COMMENTS
Chris,
What a wonderful discussion we started yesterday. I’m so impressed by the repertoire of sources you’ve shared with us, and how much thought you’ve put into it (and very much in the right direction, I think). So many sources and so little time. And so many topics as well, which adds to the pressure.
I’m wondering if there might not be a way to avert some of this overwhelm. I may be missing the main thread you want to be pursuing, but for my money, the important point is the agency of self-knowledge. Unless we’re oriented towards that, the rest is intriguing but abstract side-discussion, isn’t it? But from within that specific problematic, had it been more clearly the centerpiece, wouldn’t the reticence surrounding language incommensurability fade away, since almost everyone in the group (I would bet) already has at least a minimal sense of what “self-knowledge” drives at? From there, don’t the neo-pragmatic points from Nussbaum et al have an almost seamless fit? We’d have to be convinced that emotions can be cognitive, of course. But we never got to that, really. Everyone was too bewitched by the language games. And if we try to bring sense to that technical discussion, which I think you were valiantly trying to do, we’ve already turned the topic down into an alley.
Perhaps I’m entirely off the mark here, and if so please tell me. Or maybe you’ve already planned to bring all these things in later, and I’m just jumping the gun. Maybe I’m bewitched by my own impatience. :>)… Actually, I should have said “the neo-STOIC points from Nussbaum.” All this is still very much a new (and very welcome) perspective for me! David Seiple
Dear David, I am so grateful to you for your comments. I will definitely go in the direction you mention…Definitely, agency and self-knowledge with numerous aspects around will be the priority….thank you so much for being with us and giving us your precious remarks…Chris Skowronski
Watching the recording of the third meeting on therapeutic philosophy in relation to Stoic pragmatism suggests to me that any therapeutic philosophy, and Stoic pragmatism as well, approaches philosophy as a philosophy for life or a philosophy of life. They seek to offer solutions to the large or small problems that any person may face throughout their life. They do not attempt to address the essential questions of metaphysics or epistemology, but rather narrow their focus to life and the many problems it presents, and this is truly comforting for those who know that the great philosophical questions have no answers. On the other hand, starting from the Socratic maxim that challenges us to know ourselves, I believe that this demand takes as its starting point an existentialist approach to life, according to which life is absurd, comes from nothing, and is meaningless. However, at the same time, it is capable of overcoming this existentialist vision when human beings are able to consider a life project with specific objectives, as proposed by Stoic pragmatism. Therefore, “know thyself” links existentialism with Stoic pragmatism, but is capable of overcoming existentialism to place human beings within the sphere of a meaningful life, which is one of the primary objectives of Stoic pragmatism. Carlos Climent Duran
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