A COURSE ON PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE AND TRANS-SOPHIA
INTRODUCTION
Lesson 1: THE CONCEPT OF ‘PERIMETER’ (PLATO’S CAVE)
Lesson 2: THE GOAL OF PHILO-SOPHIA
Lesson 3: THE STRUCTURE OF THE PERIMETER
Lesson 4: ON PATTERNS
Lesson 5: FROM PATTERNS TO CONCEPTIONS
Lesson 6: ON FORCES
Lesson 7: PHILOSOPHIZING IN PERIMETER EXPLORATION
Lesson 8: WONDERING ABOUT GOING BEYOND
Lesson 9: AWAKENING HIDDEN FOUNTAINS OF PLENITUDE
Lesson 10: OPENING AN INNER CLEARING
Lesson 11: CONTEMPLATIVE PHILO-SOPHY
Lesson 12: CONCLUSION: THE VISION OF PHILO-SOPHICAL PRACTICE
INTRODUCTION
For the following series of texts I decided to organize the basic ideas of philosophical practice into a systematic scheme. This was not an easy decision, because it meant imposing more order on the philosophical process than it has. Philosophy is, by its very nature, an open-ended endeavor which always goes beyond any pre-conceived structure. Nevertheless, through many workshops and encounters I have come to realize that an organized scheme can be very important for pedagogical reasons. Even though it presents a rather simplistic picture, it can help the initiate grasp the essence of the process. Later, after one has mastered the basic outlines of the scheme, one can step beyond it and open oneself to philosophy’s multifaceted nature.
The following lessons therefore present a step-by-step scheme of the philosophical process. This scheme should be regarded not as a summary of the essence of philosophical, but rather as its skeleton. The living body is always bigger, more complex and flexible, more alive than the skeleton around which it lives.
Lesson 1
THE CONCEPT OF ‘PERIMETER’ (PLATO’S CAVE)
My perimeter is my world as I relate to it—the world as I understand it, experience it, interact with it. It is, as Plato would say, my cave. It includes my usual experiences, my usual reactions and behaviors, my emotions and attitudes. It is the realm of my possibilities—the type of relationships I may have with others, what I might do and say, what could be (for me) interesting or pleasurable or frightening, what is (for me) the meaning of love or of God or of freedom. It is my world.
A perimeter is a form of limitation. It determines the kinds of stories that can happen in my world, and the roles that I might play in them. It determines that some situations are likely to occur in my life again and again (conflicts, for example, if I am an argumentative person), and that others are less likely, or are extremely unlikely. And it is relatively rigid throughout life—it does not change easily.
Where does my perimeter come from? Some aspects may come from my particular personality and my particular psychology. Other aspects may come from the influence of my culture on my way of thinking and feeling. Others may come from general psychological factors shared by all humans. Whatever these sources are, they join together to limit my world to a narrow slice of possibilities. They limit my life to a tiny region within the vast horizons of human reality.
Example
Jason is at a party. He leans against the wall, looking at the people around him who chat and laugh and flirt with each other. He feels himself so different from these cheerful people, and so clumsy—he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. Whenever somebody talks to him, he blushes and mumbles awkwardly.
He scoffs at those silly people who talk so loudly and stupidly, as if there was nothing better to do, nothing more sublime and important. He is not like them, he says to himself, he is a serious man. He stands erect and immobile, watching them silently.
An invisible wall separates him from the others—and separates his way of being from other ways of being which are beyond his horizons, beyond his perimeter. His repertoire of relationships to the world is limited to those of a lonely angry man.
In philosophical practice
The investigation of the individual’s perimeter is central to all forms of philosophical practice: the personal philosophical journey, the philosophical companionship, the philosophical workshop, and philosophical counseling. In all of these, the main goal of philo-sophia is to understand the person’s perimeter and its limitation, to transcend it and to connect to greater horizons of human reality.
In philosophical counseling the investigation of the counselee’s perimeter usually begins already in the first or second session, and often continues throughout the counseling process. In later sessions the counseling may also explore ways to go beyond the perimeter’s boundaries.
In the philosophical workshop participants investigate their perimeter using a variety of methods, such as drawing, play-acting, or contemplative exercises.
Exercise
Choose a familiar kind of situation, for example speaking with an authority (e.g., your boss or professor), being under time-pressure, finding your opinion contradicted by another person, waiting for a bus, etc.
During the next week observe yourself in this kind of situation. Pay special attention to experiences that tend to repeat themselves: common thoughts, characteristic emotions, bodily sensations and gestures, behaviors, manners of speaking, etc. Note also what does not happen to you in this situation.
At the end of the week, draw two concentric circles on a sheet of paper. The inner circle will represent the core of your perimeter. Inside it write the experiences that often appear in the chosen situation. Outside the outer circle write experiences that rarely or never occur in this situation. In the middle, between the two circles, write borderline experiences—those that occasionally happen.
The drawing represents your perimeter as you see it. Don’t judge yourself—this is not a matter of good or bad, only of self-description.
Lesson 2
THE GOAL OF PHILO-SOPHIA
Philo-sophia, as I see it, has one central aim: to get in touch with reality more deeply, more fully, more intensely. The philosopher wants to connect to the real—not just in abstract thought, but in his way of life—and to help others do so.
This is the Platonic yearning. It assumes that normally we are not completely in touch with reality, because we are enclosed within our narrow ‘perimeter’—within the limited realm of our expectations and assumptions, emotional patterns, one-sided attitudes, self-centered ideas and fantasies.
But this yearning also assumes that we are capable of going beyond our perimeter. To be sure, some aspects of reality may be forever beyond human reach. Nevertheless, even the reality that is accessible to us is much greater and richer than we usually assume.
There are many methods that can help us towards this goal: exercises that raise our awareness of our perimeter, philosophical analyses to understand the perimeter’s structure and hidden assumptions, contemplative techniques that go beyond our usual patterns of understanding. But methods are not enough. What is needed is a personal journey, which means commitment, time and effort. In this journey we cultivate a new form of awareness, a new state of mind: a state of mind of openness to beyond ourselves, to the greater horizons of reality, and to its many aspects or ‘voices.’
Of course, we cannot abolish our perimeter. As human beings we have definite psychological and cultural structures. But while we live our normal life, we can also maintain an openness to beyond these structures. This state of mind is Sophia—wisdom. It is the state of mind that is open to the many fountains of understanding, of plenitude, of life.
Example
Going beyond our perimeter can take place on many levels, degrees, and intensities. The following example is one of many kinds.
Sandra always avoids conflicts and arguments. She feels comfortable only in ‘pleasant’ relationships, even when they are dull and empty. This is why she never complains to her neighbors about loud noise, and why she ‘forgets’ that her sister owes her money. She often organizes parties and game-nights and trips for her friends, and makes sure that all the participants are busy and happy.
One night, Sandra invites several friends to a Bingo evening. While everybody is still chatting, two friends, Jerry and Bill, sit in the corner and argue about global warming. The two men raise their voices in excitement, and Sandra is worried about this ‘unpleasant friction.’ She decides to start the game. She tries to break up their discussion and pull them to the table.
Linda, a philosophical practitioner, watches her. “You certainly have a very specific conception of human relationships,” Linda whispers to her. “For you, good relationships means harmony. Disagreement and differences disrupt the harmony. And harmony is a most important thing. In fact, relationships are like a game—they don’t have to be deep or significant, as long as they are fun, protected, regulated by rules, pleasant.”
Sandra is struck by these words. She looks at Bill and Jerry as they argue, interrupting each other and raising their voices. And suddenly she notes that Bill places his hand on Jerry’s arm, saying: “No, my friend, you don’t understand…”
The gesture takes only a few seconds, but it touches Sandra deeply. For a moment she can see the bond that exists between the two arguing men. She can see very clearly how their friendship is different from her idea of relationships, and how it ‘speaks’ a different language. And for a moment she can understand this other language too, she can feel it, she can share it.
At that moment something strange happens. On the one hand, she is still tense and worried. She still feels the urge to disrupt their argument and pull them to the game. But at the same time, something inside her accepts Bill and Jerry’s argument. She feels that she is Sandra, but at the same time she is also more than Sandra.
In philosophical practice
In the early stages of philosophical counseling, the counselee usually starts noticing how much of her life centers on a narrow understanding (or ‘theory’) of herself and her world. Often, the mere fact that the person notices her prison-walls is enough to open a door to the outside. The counselee then starts ‘connecting’ to other aspects of life beyond her ‘theory.’ She starts connecting to new facets of human reality. This openness allows her to advance to later stages of counseling.
In philosophical workshops it is harder to deal with the life-story of each individual participant. For this reason, the workshop can focus on some general aspect of life—meaning, love, freedom, sex, etc. Through various exercises and discussions participants examine aspects of their perimeter, and experience moments of going beyond it and connecting to a new aspect of life. The group activity allows the process to be more intensive and experiential. It also allows the participants to compare themselves with others, and to give and receive feedback.
Exercise
Catch yourself in a familiar situation, for example an interaction with somebody you know: a polite conversation with the neighbor, a conversation with the boss, and so on.
While you are conversing, open inside yourself a silent awareness—an awareness of yourself. Don’t examine yourself ‘from the outside’ and don’t analyze yourself—just be with the situation: with your bodily sensations, with your gestures, with your words, your thoughts, your emotions. Your awareness is like a space that contains the entire situation.
And now broaden your awareness even further: Bring into your awareness other parts of yourself that are not active, for example: a hidden irritation, a cynical thought that you repress, a pleasant memory from yesterday, an urge to do something you don’t dare to do, an idea that has been on your mind for the past week, and so on. Let all of these (in addition to your current situation) be present together in your awareness.
Normally, our awareness is focused on one single event, and it neglects everything else. But now your awareness contains a broader scope of events. If done well, this exercise offers you a glimpse beyond your usual perimeter.
Lesson 3
THE STRUCTURE OF THE PERIMETER
My perimeter—my world as I live it and relate to it—has a definite structure. In other words, my perimeter is not an arbitrary collection of unrelated facts, but is organized in some specific manner. The walls of my world have a particular shape.
We can think of the structure of the person’s perimeter as composed of three elements:
The first element is patterns: patterns of behavior, emotion, thought, attitudes. A pattern means repetitions of the same theme. A simple example is a person who distrusts other people. Again and again this person protects himself from others, attributes to them suspicious motivations, and puts them to test.
The second element in the perimeter’s structure is the power of those patterns. We feel this power when we try to change our patterns. We then discover that change is difficult, because the pattern ‘wants’ to continue, so to speak. It offers resistance. We need a special effort and determination in order to overcome it. For example, the distrustful man needs a conscious effort to overcome his pattern of suspicion. Often he succeeds only for a limited time, and then slips back.
The third element is the conception which the pattern expresses. When I follow a pattern, this means that I interpret the situation in a particular way. For example, if I get angry every time my wife disagrees with me, then my anger can be understood as saying: “Love means that we are the same.” My behavior and emotions and expectations express a certain theory about the nature of love. Similarly, if I have a pattern of suspicious behavior towards other people, then this behavior can be understood as saying: “People are unreliable.” In other words, I have a theory about the meaning of the Other (perhaps similar to Ortega y Gasset’s theory of “the Other as danger”). In this sense, we all have philosophical theories about basic issues of life, although we are usually not aware of them.
In subsequent lessons we will examine in detail each of the three elements.
Example
Mike is a mysterious young man. It is hard to know what exactly he thinks and feels. When you ask him: “What did you think of the movie?” he may laugh and say, “It was definitely a movie.” And when you ask him how he feels, he might say: “So you want to put a label on my feelings?”
He has never had a steady girlfriend. Recently he took Sylvia out to a movie, but his mixed messages confused her and she couldn’t figure out what he wanted. Later he confided to a friend that he couldn’t decide whether he liked her—and immediately regretted saying these words. Indeed, whenever he has to make a decision, he feels anxious. After making a decision he often feels frustrated and sad. But when his friends tell him: “You look sad today, Mike,” he gets annoyed.
We can see a definite pattern in Mike’s behaviors, attitudes, and emotions: He does not identify himself with any specific feeling or opinion. He tries to remain vague and ambiguous—not just in the eyes of others, but for himself too.
This pattern has power over him. He follows it automatically, without thinking. And when he becomes conscious of it and tries to resist it, he feels how difficult it is. A special effort is needed to overcome the anxiety, the sadness, the disturbing feeling of being labeled.
This pattern also expresses a certain conception, because it says something like: “I am not a definite thing.” In other words, Mike has a philosophical theory about the nature of the self: that the self is (or should be) ambiguous and indeterminate. This is not a theory that he thinks in his conscious thoughts, but a theory that he lives in his emotions and behaviors. A philosophical counselor could help him explore the details of this conception, examine its validity, and investigate alternative ways of understanding himself.
In philosophical practice
The investigation of the individual’s patterns and conceptions is very important in philosophical practice. It ensures that we deal with the person’s ‘lived philosophy’—with her everyday behaviors and emotions and attitudes, not just with her abstract thoughts and opinions. An investigation that deals only with abstract ideas and not with concrete life, just like an investigation that deals with concrete life but not with ideas, is not really philosophical.
In philosophical counseling we usually begin by investigating the person’s patterns. Once some patterns are exposed, the counseling continues to the conceptions expressed by these patterns. The transition from patterns to conceptions is extremely important, because it is a transition from concrete life (behaviors, emotions, etc.) to philo-sophy. This is the connecting point between the level of facts (“That’s how I behave and feel”) and the philosophical level (“The self is indefinite”), between the level of behaviors and emotions and the level of ideas.
A similar transition can take place in the philosophical companionship too. A philosophical companionship is a small group of seekers who meet from time to time. They are therefore familiar with each other, and can help one another explore and understand their patterns and conceptions.
However, in the philosophical workshop, which is usually limited to several hours, it is difficult to explore the personal life of each participant. It is often easier to do the transition in the opposite direction: from ideas to patterns. The participants can start with some general ideas about some issue (love, meaning, freedom, etc.), and then examine how these and similar ideas are expressed in their personal everyday life.
Exercise
Consider several theories about the nature of the Other. (See several such theories in the section “Voices of the Other.”) Observe yourself, or somebody else you know well, in interactions with other people. Now, try to formulate the patterns that dominate these interactions, their power, and their conception(s). It is usually difficult to notice our own patterns or conceptions without the help of an experienced philosopher. For this reason it may be easier for you to examine somebody else.
A hint: A good starting point is to focus on unusual behaviors or emotions, which are peculiar to the person in question.
Lesson 4
ON PATTERNS
In order to transcend our narrow perimeter, we must first explore its boundaries. Our first step is to examine its patterns.
Normally, the repertoire of my thoughts, emotions and behaviors is limited. It covers only a small portion of the vast repertoire of human possibilities. In this sense my repertoire is limited to specific types, in other words, to specific patterns.
A pattern implies structure. It means that my thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are not a heap of arbitrary items, but they relate to each other in some particular ways.
The simplest kind of pattern is repetition. An example is when a person finds every opportunity to argue with others. He keeps doing the same thing.
But often a pattern is more complicated. It may consist of various kinds of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors which are connected through a common theme. For example, if I like to wear flashy clothes, and enjoy shocking people with my outrageous remarks, and feel bored when I am by myself, and fantasize of being a movie star, then those different points revolve around a common theme: I seek to be the object of other people’s attention.
It is sometimes objected that emotional or behavioral patterns are not a topic for philo-sophia but for psychology. But this is incorrect. Detecting a pattern is neither philosophical nor psychological—it is simply observing the facts. The difference between philo-sophia and psychology is in what we do with the observed pattern. If, for example, we search for the emotional mechanism that produces this pattern, then we are probably doing psychology. But alternatively, we may use the pattern in order to examine the person’s conception of the world—her way of understanding himself, her philosophy of life. We are then doing philo-sophia.
Example
Miriam is a university student. She is a little shy, but sweet and friendly. And yet, strangely, she doesn’t have any good friends.
Several students would say the same thing about her: When you first meet her, she is charming. Her smiles are magical, and her intimate voice makes you feel as if she is totally with you. And indeed, she is glad to listen to you, to help, and to encourage. You then think that she has taken a special interest in you, and that you are going to be great friends. But then a strange thing happens: You find that it is impossible to get closer to her. She continues to be nice and helpful, but she finds all kinds of excuses to avoid meeting you too often.
Laura, a classmate, was hurt by Miriam’s behavior. She asked Miriam directly why she was avoiding her. Miriam felt very bad for hurting Laura, and apologized profusely. And for the next three weeks she tried to make up: She would sit next to Laura in class, go out with her to the cafeteria, and be even sweeter than usual. But soon the relationship started boring her. At the end of the month she was again avoiding Laura.
Another classmate, Amy, reacted to Miriam more aggressively. She confronted her directly, raised her voice and accused her of betrayal. A polite, indifferent smile appeared on Miriam’s face. “What a bore,” she said to herself. “She isn’t worth the trouble,” and erased her from her heart.
When we examine this story, we note a common pattern connecting the various episodes: Miriam is a conqueror: She conquers the hearts of people around her. She cares for them, but only when they are not too close, because deep relationships do not interest her. And when a conquest is impossible (as in the case of Amy), she loses interest. In short, her pattern seems to be that of a collector of hearts.
A philosophical process can explore this apparent pattern in greater detail, examine more fully how it is expressed in Miriam’s everyday life, how it is connected to other patterns, and what conception (‘theory’ or ‘worldview’) it expresses.
In philosophical practice
In philosophical counselingwe start by investigating the counselee’s perimeter, and in order to do so we begin by exploring her patterns—emotional, behavioral, cognitive. (This will later enable the counselee to examine her conceptions, and then go beyond them.)
But a common temptation arises here. The counselee often comes to the counseling with a specific problem: a dilemma at work, a marital difficulty, dissatisfaction with herself, etc. The counselor is often tempted to seek solutions.
From the perspective of the present approach, this is a mistake. The philosophical counselor is not a marriage therapist and not a career counselor. Her task is not to solve problems, but to guide the counselee on a journey of self-exploration. And a good starting point is noting the facts: how the person behaves, thinks, and feels—in other words, patterns.
The following example will illustrate this point:
George, a computer programmer, comes to the counselor complaining that things aren’t going well at work.
“Work is no longer fun,” he says. “The new manager watches what everybody is doing. He is demanding. And I don’t feel easy and natural anymore. I no longer flow with the work. And the worse part of it is that everybody in the office is happy with the new boss. They take the job ‘seriously’ now. What a drag!”
“Can you say more about how you feel in this new situation?”
“I feel bored. Before he came, the office was alive. We turned every task into a game: Who solves this computing problem first? (It was, by the way, my own idea, but everybody liked it.) Now, everyone is so serious. They no longer tell funny stories. They no longer chat. And they love the new boss because he gives them ‘professional challenges.’ Disgusting.”
At this point the counselor must resist the temptation to search for satisfactory solutions. Philo-sophia is not in the business of producing satisfaction. Its path is the path of self-understanding, of wisdom.
The sensitive counselor will notice that George uses a very specific vocabulary: fun, exciting, natural, flow—versus bored, serious, lifeless. This suggests a common theme, or a pattern: he seeks fun. For the philo-sopher, this observation is a door to the exploration of George’s perimeter.
“It seems, George, that fun is important to you.”
Now they may start exploring this apparent pattern of fun-seeking: whether it does indeed characterize his attitudes (sometime our initial impression is mistaken), what kind of fun he seeks, how this is manifested in various situations, what feelings it is associated with, and so on. Once the pattern begins to be exposed, it is time to move on to the next step: exploring the conception (worldview, philosophy) which underlies George’s pattern.
Exercise
Think of two or three people you know, who behave differently in similar circumstances. For example, think of how two of your friends watch television and how they react to a football game, or to the news.
Now try to characterize the attitude of each one of them in those circumstances (e.g., each person’s reactions and emotions in front of the television). Write down a list of characteristics for each person and be specific as you can. Then try to see if each list can be characterized by some common theme(s), or pattern(s). The difference between these two people might help you sharpen your observations.
Lesson 5
FROM PATTERNS TO CONCEPTIONS
My patterns—my emotional, behavioral, and thought patterns—express my attitude to myself and to others, my way of interpreting life and understanding it. My patterns express, in other words, my conception of the world. This conception is part of what defines the boundaries of my world, or more accurately my perimeter. And my perimeter is what I, as a philosophical counselor, aim to transcend.
More specifically, we are constantly interpreting ourselves and our world, not just in our thoughts but mainly through our emotions and behaviors. For example, when I feel ashamed of something I did, this feeling is like the statement: ‘This kind of action is dishonorable.’ Or, if I am anxious about failing whenever I face a task, then this anxiety probably says (among other things): ‘Success is very important in life.’ And if I constantly try to control my wife or husband, then this behavior may express the idea: ‘Loving means possessing.’
In this sense, through our everyday attitudes we express our conception of life, often without being aware of it. Our attitude to our friends expresses our understanding of the meaning of friendship. Our behavior in a neighbors’ dispute speaks of our conception of justice. Our everyday choices and fears and hopes and responses address the basic issues of life.
Thus we are all philosophers, though not always good or deep ones. But most of our philosophical ‘theories’ are something we live in everyday life, not something we think about. They are our ‘lived conceptions’.
Lived conceptions have an important role. We cannot live in our world without interpreting it. But often they are also our prison, because they give us a one-sided, rigid, superficial perspective of life. They limit the vast horizons of human existence to a narrow interpretation, to a constricted range of possibilities. This is our perimeter—the world as defined by our patterns and conceptions.
In philosophical practice
If the goal of philosophical practice is to transcend the walls of our narrow perimeter, then the first step should be exploring these walls. It is easier to transcend what you see and understand. This is why we usually start the process of philosophical practice by exploring the person’s perimeter—our patterns, the conceptions expressed in those patterns, and the powers that animate them.
In the philosophical companionship, the companions share their personal experiences and observations in order to investigate them together. The group is not concerned with opinions or abstract theories, but mainly with lived conceptions. At the same time, its purpose is not to analyze individual members, but rather to listen together to the variety of voices of life. By examining personal life-experiences they seek to understand the languages that life speaks in us, the conceptions which it expresses.
Example
Daniel is a member of a philosophical companionship group, which meets once a week. In the meetings he is very active and helpful. His thoughtful comments help his companions examine themselves, and his empathic attitude encourages them to open themselves and recount their private experiences.
In their fifth meeting Irena tells him, “You know, Daniel, you have encouraged everybody to speak about themselves. But we still don’t know anything about you.”
Daniel smiles. “Well, does this make you feel uncomfortable?”
And the conversation now turns to Irena’s feelings.
Roger interrupts. “You’ve just done it again, Daniel! You have changed the topic and avoided talking about yourself.”
“Oh, did I?” Daniel asks surprised. He thinks a little, and then realizes that Irena and Roger are right. “Yes, thanks for pointing this out. I definitely avoid exposing myself. An interesting pattern, isn’t it? Maybe it’s some kind of defense mechanism…”
“Remember,” Bruce interrupts him, “we are not doing psychology here. We are doing philosophical practice. The question is what your pattern says, not the psychological mechanism behind it.”
“Would you like the group to discuss this, Daniel?” Jessica asks.
Daniel frowns. “I don’t know, I don’t want to be the topic of your conversation.”
“Don’t worry, Daniel, you will not be the topic. The main topic will be self-exposure. This is, after all, a philosophical companionship, not group-counseling. We need your experiences in order to investigate together what it means to expose oneself.”
“Alright, I agree. Let’s make self-exposure the topic of this meeting.”
Daniel now tries to explain himself. “When I talk about myself and you all listen to me, I feel that I am like a baby, and you are the adults taking care of me.” He also tells them about a few related experiences.
Other companions share their own experiences of self-exposure, and through this comparison they gain insight about what these experiences say—i.e., the conceptions expressed in them.
To sharpen their observations they also discuss various theories of exposure. Sartre is mentioned (to be ashamed is to be objectified by another person’s look), as well as Nietzsche (with friends “you must not want to see everything”[1]). Thus the companionship develops a network of conceptions of self-exposure, which sheds light on their personal cases. They find out that life speaks in their lives in a variety of voices that are interrelated in complex ways.
“I’m starting to understand my attitude,” Daniel says. “I don’t like being at the center of attention. But it’s not because I am shy. It’s because I don’t like it when others do things for me, or to me. I hate being a receiver, I hate being passive. The assumption is: If I am a passive receiver, then I disappear, I am nothing. I exist only if I give, help, act.”
“An interesting philosophical conception,” Bruce says. “To exist means to act on others. To receive actions means not to exist.”
“Exactly. Maybe it’s a questionable theory from a logical point of view, but that’s who I am. And now I can see how this conception is connected to many other things in my life.”
Exercise
Read the cases of Miriam and of George in Lesson 4. Note the patterns found in Miriam’s and in George’s attitudes. What conceptions do these patterns express? (In order to answer this question you may have to add imaginary details to the two stories.)
[1]. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Book 1, section 16.
Lesson 6
ON FORCES
We often don’t realize how rigid our perimeter is and how resistant it is to change. We don’t realize, in other words, how powerful our emotional and behavioral patterns are. The reason is that we normally don’t resist them, but simply follow them automatically, as if it is the most natural thing to do. Following them requires very little effort. For example, an argumentative person doesn’t need to make any special effort to become argumentative—it comes to him naturally. Likewise, the workaholic doesn’t have to force herself to work hard—it is her spontaneous inclination.
This is especially true in the case of universal human patterns that are common to most human beings. For example, most of us act—without any special thought or effort—so as to be understood by others, to appear consistent and reasonable, to follow society’s rules of politeness, to make a good impression on our friends. Psychology textbooks are full of descriptions of such automatic patterns.
The result is that we feel as if we are free, although in truth we follow our personal or universal patterns and conceptions. In other words, we are confined to our little perimeter, but we don’t experience ourselves confined because this is where we feel natural and comfortable. Thus, when a normal person responds politely, or when an argumentative person argues, they don’t feel the walls of their prison if they have never tried to get out. Like a river that flows between two banks, they flow along a narrow path that is easy yet limited.
It is only when the river tries to climb over its banks—or when the prisoner tries to leave his prison—that they realize that they are really confined. In other words, when we try to break away from our patterns and conceptions, we find that this is extremely hard, and often impossible.
Many kinds of feelings pressure us to maintain our old familiar pattern: When I act unreasonably, for example, I feel anxious to correct or explain myself. Similarly, the shy person feels nervous when she decides to speak in public; the self-centered man feels bored in a conversation about others; the insecure woman feels embarrassed when asked to show her paintings; the smoker feels unbearable temptation when attempting to stop smoking; the suspicious man feels awkward when trying to express trust; the compulsive talker feels a tremendous urge to speak when asked to listen.
Such feelings and urges pressure us to return to our old familiar patterns and to their corresponding conceptions. And even if we overcome them once, we are likely to continue to feel the difficulty and sooner or later slide back to our usual patterns.
This means that the walls of our perimeter are real prison-walls. They act as forces that pressure us into our patterns and conceptions.
Psychologists and sociologists investigate the causes of these forces—inborn human tendencies, defense mechanisms, childhood traumas, social pressures, etc. But as philosophical practitioners we are interested in how these forces are manifested in the individual’s perimeter, not in the mechanisms behind them.
Example
Shortly after Nancy’s marriage, she discovers that she never says ‘no’ to her husband. If, for example, he suggests: “How about going to a Chinese restaurant, Nancy?” then she finds it almost impossible to refuse. After some reflection she realizes that this is also her attitude towards her parents, and towards her two best friends.
Strange, she thinks, her husband is so kind and sweet, and her parents never get angry, so why is she so afraid to say ‘no’? Besides, she is not afraid to contradict other people—the neighbors, her colleagues at work, even her boss.
After thinking about her behavioral pattern, she starts to understand the conception that stands behind it. It is as though something inside her says: “Love means total agreement.” Something inside her is afraid that disagreement would contradict her love relationships.
For several days she continues to think about this, as well as about other behaviors and emotions, and then she realizes that they all fall under one general conception: “To love means to merge. If you love somebody, the two of you become one person: one opinion, one behavior, one everything.” Now she understands why she always needs to know what her husband is doing and thinking, why she finds herself going into his office to clean it, why she is restless when he is out with his friends, and many other things.
Nancy decides to break her conception and the patterns that they create. The next day, when her husband suggests taking a walk in the park, she looks into his eyes and hesitates. She wants to say no, but his smiling face melts her decision. She feels she can’t disappoint him, that she doesn’t have the courage.
“I must try harder,” she decides when they return together from the park.
The next day, when her husband suggests going to visit their friend Tony in the evening, she manages to block her natural tendency to agree. Instead, she forces herself to reply: “No, not tonight, Kenny. Why don’t you go without me?”
Immediately anxiety fills her heart. She holds her breath, and finds herself searching his face again and again to see if he is angry or offended. For the rest of the day she is super-nice to him, trying to appease him.
At night, after he goes to Tony’s, she feels nervous. “This nervousness is stupid,” she says to herself. “Why shouldn’t I let him be by himself one evening?” But her reasoning does not calm her, and her emotions continue to speak in the language of her old conception. She can’t conquer her anxiety.
For months she struggles against her emotional and behavioral patterns. But although she becomes better at forcing herself to leave her husband alone from time to time, nevertheless it continues to be difficult. She keeps feeling the urge to merge with him, and only through conscious decision and effort can she resist it. Deep in her heart her conception of love remains unchanged.
In philosophical practice
Our contemporary culture is enchanted with the idea of self-change and self-improvement. The market is swamped with self-help books and self-improvement workshops and classes: How to become happier, how to gain self-confidence, how to be a better parent, how to have better sex. Presumably we are not good enough, and must be better.
But in philosophical practice such an approach would be misguided. This kind of self-improvement may be a legitimate task for certain psychotherapies, but philosophy can adopt it only at the price of becoming trivial and superficial. It would turn philosophy from a search for wisdom into pragmatic techniques for behavior-improvement or emotion-modification. Furthermore, it would simply replace one pattern with another pattern, from shyness to assertiveness, from anger to smiles, from one prison to a more comfortable prison.
In philo-sophia we do not aim at pragmatic solutions or comfortable prisons. Our aim is more ambitious: to open ourselves to broader horizons of understanding and life. But this doesn’t mean that we attempt to abolish the walls of our perimeter. Once we appreciate the immense resistance of our patterns and conceptions, we realize that this is an unrealistic goal. We understand that it is virtually impossible to eliminate our basic personality and attitudes to the world.
To a limited extent we can, of course, make changes in ourselves. We can acquire new knowledge; we can modify specific behaviors that are peripheral to our personality (e.g., smoking, though even this may be extremely difficult!); we can adopt new techniques to deal with a specific problematic emotion (e.g., a trick for overcoming fear), we can learn how to speak differently (e.g., say positive things), or how to think about ourselves with a new vocabulary. Many therapies do exactly that. But although these superficial changes may help us feel better, they leave unchanged the basic outlines of our perimeter.
As philosophical practitioners our primarily goal is to grow through understanding, not to fix behaviors or emotions. We understand the immense forces that sustain our patterns and conceptions. We realize that our will-power and self-control have little capacity to change ourselves. As counselors or workshop-leaders we give up the naïve hope that philosophical self-knowledge would enable the counselee to change himself in a substantive way. We understand that even when counselees are aware of their patterns, and even when they decide to change them, the distance to an actual change is enormous.
When I understand the forces maintaining my patterns and conceptions, the result is humility. I accept the weakness of my self-control and will. I understand how little my efforts can influence my perimeter. My busy conscious ‘self,’ who likes to control and decide and dictate, realizes its limitations.
This inspires me to let go of my controlling self, to abandon my self-controlling attitude, and open myself to other attitudes. I open in myself a space for other sources inside me, for new fountains of inspiration, of understanding, of wisdom. I allow them to act in me by pushing aside my smart little self.
This is, indeed, an important moment in the process of philosophical practice: the moment of discovering that I am not as free as I thought, that I am a prisoner of powerful patterns. This realization opens the door for a real philosophical understanding and change—not a change imposed by reason on my behavior and emotions, but rather a new dimension of being. But this is a topic for a future lesson.
Exercise
In this exercise your task is to feel the forces of your patterns and conceptions by trying to resist them. If you are like most people, who don’t like making a fool of themselves, you can do as follows:
Go to a store and ask to buy something that is obviously not sold there. For example, go to a ticket office and ask for a sandwich, or go to a restaurant and ask to buy a hammer. Even if you don’t have the courage to do the exercise, try to go as far as you can. Whether or not you succeed, be aware of your inner resistance: the tension and anxiety, the inner struggle, the effort.
Perhaps you wish to object: “I don’t want to do it because I don’t want to offend anybody,” or “I don’t want to waste their time,” and so on. These are excuses. Most likely you don’t have the courage to do so, which means that your pattern is too powerful. It is probably the pattern of following social expectations, expressing the conception “One should behave as expected,” or “One should appear reasonable.”
You can also do a similar exercise with a personal (not universal) pattern that is particularly yours. Again, whether or not you succeed, note the inner resistance, the effort, and the struggle.
Lesson 7
PHILOSOPHIZING IN PERIMETER EXPLORATION
So far we have discussed the first stage of the philosophical journey: exploring the person’s perimeter. But in what sense is this stage philosophical? Where is philosophy in this kind of exploration?
To some extent, philosophical thinking appears from the very beginning in the form of critical thinking. I use critical thinking when I discover the patterns that characterize my behavior, emotions, and thoughts. I use critical thinking when I formulate the conceptions which these patterns express—the “theories” that are embodied in my attitudes. And I use critical thinking when I discern the forces that maintain these patterns and conceptions. Critical thinking is part of philosophical reasoning, in the traditional sense of philosophy. A person trained in traditional philosophy therefore has a considerable advantage in such explorations.
But the main place for philosophizing comes afterwards: Once I note the general outlines of my (or another person’s) perimeter, it is time to explore it in greater detail. And to do so, I investigate my conceptions just as I investigate philosophical theories: I analyze central concepts, I note logical connections or contradictions, I expose hidden assumptions and logical implications, and evaluate how reasonable they are.
For example, a philosophical analysis might reveal that in Mary’s world the concept of freedom implies spontaneity. Or, it might show that Mike’s notion of friendship is contradictory, because it requires both dependence and independence. It might reveal that Martha’s world revolves around a fundamental distinction between the lofty and the trivial, the high and the low. And it might reveal that Steve’s conception of romantic relations is based on a hidden assumption that pleasure means selfishness.
In order to carry out this philosophical analysis, several skills are important. First, we need a good capacity to reason, and specifically a capacity for critical thinking.
Second, we must be experienced in formulating theories, particularly philosophical theories. After all, conceptions are personal theories, and formulating theories is precisely what we do when we explore a person’s conception.
Third, we should be familiar with a variety of philosophical theories from the history of philosophy. The history of philosophy contains treasures of ideas, and it makes no sense to try to re-invent the wheel. Without previous knowledge, it is very difficult to formulate a conception of the meaning love, for example, or the nature of freedom. If we have a good historical background we can use it as a basis for comparing ideas, modifying them, adapting, combining, contrasting, and in this way formulating the details of the conception in question. We must therefore be familiar with theories about everyday topics such as love, meaning, justice, freedom, and the like. Unfortunately, mainstream philosophy deals primarily with highly abstract issues, and many everyday topics receive little attention in academic philosophy programs.
Fourth, we should have philosophical imagination and creativity. Historical knowledge alone is not enough, because actual people don’t fit into ready-made theories. Each life is a different world with unique patterns and conceptions, and only through creative thinking can we understand its distinctive geography.
In sum, a philosophical background is very important in the exploration of the person’s perimeter. Those who do not have this background can be helped by experienced philosophers in workshops, companionships, or counseling conversations.
In philosophical practice
There are no precise rules to guide us in philosophical practice. Philosophizing is, to a large extent, an art. Nevertheless, several important questions can help us in the process:
First, it is important to ask ourselves: What are the main concepts in the person’s perimeter? These concepts can be seen as the building blocks from which the perimeter is constructed, or as the vocabulary with which it can be described.
A vocabulary is only an unorganized list of concepts. Therefore, a second important question is: What is the structure of these concepts? To answer this question we need to do a philosophical analysis: to determine which concepts are central and which are peripheral, how the different concepts are related to each other, and what is the exact meaning of each of them. Often such an analysis reveals that the apparent surface hides a very different network of ideas.
The result of this analysis is a map of concepts, which shows how the main concepts are organized in the person’s perimeter. The map represents, in other words, the structure of the person’s world.
A third question to ask is: What are the hidden assumptions and implications in the person’s perimeter? For example, if for Jim it is important to be a unique and special person, then this seems to have an interesting implication: in his world one should compare oneself to others (in order to avoid being similar to them). Or, if in Jessica’s perimeter you can’t trust what others tell you, then this seems to rest on the assumption that people are motivated by hidden motivations.
A fourth important question is: How tenable is the person’s perimeter as a theory? Is it coherent? Are its assumptions reasonable and consistent? Are its conceptual connections valid?
These four questions are obviously not the only ones we can ask, but they are especially helpful. Needless to say, they are only heuristic “rules of thumb” and are by no means a strict method.
Example
Liz is an argumentative person. She likes to declare her opinions on every topic, and she starts many of her sentences with “I disagree”—and sometimes “I agree.” When others complain about her attitude, she replies that she is “authentic” and simply says what she thinks.
Liz embarks on a philosophical self-investigation. She observes that a major pattern in her behavior is that she antagonizes people by declaring her opinions. Indeed, she often can’t resist the urge to declare agreement or disagreement. She concludes that this behavioral pattern expresses the conception: I must have a clear opinion on any issue. At this point she is stuck, not knowing how to proceed.
David offers to be her philosophical companion. Liz agrees, because she knows that people are often unaware of their own attitudes, and they need a “mirror.” The two companions discuss her argumentative attitude.
“It seems,” David suggests in their second meeting, “that it is not enough for you to have an opinion. You also want to express it.”
“Of course. How else would I be authentic if I don’t declare my opinions?”
Later, David notes: “You know, Liz, several words appeared again and again in our conversations: ‘agree,’ ‘disagree,’ ‘opinion,’ ‘declare,’”
“Is there anything wrong with that?”
“No, of course not. I am only pointing out that these are important concepts in your world. They are part of the vocabulary of your behavior.”
“Interesting, David. I think you are right. And another word is ‘authenticity.”
When the conversation turns to David’s life, the two companions realize how different her world is from his. In his world the concept of ‘opinion’ or ‘agreement’ is unimportant. David spends a lot of energy nurturing his relationships with a small group of selected friends, and his central concepts are those of intimacy, trust, and betrayal.
In their third meeting, David suggests that they look more deeply into the vocabularies of their perimeters and try to organize them. They discover that in Liz’s world, the concept of opinion is only the surface of something deeper. For her, declaring an opinion does not mean defending the truth, but primarily declaring independence. “That’s what I think!” for her means: “I am deciding what I think!” That is why, Liz now realizes, she sometimes argues for the sake of arguing, even if the topic doesn’t interest her. That is also why she feels so powerful after an argument.
In a later meeting they analyze Liz’s concepts of independence and of authenticity. In order to do so they examine various personal experiences, and discover that in her perimeter being authentic means “I am true to my opinions. Only my opinions guide my behavior.” This analysis clarifies the connection between disagreeing/agreeing, declaring opinions, independence, and authenticity. Soon Liz and David have a map of concepts. The map is not written on paper but in their minds, and it helps Liz understand the structure of her perimeter.
They now continue to examine the hidden implications and assumptions in her approach to others. First they note a central assumption in her perimeter: that authenticity is a cognitive state of mind—having opinions—as opposed to authenticity as spontaneity, or authenticity as expressing emotions. They also note that her approach implies that other people are a danger to her authenticity—this is why she needs to declare her opinions as if to raise a wall against their influence. This opens the door to a discussion about Liz’s concept of the Other.
In a later meeting, when the companions start evaluating Liz’s world, she realizes that some of her assumptions are questionable. “Being authentic is being true not just to your opinions,” she says, “but also to your feelings!”
Eventually Liz and David feel that they have a clear idea of Liz’s perimeter, its main concepts, inner structure, implication, assumptions, advantages and weaknesses. Now they are ready to move on to the next stage of the philosophical process: transcending the boundaries of their perimeters.
Exercise
Choose one of the concepts discussed in the section “Voices of Human Reality” (the Other, authenticity, freedom, meaning, the right and the wrong, and transcendence). Then analyze the concept as it appears in your own perimeter. This task will become easier if you compare your attitude to the philosophical approaches mentioned in the text.
Remember, the issue is not what you think about that concept, but how the concept is expressed in your everyday attitudes—in your emotions, behavior, and everyday thoughts. Remember also that there may be two or more contradictory conceptions in your perimeter, and that different analyses would be appropriate for different situations (for example, your concept of freedom when you are with friends may be different from your concept of freedom when you are with authority figures).
Lesson 8
WONDERING ABOUT GOING BEYOND
I examined my everyday life, I noted how it is enclosed in a limited perimeter, I studied the walls of this Platonic cave—where do I go from here?
It is time now for the second part of the philosophical journey: trying to step out of the cave. But how do I do this? To address this question, let us first see where in the philosophical process we are standing.
The past several lessons described the initial part of the philosophical journey: exploring our perimeter, or the Platonic cave in which we are imprisoned. As we have seen, this process can be described in terms of five main steps: We start by examining the individual’s personal experiences and everyday life. Second, we note patterns in the person’s behavior, emotions, and thoughts. Third, we expose the conceptions (or “theories”) that underlie those patterns. Fourth, we identify the forces that maintain those patterns and conceptions. And fifth, we philosophize about the person’s conceptions, or more generally about the perimeter (patterns, conceptions, forces).
The result of this process is a better understanding of the structure of our perimeter: its basic building blocks, its inner logic, its hidden assumptions and implications. We can now better understand the walls of the Platonic cave in which we live.
This five-step schema is, of course, too schematic and even crude. A real philosophical process cannot be captured with formulas. It is creative, dynamic, open-ended, personal, and it often goes back and forth between those five steps. Nevertheless, this schema, despite its limitations, is a helpful sketch of the first stage of the philosophical process: perimeter-exploration.
But once we have gained some appreciation of the walls of our perimeter, what do we do next? Presumably, we want to go beyond the walls of this prison, to get out of our cave—but how?
Here we should beware of a dangerous temptation. We live in a pragmatic, technological and satisfaction-seeking society. We may therefore be tempted to think that the task of philo-sophia is to repair or improve the person’s perimeter just as we repair a broken television or heal a sprained angle. It may be tempting, in other words, to try to modify the person’s perimeter in order to make it more functional and satisfactory. For example, if Steve has problems with his wife, then a philosopher might want to help him change his attitude towards marriage in order to improve the relationship. Or, if Mary is unsatisfied with herself, then the philosopher might be tempted to help her develop a more positive self-understanding.
From the perspective of philosophy, this is a mistake. Of course, there is nothing wrong with solving personal problems, but this is not the task of philo-sophia. Just as philo-sophia is not in the business of repairing broken televisions or curing medical problems, it is not in the business of solving personal problems or producing satisfaction. Philo-sophia is a search for wisdom and understanding. Once it is used as a tool for problem-solving, once it is aimed at satisfaction rather than depth, it becomes superficial and trivial. What had been an attempt to understand reality becomes a mere means for some practical product.
Moreover, the idea of modifying perimeters is often unrealistic. Perimeters are very resistant to change. The forces that maintain our patterns and conceptions are extremely powerful, and mere philosophical understanding cannot usually overcome them. Furthermore, even if the philosopher manages to modify the person’s perimeter, the result is simply replacing one perimeter with another perimeter, or changing one cave for another cave. But as Plato allegory explains, the goal of philo-sophia is not to make our cave more comfortable. It is, rather, to go beyond our cave, indeed beyond all caves towards a larger reality.
But what does it mean to get out of our cave, or go beyond our perimeter?
This is the Big Question of philosophical practice. It is a question about the essence of philo-sophia. And here it is extremely important to avoid quick answers and ready-made techniques, and instead to stop and reflect. As philosophers our challenge is to address this question without trivializing the meaning of wisdom and understanding, without relying on familiar slogans and popular trends, without being imprisoned by the knowledge we already possess, without selling our soul to the economical game of supply and demand and satisfying needs. Our challenge is to go beyond existing formulas and social norms and established ideas.
No ready-made method can help us now. It is necessary to open ourselves to wonder, perplexity, and even confusion. Only if we empty ourselves of our familiar ideas and conceptions can we hope for a breakthrough. Only if we let go of the attitude of “I know” and “I am in control” can we hope to continue on the road towards wisdom. In order to find we must first lose—we must lose our secure and comfortable cave-walls.
In philosophical practice
Those who lead philosophical workshops and do philosophical counseling know that the initial part of the philosophical process—perimeter-exploration—usually develops quickly and productively. In a few sessions the person may discover new insights about himself, learn new ways of self-understanding, and become aware of new aspects of his world. As a result he may develop high expectations: to continue acquiring more and more insights, to learn the hidden secrets of his frustrations, and even to quickly find ways to change himself.
But this is not how the philosophical process goes. Self-learning cannot go on forever in the same pace and the same way. After a period of new insights, the outlines of the perimeter become clearer, and more self-knowledge would not help very much. It is time to stop acquiring knowledge and make a further step. It is time to stop looking at our perimeter and instead look beyond its boundaries. We now need to open ourselves to that which lies beyond our familiar conceptions and attitudes, and to stand open in wonder and perplexity, without knowledge, without solutions, without methods.
This requires a change of attitude. The role of the philosopher is, therefore, to direct the participant to the point of the openness of wonder: How do I continue from here? I don’t know. My perimeter is clearer to me—how do I go beyond it? I wonder.
And the challenge is to resist the temptation to find quick solutions and techniques, because these would only leave us inside the old familiar perimeter. The task is to remain in this openness and appreciate it as an openness.
Example
Peter has always considered himself a judgmental person who likes to criticize and judge. But when he starts attending a weekly philosophical workshop he discovers that this tendency expresses an entire worldview. He realizes that in his world there is a central distinction between the worthwhile and the worthless: watching a movie is a waste of time, but discussing politics is productive; medicine is valuable, while academic philosophy is empty talk; flirting means nothing, but long-term romantic relationships are meaningful.
After a few sessions and philosophical exercises Peter understands that his attitude expresses a theory: Nothing is of any value unless it produces a product that can be acquired and possessed: knowledge, skills, money, power, security. In fact, he even treats his friendships as possessions.
Peter realizes how narrow and limiting his attitude is, and he wants to go beyond it. “From now on I won’t limit myself to productive activity. I’ll watch movies, I’ll chat with friends. I won’t try to possess anything.”
But this proves extremely difficult. He finds that his old attitudes remain with him. ‘Non-productive’ activities bore him, and he doesn’t know how to change this.
Finally he succeeds to enjoy himself at a movie. Still, he is left dissatisfied. “What’s the point of all this,” he says to Linda, the philosophical leader of the workshop. “I once hated movies, and now I am perhaps starting to like them. So what? I simply changed my habits. Nothing came out of it. This isn’t worth the trouble.”
“I think you are saying,” Linda replies, “that replacing one pattern with another pattern is not good enough for you. You want our workshop to give you better results.”
“Exactly,” Peter says. “I want to get something better out of it.”
“You want to get something better… very interesting. Something better versus something worthless.”
Peter reflects on this. “I see what you are saying, Linda: I am still thinking in the same old ways. You are saying that even when I try to get out of my perimeter, I am still the same old Peter.”
Now he is confused. “This is like Catch 22. If I try to get out, it is me who is getting out. This is so confusing. What should I do? I tried many things, but nothing worked. I don’t know where to go from here!”
“Stay where you are,” Linda answers. “You are in a good place. Don’t be afraid of your confusion. Your confusion means that you are already starting to step beyond where you were before—beyond your knowledge of what is valuable and what is worthless.”
Exercise
Observe yourself for several days, focusing on some patterns of your behavior and emotions. Try to look at yourself with new eyes, so to speak, without taking for granted the way you normally feel and behave. One way to do so it to think of how other people would behave differently in similar situations: where you are talkative others might be quiet, where you are offended others might laugh, and so on. Don’t judge yourself, only observe. Your goal is to see your behaviors and attitudes not as natural and obvious as they normally seem, but as containing a measure of strangeness and arbitrariness. Your goal, more accurately, is to experience the inner attitude of wonder when observing yourself.
LESSON 9
AWAKENING HIDDEN FOUNTAINS OF PLENITUDE
Central to philo-sophical practice is Plato’s notion of going out of the cave, or what is called here “transcending our perimeter.” But these metaphors should not mislead us to think that the philo-sopher’s goal is to be beyond all boundaries, free of all patterns and conceptions. As human beings we cannot be devoid of personality traits, tendencies, and structures. Nor is this a desirable goal. A person without a personality or psychological structure (if there is such a person) cannot develop relationships, pursue goals, or indeed live in this world.
What we can do as philo-sophers, however, is transcend our boundaries in a specific aspect of our being. We can, in other words, get out of our cave in certain respects, on a certain level. As human beings we will always be limited by a perimeter, by psychological and cultural structures – but we can go beyond them in a certain dimension: the dimension of wisdom.
Metaphorically, we can think about the dimension of wisdom as a lens that adds depth to a two-dimensional photograph, or as the eyes of a hippopotamus that see above the water. The photograph is still a photograph, and the hippopotamus’s body is still underwater, but they now reveal a fuller horizon of reality. Wisdom, then, colors our lives with depth and realness, adding a new dimension to everyday events and making us greater than our perimeter. To some extent wisdom can also broaden our perimeter, but it cannot abolish it – which is to say, it cannot abolish our humanity.
But what is wisdom? What does it mean to be wise?
It is easier to start with what wisdom is not. Clearly, a wise person is not necessarily endowed with quick logical thinking, or with theoretical knowledge. A computer expert or a university professor is not necessarily a wise man or woman. Being wise means understanding life in a broader way, not just in theory but through one’s attitudes, behaviors, emotions, and entire way of being. Indeed, we wouldn’t regard as wise a person who is petty, or self-involved, or preoccupied with his health or possessions, or is stuck in a particular ideology. A wise person is not limited to his self-centered concerns, but is in touch with a greater reality, with wider horizons of human existence.
Thus, the wise person is attuned to a greater world; he is in touch with a fuller scope of reality. His attitudes and behaviors and entire way of being express more than his specific self-centered concerns and perspective. They also express a broader horizon of understanding life.
This means that wisdom is not primarily knowledge ABOUT a greater reality, but rather understanding and living FROM a greater reality. Gaining wisdom means that some of our attitudes towards life are nourished by more than a narrow perimeter. They emerge not just from our solidified patterns and conceptions, but are also animated and inspired by a broader scope of sources and resources. The sources of our thoughts, our feelings, our behaviors and attitudes are nourished by greater fountains of understanding. These fountains may also nurture happiness, love, courage, creativity, and in this sense they are fountains of plenitude.
To be sure, we all have some degree of wisdom. All of us are more than our perimeter, regardless of whether or not we are engaged in philo-sophical activity. What animates our attitudes towards life is always more than our habitual conceptions and patterns. A simple self-reflection would show that in many everyday moments we transcend our familiar perimeter – when, for example, we suddenly gain a surprising understanding, or when we are inspired to act in a new way that is sensitive to a larger scope of life, or when we are overwhelmed by a rare appreciation of intimacy or beauty. What happens at those special moments is that unfamiliar resources infuse in us new attitudes to reality, and thus new kinds of feelings and behaviors. But these deeper fountains of understanding are usually dormant in everyday life. The search for wisdom requires that we learn to awaken them.
Some would want to call these fountains the unconscious; others might regard them as the collective unconscious, or the soul or the spirit, or even God speaking in us. We need not enter into those metaphysical speculations and disputes. For our purpose we can call them hidden fountains of understanding, or of plenitude.
This is, then, the meaning of going beyond our perimeter: awakening our hidden fountains and learning to understand and live from them more fully.
EXAMPLE
Rachel is a practical person. She works at a bank, where she is regarded as an excellent worker: She is efficient and reliable, and she always follows instructions. After work she spends most of her time cleaning her house and preparing meals, and then reading the newspaper and watching the news. Many of her colleagues find her somewhat boring. In conversations she reports in dry words what happened to her at work, or simply repeats the latest TV news. If somebody tries to talk with her about art or cinema or religion, or even about political speculations, her face contorts and she says something like, “I am not interested in that sort of things.”
It seems as if her world is made of hard facts and nothing else; as if only facts have reality and value for her. Anything else – opinions, imagination, games, abstract ideas – are meaningless and even suspicious.
One day, Linda comes to the bank to deposit a check. The two exchange some pleasantries about the weather.
“You are dressed very light,” Rachel says. “The meteorologist says there is a 90% chance of rain today.”
“I prefer not to know,” Linda says and signs her check. “I like to leave a door open for surprises. Don’t you sometimes feel weighed down by too much information, too many facts?”
Strangely, this touches Rachel and stirs something inside her. A new understanding rises to her consciousness. “Sometimes not-knowing is more than knowing,” she replies without understanding exactly her own words.
Rachel is surprised at the understanding that appeared in her mind. It gives her a sense of expansion, as if her mind is broader than it usually is. At lunchtime she feels no need to read the newspaper. Instead, she finds herself reading a short story in a magazine, and almost enjoying it.
“These sorts of ideas are not as stupid as I thought,” she admits to herself. “They, too, have something to tell me.”
Unsurprisingly, Rachel quickly returns to her usual patterns and attitudes. She continues to prefer hard facts, to speak dryly about news reports, to dislike speculations and games. As much as she tries, she can’t make herself interested in art or literature. In short, Rachel continues to be Rachel. Still, something is different in her now. A broader awareness, which rises every once in a while from hidden fountains inside her, adds new colors to her attitudes, like a tender halo of self-understanding.
IN PHILO-SOPHICAL PRACTICE
In the philo-sophical process, after we have gained some understanding of the boundaries of our perimeter, it is time to “listen” beyond them. This “listening” is possible because we are not totally enclosed in our perimeter: We have the inner resources to appreciate other ways of understanding and other ways of relating to the world. In a sense, we are already beyond our perimeter, but we are not fully aware of this. Our task now is to “connect” to those hidden resources.
This is usually not easy. We tend to feel resistance, criticism, or dislike towards anything outside our own familiar ways of being. Even though we may declare tolerance in a theoretical way, in practice we often resist the possibility that other attitudes may speak in us and animate us. After all, our perimeter is sustained by powerful forces.
At this stage, therefore, it is important for the philo-sopher to avoid theoretical arguments. This is the time to open ourselves and “listen” to other understandings and other attitudes that may speak in us. We do not criticize or analyze, we do not worry about correct or incorrect, we simply open ourselves for new understandings. But it is not enough to understand in a theoretical way – to think ABOUT alternative attitudes. The challenge is to understand FROM alternative attitudes, in other words to find new understandings speaking inside us. The mere fact that we open ourselves to additional inner fountains is already a step beyond our perimeter and towards a new dimension.
EXERCISE
Observe yourself during the day, and look for moments in which different inner understandings animate you.
In order to do so, start by becoming aware of small everyday events or moments: a passing thought, a sentence you utter, your body posture and your voice as you speak, your eye-contact and your hand movements, your sense of tension or of boredom – when you are waiting in line, or chatting with a friend, or washing the dishes. Don’t analyze and don’t evaluate. Simply familiarize yourself with the way these event flow out of you, and thus with your usual attitudes to your world, to others, to yourself.
And now look for moments that diverge to some degree from these familiar attitudes. Ask yourself what attitudes these moments express, and try to answer this question in words. Next, ask yourself how these attitudes interpret or “understand” the situations in which they appear. Finally, ask yourself whether or not these understandings are broader in scope than your usual everyday attitudes, in other words whether they emerge from outside your usual perimeter, from a broader appreciation of reality. (You may object that these questions are too vague, and that you need more instructions. But it is best to leave these questions open, so that you will explore them in your own way. After all, philo-sophia is a personal journey.)
LESSON 10
OPENING AN INNER CLEARING
In the previous lesson we saw that when we transcend our perimeter, we connect to fountains of plenitude that lie beyond our boundaries. These are sources of wisdom from outside our habitual patterns of behaving and feeling. They can inspire us with new meanings; they can animate in us new understandings – not just in abstract thoughts but mainly in our attitudes to life. We come to relate to life FROM these understandings, and these understandings express themselves in our awareness and our way of being.
Of course, many of our emotions and behaviors continue to be governed by our conceptions and patterns. We are, after all, human beings – creatures with a specific psychological structure and biological constitution, influenced by our specific culture and language and personal history. Nevertheless, on another dimension we are bigger than these conceptions and patterns, and can be nourished by greater fountains of wisdom and plenitude.
All this has an important implication. It implies that philo-sophy as a search for wisdom requires us to change our state of mind, or more generally our state of being. It requires us to discover and develop a window that opens to beyond our boundaries. Our task, then, is to open in ourselves a small space that is empty of ourselves – empty of our usual patterns and conceptions, free from our normal attitudes and ego. We want, in other words, to open a CLEARING in the forest: an open space in the midst of the dense network of our psychological structures. As the metaphor of “clearing” suggests, we do not seek to abolish our psychological “forest,” but rather to create a small place in the forest, as small as it might be, that opens to the sky.
This is an amazing capacity of human beings: We can be open beyond ourselves. We can reach out to fountains of wisdom that are not part of our psychology. This capacity is analogous to perception – to seeing or hearing, as well as to thinking. In vision, we can see objects that lie outside our body. In hearing, we hear events that are far away. In thought, we can think about mathematical relations, or about somebody across the ocean. In short, our awareness reflects not only our psychology and biology, but also things outside us.
Likewise, in philo-sophia we seek to “look” beyond ourselves, towards greater horizons of reality. But the metaphor of perception has its limitations. Unlike looking and seeing, as philo-sophers we do not try to perceive objects such as stones and trees, not even abstract ideas such as the concept of the self or the theory of socialism. Furthermore, we do not seek to LOOK AT reality, like an observer who collects information about some distant object. Rather, we seek a different connection to those greater horizons of reality: opening ourselves to them, letting them animate and inspire us, allowing them to speak through our life. We want them to be in the roots that nourish us, not (or not only) in front of our eyes.
This kind of philosophizing, which seeks to open in ourselves a clearing and to philo-sophize from it, is called CONTEMPLATIVE PHILO-SOPHY.
IN PHILO-SOPHICAL PRACTICE
Opening a clearing is crucial in the second stage of the philo-sophical process. As long as I am in the first stage of the process, when I analyze my Platonic cave, I can use ordinary reasoning and thinking. But in order to advance to the second stage and step out of this cave, a different attitude is necessary. It wouldn’t help me to think from my ordinary patterns, or to reason from my usual opinions and attitudes. As long as I philosophize from my perimeter, I will remain in my perimeter. No amount of smart reasoning or brilliant analyses will take me beyond my boundaries.
In the second stage of the process, therefore, we need to learn to philo-sophize from a clearing – which is to say to understand from a bigger reality, from beyond our little selves. But how do we open a clearing? And how can we help others do so?
To some extent, a clearing is like an unexpected “gift” given to us, which does not depend on our own efforts. It sometimes happens, for no apparent reason, that our inner being opens up to new understandings and plenitude. At those special moments we may become bigger than our normal selves. We may experience ourselves as part of a greater horizon of life and reality.
However, to some extent a clearing depends on us. First, it may depend on our attention. Clearings appear in us more often than we realize, but we are usually too busy to notice. Our usual patterns and conceptions are too powerful, and they quickly take over before we note that something significant happened. Even when we notice it, we often dismiss it as nothing but a pleasant mood. However, when we notice a clearing and cultivate it, then we experience a small miracle. It is as if the world appears from a new depth, from beyond the usual self. Philosophizing from this perspective is true philo-sophizing.
To some extent, then, having a clearing requires us to learn to pay attention and be aware. But furthermore, it is also the fruit of work, experience, and cultivation. By working on our state of mind we can gradually learn to develop an inner attitude that invites clearings. With experience we can gradually learn to push back our normal self and open a free space in ourselves. We can then learn how to be involved in the world, in our everyday work and errands, and at the same time to also be bigger than our busy self.
This is, then, a central task for the philo-sophical practitioner: To learn to notice and cultivate one’s clearings.
EXAMPLE
Linda organizes a philo-sophical weekend at a house in the country. On Friday evening the retreat starts with a long philosophical discussion about the self. A few theories are proposed, and the companions argue about them.
Daniel, one of the eleven participants, finds this boring. As a philosophy student he is good at arguing and analyzing. But recently he feels that the usual philosophical discussions are limited, and that they take him nowhere. He feels that they go in circles, always remaining in the same kind of thinking, in the same approach to ideas and life. He wants something new, but he doesn’t know what. In fact, this is why he decided to join Linda’s philo-sophical group.
The next morning Daniel wakes up early and takes a walk by himself. He climbs to the top of a hill and sits silently. Watching the landscape below him, he notices a deep inner stillness rising in him. His thoughts are silenced. The usual chatter of his mind disappears.
After a while, the topic of last night’s discussion floats into his mind. The ideas appear in his mind very clear, and he lets them unfold themselves. Surprisingly, he doesn’t feel the usual need to judge, to evaluate, to have an opinion, to take sides. He simply contains the different voices and lets them speak inside him.
Then, a new thought formulates itself in his mind: “Where am I in all these ideas? Which one of them is my opinion? Which one is me?” In some strange way he feels that silence is the best answer. Because, he realizes, he is not limited to one specific opinion. He is with all the ideas in the world, he is everywhere.
The experience takes only twenty minutes, but it continues to reverberate in him during the rest of the day. Linda notices that he is unusually quiet. “You are not saying much today, Daniel.”
Daniel tells her about his experience. “I felt,” he adds, “that my usual opinions and reactions were not relevant. In fact, I felt that I – my usual I – was not relevant.”
“This is a precious experience, Daniel. Thanks for sharing it with me. And what are you going to do with it?”
“What do you mean?”
“An experience is only an experience, Daniel. After a while it goes away and disappears. If you want it to be more than a memory, then keep it in your heart. Try to return to the inner openness that you experienced. Try to explore it and cultivate it. Try to see what it can teach you.”
“Is this what you call a clearing?”
“It is an EXPERIENCE OF a clearing. One kind of experience out of many others. You experienced it as an inner silence, but sometimes we experience a clearing differently: as a wave of inspiration, or as a feeling of compassion as if we are with the entire world. The important thing is not the feeling, but the openness, and what it can teach you. If it pushes back the usual patterns in you, the usual thinker, then it is a clearing.”
Two weeks later, when Daniel visits Linda, she asks him if he is able to re-experience the clearing.
“No, not completely. Only to some extent. Never as powerfully as it was at the retreat. But often I can bring back some of the openness. And when this happens, sometimes I have wonderful new understandings. But at other times I try and it doesn’t work at all, especially when I am tired or preoccupied.”
“Don’t worry about success and failure,” Linda says. “Clearings have a dynamics of their own. Don’t try to control them, or otherwise you will choke them with your ideas and patterns. Try inviting them without forcing them.”
EXERCISE
It is difficult to produce a clearing at will, but it is possible to invite it and get at least a taste of it. To do so, sit quietly in a quiet place. Choose a short unfamiliar passage from a book and read it slowly. The text should be one or two paragraphs that are condensed (without many repetitions or explanations), and that deal with a particular everyday idea (self, love, freedom, etc.). Classical philosophy or poetry texts are especially appropriate. Examples are passages from Marcus Aurelius, Nietzsche, Emerson, Rilke, etc.
Focus your mind on the text and read it very slowly – much more slowly than you usually read, resting a moment on each word. This would help eliminate the usual flow of automatic thoughts. Try to LISTEN to what the text says, as if you are listening to a friend. Don’t analyze, don’t impose your thoughts on the text – simply let it speak in you. If irrelevant thoughts enter your mind, don’t listen to them but don’t fight them either. Simply don’t pay attention to them and let them pass.
Success in this exercise depends on many factors. But if you succeed, after a few minutes you will experience a quiet openness, an openness of listening, free of the usual thoughts that normally try to analyze, grab, control, organize. New understandings might rise in your mind.
After you get a taste of this openness, try to see if it also appears at certain moments in your everyday life.
LESSON 11
CONTEMPLATIVE PHILO-SOPHY
In the philo-sophical process we seek to examine ourselves and go beyond ourselves, but our normal capacities are limited. So many fountains of wisdom and plenitude are available to us, but we rarely make ourselves available to them. We usually think and act from our perimeter, instead of sending our roots beyond ourselves.
The result is that when we examine our lives, we tend to do so from the narrow perspective of our perimeter – from our fixed patterns of conceptions. But our aim in philo-sophia is to understand life from a greater wisdom. We therefore need to overcome this limitation and understand ourselves from beyond ourselves. But how do we do open ourselves to this kind of understanding?
One way is through CONTEMPLATION. Contemplation is an inner attitude which we can practice as an exercise, or in everyday life. We contemplate when we open an inner space, or clearing, and “listen” for new understandings. More accurately, when we contemplate we attend to a specific thing – to an idea, to a text, to a past or present experience. We push back our normal patterns of thoughts and reactions, and let an understanding come into us and speak in us.
Since contemplation aims at understanding, it is a form of philosophy – contemplative philo-sophy. But unlike academic philosophy that seeks theoretical opinions, in contemplation we seek understandings that would animate us and inspire us. These understandings cannot always be formulated as a theory.
Contemplation is not the same as meditation. It does not necessarily mean that we sit in a Lotus posture and close our eyes and do breathing exercises. We can open a clearing in ourselves and let new understandings animate us even when we are at work, or on a bus, or in the middle of a conversation. Contemplation is an inner attitude.
IN PHILO-SOPHICAL PRACTICE
One of our central tasks in the philo-sophical process is to investigate the structure of our perimeter, or “Platonic cave.” In the first stage of our philo-sophical journey (see lessons 3-7), we do this by analyzing the main conceptions that make up our “cave,” and exposing the network of concepts (ideas) of which it is composed. For example, I may discover that a central theme in my world is a clash between freedom and obligation. Or, I may discover that my relationships with other people are based on the concept of a game – a sequence of moves, manipulations, strategies, winning and losing.
But in the second stage of the philo-sophical journey, it is time to investigate these conceptions from a wider perspective, from the perspective of broader fountains of insight and understanding. To do this I must go beyond myself, beyond the boundaries of my perimeter.
For this purpose I can contemplate on the conceptions that constitute my world, or on specific elements in them (concepts, assumptions, contradictions, etc.). I may, for example, contemplate on the concept of freedom, or the concept of the other person. I may contemplate on these concepts not only as they are seen inside my perimeter, but also in their broader range of meanings and implications. I can, for example, contemplate on Marcus Aurelius’ description of freedom, on Sartre’s discussion of the Other, or on a love poem. I may also contemplate on a relevant event that happened to me, or even on a specific feeling or reaction which I (or somebody else) recently displayed.
In contemplating on these topics I avoid formulating judgments and opinions. To the extent possible, I avoid taking sides, accepting theoretical assumptions, or identifying with specific approaches or perspectives. I do not judge which view is correct or incorrect, but open a space where every “voice” is welcome. I open myself to the broad horizons of meanings, to the rich symphony of “voices” of human reality, and let them speak in me. Consequently, I am no longer thinking ABOUT reality, but WITH it, from it, nurtured by it.
This is, then, the meaning of going beyond my perimeter: Not abolishing my perimeter, not modifying it to make it more comfortable, but rather opening an inner dimension of understanding which is not from my perimeter and is not limited by it.
EXAMPLE
Kurt is a very sociable person. But recently, in quiet reflective moments, he feels that despite his many friends, something is missing in his friendships. One day an astonishing thought crosses his mind: “The truth is, I am lonely.” This thought confuses him. How can he possibly be lonely with so many friends? Nevertheless, after a while he starts detecting a certain kind of thirst in his soul. He realizes that his intense social activity leaves him empty. Something is definitely missing.
Kurt speaks with the philo-sopher Linda, and the two discuss his relationships with his friends. Soon Kurt realizes that his way of relating to others does not allow intimacy and does not enable sharing personal feelings and thoughts. In fact, he treats his conversations with others as if they were a game: a competition of witticism and jokes, where each one tries to say the last word.
After several meeting with Linda, Kurt feels that the general scheme of his perimeter is more or less clear. He now has a map of his attitude to others, centered on the concept of game.
“So what do I do now?” he asks Linda. “These games I play are very bad. I wish I could stop them, but I don’t know how. They are so destructive, and childish too.”
“Wait, Kurt, don’t judge yourself so quickly. Let’s first try to understand what these games can teach you about yourself. Let me suggest an exercise you can practice during the next few days: Contemplate on your games. Forget your opinions, forget what you think is good or bad, just keep your games in your awareness. Just contemplate.”
“What do you mean by ‘contemplate’? Do you mean analyze?”
“No, don’t analyze. I am talking about something much simpler: simply keep your games in your mind. Let the idea of relationships-as-games float in your awareness. Let it be the way it is, and listen to what it says to you. Can you do this?”
“I can try. But what if my mind starts analyzing and judging? I can’t always control my thoughts.”
“Don’t worry about these thoughts. If they come, don’t pay attention to them.”
A week later Kurt meets Linda again. “A first,” he tells her, “nothing much happened. Every time I remembered the task you gave me, I brought my games to my mind. But usually my mind started analyzing and judging. This was frustrating, because I felt that my thoughts were repeating themselves again and again, and going nowhere. But several times things were different. I found myself looking at my relationships – no, I was not LOOKING AT but BEING WITH my relationships. This was a very special feeling. I felt I was allowing myself to be the person I am, and letting my relationship be what they are. And I could see them very clearly, what they are, what they mean.”
“What did you see?”
“It’s hard to describe. It’s like the difference between hearing about an animal and actually seeing it, playing with it, being with it. I could see how I play with my friends, how the game develops, how my thoughts respond to it, how it arouses certain feelings in me. I realized how my relationships could have been different from what they are. I could see that there are many kinds of relationships. Then, certain events came into my mind and I could see and understand them very clearly. It was like a symphony of insights. And whenever this happened, I was no longer stuck in my game. For a few moments I was bigger than my games.”
EXERCISE
Although contemplation is not the same as meditation, we can use meditative exercises in order to facilitate our contemplative attitude. Of course, an exercise is only an exercise. It is limited in time, and it is separated from everyday life. The goal of contemplative exercises is not to achieve wonderful experiences, but to broaden our attitude to life. The true test of a contemplative exercise is what happens afterwards: whether it can help us be contemplative later, in the street, at work, with our family.
Contemplative exercises usually consist of two elements: First, we use some meditative technique in order to quiet our mind, bring ourselves into a listening mode, and create a clearing. Second, we focus on some relevant topic – a text, an idea, or an experience - in order to invite understandings into our clearing. Meditation alone, without an attempt to understand, is not contemplation.
Here is one of many contemplative exercises you can do:
First, choose a concept that is central in your perimeter (e.g., “power,” “I should,” “I am at the center,” etc.). It helps to recall the way this concept is related to your everyday behaviors, emotions and thoughts.
Next, find a brief text, of two or three paragraphs, that is related to the concept you chose. The text need not express your opinions or attitudes.
Now, sit in a quiet place, in a comfortable position, and quiet your mind. To do so, you can do a meditation, such as the following one in which you imagine yourself going down from your nostrils, through your throat and stomach, to below your body. (This imagery will help you dissociate yourself from your usual patterns). Start by focusing your mind on your breath as it flows in and out of your nostrils. Don’t “look at” your nostrils but simply place yourself in them, rest in them. After three (or more) breaths move yourself (your awareness) down to the air movement in your mouth; after three more breaths to your throat, then your chest, then your stomach. (You can add more stations on the way.) From there continue further down to your hips (which normally reverberate with the breathing), and finally go further down to an imaginary point under your chair. At this point you are no longer in your usual place in your body (normally we feel as if we are located in our head and neck), you are no longer identified with your usual self. If thoughts or images enter your mind, simply ignore them and let them pass.
After about ten minutes, when you are “below” your usual self, start reading the text. Read it very slowly, word after word, much more slowly then usual. Let the words pass through you without trying to analyze them – in fact, without trying anything. Your attitude should be that of listening internally to what the text wants to tell you.
Now note a phrase in the text that attracts your attention. Stop and read it slowly again, then again several times. Pay attention to the understandings that might rise in you. Treat these understandings as if they come not from your usual self, but from hidden depths into you. Let them speak and do not interfere.
Finally, when you feel that the understandings have finished unfolding in you, try to summarize them very gently. Try, in other words, to consolidate them, if possible in a single sentence. After the sentence has been consolidated, write it down slowly and nicely on a piece of paper (in calligraphy, if you can).
LESSON 12
CONCLUSION: THE VISION OF PHILO-SOPHICAL PRACTICE
(Based on my lecture at the 9th International Conference of Philosophical Practice in Carloforte, Italy, July, 2008)
In the previous eleven lessons we saw that the philo-sophical journey can be seen as being made of two major stages: In the first stage we learn about the perimeter in which we are imprisoned. Then, in the second stage, we attempt to go beyond the perimeter by undergoing an inner transformation. But where does this process take us? What is our goal?
As I suggested in previous texts, the goal of the philo-sophical process is contained in the word “philo-sophia” – love of wisdom. And wisdom is not the same as knowledge or as smartness. Being wise does not simply mean having a certain cognitive capacity, but a broader way of relating to life. In wisdom we have a deeper understanding of reality not just in our thoughts, but in our emotions, behaviors, attitudes, and entire way of being. We participate in greater horizons of human reality beyond our limited perimeter. To put it differently, in wisdom we are nurtured by greater fountains of plenitude, and a greater reality moves us and speaks in us.
But what does this deeper understanding mean? Expressions such as “greater horizons of reality” or “fountains of plenitude” might be inspiring, but what exactly do they say?
To answer this question, let me suggest a metaphor from the field of developmental psychology: If we follow an infant as she develops through infancy to childhood to adulthood, we notice that her world gradually becomes more complex and rich with meanings. For example, what was at the age of 2 months a mere sound, at the age of 12 months becomes a meaningful word.
More specifically, at first the child’s world is focused on her immediate experiential qualities, her own concerns and perspective, her own self. But as time goes by and she develops, her world becomes de-centered. It opens to greater horizons, beyond the child’s specific perspective, interests, and direct experience.
For instance, a three-year old does not have the capacity to understand that another person may have a different perspective from her own. Thus, while talking on the phone, the child might point at her dog, expecting the listener at the other end of the line to see what she is pointing at. Or, she might tell a story that assumes that the listener is familiar with what she knows. Or, she might give her favorite toy to a crying child, without realizing that the other child would not be comforted by what comforts her. It is only at around the age of four that the child usually starts gaining the capacity to understand that there are other perspectives.
The de-centering process continues through additional stages, but the above example would be sufficient here. Several points are worth noting in this example.
First, the new de-centered understanding which the child gains is expressed not only in her thoughts, but also in new complex emotions and behaviors. Relating to another person’s perspective involves new kinds of expectations, hopes and fears, empathy, self-awareness, and communication styles.
Second, unlike a blind person who suddenly starts seeing, the new de-centered understanding does not involve seeing new things. The de-centered child does not see auras or souls. She sees precisely the same faces and gestures, but she now understands their broader meanings, and the broader realities which they involve.
Third, those who have not yet gained the higher-level understanding do not grasp what they fail to understand. Thus, imagine that we are a group of people who have never experienced the transition to a de-centered understanding. We can’t imagine that another person has another perspective, and we can’t even grasp the meaning of “perspective.” To be sure, inexplicable clashes and misunderstandings sometimes arise among us, but we take them for granted: “That’s the way life is.” One day a normal person joins us, one who grasps other people’s perspectives. She astonishes us with her capacity to relate to others. She seems very caring and understanding, sensitive and helpful, but we don’t understand how she manages to do it. Her capacity appears to us mystical. Some of us speculate about her special “energies” or magical powers. But the fact is that she simply understands aspects of the world that lay in front of our eyes.
Fourth, and most importantly, the transition to a higher-level understanding requires a new mental apparatus, a new mind-set. In order to gain the capacity to understand other people’s perspectives it would not help to think harder. A 3-year-old child may be very intelligent, and yet his intelligence would not give him a de-centered understanding - unless he gains the new mental mind-set. Conversely, even stupid children undergo the transition to a de-centered understanding. In short, understanding other people’s perspectives is not simply a natural result of smart thinking. We can expand the horizons of our understanding only after we acquire an appropriate mental apparatus. We can “see” a new dimension of reality only when we acquire a new kind of “eyes.”
I suggest that the process of gaining a de-centered understanding is analogous to the process of gaining wisdom. Wisdom, as I have said many times, means transcending our self-centered perimeter. This metaphor helps us understand what this means.
When we gain more wisdom, we come to realize new dimensions of reality. We participate in greater horizon of meanings – or to put it differently, we become attuned to a greater range of “voices” of reality. They are already in front of our eyes – the wise person does not see mysterious energies or auras. But just as the 4-years-old can appreciate more dimensions of reality than the 2-year-old, a wise person can appreciate an entire symphony of “voices” of reality, while ordinary people can hear only the voice of their own perimeter.
In order to gain this capacity, it is not enough to look harder at the world. We also need to gain new “eyes” – new understanding capacities, and for this purpose we need to transform ourselves and our mental stance.
This is, then, our aim in doing philo-sophical practice: a fuller appreciation of reality. Our reality is much greater than we usually think. We are greater than ourselves, greater than our perimeter. We are normally attuned only to our narrow perimeter, but by opening ourselves we can take part in greater horizons, and be attuned to a broader range of voices of human reality.
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