Therapeutics of Philosophy

Upon learning of a friend or a family member suffering a physical ailment, we inquire of the sufferer whether a medical doctor has been consulted, and if the answer is no, our natural and habitual response is to recommend that he or she do so, as soon as convenient. If we learn that the individual suffers an emotional disturbance, we may suggest consulting a psychologist or a psychiatrist, if we are persuaded that these professions offer diagnoses and remedies for an ailing psyche analogous to what the medical doctor offers for an afflicted body. And if the disturbance seems spiritual in origin, then one might urge consultation with a religious leader of some sort. Rarely in the present age, in an encounter with an absence of health, does one think to offer that the advice and the guidance of a philosopher might be desirable and beneficial.
There are philosophers who position themselves as offering therapeutic philosophy, and of course there is an association for the promotion of their services, but for the vast majority of the populace, consideration of consultation with a philosopher in times of trouble is almost unknown. Part of the explanation may be that philosophy is now largely classified as a profession, and hence when one thinks of philosophers one tends to think of philosophy professors, and irrespective of the excellences and the abilities of any particular philosophy professor, when the pressing concern is alleviation of mental or physical suffering, scarcely ever does a philosophy professor come first to mind.
Yes it is true, unfortunately, that philosophy has – substantially so, anyway – retreated to the redoubt of the academy, yet are all those who teach philosophy themselves philosophers, and are all those who are not academics not philosophers? Hardly so. One need only think of just a few of the greatest of philosophers to grasp the inessentiality of academic residency to philosophic excellence. Socrates, Spinoza, Hume, to name but three, were not academicians, and the proverbial wise old woman (or man) of the village, sought out and esteemed for her wisdom, offering her pearls for the benefit of others - is she wholly undeserving of the appellation philosopher?
Much of philosophy today does seem far removed from the everyday concerns of most people, as almost all ‘professional’ philosophy today consists of papers written for consumption by other professors, these papers published within the pages of numerous professional journals, and many of these papers require considerable specialized knowledge on the part of the reader for meaningful comprehension of what is being offered. Yet those who came to speak with or listen to Socrates were largely concerned with matters relating to a good life, such as what is justice and what is honor, and how one might discern virtue. Marcus Aurelius, a Roman emperor and a man of extraordinary character, found consolation in Stoic philosophy. Indeed, the once wealthy and powerful Boethius, a Roman Senator, having lost the favor of Theodoric the Great and finding himself in 523 imprisoned and divested of all worldly rewards, wrote The Consolation of Philosophy, in which he instructs us, through an imaginary conversation with a personified Philosophy, on the transitory nature of wealth and fame, and the potential endurance, despite of the loss of all else, of virtue, should we so desire its continuance. Hence Boethius, having descended from the heights of privilege and power to the depths of ignominy and deprivation, desires us to be instructed of the immeasurably greater worth of the life of the mind over earthly emoluments. In this work we learn, as others before Boethius had revealed, that happiness is the summum bonum, for happiness, as his personified Philosophy proclaims, is a good that “once obtained leaves nothing more to be desired.” Philosophy tells Boethius that some men equate the highest good with an absence of wants, and hence pursue wealth, while other believe that being worthy of respect is the true good, and therefore seek positions that garner respect from fellow citizens, but that most people believe that pleasure is the source of greatest happiness. Yet even should we attain these states and revel in the rewards, how quickly they can be lost, and how insufficient many who are fortune enough to acquire them, once in possession of them, may deem them to be. As Philosophy states, “wealth cannot extinguish insatiable greed, nor has power ever made him master of himself whom vicious lusts kept bound in indissoluble fetters; dignity conferred on the wicked not only fails to make them worthy, but contrarily reveals and displays their unworthiness.”
For Boethius, philosophy offers wise counsel indeed, for his personified Philosophy is described as “a woman of countenance exceedingly venerable. Her eyes were bright as fire, and of a more than human keenness; her complexion was lively, her vigour showed no trace of enfeeblement; and yet her years were right full, and she plainly seemed not of our age and time.” Clearly this is a woman whose words were worth heeding, and whose person is worthy of deepest respect. We can little doubt Boethius’s meaning when he offers that “Her garments were of an imperishable fabric, wrought with the finest threads and of the most delicate workmanship.” Interestingly, he goes on to write that in respect to her garments “her own lips afterwards assured me, she has herself woven with her own hands.” Boethius informs us that upon her first appearing to him, at that moment so distraught and engulfed in weeping was he that he at first discerned not who was this woman of “authority so commanding,” and that in response to his sorrowful state, she instructed him that the time “calls rather for healing than for lamentation.” Philosophy offers healing. Indeed, Boethius’s personified Philosophy identifies herself as a healer, admonishing him that “If thou lookest for the physician’s help, thou must needs disclose thy wound.”
Of course even if we appreciate the insufficiencies of wealth, fame, and influence, such knowledge does not dissuade us, necessarily, from desiring and actively pursuing these earthly prizes, for indeed the wealthy and the influential have access to the good things in life denied to the masses, and to name but a few, these include the freedom to live where one wishes, to purchase what luxuries one desires, and not least of all, the ability to secure the best advantages for offspring. What philosophy does teach us is what Epictetus, born a slave, warned: “Whoever then would be free, let him wish nothing, let him decline nothing, which depends on others; else he must necessarily be a slave.” All worldly goods, possessions, and positions depend, to lesser or greater degrees, on others. What does not depend on others is our virtue.
Philosophy, then, has very much served as an essential source of comfort, consolation, and instruction, and certainly the ancients did not consider it inappropriate to judge philosophy as analogous to medical science, and hence judge a philosopher as analogous to a doctor endeavoring to cure diseases of the body, with the philosopher seeking to cure afflictions of the mind or of the soul. As Chrysippus, the great Stoic philosopher, wrote, “It is not true that there exists an art called medicine concerned with the diseased body, but no corresponding art concerned with the diseased soul. Nor is it true that the latter is inferior to the former, in its theoretical grasp and therapeutic treatment of individual cases” (Galen, 129-c. 200 CE).
How might philosophy ‘cure’, or at least alleviate, in any sense? Well, the tools of philosophy are reasoning and arguments, and sound reasoning employed to develop can be instrumental in regaining health. Philosophy can do so by revealing our errors in judgment, and by demonstrating how our beliefs may be unsupported or even opposed to truth. The mind, therefore, can be diseased by errors in judgment and by false beliefs, and philosophy can be the source and the means to a return to health. Indeed, for centuries, philosophy was less concerned with recondite disputations between academics and more concerned with offering guidance on a life well lived. As Epicurus, the ancient Greek philosopher and founder of Epicureanism, declared, “Empty is that philosopher’s argument by which no human suffering is therapeutically treated. For just as there is no use in a medical art that does not cast out the sickness of bodies, so too there is no use in philosophy, unless it casts out the suffering of the soul” (translation in Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire, pg. 102).
What Epicurus and many other ancient Greek philosophers understood is that philosophy’s highest purpose and greatest use is found in its capacity to provide illumination of and guidance on the best life one can live. As Socrates so famously opined, in Plato’s Apology, the best life is a life of examination, and philosophy is the means by which we investigate just what is a life well lived, and how it is attained. The great emperor Marcus Aurelius and the former slave Epicurus were both exemplars of Stoic philosophy, and thus the indisputable truth: philosophy cares nothing for wealth, or position, or power, and whether one is rich or poor, young or old, a public figure or scarcely known to anyone, philosophy consoles, instructs, and illuminates, and for these rich offerings she requires no other remuneration save attention and a willingness to question one’s entrenched beliefs, and a willingness to identify and to challenge one’s unexamined assumptions. With such a bargain accessible to every purse, from empty to overflowing, all desirous of a life well lived should seek philosophy’s wise counsel.