You're presuming a sort of duel life where a person has goals that are not up for philosophical scrutiny (presumably making money) and this daily activity has no philosophical content or meaning, and then a sort of philosophy moonlighting happens in spare time, which can include, among other things, analysis of the "normal life" as essentially a separate object.

Of course, nothing prevents someone living that way, but I hope simply describing it reveals a potential line of critique.

I do not earn my living from philosophy and philosophizing in the literal sense. Unless, of course, you consider my regular work as a lawyer as philosophizing, when I use epistemology, rhetoric, axiology and ethics as an everyday applied tool.

In this sense, philosophy serves me very well.

But my question is more about everyday life: choosing a product in a store, interacting with my wife, raising children, talking at the table with friends. In my case, in everyday life I have to "step on my throat", keep quiet, not get into arguments, otherwise all attention instantly switches to such an argument, and my wife has no choice but to eventually agree with my views in everyday matters (but I do not want to suppress her). This is where this topic arose. How do you combine philosophy and everyday life in your case?

Exactly as I say: a duel life of earning money during the day in service to assumed and unexamined objectives, and then philosophy as a pass time activity.

The alternative view is that what is of critical philosophical importance is exactly that regular activity that is taken for granted. Not so that philosophy, however you define it, can serve that activity and make it more efficient, but rather asking the question of are those regular purposes justified to begin with.

If you're "earning a living" as you say somehow apart from philosophy, well presumably there is some sort of reason for doing it. If it's because that's "just what people do" (get educated, get a job, "live" in a normal sense for the society you are in) ... well does that constitute justification?

The reason philosophy is presented as a hobby or discipline like any other (which are defined precisely as serving a well defined objective assumed by the practitioners) is to maintain a sort of firewall between the tools of critical analysis, radically different points of view, as well as just pure madness, from affecting "normal life", for fear that critical scrutiny will lead to decisions, or the feeling that a decision should be made, which one disagrees with in the present (i.e. fear of a future self that is wiser, more learned, but unpredictable and therefore crazy).

However, there is of course no justification for maintaining such a firewall. If things can be placed under critical scrutiny, so too can the normal life that gave rise to such critical thinking capacity in the first place.

Naturally, by definition, the self before realizing such a critical capacity does not desire any scrutiny, if only due to having no familiarity with it.

Therefore, it is a very tense endeavour to really think about things including what exactly it is that you are doing.

I admit honestly. Often I deliberately reject any rational knowledge and make a decision simply on the basis of what I want (without explaining the reasons) without relieving myself of responsibility for such a decision. In the end, I am just a person. I believe that it is very important to allow myself this.

As to the quotidian situation with your wife.

Assuming your ordinary habits are just (I do not say above they are unjust, only that it is the critical philosophical question to find out):

It is generally of little use to argue with someone who does not want to argue.

I very rarely argue with anyone outside some practical need in dealing with bureaucrats, as most people interpret arguing as conflict, which is not the point of philosophical analysis. Hence I argue here with people who presumably also want to argue.

and my wife has no choice but to eventually agree with my views in everyday matters (but I do not want to suppress her). — Astorre

But if argue you must, why exactly does your wife have no choice but to accept your views?

If it is only because you are more practiced at arguing, then I would suggest a practical approach of not requiring your wife to accept your views but to bring your views to people who are able to scrutinize them, such as there are many on this forum.

Most people do not engage in analysis and view things intuitively.

Arguments can have subtle flaws that people may intuit there is something wrong with but cannot articulate, therefore to press the matter they "have no choice but to agree", but of course they don't feel good about that and are not convinced if they feel there is something wrong. They feel suppressed, as you say, more than having learned something.

To articulate what one intuits requires many years of intense study, to subject those articulations to critical scrutiny requires even more learning and practice.

Does philosophical thinking change your approach to relationships, friendships, and love? If so, how? — Astorre

I’ve never paid much attention to philosophy, but I do find it interesting. I navigate most of life by intuition, rarely reflecting or theorizing and this works pretty well. I’m at ease with being, to a significant degree, an expression of the values of my time.

​Ethics in Action: How do you personally resolve ethical contradictions that arise in your everyday life? — Astorre

I lean toward relativism. I see morality as contingent, a code of conduct shaped by history and culture that pragmatically helps organize people and power relations. I can't think of a time I faced an ethical contradiction. I mostly just act. No doubt I sometimes make mistakes and poor choices, but I'm not losing sleep over it.

​Coping with Life's Challenges: Does your knowledge of philosophy help you deal with life's difficulties, losses, or existential anxiety? — Astorre

I take things as they come and expect nothing. I've generally found negotiating life and other people to be fairly pleasant and straight forward. But I recognize that I have been lucky. If existential anxiety is understood as a fear of death or a festering over meaning in the face of life’s absurdity, I am largely untouched by this. I am at peace with the possibility of dying tomorrow, should it occur.

​Balancing Depth and Superficiality: How do you find a balance between your philosophical mindset and the superficiality you encounter in others? — Astorre

It’s often me who’s the superficial one. I do tend to avoid theorists and people who insist on turning every conversation into a showcase of their reading. They are often dull and tend to narcissism. That said I find most people interesting and enjoy almost any kind of free flowing conversation. I don't divide the world of other people into the superficial and the profound, I'm more concerned with people who treat others respectfully.

I admit honestly. Often I deliberately reject any rational knowledge and make a decision simply on the basis of what I want (without explaining the reasons) without relieving myself of responsibility for such a decision. In the end, I am just a person. I believe that it is very important to allow myself this. — Astorre

Exactly what I'm getting at. "Philosophizing" I would say is exactly this process of starting to formulate justifications for things one had no need of before, and as soon as that process starts there's no putting the genie back in the bottle.

Now that you've formulated this philosophical foundation for acting on whim some or most of the time, the critical question is does this philosophy withstand critical scrutiny.

Once you do one critical scrutiny pass, perhaps you rectify or develop one aspect or another as well as encounter literature for and against the position, which results in a new iteration of the philosophy and the same question of whether this new version too can withstand critical scrutiny. If it has already been augmented or adjusted on first viewing, then it certainly stands to reason that further critical scrutiny will result in more adjustments.

After many years of this what "philosophy is" may become more apparent, in that pretty much any position at all results in a never ending series of insights, counter-arguments, rebuttals and so on.

However, the exercise is only interesting if it manifests in changes to "everyday life" to both reflect "actually believing it" when a view changes as well as testing philosophical conclusions in practice to see how it goes.

I’m at ease with being, to a significant degree, an expression of the values of my time. — Tom Storm

Have you ever felt the urge to take stock of your own paradigm?

I mostly just act. — Tom Storm

Thought experiment: You walk into a room where a stranger is about to commit suicide. What do you do?

there's no putting the genie back in the bottle. — boethius

:lol: :rofl: :up:

Thought experiment: You walk into a room where a stranger is about to commit suicide. What do you do? — Astorre

It happens a lot. Or did. I work in psychosocial services which assists people who are experiencing mental ill health and addiction (amongst other things). I have provided suicide interventions many times.

Why do I work in this area? I tend to value approaches which minimise suffering and promote flourishing. Part of me is a simple-minded utilitarian.

Have you ever felt the urge to take stock of your own paradigm? — Astorre

I don’t have a deliberate paradigm; I have more of a disposition. I’m unsure what I think about many issues and tend to just intuit my way through them. I’m open to many alternative approaches. I'm quite happy with 'I don't know' as an answer. I'd like to know more about phenomenology - but I lack time and find it hard to get a useful reading from complicated texts.

I tend to value approaches which minimise suffering and promote flourishing. — Tom Storm

It would be difficult for me to assess in your place what exactly is minimizing suffering: letting someone commit suicide or letting someone live :grin:

It would be difficult for me to assess in your place what exactly is minimizing suffering: letting someone commit suicide or letting someone live :grin: — Astorre

The default position is that it is better to live. But there are situations where death might be preferable; terminal illness being an obvious example. Generally, people are quite relieved not to have completed their self-harm. They often recognize that their desperation was situational and could be overcome. People who are extremely serious about suicide don't generally tell others and just go do it.

My initial interest in philosophy was linked to my interest in and belief in meditation and 'higher awareness'. I came of age in a period where there was popular interest in these ideas which were circulating in 60's culture. I had this idea that an insight could be attained which revealed something very deep and meaningful about life, which most people didn't understand or see. My role models and sources were popular teachers like Krishnamurti and Alan Watts, with his books on Vedanta and Zen Buddhism.

So in that sense, right from the outset, I linked philosophy with the idea of spiritual awareness which implies a qualitative change in your way of being. Of course, though, I was to learn that it was much easier said than done - something that was to become clear in the years ahead.

Regardless, that was the mindset that I took to my rather late entry to university, where I studied philosophy, anthropology and comparative religion among other subjects. My aim was to discern how this idea of enlightenment (in the Asian rather than European sense) had been framed in various cultures and philosophies.

This culminated in an epiphany which of course is very hard to convey in words. But it had definite effects on my personality and way of being. Not that I 'became enlightened', which I was to learn is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but an awareness of a kind of compassionate energy that is at the centre of existence. That has always stayed with me at least to some extent, although often overgrown with weeds, to refer to the Biblical parable. But one (sometimes embarrasing) consequence that stayed with me, was the tendency to begin to shed a tear when considering something important or profound, even in the most quotidian of circumstances. I felt like the quinessential 'new age guy', except I learned that the 'gift of tears' really is a thing.

So - did I find much of this in philosophy? Not as an academic subject. As I attended an Anglo university, the curriculum was, on the one hand, 'Oxbridge' (Cambridge and Oxford) and on the other, cultural marxism (the Department was controversially split between them during that period). A philosophy lecturer in the Oxbridge department counselled me that I wouldn't find what I sought in his deparment, and I majored in comparative religion (important to understand this is *not* 'Divinity' or 'Biblical Studies'.)

At the time, the nearest thing I could find in Western culture to the enlightenment I was seeking was via the Gnostics. There had been a revival of interest in the subject, due to the discovery of the Nag Hammadi codex, a set of ancient scrolls that had been discovered in the desert by a shepherd (a suitably Gnostic re-introduction to the world!) Also the perennial philosophical texts of East and West. They contain these kinds of veins of authentic wisdom, often interspersed with historical sediments and base rock.

So, as to whether this has all had consequences in daily life - yes, as outlined above. That has stayed with me. But also 'no' in that I came to the realisation that I was not capable of the kind of sagacious wisdom and detachment that those I had learned about exhibited. I was still very much, in Japanese Buddhist terminology, 'bombu: a foolish ordinary person inherently ignorant, deluded, and flawed by their passions and karmic shortcomings'.

Nevertheless I should point out to you one important philosophical scholar, whom I discovered later in my search. That is Pierre Hadot. He is well-known for books such as Philosophy as a Way of Life. Also I am now subscribed to a number of podcasts and substacks, very much concerned with practical philosophy, often Stoic in orientation. There's a big audience for this material in the apocalyptic times we live in.

So, yes, overall, philosophy in one form or another has become very much part of day-to-day life. That's what it must be about, to be meaningful.

How did you manage to connect all this with the people around you? Did they start listening to your wisdom, or on the contrary, moving away from you? Or did you manage to separate philosophy and interaction with others? Or surround yourself with people like you?

It was just life, at the time. As I said, in the 1960's there was much more of this in the air, so to speak - part of popular culture. I didn't really try to proselytize what I was seeking to understand, although I would try and convey what I thought was important about it.

Indeed. When I was young, in the 1980's, there was a sequel to this via the New Age movement which had good and bad aspects to it. It's where I first read Alan Watts. I was very interested in the theosophical movement and history and spent a lot of time around devotees of Gurdjieff, Joseph Campbell, Krishnamurti, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, and others. If you find a clique, there's no shortage of conversation and information swapping. I think counterculture or working to get 'behind appearances' is a very seductive area of interest.

At the time, the nearest thing I could find in Western culture to the enlightenment I was seeking was via the Gnostics. — Wayfarer

Did you pursue this line very much? There was a significant Gnostic/Jung/Campbell nexus in the 1980's.

Did you pursue this line very much? — Tom Storm

I contemplated it as a possible thesis subject, but in the end, I went with the American Transcendentalists (Emerson and Richard Bucke).

How do you personally resolve ethical contradictions that arise in your everyday life? — Astorre

"Ethical contradictions" have yet to "arise" in (my) everyday life. However, when faced with a dilemma / tradeoff, I try to discern (mostly by habit) the lesser harmful alternative and choose that one.

Does your knowledge of philosophy help you deal with life's difficulties, losses, or existential anxiety?

No.
​

How do you find a balance between your philosophical mindset and the superficiality you encounter in others?

I try to regard them as persons – Others in Levinas' sense (or I-You's as per Buber) aka "ends-in-themselves" / "fellow sufferers" – before I judge that they are "superficial" (or anything else).

Does philosophical thinking change your approach to relationships, friendships, and love? If so, how?

Only in so far as it makes my "approach" more reflective and much less instrumental.

I can sum up my 'lived philosophy' in a very simple way.

"Expect the worst, Hope for the best"

I adopted this mindset around about the time I turned 30 and it has served me extremely well. It is a recognition of our innate optimistic biases alongside our attraction to negativity. When things do not go distasterously wrong I am pleased, but this does involve having to create rather horrific scenarios sometimes.

Think of it something like this when you wake up in the morning:

"I am not strapped to my bed with a torturer about to go to work on me for the next 24 hours. Life is GREAT! I am so lucky."

The hope for the best part is just leaning into dreaming about the impossible coming into fruitition -- then by sheer chance it might just happen! Something taken from Crowley where he says the biggest mistake any individual can make is to set achievable goals.

Everything else for me is something like the belief in creating the best version of myself I can as being the most sensible path forwards.

It is interesting to observe how each of those who spoke, possessing extensive knowledge in the field of philosophy and a long history of philosophizing, nevertheless in everyday life remains a simple person, with ordinary views, with simple desires and good intentions. Perhaps philosophy teaches us this?

It’s a worthy aspiration although one I haven’t necessarily mastered.

To the extent philosophy "teaches" us anything about everyday life, it is that it serves to distracts us from it.

... a simple person, with ordinary views, with simple desires and good intentions. Perhaps philosophy teaches us this? — Astorre

Yes – e.g. Epicurus and/or Spinoza.

I'm interested in hearing about your experience with applying philosophy to your daily life. — Astorre

First comes daily life, then comes philosophy.

First [and last] comes daily life, then comes philosophy. — T Clark

:fire:

No. — 180 Proof

:rofl:

That was funny and true.

Coping with Life's Challenges: Does your knowledge of philosophy help you deal with life's difficulties, losses, or existential anxiety?

​Balancing Depth and Superficiality: How do you find a balance between your philosophical mindset and the superficiality you encounter in others?

Does philosophical thinking change your approach to relationships, friendships, and love? If so, how? — Astorre

I think life difficulties are much more defined or informed by one's temperament more than what some intelligent person said back in the day.

You can gain perspective and even insight in philosophy, but I don't think it will change the way you face problems, not unlike thinking that studying psychology will let you read other people's minds (it won't).

But if you are interested in the questions and the discussions, then there is plenty of benefit in that. Your conclusions may differ from mine.

And if not, that's fine too.

I think life difficulties are much more defined or informed by one's temperament more than what some intelligent person said back in the day. — Manuel

Well said. A perspective people tend not to consider as they seem to attribute everything to learning and discernment.

You can gain perspective and even insight in philosophy, but I don't think it will change the way you face problems, not unlike thinking that studying psychology will let you read other people's minds (it won't). — Manuel

That's worth thinking about.

I briefly studied philosophy at university. My tutor once said something like, no one he had ever met was truly changed by philosophy; it only served to elaborate their preconceptions and biases.

I keep wondering if there are transformational understandings about time and self and being and truth and reality that would open up and utterly change one. Surely that's the promise of thinkers like Nietzsche and Heidegger...

I am curious what you think about this?

my interest in academic philosophy began with a visit to the Kant Museum in Kaliningrad (Königsberg) about 5 years ago. Although Kant was part of the curriculum back in university, to my shame I couldn't remember what he wrote about when I was in the museum, and thanks to the interactive whiteboard installed there I was hooked by what he wrote about.

Although psychology promised to teach what a person thinks on every corner (and this turned out to be exaggerated), studying Kant promised to teach how a person cognizes. Since then, I began to greedily absorb Kant, then Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Le Bon, and finally Heidegger, while studying academic sciences such as epistemology, axiology, rhetoric, ethics, where the ideas of different philosophers were presented in the form of a system.

What did this give me? First of all, the ability to evaluate judgments: for me it became easy to distinguish speculation from assertion, check them, separate them from emotions. This also affected my persuasion skills. The I-State relationship changed significantly: my ideas about the actions of the state acquired structure and clarity, which allowed me to predict the behavior of the state or the development of international relations with greater accuracy (as time has shown).

The skill of separating emotions from events, manipulation from facts, propaganda from events.

From the point of view of my own life: right now I am writing a paper on ontology, with my own approach to the I-others relationship, my own development, life and death, being and nothingness, time and space.

All this allows me to more accurately understand what I want, what I want from life, from work, from others, from raising my children, to understand why I make this choice and not another.

New difficulties arose because you begin to see a little wider. But along with this came the skill of letting go: allowing something to be as it is.

In relations with loved ones, it became easier for me to calm their existential anxieties, to help them cope with depression. But, as I wrote above, I had to step on my throat more often in communication. Otherwise, I feel like I'm suppressing them.

I think philosophy did not become the author of my portrait, but it added subtlety and detail to this portrait

There are lots of teens that pretend to be radicalized by Nietzche, most of the time it looks to be a fad. Heidegger often attracts a certain kind of person but ask them to articulate what it is and the meaning is very obscure.

Novels do similar things too. Not that it's impossible to have someone change the way you view things, it just looks to be very rare.