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.
