Philosophy & Ways of Life

“… [F]or [William] James, as for Socrates and his successors, the opposition between philosophy which is concerned with how to live and philosophy which is concerned with hard technical questions is a false opposition [emphasis added]. We want ideals and we want a world view, and we want our ideals and our world view to support one another. Philosophy which is all argument feeds no real hunger, while philosophy which is all vision feeds a real hunger, but it feeds it Pablum. If there is one overriding reason for being concerned with James’s thought, it is that he was a genius who was concerned with real hungers, and whose thought, whatever its shortcomings, provides substantial food for thought—and not just for thought, but for life.” — Hilary Putnam, Pragmatism: An Open Question (Blackwell, 1995): 22-23.

“It seems … that interest in Wittgenstein, great though it is, suffers from an unfortunate polarity between those who study his work in isolation from his life and those who find his life fascinating but his work unintelligible. It is a common experience, I think, for someone to read, say, Norman Malcolm’s Memoir, to find themselves captivated by the figure described therein, and then be inspired to read Wittgenstein’s work for themselves, only to find that they cannot understand a word of it. There are, it has to be said, many excellent introductory books on Wittgenstein’s work that would explain what his main philosophical themes are, and how he deals with them. What they do not explain is what his work has to do with him—what the connections are between the spiritual and ethical preoccupations that dominate his life, and the seemingly remote philosophical questions that dominate his work.” — Ray Monk, from the Introduction to his well-received and well-known biography, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (The Free Press, 1990).

“By means of this double comparison [i.e., of the later Wittgenstein being aptly described as both a ‘Neo Kantian’ and a ‘pragmatist’], I hope to combat the prevalent idea that Wittgenstein is simply an ‘end of philosophy’ philosopher, i.e. the idea that the whole ‘message’ of the later philosophy of Wittgenstein is that philosophy is analogous to a neurosis, and that the purpose of Wittgenstein’s work is simply to enable us to ‘stop doing philosophy.’ One difficult in talking about the later philosophy is that Wittgenstein very deliberately refuses to state philosophical theses. His purpose, as he explains, is to change our point of view, not to utter theses. If there were theses in philosophy, he tells us, everyone would recognize them as trivial. [….] … I think that seeing how, in a way, Wittgenstein’s reflections flow from and continue some of Kant’s reflections, and how they parallel a certain strain in pragmatism, may enable us to see better in just what way Wittgenstein wishes us to change our point of view, to change the way we see things, and also to see why it is so hard to express that change in the form of a ‘thesis.’” — Hilary Putnam, “Was Wittgenstein a Pragmatist?” in Pragmatism: An Open Question (Blackwell, 1955): 27-28.

Apologia

I’ve long been attracted to conceptions of “applied philosophy,” but my understanding of these is conceived largely in terms of philosophy as a “way of life,” perhaps entailing the “pursuit of wisdom.” The former’s typical focus has been to date and in the main, on ethical, social, or political concerns or problems. At its best I would argue, applied philosophy is interpreted in the “pragmatist” and “neo-pragmatist” sense filled out by Hilary and Ruth Anna Putnam in Pragmatism as a Way of Life: The Lasting Legacy of William James and John Dewy, David Macarthur, ed. (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2017). Applied philosophy as a “way of life” however, is essentially what is now often termed “therapeutic philosophy” (this has strong family resemblance to pragmatism), and is thus associated with Martha Nussbaum’s adroit examination of an ancient model of same in her book, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton University Press, 1994). She quotes the following from Epicurus: “Empty is that philosopher’s argument by which no human suffering is therapeutically treated. For just as there is no use in a medical art that does not cast out the sickness of bodies, so too there is no use in philosophy, unless it casts out the suffering of the soul.” The diminution or amelioration of the causes and effects of human suffering or even, as in Buddhism, the possibility of its elimination or transcendence on one hand, and the achievement of human joy, happiness, or flourishing (eudaimonia) are often two sides of the same coin. For the Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics, notes Nussbaum, “philosophy is above all the art of human life.” The medical analogy central to this conception of philosophy plays an intriguingly similar if not identical role to the very same medical analogy used in Buddhism (and this approach to ‘the emotions’ or the passions is what for the Buddhist falls under the larger rubric of ‘mental afflictions,’ is in many respects the same as well). “Empty and vain” is any philosophy, on this account, not conceived along the lines of an “art of human living.”

The idea the philosophy should be centrally concerned with ethically or even spiritually (normative) “ways of living” is of course likewise found in classical Chinese worldviews (Daoist, Confucian, Mohist…) and Indic philosophical schools that grew up within religious traditions (Nyāya, Vaiśesika, Sāmkhya, Yoga, Mīmāmsā, Vedānta, Jaina, and Buddhist). In his Pursuits of Wisdom: Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus (Princeton University Press, 2012), John M. Cooper (after Pierre Hadot) characterizes all of classical Greek philosophy in much the same manner: “In antiquity, beginning with Socrates … philosophy was widely pursued as not just the best guide to life but as both the intellectual basis and the motivating force for the best human life….” 

This picture of philosophy is again found later in the words of the Roman Stoic, Seneca. As Nussbaum says,

“According to this account, philosophy is still a compassionate doctor, administering to urgent human needs. ‘There is no time for playing around,’ says Seneca, attacking philosophers who devote their careers to logical puzzles. ‘…You have promised to bring help to the shipwrecked, the imprisoned, the sick, the needy, to those whose heads are under the poised axe. Where are you deflecting your attention? What are you doing?’ And yet, this compassion is combined with a fundamental respect for the integrity of the reasoning powers of each person. The patient must not simply remain a patient, dependent and receptive, she must become her own doctor.” Hence the ancient proverb, “Physician, heal thyself.”

Perhaps needless to say, most contemporary professional philosophers do not imagine this to be the kind of philosophy they practice, let alone should practice. Indeed, I suspect a relatively small number of contemporary academic philosophers, at least in the U.S., ever come close to exemplifying, or even aspiring to these “applied” and therapeutic conceptions of philosophy. The asymmetric role between the philosopher and pupil or physician and patient, at least in the first instance, is sometimes thought to necessarily involve some sort of immodesty or lack of humility or unwarranted privilege or elitism. But the spiritual or philosophy authority exercised or exemplified in these cases is no less important than that found in the exercise of parental authority over the child (which goes awry should its exercise remain unchanged into, as we say, the age of reason), or the exercise of governmental authority in a democratic polity.

Don’t get me wrong, we should be pluralist and welcoming when it comes to the various ways of doing and writing philosophy, the concern being that certain styles, modes or practices (acquired in the course of professional training and the need to get published in the discipline) may find us neglecting or effectively crowding out the idea that philosophy at its best should revolve around questions having to with how best to live our lives, or how to ameliorate suffering, or how to achieve welfare, well-being and eudaimonia, and these questions are not only about knowledge but encompass the pursuit of wisdom (even if that pursuit is in an important sense ‘indirect,’ that is, not merely a matter of the will), as well as such things as matters of the heart or compassion. As my dear late friend and former teacher Nandini Iyer said in a talk she gave to fellow theosophists at a conference in The Hague in 2010, “… [T]here is a magnificent personal note by Spinoza on the purpose of philosophy where he says experience had taught him that all the usual ends that men pursue (riches, fame, the pleasures of the senses) really do not make you happy, or bring you any lasting good. And then he says,

‘I thus perceived that I was in a state of great peril, and I compelled myself to seek with all my strength for a remedy, however uncertain it may be, as a sick man struggling with a deadly disease, when he sees that death would surely be upon him, unless a remedy is found, and is compelled to seek such a remedy with all his strength, in as much as his whole hope lies therein.’” 

As Nandini reminds us, “this is very much like what the Buddha says,” as philosophy alone can deliver us from the “disease of selfishness and egotism,” it alone can relieve us of those “disturbances of the mind which lead to unhappiness,” or “deliver us from the human bondage” of afflictive emotions or vehement passions, and thus, “like the Buddha, Spinoza held that right views, or true philosophy, is a matter of the highest practical urgency.”

There is nothing about this therapeutic model that entails or implies immodesty of any kind: epistemic, ethical, metaphysical or otherwise. As the the model involves something on the order of “the proof of the pudding is in the eating;” moreover, the philosopher’s life is one of ongoing lessons in humility, like the ideal doctor, the philosopher never fails to learn from his patients, nor does she forget to practice daily self-examination (a more humbling exercise is hard to imagine). Compare, in keeping with our medical analogy, Grant R. Gillet’s remarks, speaking here both as a neurosurgeon and professor of biomedical ethics in his invaluable book, Bioethics in the Clinic: Hippocratic Reflections (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004): “Hippocratic practitioners clearly need to cultivate certain virtues. They need to be trustworthy and committed to discovering and respecting the patient’s real interests. They must appreciate widely different life stories and the role illness in these stories. They must then incorporate their clinical learning into practicing the art of medicine, systematically incorporating scientific and therapeutic developments. This requires empathy and humility, and a right use of their powers as healers so that they can participate in liberating their patients from affliction. They must have a number of traits: imagination, self-criticism, generosity of spirit, loyalty, justice and patience, even irony. And in all of this they must cultivate their own growth as people so that they become more complete in their ability to help those who turn to them.” Just so….  

The overcoming of this “false opposition” between philosophy “which is concerned with how to live (i.e., ‘a way of life’)” and philosophy which is “concerned with technical questions” or argument is, I believe, often exemplified in both the modern philosophical tradition of pragmatism (including Putnam’s ‘neo-pragmatism’), as well as what has been called “therapeutic philosophy,” with origins in the ancient worlds of India, Greece, and to some extent, China (be it part of a religious or philosophical worldview). Insofar as the “art of conversation” involves both “social reasoning” (A.S. Laden) and a “talking cure” (P.M. Cohen) it might be said that it too is at least conducive to overcoming this “false opposition.”

Wittgenstein’s mode or style of philosophizing in his later work was no doubt unique, especially in Philosophical Investigations (4^th revised ed., with German-English parallel text, Wiley Blackwell, 2009). I will be so bold as to argue that it is closest to the second of the two principal modes of modern philosophical writing in the Western tradition identified in what follows below by Nicholas Rescher, that is, the “rhetorical” and “evocative” mode he argues “appeals to values and appraisals” and “sensibilities,” or a “fittingness and consonance with an overall scheme of things” (exemplified by Hume and Nietzsche respectively). Notice that these two modes or styles are “ideal types,” thus it’s the case that no philosopher relies exclusively on either mode of philosophizing. Rescher says the history of philosophy reveals philosophers endeavoring to normatively valorize their chosen mode, often despising or denigrating the alternative approach in the process, but that philosophy qua philosophy “must accommodate both of these discordant emphases.” One of the reasons I find Wittgenstein closer to the rhetorical and evocative mode is owing to what Rescher’s somewhat “meta-philosophical” conclusion that “philosophy cannot provide a rational explanation for everything, rationalizing all of its claims ‘all the way down.’ Sooner or later the process of rationalization and explanation must—to all appearances—come to a halt in the acceptance of unexplained explainers [the reliance on unavoidable presuppositions or assumptions].” Insofar as this is the case, the … demonstrative/argumentative mode of philosophizing will be compelled at some point (explicitly or not), to rely on “inexplicable facts” or “unexplained explainers” that make space for the evaluative and evocative mode of philosophizing. I think this is something Wittgenstein well-understood and helps account for his later stylistic choices.

“There are two very different modes of writing philosophy. The one pivots on inferential expressions such as ‘because,’ ‘since,’ ‘therefore,’ ‘has the consequence that,’ ‘and so cannot,’ ‘must accordingly,’ and the like. The other bristles with adjectives of approbation or derogation—‘evident,’ ‘sensible,’ ‘untenable,’ ‘absurd,’ ‘inappropriate,’ ‘unscientific,’ and comparable adverbs like ‘evidently,’ ‘obviously,’ ‘foolishly,’ etc. The former relies primarily on inference and argumentation to substantiate its claims, the latter primarily on the rhetoric of persuasion. The one seeks to secure the reader’s (or auditor’s) assent by reasoning, the other by an appeal to values and appraisals—and above all by fittingness and consonance with an overall scheme of things. The one looks foundationally towards secure certainties, the other coherentially towards systemic fit with infirm but nonetheless respectable plausibilities. Like inferential reasoning, rhetoric too is a venture of justificatory systematization, albeit one of a rather different kind.” — Nicholas Rescher, A System of Pragmatic Idealism, Vol. III: Metaphilosophical Inquiries (Princeton University Press, 1994: 36-58). A slightly different version of this essay and argument is found in Chapter 6, “Rhetoric and Rational Argumentation,” in Rescher’s Philosophical Reasoning: A Study in the Methodology of Philosophizing (Blackwell, 2001): 77-92.

Suggested Reading

• Chase, Michael, Stephen R.L. Clark, and Michael McGhee, eds. Philosophy as a Way of Life: Ancients and Moderns—Essays in Honor of Pierre Hadot (Wiley & Sons, 2013).
• Cohen, Paula Marantz. Talking Cure: An Essay on the Civilizing Power of Conversation (Princeton University Press, 2023).
• Cooper, John M. Pursuits of Wisdom: Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus (Princeton University Press, 2012).
• Cottingham, John. The Spiritual Dimension: Religion, Philosophy and Human Value (Cambridge University Press, 2005).
• Desikachar, T.K.V. and Hellfried Krusche (Anne Marie Hodges, trans.) Freud and Yoga: Two Philosophies of Mind Compared (North Point Press, 2014).
• Dilman, Ilham. Freud, Insight and Change (Basil Blackwell, 1988).
• Fiordalis, David V., ed. Buddhist Spiritual Practices: Thinking with Pierre Hadot on Buddhism, Philosophy, and the Path (Mangalam Press, 2018).
• Ganeri, Jonardon and Clare Carlisle, eds. Philosophy as Therapeia (Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement: 66) (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
• Gonzalez, Francisco J. Dialectic and Dialogue: Plato’s Practice of Philosophical Inquiry (Northwestern University Press, 1998).
• Haldane, John. “On the very idea of spiritual values,” in Anthony O’Hear, ed. Philosophy, the Good, the True and the Beautiful (Cambridge University Press, 2000: 53-71).
• Hoffer, Axel, ed. Freud and the Buddha: The Couch and the Cushion (Karnac Books, 2015).
• James, Susan. Spinoza on Learning to Live Together (Oxford University Press, 2020).
• Laden, Anthony Simon. Reasoning: A Social Picture (Oxford University Press, 2012).
• Lipscomb, Benjamin J.B. The Women Are Up To Something: How Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch Revolutionized Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2022).
• Lock, Andy and Tom Strong, eds. Discursive Practices in Therapeutic Practice (Oxford University Press, 2012).
• Mac Cumhaill, Clare and Rachel Wiseman. Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life (Doubleday, 2022).
• McGhee, Michael. Transformations of Mind: Philosophy as Spiritual Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2000).
• McGhee, Michael, ed. Philosophy, Religion and the Spiritual Life (Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement: 32) (Cambridge University Press, 1992).
• Murdoch, Iris. The Sovereignty of Good (Routledge, 1991 [1970]).
• Novaes, Catarina Dutilh. The Dialogical Roots of Deduction: Historical, Cognitive, and Philosophical Perspectives on Reasoning (Cambridge University Press, 2021).
• Nussbaum, Martha. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton University Press, 1994).
• Putnam, Hilary. “Was Wittgenstein a Pragmatist?” in Putnam’s Pragmatism: An Open Question (Blackwell, 1995): 27-56.
• Putnam, Hilary. Jewish Philosophy as a Guide to Life: Rosenzweig, Buber, Levinas, Wittgenstein (Indiana University Press, 2008).
• Putnam, Hilary and Ruth Anna Putnam (David Macarthur, ed.) Pragmatism as a Way of Life: The Lasting Legacy of William James and John Dewey (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2017).
• Putnam, Hilary and Ruth Anna Putnam (David Macarthur, ed.) The Lasting Legacy of William James and John Dewy (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2017).  
• Rorty, Amélie Oksenberg. Mind in Action: Essays in the Philosophy of Mind (Beacon Press, 1988).                 
• Slote, Michael. The Ethics of Care and Empathy (Routledge, 2007).

For literature from two classical Chinese worldviews relevant to our topic, please see the lists appended to the “study guides” for Daoism and Confucianism.