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Philosophical counselling as an alternative to mainstream therapy?
This is being re-written In the long conversation between Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, Plotinus, and various others, we find richness for both secular and spiritual people to create a life of deeper meaning and flourishing. I will set out some aspects of what these philosophers offer to us all, and hopefully you can see how most of them can be helpful guides to you in life. These are mere gestures at one or two elements in each philosopher, whose work is much deeper, wider, and richer than suggested here. I will proceed in historical order. I mention only ancient philosophers, though there are many modern ones who have greatly influenced me, including Ludwig Wittgenstein, Simone Weil, Iris Murdoch, as well the Australians Christopher Cordner and Raimond Gaita.
Socrates Socrates taught us how to examine ourselves and our lives using reason, in order to make both better. His form of examination is based on conversation and questions. "You say you are doing this because it makes you happy, but what do you mean by happiness?" "Does it really follow from your definition of happiness, that you should do that?" That is a dialogue between two people, but it is also a dialogue with oneself. Plato Plato was Socrates' student. He elaborated and developed Socrates' insights and took them further. Plato's philosophy is the art of the discernment of the true, the good, the beautiful, through reason, contemplation, imagination. Plato developed a powerful psychology as a part of his philosophy, which is in significant ways the basis of modern psychotherapy. He also developed a powerful conception of wisdom and the virtues, which shows us how to cultivate a wise, good, happy life in its deepest, most inward sense. Aristotle If Plotinus (below) is the height of classical philosophy as rational spirituality, Aristotle gives us our best vision of what a good life looks like, and how to cultivate it, from a more secular point of view. Based on observation, Aristotle develops a detailed description of the nature of:
Epictetus Moving from ancient Greece to ancient Rome, Epictetus was born a slave and is perhaps the greatest of the Stoics. When I discuss him, I am also discussing Stoicism more broadly, including people like Marcus Aurelius. Like most of the philosophers discussed here, Epictetus has much to say both to secular and spiritual individuals. If you are secular and follow Socrates's life of rational self-examination and Aristotle's cultivation of wisdom, virtue, and flourishing, then Stoicism offers daily coaching on the path. You simply ignore his references to the divine, or rather, take it symbolically. If, on the other hand, you are drawn by the spirituality of Plotinus, you are also in luck, because again Stoicism offers daily coaching on living this path in a challenging, distracting world. Epictetus trains us to hone in on what truly matters and is truly in our control: our interpretation, our choice, our attitude, our character. He guides us to create a pause between stimulus and response, between events and our reactions to them, to examine the space in between, where a lack of wisdom can lead to harmful reactions, and where an injection of wisdom can lead to peace, dignity, strength, freedom.... Plotinus Plotinus' philosophy is the Buddhism or Advaita-Vedanta of the West. "Pagan" philosophy was made illegal by Christian Imperial Rome, so Plotinus disappeared from the West until his rediscovery during the Renaissance. He provides a compelling spirituality, which can speak to many modern-minded Westerners today. Plotinus saw himself as an exegete of Plato, as articulating Plato's tradition, though his humility should not blind us to his great genius, which makes of him the capstone of ancient philosophy. Plotinus synthesised much that had come before: Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics. The essence of his philosophy was gestured at above, when I discussed philosophy as a rational spirituality. He suggests that we need to work on everything I have discussed so gat, with respect to Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. There is no "spiritual by-passing" here. Based on that work, however, he goes further with his philosophy of the divine and its emanation which includes us. Plotinus is a rational mystic. Phenomenology Leaping now to the 20th century, we have phenomenology. Phenomenology is something of a return to the insight of classical metaphysics--the equivalence of thought and being, or what phenomenologists call intentionality and giveness--and so a return to meaning contra nihilism. Phenomenology prioritises the direct investigation and description of conscious experience, without recourse to theories, causal explanations, or other assumptions. It examines the structures of experience, such as perception, memory, and imagination, from the first-person point of view. Phenomenology seeks to uncover the essential, universal structures of consciousness and intentionality, revealing how meaning and phenomena are constituted in subjective experience. This makes it a vital practice for psychotherapy, and philosophical counselling, insofar as those attempt to explore the inner life. Indeed, phenomenology has not only radically reshaped and improved philosophy across the last century, it has become central to modern psychotherapy, it has vastly improved the nature and practice of psychotherapy. I will add here, without saying much, that I have been deeply influenced in my academic philosophical education by Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose method of philosophy is outwardly different to phenomenology, but which resonates deeply with it. Phenomenology represents a philosophical movement in Germany and France, which had its correlate in Wittgenstein in England. Simone Weil Simone Weil, who died aged 34 during the second world war, is an enigma. A Communist soldier in Spain, a Jewish refugee from the Nazis, a Catholic mystic who railed against the force and tribalism of religion and praised atheism, and a philosophical genius all rolled into one. Weil wrote much about goodness, love, beauty, and the things that nourish the inner life and make it worthwhile, but it was her articulation of the depths of our vulnerability, and the nature of force in this world, which rightly astonishes most readers. Weil's mind cut like a knife into the depths of our inwardness. She manages to articulate things for which, without her, find cannot seem to find proper words. For example, what are we trying to say when we use the incoherent language of human rights? Weil: "At the bottom of the heart of every human being, from earliest infancy until the tomb, there is something that goes on indomitably expecting, in the teeth of all experience of crimes committed, suffered, and witnessed, that good and not evil will be done to him. It is this above all that is sacred in every human being." To read Weil is not necessarily to agree with her vision of the world in toto--certainly, I do not--but it is to be struck again and again by her insights, which change what and how we see. Indeed, the idea of attention, its ethical power and its transformative nature, is at the heart of her reflection. Iris Mudoch Murdoch, who is better known as a novelist, was one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. Murdoch wrote the first book-length study of Sartre in English, and she immediately recognised the central errors of existentialism, even as she articulated what was so attractive about it. In many ways, Murdoch is a Platonic alternative to existentialism, for people trying to find meaning and goodness within a secular, atheistic world. She teaches us how to look at life, and each other, in ways that reveal meaning and value. Christopher Cordner and Raimond Gaita Christopher Cordner was my lecturer and then post-graduate superviser at The University of Melbourne. Raimond Gaita is one of our greatest public philosophers, one of the world's leading moral philosophers alive today, and a great influence on me. Both these philosophers represent a kind of Platonism, shot through with something distinctly Australian, that speaks to the modern, secular mind, but which also greatly challenges us to see beyond a scientistic understanding of ourselves, to the implicit forms of meaning and value in which our lives are actually awash. You may have encountered Raimond Gaita without realising it, for he wrote a powerful memoir of his childhood in central Victoria (perchance close to my home) called Romulus, My Father, which was made into a film some years back. Often I recommend people start with that memoir, before reading his popular philosophy such as in books like The Philosopher's Dog. I do so because the former captures what philosophy truly comes out of: life as it is lived. Philosophy is thinking that comes out of living, and then feeds back into that living. This is the spirit in which Cordner and Gaita do philosophy. It is fundamental to my vision of philosophy. Pierre Hadot Classical Platonism is a "rational spirituality," as I like to call it. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, Plotinus—these are not modern, secular thinkers. The Divine has an important place in their philosophy. And yet, they are the source of our intellectual life, here in secular modernity. What I call the "phenomenological Platonists"—Iris Murdoch, Raimond Gaita—are secular and atheistic. So where am I leading you? Into a rational spirituality, or toward secularity?
To answer this question I am going to engage you in some philosophy. It is a little abstract, so please do not be put off by assuming that all my conversations with clients are at this level. At the same time, this is a good opportunity to do some philosophy. Importantly, what I am about to share with you lies at the centre of my philosophical thinking. To be a philosopher in the tradition of Plato is to develop a detachment from particularity, and to attach instead to the universal. What do I mean? Let us take the example of goodness. It is not a meaningless word, nor does it refer to pizza, or the weather. Rather, it is something you can characterise, and eventually define. There is something that is goodness, a universal form of goodness. We do not find it a certain location in the world, as one object among others, but rather every example of goodness that we encounter is a particular case of goodness, but it is not the universal form itself. An analogy might help here. What is a circle? What is its form, its essence? That is, what is a true circle? A circle is a curved line where every point is the same distance from a centre. That is the definition, the essence, the universal form, of a circle. We do not encounter that universal form in material reality; rather we encounter examples of circles, particular cases, which participate in that universal form to some imperfect degree. This is why we can be better or worse at the freehand drawing, or at the chiselling out, of circles. Likewise, particular good things participate in the form or nature of goodness, but each in a limited way, which is precisely what makes them particular. This means that each case of "a good thing" is good in certain respects, but not in others. Indeed, despite their sharing in the universal form of goodness, some particular cases of goodness will not only differ from others, but be contrary to certain other cases of goodness. On the one hand, that is a fine thing. That is the multiplicity of the universe. On the other hand, it is a cause of confusion and even strife. For people become attached to one particular form of goodness as though it were goodness in itself. When people do this, they reduce goodness in itself to their favoured particular form of goodness. They become inclined then to deny that the other forms of goodness are good at all. Indeed, they treat them as competitors, and so threats, and that invites attack. The error here is the conflation of the universal with the particular. It is to reduce the universal to the particular. Philosophy lifts our mind beyond all this. It reveals levels, enabling us to distinguish between the universal form of a thing and its many particular examples. These particular examples can differ in many respects from one another, while each participates in the universal. Philosophy guides us to see the universal clearly and to attach our desire to it, and to possess no more than a preference when it comes to the particular. This is a discipline of attention and of desire. This is wisdom, and the virtue that grows from it. What are these universals I am talking about? They are many, for everything has a form, otherwise it would not exist, but the universals I am concerned with include goodness, beauty, justice, truth, and at a level below that, reason, happiness, flourishing, creativity, courage, and so forth. What we love in life, and what makes both us and our lives good, are the particular embodiments of these universals and others at their levels. As a philosophical counsellor, I help you (1) to discern the universals, and (2) to embody them in the particulars of your worldview, and (3) to embody them in the particularity that is your way of being. For example, I help you to consider the form of human flourishing—its reality, its nature, its conditions in life—and I help you to cultivate a view of life that embodies that as well as possible, albeit in some particular and so limited way. And I help you embody human flourishing as well as possible in your individual way of being and concrete, particular life. Likewise with truth: we explore its nature, cultivate a worldview which is as true as possible, and a way of being that embodies it as well as possible. This raises a question. "Surely Matthew has arrived at a certain worldview, which, granting its limitations, he views as the best expression of truth that he can find? It would be strange if he had not done so; indeed it would raise questions about his potential to help others in this regard." That raises further questions. "I am a commited atheist; is Matthew going to try to convert me to some spiritual view of his?" Or, likewise: "My spiritual commitments are true and vital to the meaning of my life; is Matthew going to undermine that, is he going to try to convert me to a secular view?" I have already answered this, at least implicitly. It is why I have taken this detour into Platonic philosophy. I have set out my commitment. It is to truth. To goodness. To beauty. To kindness, courage, creativity, and so on. My concern is with the forms of these, more than their particular embodiments. When it comes to their embodiments, I recognise the variety. I am at peace with that. I am interested in exploring and working with difference. This is Platonism. If you are committed to secularity, for example if you are an atheist, we will work within that framework. If you have a spirituality, or seek one, we will work within that framework. In either case, my work is to help you explore the nature of goodness, and to embody it as well as possible, within your framework. Likewise for any other form. No matter the framework, goodness transcends that, and it is with goodness, or any other such quality, that I am most fundamentally concerned. Many atheists will say: "That is ridiculous, and you, Sir, are a vacuous "Yes-man"! For how can you speak of reason and truth, and yet take a Christian seriously?" A Christian might say: "How can you not see that reason leads to God, and that only Godly people are good?" I am a philosophical counsellor, and in particular a Platonist. I am not a dogmatist who needs others to agree. What I want is that you embody truth, goodness, justice, strength, happiness, human flourishing, and so forth, as well as possible. That will be "as well as possible" within your commitments, but those are yours to decide. This is not because I do not care about truth. It is because, like a mainstream counsellor, my role is not to make your decisions in life, but to help you live more fully as a human being. And like a professor of philosophy in the tutorial room, my role is not to press you into a worldview, but to help you to think well. As a Platonic philosopher, my role is to guide you to embody all those higher qualities I speak of. Like Socrates in Plato's dialogues, the forms of the true, the good, and so forth, are my true commitment. Of course, I do have my own views in life. I will describe two of them. For a have a passion for secularity, and for spirituality, which addresses the two broad concerns I am discussing here. I have a passion for secular modernity—not that version which is rationalistic or scientistic (which is, of course, irrational and unscientific). Not that version which objectifies, which reduces us to mechanisms, which is arrogant, blind, and nihilistic. Rather, I have a passion for modernity as truth-seeking, which is to say genuinely rational and scientific, which is humanistic and universalist in its ethics, and which is phenomenological in its understanding of human life. More particularly, I have a passion for secularity in the form of a phenomenological Platonism, the kind we find in Iris Murdoch, Christopher Corder, and Raimond Gaita, as well, in an unusual but profound way, in Simone Weil. A Platonism which brackets off metaphysics, religion, and so on, and looks deeply into human experience, and experiences the depths of that experience in ways which heal, grow, and guide us. In this Platonic way, I have a passion for cultivating a secular modernity that is as good, beautiful, true, just, and so forth, as possible. Indeed, I am protective of it, concerned about the threats to it in our time. Thankfully, I am one person in a sea of people with such explicit concerns, or who in their many different implicit ways are contributing to this creative, civilisational project. I have also a deep interest in religion and spirituality. I have a Platonist's passion for helping other people, whose spiritualities differ from mine, to bring out all that is best in theirs. To cultivate and embody a form of it that is as good, beautiful, true, just, and so forth, as possible. The question was, however, about my own personal commitments in this realm. I have only a interest not only in exploring other spiritualities and helping people in them, but I have a passion for a particular form of spirituality, which aims at articulating what is universal. That might sound like an astonishing blind spot, as if I am saying that in my case the spirituality is universal, but take careful heed of what I say. I am speaking of a philosophical form of spirituality. One which seeks to articulate the forms, and to understand their particular embodiments in the light of them. This is Platonism. That is my spirituality. It is an ancient one. Platonism is not only phenomenological, in the modern secular sense in which we encounter Iris Murdoch or Raimond Gaita. It was, in classical times, a "rational spirituality." It starts in philosophising and ends in mystical union with the divine. The chief voice in this deeply spiritual aspect of the Platonic tradition is, after Plato, Plotinus. For Plotinus, the world is an emanation or radiation from the divine. Like the light thrown out by a candle. At this, the furthest metaphysical distance from the flame, light is mixed with shadow, the good with its negation, happiness with suffering. We are not the divine in itself, but we are emanations of the divine, and so the path back is not toward something outside of us; rather it is inward. We need to focus on seeing and becoming more of what we already are. Plotinus' image is that of wiping away the mud to reveal the reality that was there all along. This work begins with the cultivation of the same reason and virtues that concern a secular mindset; there is no "spiritual bypassing" here. That draws explicitly on Aristotle's map of the cultivation of wisdom and virtue and flourishing. It includes also Stoicism, especially Epictetus, who gives so much wisdom for strength and focus on the path. The inward path ascends, however, as per Plato, from being alive to the beauty in the world, and through love of that, to a deepening inward ourney into one's own depths as an emanation of the divine. This spirituality is best outlined by Pierre Hadot's Plotinus or The Simplicity of Vision and, following that, Joseph Moreau's Plotinus or The Glory of Ancient Philosophy. So yes, I have commitments. As a philosopher, my two loves are the cultivation of a richer form of secularity, which is the civilisational project into which I have been born, and which I embrace deeply, albeit to a degree. I say "to a degree" because I have encountered nothing as beautiful as Plotinus' vision of reality, which he takes from Plato, and I practice that path. Of course, even that path can be "read" at both these levels, and often is--the difference between Hadot and Moreau (above) is a fine example. These two paths constitute for me complementary, if distinct, kinds of work. I am well aware that many people will have trouble imagining this; for many have not trained themselves in this philosophical detachment from particulars, of the kind that enables a creative engagement with multiplicity. Philosophy is a discipline which, bit by bit, raises us to what the Stoics called the cosmic view. It is a path that is in equal parts immanence and transcendence. This is my "intellectual confession," if you like. I respect the framework you bring to me. If it is a nihilistic form of secularism I will challenge it, but it will be the nihilism I challenge, not the secularity. Indeed, my commitment will be to help you cultivate a more powerful, beneficial form of secularity. I do not need you to agree with me; what I ask, or invite, is that we pursue what is good, even if your preferred form of it differs from mine. That is not relativism, it is not a case of "anything goes"—the egoist will be challenged, the cruel will be challenged. But it is a deeply open way of seeing the world, for the good takes so many forms, is found in so many places. We might say that my concern is less with what you believe, as with how you believe, and even far more than that, with who you are, and what you are making yourself into. "The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts."
--Marcus Aurelius "We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think." "All that we are is the result of what we have thought. It is founded on our thoughts. It is made up of our thoughts." --The Buddha "Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny." --Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese founder of Taoism "Character is fate." --The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus Philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom. So too is philosophical counselling. Wisdom is the ability to see what is most true and good. When we see clearly enough, our ambitions and desires come to reflect that, which means that wisdom is the source of virtue (of desires and actions that lead to what is good). Wisdom is not some mysterious talent that falls on some and not others. It is composed of ingredients which can be recognised and cultivated. You can make yourself more wise. In what follows, I will explore some of these ingredients which have an important place in the work we do together:
Vision A fundamental insight of Plato's, which is the insight of perhaps all great sages from around the world and across time, is that we are what we think. Or more precisely, we are what we see. If our vision of reality is distorted, then we are going to crash up against reality. This is the story told over and again in the ancient Greek tragedies, where the protagonist has, as good and wise as he or she may otherwise be, has a fatal blindness, and it is that which brings them unstuck. Of course, modern psychotherapy repeats this same insight, across the many different schools of psychotherapy. Here is Carl Jung: "If we do not make the unconscious conscious, then it will direct our life and we will call that fate." There is a more simple and direct way in which our vision of life can harm or improve us, than by its errors colliding with reality. One way of seeing life leads to despair. Another to fear. Another to anger. Another to peace. Another to motivation and achievement, whether outwardly or within. What makes any vision wise, versus harmful and/or foolish? Plato lists certain fundamental values that are windows into reality. These include goodness, truth, justice, and beauty. From them, many others can be discerned at a lower, medium level of value, such as kindness from goodness, authenticity from truth, flourishing from justice, joy from beauty, and so on. Put in its most essential terms, a wise vision is one that is true and good. The goal is to see life in ways that are as true and as good as possible. If the truth about some aspect of life is unpleasant or distressing then so be it--truth is better than delusion, and the challenge is to live well with reality. Oftentimes, however, a person's negative picture of life is distorted, and sometimes it is outright false. In every case, our vision is not as true and good as it could be, and we suffer for the lack, in myriad overt or subtle ways. This invites the Socratic work of examining one's picture of life, and of improving it, or even rejecting it for something better. That is the work of reason. It is also the work of cultivating virtue, includint the intellectual virtues. It is also the work of intelligent imagination.Classical philosophy is transformative attention to life. We need a vision of life that is as true and good as possible. Further below I will discuss these three activities (reason, intellectual virtue, imagination). First let's note a few other aspects of wisdom. Wisdom begins with the big picture, and flows down into the details of life. Wisdom is the ability to ask the right questions, to find answers to them, and to enact them. It is the ability to recognise what to do, and how to do it, in any situation. It is traditionally described as "doing the right thing, in the right way, for the right reason, to the right degree." Will things be okay if I quit this job right now? How do I get these people to understand? What do I most need to work on in myself? How do I balance independence and dependence in my relationship? How do I achieve happiness in my particular life, and what does that involve on a daily basis? Some peope say that wisdom comes from experience. Or that suffering makes us wiser. That is untrue. Loosely-speaking, many people become worse through experience. For example, somebody suffers a significant betrayal or interpersonal disappointment. Because they are relatively unreflective (they ruminate, but they do not reflect) their egotism, vices, and psychological forces get an easy hold on them. So they naively and arrogantly conclude that they are unique in their suffering. Thus they become envious of the apparet naivety, ease, and happiness of others, which makes them bitter, and over time that bitterness and all that flows from it becomes their way of being. What is missing here? Experience is neutral. It is the perspective we take on it which shapes us. As Epictetus wrote: "We are shaped not by events, but by our opinion of them." Aristotle points out that practical wisdom grows through a feedback process between experience and reflection. By reflection, I do not mean rumination. I mean the wise and virtuous exercise of the intellect and will: the exercise of reason, intellectual virtue, intelligent imagination and so on, all of which I am about to discuss. We experience some aspect of life, and we wisely and virtuously reflect on it. That reflection leads to insight: insight into this kind of situation, into the effects of our actions, and the value of our response, and who we are, and so on. When we face such a situation again, we respond in a new way, guided by our new insight. That leads to a new experience, which again we reflect on, which refines our previous insight. On and on this process of experience, and reflection, and experience, goes. It becomes a whole way of living: as a wisely reflective person. This is how we grow in wisdom: by living reflectively. Life is multi-faceted, and that process of experience and reflection leads to a plethora of insights, altogether which create a map of life. That is another feature of wisdom which I mentioned above. This is a map both of the big pictures of life, and of how to live it: it is both contemplative and practical. It is therefore also a normative map, because it tells us what is true and good and what matters, and it tells us what to pursue or avoid and how. Our map guides us through life. As above, by living reflectively we continually modify this map, adding new insights and correcting old ones in light of further experience and reflection. This is what we sometimes call "the getting of wisdom." Not only does this ongoing pursuit of wisdom make life fascinating, not only does it fascinate and wake us up, but whether the question is how to respond to depression, or whether to date this person, or how to deal with a bully, the quality of our map contributes greatly to the outcomes of our life. Furthermore, and very importantly, it shapes who and what we become across time. Philosophy, the pursuit of wisdom, the map we live by, is, as I say, transformative. An activity and ability I said that wisdom is an activity and an ability. This claim takes us to the heart of wisdom as a set of ingredients we can cultivate. I will set out three major activities which constitute the three main ingredients of wisdom: reason, the intellectual virtues, and imagination. Reason One ingredient of wisdom is reason. We need to reason well, or to put it differently, to perceive and think well, if we are to see life in ways that are true and good. Aristotle mapped out the ingredients (or steps) to doing this, which are called "the three acts of the intellect." They are:
To think well, to think rationally, to think critically, is to examine your concepts, and your judgements (which are combinations of concepts), and your reasoning (which are combinations of judgements). As a philosopher, one of my key skills lies in paying attention to each of these in my own thinking and in the thinking of others. I do that by my knowledge of logic, but more informally by a practice known as "Socratic questioning." That is, I engage you in curious, exploratory conversation, to help you analyse any or each of these factors whenever there is a hint of error in them that is worth examining. So, you do not need to become a logician, instead I imitate Socrates, who would engage people in coversation about their concerns, via questions and noticings that would lead them to examine their own thinking, so that they could abandon error, and perceive, judge, and reason in ways that are more true and good. This examination matters because our thinking matters. As the quotes above from Marcus Aurelius and the Buddha point out, how we think shapes our whole life. It shapes our further thinking, it shapes our decisions, it shapes our emotions and desires, it shapes our actions, it also shapes our experience and sense of the meaning of things, it shapes the direction and shape of our life, and it shapes who we become and what values we embody. This insight lies at the core of classical philosophy. It was picked up by modern psychological research, which provides a mass of empirical research to show that it is true, as well as modern psychotherapy such as cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), which is a more narrowly psychological and therapeutic version of this insight and cultivation. The intellectual virtues There is more to wisdom than reasoning well. An just person sees a different world to an unjust one. Likewise, a courageously hopeful person versus a pessimistic one. Your vision of life depends on your qualities as a person. This includes the qualities of your mind. We call good mental qualities "intellectual virtues." Nathan King wrote a book called The Excellent Mind: Intellectual Virtues for Everyday Life which is very accessible and recommended. The contents page provides us with a nice list of primary intellectual virtues: curiosity--a healthy appetite for knowledge; carefulness--mind your evidence; autonomy--think for yourself; humility and self-confidence--own your weaknesses, and your strengths; honesty--don't distort the truth; perseverence--overcome obstacles; courage--persist despite threats; open-mindedness and firmness--transcend and maintain your perspective; fair-mindedness and charity--a just, as well as kind and compassionate, view of life. Consider what a difference it would make to your thinking--and so also to your emotions, actions, and the shape and direction of your whole life--if your thinking embodied all these virtues to a higher degree. I help you to cultivate such virtues. Imagination Imagination is something that happens to us--a fantasy takes over our mind, or in sleep we dream--and that can be a good teacher, for example when a dream alerts us to something we are ignoring. Importantly, however, imagination is also something we can choose to do. It can be a chosen activity. Many forms of classical philosophy make a fine art of the intelligent, intentional use of imagination. Consider the many spiritual exercises of Stoicism, such as the view from above, the death-bed meditation, and pre-meditatio malorum ("meditation on future potential evils"). Taking the latter, consider a fear you have carried in your life. It is not something that has happened. Rationally it may be unlikely to occur, but that is, at least partly, beside the point, for the vulnerability of the human condition means that it could happen. And for whatever reason, you are psychologically fixated on it. For many people, this fear is so terrible to them that they cannot look at it clearly, even as it mentally haunts them. They are bullied and oppressed by it, they are avoidantly backed into a corner of their own mind, and they suffer chronic distress. Not only that, but their fear undermines their character here and now, for when we give into fear as a habit then we become cowardly. And not only that, for any vice breeds many others, and other negative consequences besides. There are two main steps to a premeditatio malorum:
Do you fear and imagine being old, sick, poor, homeless? I live in north-western Victoria. There are many relatively impoverished people here, young and old, living in caravans and the like. They are real, thoughtful, vulnerable people just like you. How do they deal with this? Many of them work at greater wisdom and acceptance; they cultivate enjoyable social bonds; they cultivate the skills and community needed to deal with relative poverty; and so on. Let's take another common example, do you fear doing something publically for which everybody then hates you? A crime, whether legal, or merely social? In that state of social death, what more profound philosophical or spiritual meaning could you cultivate and live according to? What good thing could you do with your damaged life that is much more meaningful than what you are likely to do on your current, comfort-seeking trajectory? In premeditatio malorum, you have probably not experienced the feared situation, but you intentionally live through it in your imagintion. You may do this in depth, detail, and often. Because the root of who and what we are lies, not in outward action, but in our mind and heart (from which outward action flows), therefore to do this imaginative, heroic work is to become a wiser, stronger, more virtuous person here and now. Have you suffered very painful and damaging things in your life, and later when asked if you wished it had never happened, you realise that without that experience you would not be the person you are today? In premeditatio malorum, you engage in the growth that can emerge from suffering, but in response to suffering that is currently only in the imagination. Of course, while it may be in the imagination only, nonetheless the distress is very real. It is a terrible thing to live in fear. Of course, there is a more positive side to the use of imagination that almost goes without saying. Just as you reason your way to a better future, so too imagination provides a powerful means for envisioning new possibilities, and even for testing them out. That enables and motivates you to do new, better things; to choose a better path forward in life, and to make it actual. This is a major part of philosophical counselling: I help you to see other possibilities and to pursue them. I have not touched on other ways of knowing, indeed I have focused on the more active: reason, intellectual virtue, intentional imagination. There are more contemplative forms of knowing that are intellectual in the classical sense, but not rational in the modern, calculative sense. This is why we speak of intuition as well, and what it can teach us. However, this section has become long, and we must move on, and that discussion must take place another time. How I guide you in these People's lives are limited by their thinking. Conversely, we are made more free, strong, happy, good, and flourishing by means of good thinking and effort. Classical philosophy, and so philosophical counselling, helps a person to cultivate wisdom, which is to say, reason, intellectual virtue, and imagination. How does it do this? I engage you in conversation about your concerns, asking questions or making observations which lead you to reason better, to enact the intellectual virtues, and to exercise more beneficial imagination. You do not have to learn the theory behind this, rather I guide you to reflect in ways that implicitly embody and develop these things. Of course, if you want to read about and better understand the theory and practice for yourself, I very gladly help you in that. My goal is not simply to help you catch a fish, but to teach you how to fish. The main practice in philosophical counselling is Socratic questioning. I might question your concepts, or judgments, or reasoning about something. For example, with respect to concepts, you call human beings "an invasive species," but what does that concept mean? What is written into it, and is each assumption sound, and on examination do you agree with each element, and do you apply all of them to human beings? This is not pedantic, rather it may lead to recognition that one's experience of life was based on an error, on confused metaphors and logic with real consequences. That may not follow from a mere moment of analysis, but it may follow from a series of such analyses. I might also ask questions that lead you to exercise the intellectual virtues: "Okay, you are angry at yourself (or them), but you yourself said you are possibly being unjust. How so? How might all this look, from a perspective which, perhaps, is more just?" The discussions may lead to questions such as "What is justice itself, and how does that differ from the concept of justice you have carried hitherto, which seems distorted in such and such a way?" Notice how this will often lead to deeper, wider growth, beyond dealing with the particular concern of the day. For example you gain a clearer vision of justice which shapes your perception, thinking, feeling, and action in future. Finally, I might lead you also into imaginative reflection, for example through a premeditatio malorum about your fears. Or I might ask questions which lead you to better intuit and recognise your deeper desires, or the felt possibilities for a better future. Or we might explore your fundamental intuitions, and build something better based on those that seem sound and important. metaphysics |