In June of 2018 I participated in the 15th International Conference of Philosophical Practice, which took place in Mexico City. More than 150 philosophers from many countries were there, but unlike them, I am not a philosopher. I am an anthropologist. What does an anthropologist do in a philosophy conference?
No matter if we study a group of hunters-gatherers in the Amazonian jungle or a group of university professors, cultural anthropologists ask questions about what people do and why they do it. Why are their actions and practices designed in certain ways? What intentions and meanings animate them? That kind of questions drove me to the conference.
The opening panel of the conference was festive, with representatives of UNAM, the hosting university, David Sumiacher and Paulina Ramirez the conference organizers, and Gerd Achenbach. Achenbach gave a keynote speech, in which he presented Socrates as the model of Philosophical Practice. He argued that Socrates’ impact was not so much because of the things he said or his logical tricks, but because of who he was. Through his personality and ethical integrity, Socrates directed people to face seriously the issues that had ultimate importance to them.
Following the lecture, in the questioning period, Oscar Brenifier questioned Achenbach’s view of Socrates. He argued strongly that Achenbach’s account of Socrates was distorted in a way that “creates a problem for philosophical practice.” He insisted that in fact Socrates’ main point was developing “the plasticity of mind.”
David Sumiacher, the organizer, tried to stop Brenifier, but he insisted: “David… you’ve promised we’ll have a dialogue, that we’ll not be going to be held up by dogmatic interpretations.”
Finally it was Achenbach who resolved the tension, saying that everyone has his own Socrates, and he only wanted to show his own version of what is good for people. The dark cloud passed away and the participants went for philosophical walks in the picturesque university surroundings.
But as the conference continued, it became clear that this first argument was rather symptomatic of the international community of philosophical practitioners.
The conference lasted 5 days, presenting a broad spectrum of issues: From children education to prisoners’ rehabilitation, from business counseling to spiritual growth, from analytic skills for the military to dialogues with psychiatric patients. The range of activities of philosophical practice seemed almost unlimited.
Participants’ methodologies could be classified into tree main groups. First, most of the participants practiced various kinds of philosophical counseling (personal, couple, group and organizational). The two other, minority groups included contemplative-transformational approaches for personal growth, and applying critical thinking in different environments. Despite being in the minority, those last two groups were the most visible at the conference. They gave the largest number of workshops compared with any other single approach, and their leaders took part in every main panel of the conference. These two approaches were presented in a dichotomous fashion, as sharply contradicting each other, and their proponents criticized each other, as well as other possible forms of philosophical practice. This dichotomous view gave rise to bitter arguments, critiques and feelings of rivalry in an otherwise warm and friendly atmosphere created by the hosts.
But it seems that most of the participants were neither surprised nor disturbed by these oppositions. Since philosophical argumentation is one of the fundamentals of the discipline, the practitioners were quite content to disagree on almost anything.
Thus, there was a general disagreement on the definition and aims of philosophical practice. Some participants argued that it can be used to help people with personal problems (like illness or marital issues), while others called for treating social maladies (like social alienation or violence). Some argued that philosophical practice is not a way of dealing with personal problems but rather a path for spiritual growth, and that it does not necessarily involve rational thinking. Others disagreed and stressed the importance of rational thinking as an efficient tool in the modern world.
The professionalization of philosophical practice was another area of debate. Some practitioners argued that it is important to set universal standards and rules for the discipline, which would define its common ground and boundaries, and would explain the kind of training needed to become a professional philosophical practitioner. The voices supporting professionalization sounded much weaker than those of its opponents, which claimed that professionalization would kill the free spirit of philosophy, and would turn it from a way of life to a profession or even business.
It seemed that the spirit of disagreement rested on all. It started with Socrates, and on it went with other participants announcing “their own Socrates,” for example Leon de Haas who argued that “my Socrates is a political Socrates who intervenes in what is supposed to be truth in public spaces. For Socrates, political truth is a social construct.” For other participants, even this multi-faced Socrates was not necessarily the great father of practical philosophy, but rather Plato or the Stoics or Eastern masters of Zen and Tao.
As pointed out by Ran Lahav, despite constantly talking about dialogue, different approaches were not in dialogue with each other. Leon De Haas even suggested that practitioners aren’t interested in approaches other than their own. To this Lou Marinoff answered: “Ten different pianists will play the same piece in ten different ways and will emphasize different aspects.” Others tended to accept this metaphor, and the consensus on disagreeing went on.
The disagreement extended even to the issue of who founded the field: Was it actually Gerd Achenbach who started the movement in Germany in 1982? Or rather Pierre Grimes who began his personal practice in the USA earlier? (Both Achenbach and Grimes received acknowledgement awards from this year’s ICPP). But philosophical practice had started earlier. Leon de Haas had been practicing it since 1976 (after the concept of Althusser). It can even be dated to 1922, when Leonard Nelson presented his Socratic Dialogue method and later opened an Academy to teach and develop it. His method, later revised in various ways, still has its followers in the Western world, although its members and philosophical practitioners rarely think of themselves as sharing any similarity. Or maybe we should rather place the beginning in 1994, when Ran Lahav and Lou Marinoff organized the first ICPP in Canada and turned it into an international movement?
It appears that so far, the international field of philosophical practice is resisting formalization, and its participants agree only on calling it “a movement,” with no chairman and no official hierarchy. They tend to view it as a loosely organized professional community which meets every two years, and in between engages in various kinds of international cooperation (like editorial publishing, organizing retreats or giving lectures and seminars). It seems that the ICPP is a rhizome-like activity that springs every two years and then withdraws, leaving behind a handful of academic articles, a few new ideas, or a proposal for cooperation on a project.
But philosophical practice includes not just international conferences – there are also many local groups and associations around the world, in countries such as Italy, Germany, Norway, Mexico, South Korea, etc. The divided portrait of the ICPP in no way mirrors the local national or regional associations. These are usually organized formally and hierarchically, and they operate according to defined rules in line with shared aims and values. Some of them are associated with a university, in the form of a post-graduate program of philosophical counseling, and they follow academic guidelines. These groups and associations engage in actual practice rather than arguing about it.
In contrast, the international community of philosophical practitioners gave me a very different impression. Imagine an applied field of knowledge like medicine, applied physics or education. Imagine that it doesn’t have a common definition of virtually anything, from theory to methodology, from basic scientific standards to ethical guidelines. It is not easy to imagine how such a field could function, but this was the kind of picture that emerged in the recent conference.
So why is there such a discrepancy between the local and international levels? Why are conflicts so widespread and so willingly accepted on the international level? Is this due to the consensus that exists in local organizations? And why do philosophical practitioners keep coming to the international conferences? What forces keep them together as a movement? Can it be a quest for a community of disagreement?