Online Conference
on Philosophical Practice
(July 28-31, 2020)
Philosophical practice for self-knowledge by means of intellectual
creativity
July 30, WORKSHOP
MIKE ROTH
Philosophize ! Presenting an interactive - eBook
‘“And what is
the use of a book”, thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?”’ This
question rounds off the first paragraph of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,
and it is, at least for Alice, a rhetorical question. Judging from his
writings, Plato seems to believe, just like Alice, that a good book, even a
philosophy book, should have both pictures and conversations; although in his
case the pictures are conjured up in words and the reader has to imagine them
himself. Conversation is ubiquitous in Plato’s writings, which take the form of
philosophical dialogues between both real and fictional characters. Once in a
while the conversation is interrupted, and then the pictures appear. One of the
characters puts the conversation on hold and tells his audience a myth. The
myths are visual – ‘iconic’ one might say. They not only narrate a story, but
paint before our mind’s eye vivid images ... (CATALIN
PARTENIE, Preface, PLATO`S MYTHS)
Philosophers, if they
live long enough, may change their minds on what it is to do these peculiar
>things with words< (but probably not with words alone).
I reckon that most
philosophical practitioners see that widening already in “present” life &
not only in a possible life after the death of the body. Am I wrong?
I pause for discussion
I am wishing all of us
GOOD HEALTH in this time of corona! In
Plato´s PHAIDON we read that Socrates immediately before he had to drink the
cup of poison[2]
-had expressed the
astonishing view that a (philosopher´s) soul will think best when liberated
from the body 65c. This is the last topic in his philosophy. Even if one
doesn´t agree: the point is to philosophize
to the very end[3]. And in this activity lies the philosophical
consolation.
In a narrative philosophy[4] book that came out this spring, Michael Hampe draws
our attention to a figure of thought in KANT that has a certain similarity to
the last thought of SOCRATES. In Hampe´s words[5]:
=> an infinite and
supernatural process of perfection
must be conceivable for every human being, at the end of which there is the
correspondence of heart and law, authenticity"…, "only an infinitely
continued moral improvement of the soul in a realm beyond space, time and
causality could guarantee the purity of
the heart according to Kant" (188f). This is Kant's reasoning for the
postulate of the immortality of the soul (in the age of enlightenment). Is that
a modern variation of the bodiless-best-thinking-soul of Socrates in PHAIDON?
Why do I elaborate this
point? If we would be together, shoulder by shoulder here on our feet, I´d
propose to do a PhiloDrama, bringing together the sketched questions of a
contemporary thinker (HAMPE, whom we deal with in our SinnPraxis reading
group), the father of “Aufklärung” KANT, and our timeless philosophical
practitioner SOCRATES. But we are just virtually here together … So this is
only anticipating what will be a main topic later on.
Now turning to our INTERACTIVE READER for the ICPP:
ALEXANDRA
BULATOVIĆ phrases the "key matter" of philosophical practice
like this: Philosophy is concerned with trying to make sense of ourselves and
of the world we live in. However, contemporary academic philosophy is often
still too removed from the everyday concerns of ordinary people. She elaborates her central point by drawing
on literature such as the works of Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen. Subjective well-being is a starting point.
The author argues that well-being requires one to have a sense of relatedness
to other people, a sense of availability of supportive relationships and
dynamic connections with others. The ability to impact society is an integral
part of well-being too.
Philosophical practice is
a form of putting philosophy to work for well-being and personal development,
which, in turn, leads to increased satisfaction with life.
On a social level, the
various modalities of philosophical practice highlight its potential for social
intervention. It appears that philosophical practice is the natural
complementary "twin" of the capabilities concept when both are
perceived in the context of the practical concern of the achievement of
well-being, whether on an individual or on a social level.
Time for “discussion”. My mike is on. You may write
contributions. My “technical support” will read them and this way I can answer.
REGINA PENNER teaches
Philosophy at a modern university and she tries to incorporate "methods
from the practice ‘care of the self’ (Michel Foucault and Pierre Hadot)".
I have met Regina in a contemplative philosophical retreat and we have
cooperated (on the occasion of a PHILOSOPHY DAY organized 2018 in Chelyabinsk
Research University on the topic of PhiloDrama. Regina is advocating changes in
the role "of the professor" so that academic philosophy institutions
are beginning to practice openness for formats of philosophical practice as
well. One of her central issues is that
the work of students with a philosophical text is not a search for
"right" answers to posed questions; the goal is the appearance of the
student's interest in philosophy/philosophizing and a gradual formation of a
“philosophical taste” in the students.
Developing taste
Time for “discussion”. My mike is on. You may write
contributions. My “technical support” will read them and this way I can answer.
ALMOST CONVERSATION
Doing Philosophy Together –the Zürich philosophical practitioner Willi Fillinger
interviewed Christine Mok-Wendt & Mike Roth in his philosophy baking shop and
Ran Lahav did a video of it for AGORA[6]. The three of us speak German in the video and the
interactive READER now offers a translation into English. We are members of
philopraxis.ch, a network of philosophical practitioners.
Break for “discussion”. My mike is on. You may write
contributions. My “technical support” will read them and this way I can answer.
Seeing and Interpretation Neil Horne, Mike Roth
NEIL HORNE was a student
activist at the Department
of General Philosophy,
when I was a Visiting
Lecturer at the
University of SYDNEY a while ago.
Now he lives in a rain
forest remnant close to the
Northern coast of New
South Wales (in Australia).
We have been teaching
each other and enjoying
our company ever since.
Neil is also drawing.
Wittgenstein's famous
DUCK-RABBIT (HasenEnte / En-
tenHase, "H-E-Kopf" = D-R-head) is a loner in the
tenHase, "H-E-Kopf" = D-R-head) is a loner in the
Original – by both
Wittgenstein and Jastrow (Mind´s Eye) and also in the trendy version of
the-philosophers-shirt, where the head has become a line drawing of a whole body,
scientisticly framed by a vertical and a horizontal arrow = look this way &
see a rabbit / look that way and see a duck! Puzzled?
What changes when the dialogical dimension of action
is opened up in the image by switching from the singular to the plural?
Neil practices the
"minimalist"-format of
a repeated figure in
slight variations on a painted
ground — often birds or
fish, snakes, leaves, blossoms,
nuts. Neil places a
number of them, here "in
relation to one another …
being in social interaction"
— Anything to learn from
this for a drawing performance in philosophical practice? Do we understand a
bit of Ludwig Wittgenstein´s philosophizing better now? Can we criticize better?
And a break for “discussion”. My mike is on. You may write
contributions. My “technical support” will read them and this way I can answer.
The READER brings a short
notice concerning a Philo RITUAL under the direction of ALBERT HOFMANN. It´s
about philosophical questions and philosophical answers — dealt with in a
ritualized procedure. (Although the setting is playful, the people playing
along were surprisingly serious!) This event took place in a Seminar at the
University of KONSTANZ on different formats of Philosophical Practice 2019.[8]
Albert Hofmann does also
performances on the street. In 2014 he and his company used finger dolls of
famous philosophers and engaged in philosophical impro-theatre at the
Langenthal Philosophy Festival.[9]
PENNER, ROTH &
Christine MOK-WENDT throw a few spotlights on the format PhiloDrama[10]
proposed for philosophical practice and educational purposes. I have met Regina
Penner in a contemplative philosophical retreat and we have cooperated on the
occasion of a
PHILOSOPHY DAY organized
2018 in Chelyabinsk Research University.
Christine and Mike are
running "SinnPraxis" in Southern Germany. Key figures (stars?) of three
documented PhiloDramas are Socrates, an old Swedish Forest being
chipped and GRETA.
The photograph shows the
beginning, when I pose as SOCRATES (inspired by Jacques-Louis DAVID´s famous
classicist painting of 1787) More
about it in discussion.
Acting as Greta documents a PhiloDrama done at the end of the week of
a university seminar on Philosophical Practice 2019. Konstanz University has a
special unit that can be asked to do video-recordings of “talks and events”.
ANNA volunteered to act as GRETA, Mike invented the figure of an old
philosopher talking to Anna-Greta, and Christine took the role of the
interviewing journalist. (Carmen Zavala commented our endeavor)
One kept almost silent about
what is necessary to say: "The house is on fire!" Greta had stopped
talking – .but after a period of
silence, and after a period of fasting, she also began to speak again. And she
does so publicly (and was listened to – at least in the time before corona).
GRETA the youngster from Sweden — has been brought to my attention by an interview in the New Yorker in autumn 2018, for details see A FEW SPOTLIGHTS above. Together with Christine Mok-Wendt and the first year student Anna Th. Schreiber it was possible to try a GRETA-PhiloDrama in February 2019 as part of an undergrad seminar on Philosophical Practice ("from Nelson / Heckmann & later on Gerd Achenbach to the ICPPs"). See the transcript translated into English (of our German video) on page 106 of this e-book “Philosophize !”.
Good to have time for answering written questions!
[1] See Ran Lahav (ed.), THE DEEP
PHILOSOPHY GROUP, Hardwick VERMONT 2018 and last summer´s free paraphrase in my
mother tongue (www.amazon.de/TIEFENPHILOSOPHIE … ) 2019, p. 16: PHILOSOPHIEREN, wenn wir
dies angemessen tun, kann offen machen für einen weiteren Horizont des Lebens.
[2]
J.L. DAVID 1787 (Paris), now: Metropolitan Museum of Art N.Y., 1,30 x 1,96 m Oil Painting on Canvas
[3]Roth
in
[4]DIE
WILDNIS, DIE SEELE, DAS NICHTS. Über das wirkliche Leben, München 2020
(THE WILDERNESS, THE SOUL, NOTHING. About Real Life)
(THE WILDERNESS, THE SOUL, NOTHING. About Real Life)
[5]
es müsse “ein unendlicher und übernatürlicher Vervollkommnungsprozess für jeden
Menschen denkbar sein, an dessen Ende die Übereinstimmung von Herz und Gesetz,
die Authentizität steht“. (188)
[6]
With English subtitles: https://philopractice.org/web/mike-roth-and-christine-mok-wendt Topics are the work in the University and the philosophical practice in our “SinnPraxis” (Meaning Practice), philosophical bibliotherapy, consulting in a self-help organization (family seminars,) philosophical journeys, p4c, reading groups, café philo. Thank you Ran Lahav and Carmen Zavala!
With English subtitles: https://philopractice.org/web/mike-roth-and-christine-mok-wendt Topics are the work in the University and the philosophical practice in our “SinnPraxis” (Meaning Practice), philosophical bibliotherapy, consulting in a self-help organization (family seminars,) philosophical journeys, p4c, reading groups, café philo. Thank you Ran Lahav and Carmen Zavala!
[7] Duck family, Grand Union Canal,
Leamington;
Author:
Rob Hodgkins; Source/license: flickr.com;
My
inserting of the "D-R head" from Jastrow 1901, 295.
[8]
See also Roth/Hein 2019, 168.
[9]
Cf. Staude/Ruschmann 2018, 62.
[10] See htpps://www.facebook.com/hashtag/philodrama
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