Throughout the history of Western philosophy, we find important philosophers who believed that philosophy can transform our lives. An obvious example is Plato, who writes that philosophy can take us out of our “cave” (The Allegory of the Cave), and can elevate us to the One, the Beautiful and the Good (The Symposium). For Marcus Aurelius, philosophy can awaken our true self (the Daemon, or “guiding principle”) and help us attain inner freedom and tranquility. For Spinoza, philosophy can lead us to a “third kind of knowledge” or “intellectual knowledge of God,” which gives us liberation and love. For Emerson, philosophy can give voice to the over-soul, which is the higher source of creativity and insights. And the list goes on.

How can this vision of transformative philosophy be relevant to us today?

One might wonder whether the answer can be found in Philosophical Counseling, a major branch of the field of Philosophical Practice, which, after all, is devoted to making philosophy relevant to everyday life. I believe, however, this is not the case.

Philosophical Counseling works with individuals, usually by using critical thinking tools, to deal with their personal problems and distress. In this sense, it walks in the footsteps of Cognitive Psychotherapy, which started decades earlier, in the 1960s. Cognitive psychotherapists use critical thinking to deal with clients’ personal distress such as anxiety and depression, and many studies have found this treatment to be quite effective. Therefore, since Philosophical Counseling is basically the same kind of practice, it might help people suffering from personal problems. 

The trouble is that this does not answer our question. Our issue here is not how philosophy can deal with personal problems, but how it can transform and elevate life. These are very different tasks. The first is about functioning in normal life, while the second is about going beyond normal life, elevating it and making life fuller, richer, higher.

Can, then, philosophy transform our lives in this deep way?

This depends, of course, on how we define philosophy. But here it is important not to impose on philosophy artificial definitions. Let us simply look at the history of philosophy and ask ourselves what philosophers were actually doing.

The answer is clear: All philosophers throughout Western history, without exception, worked on fundamental issues of life and reality; those who didn’t do so are not regarded as philosophers. Further, all of them addressed these general issues by trying to compose theories, or networks of ideas. Finally, they all used various powers of the mind: analytic thinking, poetic thinking, introspection, contemplation, meditation, intuition, etc. (as opposed to relying on faith, authority, or empirical observation).

We can now formulate our question as follows: How can we transform life by philosophizing – in other words, by using the powers of our mind to reflect on basic life-issues and compose networks of ideas about them?

A key to the answer is this: Ideas have a tremendous power to inspire us and move us, especially general ideas about life. Think of how we are sometimes moved to action by ideas about justice and injustice, or by the thought that we are morally responsible for something, or by the understanding that life is short and sooner or later we will die. Ideas can drive us to act, to feel angry or passionate, they can even make us leave our previous life and start a new life.

This is indeed the basic insight of Deep Philosophy, which I am practicing and developing with my colleagues. Fundamental ideas – philosophical ideas, have a great power to awaken us. If we contemplate on basic ideas, if we let them act within us and inspire us, they can open us to new horizons. They can expand us and enrich us beyond our usual psychological structures. On the basis of this insight, we in Deep Philosophy have developed a variety of philosophical practices and exercises which we use in our retreats and our online meetings.

I believe that Deep Philosophy offers us a way to realize the vision of transformative philosophy, the same vision which had been envisioned by many great thinkers. I hope to present it soon, here on Agora, in my next blog.