed out with voices together, is what lacks in their life in their temporary housing. The ‘room in life’ means the things, deed, time and space which are apparently unnecessary, superfluous, or redundant, but without which life becomes embarrassing and depressive. They conclude that the area where we have room and hope is the comfortable place to live in. My colleagues continue to practice philosophy cafés twice every year in this area, Iwaki.

Dangi and regional revitalization Lastly, I would like to focus on a very unique practice of philosophical dialogue, named as ‘collective argumentation (Dangi)’. Toshio Kuwako, Professor at the Department of Value and Decision Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, has been involved in this practice for 15 years after 2000. Kuwako started his academic career as a specialist of Ancient Geek philosophy, and then came to be interested in the comparative study on western, Chinese, and Japanese philosophy. After 1999, he began to develop his own philosophy of environment, of space, and of landscape, which is based on the previous research on philosophy. At the same time, he started to research on the participatory forms of social consensus building, and to engage himself in the practice of consensus building in local areas where the problems rise such as environmental preservation, building social infrastructure, making local commons, and revitalizing local communities. Engagement in consensus building is for Kuwako the practical syntheses of the philosophy of environment and the theoretical research on consensus building. There are various oppositions and conflicts in modern society; the various factors of nation, race, culture, and religion are entwined in the oppositions. Kuwako observes that the oppositions between the administration and the citizens over the public enterprise occur so often in Japan. Therefore, the theoretical framework and the practical method and skills to solve such oppositions and obtain agreement are urgently needed. However, Kuwako points out that the agreement about the issues concerning environmental preservation, building social infrastructure, revitalizing local communities, and so on must not be the mere consensus between particular interest parties or stakeholders, but that between the

Philosophical Practice in Japan

197

unspecified numbers of people. Both the process and the result of consensus building must be open and transparent to the larger society and general public. Kuwako affirms that consensus building is also a process to create alternative solutions in considering the reasons behind the opposing opinions in disputes and conflicts (Kuwako, 2005; 2013). This is the way the process of consensus building needs philosophical dialogue that Kuwako named as ‘collective argumentation’ (Dangi). Collective argumentation is impartial, rational and creative process of dialogue, which is open to all people who are concerned with the issue. The role that Kuwako takes in a collective argumentation is very close to that of the facilitator of a philosophy café: he never leads the argument by himself, but simply poses questions, demands more explanation from utterers, and mediates the dialogue between participants. From the beginning of 21st century, Kuwako has engaged himself in a number of consensus building processes between various stakeholders in a locale where environmental conservation or social infrastructure maintenance is currently at issue. He has also given advice and lectures to the committee of the national administration or the local government as well as to citizen groups, NGO, and NPO, which concern environmental issues. He has been involved in many governmental, local governmental, and citizen-led projects as an advisor, a moderator, or a supervisor, for example, the control and maintenance project of Kizu River in Kyoto Prefecture, and Jyobaru River in Ibaraki Prefecture, natural environmental renovation project of Tenno River of Sado Island in Nigata Prefecture, and Hentona River, in Okinawa Prefecture, coast maintenance of Miyazaki Prefecture, renovation plan of the main gate street of Izumo-taisha Shrine in Shimane Prefecture, forest preservation zoning plan in Kunigami in Okinawa Prefecture, agriculture promotion project in Yamanouchi in Nagano Prefecture, landscape improvement plan in Nishi-Shioda in Nagano Prefecture. He also gave support and advice for revitalization of the area to the citizen groups in Nagano, Miyazaki, Fukuoka, and so on. The most well-known contribution of Kuwako to environmental issues is the consensus between local residents and the environmentalists on the project to settle Japanese crested ibises or toki in the wild in Sado Island. In 1981, last Japanese wild toki, a natural monument in Japan, was found dead in Sado. Sado used to be the habitat of a great number of them. Japanese government and natural environmentalists have tried to settle toki in the wild of Sado Island, but a group of local residents opposed to the project, since toki is a very harmful bird for agriculture and fisheries. Kuwako conducted a research project to find an adequate plan of where

198

XI

and how to set birds free in the wild which is compatible with farming and fishery through thorough discussions with the local stakeholders, and finally proposed the consensus obtained to the Ministry of Environment. Thorough the experience of these practices, Kuwako affirms that the process of consensus building should contain an integrated understanding of the structure and the history of the place, human relations, and the structure of problems including the relations between people’s concerns and interests in the locale concerned. In order to solve environmental problems of a particular locale, it is necessary to draw up the historical profile of the locale. For example, Kuwako’s role in the renovation project of Tenno River in Sado Island, started from March 2008, was to give advice to the whole project, to mediate and facilitate the discussion meeting of civic stakeholders, and to report the result of the discussion by citizens to the administrative committee consisting of experts. At the meeting of civic stakeholders, the following rules are decided by discussion: 1. The prefecture advances the project following the argument and the agreement of the discussion meeting 2. The meeting is a place of dialogue where anyone can participate and speak freely. 3. We discuss together about the local future in a constructive way. 4. We accept various opinions from a wide range of local people and reflect them in the argument of the meeting. 5. We accept the advice from the experts and reflect them in the argument of the meeting. These rules show that collective argumentation (Dangi) that Kuwako has lead for the consensus building for regional issues is rather close to science café than philosophy café. Generally speaking, philosophy cafés is not to attain a particular goal such as a consensus or a decision; the goal of philosophy café is to enjoy the process of dialogue itself and deepen the thinking about the topic. Although Kuwako’s collective argumentation has been used to build a consensus, I think that it can still be called a kind of philosophical dialogue because of the following several reasons: collective argumentation does not have a prior conclusion to be reached; it is not a closed talk between particular stakeholders but an open discussion to general public; it makes more importance on the process and procedure of

Philosophical Practice in Japan

199

the discussion than a hasty conclusion; the rationality in the argument is observed by the third persons who are unrelated to the related profit, i.e. Kuwako and its colleagues; its aim is not to make a compromise between conflicting groups, but to create a solution in reframing the conflicts and finding deeper, fundamental values which all stakeholder share. The reason why philosophical dialogue can settle the oppositions in local conflicts is the same as the story that we saw in the philosophy café in the disaster areas: philosophy dialogue treats the problem in a more abstract, rational and impartial way, accordingly people can discuss without falling into political opposition or emotional quarrelling.

Concluding Remarks In this paper, we have seen four types of philosophical practice in Japan: P4C, Philosophy café, Science café, and Kuwako’s Dangi. The purpose of P4C and philosophy café is to enjoy the argument, deepen one’s thought about the topic, and above all, to pursue the truth, while the purpose of science café and Dangi is to solve a particular problem rather than simply to pursue the truth. Some say that philosophical practice must be essentially the pure pursuit of truth. However, I think that a dialogue for problem solving can be regarded as a philosophical practice when the dialogue has following features: •

•

• •

•

The dialogue is, in principle, open to everyone. This means that the argumentation in dialogue must be examined by as various perspectives as possible, or as divers viewpoints as possible. The dialogue must be impartial and rational. This means that philosophical dialogue needs perfect impartiality and complete rationality. Although these are impossible for humans, it requests self-corrective attitude: attitude to change one’s own previous opinion if a new or another’s opinion is more persuasive than one’s own in logic and/or experimental proof. Self-reflection. This feature is closely related to the abovementioned self-corrective attitude. Creative attitude. Philosophical dialogue is neither a negotiation nor a compromise. It tries to propose a new, larger framework to resolve conflicts and oppositions. Respect and caring for other participants. In a sense, this is the most important principle for a philosophical dialogue, since it makes an authentic dialogue possible, and the features from 1) to 4) can be derived from it.

200

XI

When science café, problem solving, decision-making, interventions in organizations have these features, they become philosophical. I believe that what Japanese people need in schools, enterprises, local governments, and the country, especially after Fukushima, is the dialogue with these features.

References Atomic Energy Society of Japan and Governmental Fukushima Accident Investigation Commission (2014). The Full Picture of Fukushima Accident and the Proposal for the Future. Tokyo: Maruzen Publisher (in Japanese). Araragi, Chitoshi and Kono, Tetsuya (2007). The Psychology of Organizational Dishonesty. Tokyo: Keio University Press (in Japanese). Brenifier, Oscar (2006). Le bien et la mal, c'est quoi? Paris: Éditions Nathan. Translated by Shigematsu, Kiyoshi and Nishimiya, Kaori. Tokyo: Asahi Press. Fudano, Jun (2009). Engineer Ethics. Tokyo: Foundation of the Promotion of the Open University of Japan (in Japanese). Gutmann, Amy and Thompson, Dennis (2004). Why Deliberative Democracy? Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hirokawa, Koichi (2011). Fukushima, Power Plants and People. Tokyo: Iwanami Publisher (in Japanese). Ikeda, Akiko (2003). Philosophy from 14 Years Old: A Text for Thinking. Tokyo: Transview Publisher (in Japanese). Kobayashi, Tadashi (2004). Who Think the Science-technology?: An Consensus Development Conference As an Experimentation. Nagoya: Nagoya University press (in Japanese). —. (2007). The Epoch of Trans-science: Connecting Sciences and Society. Tokyo: NTT Publisher (in Japanese). Kono, Tetsuya (2014). Philosophy for Children to Develop the Abilities of Communication and Thinking. Tokyo: Kawade-Shobo-Shinsha Publisher (in Japanese). Kuwako, Toshio (2005). The Environmental Philosophy in Landscape. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press (in Japanese). —. (2013). The Philosophy of Life and Landscape: Thorough Reading the ‘Profile of Space’. Tokyo: Iwanami Publisher (in Japanese). Labbé, Brigitte, Puech, Michel, and Azam, de Jacques (2004). La vie et la mort. Translated by Takahashi, Kei. Tokyo: NHK press.

Philosophical Practice in Japan

201

Lipman, Mathew (1980). Philosophy in the Classroom. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. —. (2003). Thinking in Education. Translated by Kono, Tetsuya et. al.. Tokyo: Tamagawa University Press. Matsukawa, Eri et. al. (2014). How to Make Philosophy Café. Osaka University Press (in Japanese). Matthews, Gareth B. (1983; 1987). Philosophy and the Young Child. Translated by Suzuki, Akira. Tokyo: Shisakusha Publisher. Morita, Nobuko (2011). Philosophy With Children for You. Tokyo: Keisoshobo Publisher (in Japanese). Nagai, Hitoshi (1996). Philosophy for ‘Children’. Tokyo: Kodansha Publisher (in Japanese). Naoe, Kiyakazu and Ochi, Mitsugu (2012). What is Life?. Tokyo: Iwanami Publisher (in Japanese). Nelson, Leonard (1949). Socratic Method and Critical Philosophy, Selected Essays. Translated by Thomas K. Brown III. New Haven: Yale University Press. Ogawa, Hitishi (2011). Philosophy Café: Think About Humans and Society by 17 Themes. Tokyo: Shobunsha Publisher (in Japanese). Ohta, Akira (2013). ‘The Practice of Socratic Dialogue and its Future Orientation: Participating in the 7th International Conference: Philosophizing through Dialogue’. Tamagawa University, Department of Literature Bulletin 54: 115௅135 (in Japanese). Phillips, de Christopher (2003). Socrates Café: A Fresh Taste of Philosophy. Translated by Morioka, Michi. Tokyo: Kobunsha Publisher. Sautet, Marc (1996; 1998). Un café pour Socrate: comment la philosophie peut nous aider à comprendre le monde d’aujourd’hui. Translated by Horiuchi, Yukari. Tokyo: Kinokuniya Publisher. ‘Society for Philosophy and Practice’ (2015). (internet) Available at http://www.society-for-philosophy-in-practice.org (viewed 1 April 2015). Terada, Toshiro (2001). ‘Dialogue and Truth: The Theoretical Ground of the Socratic Dialogue’. Machikaneyama Ronso, Tetsugaku Hen 35: 47௅61 (in Japanese). —. (2002). ‘Socratic Method of Leonardo Nelson’. Rinsho-Tetsugaku: 61௅ 72 (in Japanese).

202

XI

Acknowledgement Work on this paper was supported by the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science, Grants-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research 25580006.

XII INTENTION, NARRATIVE, AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE YOUNG E. RHEE

Since the advent of contemporary philosophical practice in the early 1980s, there have emerged diverse views on what it is and how to do it. Theories about philosophical practice’s identity have even evolved into schools. However, it is still premature to look in for a paradigm the field of philosophical practice. The existence of various views about the identity of an academic discipline can be thought of as a sign of its immaturity, according to Thomas Kuhn’s theory of scientific paradigm (Kuhn, 1970). On the other hand, considering that philosophical practice is not a science but a branch of philosophy, the diversity can be regarded as beneficial in its enhancement of the newborn discipline. What is needed is to develop fundamental notions that can transform the diversity into academic maturity in theoretical and methodological way. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the notion of intention in order to emphasize its significance for philosophical practice and explain its workings in conjunction with related notions, such as purpose and narrative. I argue that the notion of intention plays an indispensable role in the practice of philosophy, especially in a scientific and technological epoch in which most people do not take time to consider the purpose or meaning of their lives. This makes them rush their lives in total confusion and sometimes also resort to alcohol or drugs and even commit suicide. Our epoch requires philosophical practice as a compass for lost sheep that indicates their way home. For this reason, I recommend the teleological approach, which emphasizes the intention of action or the purpose of life as an important type of philosophical practice. As discussed hereafter, the teleological approach makes it possible to secure the identity of philosophical practice and to combine the notion of narrative with those such as intention and purpose.

XII

204

The structure of the paper is as follows. In section 1 I explain why we have to consider the notion of intention in philosophical practice. I start from Gertrude E. Anscombe’s theory of intention that discriminates three usages: intention to act, intention in acting, and intentional action. In section 2, I examine a teleological explanation of action as a basis for philosophical practice that focuses on the notion of intention. I introduce Georg H. von Wright’s model, which is based on a scheme of practical inference, highlight problems related to formulating the relationship between intention and purpose, and suggest a revised model. In section 3, I combine the notions of intention, purpose, and counseling by discussing the narrative theory of Alasdair MacIntyre. I also suggest a teleologicalnarrative model of philosophical practice that is based on the combination of both these models.

Intention and philosophical practice In order to disclose to relevance of intention to philosophical practice, we need to understand what intention means. Anscombe (2000) presents an insightful but abstruse theory of intention, according to which the notion of intention has three different locutions in our languages. a.

Intention to act: ‘A intends to do y’.

b.

Intention in acting: ‘A is xing with intention of doing y’.

c.

Intentional act: ‘A is xing intentionally’.

As (a) and (b) are related with intention, Anscombe focuses mainly on analyzing the difference between (a) and (c). Though there are many insights in Anscombe’s theory of intention, let’s confine our discussion to those that which are relevant to the topic of this paper. The first insight is the distinction between intentions and predictions. Though intentions and predictions look very similar as both they refer to future things, there is a big difference in justifying them. When we justify a prediction, ‘I am going to be sick’, what is needed is ‘evidence that it is true’. However, when we justify intention, ‘I am going to take a walk’, what is needed is the reason for that, or ‘why it would be useful or attractive if the description came true’ (Anscombe, 2000: 6). The second insight is that intentional actions are actions which answer to why-questions and whose positive answer gives reasons for acting (ibid: 9). Suppose that you knocked your cup off the table in the kitchen. When

Intention, Narrative, and Philosophical Practice

205

somebody asks you why you did that, you may say that ‘I thought I saw a face in the window and it made me jump’. Your action was not intentional, so what is supposed to be given to the question is not an explanation that contains some reasons for why you knocked the glass off the table but a kind of causal explanation for the action that gives some cause to the acting as effect. Your knocking the glass off the table was not an intentional action, but a causal one that was caused by your being startled. Here, we can find two types of explanations of actions: Causal explanations and non-causal explanations, such as reason-explanation and intentional or teleological explanation. These insights are related to each other by the notion of reason. On the one hand, intention needs reason in the context of justification for the intended action, and, on the other hand, it needs reason-explanation or intentional explanation to why-questions raised to the intentional actions. Why is it necessary to discuss intention in philosophical practice? In my experience, the notion of intention plays an important role in some types of philosophical practice, especially those concerned with understanding people’s actions. Since 1998, I have been practicing philosophy with various special groups: Korean army soldiers, single mothers, prisoners, etc. During this process, I came to realize that their problems came mostly from the fact that they thought of their actions as neither intended nor intentional in Anscombe’s sense. I found that in most cases they didn’t pay attention to some specific actions that critically set the direction of their lives. Here is an example. There was a single mother who ran away from home at the age of fifteen. During our sessions of philosophical practice we started to think about the reason that she left home, but surprisingly, she said that she had not genuinely thought about it. What she remembered was some vivid images that mirrored the time when she left home: that her mother was quarrelling violently with her stepfather and that she had strong feelings to avoid the situation. That was all. But it was just a start as well as a result. She did not return home. We discussed her images and we moved to the next question, why she did not go back home? It took considerable time for her to completely understand that the first action might have been unintentional, but that the second action was clearly intentional. And then she started to think about the possibility that the first action too could have been done intentionally. As Anscombe emphasizes, intentions are related to actions in the three locutions (a), (b), and (c), such that we cannot properly understand actions

206

XII

without considering their intention. Intention is a necessary condition for understanding or explaining actions. In the example given above, the single mother, at first, did not know her intention, and as a result, she did not understand her actions (leaving home three years ago and not going back). It is very surprising that some people, especially in my groups, are sometimes in complete ignorance of the intentions of their actions. It is a typical example of a non-reflective life. I found that the phenomenon was not confined to the group of single mothers, but extends to the groups of young soldiers, prisoners, and college students. It is a portrait of our times in which speed rules the depth of thought. Socrates said in Plato’s Apology, ‘The unexamined life is not worth living’ (Plato, 2005: 38a). The prime task of philosophy is to indicate how to live an examined life, and philosophical practice is a way for living such a life. The notion of intention is closely related to another important notion, telos, which means something similar to purpose or end. According to Aristotle, everything has telos including rocks, manmade objects such as knives and plants as well as animals and humans (Aristotle, 1984: 199b). Accordingly, if we want to understand what something is, it must be understood or explained with respect to telos. Telos has a similar role to that of intention in philosophical practice. If we ask an agent why he did a certain action, he is supposed to give an intentional explanation that comprises a reason for doing it. Or, he is supposed to give another kind of explanation that holds its end, the teleological explanation. Intention and end are indispensable vehicles for understanding people’s actions in the context of philosophical practice. There are the two kinds of systematic explanations of actions, intentional explanation and teleological explanation. The former gives a reason for intending an action and the latter an end for doing an action. Hence, they are distinguished from a causal explanation that looks for the physical cause of actions.1 The notion of intention presupposes an intentional explanation and the notion of telos a teleological explanation. These two non-causal explanations can have the same structure. For example, von Wright suggested a teleological model of action, practical inference, which interpreted intention in relation to telos. A primary task of theoreticians of philosophical practice is to establish the identity of their new field. Instead of defining it, historical reasons 1

Some philosophers argue that everything supervenes on the physical, so our actions can be explained causally. For details, see Davidson 1960 and Kim 1993.

Intention, Narrative, and Philosophical Practice

207

accounted for an indirect strategy that involved comparing between philosophical practice and psychological therapy and demarcating the former from the latter. What is philosophical practice, according to this strategy? Traditionally, when practitioners have discussed the subject, what has been regarded as psychological therapy was Freudian psychoanalysis which emphasizes unconscious psychological events and causal relationship among them. Roughly, there are two opposing views of the relationship between philosophical practice and psychological therapy. The first view emphasizes the complementary nature between the two disciplines. Its archetype can be found in Elliot Cohen’s Logic-Based Therapy which is a philosophical version of Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). Cohen contends that, On the one hand, philosophical practice can be informed psychologically by its incorporation of the tools and distinctions that psychological practitioners have devised and tested. … On the other hand, philosophical practitioners who have taken the work of psychological practitioners seriously, and have accepted their complementary natures, may have a good deal to add to psychological practice in the way of making it even more philosophical than it already is (Cohen 2013: xii).

The second view emphasizes the difference between them. Its typical example is Ran Lahav’s worldview interpretation, according to which the primary task of philosophical practice is to help clients develop a worldview through interpretation and re-interpretation of their lives and thereby to treat the clients’ predicaments. In Lahav’s view, the subject matter of philosophical counseling and psychological therapy differs as follows: 1. Psychological therapy deals with psychological (affective, cognitive, behavioral) processes or events, i.e., processes inside the patient which underlie the predicaments (or life) in question (Lahav, 1995: 11). 2. Philosophical counseling constructs a world through philosophical (logical, conceptual, existential, ethical, aesthetic, etc.) considerations (ibid: 12). While Lahav emphasizes the above difference, he does not forget to acknowledge that there are many schools of psychological therapy besides Freudian psychoanalysis. Some of them, especially Existential Therapy, Cognitive Therapy, Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy, and Logotherapy overlap to some degree with the worldview interpretation. Thus, Lahav

208

XII

points out the possibility of committing the over-simplification fallacy by drawing a simple line between psychological therapy and philosophical practice. The strategy that attempts to establish the identity of philosophical practice by distinguishing it from psychological therapy seems to appeal to the majority of philosophical practitioners because it guarantees the autonomy of their practice. There remains another and more vexing problem, however: we further need to develop more concrete theoretical frames and methodologies for philosophical practice. This is the how-question, which is different from the what-question that is related to the identity and nature of philosophical practice. Obviously, there are various answers to the howquestion. Using the notions of intention and telos can provide us with the right way forward. In what follows I present a concrete way of using these notions in modeling philosophical practice.

Teleological explanation of action It is true that the main target of philosophical practice is our views, opinions, and thoughts about the world. Mental realities such as views, opinions, and thoughts do not dwell only in the mind, however; rather, they are embodied in our world. There are various philosophical theories of mind: Cartesian substance dualism, property dualism, physicalism, the identity theory, and functionalism. As probing the nature of the mind is beyond the scope of this essay, I confine our discussion to a theory of the mind that seems to be the best candidate for doing philosophical practice. Substance dualism makes a clear discrimination between mind and body, leaving us with an infamous difficult problem, the mind-body problem. The identity theory denies the ontological status of the mind; thus, it will be a weary thing for philosophical counselors to discuss the mind’s workings if it doesn’t really exist. The most vulnerable point of traditional theories of mind is that they ignore the status of the body with respect to the mind. We learn from experience that the mind cannot be separated from the body, but it is embodied or embedded in the brain, the body and the environment. It is better to think of the work of our mind as embodied action. Francisco Varela et al. give an excellent definition of embodied action: Let us explain what we mean by this embodied action. By using the term embodied we mean to highlight two points: first, that cognition depends upon the kinds of experience that come from having a body with various

Intention, Narrative, and Philosophical Practice

209

sensorimotor capacities, and second, that these individual sensorimotor capacities are themselves embedded in a more encompassing biological, psychological, and cultural context. By using the term action we mean to emphasize once again that sensory and motor processes, perception and action, are fundamentally inseparable in lived cognition (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch, 1991, 172–73; emphasis added).

Theories of embodied cognition are emerging as a new research program in cognitive science, so it may seem unusual or exotic. However, there are rarely new ideas in philosophy that cannot be found in past philosophers; in this case, one can recognize the views of Baruch Spinoza, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Edmund Husserl as well as Nagarjuna’s theory of Madhyamika.2 From the viewpoint of embodied mind, the main target of philosophical dialogues is the counselee’s actions; or, more accurately, it is the reason or telos that is related to the intentional actions or the intention for doing something. Reflecting on the reason or telos of one’s actions is an excellent example for philosophy as a way of life. During a series of philosophical dialogues, the single mother mentioned in the previous section was very surprised when she discovered the reason of her leaving home. This led her to find a new world infused by a new interpretation, and, accordingly, to reflect on it in order to set up the purpose of her life. So far, I have shown that actions have to be interpreted or understood on the basis of reason and purpose. Then, how can we do that? To answer the question it would be better to consult theories of action. There are two great traditions in the scientific explanation of actions: causal explanation3 and teleological explanation. Causal explanation seeks causal relationship between the phenomena or the events to be explained. To explain a phenomenon, for example, the unexpected behavior of my friend in the last party, we need to know the causation behind it, which is thought to be captured and represented in the form of general laws such as Galileo’s law of falling bodies, Newton’s law of universal gravitation, and Mendel’s law of segregation. In the case of explaining actions, the supposed laws should be psychological or biological laws, principles, and models. Carl G. Hempel (1948) suggested standard models of scientific explanation. 2

The theory of embodied cognition has various names: ‘Enactive cognition’, ‘Extended cognition’, ‘Embedded cognition’, ‘Distributed cognition’, and ‘Situated cognition’. For introductions to the theory, see Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991, Clark and Chalmers 1998, and Shapiro 2011. 3 Here, ‘causal explanation’ is used in a broad sense, which is in contrast to the narrow sense of causal explanation sense found in Scriven 1962.

210

XII

Let’s examine his famous deductive-nomological model of explanation (DN model). The D-N model has the following structure (Hempel, 1965: 249). (D-N model) Statements of antecedent conditions General laws _________________________________________________ Description of empirical phenomenon to be explained The D-N model has been the standard model of scientific explanation during the heyday of logical empiricism up till 1950 and, often enough, it has been applied beyond natural science to various disciplines such as history, psychology, and social behavior. Even in its golden days the D-N model had to face serious challenges. Let’s consider a typical criticism of William Dray, to the effect that the DN model could not be applied to explain human actions and events in history and social sciences. Dray argued that historical explanation did not depend upon general laws at all, because it is impossible to have general laws which subsume historical events, and in order to explain human action we need to show that the action was the rational thing to do in the occasion under consideration. Dray named the explanation by motivating reasons rational explanation. The ‘goal of such explanation is to show that what was done was the thing to have done for the reasons given, rather than merely the thing that is done on such occasions, perhaps in accordance with certain laws’ (Dray, 1957: 124). The point of Dray’s criticism is that rational explanation proceeds by appeal to principles of action which are not covering laws. Hempel’s response to the criticism is that the appeal to the principles of action has no explanatory power because it cannot explain why an agent did in fact the action (Hempel, 1965: 472). Settling this issue is beyond the scope of this paper. Thus, I suggest that we comply with the following as a request to philosophical practice without presenting further arguments.4 1. Human actions have some peculiar uniqueness and unrepeatability, so they resist causal explanation. 4

These theses come from Hempel 1965: 253–54. Though he answered each thesis, his counterarguments are not sufficient for silencing critical voices.

Intention, Narrative, and Philosophical Practice

211

2. Scientific generalizations for human action cannot be established because an agent’s actions in a given situation depend upon the situation as well as the agent’s past history. 3. In order to explain any purposive action we need to refer to intentions, motivations, reasons, and telos. Now, let’s turn to the teleological explanation of human actions.5 It explains actions by resorting to their reason or the goal and purpose toward which they are directed. Canonical teleological explanations of actions comprise mentions of an agent, the agent’s action, and a teleological connective. Consider the following statement given as a teleological explanation of John’s action of suicide: John committed suicide in order to recover his damaged reputation. The above statement involves a teleological connective, ‘in order to’. We can transform the explanation by using other teleological connectives as follows: John committed suicide for the purpose of recovering his damaged reputation. John committed suicide with the intention of recovering his damaged reputation. Von Wright suggested a scheme of the teleological explanation of actions, which is called practical inference (PI) (von Wright, 1971: 96): (PI) A intends to bring about p. A considers that he cannot bring about p unless he does a. Therefore, A sets himself to do a. In our example the variables A, a, and p respectively correspond to ‘John’, ‘suicidal commitment’, and ‘recovery of his damaged reputation’. Hence, PI for John’s suicide is:

5

‘Teleological explanation’ is used as interchangeable with ‘reason explanation’, ‘motivation explanation’, ‘intentional explanation’, and ‘rational explanation’.

212

XII

(PI-1) John intends to bring about recovering his damaged reputation. John considers that he cannot bring about recovering his damaged reputation unless he commits suicide. Therefore, John sets himself to commit suicide. As is shown, the explanandum of the teleological explanation is an item of behavior that is action-like. According to von Wright, actions have two aspects, inner and outer (ibid: 83). The inner aspect of an action is its intentionality, intention, or will behind its outer manifestations. The outer aspect of action is divided into two parts. The immediate outer aspect of action is muscular activity and the remote outer aspect is some vent for which the muscular activity is causally responsible for. Von Wright made a distinction between causal and teleological explanations (ibid: 83). First, causal explanations normally point to the past and their canonical form is ‘E occurred, because C had occurred’. Teleological explanations, to the contrary, point to the future and their typical form is ‘This happened in order that that should occur’. Second, in the simplest case, the connection between C and E in causal explanations is a relationship of sufficient condition, but that of teleological explanations is a relationship of necessary condition. For von Wright, the genuine teleological explanation does not depend on the validity of the assumed nomic relationship involved in it. As shown before, von Wright’s teleological theory of action hits the mark. It captures the idea that philosophical practice needs a model to explain human actions properly, which does not depend upon causation, but rather on reason or purpose. Despite of its great advantage, von Wright’s teleological theory of action has significant critical problems. One of them is the problem of formulating the second premise of (PI): ‘A considers that he cannot bring about p unless he does a’. The point of problem is the connective, ‘unless’. In (PI-1), doing a is a necessary condition for bringing about p. Namely, John knows that his committing suicide is not sufficient to recover his damaged reputation and achieve other goals in his life. In this situation, is it clear that John does commit suicide? It can be the case that if there are more important things he will not commit suicide. Hence, instead of using the troubled connective, we can reformulate the second premise in such a way that mirrors a sufficient condition in the following way (Beckermann, 1979: 349): A considers that a is a suitable means for him to achieve p.

Intention, Narrative, and Philosophical Practice

213

In the above statement, doing a is a sufficient condition for bringing about p. Then, our original example can be described as follows: (PI-2) John intends to bring about recovering his damaged reputation. John considers that if he commits suicide, then he can bring about recovering his damaged reputation. Therefore, John sets himself to commits suicide. Which is the better formulation of the second premise of (PI)? I think that the answer to the above question depends on the situation of the agent. According to the situation, (PI-1) and (PI-2) can be sound or not. John intends to recover his damaged reputation but knows that his committing suicide is never sufficient for his purpose. It might be the case that his purpose cannot be achieved completely no matter what he does. For example, John believes that he should pay all of his debts caused by the recent bankruptcy of his company, but he cannot do so. Hence, he considers that committing suicide, though not sufficient, is necessary for recovering his damaged reputation in the situation. In the latter situation, John believes that committing suicide is sufficient for recovering his damaged reputation, hence he does commit suicide without hesitation. Hence, it will be a good idea that at first, we don’t fix the form of the second premise of (PI) and determine it later in accordance with the situation of action. Ansgar Beckermann adduced a counter-example to (PI-1) in order to suggest a more complicated model that realizes the sufficient relationship. Let’s consider his example: Smith crosses the street because he intends to buy some cigarettes in the cigar store. This sentence can be reformulated in (PI-1) style as follows (ibid: 350): (P1-3) Smith intends to buy some cigarettes. Smith considers that he cannot buy cigarettes unless he crosses the street. Therefore, Smith crosses the street. As pointed out by Beckermann, it is very unlikely that in a normal situation Smith believes that he cannot buy any cigarettes unless he

214

XII

crosses the street. Though this example can support the necessary condition, it has to be interpreted in a specific situation. In normal situations there are some cigar stores in a city or town. Suppose that Smith lives in a normal city in which cigar stores are scattered here and there. In this situation, it is a matter of expediency whether Smith crosses the street or not. What is quite clear is that Smith can buy cigarettes without crossing the street. Now, the counter-example is a good example for the (P1-2). However, it can be interpreted as an example supporting (P1-1) in another situation. For example, John wants to buy very expensive cigars such as Gurka Black Dragon and they sell the cigar in only one store, the very one that is located across the street. However, crossing the street is dangerous. Now, the original (PI) can be modified by reflecting the above considerations in the second premise: (PI-a*) A intends to bring about p. A considers that it is necessary to do a for bringing about p. Therefore, A sets himself to do a. (PI-b*) A intends to bring about p. A considers that it is necessary to do a for bringing about p, or it is sufficient to do a for bringing about p. Therefore, A sets himself to do a. Notice that besides the fact that (PI-a*) and (PI-b*) have a different premise respectively, there is another important difference between them. That is, their logical status differs in that the former is a deductively valid form in the practical domain, and the latter is an inductively good form that is called abduction or inference to the best explanation. The above discussions have important implications for philosophical practice: A good way to find out the structure of the second premise of (PI), whether it is a necessary or sufficient condition, is to introduce the notion of narrative that has a capacity of building a systematic structure being composed of self, action, and purpose.

Intention, Narrative, and Philosophical Practice

215

Narrative context of self and action Narrative refers to a form of discourse in which we organize, understand, explain, and give meaning to our lives and world. An important characteristic of narrative is that it has a reflexive two-way discursive process. That is to say, it is a means to understand our experiences and inversely, it constructs our experiences. Because of that narrative can associate the notions of self, action, intention, and purpose in the spirit of philosophical practice. Various philosophers, such as Alasdair MacIntyre (1981), Charles Taylor (1992), and Paul Ricoeur (1984), who were attracted by the associative role of narrative, have developed original theories of narrative. I propose to examine here MacIntyre’s theory of narrative. An agent is born into a web of narratives and has to define his own purpose by means of narrative quests. As naturally born narrative selves, Homo Narrans, we cannot understand our intentions for doing something and our intentional actions independently of the web of narratives. In the previous section we have seen that our actions cannot be separated from intentions. Likewise, MacIntyre maintains that it is unlikely to characterize actions independently of intentions; thus, he emphasizes the role of context or setting: ‘We cannot characterize intentions independently of the settings which make those intentions intelligible both to agents themselves and to others’ (MacIntyre, 1981: 206). MacIntyre’s theory of narrative emphasizes the settings, which makes actions intelligible to the agent as well as others. For MacIntyre, actions flow intelligibly from the agent’s intentions, motives, and purposes, so ‘it is always appropriate to ask the agent for an intelligible account’ (ibid: 209). We need narrative explanation of actions in order to explain the historical character of actions and their settings. Narratives are fundamental in making our actions, motives, and thoughts intelligible, hence, the significance of MacIntyre’s idea of narrative for our purposes. How can we approach intentions or intentional actions in this frame of narrative? It is, on the one hand, a general question about the narrative explanation of actions, and, on the other hand, a methodological question. I suggest that we concentrate on the latter question, to which we can find two answers in MacIntyre’s book. The first answer is a micro-analysis of the question of how we characterize actions:

216

XII If we are to relate some particular segment of behavior in any precise way to an agent’s intentions and thus to the settings which that agent inhibits, we shall have to understand in a precise way how the variety of correct characterizations of the agent’s behavior relate to each other first by identifying which characteristics refer us to an intention and which do not and then by classifying further the items in both categories (MacIntyre, 1981: 207).

From the micro-analysis of intention, action, and setting, we can devise the following procedure of narrative philosophical practice: (Micro-procedure of narrative philosophical practice) Step 1. To identify the characteristics that do refer to an intention and those that do not. Step 2. To classify those characteristics with respect to the agent’s intention and the settings which make it intelligible. Step 3. To understand the way those characteristics are related to each other. Step 4. To relate a particular action to intention and settings. The second answer is a macro-analysis of the relationship between two contexts of intentions and settings: We identify a particular action only by involving two kinds of context, implicitly if not explicitly. We place the agent’s intentions, I have suggested, in causal and temporal order with reference to their role in his or her history; and we also place them with reference to their role in the history of the setting or settings to which they belong. In doing this, in determining what causal efficacy the agent’s intentions had in one or more directions, and how his short-term intentions succeeded or failed to be constitutive of long-term intentions, we ourselves write a further part of these histories. (MacIntyre, 1981: 208)

From the macro-analysis of long-term intention we can draw another procedure of the narrative counseling as follows: (Macro-procedure of narrative philosophical practice) Step 1. To place the agent’s intentions in causal and temporal order with reference to their role in his history. Step 2. To place them with reference to their role in the history of the settings to which they belong. Step 3. To determine what causal efficacy the agent’s intentions had in one or more directions. Step 4. To determine how his short-term intentions succeeded or failed

Intention, Narrative, and Philosophical Practice

217

to be constitutive of long-term intentions. Step 5. To write a further part of these histories. Of course, von Wright and MacIntyre did not devise their theories for philosophical practice; the nature of (PI) and the two procedures are models of explanation of human action. The (PI) was proposed for explaining human actions or events in history and social sciences such as sociology and economics. In other words, it is an explanatory model for our intentional behaviors, not for counseling or therapy. It is much the same in the case of MacIntyre. However, we can apply these models to philosophical practice. Though they are born as models of explanation of action, as in most cases understanding requires and follows explanation, it is possible to make the best use of their theories for our purpose. The following is a basic configuration of a teleological-narrative model of philosophical practice that comes from the combination of the two models. Micro-procedure ĺ (PI*) ĺ Macro-procedure The above configuration is simple but it turns out to have a high degree of flexibility in philosophical practice. The order of the configuration can be adapted for different contexts. For example, when the counselee wants to understand the reason of a specific action, the micro-procedure comes first. But when the counselee wants to reflect upon his life as a whole or talk about the purpose of his life, it will be better to start with the macroprocedure. For the last fifteen years, I have applied the teleological-narrative model to individuals who have attended my philosophical practice sessions and I have been very impressed by the change in their attitudes toward their lives. We can use many questions, which are not listed here, for clarifying intentions, reasons, and purposes in the three procedures of the basic structure.

Concluding Remarks In this paper I proposed a teleological-narrative model of philosophical practice that highlights intentions, reasons, and purpose with respect to human actions. The practice of philosophy described here helps people in predicaments that stem mainly from their habits of not-reflecting on their actions and lives. If telos leads our lives, as Aristotle thought, if actions cannot be understood properly without considering their intentions, and if narrative provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the

218

XII

temporal dimension of selfhood and action, then it is natural to apply these notions to devise a model for philosophical practice and use the model in practice.

References Anscombe, Gertrude E. (1957/2000). Intention. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Aristotle (1984). Complete Works of Aristotle, 2 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Beckermann, Ansgar (1979). ‘A Note on von Wright’s Formulation of Intentional Explanations’. Erkenntnis 14: 349–53. Cohen, Elliot (2013). Theory and Practice of Logic-Based Therapy: Integrating Critical Thinking and Philosophy into Psychotherapy. Newcastle-upon-Tyre: Cambridge Scholars. Davidson, Donald (1960). Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Dray, William. (1957). Laws and Explanation in History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hempel, Carl G. (1965). ‘Studies in the Logic of Explanation’. In Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science, 245–95. New York, NY: Collier-Macmillan, 1965. (Reprinted from Philosophy of Science 15: 135–75, 1948). Kim, Jaekwon (1993). Supervenience and Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kuhn, Thomas (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd edition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lahav, Ran (1995). ‘A Conceptual Framework for Philosophical Counseling: Worldview Interpretation’. In Essays on Philosophical Counseling, edited by Ran Lahav and Maria da Venza Tillmans, 3–24. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. MacIntyre, Alasdair (1985). After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. 2nd edition. London: Duckworth. Plato (2005). The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ricoeur, Paul (1984). Time and Narrative, 3 vols. Translated by Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Scriven, Michael (1962). ‘Explanations, Predictions, and Laws’. In Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 3: Scientific

Intention, Narrative, and Philosophical Practice

219

Explanation, Space, and Time, edited by Herbert Feigl and Grover Maxwell, 170–230. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Shapiro, Lawrence (2011). Embodied Cognition. London: Routledge. Taylor, Charles (1992). Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Varela, Francisco J., Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch (1991). The Embodied Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. von Wright, Georg H. (1971). Explanation and Understanding. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

XIII WOMEN: AS VICTIMS, AS HEALERS DENA HURST

The term ‘victim’ typically defines a person who suffers some kind of ill treatment from another. Victims generally are seen as underserving of this ill treatment. Victims do not initially seek out their ill treatment, nor do they relish it, and so victims are not martyrs (though some use their victimhood to see themselves as martyrs). Victims can, however, vanquish those who harm them or emerge triumphant from victimhood and become heroes. But are our moral intuitions correct? It is easy to see the victimizer as an evildoer who preys upon the helpless victim, and undeniably there are such situations. However, these opposing roles of victimizer and victim are not always so neatly delineated, and the assignment of moral responsibility perhaps should not always fall solely on the victimizer. This attempt to label victims and victimizers in an effort to assign moral responsibility can further victimize victims rather than offer outlets for healing. This is a particularly important area of focus for philosophical practice because this approach to counseling in particular offers the methodology to help the victim find healing in the victimizing act. And it is a particularly important area for women, who still are more likely to be victimized during their lifetime.

Victimization: The ‘traditional’ approach Victimization comes in many forms, and it is philosophical analysis that reveals these forms. Identification as a victim begins with some action that is seen as unfair or harmful, usually to a degree that emphasizes the gap between the victimizer’s power and the victim’s vulnerability. An animal or child being abused, a woman raped, a civilian killed in a bombing, a

Women: As Victims, As Healers

221

person kidnapped and tortured (…) these are all clearly victims suffering cruelty at the hand of another. These forms of victimization are ministered by traditional criminal justice and mental health systems, both systems designed to help the innocent and punish the guilty. One primary criticism of this understanding of victimization, of course, is what to do in cases where the line between victimizer and victim is a bit blurred. Another criticism of this view is what to do when there is no victimizer to punish. People are born into war-torn countries and lives of poverty, violence and abuse, unable to change their condition. Plane crashes, car crashes, natural disasters and the like cause harm and death, and the victims often can do little to avoid the consequences or are still harmed or killed even when they attempt to. Being at the mercy of fate or circumstances beyond one’s control reinforces the idea of the victim as helpless, either suffering at the whim of fate or circumstance, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The victimizer, though, is not an individual who can be held morally accountable for the victimizing acts. It is a god or force conspiring against an individual if a deterministic view of the world is accepted or a confluence of events beyond the person’s control if the victimization is seen as happenstance. Though in some of the examples given, other people have a hand in the circumstances leading to the victimization, we cannot say that there is an intention to victimize, victimizer to victim. In such cases we are left with no person to blame (perhaps a vengeful god or failing system) and little to do for the victim but offer comfort and sympathy. Victims are viewed with empathy or pity. Perhaps there is even the thought of ‘There but for the grace of God go I’, tinged with a bit of guilt at our own good fortune. There might be feelings of anger over the injustice, a need to release the victim from their plight and do something to prevent it from happening to others. Whatever we feel, we feel something. People who suffer through no fault of their own, who are helpless to fight back, evoke emotional reactions. To view victimization in terms of ‘victim/good’ and ‘victimizer/bad limits the scope of the discussion and so limits the ways in which victim and victimizer can be helped. In western philosophy, the tendency is to place moral blame on the victimizer and to view the victim as always morally right. According to Immanuel Kant, people who are capable of making moral decisions, who are competent in their cognitive abilities and who can distinguish right from wrong, are considered moral agents (Kant, 2012: 4: 440, 445–461). As such, moral agents have attending moral

222

XIII

responsibilities to choose right over wrong and to be accountable for the consequences of their moral decisions. As Kant instructed, ‘So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means’ (4: 429). Thus, a moral agent who chooses to be a victimizer is consciously doing wrong, and is morally responsible for the harm done to the victims. Victims, who do not willingly choose to be victimized, have their freedom taken away by victimizers and thus are not fully moral agents. While the victims know right from wrong, they are unable to choose their actions; the victimizer determines their choices. Because the victim does not choose to be victimized, the victim bears no moral responsibility for the harm they suffer. This reasoning holds whether the victimizer is an actual person who can be legally punished or a set of circumstances that befall the victim. If, as the traditional view holds, victims are not responsible for the actions that make them victims, then there must be a way to reconcile the temporary lapse in agency (power) that is part of being victimized, particularly when the expectation is that once the victimizing event has ended, the person once again has full agency. In other words, it is assumed that up to the point of being raped or having a limb blown off by a bomb, a person is a fully autonomous free-willing human being. At the point of the traumatizing event, autonomy is taken away from the person. Once the event is over, autonomy is restored, thus making it the job of the counselor to convince the person that he or she once again has autonomy, despite what the person may be feeling as a result of the victimizing event. The job of the counselor, then, is to facilitate healing through empowerment. This empowerment view of victimization has deep roots in the philosophy of oppression. We have only to look at history to see the number of revolutions staged by the oppressed. Through his exploration of capitalism, Karl Marx provides a framework for understanding such actions that has continued since its birth 150 years ago. Marx argues that capitalism’s failure is built into its inherent division of power between two opposing classes, the proletariat (working class) and the bourgeoisie (capitalist/owner) class. Capitalism functions only as long as the proletariat could be exploited by the bourgeoisie in the production process. Eventually, the proletariat, fed up with their status, would overthrow the bourgeoisie, establishing a new economic order in which there is no hierarchical power and no class

Women: As Victims, As Healers

223

divisions. Through revolution, the oppressed and oppressors would both be freed from the confines of their power struggle.1 For Marx, the system of capitalism corrupted the otherwise good nature of people, and the oppressors suffered a form of dehumanization along with the oppressed. The two are locked together, and neither truly benefited. Freire echoes this sentiment in Pedagogy of the Oppressed: ‘This, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well. The oppressors, who oppress, exploit and rape by virtue of their power, cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves’ (2008: 45). These roots, however, are not strictly honored in contemporary theorizing of victims and victimization as the view of oppression and of the victim/victimizer (oppressed/oppressor) is not initially presented as a duality of opposites. The contemporary empowerment view assumes that the victim must not only overcome victim status, but must also transform the victimizer and the victimizing situation. The victim cannot simply stop being a victim because they choose to. The victim is trapped in a situation that is not within their control. The empowerment view does little if the victim cannot shift his or her own consciousness to accept the reality of the situation. The victim is being asked to clearly see the victimizer and the victimization and to choose to create a world in which the conditions necessary for victimization no longer exist. The empowerment view also runs the risk of becoming victim blaming. If the responsibility for liberation lies in the hands of the victim and the victim is unable to make the leap, then it is easy to blame the victim for remaining in the situation. The same logic is used against victims of domestic violence. Why someone would stay with a person who is physically or emotionally abusive seems irrational, but the assumption is that the victim has a real choice. Often this is not the case, either due to the tight control the abuser wields or due to the victim’s internalization of the abuse (it’s my fault, I deserve it, etc.).

1

See Karl Marx, ‘Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844’, ‘The Coming Upheaval’, and ‘The Possibility of Non-Violent Revolution’. This framework is seen in the writings of feminist philosophers in the mid- to latetwentieth century, in cultural critics like Michel Foucault, Derrida, and Noam Chomsky, and activist philosophers like (Ernesto) Che Guevara, Cesar Chavez, and Paulo Freire.

224

XIII

Victimization: philosophical practice As presented, the traditional view of victimization assumes the victim is helpless, at least in the moment of victimization. It assumes a wrong has been committed that is no fault of the victim, that the victim deserves special moral dispensation because of the victimization, and that, whenever possible, the victimizer is to be punished through legal means. The role of the counselor is to help the victim reconcile this moment of helplessness in the larger context of a life of autonomy and responsibility, to alleviate the guilt the victim may feel, and to empower the victim to return to pre-trauma life in order to regain the sense of power and control that have been lost. The advantage of philosophical practice over traditional counseling methods is the ability to use any philosophical system to help the client evaluate life choices and values. Rather than forcing a language and methodology onto the client — even in a way that engages the client in the therapy decisions — philosophical counseling allows the client to explore principles and concepts related to how a problem is defined, how his or her understanding of the world influences the framing of the problem and the possible solutions to the problem. Philosophical practice is able to help the client with the moral and emotional complexity of the situation. Rather than guiding a client toward ‘normal’ feelings, a philosophical practitioner can help the client explore not only how they feel about the trauma suffered, but also how they feel about those feelings. Rape victims may feel angry at being attacked or even angry at those who express sympathy, and also feel guilt or anger at themselves for being angry. Rather than seeing a person as a victim from the outset and working from that point toward some resolution, a philosophical practitioner will question that very assumption by helping the client explore the nature of victimization, what it means to be a victim and a victimizer, and what it means to be free and autonomous. Healing comes from changing the way a person views a situation (Carus, 2009).2 The mere act of changing a person’s reaction changes his or her experience of the situation, even though the traumatic situation has happened and thus cannot be changed. 2

For example, the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism are: life is suffering, we are the source of our suffering, the end of suffering is attainable, and there is a path to enlightenment (the end of suffering).

Women: As Victims, As Healers

225

A philosophical practitioner can also help the client explore the nature of suffering from moral or theological perspectives. In the empowerment model, the assumption is that life is meant to be good, so when something bad happens it must be rectified in order to restore life to its rightful course. And it is up to the victim who has suffered the wrong to do this by somehow taking control. The victim is expected to adopt the mindset of a fighter and overcome the victimizing circumstances (or be seen as somehow failing or lacking if he or she is unsuccessful). Healing of the mind and spirit of someone who has undergone trauma is seen as akin to healing a physical injury. The goal is to restore the person’s life to its pretrauma state, or as close as possible, and to heal the wound and leave no remaining visible scar. Philosophical practice allows such healing to take place when possible, and also offers opportunities for the client to heal when it is not. Victimizing events are not merely random blows that keep people from the life they think they should have, or deserve, but rather as part of the life they do have. This does not mean that the client must be resigned to always being a victim. It means only that the client should be guided to a philosophical framework that allows them to make sense of the world with the traumatizing experience as part of a new worldview.

Philosophical practice: By women, for women To this point, this chapter has focused on victimization in general. As victimization is not gender-specific, meaning both men and women can suffer physical, emotional and psychological trauma, it should legitimately be asked why it is important to focus only on women. The answer lies primarily in the data available. Though men and women are victimized, victimization is largely the exercising of power over the vulnerable in such a way as to cause unavoidable harm. It is the vulnerable, the marginalized, who suffer, and individuals who are socially, emotionally, and physically vulnerable are primarily of women. A quick look at news reports show daily acts of violence committed against women. According to figures from the United Nations, World Health Organization, UNICEF and others: x x

35% of women around the world have experienced violence in the form of intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence (World Health Organization, 2013: 2); Intimate partner or family violence was the cause of almost half of all deaths of women in 2012 (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2013: 13);

XIII

226

x x

Roughly 120 million females have undergone some form of genital mutilation (UNICEF, 2013: 3); Females account for slightly more than half of forced laborers, including those forced into the sex trade (International Labour Organization, 2012: 14).

Physical violence is one terrible symptom of the larger issue of gender inequality. This inequality also manifests itself in social and political institutions. Women make up half of the global population, but more than 2/3 of the poor. In some countries they are denied access to education, jobs, land ownership, sustainable food sources, and healthcare — in a world in which women in other countries attend college, run large corporations, even run those countries. And these statistics do not include violence against transgender women or others who may identify as women. On a global scale, the victimization of women is a massive problem, one almost too complex to fully grasp as it snakes through so many other social problems. Another reason for the emphasis on women is because victimization is not only found in overt forms of oppression. Even in progressive, modern countries, it lies hidden, sometimes even from the women affected by it, because it is systematized and non-violent. This civilized oppression (so termed by feminist philosopher Jean Harvey) is embedded in unquestioned norms, habits, and symbols, in the assumptions underlying institutions and rules, and the collective consequences of following those rules. It refers to the vast and deep injustices some groups suffer as a consequence of often unconscious assumptions and reactions of well-meaning people in ordinary interactions which are supported by the media and cultural stereotypes as well as by the structural features of bureaucratic hierarchies and market mechanisms (Young, 1990: 41).

For example, a woman might struggle with understanding why she dreads going to work though she loves what she does. What goes unnoticed are the pats on the back, the smiling or shaking of hands, by the manager acknowledging first the male colleagues, or the calling of the meeting to discuss the “important” projects, none of which happen to be hers. Or perhaps it is the clerk at a store having different greetings for male and female customers. Women are so prevalent in the workplace in most westernized countries that they do not see such slights as forms of exclusion, and yet they are, just as much as more overt inequities in pay or promotions.

Women: As Victims, As Healers

227

These daily interactions can reinforce a false consciousness in a woman in much the same way an abuser can instill a false consciousness in a victim. It is the constant reinforcement of status and worth, and in particular a status and worth that is somehow, for some reason, ‘less than’ that of the oppressor. And in situations of civilized oppression, the oppressor likely has no idea the oppression is occurring; the exclusion may not be intentional, which is what makes it harder to identify the impact it has on the women who confront these small slights on a daily basis. In sum, the focus on women in understanding the nature of victimization is important because despite being half the population, and despite tremendous social, political and economic advances in some parts of the world, they still comprise a very large, very significant portion of the world’s vulnerable and victimized population. In addition, though the empowerment model of healing victims has its limitations, its roots in liberation philosophy are rightly placed. Only the oppressed can end their oppression; the victims must heal themselves. If women are to be relieved of their burden of suffering, then women must step up and lead the way. The role of women as healers is not new, by any means; it is an age-old responsibility. This is a powerful tradition that women in philosophical practice can tap into. Women healers traditionally learned their skills from their mothers, other tribal medicine women were seen as holistic healers who united mind, body and soul. They were viewed as having a connection to a spirit world or some sort of unique spiritual knowledge. Healing power was seen as a natural ability, a gift bestowed uniquely on each practitioner that allowed the healer to serve as a conduit between healing forces and those in need of healing. In many traditional or tribal societies (North and South America, Africa, China, Korea, and others countries), women still fulfill this role. Beyond tribal practices, women in medicine can be found throughout history fulfilling various roles — herbalist, midwife, nurse, therapist, witch, nun. Women tended the sick, even when no one else would, and especially for the poor or extremely sick. Though the witch hysteria eventually died down, the institutions that supported it did not. Increasingly, medical knowledge was consolidated in universities, and entry was granted to wealthy white males and the occasional female (also generally white and from a prominent family). The peasant and working classes continued to rely on local healing women, as they could not afford to pay for the services of trained doctors.

228

XIII

In addition to their work as healers, women have also served as advisors and confidantes. Part of the role of a woman healer was to answer questions about health issues, particularly issues that were seen as taboo, such as questions about sexual health and reproduction. They have also provided advice to families regarding potential mates for their children and to young lovers on the protocols of courting, marriage, and family planning. They provide grief counseling when a loved one died. They offered advice on moral dilemmas. In this role as counselor, women have traditionally relied on their life experiences as well as the collective memory of the society passed down to them by earlier generations. This role is still alive and well. In many Native American tribes, women play the dominant leadership role. They are the preservers of tribal history and they are valued for their insights on a range of personal and social issues. In some African and South American communities, wise women are often thought to have a type of clairvoyance; individuals will seek their advice on major life decisions or to attempt to understand why an illness or tragedy has befallen them. In Senegal, a study of women traders revealed that part of their work involved counseling family members, friends and others by answering questions and sharing knowledge on everything ‘from cooking and selffashioning to marital issues, familial conflict mediation, and sexuality’ (Lo, 2013: 471). The Senegalese women rely on their own experiences as well as what they have observed during their work in the marketplace. ‘A few invoke their long genealogy, drawing from a repository of knowledge inherited from their parents and family genealogy’ (Lo, 2013: 472). These trader women recognize that trials are part of the human condition. Everyone has issues to overcome in order to create the life that is desired. Women as healers, though in many societies powerless to make grand social changes, have long sought to provide a safe space in which individuals could come to know themselves. The influence of society on the development of the individual should not be accepted as the boundary of philosophical counseling. Philosophical counselors can learn from the history of healing women that the role of therapist may also mean assuming the role of champion or change agent. This approach to philosophical practice borrows from the social constructivism of Humberto Maturana and Kenneth Gurgen. While their views take the extreme form of denying that there is anything beyond the socially constructed individual, there are more moderate ways of applying

Women: As Victims, As Healers

229

a social constructivist perspective. To some extent it is found in the literature emphasizing culturally competent care, care that is aware of, and respectful of, the individual’s cultural teachings and belief systems. In addition, a social constructivist approach will attempt to identify cultural influences that have shaped the individual’s choices and the issues the individual wishes to resolve (Cottone, 2013). Women as healers have traditionally been astutely aware of the social context in which they worked, and often suffered the same plights as individuals they were helping. Healing, particularly healing from a traumatic event, can best be provided by someone who understands the needs of the victim. This would require a person who has similar lived experiences, including lived experience of the victim’s societal influences. It is only when we have endured a pain or trauma ourselves that we can feel true compassion for others in the same situations, and it is the healer’s compassion for the victim that drives the healing process.3 Without having the shared experience, the best the counselor can hope to provide a victim is insight based on a secondary understanding gained from reading the accounts of or talking to others who have had the experience the victim describes. The counselor can imagine what he or she would feel in that situation, and some connection simply based on shared human understandings. But the counselor could not know, indeed could only poorly imagine, the depth and breadth of the victim’s emotions or thoughts. The counselor may be able to feel sympathy for the victim, but not genuine compassion. Sympathy comes from a position of power and thus is a form of victimization; compassion comes from a position of equality. Being part of the social context also allows the counselor to rely on qualitative methods in research and practice. As mentioned prior, this fits neatly with the concept of culturally competent care. It also pulls from phenomenology, ethnography and narratology. It values the lived experiences of both the patient and the philosophical counselor, and 3

See the Oxford English Dictionary for the etymology of ‘compassion’, from the Latin cum (with) + passio, past participle of the deponent verb patior, meaning suffering, enduring, leaving, accepting. Patior is related to the Greek concept of ʌȐșȠȢ (páthos), that is the etymon of passion but brings a much broader meaning, inclusive of the tragic dealing with fate, coping with sufferance, and, more generally, experiencing. The etymology of ‘sympathy’ is from the Greek syn (together) and pathos, typically meaning having a fellow feeling or being affected by like feelings. Sympathy is feeling; compassion is action.

230

XIII

encourages the counselor to use shared experiences to strengthen the healing process. By emphasizing the patient’s social context and lived experiences, counseling can expand on the foundation laid by feminist theory. Heretofore, feminist theory has been the primary framework through which to understand how the individual is influenced by power structures, how to describe oppression and its effects, and how to talk about gender as part of the social context. Feminist theory, in short, has been the only way to talk about what gender means, gender roles, the role of women in philosophy and in healing, and the intersections of race, religion, class and gender. It has been the only way for non-white, non-privileged, nonheterosexual, and transgendered women to have a voice. The connection between the healer and victim must be genuine if the healing is to be successful. This is a lesson from the history of women as healers. While the biological sex of the patient or therapist itself is not a determining factor in the successful accomplishment of therapeutic goals, research shows that a misalignment of shared experiences can have a negative impact on the patient’s outcome. For example, ‘counselors with less egalitarian gender-role attitudes exhibited significantly more stereotypical behaviors than did counselors with more egalitarian attitudes. Additionally, rigid European White male gender roles may interfere with counselors’ therapeutic skills and prevent counselors from providing culturally sensitive therapy’ (Chao, 2012: 2). This misalignment can arise whether the therapist is, or identifies as, male or female, again highlighting the importance of lived experiences over sex or gender alone. When counselors work from the assumption that their clients have the same needs, desires, values, and perspectives as they do, they are likely to make errors based on differences in culture and context. Counselors with multicultural competence take the time to co-develop goals with clients and their communities that prioritize the clients' values, culture, and context (Crethar and Winterowd, 2012: 5).

Practicing therapy as women healers have done, within a social context and with a desire to resolve social inequalities, is part and parcel of philosophical practice. Gerd Achenbach laid the foundation for philosophical practice by calling for an open, heartfelt dialogue between counselor and patient, a sense of wonder open to different viewpoints and potential solutions, and a desire to help the patient find his or her own voice and path. Lou Marinoff, in his PEACE approach, promotes philosophical practice as a way of seeking equilibrium, a state of harmony

Women: As Victims, As Healers

231

possible only when a sincere philosophical resolution has been reached (Marinoff, 2000: 38). The work of a philosophical practitioner is also described by Dirk Louw in the following manner: I care for your self and world (and thereby for my self and world) by applying my training in philosophical skills and theory to address your problem (or by empowering you to address your own problem through teaching you the self-same skills and theory) […] acknowledging our interdependence as discussants and as ‘I’s’, that is, as autonomous, yet vulnerable unique selves (Louw, 2013: 67).

Logical reasoning, critical and creative thinking, conceptual analysis, and seeing things in perspective, as well as shared vulnerability, are all part of the woman as healer tradition. Empathetic listening is as well, though as explained, the empathy comes from the lived experiences shared with the patient and is distinct from sympathy or pity. One key difference philosophical practice can borrow from the history of healing women is that objectivity is not specifically sought. There is much research on the problems of entanglement or projection between therapist and patient, and indeed some boundary does need to be maintained to prevent the philosophical counselor being pulled too deeply into the lives of those seeking help. However, the very nature of using lived experiences to create a bond with the patient requires that the patient not merely be listened to or talked with, one separate individual to another. Healing women have long understood the interconnectedness of mind and body within an individual as well as between individuals as part of a larger social context. In healing victims, at the individual and societal levels, philosophical practice will need to embrace this interconnectedness, as well.

References Carus, Paul (2009). Buddha, The Word. Internet. http://www.sacredtexts.com/bud/buddha2.htm (Viewed on 1 May 2015). Chao, Ruth Chu-Lien (2012). ‘Racial/ethnic Identity, Gender-role Attitudes, and Multicultural Counseling Competence: The Role of Multicultural Counseling Training’. Journal of Counseling and Development 90, 1: 35–44. Internet. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA279261383&v=2.1&u =tall85761&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&asid=3d72da1ecdc46c11eb9b7a9 c7c94cde1 (Viewed on 4 June 2014).

232

XIII

Cottone, R. Rocco (2013). ‘A Paradigm Shift in Counseling Philosophy’. Counseling Today. Internet. http://ct.counseling.org/2013/09/aparadigm-shift-in-counseling-philosophy/ (Viewed on 18 May 2014). Crethar, Hugh C. and Carrie L. Winterowd (2012). ‘Values and Social Justice in Counseling’. Counseling and Values 57: 1–9. Internet. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA289620152&v=2.1&u =tall85761&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&asid=0c1342ba567b103494b283 49cfe16a5c (Viewed on 3 March 2014). Freire, Paulo (2008). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group, Inc. Harvey, Jean (1999). Civilized Oppression. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Kant, Immanuel (2012). Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Revised edition, edited by M. Gregor, J. Timmerman, and C. Korsgard. New York: Cambridge University Press. International Labour Organization (2012). ‘ILO Global Estimate of Forced Labour: Results and Methodology’. Internet. http://www.ilo.org/washington/areas/elimination-of-forcedlabor/WCMS_182004/lang--en/index.htm (Viewed on 17 May 2015). Lo, Marierne S. (2013). ‘Confidant Par Excellence, Advisors and Healers: Women Traders' Intersecting Identities and Roles in Senegal’. Culture, Health & Sexuality 15 Supplement 4, S467–81. Louw, Dirk (2013). ‘Defining Philosophical Counselling: An Overview’. South African Journal of Philosophy 32: 60–70. Marinoff, Lou (2000). Plato, Not Prozac!: Applying Eternal Wisdom to Everyday Problems. New York: Quill. Marx, Karl (1978). The Marx-Engels Reader. Edited by. R. C. Tucker. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. UNICEF (2013). ‘Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: What Might the Future Hold’. Internet. http://www.unicef.org/media/files/FGMC_Report_7_15_Final_LR.pdf (Viewed on 30 April 2015). United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2013). ‘Global Study on Homicide’. Internet. http://www.unodc.org/documents/gsh/pdfs/2014_GLOBAL_HOMICI DE_BOOK_web.pdf (Viewed on 30 April 2015). World Health Organization (2013). ‘Global and Regional Estimates of Violence against Women’. Internet. http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/85239/1/9789241564625_eng. pdf (Viewed on 4 May 2015). Young, Iris M. (1990). Justice and the Politics of Difference. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

XIV A WOMAN’S LIFE AND LOVES: ARCHETYPAL PSYCHOLOGY, THE MYTH OF EROS AND PSYCHE AND THE SEVEN GODDESSES OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY— A TALE FOR OUR TIME MARTHA C. BECK

Introduction This paper begins with a very brief history of the tradition of archetypal psychology, from its origin in the work of Carl Jung to one of its current manifestations in feminist Jungian psychology. The paper then describes the myth of Eros and Psyche, a myth that tells the story of the development of both a woman’s psyche and the feminine aspects of a man’s psyche, what Jung calls the ‘anima’. Next, the paper describes the seven goddesses of Greek myth as archetypal descriptions of seven aspects of human life and the way they can develop into mature passions that lead women to contribute to human civilization in many different ways. The stories also tell of how those passions can become obsessions and do harm to people and societies. The paper shows how a woman who wants to develop those passions must go through four phases of psychological development, the four phases Psyche had to go through in the myth. Each passion is one kind of Eros. In each case, a woman first falls in love with Eros, with the passion itself and has to learn to love the sacred calling represented by the passion. She has to stop the purely emotional experience of being ‘in love with love,’ and develop a plan for how to discipline herself to achieve the goals that archetype represents. The paper concludes with a brief description of how the energies represented by the seven Greek goddesses need to be harnessed so as to create a new cultural

234

XIV

climate, one that weaves human culture together with respect for the powers of the natural world.

Carl Jung, founder of archetypal psychology Carl Jung is considered the founder of this branch of psychology. Jung was a student of Freud, the student Freud expected to continue the tradition of Freudian psychology after he died. Jung, however, disagreed with Freud, mostly in regard to the nature and value of the world’s religious traditions. Jung’s work recognizes the great value in the world’s religions. He describes cross-cultural similarities in the kinds of characters and stories in the major world religions. He argues that the conflicts and triumphs reflect a deep understanding of the human condition. Jung claims that religious myths, rituals and ways of life are ways to inspire people to transform their most basic instinctual drives into the drive to accomplish the highest levels of human excellence in many different personal and professional endeavors. Although we experience these instincts through our senses, we also tie them to fantasies whose characters and plots follow universal patterns, ‘What we properly call instincts are physiological urges, and are perceived by the senses. But at the same time, they also manifest themselves in fantasies and often reveal their presence only by symbolic images. These manifestations are what I call the archetypes’ (Beck, 2008: 9). The deities of Greek mythology are the symbolic archetypes of Ancient Greek culture. We are born into cultural contexts where people are living out these archetypes unconsciously, ‘We also find in the unconscious qualities that are not individually acquired but are inherited, e.g., instincts as impulses to carry out actions from necessity, without conscious motivation . . . The instincts and archetypes together form the ‘collective unconscious’ (Jung, 1964: 69). The stories told in Greek myth of the behavior of the Greek deities are symbolic representations of the way people behave when they are driven, without realizing it, by the collective unconscious. Jung argued that people cannot act well until they learn to become conscious of the collective unconscious and its effect on their behavior, ‘The conscious ego must make the effort to relate to the unconscious, its maternal source-ground, in order to maintain adequate, healthy functioning’ (Jung, 1964: 49). Jung argued that human beings have a deep need for a sense of meaning in life, ‘Human libido is powerfully motivated not only by biological drives but by spiritual urges . . . The one thing we

A Woman’s Life and Loves

235

can under no circumstances tolerate is lack of meaning’ (Whitmont, 1969: 82). The psyche suffers profoundly when a person cannot find something to live for, a higher purpose, ‘A psychoneurosis must be understood, ultimately, as the suffering of a soul which has not discovered its meaning. But all creativeness in the realm of the spirit as well as every psychic advance of man arises from the suffering of the soul, and the cause of the suffering is spiritual stagnation, or psychic sterility’ (Jung, 1969: 11). Jung says that ‘the original use of the word religion’ meant ‘a particular attitude of mind’, meaning ‘a careful consideration and observation of certain dynamic factors […which he] has found powerful, dangerous, or helpful enough to be taken into careful consideration, or grand, beautiful, and meaningful enough to be devoutly worshipped and loved’ (Jung, 1969: 11). Jung argued that ‘it is only possible to live the fullest life when we are in harmony with these symbols; wisdom is a return to them’ (Jung, 1969: 31). Jung’s own sense of meaning in life was to study the world’s religions, show their patterns, and explain to people that they need to integrate their conscious lives with the collective unconscious. In his treatment of individuals who came to him for help, Jung tried to help each one through this process. Human beings are born extremely dependent on other people for a long time. When they are about 20 years old, young people have to learn how to detach themselves from the particular, extreme dependencies they had as children. They have to examine those relationships that molded their characters. They have to make the transition from being completely dependent on other people to choosing a meaningful goal in life. They have to release themselves from the previously unconscious ways, both positive and negative, that their psyches were formed during childhood. When adults cannot release themselves from the psychological imbalances inherited from their past, they are under the influence of what Jung calls ‘complexes’, a few of which are an ‘inferiority complex, power complex, father complex, mother complex, [and] anxiety complex’ (Jocobi, 1973: x). These complexes express themselves ‘in fantasy images that are surprisingly alike and can be found practically everywhere and at all epochs’ (Jocobi, 1973: x). The stories of Greek myth are stories of how people behave when under the influence of these complexes. In order to become mature adults, ‘we must strive toward a transformation of the potentially disturbing or disruptive complexes by reaching their archetypal cores. Such a transformation can occur only when we have gone beyond the personal dimension to the universal’ (Whitman, 1969:

236

XIV

71). Jung gives an example in the case of every male, ‘the individual is no longer confronted with his own mother, but with the archetype of the “maternal”; no longer with the unique personal problem created by his own mother as a concrete reality, but with the universally human, impersonal problem of every man’s dealing with the primordial maternal ground in himself’ (Jocobi, 1973: 25). The mother-complex, in males or females, is connected to what Jung calls the ‘anima’, meaning ‘those drive elements which are related to life as life, as an unpremeditated, spontaneous, natural phenomenon, to the life of the instincts, the life of the flesh, the life of concreteness, or earth, of emotionality, directed toward people and things. It is the drive toward involvement, the instinctual connectedness to other people and the containing community or group’ (Whitman, 1969: 189). Ultimately, the person who can integrate the drives into a balanced way of life is what Jung calls an ‘individuated’ adult. A wise adult exercises what Jung called the ‘four functions of consciousness’, thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition, both spontaneously and in ways that avoid extremes. An individuated adult desires to do what is best in a given situation, uses sensation to assess the concrete circumstances, including what is and what is not possible, uses reasoning powers to examine the alternatives within the limitations of what is possible, recognizes intuitively what is best, and then can explain through reasoning why it is best. Life is filled with one choice after the next. There is no formula for how to make any given decision. After one choice is made, another presents itself. Choices focused on relationships between spouses are different from those in relation to one’s children, extended family, friends, co-workers, fellow citizens. All the roles we find ourselves in demand balanced judgments. We can never get to the point where we behave ‘perfectly, but we can recognize and outgrow our complexes so we can act decently and avoid doing harm. After studying the world’s religions for decades, Jung says, ‘I had learned that all the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insoluble. They must be so, for they express the necessary polarity inherent in every self-regulating system. They can never be solved, but only outgrown’ (Jung, 1969: 73). Once the complexes are outgrown, a person’s dreams and fantasies begin to reflect the images of the individuated person, the wise one, an image present in all the world’s religions. These images ‘provide the means by which the contents of the unconscious can enter into the conscious mind

A Woman’s Life and Loves

237

and they also are themselves an active expression of those contents’ (Henderson, 1964: 151). One image is ‘the theme of the long journey or pilgrimage’ (Henderson, 1964: 151). Another image is that of the ‘inner Great Man’ or Wise Woman, who ‘redeems the individual by leading him out of creation and its sufferings, back into the original eternal sphere . . . The whole inner psychic reality of each individual is ultimately oriented toward this archetypal symbol of the Self” (Von Franz, 1964: 202). A third image is that of the philosopher’s stone. The alchemical stone (the lapis) symbolizes something that can never be lost or dissolved, something eternal that some alchemists compared to the mystical experience of God within one’s own soul. It usually takes prolonged suffering to burn away all the superfluous psychic elements concealing the stone. But some profound inner experience of the Self does occur to most people at least once in a lifetime. From the psychological standpoint, a genuinely religious attitude consists of an effort to discover this unique experience, and gradually to keep in tune with it (it is relevant that a stone is itself something permanent), so that the Self becomes an inner partner toward whom one’s attention is continually turned (Von Franz 1964: 210).

Feminist archetypal psychology and the myth of Eros and psyche After Jung, the archetypal movement he began branched out. Women noticed the sexist bias in some of Jung’s work and created their own interpretations of the process of individuation as it occurs in the female psyche. Many psychologists working in this area focus upon the myth of Psyche and Eros as the story of the development of the anima side of the human psyche. The story has to be understood differently, they claim, according to whether the person involved is male or female. What follows is a standard version of the myth along with the interpretations of two archetypal psychologists and then my own understanding of the important insights we can gain from reflecting upon the story. Psyche was the third daughter of a king and the most beautiful. The god, Eros, fell in love with her and took her away to a paradise on earth. However, he came to her only at night, in the dark, and demanded that she not ask him to reveal himself to her. Her sisters goaded her into finding out the truth. One night she held up a candle to see him. He woke up and ran away.

238

XIV

In order to get him back, Aphrodite, goddess of beauty and partner to Eros, assigned her four tasks. First, she was set beside a huge mountain of seeds and told she must sort them overnight. This was impossible for her, but the birds came and helped her, so she finished the task. Second, she was forced to get some of the wool from the Golden Fleece, a pack of rams. She did so by watching where the rams were. When they left, she gathered some of the wool that had rubbed off on the branches of the trees. Third, she had to get water from a pure spring at the top of a mountain, a strange spring that ran both up and down, in a circle. An eagle offered to help her, giving her a bucket and flying her over the spring to fill the bucket. Fourth, she had to go to Hades and get some special perfume from Persephone, goddess of the underworld. After a long journey with many obstacles and danger, she managed to get it. Eros finally returned. In relation to the first task, sorting the seeds, Robert Johnson focuses on the physical activity of sorting. ‘In so many of the practical matters of life, in the running of a household, for example, or its parallel in a professional life, the challenge is to make form and order prevail . . . Without that essential task of establishing form there would be chaos’ (Johnson, 1989: 5455). Jean Bolen focuses on the internal sorting involved when making choices about how to live, when a woman makes a crucial decision, she often must first sort out a jumble of conflicted feelings and competing loyalties […] ‘Sorting the seeds’ is, then, an inward task, requiring that a woman look honestly within, sift through her feelings, values, and motives, and separate what is truly important from what is insignificant (Johnson, 1989: 259–260).

On my view, the ‘sorting’ refers to reflecting upon one’s childhood, sorting out which people and events were most influential is the formation of one’s psyche. This sorting corresponds to Jung’s description of the task of a twenty-year-old to recognize his or her complexes. Only then can a person make the transition from being driven by unexamined emotions and ways of living to seeing oneself through the lens of the collective unconscious. One can move from the particular to the universal, from drives that seem purely unique to an understanding of oneself as living out patterns in the collective unconscious. When this transition is made, one is able and willing to learn from religious texts that educate the soul through images and stories of the soul’s journey toward wisdom, Jung’s ‘individuation’. The second task, gathering some of the golden fleece of the rams, refers to every woman’s need to find a spot in the public realm, the world

A Woman’s Life and Loves

239

dominated by men in a patriarchal society. In relation to this task, Johnson says, masculinity often looks ram-like to a woman when it comes time for her to assimilate a little of that quality into her interior life […] she must make her way through it. She fears that she will be killed, bludgeoned to death, or depersonalized by the ram nature of the patriarchal, competitive, impersonal society in which we live (Johnson, 1989: 58–9).

Johnson thinks that ‘the Psyche myth tells us that a woman can obtain the necessary masculine energy for her purposes without a power play’ (Johnson, 1989: 60). Bolen agrees that ‘symbolically, the golden fleece represents power, which a woman needs to acquire without being destroyed in the attempt to attain some’ (Johnson, 1989: 260). However, Bolen distinguishes between different types of women, represented by the different archetypes in Greek myth, in the way women accomplish this task. An armored Athena can be in the midst of a battlefield, directly involved in strategy and politics, but a woman who is like Psyche does better observing, waiting, and gradually acquiring power indirectly. The act of acquiring the golden fleece without destroying Psyche is a metaphor for the task of gaining power and remaining a compassionate person (Johnson, 1989: 260).

In my view, Psyche represents the anima force in every psyche. All archetypal psychologists agree that a wise person balances the forces of the anima — the ‘female’ energies of compassion and connectedness — and the forces of the animus — the ‘male’ energies of aggression and competitiveness. The story tells of how anyone, male or female, can gain power without ‘butting heads’ with other people. It encourages human beings to avoid unnecessary confrontation, to find alternative ways to exercise power in situations that demand power. The goal is to avoid losing one’s soul, the drive to weave people together and create a culture. The third task is filling a goblet with water from the Styx, the river that runs from the mountain into the earth and back again. Psyche is helped by Zeus, who asks an eagle to take the goblet and fill it up for her. On some versions of the myth, the eagle picks her up and she dips the cup into the river. I prefer the second version, because in it Psyche herself ‘sees’ the world from a broader point of view. Johnson interprets this task as ‘telling us how the woman must relate to the vastness of life. She may take only one goblet of water. The feminine way is to do one thing and do it well and in proportion. She is not denied a second or third or tenth activity but

240

XIV

she must take it one goblet at a time, each in good order’ (Johnson, 1989: 62). It is not clear in Johnson’s book, however, if he claims that the myth is written for women only or for the development of the anima in a man. After referring to ‘the woman’ and ‘the feminine way’, Johnson goes on to say, The feminine aspect of the human psyche has been described as unfocused consciousness. The feminine nature is flooded with the rich vastness of possibilities in life and is drawn to all of them, usually all at once . . . Vision like an eagle to see clearly and dip into the river at the right place in the right manner is important. The ego that is attempting to raise some of the vast unconscious into human conscious life must learn to contain only one goblet of water at a time lest it be overwhelmed and the container shattered (Johnson, 1989: 63).

Johnson’s conclusion is that everyone, male and female, has to learn to ‘see’, both the big picture, and the immediate task at hand, ‘Almost every person is overwhelmed by the too-muchness of modern life, even on a day to day basis. That is the time for the eagle view and the one-goblet-at-atime mentality’ (Johnson, 1989: 64). Bolen has a similar view. ‘The eagle symbolizes the ability to see the landscape from a distant perspective and swoop down to grasp what is needed. This is not the usual perspective mode for a woman, such as Psyche, who is so personally involved that she “cannot see the forest for the trees”’ (Johnson, 1989: 261). It is also difficult to tell if Bolen thinks the story applies only to women or to the development of the anima aspect of a man’s psyche. My own view is that the water from the Styx is holy, pure water. It represents the sacred tasks of life. The deities of Greek mythology represent archetypes of many different sacred ‘callings’, many human activities that give life meaning and purpose. Adults must engage in as many of these as possible in the course of their lives in order to pass down to posterity a livable world. The tasks are related to marriage, reproduction, creating just communities through the creation of laws and institutions, using reasoning powers to manage those communities, respecting the natural world, artistic creation and appreciation, scientific inquiry, overcoming immediate pleasures and fearful situations in order to protect and preserve what is most important, etc. These sacred duties can be overwhelming. No one can focus on all of them at once. A life dedicated to the pursuit of what is most sacred in human life will involve both the eagle point of view and the ability to know what particular choices are most likely to lead to success in the pursuit of the most longterm goals. Again, I think Johnson and Bolen would agree.

A Woman’s Life and Loves

241

The fourth task is to go to Hades and get the cask of beauty ointment from Persephone. When Psyche completes this task, Zeus allows her to drink from the pot of immortality and promises her that Eros will never leave her again. Psyche later gives birth to a daughter named Pleasure. Johnson says that the cask represents to each woman, ‘your own archetypal nature, that which is beyond any personal dimension. You then participate in the immortality which has been promised from the very beginning of the myth although in such dark and difficult terms. It was Psyche’s work which translated the native beauty promised at first into the conscious goddesshood accomplished at the end of the story’ (Bolen, 1984: 71–2). Bolen says: ‘Through the four tasks, Psyche evolves. She develops capabilities and strengths as her courage and determination are tested. Yet, despite all she acquires, her basic nature and priorities remain unchanged: she values a love relationship, risks everything for it, and wins’ (Bolen, 1984: 262). My own view is that the myth is the story of ‘a woman’s life and loves,’ of all the sacred passions women are capable of experiencing, as represented by the archetypes of the Greek goddesses. In relation to each one, a woman who seeks wisdom has to go through the four stages described in the myth. She must examine the seeds planted from childhood that lead her to seek or avoid one of the ‘goddesses’ or to live out this passion in a way very different from the ways other women do. She must gain some power in the public realm in relation to each passion if she is to leave behind the fruit of her sacred labor. She must be able to ‘see’ which passions should be pursued and/or what combination at any given time, in what way, for how long, etc. The different passions have to be guided by the ‘eagle’ vision of a complete human life, the individuation of the Self, which must include all the sacred tasks. Finally, she must learn how to be both serious and deep and spontaneous. She must take great pleasure in the pursuit of wisdom, not repressing irrational desires or detaching reasoning from emotions and actions. All aspects of life are integrated. The most instinctual drives are transformed into a great passion, a great pleasure, in the serious search for meaning and purpose.

The seven sacred passions of the goddesses of Greek mythology In the rest of this paper, I will discuss the seven goddesses of Greek mythology because each represents one of the sacred passions alluded to above. Although I think the story relates to men as well as women, I will

XIV

242

discuss the goddesses in relation to women’s lives. I will use quotes about the strengths and weaknesses of each goddess taken from Bolen’s book, Goddesses in Everywoman. Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, a nature deity, and the twin sister of Apollo, god of reason. Artemis spent her days in the wilderness, accompanied by virgin nymphs and hunting. ‘In the myths, Artemis acted swiftly and decisively to protect and rescue those who appealed to her for help. She was also quick to punish those who offended her’ (Bolen, 1984: 47). Bolen describes Artemis as a personification of an independent feminine spirit. The archetype she represents enables a woman to seek her own goals on terrain of her own choosing […] This archetype enables a woman to feel whole without a man. With it, she can pursue interests and work at what matters to her without needing masculine approval […] The Artemis archetype gives women the innate ability to concentrate intensely on whatever is important to her and to be undistracted from her course, either by the needs of others or by competition from others (Bolen, 1984: 49).

Athena, by contrast, spends all of her time in the city, focused on running her city justly, ‘[Athena] was the stately, beautiful warrior goddess, protector of her chosen heroes and of her namesake city, Athens […] protector of cities, patron of military forces, and goddess of weavers, goldsmiths, potters, and dressmakers’ (Bolen, 1984: 75). Bolen says that psychologically, “the martial and domestic skills associated with Athena involve planning and execution, activities that require purposeful thinking. Strategy, practicality, and tangible results are hallmarks of her particular wisdom. Athena values rational thinking and stands for the domination of will and intellect over instinct and nature. Her spirit is found in the city” (Bolen, 1984: 76).

Politically, ‘Besides championing individual heroes and being the Olympian positioned closest to Zeus, Athena sided with the patriarchy’ (Bolen, 1984: 77). Even though she defends the status quo and appears to identify with men, Bolen says, Athena is a feminine archetype: she shows that thinking well, keeping one’s head in the heart of an emotional situation, and developing good tactics in the midst of conflict, are natural traits for some women . . .

A Woman’s Life and Loves

243

Athena’s realistic orientation to the world as it is, her pragmatic attitude, her conformity to ‘adult’ (that is, traditionally held) standards, and lack of romanticism or idealism complete this impression of Athena as the epitome of the ‘sensible adult […] Diplomacy — which involves strategy, power, and deceptive maneuvers—is a realm in which Athena shines’ (Bolen, 1984: 78–80).

In her leisure time, Athena continues to use analogous skills in the production of tapestries, As Goddess of Crafts, Athena was involved with making things that were both useful and esthetically pleasing. She was most noted for her skills as a weaver, in which hands and mind must work together. To make a tapestry or a weaving, a woman must design and plan what she will do and then, row by row, methodically create it. This approach is an expression of the Athena archetype, which emphasizes foresight, planning, mastery of a craft, and patience (Bolen, 1984: 81).

Aphrodite is extremely different from either Artemis or Athena. Although in a patriarchal society Aphrodite gets associated almost exclusively with the projection of male lust and with a woman’s ability to sexually arouse a man, this is a serious perversion of Aphrodite as an archetype in a woman’s psyche. Since it is a female archetype, built into the female psyche, it consists in the capacity to arouse pleasure and to inspire creativity, including pregnancies of mind, body, and spirit. Although a great deal of artistic and creative work is the result of planning and drudgery, no artist would engage in such work if he or she had not originally been inspired by an Aphrodite passion to create something beautiful in some sense of beautiful. Without Aphrodite as the original spark and a constant source of heat to keep the creative process from going cold and burning out, nothing would be created. As Bolen says the Aphrodite archetype ‘represents the transformative and creative power of love’ (Bolen, 1984: 224) and makes clear that this kind of love does not exclusively, or even primarily, refer to sexual attraction, and ‘Anyone who has ever fallen in love with a person, a place, an idea, or an object focuses on and takes it in with Aphrodite consciousness’ (Bolen, 1984: 226). Bolen explains, Whomever or whatever Aphrodite imbues with beauty is irresistible. A magnetic attraction results, ‘chemistry’ happens between the two, and they desire union above all else […] While this drive may be purely sexual, the impulse is often deeper […] The desire to know and be known is what Aphrodite generates. If this desire leads to physical intimacy, impregnation

244

XIV and new life may follow. If the union is also or either of mind, heart, or spirit, new growth occurs in the psychological, emotional, or spiritual spheres (Bolen, 1984: 225).

Intercourse is synonymous with communication or communion. Any of the other Greek goddess archetypes can be attached to Aphrodite. In order for the sacred passion each represents to be activated and activated toward a positive goal, they must be united with the sacred Aphrodite. Hera is the wife of Zeus and the archetype that, Bolen says, ‘provides the capacity to bond, to be loyal and faithful, to endure and go through difficulties with a partner’ (Bolen, 1984: 144). The marriage bond has three aspects, all of which Hera recognizes: 1) the inner need to be a mate; 2) the need for recognition as a married pair; and 3) the human need to understand the marriage bond as sacred, ‘a spiritual union or sacrament through which grace can be channeled’ (Bolen, 1984: 145). At its deepest psychological level, the sanctity of marriage represents ‘an intrapsychic union between masculine and feminine . . . an experience of wholeness’ (Bolen, 1984: 145). At best, the Hera archetype, then, represents the union of nature (her foster parents) and culture (her status as the Goddess of marriage) and the union of female energies in the psyche and male energies in the psyche. Like the story of Aphrodite, the story of Hera describes a culture corrupted by the male abuse of power. Hera’s archetype has two very different aspects, ‘she was solemnly revered and worshipped in rituals as a powerful goddess of marriage, and was denigrated by Homer as a vindictive, quarrelsome, jealous shrew’ (Bolen, 1984: 139). ‘Hera, as Goddess of Marriage, was revered and reviled, honored and humiliated. She, more than any other goddess, has markedly positive and negative attributes. The same is true for the Hera archetype, an intensely powerful force for joy or pain in a woman’s psyche’ (Bolen, 1984: 142). Hera’s reputation as a shrew was the direct result of Zeus’ infidelity, Time and time again, Zeus was unfaithful, evoking vindictive jealousy in his betrayed wife. Hera’s rage was not aimed at her unfaithful husband; rather, it was directed at ‘the other woman,’ (who more often than not had been seduced, raped, or deceived by Zeus), at children conceived by Zeus, or at innocent bystanders (Bolen, 1984: 140).

Hera had two sets of parents. The first, Chronos and Rhea were ‘a distant father who swallowed his children, threatened by the possibility that one would overthrow him, and a powerless mother who could not protect her

A Woman’s Life and Loves

245

children from him’ (Bolen, 1984: 149). Bolen points out that this is an archetype for one form of extremely dysfunctional marriage with a domineering father who controls his whole family and a passive mother who cannot confront him. After being freed from her father, ‘she was raised in an idyllic situation with two nature deities as foster parents’ (Bolen, 1984: 149). In this family a well-formed Hera archetype is healthy and happy and plays an important part in the union of culture and nature. However, after marrying Zeus, she found herself in the same situation, married to a man who abused her and her children. Like her mother, she was unable to confront him. Unlike mortals, Hera is never able to divorce her husband and start over again. Demeter is the goddess of fertility, both fertility of the earth and fertility of nature. Demeter was the second child of Chronos and Rhea. Zeus, another child of Chronos and Rhea, raped his sister, Demeter, leading to the birth of Persephone. Hades, god of the underworld, was attracted to Persephone and asked Zeus if he could abduct her. Zeus approved (Bolen, 1984: 168– 69). Feeling betrayed, Demeter’s grief turned to outrage. She withdrew from Mount Olympus and refused to allow anything to grow. Demeter would not do anything until Persephone was returned to her (Bolen, 1984: 170). Finally, a deal is made: Persephone spends six months in Hades and six months with her mother, and the earth once again becomes fertile. As an archetype in the souls of women, Demeter ‘represents maternal instinct fulfilled through pregnancy or through providing physical, psychological, or spiritual nourishment to others’ (Bolen, 1984: 171). When Demeter is the strongest archetype in a woman’s psyche, being a mother is the most important role and function in her life […] the nurturing aspect of the Demeter archetype can (also) be expressed through the helping professions — teaching, nursing, counseling, in any job in which helping other is part of the role — and in any relationship in which she can be a nurturing person. The archetype is not restricted to being a mother (Bolen, 1984: 171–172).

As mothers, Demeter women are obsessively focused on meeting not only the physical needs of their children, but also providing emotional support and understanding and ‘spiritual wisdom as they cope with disappointments and grief or seek to find some meaning in life’ (Bolen, 1984: 174). As an archetype in a woman’s soul, ‘[Persephone] predisposes a woman not to act but to be acted on by others — to be compliant in action and passive in attitude [… She] has two aspects, as the Kore (nameless

XIV

246

maiden) and as Queen of the Underworld’ (Bolen, 1984: 199). She represents the young girl who does not know ‘who she is [… She is] uncommitted to a relationship, to work, or to an educational goal — even though she may, in fact, be in a relationship, have a job, or be in college or even graduate school’ (Bolen, 1984: 199). In a patriarchy, such women often get used and abused by men, sexually or psychologically. Finally, Hestia was goddess of the Hearth, or, more specifically, of the fire burning on a round hearth. She is the least known of the Olympians [… she] was not represented in human form by painters or sculptors. Instead, she was felt to be present in the living flame at the center of the home, temple, and city. Hestia’s symbol was a circle . . . Hestia was apparently a spiritually felt presence as well as a sacred fire that provided illumination, warmth, and heat for food (Bolen, 1984: 107).

‘[Zeus] has her sit in the center of the house to receive the best in offerings. In all temples of the gods she is honored, and among all mortals she is a venerated goddess’ (Bolen, 1984: 108). As an archetype in a woman’s soul, says Bolen, Hestia’s way of perceiving is by looking inward and intuitively sensing what is going on. The Hestian mode allows us to get in touch with our values by bringing into focus what is personally meaningful. Through this inner focusing, we can perceive the essence of a situation. We can also gain insight into other people’s character and see the pattern or feel the significance of their actions. This inner perspective provides clarity in the midst of the confusing myriad of details that confront our five senses […] The inward Hestia may also become emotionally detached and perceptually inattentive to others in her surroundings as she attends to her own concerns […] Hestia’s ‘one-in-herselfness’ seeks quiet tranquility, which is most easily found in solitude (Bolen, 1984: 110–111). With Hestia as an inner presence, a woman is not ‘attached’ to people, outcomes, possessions, prestige, or power. She feels whole as she is. Her ego is not on the line. Because her identity isn’t important, it is not tied to external circumstance. Thus she does not become elated or devastated by whatever happens (Bolen, 1984: 113).

The Hestia archetype represents the kind of psychic energy that Jung describes as the inner life of an ‘individuated person’, the person who has attained the highest level of wisdom.

A Woman’s Life and Loves

247

Hestia’s detachment gives this archetype a ‘wise woman’ quality. She is like an elder who has seen it all, and has come through with her spirit undampened and her character tempered by experience […] Hestia is an archetype of inner centeredness. She is ‘the still point’ that gives meaning to activity, the inner reference point that allows a woman to be grounded in the midst of outer chaos, disorder, or ordinary, everyday bustle. With Hestia in her personality, a woman’s life has meaning (Bolen, 1984: 113).

Readers of this article should recognize that the author is clearly a natural Hestia. The search for wisdom and the desire to define that search for others is the kind of sacred task that only a woman ‘possessed’ by Hestia would pursue.

Conclusion: Becoming a wise woman Although not all women will necessarily experience all seven sacred passions represented by the goddesses, they are all part of the collective unconscious and rooted in the human psyche. Even women who eventually experience all seven archetypes do not do so at once. At any point in her life, a woman will be most focused on one, two, or three of the ‘goddesses’. Also, the major passions in her life will change over time. Aphrodite becomes an obsession in adolescence; Hera when or if one gets married, etc. A woman who marries and has children might be focused almost exclusively on Aphrodite, Hera and Demeter and forget the rest. A woman possessed by Artemis might be focused on saving the earth through environmental activism. Athena will be obsessed with power and engaged in public life. A woman, who has been abused like Persephone was, might run a center for victims of rape and sexual abuse, giving help and advice to those she identifies with. A Hestia woman obsessed with the importance of getting people to live more examined lives might detach herself from all other passions. In the course of a life, a woman might raise family earlier in life and then seek the passions of Artemis, Athena, or Hestia. There are endless possibilities for the ways these passions weave themselves in and out of any particular woman’s life. Whatever passions happen to possess a woman at any given time, however, must eventually go from the original naïve obsession to a mature form of the same sacred calling. The sexual dimension of a relationship has to change from an infatuation to a relationship between two independent, complex adults. A marriage has to change from an economic and psychological dependency that can devolve into an unhealthy codependency to a partnership that allows for the development of each

248

XIV

partner. Raising children has to go from an appropriate obsession about each child when they are young and completely dependent to the recognition of one’s children as moving toward adulthood. Once adults, they must be respected and loved for whom they have become. Artemis’ desire to save the earth has to go from an obsession to the ability to work with people and through institutions to convince people to live more environmental-friendly lives. Athena’s drive to exercise power, or to establish an institution, or to make good laws has to be tempered by the ability to work with other people who have the same goals, so that the best laws and institutions can be established and left for the benefit of the next generation. Persephone’s desire to overcome one’s victimization and to help other people overcome theirs has to be tempered by setting up social organizations, opportunities for meaningful dialogue, productive forms of therapy, and opportunities for those who have been victimized to become less vulnerable to abuse and less willing to be abused. Hestia’s desire for wisdom has to be channeled into the work of writing, arranging public presentations, and finding out about what drives other people. A true lover of wisdom must develop deep empathy for the many legitimate ways human beings seek wisdom. In order to become a mature adult, a woman possessed by any of these passions or some combination must go through the four-step process in respect to each one and to her life as a whole. First, she must understand why this passion or these passions are her particular obsessions, why she is focused in this way rather than in another way. She has to figure out the genetic abilities she was born with, how different passions were cultivated as a result of living in her particular family, with her particular parents and siblings, the most influential experiences and people in her first twenty years, the opportunities she had, etc. Figuring out the psychological seeds that were planted and nurtured long before she began making conscious choices will help her understand why others are different and which of those influences led her toward the most sacred gifts she has to offer. Second, she must do what is necessary to get a stable footing in the world of adults, the world of money and power. She cannot live in a paradise created by a husband, a father or a male friend who wants to be a ‘hero’ by protecting her from the complexity and difficulty of achievement in the public realm. She does not have to make money. Her achievements might be related to volunteer work on school boards, hospital boards, fundraising events, working at non-profit organizations, etc., activities that include face-to-face interaction with the concrete and complicated lives of many kinds of people at various levels of need.

A Woman’s Life and Loves

249

Third, she must figure out what she is most serious about, what she thinks the world needs most that she can provide best. This is the pure water that she can take from on high, the top of the mountain, as close as human beings get to the realm of the gods, and bring that water back to the earth, to water the seeds that matter most to her so they grow out of the earth rather than float in a world of fantasy and infantile dreams. Fourth, she must regain spontaneity and a joy in simply being alive, without having to trivialize or deny any of life’s complexity and difficulty, without having to be either depressed by her limitations or deluded by denial about her limits. She must live an excellent human life, not the fantasy life of a deity or the dissipated life of someone who seeks only profane goals, such as pleasure, power, or status. Only then will she be able to pass on to posterity a better, or at least not a worse, world. As a woman goes through this complicated and difficult process, she must always keep in mind the fact that she lives in a patriarchy, a maledominated society. Feminist archetypal psychologists do not think Jung was critical enough of mythologies, including Greek myths, that presuppose male domination over women, including clear examples of the oppression and abuse of women as somehow ‘built into’ the collective unconscious. Bolen’s descriptions of the goddess archetypes show clearly that the stories represent an unhealthy culture. All of the goddesses get seriously abused or are assumed to exist to help men achieve their goals, including sexual gratification, reproduction, and the exercise of political power. Charlene Spretnak, among others, makes clear in her book, The Lost Goddesses of Early Greece, that the myths passed down to us through Hesiod, Homer and the other ‘Ancient Greeks’, were completely altered from the oldest myths, myths that were accepted by cultures in Greece and in many places throughout the world. She quotes well-known male authorities to support this view. In his book, The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology, Joseph Campbell claims, ‘there can be no doubt that in the very earliest ages of human history the magical force and wonder of the female was no less a marvel than the universe itself; and this gave to woman a prodigious power, which it has been one of the chief concerns of the masculine part of the population to break, control and employ to its own ends’ (Campbell, 1991: 13). Robert Graves, in his book, The Greek Myths, says, ‘The whole of Neolithic Europe, to judge from surviving artefacts and myths, had a remarkably homogeneous system of religious ideas, based on worship of the many-titles Mother-goddess, who was also

250

XIV

known in Syria and Libya’ (Graves, 1960: 14). Spretnak says that, on the one hand, Jung knew that the myths handed down to us from classical Greece, ‘had been “elaborated” extensively, and he once referred to them as “the hackneyed chronique scandaleuse of Olympus”’ (Spretnek, 1981:30). However, Jung ‘never made a clear, consistent distinction between the two bodies of Greek mythology’ (Spretnek, 1981: 30). Spretnak makes this very clear distinction, [The pre-Hellenic Goddess] was associated with order, wisdom, protection, and the life-giving processes (e.g., seasonal change, fertility of womb and field […] The pre-Hellenic Goddesses are enmeshed with people’s daily experiencing of the energy forces in life; Olympian Gods are distant, removed, ‘up there.’ Unlike the flowing, protective love of a MotherGoddess, the character of the Olympian Gods is judgmental. Olympian Gods are much more warlike than their predecessors and are often involved in strife. The pre-Hellenic Goddesses are powerful and compassionate, yet those whom, the Greeks incorporated into the new order were transformed severely. The great Hera was made into a disagreeable, jealous wife; Athena was made into a cold, masculine daughter; Aphrodite was made into a frivolous sexual creature; Artemis was made into a quite forgettable sister of Apollo; and Pandora was made into the troublesome, treacherous source of human woes (Spretnek, 1981: 18).

Spretnak’s research led her to a recreation of the stories of the goddesses. Pandora was originally the earth goddess who rose from the earth with a vessel filled with gifts that help human beings to flourish physically and psychologically: plants, minerals, curiosity, justice, and courage. Aphrodite is a fertility goddess who causes everything to become fertile. She does not the tool men use to become sexually virile. Artemis was the goddess who lived in the wild, who loved nature. Her rituals involved ecstatic dancing in the fields, leading to a psychological breakdown of the gap between consciousness and nature and an experience of mystical union with nature. She was also a great help in the birthing process, always there to help women and females of every species when they needed assistance in bringing forth new life. Hera was associated with the three stages of woman’s life, childhood, fertility and post-fertility and also with the three stages of the moon. The stages of the moon were, in turn, associated with menstruation and the rituals connected to Hera ‘encouraged the flow of the sacred blood’ (Spretnek, 1981: 91). Athena loved civilization, life in the city, and was a great patron of all types of learning and the arts, those activities that required leisure time and communities connected by intellectual and creative passions beyond

A Woman’s Life and Loves

251

biological needs and reproduction. She protected the city in order to protect the activities she loved. Demeter is the ‘Grain-Mother, the giver of crops’ (Spretnek, 1981: 105). Persephone is an extension of her being: she gives the grain to enable people to live and when they die she takes them back into her womb, the underworld, an extension of her being. The story Spretnak tells is of Persephone as the daughter of Demeter who hears the shades of the dead moaning and suffering. She feels compassion for them and wants to go to the underworld to help them: ‘The dead need us, Mother. I will go to them’ (Spretnek, 1981: 113). Demeter does not want Persephone to go, but her daughter insists. In the underworld, Persephone ‘received and renewed the dead’ (Spretnek, 1981: 116) and then returns to earth to spend part of the year with her mother. When she is gone, Demeter morns and nothing grows. When she returns, the earth becomes fertile again. This story is completely different from the story of Persephone as abducted and raped by Hades, after Hades has asked her father, Zeus, for permission and Zeus has granted it. Further, the Persephone in Homer’s Hades is ‘dreaded’ because she takes revenge on those who have done great harm on earth. She is the great victim who, in turn, victimizes the dead, making them repay eternally for their crimes. I have written a book that describes these goddesses in more depth and explains my own personal experiences of being ‘possessed’ by each one. The book includes numerous quotes from poems and essays written by women under the influence of each goddess. My story and all the references make clear that women have to cope with trying to function in a culture that oppresses them in whatever they say, feel, and do. The book shows how difficult it is for women possessed by the seven sacred passions to live positive, creative, and healthy lives while being continually aware that they have to win male approval in order to thrive or even to survive. The book describes a few of the many ways each goddess gets wounded and must find a way to transcend the wound and express the sacred passion so that the culture becomes more conscious of itself and of the great harm it does, mostly unconsciously. The last chapter of that book describes a roundtable discussion between all the goddesses. Sophia, the goddess of wisdom, is at the head of the table, trying to get them to work together. Sophia represents the individuated woman. In this conversation, Sophia is obsessed with getting the goddesses to achieve their most important task: to save the earth from destruction. Male-dominated societies have failed. Sophia has decided that it is the goddesses’ task to prevent a catastrophe.

252

XIV

Each goddess has her say and then must listen to the others. Aphrodite is criticized for distracting men from what matters most; she fights back by criticizing the others for denying and repressing her power. They agree to acknowledge her if she will only attach sexual attraction to environmentally friendly ways of living. Hera is criticized for looking the other way when her husband’s power is based on the exploitation of the earth. She fights back by defending the importance of marriage and of married partners supporting each other. They agree to honor marriage if Hera will do what she can to get Zeus to his power to save the earth. Demeter, the great mother, promises not to spoil her children by buying them unnecessary material things or by engaging in activities that destroy the earth. She promises to raise her children to take pleasure in living within natural limits and respecting the natural world. Persephone, the victim, promises to threaten eternal punishment in Hades for those who destroy the earth. Artemis promises to work with people in cities to save her beloved natural world. Athena promises to get her powerful male friends to build institutions and make laws that protect the earth. Hestia promises to use her reflective passion to get people to examine themselves and their lives through the lens of uniting culture with nature. If they work together, Sophia, the goddess of wisdom, will be the most active and will bring them all to their highest level of activity, in harmony with each other. The transcendent function, the fully individuated anima energies in the human psyche, will finally be directed toward integrating culture with nature. This paper presents one, but only one, way of showing how the texts of Greek education give readers a perspective on the human condition that is still true today. The Ancient Greeks were aware of a part of the human psyche that could recognize those patterns in human behavior and human history that were caused by the collective unconscious, by deeply embedded ways that instinctual drives were linked to the human desire for meaning and purpose in life. Greek myth, Homer, Hesiod, tragedy, Plato, Aristotle, the Pre-Socratic philosophers, Thucydides and many others all sought to pass on the wisdom they gained from their own reading, experience, and reflections on life. They wanted to prevent unnecessary suffering and destruction by explaining the many ways human beings go wrong and the fact that some people can live wisely in the face of so much ignorance and evil. They wanted to motivate their future readers to love wisdom, to intellectually recognize and choose the better alternatives and then to explain their choices to others. All of these powers must be active in order to educate present and future human beings. Our responsibility as

A Woman’s Life and Loves

253

human beings is to seek wisdom and to pass on to future generations the tools they will need to live their own lives wisely.

References Beck, Martha (2008). The Quest for Wisdom in Plato and Carl Jung: A Comparative Study of the Healers of the Soul. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press. Bolen, Jean Shinoda (1984, 2004). Goddesses in Everywoman: Powerful Archetypes in Women's Lives. New York: Quill. Campbell, Joseph (1991). The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology. New York: Penguin. Graves, Robert (1960). The Greek Myths. Vol. 1. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Henderson, Joseph L. (1964). ‘Ancient Myths and Modern Man’. In Man and His Symbols, edited by Carl Jung and M. L. Von Franz, 104-157. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. Jacobi, Jolande (1973). The Psychology of C. G. Jung: An Introduction with Illustrations. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Johnson, Robert A. (1989). She: Understanding Feminine Psychology. New York: Harper Perennial. Jung, Carl G. (1964). ‘Approaching the Unconscious’. In Man and His Symbols, edited by Carl G. Jung and M.-L. Von Franz, 18-103. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Co. —. (1969). The Psychology and Religion: West and East, in The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Vol. 11 of the Bollingen Series XX. Translated by R. F. C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press. —. (1971). The Portable Jung. Edited by Joseph Campbell. New York: Penguin Books. —. (1997). Jung on Active Imagination. Edited by Joan Chodorow. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Spretnak, Charlene (1981). Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths. Boston: Beacon Press. Von Franz, M.-L. (1964). ‘The Process of Individuation’. In Man and His Symbols, edited by Carl G. Jung and M.-L. Von Franz, 158-229. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Co. Whitmont, Edward C. (1969). The Symbolic Quest: Basic Concepts of Analytic Psychology. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

XV WHAT DOES THE ‘SUBLATION’ OF MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS MEAN FOR PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE? ON THE INSTITUTIONAL DIMENSION OF THERAPY IN HEGEL’S PHILOSOPHY RASTKO JOVANOV

The main question that I want to pose in this paper is the following: What can the sublation (Aufhebung) of moral consciousness within Hegel’s philosophy mean for philosophical practice regarding therapeutic dimensions of Hegel’s notion of the ‘ethical life’ (Sittlichkeit)? Although my answer is purely theoretical, I maintain that Hegel’s insights into the nature of the human spirit and its processuality, as well as the inherent tendency of human beings to seek self-awareness and self-realization, can be of great benefit to the conceptual foundation of philosophical praxis as a new paradigm in the pursuit of philosophy. Hegel’s philosophy essentially speaks about the ways in which humans relate to the world, and about the contingent and finite condition of human existence. Hegel’s therapeutic inquiry thus focuses on enabling the individual to feel ‘at home’ in the world.1 Once a subject becomes aware of its own mind, its self-consciousness and capability for moral judgment, the potential for profound suffering arises in the frequent attempts to reconcile the sublime side of human existence with its animalistic desires and passions. This 1

Hegel (1988: 14): ‘To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world looks rational in return. The relation is mutual.’ References to the Philosophy of Right are to G.W.F. Hegel, Outlines of the Philosophy of Right [= PhR], trans. by T. M. Knox, revised, edited, and introduced by S. Houlgate (Oxford: University Press 2008). Those to the Phenomenology of Spirit are to G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit [=PdG], trans. by A. V. Miller (Oxford: University Press 1977).

What Does the ‘Sublation’ of Moral Consciousness Mean

255

very suffering discloses the need for philosophy, which is understandable as a therapeutic attempt to integrate the human being with the other and the world. The main aim of Hegel’s practical philosophy is hence to refract one from abstract subjective concepts to one's concrete everyday inter-subjective practices, and show one the way to understand oneself and one’s social world as originally related to each other. The therapeutic dimensions of Hegel’s philosophy have been discussed at length in the context of the relation between philosophical and psychoanalytical thought. These discussions focused mainly on his early work, The Phenomenology of Spirit.2 There, Hegel maintains that the task of bringing about the universal ‘consists not so much in purging the individual of an immediate, sensuous mode of apprehension and making him into a substance that is an object of thought and that thinks, but rather in just the opposite, in freeing determinate thoughts from their fixity so as to give actuality to the universal, and impart to it spiritual life’ (PdG, 19– 20). The Phenomenology can thus be seen as a therapeutic presentation of the perceptual deformations of natural, pre-philosophical consciousness. The first insights into the therapeutic function that the concept of ‘ethical life’ has within Hegel’s Philosophy of Right was put forward by Axel Honneth in his book The Pathologies of Individual Freedom: Hegel’s Social Theory.3 Honneth’s thesis on the nature of ethical life may have strong implications for psychoanalytic thought, because psychoanalysis also indicates an immanent pathology of the ‘absolutisation’ of individual self-consciousness. Indeed, psychoanalytic theory may lead to strong social and political consequences regarding an essential incompleteness of both human beings and social order. Todd McGowan notices that the subject exists at the point of the social order’s failure to become a closed structure, and the subject enters into social arrangements as a result of its own failure to achieve self-identity. The internal contradictions within every social order create the space for the subject, just as the internal contradictions of the subject produce an opening to externality that links the subject to the social order. Failure on each side provides the

2

J. Lacan was the first to bring Hegel’s philosophy and psychoanalytical theory in closer connection. Cf. also: Dolar 2006: 129–155, Mills 2012, M. Macdonald 2013; as well as the various works of S. Žižek. 3 English translation (Princeton: University Press 2010) of: Axel Honneth, Leiden an Unbestimmtheit: Eine Reaktualisierung der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie, Stuttgart: Reclam, 2001.

256

XV connective apparatus and constitutes the bond between the subject and the social order (McGowan, 2013: 145).

This position is also shared by Hegel, who attempts to sublate the split (Entzweiung) between the ‘infinite right’ of the modern subjectivity as the principle of morality (PhR, § 104) and the objective norms of social institutions, through the fundamental notion of his legal and political philosophy – the notion of ethical life (Sittlichkeit). Sittlichkeit has no exact English equivalent. It is not simply morality, for it includes the institutional dimension of social interactions within one’s community. The ethical life represents — as we shall see further on — the fact that ethics is grounded in social institutions rather than in one’s abstract principles. The morality of inner subjectivity (e.g. conscience) is not adequate for ethical guidance, because, according to Hegel, neither morality nor private rights of individuals (based on property rights) can generate truly binding ethical principles. I will now briefly describe what Hegel’s notion of the ethical life exactly denotes and how he comes to the conclusion that private rights and morality are insufficient for the ethical orientation of human beings in the world. The notion of the ethical life, die Sittlichkeit, derives from the concept of die Sitte, ‘custom’. Still, for Kant and Fichte Sittlichkeit was equated with moral philosophy, or ethics in general. Hegel gives this word a totally different meaning, by linking it with his equally peculiar notion of Spirit (Geist), which expresses the interconnection between the mental and wilful properties of human beings on the one hand, and the collective activities that make up human culture – art, religion, philosophy, and so forth – on the other. In contrast to morality, which is always individual, based on one’s own conscience or feelings, the ethical life represents ethical norms embodied in the customs and institutions of one's society. Any stable society requires an ethical life, a system of social norms accepted by its members. The central aim of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right is to provide a justification for the norms of ethical life. In doing so, Hegel distinguishes between three types of freedom: (i) the abstract, private right, (ii) morality and (iii) the ethical life. In a society founded upon abstract right, the primary relations between individuals are property relations. The freedom founded on abstract rights (the claim, ‘this is mine and I have the right to it’) is, for Hegel, the most basic. A true sense of community is absent here. The moral standpoint as a distinct type of ‘freedom’ implies that human beings are able to adopt a sense of impartiality by applying universal norms to their affairs and accordingly set their own self-interests aside. For Hegel, however, moral norms, which are the basis of Kant’s

What Does the ‘Sublation’ of Moral Consciousness Mean

257

principle of universalization, are ‘empty of content’. Hegel holds that every ethical norm must be practiced: one needs to learn within intersubjective relations what particular moral norms or values are (e.g. generosity). That is why, according to Hegel, ethics requires social institutions that give moral norms their concrete shape through intersubjective practices. It is to this aspect of Hegel’s understanding of ethical life that Axel Honneth gives a particular meaning by linking it to a particular interpretation of Hegel’s therapeutic strategy as ‘liberation from suffering’ within the social life-world (Lebenswelt). Hegel finds that the suffering of the individual in modern society is caused by pathologies in which the individual becomes embroiled, while striving through the universalization of normative content of purely moral subjectivity to values and ends of human life. Thus the inter-subjectivity of civil life is pathologized by the fact that ‘the freedom of the other here [in civil society, R.J.] appears only as the means of satisfying one's own interest in keeping open as many options as possible’ (Honneth, 2010: 34): To have no interest except in one's formal right may be pure obstinacy, often a fitting accompaniment of a cold heart and restricted sympathies: for it is uncultured people who insist most on their rights, while noble minds look on other aspects of the thing. Thus abstract right is nothing but a bare possibility and in that respect something formal as compared with the whole range of the situation. On that account, to have a right gives one a warrant, but it is not absolutely necessary that one should insist on one's rights, because that is only one aspect of the whole situation (PhR, § 37 Addition).

A formal ‘legal relationship fixes [the] individual being and posits it absolutely’ (Hegel, 1999: 149). This is not a purely theoretical conclusion: it is grounded in Hegel’s understanding of contemporary civil society, where the dissociative forces of early capitalism had destroyed the earlier communal bonds characteristic of feudalism and the feudalist resources for social integration. The advent of modernity meant that individuals started to consider themselves primarily as private owners and subjects of legal rights. Their self-conceptualization rested firmly on their perception of self-interest. This type of social organization and collective self-perception presents a peculiar trend of pathogenesis: rising apathy for the community as a whole, or ‘political nullity’ as Hegel calls it (Hegel, 1999: 151), as well as a certain disorientation of moral conscience, because people perceive their

258

XV

relationships to one another and to reality largely through the process of universalization of their own ‘abstract’ individual standpoints, rather than really ‘taking in’ the identities and interests of the community as a whole. Since the individual naturally seeks the objective realization of their own understanding of the right, and this understanding is often in collision with positive legal norms, the individual in such cases suffers the feelings of non-recognition by society. Such contingent developments are made possible by the consistent inadequacy of a subjective conscience for ethical guidance in a modern capitalist society. Individual morality, which Hegel appears to conceive of as purely subjective, is unable in principle to accommodate the resistance encountered by the world and is thus practically insufficient as the normative framework for social action. This is where institutionalized customs and social norms come into play. Finally, the purely subjective moral standpoint could become the standpoint of evil: Once self-consciousness has reduced all otherwise valid determinations to emptiness and itself to the sheer inwardness of the will, it has become the potentiality of either making what is universal in and for itself into its principle, or equally well of elevating above the universal the self-will of its own particularity, taking that as its principle and realizing it through its actions, i.e. it has become potentially evil (PhR, § 139).

Axel Honneth’s thesis on the therapeutic function of ethical life Honneth locates the therapeutic dimension of Hegel’s ‘ethical life’ in its function to liberate the individual from suffering. ‘Suffering’ here refers to the moral stance of the subject, who meets resistance by the world. This resistance is generated in relation to one’s subjective moral conscience, whose universalization is, therefore, inadequate to guide the subject in achieving developed forms of ‘life-practice’ (Lebenspraxis) (Honneth, 2010: 14). The subject’s self-realization occurs not through the abstract demands for realization of subjective moral ends rooted in moral conscience, but through the individual’s participation in inter-subjective interactions. Honneth’s analysis here does not differ from Hegel’s. Institutional forms of ethical life act therapeutically on the individual. They implant or embed the individual in a world that one no longer finds alien to one’s self-

What Does the ‘Sublation’ of Moral Consciousness Mean

259

awareness. The existent ethos of a community offers one a framework for action and for the ‘concrete’ fulfilment of duty. Honneth correctly recognizes that Hegel’s statements about suffering due to the insufficiency of one’s life-practice (Lebenspraxis), apathy and dissatisfying circumstances belong to what could be considered quasipsychological aspects of The Philosophy of Right. However, Hegel's ‘philosophically decisive step consists in tracing the different phenomena of social suffering back to a conceptual confusion [Verwirrung]’ (Honneth, 2010: 44). This Verwirrung, which causes social suffering, can essentially be traced to a fundamental misunderstanding of human freedom. This confusion is not just a cognitive error or merely a wrong attitude; it is, in a sense, an objective pathology in a society because it conflates subjective principles and objective normativity, which characterize social life in general (Honneth, 2010: 45). The only solution here, according to Honneth, is a therapeutic critique which facilitates a liberating selfreflection: ‘the moment the readers accept the offer of an interpretation of their lifeworld as an instance of ethical life, they should liberate themselves from the deceptive attitudes that have so far prevented them from realizing their freedom’ (Honneth, 2010: 46). Therapeutic selfreflection leads to insights into the communicative conditions of human interaction, which at the same time make individual freedom possible. Individual freedom, which is covered and conditioned by networks of legal and moral requirements, can flourish only if adequate conditions for the person’s inter-subjective realization are present. Such conditions arise from a ‘horizontal’ mutual recognition between individuals, on one level, and between individuals and socio-political institutions, on another.4 The sequence of Honneth’s argumentation only retains the inter-subjective spheres of family life and friendship as suitable patterns of recognition through which ethical life exercises therapy on pathological forms of the understanding of human freedom. Although Honneth does not fail to emphasize Hegel’s view that the purpose of the state is to enable the 4

Thus, ethical life liberates the individual from social pathologies, and at the same time offers identical conditions for the realization of freedom to every individual. The therapeutic function of Hegel’s philosophy is, according to Honneth, inseparable from his theory of justice. Such a theory of justice must primarily banish the danger of the uncontrolled capitalistic market (cf. Honneth, 2010: 73, and further). A society is just only if it is capable of providing all of its members with equal opportunity to realize themselves in all three modes of freedom: legal, moral and communicative freedom.

260

XV

individuals to ‘live a universal life’ (PhR, § 258 Remark), he sees in Hegel’s notion of the state (PhR, §§ 257–360) a certain lagging behind in relation to the already achieved inter-subjective institutions of marriage, friendship, and corporations. The mutual recognition between the political institutions and the individual here is no longer a ‘horizontal’, but a ‘vertical’ relationship. Accordingly, individuals need not refer to recognizing each other in order to be able to produce ‘the universal through common activities, but the universal seems to be given as something substantial, so that the recognition acquires the sense of a confirmation from below of what is above’ (Honneth, 2010: 79). While I agree with Honneth’s stance on the changed structure of recognition when one enters the sphere of the state in Hegel’s Philosophy of right, it seems to me that this chapter of Hegel’s doctrine of objective spirit contains much deeper therapeutic moments than the social institutions of marriage and friendship. In what follows, I argue this in some detail and point out ways in which philosophical practitioners can carry out their practice based on Hegel's philosophical views.

Two levels of therapy At one point, Hegel says (PhR, § 216 Addition) that the particular German 'sickness' lies in the tendency to treat the legal code as something absolute and complete in itself, although human affairs are by nature finite and subject to continuous approximation. Hegel sees therapy as liberation from the structural pathologies of ‘civil society’. On the other hand, he views therapy as a way to a complete and perfect self-realization which is only possible within the ‘absolute’ spirit, that is, life of speculative thought alone. This is shown on two levels in Hegel's philosophy: the phenomenological and the theoretical level, within his understanding of the therapeutic dimensions of war and philosophy. In other words, the therapeutic dimension of his philosophical theory is reflected (a) theoretically, through conceptual settings of his philosophy, and (b) phenomenologically, through the analysis of the effect on individual consciousness of the aftermath of the wars.

The state and war I will start with the phenomenological level and offer a thesis that Hegel's theory of war (PhR, §§ 321–351) brings additional content to the therapeutic function of his concept of ethical life, which Honneth does not

What Does the ‘Sublation’ of Moral Consciousness Mean

261

include in his ‘therapeutical reading’ of Hegel’s philosophy. In order to properly understand what Hegel means by the therapeutic effect of war, we must return to our main question and further discuss what the ‘sublation’ of moral consciousness represents within Hegel’s philosophy — that is, the overcoming of subjective moral consciousness — not of morality as such. The term ‘depression’ (Gedrücktheit), which Hegel uses to mark the moralism of the reflective individual, evokes the misfortune of moral indecision and ambiguity, from which Hegel himself had suffered in his early ‘Frankfurt period’. This ‘depression’, which the individual ‘cannot escape in his moral reflections on what ought to be and what might be’ (Hegel, 1973: 491), Hegel psychologically describes as follows: […] the human individual who is reflected in himself is always in consultation with himself, broods in himself, without strong self-feeling and without spiritual health. Out of this illness, out of this brooding […] simple duty liberates him. For in duty man acts in a universally valid way, [because] he has given up his particularity. The illness of reflection is to be particular. This is the moral unsoundness, in part depression, in part complacency, in which he is not actual because he is in disharmony with the objective [reality] (Hegel, 1973: 491).5

According to Hegel, it is through duty that the individual liberates oneself to ‘substantial’ freedom (PhR, § 149). Duties found in the ‘ethical life’ are, for Hegel, necessary determinations in which freedom realizes itself. The moral subject that does not recognize externally imposed duties and merely remains at the level of one’s ‘abstract’ freedom, ‘pathological and weak’ (Hegel, 1973: 491), withdraws oneself from ‘concrete’ ethical life. Such a position of moral consciousness is one of fear and excessive 5

Translation taken over from Peperzak (2001: 394). Compare the German original: ‘Denn der in sich reflectirte Mensch geht ewig sich zu Rathe, grübelt in sich, ohne kräftiges Selbstgefühl, ohne Gesundheit des Geistes. Aus dieser Krankheit, aus diesem Grübeln also befreit die einfache Pflicht. Denn in der Pflicht handelt der Mensch auf allgemein gültige Weise, hat aufgegeben seine Besonderheit. Die Krankheit der Reflexion ist, ein Besonderes zu sein. Dieß ist die moralische Ungesundheit, theils der Gedrücktheit, theils der Selbstgefälligkeit, in der er nicht wirklich ist als in Disharmonie mit dem Objectiven.’ According to C. Lauer, Hegel's concept of self-feeling offers ‘an organic conception of overcoming trauma that accounts for the impulse toward health in its very structure’ (Lauer, 2012: 142). For, every sort of trauma brings the individual into opposition to oneself and drives them to overcome this opposition, and thus also to develop a traumatic pathology.

262

XV

sensitivity, and it expresses itself often as ‘political rapture, as fanaticism’ (Hegel, 1973: 490). Comprehended only as ‘abstract’ moral freedom — ‘we want to be free, but free in general’ (Hegel, 1973: 490; Cf. also PhR, § 5 Addition) — this type of freedom will tend to evoke violence and subjective arbitrariness, as in the terror of the French Revolution (Cf. Hegel, 1977, Chapter ‘Absolute Freedom and Terror’). This vantage point of ‘abstract freedom’, according to Hegel, makes up ‘the main viewpoint and illness of the present time’ (PhR, § 138); this is what he considers a pronounced form of social pathology. When they are established as the ultimate purpose of shared life in a community, Hegel considers private rights of individuals in civil society, such as the ‘right of property’ (PhR, § 208), an ‘illness’ (Cf. PhR, § 278 Remark). Civil society as a ‘system of needs’ (PhR, § 208) can thus suppress the very idea of common good and take the private interests of individuals as ultima ratio of sociality in general. Such a community can easily fall into various violent pathologies and civil war. Controversially, Hegel posits war here as an ‘ethical institution’, which serves an organizing function and prevents communal decay. According to Hegel, war is capable of organizing a community as an ‘ethical whole […]’ (PhR, § 340). War is an ethical institution, which prevents the universalization of subjective interests and private rights. The ‘ethical moment in war’ implies that the ‘transience of the finite becomes a willed passing away’ (PhR, § 324 Remark), since to defend one’s own ethical life means to defend the community as a whole. There is no ethical life outside the community. Consequently, it is ‘the individual’s substantial duty — the duty to maintain […] the independence and sovereignty of the state, at the risk and sacrifice of property and life…’ (PhR, § 324). The ethical moment in war is that war is thus ‘the state of affairs in which the vanity of temporal goods and concerns is treated with all seriousness…’ (PhR, § 324 Remark). War benefits our social world by generating stronger bonds between individuals. When peacetime is long, people become preoccupied with their own personal affairs and self-interests; they tend to lose sight of the communal good. However, in wartime, the awareness of the general good and interests of the state re-surface and motivate people to make sacrifices of personal and private goods. The sacrifice in war is not only an ethical duty, but ‘a universal duty’ (PhR, § 325). Only through the prospect of sacrifice for the state can the therapeutic function of ethical life be fulfilled. Only in one’s sacrifice for the existence of the spirit of mutual

What Does the ‘Sublation’ of Moral Consciousness Mean

263

recognition, achieved in what Hegel calls the ethical life, does the individual reach the ultimate insight into the true reason for one’s existence. Thus what seems as destruction and the ultimate crisis may in fact serve as the re-actualization of the commonalities and the awareness of the greater good that fall out of sight in circumstances of ordinary social life, giving rise to the over-arching selfish models of inter-subjective relationships.

Philosophy as a way of life Although sacrifice and war are the ultimate political institutions of the ethical life for Hegel, only philosophy can adequately represent the ‘true’ content of the spirit, that is, content that is not conditioned by the externality of form. If the limited perspective of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right is taken too far, it could lead to the wrong impression that the final realization of freedom should unfold in the ‘objective’ world of law, politics and history. Hegel’s Philosophy of Right should not be read separately from the whole philosophy of spirit. One’s normative orientation in the juridico-political life and its institutions is not the ultimate end of individual life. The individual’s union with the world cannot be achieved outside the philosophical reconciliation with the world. In very broad terms, for Hegel the aim of philosophy is attainment of a knowledge about the Absolute, where the Absolute is ‘the whole’, i.e. the whole of existence itself. Each finite thing has its place in a comprehensive system of reality. The quest for self-awareness lies in our seeking to fully understand ourselves and our place within the totality of existence, and this quest we pursue through science and philosophy. Only in philosophy can we achieve the highest expression of our existence, namely the self-relatedness as self-consciousness. Only philosophy can achieve a complete grasp of the object and ‘knowledge of the whole’. However, philosophical knowledge must separate itself from the realm of finite things and annul the conceptual separation between the subject and the object, in order to fulfil its promise of getting to know the whole of reality. While ‘Objective Spirit’ expresses humanity in the form of ethical institutions, ‘Absolute Spirit’ is one of comprehensive self-awareness in the context of conceptualizing the entire reality as a coherent system. Absolute Spirit is inaccessible to law, politics and ordinary morality. It exceeds all institutions and all power of juridico-political authority. It is always absent from concrete ethical and legal norms of human intersubjective relations. Through the artistic enjoyment of beauty, philosophical knowledge of limitations of the political realization of

264

XV

freedom and the religious and eschatological idea of freedom that is set to come, the human being sets one’s finitude in openness. In this context, freedom for Hegel is in the knowledge as such. Freedom is truly realized only by identifying ourselves with our communities.

Consequences for philosophical practice I started here from Honneth’s thesis on the therapeutic function of Hegel’s notion of the ethical life, i.e. that liberation from suffering and social pathologies is at the same time liberation from the abstractness and insufficiency of the legal and moral understanding of the nature of human freedom. I proceeded by questioning Honnet’s distinction between social and political philosophies. I argued that, according to Hegel, only the political institutions of the state (primarily referring to the ‘institution’ of war as an intrinsic ethical moment) adequately illustrate the attribution of therapeutic functions to his philosophy. For Hegel, the ‘sublation’ of the moral standpoint is a necessary step for human beings to gain proper selfconsciousness of their true freedom and related social duties. Arriving at self-consciousness that no longer suffers from ‘indeterminacy’ and social pathologies comes about in Hegel's philosophy in two ways. The first is war, by which human beings gain a consciousness of the finite nature of private rights (which are based on the institutions of contract and property) and at the same time rise above their narrow sphere of self-interests. The second way is through philosophical insights into the true determination of human freedom and socio-political institutions that warrant its achievement. Essentially, the previous discussion leads to the conclusion that Hegel’s understanding of therapy is an embrace of amor fati, or as he put it to his friend Niethammer in a letter from 23 November 1814 – the middle way (Mittelwesen): The essential point is your belief that it will not get so bad that we cannot put up with it. Your view coincides pretty much with my own belief that we cannot hope for something good enough to merit any particular praise. This colourless, tasteless intermediary state, which allows nothing to get too bad and nothing too good, for once rules our world (Hegel, 1984: 320, Letter 255).

Hegel almost medically prescribes such quasi-quietism to the individual who morally sways, who doubts the justification of the world and existence of justice in the world. Hegel exercised the same kind of therapy on himself in his 'Frankfurt period', when he thought the world and its

What Does the ‘Sublation’ of Moral Consciousness Mean

265

'weight' had him completely overwhelmed.6 Therapy, in this context, needs to be administered to the individual who doubts the correctness of his actions and the very possibility of universal moral justification of human action. It encourages the individual to build a strong and independent ‘second nature’ that is able to withstand the loss of a part of one’s world (cf. Hegel, 2007, § 402 Addition). Hegel uses the word ‘to bear’ or ‘to endure’ — zu ertragen. If human beings are able to bear (zu ertragen) things, to withstand the resistive pressure, they therapeutically facilitate their own self-transformation. Only through such selftransformation is a human being capable of reaching self-consciousness that qualifies him or her as a real subject: ‘A being which is capable of containing and enduring its own contradiction is a subject’ [Ein solches, das den Widerspruch seiner selbst in sich zu haben und zu ertragen fähig ist, ist das Subjekt] (Hegel, 2004: § 359). While an ‘impediment arising in the soul from grief and pain’ or through ‘sudden excessive joy […] can result in the fracture of the organism, death, or derangement’, one who has learned how to bear social contradictions ‘is much less exposed than others to such effects’, and performs better than ‘a natural man, poor in representations and thoughts, who does not possess the power to endure the negativity of a sudden invasion of violent pain’ (Hegel, 2007, §401 Addition). Hegel gives an example of a deranged mind, in such disunion with the world: An Englishman, e.g., sank into indifference to all things, first to politics and then to his own affairs and to his family. He would sit quietly, looking straight in front of him and for years did not speak a word, and showed an insensitivity that made it doubtful whether he knew his wife and children or not. He was cured when someone else, dressed exactly like him, sat opposite him and imitated him in everything he did. This threw the patient into a violent frenzy which forced him to attend to things outside of him and drove him permanently out of his self-absorption (Hegel, 2007, § 408 Addition).

6

A kind of philosophical turn to medicine is noticeable at the early nineteenth century - at a time when medicine had not yet become an exact science and when philosophy, at least in German Romanticism, asked itself the question: how is it possible to live with a nature that has power over history when it no longer suffices to live with it 'aesthetically'? (cf. Marquard, 2004: 20) Moreover, doctors themselves at the time are writing myriad romantic philosophies of nature, so that ‘the philosophical authority of doctors [was] part of a philosophical economy of therapeutics that develops when philosophy turns to nature as a decisive power and when, at the same time, aesthetics as the philosophy of life is no longer equal to this nature and stops being effective.

266

XV

The ability ‘to bear’ does not prevent the individual’s reactions to unfair circumstances in one’s world: reactions against corrupt institutions, loss of other individuals, etc. Just the opposite: Hegel considers that this ertragen, ‘to bear’, is in fact a condition for ethically justified action. For, without this therapy of ‘endurance’ and ‘bearing’, human beings cannot gain the self-consciousness of participation in joint matters, communal duties, nor reach the true nature of human freedom. This applies not only to one’s participation in corporate and civil relations; it also fully relates to private life, to one’s relationships with family and friends.

Conclusion On one level, according to Hegel, in order to gain self-consciousness, the individual should bear, (ertragen) the terrible circumstances of reality by participating in the ethical life of one’s community and by fulfilling one’s ethical duties. Hegel does not hesitate to acknowledge that ethical duties always involve self-sacrifice, Aufopferung: sacrifice for family and close friends, for the success and advancement of the employing company, or for the state as the highest institution of ethical life. The finitude of property or human life is, perhaps, most noticeable in war, but this finitude and vulnerability is equally present in one’s more ordinary actions, such as striving for the welfare of one’s family and close ones. One’s awareness of the limited value and finitude of such ‘civil’ qualities as property or even life, plays an emancipatory role in allowing for the achievement of a degree of philosophical freedom, which translates into a wise life. On a different level, to be able to tolerate (vertragen) the various and pervasive social inequalities, one must ‘become’ a philosopher. One must, according to Hegel, raise oneself to the level of Wir, ‘we’ (the first-person plural that Hegel uses to refer to the individual consciousness that has become a reflective self-consciousness). Surrendering to theory, acting within philosophical thoughts, leads to philosophical satisfaction (Schadenfreude) for one who recognizes the amount and strength of injustice in the world: “the fine gentlemen, released from their captivity, come forth with a terrible outcry, voicing the opinion that everything must be changed. But as they set to work, one thing after another eludes their grasp, and, apart from the vanity of affixing their own etiquette on it the matter has preserved itself through its own weight” (Hegel, 1984: 327, Letter 272).

What Does the ‘Sublation’ of Moral Consciousness Mean

267

References Dolar, Mladen (2006). ‘Hegel as the Other Side of Psychoanalysis.’ In Jacques Lacan and the Other Side of Psychoanalysis. Reflections on Seminar XVII, edited by Justin Clemens and Russell Grigg, 129–155. Durham, London: Duke University Press. Hegel, Georg W. F. (1952–1960). Briefe von und an Hegel. Edited by Johannes Hoffmeister. 4 volumes. Hamburg: Meiner. —. (1970a). Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften. In Werke in zwanzig Bänden. Volumes VIII–X. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. —. (1970b). Über die wissenschaftlichen Behandlungsarten des Naturrechts, seine Stelle in der praktischen Philosophie und sein Verhältnis zu den positiven Rechtswissenschaften. In Jenaer Schriften. Werke in zwanzig Bänden. Volume II. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. —. (1973). Vorlesungen über Rechtsphilosophie 1818–1831. Volume III. Edited by Karl Heinz Ilting. Stuttgart, Bad Cannstatt: FrommannHolzboog. —. (1977). Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by A. V. Miller. With Analysis of the Text and Foreword by J. N. Findlay. Oxford: University Press. —. (1984). The Letters. Translated by Clark Butler and Christiane Seiler with commentary by Clark Butler. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. —. (1988). Introduction to The Philosophy of History. With selections from The Philosophy of Right. Translated, with Introduction, by Leo Rauch. Indianapolis, Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. —. (1999). On the Scientific Ways of Treating Natural Law, on Its Place in Practical Philosophy, and Its Relation to the Positive Sciences of Right. In Political Writings, edited by Laurence Dickey and H. B. Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press —. (2004). Philosophy of Nature. Part Two of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1830). Translated from Nicolin and Poggeler's edition (1959) and from the Zusätze in Michelet's text (1847) by A. V. Miller. Oxford: Clarendon Press. —. (2007). Philosophy of Mind. Translated from the 1830 Edition, together with the Zusätze, by W. Wallace and A. V. Miller. Revised with an Introduction by M. J. Inwood. Oxford: Clarendon Press. —. (2008). Outlines of the Philosophy of Right. Translated by T. M. Knox. Revised, edited, and introduced by Stephen Houlgate. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

268

XV

Honneth, Axel (2001). Leiden an Unbestimmtheit: Eine Reaktualisierung der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie. Stuttgart: Reclam. —. (2010). The Pathologies of Individual Freedom: Hegel’s Social Theory. Translated by Ladislaus Löb. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lauer, Christopher (2012). ‘Affirmative Pathology: Spinoza and Hegel on Illness and Self-Repair.’ In Between Hegel and Spinoza, edited by Hasana Sharp and Jason E. Smith, 133–149. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Macdonald, Molly (2013). Hegel and Psychoanalysis: A New Interpretation of ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’. New York: Routledge. Marquard, Odo (2004). ‘Several Connections between Aesthetics and Therapeutics in Nineteenth-century Philosophy’. In The New Schelling, edited by Judith Norman and Alistair Welchman, 13–30. London, New York: Continuum McGowan, Todd (2013). Enjoying What We Don’t Have. The Political Project of Psychoanalysis. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Mills, Jon (2012). The Unconscious Abyss. Hegel’s Anticipation of Psychoanalysis. New York: Suny Press. Peperzak, Adriaan (2001). Modern Freedom: Hegel’s Legal, Moral, and Political Philosophy. Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

XVI SHOULD PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE CONCERN ITSELF WITH GENOCIDE? THE INSTITUTION OF GROUP(S) AND GENOCIDAL ACTS PETAR BOJANIû

I would like to take the perspective of philosophical practice to reconstruct the utter confusion that still characterizes the concept of genocide. Does philosophical practice have anything to say about genocide and genocidal acting, and can the concept of genocide therefore become somewhat clearer? If my intention is to show a certain paradox that concerns the constituting of a given group that commits genocide while smashing or destroying another group, the one against which genocide is committed, it seems that various repertoires and protocols of philosophical practice could be quite important for the precise formulation of this paradox. Before I offer the elementary explanation why philosophical practice has a role to play here in the first place (what is it that a philosopher can do about genocidal acts, what is included in his activity, what is a ‘(practical) philosophical act’?), I would like to insist that my own interest in this issue could have autobiographical roots. Let us imagine that I, who have philosophical training, belong to a group (a community, an entity), which both perpetrated and was victim of violence in a very complicated and intense civil war, simultaneously led on several territories. In this way, my interest in individuals of my own group, in the group or community to which we belong together, as well as my interest in victims of the violence, which was perpetrated by my group, would be obvious for reasons extending beyond the mere academic ones. Such a case, which easily characterizes any civil war (groups, small and large, simultaneously commit and are victims of grave violence), naturally awakens interest in a philosopher (e.g., in dealing with models of distinctions between

270

XVI

individual and collective responsibility and action), turning him, almost automatically, into a philosophical practitioner. I see my position in these circumstances very much in line with the way in which Lou Marinoff defines what he considered a new role for the philosopher, advocates for philosophy not only among philosophers, namely the role of a ‘tour guide’ (Baillargeon, 2005). Philosopher as tour guide in the grim scenery finds himself professionally involved with a variety of highly sensitive and at the same time exceptionally philosophically demanding clients: a war criminal, a convict, a witness, a victim’s relative, a judge, or another philosopher. In this business, the philosopher is faced with the various facets of what could generally be termed ‘genocidal acts’. Obviously the nature of philosophical practice in these circumstances would largely be determined by the scenery dominated by the prevalent understandings of what genocide is for decades. The philosopher would likely face a few disparate practical tasks: first, to advise, follow and guide jurists and judges in elucidating the various, not only legal, but also existential, sides of what it is for an act to truly be a genodical act. Secondly, the philosopher would like to see himself charged with a duty to protect the judges who try cases from the various ‘theoretical fictions’, or bad philosophers. Thirdly, the philosopher would likely be involved in trying to adequately conceptualize and analyze genocidal acts, group responsibility and the existential situations, with all of their value dimensions, of those convicted and sentenced for genocidal acts. Allow me now to problematize a small theory of the constitution of a group through the simultaneous exclusion of some other group. If groups can be formed through the opposition to other groups, and evidently they can, then this would involve the simultaneous execution of social and antisocial, or non-social, acts. The question here is, in a sense, ontological: how is it possible, to produce social and non-social acts (negative social acts) at the same time?1 Is it possible to construct a group which acts 'genocidally', meaning that it destroys another group or ‘the groupness’ of a group (that which makes the group a group), and at the same time affirms its own unity and its ontological stability (I use the word 'institution' in the title as I deal with lasting rather than transient and temporary groups)? Finally, does this thematic positing of group seen 1

‘Nichtsoziale und soziale Akte’ is the title of a short text by Adolf Reinach from 1911 (Reinach, 1989), while ‚negative social acts‘ is reminiscent of the volume edited by Liebsch, Sepp and Hetzel (2011).

Should Philosophical Practice Concern Itself with Genocide?

271

through inter-group antagonisms, have anything to do with Raphael Lemkin's word 'genocide' (Lemkin, 1944: 80), a word came to stand for what had previously been defined (e.g., by British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill) as ‘a crime without a name’, or in international law as scelus infandum? 2 If the figure of 'deconstruction' has any meaning at all, it would seem that Lemkin’s great efforts, as well as the developments surrounding the concepts of the legal 'institute of genocide' or 'the Convention on Genocide', in the last fifty years, would perfectly exemplify a deconstruction (United Nations, 1951). Regardless of the terribly problematic use of this word3, it seems to me that the future of the 'Convention' is safe, meaning that its text does not need to be significantly modified in the near future. The three big and probably most important projects of philosophical re-conceptualization of genocide in the last ten years (the work of William A. Schabas (2001; 2009; 2011), Larry May (2010) and Claudia Card (2002)) continue to draw their inspiration from Lemkin’s intentions and seek to reconcile the ‘Convention’ with some of the new facets of the terrible crimes which have occurred in the meantime (e.g. Rwanda and Yugoslavia).4 In addition, the two most ambitious reconstructions of the concept of genocide announced, both of which are still very much ‘in process’, remain in line with the spirit of Lemkin’s original intentions.5 It is 2

Upon immigrating to the US, Lemkin dedicated his life to lobbying that 'genocide' be acknowledged and accepted in various political circles and jurisprudence of various countries. For example, in an attempt to convince Ernest Gross, the American delegate to the Paris Assembly on 28 November 1948, that America accept the Convention, Lemkin writes: ‘Genocide has taken the lives of my dear ones; the fight against genocide takes my health. I am ready to give my life for this cause’ (Cooper, 2008: 169). 3 An author spoke about ‘genocidalism’, genocidal uses of the word ‘genocide’, the irresponsible and incorrect uses of this word for crimes that have nothing to do with the ‘Convention’. ‘The fact that genocide is a coined technical term implies that anyone using it must either use it to mean this technical concept or must explicitly supply an alternative definition. One cannot use the word ‘genocide’ without supplying some definition or other, because one cannot rely, as one might with a word of ordinary language, on some common understanding that we all have of that word, whether or not we are able to define it’ (Boghossian, 2010: 3). 4 Yugoslavia was one of the first countries to accept the Convention and incorporate it into its own legislation, as early as in 1949. 5 The first attempt refers to the forthcoming text ‘Genocide and Group Rights’, which has been presented by Chandran Kukathas for a few years now, and in which he insists that the definition of genocide present in the ‘Convention’ is simultaneously too broad and too narrow. Kukathas thinks that the essence of

272

XVI

interesting that all these projects, with the exception of Schabas' work, reconstruct the concept of genocide by focusing exclusively on philosophical reflection and insisting on the need for far more serious philosophical debates about the concept (Card, 2010: 241). It seems to me that the main reason for this insistence on more serious and more philosophical debates is not merely in the fact that genocide is a philosophical problem, commanding a peculiar ‘philosophical focus’6; an additional reason is that, after the establishment of international criminal courts to try modern genocides, including the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and the first convictions of genocide, numerous journalistic and political distortions and simplifications of the concept have become prominent, thus eliciting additional philosophical attention to the concept and its use. I will attempt to briefly sketch7 out some of these complications and point to important philosophical critiques. I will mimic here what I see as the potential role of philosophers, in the role of philosophical practitioners, within the international criminal courts. genocide is not in the destruction of the group itself (he develops a difference between the collective and corporative concept of a group, and he insists that the introduction of the group into the 'Convention' has pushed aside the importance of the crime against a population), but rather that the killing of a large number of individuals ought to be the main characteristic of genocide. Lemkin translates the word 'genocide' from his book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, as ludobojstwo (lude, meaning people, and zabojstwo murder) (this book was published in Polish at the same time it appeared in English in 1944). In contrast to this, Claudia Card tries to defend the importance of the group (along with the destruction of a group without killing) within the definition of genocide, citing various testimonies, which confirm that this was Lemkin's true intention. In the explication of genocide, thus, social death has the advantage over killing or killings. 6 Here I repeat and follow, along with Virginia Held (2002), Annette Bayer’s words, chairing the plenary meeting of “The Eighty-Seventh Annual Eastern Division Meeting of the APA” in Boston on 29 December 1990, in a text entitled “A Naturalists View of Persons:” “[...] when we are in any kind of war we are prepared to switch from individual to collective responsibility. […] Our philosophical focus ought to be as much on collective as on individual responsibility, when we seek to understand ourselves as persons” (1991: 6). 7 The 'presence of philosophy' or the 'presence' of complicated and heaped together arguments is easy to recognize by the way texts on genocide are put forward. Such books and texts are full of classifications, meta-language, hesitations and modifications. The positions of the authors writing about genocide are full of reservations, are constantly corrected or promise future corrections—in a word, these texts are never finished.

Should Philosophical Practice Concern Itself with Genocide?

273

A crime without a name Claudia Card (2002; 2010) has contributed a new, 'secular' understanding of evil (great or grandiose evil) and a theory of atrocities, which facilitates the processing of especially grave crimes.8 She follows Lemkin in that she does not focus on the ‘group character of the perpetrators but the group character of the victims’ (Luban, 2010: 574). The idea that a great crime can be conceptualized based on the gravity of the harm (severe harm), which is then impossible to forgive (‘intolerable harms produced by inexcusable wrongs’ (Card, 2010: 18)), implies a standpoint from which genocide, as opposed to murder, cannot be justified (Card 2010: 254). This fact poses special difficulties on the processing and the meting out of penalties for such unforgivable, especially grave crimes. In the histories of crimes and punishments no justification of great violence against a small or large group has ever been demanded, nor was this violence considered harm. Three prominent examples come to mind, the first one being the violence of a ‘holy people’ (the Izraelites) against neighboring tribes and the ‘destruction of all that breathes’ (Joshua 10: 40: ‘Destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded’) as a 'holy total war' for living space and survival (Walzer, 1992). Secondly, the legal right to kill pirates on sight in significant parts of human history legitimated total violence against the members (or, often, alleged members) of a group. Piracy was the only recognized Universal Criminal Jurisdiction crime, which allowed a group to be declared an enemy of humanity and freely destroyed (institutions of excommunication, herem and sacer, were applied liberally on pirates; it was possible to kill with impunity those who were declared sacer). Finally, in The Metaphysics of Morals Kant (1996) writes about ‘the unjust enemy’9 (the concept also found in Achenwall (1752) and Vattel (1758)). The concept refers to an enemy who does not follow the basic moral principles and thus ought to be destroyed (for Kant, an ‘unjust enemy at the time was Poland, which, similarly to Turkey for Leibniz, was a group of people bellow the civilizational minimum, incapable of creating a good constitution, who therefore ought not to exist). A crime without a name is really the name for evil or evil in itself (mala in se or, in the singular, malum in se (Bojaniü, 2006))—an evasive

8

The difficulty in constructing such a theory of evil is shown on the example of the endless insistence of Card that she is guided by a secular approach to the understanding of evil. 9 The first to write on Kant's unjust enemy in the fifties was Carl Schmitt, and later S. M. Shell, H. Müller, H. G. Schmitz and M. Frank.

274

XVI

evil for which we do not have legal instruments and which therefore cannot be punished.

Actus reus and mens rea ‘Genocidal Acts’ (the phrase from the title of this chapter) or ‘Acts of Genocide’, that is, their 'physical element' and 'mental element', dolus specialis (special intent), are the basic characteristics of genocide. The latter is usually emphasized as the key, the one that distinguishes genocide from all other crimes and is described as ‘special intent’ (Shabas, 2011: 102). The perpetrator’s intent must be to destroy the group and Shabas claims that mens rea really consists of two components, knowledge and intent (Shabas, 2009: 242).10 Genocidal acts destroy everything that makes a group exist (including the vital the connections between the members of the group—in the Searlian language, the 'glue' or the 'it' which holds the members of a community together; the 'social ontology' of the group). The commission of genocidal acts requires the existence of a plan (which is usually developed in collaboration with others), and awareness and knowledge, which are instrumental for the devising and execution of such a plan, and to the actual will and ability to implement the plan.11 The individual, to start off with, supposedly has the intent of implementing the idea of destruction of a group (found in the plan or project). It is now almost universally considered that genocidal acts can only be successfully committed as a group effort (‘capacities for agency are enhanced when 10

With regards to the aspect of knowledge, the usual example cited is that of Eichmann who was ‘convicted of genocide only for acts committed after June 1941, that is, when he was aware of the plan for a “Final Solution”’ (Shabas, 2009: 247). 11 In the brief text ‘Nichtsoziale und soziale Akte’ Reinach writes: ‘Social acts (Soziale Akte) are acts which do not rest in themselves (in sich selbst ruhen). The essential presupposition for social acts is another subject, to whom something is announced (kungeben wollen). The person towards whom we are directed ought therefore acquire the knowledge (Kenntnis davon erhalten). It turns out that the bond (Verbindung) between people cannot be direct. Expressions (Ausdrucke) are also necessary here; social acts must be given expression for communication to another. For this, they can use various forms: words, gestures, etc. The addressee (Ein Adressat) is, then, necessary in social acts. To that end, the apparent form (Erscheinungsform) of these acts is necessary. The direction the expression takes towards the addressee is at the heart of these acts, and is their very soul. Second, the apparent form is not their essence, but rather their body. It exists only because among us humans, things are such that we can know our internal acts only though their apparent forms’ (1989: 358).

Should Philosophical Practice Concern Itself with Genocide?

275

agents join together to do things none of this could have done alone’) (Card, 2010: 38). The plan is thus necessarily implemented between the members of a group which commits a genocidal act; it is apparently, though oddly, a ‘social act’. In its collective dimension, the organization and implementation of a genocidal act is in itself a ‘documenting work’, which in a sense unifies a group. The members of the group are aware of the plan because it manifests itself in various acts which engage them throughout the preparation and execution of the plan, such as the assignment of responsibilities, giving and receiving of promises, making of oaths, threats, etc.

The lone genocidal maniac12 The first judgment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in a genocide case was issued in October 1999. Goran Jelisiü, nicknamed Adolf, was found guilty of the murder of dozens of Muslims in an (improvised) concentration camp of his own construction in the town where he lived.13 Since the prosecution could not prove that genocide had been committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina in order for Radislav Krstiü, Duško Tadiü and Goran Jelisiü to be charged with complicity, the ICTY Prosecutor chose a strategy Schabas (2001) calls ‘the Lee Harvey Oswald theory of genocide’. The strategy starts from the assumption that Adolf could have ‘committed genocide acting alone, as the principal perpetrator, rather than as an accomplice’ (Schabas, 2001: 31). To ensure that such a construction is seen as feasible, the Trial Chamber adopts the proposition that genocide may be committed without any requirement of an organized plan or policy of a state or similar entity (Shabas, 2011).14 The relevant formulation reads: 12

Cf. Jelisiü (IT-95-10-T), Judgment, 14 December 1999, para. 100; and Shabas (2011: 103). 13 Recently, his wife, who had been wanted for years by the authorities, was also captured. Adolf committed most of his crimes jointly with his wife. 14 The asymmetric assumption put forward by The Trial Chamber is that a certain legal construction, fiction or institution, such as ‘a state or similar entity’ can usually have ‘an organized plan or policy’, while, at the same time, such a similar entity or institution (the state) cannot be the recipient of the violence of genocide. This asymmetry always questions ‘the entity’ against which the genocidal acts are being carried out, since it is always a group of individuals only in the making (for example, a minority). In the case concerning the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro) of February 2006, a newly formed state (Bosnia and

276

XVI Such a case is theoretically possible. The murders committed by the accused are sufficient to establish the material element of the crime of genocide and it is a priori possible to conceive that the accused harboured the plan to exterminate an entire group without this intent having been supported by any organization in which other individuals participated. In this respect, the preparatory work of the Convention of 1948 brings out that premeditation was not selected as a legal ingredient of the crime of genocide, after having been mentioned by the ad hoc committee at the draft stage, on the grounds that it seemed superfluous given the special intention already required by the text and that such precision would only make the burden of proof even greater. It ensues from this omission that the drafters of the Convention did not deem the existence of an organization or a system serving a genocidal objective as a legal ingredient of the crime. In so doing, they did not discount the possibility of a lone individual seeking to destroy a group as such (Prosecutor v. Jelisic, Case no. IT-95-10-T, Judgment, para. 100 (Dec. 14, 1999)).

Regardless of the fact that The Appeals Chamber held up this decision of The Trial Chamber, the interpretation is problematic because it highlights a contradiction: the alleged individual responsibility for genocide and the existence of a plan to exterminate an entire group are mutually exclusive concepts, and any philosophers involved in assisting the court would certainly brought this to the Trial Chambers’ attention very promptly. Crimes and murders committed by Jelisiü prove not only that there was no collective plan or intent; they illustrate that that there was a plan, exclusively his own, which does not have to be shared with others, nor did others have to be aware of it: ‘[...] it is a priori possible to conceive that the accused harbored the plan to exterminate an entire group without this intent having been supported by any organization in which other individuals participated’. This genocidal maniac (hundreds of similar men on all three sides in these wars massacred civilians) is first imputed to have committed crimes he could not have in any way committed alone Herzegovina) is trying to, in the words of one of its representatives, Maître Pellet, ‘d’établir la responsabilité d’un Etat (referring to Serbia and Montenegro, a state which no longer exists) dans un génocide qui s’est traduit par la mort de de plus de cent mille personnes, des femmes, des enfants, simplement parce qu’ils n’étaient pas nés serbes’ (‘to establish the responsibility of a State in a genocide which translated into over a hundred thousand deaths, including women and children, simply because they were not Serbian’). This means that the state, Bosnia and Herzegovina, de facto on behalf of its non-Serbian population, sought the responsibility of another state, which did not exist at the time, for allegedly supplying the Serbian population or a group of Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina with ‘an organized plan or policy’.

Should Philosophical Practice Concern Itself with Genocide?

277

(although it is ‘theoretically possible’ that he committed them—the word 'possible' appears three times in the paragraph), and is then further imputed with dolus specialis. The 'theoretically possible' case is that this entirely accidentally created group of indictees (Jelisiü is only one, if perhaps the most severe perpetrator among them) answers for genocide. There are three basic criteria that are capable of qualify the attribute 'genocidal' in Lemkin's (1944) sense of the word: the number of killings or the number of those killed (if the essence of genocide is killing and destruction of individuals); the size of the group (a substantial group or a substantial part of a group) destroyed by the murders (for example, in the Bosnian town of Brþko, one group attempted to destroy another group of people—some were killed, some were forcibly relocated, leaving no Muslim ‘minority’) 15; and finally, the accumulation of individual responsibilities (individual acts, such as in individual convictions of a number of perpetrators for acts of genocide along the model applied with Jelisiü).

Conclusion A number of facets of international criminal proceedings for genocide (and I have discussed here only one relatively recent example which is familiar to me) involve various procedural maneuvers, which appear required in order to indict suspects who could otherwise not be indicted. In order to facilitate such indictments, prosecutors and trial chambers tend to resort to theoretical models design specifically for such cases, many of which have been designed by philosophers. Problems in the adoption and implementation of such models arise when the logic and values inherent in the models themselves are not adequately followed through. Even with the best of will and legal excellence involved in such trials philosophical oversight is required in the use of philosophically controversial concepts such as that of ‘genocide’. The example of a combined individual and collective responsibility for genocide, which seemingly flies in the face of the accepted view that acts of genocide are fundamentally collective 15

The possibility that genocide not be geographically located (in a limited zone) appears for the first time in Prosecutor v. Krstiü, Case no. IT-98-33-T, Judgment, para. 590 (Aug. 2, 2001). Indeed, the physical destruction may target only a part of the geographically limited part of the larger group because the perpetrators of the genocide regard the intended destruction as sufficient to annihilate the group as a distinct entity in the geographic area at issue. In this regard, it is important to bear in mind the total context in which the physical destruction is carried out.

278

XVI

endeavors, shows how practical philosophical advice and oversight are increasingly necessary in the pursuit of complicated trials.

References Achenwall, Gottfried (1752). Ius Naturae in usum auditorium. Goettingae: Sumtibus Victorini Bossigelii. Baillargeon, Stéphane (2005). ‘La thérapie philosophique: une nouvelle leçon de vie?’, (internet) available at http://www.philo5.com/Consultation%20philosophique/050500Baillarge onStephane_TherapiePhilosophique.htm#_ftn2 (Viewed 1 May, 2015). Bayer, Annette (1991). ‘A Naturalists View of Persons’. APA Proceedings 65, 3: 5-17. Boghossian, Paul (2010). ‘The Concept of Genocide’. Journal of Genocide Research 12, 1-2: 69-80. Bojaniü, Petar (2006). ‘Will the Judgment in the Hague Trial Constitute a Precedent in International Law? On the Great Crime (mala in se; scelus infandum) and Sovereignty’. Sociološki pregled 42: 93-114. Card, Claudia (2002). The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil. New York: Oxford University Press. —. (2010). Confronting Evils: Terrorism, Torture, Genocide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cooper, John (2008). Raphael Lemkin and the Struggle for the Genocide Convention. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Held, Virginia (2002). ‘Group Responsibility for Ethnic Conflict’. The Journal of Ethics 6, 2:157-178. Kant, Immanuel (1996). The Metaphysics of Morals. In Practical Philosophy, edited by Mary J. Gregor. New York: Cambridge University Press. Lemkin, Raphael (1944). Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation—Analysis of Government—Proposals for Redress. Washington, D. C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Liebsch, Burkhard, Andreas Hetzel and Hans Rainer Sepp (eds.) (2011). Profile negativistischer Sozialphilosophie: ein Kompendium. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Luban, David (2010). ‘Fairness to Rightness: Jurisdiction, Legality and the Legitimacy of International Criminal Law’. In The philosophy of International Law, edited by Samantha Besson and John Tasioulas, 569-588. New York: Oxford University Press. May, Larry (2010). Genocide. A Normative Account. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Should Philosophical Practice Concern Itself with Genocide?

279

Prosecutor v. Krstiü, Case no. IT-98-33-T, Judgment, para. 590 (Aug. 2, 2001). Prosecutor v. Jelisic, Case no. IT-95-10-T, Judgment, para. 100 (Dec. 14, 1999)). Reinach, Adolf (1989). ‘Nichtsoziale und soziale Akte’. In Sämtliche Werke, edited by Karl Schumann and Barry Smith, 355-360. München: Philosophia. Shabas, William A. (2001). ‘Was Genocide Committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina? First Judgments of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia’. Fordham International Law Journal 25: 22–53. —. (2009). Genocide in International Law. The crime of crimes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. (2011). An Introduction to the International Criminal Court. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. United Nations (1951). 'Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide'., Treaty Series 78. (internet) https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%2078/volume78-I-1021-English.pdf (Viewed 1 April 2015). Vattel, Emer de (1758). Le droit des gens ou principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains, Vol. 1. London, Neuchatel: Londres. Walzer, Michael (1992). ‘The Idea of Holy War in Ancient Israel’. The Journal of Religious Ethics 20, 2: 215–228.

XVII EXPERIENTIAL PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE JOSE BARRIENTOS-RASTROJO

Analytic and pragmatic philosophical practice (AP-PP)1 Analytic and pragmatic philosophy Analytic-pragmatic philosophy underlies mainstream Philosophical Practice. The terms ‘analytic’ and ‘pragmatic’ are used in this essay in accordance with their meaning in the American and English world, even if presently the difference between this sort of philosophy and continental philosophy is not as clear as one century ago. Analytic philosophy evolved out of the work of logical positivists, the Vienna’s Circle and philosophers of the University of Cambridge. Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Rudolf Carnap and John Searle, among others, are representative of this school. Pragmatism is associated with the thought of William James, Richard Rorty, Hillary Putnam, and, partly, John Dewey. Those philosophies came across one another in the 1940’s, when many analytic philosophers escaped to the USA because of the Second World War (D’Agostini, 2000: 248). Analytic philosophers are interested in such topics as logic, language, the philosophy of science or the structure of arguments. They reject intuitive rationalism,2 ontological use of words and philological studies of philosophy. In addition, pragmatic philosophers shun from metaphysics (this is one of the main themes of James’s Pragmatism [James, 2000: 83]), as well as from poetic, mystical and narrative propositions. They maintain 1

I would like to thank Lydia Amir for her significant assistance in editing the essay. 2 For example, Peter Singer’s analytic texts reject intuitive rationality. See Singer, 1973: 8.

Experiential Philosophical Practice

281

that philosophy should not criticize texts, but rather focus on dialectical and argumentative practical reflection. Analytic and pragmatic philosophers use logic as the only model of rationality. Many of them made significant contributions to this area; this is the case of Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Rudolf Carnap and even of contemporary authors, such as Stephen Toulmin (Toulmin, 2003). They consider logic as the sole viable reasoning. Thus, aesthetic or experiential rationalities are unable to yield valid inferences. Some of these philosophers choose Mathematics as the model for rationality, as decision theory exemplifies. Analytic and pragmatic logic is predicated on language.3 Language is the anchor of rationality because, as philosophers trained in these traditions argue, thought is structured linguistically, and, conversely, language is constituted by a rational (logical) framework. Thus, the use of words improves our reasoning. As there is a direct relation between reason and language, it is not possible to think without language. This argument is the premise of John Searle’s studies on the relation between mind, thought, understanding and language, to take an example (Searle, 2001). Furthermore, the analytic perspective maintains that all reality must be apprehended by a logical framework, discarding thereby the very possibility of other epistemological approaches. Thus, the analytic perception which equates philosophy and logical thinking is an absolutist vision. Many English and American universities as well as philosophical journals are analytic. Studies such as Hermeneutics, Metaphysics or Philosophy of Religion have been exiled to Faculties of Theology or Literature because these disciplines are not considered philosophical anymore. For these philosophers, a poetic, aesthetic, narrative, or experiential rationality is no rationality at all, therefore, a philosophy erected on these forms of rationality is no philosophy at all. Finally, Analytic philosophers are not so much concerned with the History of Philosophy but with Philosophy as a process of developing arguments. Thus, their articles aim at resolving problems mainly through the analysis of concepts, logic, and reflection on the structure of thought; they shun from quotations, footnotes and appeals to authority. 3

At present, the relations between analytic and continental philosophers have evolved. Some analytical philosophers have reduced the ferocity of their attacks against continental philosophers and opened their minds to a wider vision of philosophy. Some are even partake in both traditions.

XVII

282

Analytic and Pragmatic Philosophical Practice (AP-PP) Description Many authors and associations involved in Philosophical Practice endorse analytic and pragmatic philosophies. They use logic more or less rigorously as the basis of Philosophical Practice. Even when some philosophical counselors maintain that they use other rationalities because they utilize materials from other disciplines, such as literature, music or the arts, the scheme and tools of their workshops are based on the rational analysis of concepts. The material used may be different from the analytic essay, but the structure and the means remain analytical. Words are significant for these counsellors, as they focus on every word of the counselee or member of the philosophical group and apply formal and informal logic to each of his sentences. Many of them claim that the History of Philosophy is not a good resource for philosophical practice sessions because they view philosophising as a process of reasoning, not a recollection of bygone writings. The important point, they assure us, is to make counselees or groups think by themselves instead of repeating others’ thoughts. In considering rational-logic philosophy the only philosophy, they act as dictators. All the philosophers who don’t assist clients in articulating or improving their argument are not practicing philosophy, in their opinion; at best, those ‘philosophers’ are providing therapy. Philosophical practices rooted in anagogic, hermeneutic, poetical, aesthetic or experiential rationalities are not considered philosophical. My aim in this essay is not to argue that the AP-PP (Analytic Pragmatic Philosophical Practice) is not philosophical because I would then commit the same reductionist mistake as those philosophers, but rather to demonstrate that there are ways of understanding reality which are missing in the analytic method. If we content ourselves with one of these ways, we are not be doing a good job because some facets of reality are hidden from us and as philosophers we should be open-minded. I am not against analytic and pragmatic Philosophical Practice; rather I condemn the rigid and tyrannical way in which this profession has been reductively understood because this reductionism obstructs the polyphonic vision which is beneficial for Philosophical Practice.

Experiential Philosophical Practice

283

Examples Before further following the argument, I would like to mention analytic techniques that are being used by some philosophical practitioners. Oscar Brenifier is one of the more rigorous practitioners who works within an analytic perspective. Some of his essential strategies are: (1) to identify: to distinguish between what a thing is and what it is not. Thus, an ‘apple’ is not a ‘cat’ or a ‘banana’, and ‘to feel love’ is not ‘to feel jealous’ or ‘to feel pain’; (2) to ‘problematize’: to assess concepts and hypotheses. For example, if a person associates love with jealousy, we can problematize by asking, ‘Are all lovers jealous persons?’; (3) to conceptualize: to create a concept for a situation or for a thing (Brenifier, 2011: 43–44). His method involves asking sharp questions and refusing vague answers. His questions demand a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and forbid all ‘maybe’ or answers such as ‘it depends on the situation’. He attempts to promote clarity by rejecting lengthy discourses lost in intricate disquisitions that are irrelevant to the main questions. Furthermore, he encourages rational discussions in groups or with individuals, if they are logical; thus, he rejects all communication based on experiences or feelings. For example, he doesn’t accept a tear as an answer to a question; instead he would ask, ‘why do you cry?’. He always demands conceptual answers. Although Brenifier’s work is very good from an analytical point of view, many persons have complained that he doesn’t allow them to talk openly or that they are not being heard. He accepts a logical exchange, I believe, but the problem is that he doesn’t allow forms of communication based on other types of rationality, for example, the ‘crying rationality’. Thus, he doesn’t accept intuitive, anagogic or similar ways of reasoning as soon as they are not rooted in logic. Elliot D. Cohen, author of Caution: Faulty Thinking Can Be Harmful to Your Happiness (2013), presents a good example on how Philosophical Counseling works with conceptual and logic analysis: B: My wife has a New England mentality. C: Does your wife come from England? B: Yes. C: What do you mean by a ‘New England mentality’? [Conceptual analysis]

284

XVII

B: People from England are crude; they just say whatever is on their minds without first thinking about what they are saying. C: Have you known many people from England? [Logical analysis] B: No. But the ones I’ve known have like that. C: How can you say, then, that all people from New England are like that on the basis of such a small sampling? [Logical analysis – inconsistency] (Cohen, 1989: 346–347) Above we can see the essence of many philosophical sessions. There are spaces for conducting a dialogue, deepening core concepts and assessing the logical consistency of arguments. The British philosophical counsellor, Tim Lebon, has dedicated his career to developing rational and analytic methods to be used in philosophical counselling. The most significant ones are Progress and RSVP. Progress is a method of making decisions by assessing arguments and the emotions involved in them. It proposes a mathematical assessment of subjective emotions. RSVP, Refined Subjective Values Procedure, is a pathway for creating, choosing and improving values by means of rational assessment. Both methods are related to Cohen’s insights, even though they add a mathematical angle to the issue of decisions. Also Warren Shibbles’s definition of Philosophical Practice, which is similar to the definitions of national associations of Philosophical Practice, corresponds to the analytic ideal: Philosophical practitioners […] facilitate activities as: (1) to examine arguments and justifications of their counselees; (2) to clarify, to analyze and to define important terms and concepts; (3) to expose and to assess underlying assumptions and logical implications; (4) to show conflicts and inconsistency; (5) to explore traditional theories of philosophy and its meanings related to counselees’ issues; and (6) all activities that has been identified as philosophical (Shibles 1999: 51)

Additional examples of philosophical activities that rest on decision theory and the analytic approach are the method Lou Marinoff exposed in the First International Conference on Philosophical Practice (Marinoff, 1995: 171–191), the second stage of Peter Raabe’s method, which applies Critical Thinking to Philosophical Practice (Raabe 2001: 129–166), or the method used by Jorge Dias to devise a personal project (Dias, 2006: 201). Actually, one can add the method I devised in 2005, ‘the essay method’,

Experiential Philosophical Practice

285

because it rests on logic and analysis; even my first definition of Philosophical Practice implicates this bias, since it was described as A process of conceptualization and clarification of significant issues, which are meaningful or essential to the counselee or the group, where the philosophical counsellor aims (1) at improving the counselee’s thought processes and (2) at refining his truths, with well-being as the usual outcome (Barrientos-Rastrojo, 2011: 158)

Limitations One of the problems with analytic rationality is that life and reason are not always going in the same direction. Our thoughts about the ‘good’ can proceed along one path but our life doesn’t. This is because our decisions, visions, and concepts as well as we ourselves are not grounded just in logic. We shape our life with various forms of rationalities. The break between life and logical rationality can be exemplified as follows. In Irvin Yalom’s famous novel, When Nietzsche Wept (Yalom, 2007), Breuer complains to Nietzsche about the way philosophy, seen in reductionist and logical terms, lacks impact on life: Here is a truth with a supreme and irrefutable rationality. However, when I'm truly frightened, it never works, it never calms my fears. This is the problem in Philosophy: to teach Philosophy and to apply it to real life are very different enterprises (Yalom, 2007: 220).

Similarly, some philosophers develop theories which do not impact their lives because of their logical reductionism. St Paul enunciates a similar idea in a famous passage in the New Testament. It addresses the difficulty of doing the good even when we rationally know that it is better than doing evil: ‘I do the evil I don’t want and I don’t do the good that I want’ (Epistle to the Romans, 7:18). Let me explain this sentence in light of the disruption of reason and real life: ‘I do (volition) the evil I don’t want (cognition) and I don’t do (volition) the good that I want (cognition)’. The analytic assumption of continuity between logical reasoning and life is not always correct. Do all our attitudes depend on analytic rationality? When we ask a person why he decided to study Philosophy, we may not always get a rational answer. Sometimes, he says that he chose Philosophy because he just needed to do so. In other occasions, he does not give a rational explanation but talks instead about decisive experiences that

286

XVII

moved him to devote his life to this career, for example, attending interesting lectures on Hegel or Plato or suffering painful situations that led him to philosophical reflections. He can probably talk about these experiences in logical terms; the real motivations of his studies in Philosophy, however, are closer to experience than explanation; these motivations are external to a conceptual answer. We have to look for an answer outside of the logical-conceptual framework for understanding his reply within an appropriate framework. The same can be maintained about significant events in life, for example, when a person suffers the loss of his lover. He may reach the conclusion that ‘life is meaningless without him or her’. We can amend the logical mistakes in this proposition. But if we wish to conduct a meaningful session of Philosophical Counseling with him, we should keep in mind that a logical dialogue is insufficient in this case because it is remote from the person’s inner life. Some years ago, I counseled a woman who suffered from terminal cancer (Barrientos-Rastrojo, 2006: 207–221). She needed to find the meaning of life before dying. Successful work on this challenge does not depend on sound logical reflection: she was a very rational woman who longed for an evidence more than for an answer, she yearned for an experiential truth which would ground a valuable image of her whole life. She didn’t need the best logical truth, rather she hankered for a truth that was in accordance with her life, she needed a kind of illumination. Here, logical rationality was useful but insufficient. Similarly, when a philosophical counsellor helps a mother who has lost her child, a hug is more effective than a speech. Speeches are good but they are based on a type of rationality which is not quite needed in this case. A hug is a form of experiential rationality and reply which is more effective in cases like that. The twentieth century has welcomed new forms of rationalities: Poetical (Zambrano, 2001), Ontological (Heidegger, 2001a; Gadamer, 2001), Narrative (Sartre, 2014), and Existential rationalities (Unamuno, 2005), among others. Why don’t we include them in Philosophical Practice? Why do we usually use the logical-conceptual rationality? In the rest of the essay, I elaborate on experiential rationality in order to resolve some of the limitations of analytic rationality. When we use analytic rationality and argumentative tools in the consultation, we usually work as described in the next figure:

Experiential Philosophical Practice

Philosophical counselor

Being/life of counselee (to feel, to do, to see,...)

work on (direct action)

Not direct

287

Counselee’s thoughts and ideas

Thoughts and ideas are modified

Philosophical counsellors and practitioners use Critical Thinking and similar tools to impact ideas. They help to improve ideas and concepts but do not always affect the counselee’s existence. Counselees may even reach the cynical conclusion after a few sessions: ‘The ideas I heard are really perfect but as I am not perfect my problem persists: how can I fit my imperfect life with such a perfect ideal way of life?’. After hearing this, the philosopher may sadly conclude: ‘What am I doing?’

Experiential Philosophical Practice (E-PP) Is experience an answer to our challenge? Philosophical Practice should transform counselees, whether individuals or groups. It has to achieve more than modifying thoughts because ideas do not always change the world nor those who hold them. Its goal should be to alter the person’s inner self or being. This is an ontological challenge. Analytic Philosophical Practice believes it can achieve as much by manipulating ideas, in accordance with the following figure:

XVII

288

Being

Thinkin

Feeling Doing

The association made by analytically-inclined practitioners between thinking and living hinges on a direct relation between thought and being. If our thinking is bettered, so they reason, our life ameliorates and all the dimensions of our being are improved. As showed above, there isn’t a direct relation between thought and life. Therefore, if we want to transform persons, we need to use a type of rationality that directly affects being rather than mere thinking. This form of rationality will also affect all remaining dimensions of persons or groups.

Experiential Philosophical Practice

289

What is the type of rationality which can achieve this goal? Experiential rationality. How does a child discover that playing with fire is dangerous? Because he suffers the experience of being burned. How does a person learn that speeding a car can be dangerous? Because he crashes his car and suffers the severe consequences that follow. How does life teach us and make us what we are? By means of experience.

Experiential Philosophical Practice Experiential rationality or experiential understanding are gained by living through transformative personal circumstances. Etymologically speaking, experience comes from the ancient Greek word ‘peira’. ‘Peira’ is related to ‘periculum’, which means danger (Ortega y Gasset, 1994: 175). When a person has an experience she is at risk of losing herself, that is, her previous personality; she may ruin her past being in order to get a new personality: she will be a new person. Experience revolutionizes all personal areas: she contemplates a new world-view, enjoys new feelings, and she acts and reacts to circumstances brought about by a new pattern. Let me give the example of giving birth in order to clarify what experience implies. This experience changes the mother’s life: her values, behaviors, and relations with the world and with others, her desires, feelings, and projects, the way in which she sees life, her priorities and so on. Let’s think of another experience, the death of a close relative. Even when our

290

XVII

surroundings haven’t changed, our self is transformed because of alterations in our volitions, feelings and thoughts. New, and maybe painful, truth and knowledge are disclosed to every experienced person. This new knowledge differs from conceptual knowledge because usually the latter does not give us a new life. The etymology of Ex-per-ience is connected with other words, such as ‘portus’ (door) and ‘poros’ (to cross) (Ortega y Gasset, 1994: 175). Experiences move people to cross doors. Mothers cross the ‘maternity door’: after giving birth, they will be ‘mothers’ until their deaths. Those doors are closed after they cross them, so it is difficult, even impossible, to go back. These experiences entail transformative knowledge that could be summarized in short phrases expressing meaningful messages, such as, ‘A good life is devoted to others (to your children) not a life you live just for yourself’, or, ‘No one knows what unconditional love is until she becomes a mother’. The important point in these sentences is not the quantity of information they contain but the experience they disclose. Moreover, we need to live through some experiences in order to understand experiential propositions at the profound level of understanding that is appropriate for them. As explained above, rational-logic knowledge entails a schism between what a subject thinks and what he does; experiential rationality doesn’t. All authentic experience of giving birth determines the behavior of mothers. The same could be said about a husband who lost his life-long partner. He then becomes a widower and to be a widower is more than to know the characteristics or the theoretical definition of ‘widower’. Experiential knowledge is the starting point of maturity and wisdom: it shapes the human being by creating his or her peculiar way of being, and it makes adults out of teenagers. My first definition of experience is based on Maria Zambrano’s work. Experience is the sum of (1) obtaining theoretical knowledge, (2) putting into practice that knowledge, (3) extracting evidences or discoveries from that practice, (4) reflecting on these evidences and practices and (5) reaching maxims and profound truths drawn from those reflections (Barrientos-Rastrojo, 2010: 1108).

Experiential Philosophical Practice

291

Requisites to experience Various attitudes and dispositions encourage experiential rationality or knowledge, namely, age, openness, a humble and pleasant fascination, as well as to involved ourselves in a personal retreat, patience, confidence and faith, inner balance and the ability to listen carefully to the rhythm of things, persons or events. Let’s briefly consider each of these dispositions. Age. Seneca asserts, ‘nothing is sadder than an old man who has no way of justifying his age but his years and gray hair’, instead than his knowledge hoarded by experience, let me add (Seneca, 2001: 136; my translation). More years suppose more possibilities to have experiences; many old men are not wise, however, because even if they have lived many years they accumulate few ex-periences. Julián Marias writes about old peasants who have gathered many years but few ex-periences. They have lived a life of routine without taking the risks necessary for experiences (Marías, 1966: 116). Therefore, they are the same persons they were in their twenties. Their sons or daughters, who travelled to different countries and experienced much more than their parents (and in doing so, put themselves in existential risk) are more experienced persons. Openness and humility. The two attitudes are related. Humility impedes rejecting life-lessons or valuable advice from experienced people. Advices are like indirect experience which help broaden experiential knowledge. They can question our limited and monotonous way of life in order to take us beyond it. Humility enhances active listening. People who don’t cultivate these attitudes are like fake sages or like dictators who don’t listen to anyone and claim that they possess The Truth. Their lack of humility and openness to persons who think differently inhibits them from broadening their knowledge. According to historicism, human beings are the result of their history, of the things they learned in life. Training in experience should break down arrogance, because it imparts that a last and definitive answer is possible only to God (Marías, 1996: 35). A dictator imposes his views; a sage or a lover of experiential knowledge is modest and thus keen to learn everywhere from anyone. As Hans Georg Gadamer said, ‘Men with authority4 are the ones who don’t need to appeal to their own authority’ (Gadamer, 2001: 134–135; my translation): ‘auctoritas’ is not imposed by us but granted by others. A wiser person has authority because he had the capacity to learn humbly from others.

4

He uses the term ‘authority’ in the Greek sense ‘auctoritas’.

292

XVII

Experienced persons display a pleasant fascination for life (Dewey, 2008: 117–118). Although some experiences necessitate suffering and hard work to yield experiential knowledge, we have to live them as adventures (remember that ex-perience comes from ‘peira’ and is related to ‘periculum’). If we don’t approach them, we won’t gain their wisdom. Fascination helps to overcome fears born out of facing existential abysses. Some philosophers wrote their best works in retreat (Boethius in his prison, Machiavelli in Casciano de Val di Pesa, Quevedo at Juan Abad’s Tower, Descartes in his room next to his stove, Montaigne at his castle in the French Dordogne, Zambrano in the French Jura or Heidegger in the Black Forest). There blossom inner truths which are usually hidden or even destroyed by a demanding and noisy society. María Zambrano uses a metaphor to explain this experiential discovery: Philosophers are like divers that plunge deeply to the bottom of the sea in order find a great treasure (Zambrano, 2007: 107). Once they have taken hold of it, they swim to the surface in order to share their discoveries. This is reminiscent of Virgil’s descent into hell searching for Beatrice in Dante’s Divina Comedia (Zambrano, 1995: 16). Zambrano calls ‘evidence’ the treasure found. Evidence is a kind of truth reached through experiential rationality. It holds little intellectual content but much lively information. It provokes an ontological, and thus profound, transformation that involves all the dimensions of our being (Zambrano, 1995: 69). This is the kind of truth that the mother giving birth experiences. Retreat demands patience: ‘pax’ (peace) and ‘scientia’ (science). Evidences are taken at the glade of the forest. Their seekers have to use knowledge and calm in order not to lose themselves in the forest. Evidence comes from the sunlight received at the glade of the forest and beyond the shadows of the trees. To get that enlightening truth, we need to complete two requisites: (1) to be out of the treetops (at the glade), and (2) not to suffer a cloudy day. Even though we put all our effort to contemplate this enlightening truth, our success doesn’t depends exclusively on us. If you aren’t at the glade and clouds are gone, you will not see the sunlight. To be at the glade is a metaphor that points out that we have to develop all these attitudes in order to receive evidences. Retreat doesn’t mean that experiential rationality can be reached beyond people and events. As André Comte-Sponville explains, ‘solitude and isolation are different’ (Comte-Sponville, 2000: 29; my translation). Experience requires incidents that bring topics on which one meditates. It’s true that some enlightening knowledge may be attained in a hermit

Experiential Philosophical Practice

293

life, but even cloistered monks and nuns usually have a relationship: with a Personal Other. Faith is needed to trust that sunlight will follow the clouds during difficult moments in which all seems lost (Zambrano, 2004: 101). In these moments, it is essential to trust in a future light even if nothing indicates this possibility. If a candidate to experiential knowledge doesn’t wait without hope, he will run away and, in doing so, he will ruin the opportunity to reach an evidential truth. Evidence or experiential truth is hard to find without equilibrium (balance). Alteration comes from ‘alter’ (‘other’) and from not being in ourselves (Ortega, 1997: 85–88). As soon as we are with others we will be floating over different issues instead of focusing on a specific inner truth. This is the reason crowded situations are not good for experience. Finally, the aim of this experiential path is to listen to the rhythm of each reality. Juan Cirlot says that symbolism depends on the relation between a material object and a cosmic or transcendental rhythm (Cirlot, 1997: 38– 39). As soon as a person understands that relation, he knows the meaning of a symbol. An example of understanding a symbolic rhythm is to comprehend the zigzag of a snake in a picture. That movement resembles evil because its suggestive movement shows the wicked wave that can be seen in all evil things (persons, animals, objects). In order to capture the rhythm of each object, one needs to develop a subtle ability to hear and to see. These abilities help to recognize an experienced human being beyond the surface of reality.

Why does experience transform persons? Ontological change There is no difference in ourselves, in our being, when we form a thought or when we derive a conclusion from premises. We don’t move from our starting point, instead we move reality. When we create the idea of a chair from a tree, reality changes but the inventor doesn’t; he manipulates reality but he is the same. He demands of reality, ‘you must shape yourself as I want. Meanwhile, I will remain the same. Thus, you will be transformed into my reality’. Rather than listening to reality, the inventor is imposing his own view. This is how modernity has designed a humanistic or humancentered world.

294

XVII

There are other kinds of men and of understanding. Let’s think of a philosophical poet, as Martin Heidegger did (Heidegger 2001b: 11–62). He doesn’t force reality into what it has to be. He just hears reality and he stands in front of it, in front of lakes, flowers, tears or the emptiness of a big city. He dives into those things to the extent that he disappears as an ‘I’. This is the way of experience. Philosophical practitioners who work out of a rational-conceptual-logical approach assist counselees in creating their own concepts: their ‘freedom’, their ‘happiness’, their ‘love’ or their ‘truth’. They work on their own spatial and temporal conditions; they cannot go beyond them. Even if they broaden their views, they cannot break away their personal frameworks. What does happen with an experiential approach? When a person has an experience he doesn’t create, he is kidnapped by it, by concepts and situations greater than him. If he wants to understand love in an experiential way, he should open himself to the point where he is enraptured by love. The English language is telling in this case: he will understand what love is as soon as he falls in love. Experience is to drop, to fall in some concepts to the point where the ‘I’ disappears and ‘the other’ (the lover or love) takes control. Experience makes that person cease to be ‘John’, ‘Peter’ or ‘my professor’, but ‘love’, ‘freedom’, ‘happiness’ or ‘truth’ instead. The person becomes so transparent and his ‘ego’ so small that when he talks, people feel they are in the presence of the concepts rather than in the presence of a particular man. Experience matches subject with object or breaks the distinction between them. To have an experience is to be outside of ourselves because we have been invaded by ideas and concepts bigger than ourselves: ‘love’ or ‘freedom’ is bigger than Peter, John, or even Plato, Martin Heidegger or Michel Foucault. Let’s go back to our examples. A woman who gave birth has had an experience which encloses her whole life, indeed, she will be part of that experience. When a son loses his father, he will not only get new thoughts, he will be an orphan for the rest of his life. Experience causes an ontological change in the sense that persons will be other persons. This essential movement involves changes in all the dimensions of the person’s being.

Experiential Philosophical Practice

295

The meaning of these ontological changes is that the counselee’s ‘ego’ is changed by something greater than him. A mother or an orphan enter in relation with a new situation which eventually makes them different than they were. Thus, if AP-PP (Analytic Pragmatic Philosophical Practice) is related to epistemology (ideal knowledge), E-PP (Experiential Philosophical Practice) is connected to ontology (essential changes). Alterations in one’s thoughts could be a goal of AP-PP; however, this will be a consequence of a previous aim in E-PP. The differences between AP-PP (at the top) and E-PP (at the bottom) can be graphically shown in the following figure:

296

XVII

Experiential Philosophical Practice

297

Experiential Philosophical Practice To integrate the idea of ‘experience’ within Philosophical Practice helps create a new model of Philosophical Practice. Its structure is not incompatible with analytic and pragmatic Philosophical Practice; on the contrary, it complements the other model with a particular framework and it encourages a more lively process of rationality. What would be the definition of E-PP that complements AP-PP? Experiential philosophical practice is A process of generation and tracking of the counsellee’s direct or indirect experiences. This process includes stirring up attitudes or dispositions that turn lived activities (‘vivencias’) in experiences. By means of these experiences, the counselee moves himself ontologically. Through this movement the counselee becomes another person and is changing essential issues in his life. Thus, the main dimensions of his being (his thoughts, feelings, behaviors and actions) are transformed. His new being makes his former problems dissolve rather than resolved. (Barrientos-Rastrojo and Beuchot Puente, 2013: 134; my translation)

Philosophical practice proposes experiences to the counselee so that he can have a broader understanding of reality. Some of the experiences will be carried out in real life, others will be mental experiences and indirect experiences. Indirect experiences can be, for example, watching films or attending lectures of persons sharing a deep experience. Various experiential exercises are described in Vectores zambranianos para una teoría de la Filosofía Aplicada a la Persona (Barrientos, 2010: 1146– 1236). E-PP broadens AP-PP work. Thinking and understanding in an experiential way exceed the mind. Philosophical Practice should affect the whole person in the consultation. Why? Because our profession aspires to impact the whole person rather than just thoughts. Many philosophical counsellors have intuitively done this well. Anders Lindseth talks about the power of experiential life in his consultations at the 13th International Conference on Philosophical Practice and Ran Lahav takes his counselees and groups deep inside through reading and listening to texts in an experiential way (Lahav, 2006a). However, it is important to enquire into the means of emphasizing ‘experientiality’ (designing lively exercises) in our activities, because our success as life transformers resides there. However, some philosophical practitioners are not yet aware of the fact that the success of the consultation depends more on this experiential point

298

XVII

than on developing a good logical discussion. A sound logical discussion can improve critical thinking skills but only a good experiential discussion changes counselees’ lives and help them find the evidences and the truth needed for their crisis. If AP-Philosophical Practitioners were conscious of this point, they would work with their counselees in a more ontological and experiential way than on Critical Thinking or the Analysis of Concepts. They would prefer to develop the ability to listen with subtleness rather than to forge and assess concepts and ideas.5

The advantages of integrating experiential dimensions in philosophical practice The first and foremost advantage of integrating experience in Philosophical Practice is understanding the move from a rational and critical view to a holistic one. To understand is not to get a limited concept (for example, ‘my happiness’) but to enter in the source of this concept (to ‘be happy’). By inhabiting that concept or being it, the counselee gets a better understanding. The concept doesn’t belong to the counselee, on the contrary, after experiential understanding the counselee belongs to the concept, to its root. When the counselee talks about that concept from inside the experience, there is no ‘ego’; instead, there is an idea talking through the counselee. This is the difference between understanding a picture as a critic of art and a painter. The former creates a distance in order to talk from himself about the picture. The painter is transformed by the picture to the point that he is used by the picture so that the picture talks through the artist. Going back to Philosophical Practice and introducing the idea of ‘dissolution’ of problems, we can say that as soon as the painter loses his human condition, his main problems dissolve; he is not worried about paying his bills because this does not concern the picture. Let’s take another example. A mother doesn’t understand why her teenage son needs to be with his friends until midnight. This is the starting point of bitter disputes between them. The philosophical counsellor can help this woman by taking her to her son’s experience, and, conversely, taking the teenager to the anxious situation of his mother. Some critics could claim, ‘how is it possible to communicate an experience?’ An experience is such a great thing that it oversteps space and time, but the tools we have for communicating it, such as words, 5

This was the premise of the retreat Ran Lahav and I organized in 2005. In some sense, Experiential Philosophical Practice is a way to realize his ‘Grand Philosophy’ rather than ‘Small Philosophy’ (Lahav, 2006b: 93–96).

Experiential Philosophical Practice

299

concepts, definitions, and ideas, are confined within space and time. These critics are somewhat right. Words tend to be very specific and attempt to enclose whole ideas. To make a de-fini-tion is to forge an artificial limit for experiences that are related with the totality. Thus, to give a definition or explain in words an experience is always unsatisfactory. Nevertheless, an experiential framework has a new concept for communication that corresponds to its goals: commun(icat)ion turns to communion. How is it possible to understand my partner’s experience without using words? It is possible because I am in communion with him or her. A lover doesn’t need words to convey to his girlfriend how much he loves her if they have created a ‘world of love’ between them. As can be seen in the last figure, understanding doesn’t mean that ‘he’ communicates ‘her’ a concept, but ‘he’ and ‘she’ enter in the world of the concept so that both understand love and its implications for them. Let’s think of what an angry man shouts at a woman who doesn’t love him: ‘You cannot understand love or me because you haven’t ever been loved and you have never loved anyone!’. The experiential framework explains why these persons cannot communicate with each other. To be aware of the significance of experience requires humility. The impact of experiential lectures given by a professor does not uniquely depend on his human capacity. If this greatness depended on him, he could have given as many great lectures as he wished; but actually some of them are better that others. So, when a student says to his professor ‘you have changed my life with this lecture’, the best answer should be, ‘both of us were changed for something bigger than us’. This explanation doesn’t mean that greatness is based on luck because our professor has an essential role in it: to become ‘transparent’ so that the student can see through him the evidence or the great truth. He achieves this by devoting all his efforts to his studies as with a religion or a vocation. The more time he dedicates to ideas, the easier they invade him much as the picture invaded the artist. In addition, his studies must be penetrated by the kind of dispositions or attitudes previously mentioned. Communal communication is possible as soon as there is a community of two persons. There are levels of understanding inside that community. Those levels are based on the proximity of members to its central focus. The master of a community knows the level of his apprentices just by seeing their attitudes. Moreover, if a new person joins the community, he can discover whether he is a master or a novice. Antón Pacheco has defined anagogic knowledge as the knowledge of obtained after living

300

XVII

mystical experiences (Antón Pacheco, 2010: 130, 151–152). This knowledge qualifies the master to make this discrimination and to have conversations in silence with other masters. A community of mothers enables a woman to intuit if another woman understands what giving birth is. Experiences create these communities and give possibilities to develop this silent dialogue inside it. These reflexions bring another important idea in E-PP which can be exemplified by the relationship between a tourist and a native (Dewey, 2008: 62, 248). A tourist is a person who sees a lot of things (monuments, artworks, places) but don’t dive into them. He doesn’t feel the rhythm of each monument, artwork or place, its space and time. He can see the surface but he can’t distinguish the roots binding those things together. On the other hand, the native can see it from the inside. Experiential knowledge is akin to being a native. As natives, persons who have had an experience of freedom, for example, are not forceful with the environment; on the contrary, tourists can be recognized because they are like black spots in a white picture. Some AP-Philosophical Practitioners are like tourists who impose their own analytic view on the other’s discourse instead of immersing themselves in it.

Quests and conclusions This essay aimed at exploring the limits of an analytic and pragmatic approach to Philosophical Practice. My intention wasn’t to propose a better approach but to complement it by an alternative approach. My main purpose was to offer an answer to those persons who complain that philosophy is a form of thought that doesn’t affect life. In addition, I proposed an answer to the counselees who feel a discontinuity after their sessions between the thoughts they developed there and their real lives. Experience is just an alternative path among others. I am far from proposing it as the ideal solution. Some days ago, an intelligent friend pointed out intuition or intuitive rationality as an interesting criticism to my proposal. She said that some people can sharply perceive and decide on some matters with very few or even without any experiences. If this acuity depends on having lived through experiences, how is it possible to account for this skill? This is an interesting topic worthy of further study. Malcolm Gladwell, author of the American bestseller Blink, defends the idea that intuition is founded on experience and training (Gladwell, 2007). Thus, a doctor’s intuition is the outcome of years of consultation with patients. This theory supports my view. As there are children with few

Experiential Philosophical Practice

301

experiences who are more intuitive than others, there may be biological, even genetic, factors that are involved. But this topic is beyond the scope of this essay.

References Antón Pacheco, José Antonio (2010). El ser y los símbolos. Madrid: Mandala. Barrientos-Rastrojo, José (2006). Entre Historia y Orientación Filosófica II. Sevilla: Asociación X-XI. —. (2010). Vectores Zambranianos para una Teoría de la Filosofía Aplicada a la Persona. Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla. —. (2011). Resolución de Conflictos desde la Filosofía Aplicada y desde la Mediación. Madrid-Lisboa: VisionLibros-CEFi. Barrientos-Rastrojo, José, and Mauricio Beuchot Puente (2013). La Filosofía Aplicada según la Hermenéutica Analógica. México DF: Torres. Brenifier, Oscar (2011). Filosofar como Sócrates. Translated by Gabriel Arnáiz. Valencia: Diálogo. Cirlot, Juan Eduardo (1997). Diccionario de Símbolos. Madrid: Siruela. Cohen, Elliot (1989). ‘The Philosopher as Counselor’. In Philosophers at Work. An Introduction to the Issues and Practical Uses of Philosophy. Edited by E. Cohen. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. —. (2013). Caution: Faulty Thinking Can Be Harmful to Your Happiness. Florida: Trace-Wilco. Comte-Sponville, André (2000). El amor. La soledad. Translated by Godofredo González Rodríguez. Barcelona: Paidós. D’Agostini, Franca (2000). Analíticos y Continentales. Guía de la Filosofía de los Últimos Treinta Años. Translated by Mario Pedro Gutiérrez. Madrid: Cátedra. Dewey, John (2008). El Arte como Experiencia. Translated by Jordi Claramonte Arauffat. Barcelona: Paidós. Dias, Jorge Humberto (2006). Filosofia Aplicada à Vida. Lisboa: Esquilo. Gadamer, Hans Georg (2001). Verdad y Método I. Translated by Ana Agud y Rafael Aparicio. Salamanca: Sígueme. Gladwell, Max (2007). Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking. New York: Back Bay Books. Heidegger, Martin (2001a). Introducción a la Metafísica. Translated by Angela Ackermann Pilári. Barcelona: Gedisa. —. (2001b). Caminos del Bosque. Translated by Elena Cortes y Arturo Leyte. Madrid: Alianza.

302

XVII

James, William (2002). Pragmatismo. Un Nuevo Hombre para Viejas Formas de Pensar. Translated by Ramón del Castillo. Madrid: Alianza. Lahav, Ran (2006a). ‘Contemplative Philosophy: Principles, Techniques, Texts’. In Booklet on Contemplative Philosophy available in www.geocities.com/ranlahav/index.html, last acceded february 15th, 2006. —. (2006b). ‘Small Philosophical Practice and Grand Philosophical Practice’. In Philosophical Practice: From Theory to Practice, edited by J. Barrientos-Rastrojo. Sevilla: Asociación X-XI. Marias, Julián (1966). ‘Un Escorzo de la Experiencia de la Vida’. In Experiencia de vida. Madrid: Alianza. Marinoff, Louis (1995). ‘On the Emergence of Ethical Counselling: Considerations and Two Case Studies’. In Essays in Philosophical Counseling, edited by Ran Lahav and María Tillmanns. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Ortega y Gasset, José (1995). Obras Completas VIII. Madrid: Alianza. —. (1997). Obras Completas VII. Madrid: Alianza. Raabe, Peter B. (2001). Philosophical Counseling: Theory and Practice. Wesport: Praeger Publisher. Sartre, Jean-Paul (2014). La Naúsea. Translated by Aurora Bernáldez. Madrid: Alianza. Searle, John (2001). Mentes, Cerebros y Ciencia. Translated by Luis Valdés. Madrid: Cátedra. Séneca, Lucio Anneo (2001). Epístolas Morales a Lucilio I. Translated by Ismael Roca Meliá. Madrid: Gredos. Shibles, Warren (1999). ‘The Philosophical Practitioner and Emotions’. In Thinking through Dialogue, edited by T. Curnow. Oxted: Practical Philosophy Press. Singer, Peter (1973). Democracy and Disobedience. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Toulmin, Stephen (2003). The Uses of Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Unamuno, Miguel (2005). Del Sentimiento Trágico de la Vida. Madrid: Tecnos. Yalom, Irvin (2007). Quando Nietzsche Chorou. Translated by Manuel Marques. Parede: Saída de Emergência. Zambrano, María (1995). La Confesión: Género Literario. Siruela: Madrid. —. (2001). Filosofía y Poesía. Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica. —. (2004). Los Bienaventurados. Madrid: Siruela. —. (2007). Filosofía y Educación. Málaga Ágora.

XVIII THE TRANSACTIONAL ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELING ALEKSANDAR FATIû

Transactions and the concept of human solidarity In philosophical counseling, just as in psychotherapeutic work, what happens between the counselor and the client is not a mere conversation. The very professional nature of counseling suggests that a transaction is taking place, though a less obvious one than in many other types of service-provision. The service that the counselor provides to the client consists in meanings and emotions, and the ‘material’ that the clients give the counselors to work on consists mainly of the clients’ perceptions and appreciation of aspects of their lives. Counseling takes place against the backdrop of a dissatisfying life, or a desire to improve the quality of what is otherwise an acceptable life. Very rarely does philosophical counseling, or psychotherapy for that matter, occur with clients who are entirely happy with their lives. Thus, in a sense, the transaction that takes place between the counselor and the clients consists of meanings which are promised, or have the potential, to improve the quality of the client’s life. However, this aspect of the counseling relationship is only seemingly peculiar to service-provision: in fact most human relationships contain an element of transactions. While some theorists have argued that all human relationships can be reduced to transactions only (e.g., Macneil, 1986), there is little doubt that whether or not one agrees with the reductionist approach there is an element of transactions in exchanging things such as pleasantries, favors, smiles or kisses; the real philosophical question here is obviously what to make of these transactions, or in what way they might be significant for furthering the understanding of our lives.

304

XVIII

On the one hand, there is something fundamentally similar between exchanging services or favours and exchanging smiles and compliments: both include giving away something that the other person supposedly needs or values. Similarly, both presuppose at least a tacit reciprocity: it would be hard to imagine long-term commitments to providing services or doing favours to someone who never gave anything back, either as compensation (payment) or as a return sign of appreciation and gratitude. It is similarly hard to imagine a situation where over a long time some people courteously smiled to others while the others remained totally indifferent. In some communities it is still common expectation to greet unknown others in the street, but as communities grow and increasing numbers of those who don't recognise the practice move in, the blank faces that do not respond to greetings make the practice of greeting wane away. Thus it would seem that the goods described are systematically subject to a generalised regime of exchange in society, and that the expectation of reciprocity is fundamental to this regime. The basic assumption for a relationship to be a transaction is that the things that people exchange are indeed goods, in the sense that they are desired or needed. While it is grammatically correct to say that two people fighting in the street are 'exchanging' blows, in the narrow sense, such an exchange would not be a transaction, because (supposedly) the blows exchanged are not 'goods' for either of the combatants; they are not desired or needed. The situation in combat sports might be slightly different: blows might be goods there, because they are the 'substance' by which performance in the sport is measured: judges score fights based on the numbers of specific types of blows, and thus scoring a blow is a good; in this sense, receiving a blow is also a 'good' in the derivative sense. Just as losing money in a business transaction does not make the money that is lost less of a 'good' to the losing party, so, perhaps, receiving a blow in a sports competition does not deduct from the blow's being a 'good' in the context of the bout. However these are marginal aspects of the main theme here. In counseling, the goods exchanged are supposed to be 'good' for the client, and in many cases they are also good for the counselor, who also benefits, in various ways, from the counseling process. Counseling, as a professional activity, rests on transactions. But how does it differ from ordinary human transactions, which often occur in the same 'goods' that are exchanged in counseling: in concern, appreciation, respect, advice, useful meanings? If goods are things that people desire, value and are prepared to trade something for those things, then goods are fully describable as

The Transactional Aspect of Philosophical Counseling

305

commodities, and the proper context for their distribution is the market. Commodities are goods that are capable of being voluntarily exchanged in the market; their price, or transaction cost, is at least partially determined by how much people desire them. This desire is reflected in the willingness to pay a certain price, which is articulated by the market. The price remains attached to the commodity, explicitly or implicitly, even when it is given as a gift: the general expectation of reciprocity is tacitly determined by the value or price of the gift. It is considered inappropriate to return a favour by something that has a dramatically lower market value than the favour received, except in special circumstances (e.g. extreme hardship, obvious lack of access to appropriate goods, or a relationship with the gift-giver which, at least in some cultures, makes non-reciprocal gift-giving a social norm, such as in the relationship between parent and child). By contrast, there are things that those who give them away may justifiably believe to be good for the recipients, while the recipients are either indifferent to such goods (this, sadly, is often the case with good advice), or positively antagonistic to them (such as a child's frustration with parts of the child-rearing process). Similar considerations apply to the concept of ‘exchange', a concept that implies reciprocal action, or active interaction. Exchanges occur where people give something away, and receive something else in return, perhaps not immediately, but as two inseparable parts of a process of interaction. In the street, people may exchange smiles, and in a neighbourhood or on various social occasions they may exchange compliments. The structure of exchange is socially mediated, so that people will generally exchange smiles with those who smile back, and will give compliments to those who respond likewise. This practice has firmly established itself as part of the social etiquette in some communities. Smiles and compliments are given in much the same way as hands are shaken. A hand is not extended to another person because one believes that it is good for that person to shake hands, nor are smiles and compliments ordinarily given because we believe that others will truly benefit from them or need them. We simply believe that, like us, others find smiles and compliments pleasing and that, all things considered, given that smiles or compliments cost nothing and please everyone involved, everyone is better off exchanging smiles and compliments than they would be, for example, routinely grunting at each other.

306

XVIII

Smiles and compliments are also commodities, even though they are exchanged (for the most part) free of charge. According to the economistic theory (Macneil, loc. cit.), solidarity is a function of the exchange of commodities: those exchanges that increase everyone's individual utility, subject to being generally socially acceptable, make up solidarity. The condition of social acceptability merely means that practices that violate certain broader moral standards, even when they increase individual utility, do not count as solidarity. For example, collective prostitution or systematic robbery of passers-by, even if they increased the individual utility of all members of the community, would not be constitute social solidarity, because the actions involved are generally socially unacceptable. While most of the things that people ordinarily desire are subject to everyday transactions, this is so simply because these things are conceived as commodities. Even emotional relations are often described in terms of commodities: one ‘gives’ so much in a relationship and in exchange one ‘gets’ so much from the same relationship. Marital crises in the modern society often arise from perceptions of an unfavorable ratio between what one ‘gives’ and what one ‘gets’. Career goals are the same: one needs to ‘invest’ a certain amount of time, energy and social capital in order to reasonably expect to ‘receive’ the desired gains. The common dimension of all such exchanges is that there is a desired, if only imagined, state of affairs which appears to justify the trade-offs involved in obtaining it. It is the perception of a perfect, or at least a ‘functional’ marriage that allows the calculation of the sacrifices and benefits which results in a rational evaluation of the ‘value’ of the relationship. This often lamented fact is integrated in the very methodology of marital counseling: a frequent form of advice people in marital crises receive within psychological counseling aims at the proverbial ‘putting the pros and cons down on paper’. The opposite approach, such as that of Christian counseling, focuses on substantive values, such as hope, rather than the structure of exchange (Worthington, 1999). Some of the goods given, such as rescue from mortal danger, are consciously wanted by the recipients, yet the benevolent actions involved are so extraordinary that they cannot be part of a pre-conceived exchange, because no reciprocation can be reasonably expected. Other goods, such as prayer, are given without being asked for, often without those prayed for consciously wanting the prayer in the first place. Further, such goods are often given unbeknownst to those who are supposed to benefit from them. These are all goods that are reasonably believed by those who provide

The Transactional Aspect of Philosophical Counseling

307

them to enhance the interests of the recipients. Yet, human kindness does not easily fit in the framework of economic exchange. In order to cooperate with someone, obviously one does not have to like that other person. If I know that another colleague wants the chairmanship of a board that I currently hold, and he knows that I need his support for the Faculty’s approval of my pet research project, then my resigning the chairmanship and opening a space for him to compete, with him supporting my project, will, superficially, show our solidarity. Alternatively, I might try to hold on to my chairmanship whilst using pressure, blackmail or threats to make him support my project. Conversely, he might connive with others to obstruct my chairmanship, while at the same time refusing support to the project. Adopting the latter course of action would lead us to a variant of ‘zero-sum game’. Given the risks involved for both of us, the effort required and the unpleasantness of the whole business, adopting the former, cooperative course of action is both optimal and more rational under the circumstances. If we both adopt the cooperative course we will likely generate legitimate expectations in each other that we are both reasonable actors and that we could have a mutually beneficial and peaceful cooperation in the future. This type of ‘solidarity’, which is based on the exchange of interests, does not require my colleague and me to like or respect each other; in fact, we could as well utterly despise each other. Our actions are based on what we want and on what we know the other one wants, and our entire relationship is based on a rational judgment of what is more economical for both of us. If I despise the colleague as a person, I may still feel that I ought to show ‘professional solidarity’, which is a standard invented precisely to optimize situations where no other incentives exist for mutually beneficial action. In fact, much of what the economistic line of reasoning suggests as solidarity is in fact cooperation as an optimizing strategy to balance various individual and group goals and values. It is a rational compromise that allows all the parties to cooperate rather than go to war over their differences, because, all things considered, they are all likely to end up better off cooperating than waging war. This is very far from genuine solidarity. Imagine, however, a situation where my colleague were to find out that I, who have constantly obstructed his efforts for many years, am terminally ill, and that I desire this last project as a conclusion to my career. He decides to support my project in a meeting where I, obnoxious as I am, continue to abuse him. Supporting someone who is hostile and with whom

308

XVIII

no future cooperation can be expected requires an emotional reaching out to that person as a human being. It is just such emotions that make possible sacrifices as unilateral acts of solidarity. Instrumental rationality appears excluded from such acts, as one does not stand to gain anything other than an emotional satisfaction generated by the sacrifice, while at the same time one might risk losing everything. It is instrumentally irrational to jump in a freezing, foaming river to save an unknown person, as it is irrational to swim from the shore to the rescue of a shark attack victim. Both are acts of the purest human solidarity that escapes any economic reasoning. While the exchange of commodities conforms to the economistic model of ‘transactions’, many actions, which do not fit that model, are crucial for what we would consider human solidarity with all its virtues. Philosophical counseling is fundamentally based on human solidarity, which is the dynamic factor of counseling, and on the clarification and enhancement of virtues, which make up the epistemic, or cognitive factor in counseling.

The counseling relationship While teaching a class on philosophical practice to postgraduate students of psychology, I was once startled to learn from students that they had been taught never to extend an arm and shake hands with a new client, never to divulge any personal information, and never to show any degree of personal appreciation or closeness to the client. Apparently such acts were seen as detracting from the distanced, ‘objective’ role a psychotherapist is to play, at least according to some schools of psychotherapeutic thought. The psychotherapist, in this context, portrays himself as a filter through which the client’s 'meanings' are supposed to pass in order to become clearer and more productive for the client. Philosophical counseling as a distinct discipline is concerned with the cultivation of virtues, which will allow the person to become happier and increase their quality of life. In this context, any problems or frustrations that the client faces now are simply clues by which to access the deep-held personal resources and help the client develop not just new skills, but new perspectives which make life more meaningful. This means that, while philosophical counseling usually arises from the awareness of an acute problem, the counseling may be a success without actually solving the initial problem, if through the process of counseling the client develops perspectives and an appreciation of values which make him or her happier, despite the continued existence of the initial 'acute' problem.

The Transactional Aspect of Philosophical Counseling

309

The over-arching goals of philosophical counseling aim at the achievement of a good life, where both the client and the counselor need to agree on at least some aspects of the good life. The counselor develops a complex relationship with the client, which is by no means limited to developing in the client the skills necessary for solving one or more specific problems. The goal of philosophical counseling is the construction of a philosophical edifice, which will serve the client in the long term, both by helping her to deal with passing, everyday problems, which detract from her overall quality of life, and by equipping her with a vision and hope of achievement of an important life-goal. It is the absence of a life-goal that turns individual obstacles into individual crises (except for crises which are life-threatening in themselves, such as serious illnesses; such crises potentially obstruct the very plausibility of any vision of a lifegoal). On my interpretation, philosophical counseling depends on a vision and thus creates its own micro-culture between the counselor and the counselee. Productive counseling involves transactions not only in services, but also in meanings and normative views of specific cultural aspects of the relationship; in this philosophical counseling goes beyond the mere clarification and critical examination of values or reasons. The counselor and the client form a bond based on a facet of common identity which they develop through the counseling process. This means that philosophical counselors should not work with clients with whom they cannot identify or whom they dislike, just the same as clients, in any type of counseling, are highly unlikely to maintain a counseling relationship with a counselor whom they dislike. A generally favourable mutual appraisal is, in reality, a pre-requisite for productive work. This view of culture is not uncontroversial in applied ethics; in business ethics there is a prominent approach according to which ‘corporations should have weak cultures and strong ethics’, meaning that common identities may stifle the free expression of novel or challenging ideas. This implies that the weaker the culture, the more freedom it allows. However, such freedom must be subject to relatively strict requirements in the form of ‘fair agreements’, which regulate the way in which the transactions take place (Paskin, 1986: 144). In philosophical counseling ‘fair agreements’ have little reach, as they fail to bring the relationship into a substantive context where the counselor can intervene in the counselee’s values and attitudes. Fair agreements are generally for people who do not care about one another. In a counseling

310

XVIII

relationship, the counselor is in charge of building a particular culture which, in his judgment, will be most beneficial to his client, while the counselee’s task, for the most part, is to complete a process of ‘acculturation’ to the culture proposed by the counselor. In this process the transactions between the counselor and the counselee are meta-ethical: the counselor helps the counselee understand the meanings that the counseling culture will work with, some of which meanings will differ from the meanings of certain actions and words that the counselee is accustomed to. The philosophical counseling relationship facilitates the removal of the counselee from her everyday culture into a secluded cultural space created by the counseling process. Within this secluded context the counselee is able to re-examine her views and strategies in her ordinary life. Such a secluded position allows her to experiment with different and often mutually incompatible approaches to questions which define her identity or quality of life. In this sense, the counseling relationship involves transactions in imaginative projections. Such transactions facilitate a free experimentation with meanings and values. Just like the culture which the counselee lives in ordinarily, the therapeutic or counseling culture has its rites and rituals. However, unlike in the cultures of the ‘real world’, the counseling rituals and assumptions can be changed or modified. The counseling relationship is thus a laboratory of meanings and strategies which allows the counselee to ‘change the chemistry’ of their brain by entering a different environment in the same way in which 'the chemistries' of our brains are changed when we change our physical environment, e.g. by going on holidays. At the same time, the counseling process encourages the counselee to try the ways of thinking and understanding relationships and other experiences without the normal consequences which such changes would produce in the real world. That culture, and that laboratory-like, controlled social and mental environment, which the counselor offers the counselee, are the ‘services’ , or the professional ‘goods’ (or ‘commodities’) that the counselor trades in. It is this context, in which the counselee is able to ‘act out’ various life strategies outside the normal consequential framework of one’s life, that makes philosophical counseling a profession, which is subject to laws and principles of the market. Everything else in the counseling process escapes the economistic logic and includes transactions in goods which are not commodities, but freely constructed or freely adopted values between the counselor and the counselee. The concept of the counseling relationship as a community with its own culture casts some shadows on the possibility of an in-depth disagreement

The Transactional Aspect of Philosophical Counseling

311

on key values in a truly productive counseling relationship. While tolerance is a cultural norm imposed on all helping professions, the actual level of tolerance of key value-differences in counseling is limited. Consider an example. A woman comes to a philosophical counselor with issues of low self-esteem on account of being unemployed, and occasionally mentions ‘thoughts about death’, but carefully avoids phrasing this as ‘suicidal thoughts’. The counselor tries to refer her to psychotherapy or psychiatric treatment until the nature of the ‘death thoughts’ is clarified, however she refuses and insists on maintaining a philosophical counseling relationship as the only type of counseling that helps her. Through the ensuing process, the counselee exhibits initiative, drive and ingenuity which quickly bring her new work opportunities and get her out of financial trouble. At the same time, the counseling reveals that the client's more pressing and more fundamental problem is her failure to appreciate romantic relationships and build a healthy and lasting emotional bond. The counselor repeatedly places this problem at the center of the counseling sessions, and ends up with a therapeutic contract. The contract stipulates that the client would no longer enter ‘transient’ relationships until a later stage in the counseling, when her priorities would be set more firmly. The counselor is of the belief that the transiency of her emotions and her propensity to easy infatuation is at the heart of her problems. He suggests to her that countering such habits is the only way to afford her the mental space and time to consider her life-strategies and make key strategic decisions. Such consideration of strategic issues in life is likely to help her address her main complaint, namely her loneliness. The counselee agrees to the therapeutic contract, however, as it becomes clear later, she believes that one cannot find a true high-quality emotional relationship unless one continually tries all kinds of relationships. She feels that the key to success in a woman's emotional life is that she remains ‘interesting’ to men. After a short while the client ends up in another transient relationship and thus violates the therapeutic contract. The counseling hits a dead-end. She discontinues the counseling, however occasionally she gets in touch with the counselor, complaining of repeated onset of ‘death thoughts’. When invited to another series of counseling sessions she declines and insists on the counselor (who is a man) showing that he finds her interesting by agreeing to ‘periodic check-ups’ outside a systematic counseling process. When the counselor refuses such a format of counseling, she disappears. In the described situation, whatever the personal views by the counselor of the counselee (in this particular case the counselor had very high regard

312

XVIII

for the counselee, for her ingenuity and intelligence), the level of tolerance of her actions, which deviated from the counseling relationship’s culture, had to be low. Given that the counseling culture in this type of case typically rests on the moral principle of doing no harm to the counselee, any counseling strategy which would allow the prolongation of harmful habits would be morally unacceptable for the counselor. The counselor was guided by the principle that, in the described case, he had to create a value environment in the counseling process which would starkly differ from the counselee’s own ‘real world’ value environment. In such a counseling context a careful consideration of future relationships, a more withdrawn and contemplative approach to new romantic overtures by men, and a greater significance attached to solitude and strategic thought about one’s life would play key roles. Such a culture within the counseling relationship would exert a therapeutic influence on the counselee, because it would put a break on the counselee's pursuits which, so far, have proven harmful, if only indirectly. A counseling micro-culture acts therapeutically on the client’s basic life issues quite apart from any specific interventions which take place within the counseling process, and for this reason the establishment of such a counseling culture is a must in any philosophical counseling. The fact that the client first agreed to the therapeutic contract and the proposed counseling culture, only to proceed to violate it both in 'the real world' and in the ensuing attempts to change the format of the counseling, necessitated the end of counseling in order to observe the principle of 'no harm'.

The learning transactions Although the learning process within counseling is bi-directional (the counselor learns from the client and from the experience of each counseling process, as much as the counselee learns from the counselor), the primary 'learner' is the counselee. In this sense, a philosophical counseling relationship is somewhat similar to teaching philosophy, although it also includes the development of skills to implement the philosophical principles and orientations that the client gains through the counseling. The learning aspect of the counseling, from the point of view of the counselee, goes beyond the mere service which is provided by the counselor. Such learning involves more than just an opportunity for the client to experiment with various concepts, values and life-strategies in a life-laboratory created and controlled by the counselor. The learning,

The Transactional Aspect of Philosophical Counseling

313

especially when it concerns life experience and certain aspects of virtue, is importantly an altruistic giving by the counselor. The counselee will ‘profit’ from the learning process if she enters the very personal twoperson'community' which the counselor offers her. By agreeing to 'plunge oneself' into such a new two-person 'community' many counselees experience a dramatic sense of change immediately after the session ends: some describe their sensation as ‘ability to fly’, or ‘new energy to confront life’. This is a common experience both in psychotherapy and in philosophical counseling. However, without exception, the effect wears out quickly, and already by the next session, usually within a week, the client comes back with the same mind-set that she carries with her all of her life. In most types of counseling, it takes numerous sessions and persistent and skilled interventions by the counselor to effect even the smallest lasting change in the client’s everyday modus operandi. However, the more ambitious view of counseling which I advocate here is one where the selection of clients is stricter than is usually the case (for a variety of both professional and mundanely practical reasons) and where the client decides to take the responsibility to share the values and cultural norms inherent in the counseling process and make them a part of their identity. This requires a high-tension relationship which implies transactions not only in values, but also in emotions. The process typically leads the client to wish to ‘become like’ the counselor. The strategic view of the counseling relationship by such clients must not rest on the existence of a specific problem or problems which the counseling will address, thus allowing the client to ‘move on’ with one’s life more productively. The client must rather perceive the counseling relationship as a challenge to change as fully as possible, where the change depends on the exact personal relationship that the client is able to develop with the counselor. In this sense, the transactions in counseling are similar to transactions in personal relationships, including romantic ones: we lose some things and gain some other things; sometimes we subsequently wonder whether the things we have lost had been more valuable to us than the things we have gained from the relationship.

Conclusion Sometimes (in fact quite often) people come to counseling with a marriage problem which they try to mend, and end up ‘successfully’concluding the counseling by divorcing their partners. In many cases, clients learn about themselves and develop a greater resilience in life, but at the same time become less sensitive and ‘emotional’ in their private or family affairs, and

314

XVIII

this generates a sense of loss among their close ones. In other cases, counselees might discover things about themselves that make them less loyal to their employers, their friends or their countries, because new values and new loyalties replace the old ones. In all of the above cases counseling may be the cause of the transformations and transactions which leave some people worse off than before, including the counselee himself. However, at the same time, counseling will tend to bring new content to the life of the counselee; it will act as a transformative experience which might bring a sense of meaning and purpose, sometimes along with increased suffering. Quality of life does not consist only of a favorable balance of positive to negative sensations, feelings and life-outcomes; it primarily depends on a sense of purpose, vision or ideas which guide one’s life. Philosophical counseling is concerned primarily with this type of vision, which depends on selfperceptions and perceptions of others and the world. However, it is not limited to perceptions: it requires active engagement with the world, an exteriorization of interests and focus, and a quest of self-realization, sometimes in ways very different from the previous vision which the person used to hold before starting the counseling process. The transactions involved in philosophical counseling take place both between the counselor and the counselee, and within the counselee: the ‘trade off’ between various values, principles and even sensibilities within the same person will, almost inevitably, change the person. While this change brings an element of unpredictability and uncertainty, it is intimately necessary and beneficial to the counselee, often in ways which are opaque to others. Such transactions may be only very indirectly connected with the initial ‘problem’ that caused the client to seek counseling in the first place. However such deep transactions within one’s persona are the ultimate aim of philosophical counseling. In fact, perhaps they alone, fundamentally, define philosophical counseling as opposed to other types of counseling.

References Macniel, Brian R. (1986). ‘Exchange Revisited: Individual Utility and Social Solidarity’. Ethics 96, 3: 567–93. Paskin, Mark (1986). The Hard Problems of Management. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Worthington, Everett L. (1999). Hope-focused Marriage Counseling. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

CONTRIBUTORS

Lydia Amir Lydia Amir is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the College of Management Academic Studies, Israel, and Visiting Professor at Tufts University, Boston, USA. She has published extensively on ethics, the history of philosophy, the practice of philosophy and the philosophy of humor. She is currently preparing a monograph Laughter and the Good Life: Montaigne, Nietzsche, Santayana, which is a sequel to her latest book Humor and the Good Life in Modern Philosophy: Shaftesbury, Hamann, Kierkegaard. Jose Barrientos-Rastrojo Jose Barrientos-Rastrojo is Professor (and Vice-dean) in Philosophy at the University of Seville (Spain) and Director of the research group “Experiencialidad” (HUM 968). He has published more than 30 books and 200 articles and papers. He has researched at Princeton University, University of Cambridge, University of Tokyo and UNAM, among others. His current area of research is Experience Philosophical Practice. Martha C. Beck Martha C. Beck teaches Philosophy at Lyon College in Batesville, Arkansas. She has published in journals out of China, Russia, Italy, Greece, Czech Republic, Poland, Indonesia and the USA. She is the author of more than 12 books, mostly focused on Ancient Greek mythology, tragedy, applications of Aristotle and Plato today. Petar Bojaniü Petar Bojaniü is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade (Serbia). His areas of academic specialization include political philosophy, philosophy of law, phenomenology, European philosophy, social ontology and the Jewish political tradition. Dimitrios Dentsoras Dimitrios Dentsoras is Assistant Professor in Ancient Philosophy and Ethics at the University of Manitoba, Canada. He is particularly interested in Stoic ethics and its modern applications.

316

Contributors

Aleksandar Fatiü Aleksandar Fatiü is Professor of Philosophy at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade, and Head of Department of Applied Philosophy, Faculty of Media and Communications, Singidunum University, Serbia. He is also President of the Serbian Philosophical Practitioners’ Association. His professional interests include applied ethics, philosophy of law and philosophical practice. Vaughana Feary Vaughana Feary taught Philosophy and Women's Studies at Fairleigh Dickinson University prior to her retirement. She is a former President of the ASPCP and is Vice-President and a founding Board member of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association (APPA). She does consulting work for corporations, correctional facilities and hospitals and publishes frequently. Ora Gruengard Ora Gruengard works as Senior Lecturer at the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, in Ramat Gan, in Israel. Her areas of expertise include epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of action and others. She currently researches about the cultural and philosophical roots of psychoanalysis. Dena Hurst Dena Hurst works as a researcher and project manager for the Florida Institute of Government (USA), helping various public and non-profit organizations develop a culture of innovation based upon leadership, learning, and processes. She is also Associate Editor of the academic journal Philosophical Practice. Marjan Ivkoviü Marjan Ivkoviü is Research Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade (Serbia). His research interests are in contemporary social theory and the philosophy of social sciences. Rastko Jovanov Rastko Jovanov is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade (Serbia) and at the Faculty for Media and Communications, Singidunum University, Belgrade (Serbia). His areas of expertise include philosophy and sociology of law, political philosophy, Kantian philosophy and German idealism.

Practicing Philosophy

317

Tetsuya Kono Tetsuya Kono is Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Education, at Rikkyo University (Japan). He is also Director of the Philosophical Association of Japan. His research interests include ethics, history of science and technology, educational and social psychology, and philosophy of education. Anders Lindseth Anders Lindseth is a Norwegian philosophical practitioner living in Munich, Germany. He is Senior Professor of Practical Knowledge at Gothenburg University (Sweden) and Professor Emeritus of Practical Philosophy at the Centre for Practical Knowledge, Nordland University (Norway). Michael Picard Michael Picard teaches philosophy at the Douglas College, Canada. His research interests span from logic, history of infinity, history of psychology, to professional and applied ethics, cognitive science and Asian philosophy. He is the author of This is Not a Book: Adventures in Popular Philosophy. Peter B. Raabe Peter B. Raabe is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Fraser Valley, British Columbia. His areas of academic interest are reasoning, metaphysics and epistemology, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of mind, as well as philosophy for counselors. Esther Ramharter Esther Ramharter works as Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Institute for Philosophy, University of Vienna (Austria), and organizes the Logik Café. Her research interests include philosophy of mathematics, logic and philosophy of religion. Young E. Rhee Young E. Rhee is Professor in Philosophy at Kangwon National University, in Chuncheon, Korea. His areas of expertise are philosophical practice, embodied mind, philosophy of cognitive science, and scientific reasoning.

318

Contributors

Donata Romizi Donata Romizi is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Program Manager of a two-year postgraduate training in philosophical practice at the Department of Philosophy, University of Vienna (Austria). Her research interests include philosophical counseling, philosophy of science, and didactics of philosophy. Finn Thorbjøn Hansen Finn Thorbjøn Hansen is a Socratic facilitator and Professor of Philosophical and Dialogical Praxis at Centre for Dialogue and Organization, Department of Communication, Aalborg University, Denmark. He trains professionals in philosophical counseling and Socratic Dialogue Groups and his research areas are philosophy of education and communication with a special focus on the phenomenology of wonder.