Concept
Philosophical counseling
Overview
Philosophical consultancy, also sometimes called philosophical practice or philosophical counseling or clinical philosophy, is a contemporary movement in practical philosophy. Developing since the 1980s as a profession but since the 1950s as a practice, practitioners of philosophical counseling ordinarily have a doctorate or minimally a master's degree in philosophy and offer their philosophical counseling or consultation services to clients who look for a philosophical understanding of their lives, social problems, or even mental problems. In the last case, philosophical counseling might be in lieu of, or in conjunction with, psychotherapy. The movement has often been said to be rooted in the Socratic tradition, which viewed philosophy as a search for the Good and the good life. A life without philosophy was not worth living for Socrates. This led to the philosophy of Stoicism, for example, resulting in Stoic therapy.
Philosophical practice has continued to expand and is attractive as an alternative to counselling and psychotherapy for those who prefer to avoid a medicalization of life problems. Numerous philosophical consultants have emerged and there is a strong international interest and a bi-annual international conference.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
Sec. X. Next our freeborn lad ought to go in for a course of what is called general knowledge, but a smattering of this will be sufficient, a taste as it were (for perfect knowledge of all subjects would be impossible); but he must seriously cultivate philosophy. I borrow an illustration to show my meaning: it is well to sail round many cities, but advantageous to live in the best.
Plutarch, Plutarch's Morals
States what Philosophical counseling is.
Modern philosophic thought has been so preoccupied with these puzzles of epistemology and the disputes between realist and idealist, between phenomenalist and absolutist, that many students are at a loss to know what would be left for philosophy if there were removed both the metaphysical task of distinguishing between the noumenal and phenomenal worlds and the epistemological task of telling how a separate subject…
John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy
Close in meaning to Philosophical counseling; the term itself is not named.
By the educative arts philosophy may generate methods of utilizing the energies of human beings in accord with serious and thoughtful conceptions of life. Education is the laboratory in which philosophic distinctions become concrete and are tested. It is suggestive that European philosophy originated (among the Athenians) under the direct pressure of educational questions. The earlier history of philosophy…
John Dewey, Democracy and Education
States what Philosophical counseling is.
Related ideas
- Philosophy
- Eudaimonia
- Stoicism
- Freedom of speech
- Psychology
- Albert Ellis
- Psychotherapy
- Socrates
- Michel Weber
- The New York Times
- Form of the Good
- Dialectic
- Practical philosophy
- Rational emotive behavior therapy
- Psychopathology
- City College of New York
- Gerd B. Achenbach
Place in the tradition
Part of Existentialism.