International Journal of Philosophical Practice

Parrhesia first appeared in Greek literature in the fifth century BC. Essentially, parrhesia refers to being granted the liberty to speak freely and openly without being deemed insubordinate to someone of greater authority and could otherwise lead to punishment or death. Parrhesia allows one to speak truth to power, essentially benefiting the one in power who lacks insight into the truth of a situation. In his book, Filosoferen met kinderen op de basisschool: een complexe activiteit, Berrie Heesen describes how doing philosophy with children is a form of parrhesia in that it encourages children to speak freely and openly. Parrhesia changes the adult/child relationship. Taken seriously by adults as full-fledged human beings creates a space for children to take themselves seriously while also being held responsible for what they think and feel. By giving reasons for their thoughts and feelings, and listening to those of their peers, children not only become critical listeners of others but also of themselves. They learn that what they think and feel matters – that they matter in the eyes of others and themselves, raising their self-esteem as well. In the process, children also develop their own touchstones of reality. Moreover, (self-) scrutiny is essential to feeling whole and grounded in who we are, giving us a sense of purpose and direction.

In this essay I discuss my early career as a failed philosophical practitioner when the field of philosophical counseling was still in its infancy. I describe setting up a private practice and discuss various details from my field notes with regards to some of the earliest clients I received. I further depict experimenting with philosophical group therapy in an inpatient psychiatric unit of a general hospital, which by all objective standards turned out to be a disaster. Musings on how philosophy may be successfully applied in the consulting room is considered through a phenomenological-existential approach to therapy.

Logic-Based Therapy (LBT), a modality of Philosophical Counselling, believes that humans suffer because of their faulty thinking patterns. It suggests antidotal reasoning and uplifting philosophies that help counselees refute these thinking patterns and adopt a healthier way of life. This paper investigates the possibility of using the influential ideologies found in Naruto (a Japanese manga and anime) in the framework of LBT, as suitable uplifting philosophies. The anime has been interpreted through the lens of Conversational Model Therapy, Japanese values, violence studies, etc.; there is an unavailability of research on its connection with philosophical counselling. This paper aims to fill the gap by reviewing literature on concepts in counselling, LBT, and philosophical counseling. It also attempts at providing behavioral exercises for the readers to implement in their own life.

This paper offers a genealogy of the ancient predecessors of Logic-Based Therapy (LBT). While LBT has an apparent affinity with Stoicism, I argue that LBT has a tripartite foundation in Socratic Rational Inquiry, Platonic philosophical psychology, and Aristotelean ethics. Secondly, I argue that LBT could help a client attain self-knowledge and “moral proprioception.” Given that LBT involves an examination of one’s belief system(s) and a recognition of the subconscious faulty premises, it may implement a new, more adaptive understanding. By targeting self-defeating habits of interpreting the world, LBT can give clients a new self-understanding that enables them to interact with others and avoid unfortunate life choices and ways of interacting with significant others. I offer a hypothetical case from fiction pointing to the way LBT could transform the character’s life. LBT may enrich other therapeutic modalities, such as psychoanalysis or psychiatry, but it achieves different goals.

This paper presents a dialogue between a psychotherapist (MSW, LCSW) whom we will call Lilly (the name of the client has been redacted for publication), and Ross Channing Reed, Ph.D., a philosopher and philosophical counselor. Lilly begins by asking Ross a series of questions regarding philosophical counseling and his approach to working with her. Ross discusses his philosophy and approach to philosophical counseling, what it is like to provide counseling for a therapist, and the educational nature of philosophical counseling. Topics addressed include the nature of unarticulated trauma, the repetition compulsion, moral evil, the narrative construction of a human life, the potentially debilitating effects of moralizing about feelings, the importance of humor, spirituality and philosophy, embodiment, the arts, and Alice Miller’s concept of the “Enlightened Witness.” Next, Ross asks Lilly a series of questions relating to her personal and professional journey prior to and during philosophical counseling. Lilly reveals that she spent significant time in therapy with a psychologist prior to philosophical counseling. She discusses why she sought counseling from a philosopher, how philosophical counseling has been beneficial in her personal and professional lives, and how philosophical counseling has been different from other forms of counseling.

Being a relatively new practice started by Gerd Achenbach no more than 40 years ago, the methods and techniques implied in philosophical counseling, as well as the qualities a philosophical counsellor should possess are still up for debate. The theme of the current paper revolves around the traits of the philosophical counselor, starting from Roger Paden’s statement that the three characteristics identified by Carl Rogers as being essential for a counsellor are also suitable when it comes to philosophical counsellors as well, with the mention that the approach should nonetheless be modified when it comes to unconditional positive regard, as he believes it to be incompatible with the nature of philosophical counselling. Our thesis is that the two are not incompatible and that, at least in the case of alienation, the philosophical counsellor should also grant the client unconditional positive regard. In support of our thesis, we will bring Rogers’ own ideas, Ran Lahav’s view of philosophical counselling as creating a link between philosophical discourse and everyday life, as well as the perspectives developed in the area of community philosophy.

This article explores the potential utility of the theory of Holism as developed by South African philosopher, British Commonwealth statesman and military leader, Jan Smuts, for philosophical counselling or practice. Central to the philosophical counseling process is philosophical counsellors or practitioners applying the work of philosophers to inspire, educate and guide their counselees in dealing with life problems. For example, Logic-Based Therapy (LBT), a method of philosophical counselling developed by Elliot Cohen, provides a rational framework for confronting problems of living, where the counselor helps the counselee find an uplifting philosophy that promotes a guiding virtue that acts as an antidote to unrealistic and often self-defeating conclusions derived from irrational premises. We present the argument that Holism is one such uplifting philosophy which can be of utility to philosophical counselors or practitioners to help their counselees with confronting problems of living. Furthermore, we argue that Smuts’ articulation of freedom can act as a guiding virtue within this uplifting philosophy of Holism in accordance with the methodology of LBT. Smuts’ contribution to philosophy and psychology is arguably inadequately credited, and for this reason, and to the best of our knowledge, Smuts’ theory of Holism has yet to be discussed in the context of philosophical counseling or practice. Given these omissions, we begin this article with a discussion of his influence on 20th Century Anglo-American psychology. We then provide a brief historical context, and an introduction to the central argument of Smuts’ Holism, as well as a brief overview of the origins of Smut’s Holism and an introduction to his book Holism and Evolution. In the remainder of the article, we discuss several foundational concepts that underlie Smuts’ theory of Holism, as articulated and developed in his book Holism and Evolution, to substantiate our arguments. We conclude by highlighting the limitations of our article, limitations to Smuts’ model, and the challenges inherent in the use of a now largely antiquated theory, even by Smuts’ own admission nineteen years after its publication, for the purposes of contextualizing and substantiating the arguments and recommendations presented herein.

The article addresses a common difficulty of counselors in confronting clients with the problems in their thinking and behavior in a way that they could start benefiting from a constructive self-reflective state in the long run, a state that would replace the common tendency to hide oneself, to blame, to victimize or to repress aspects of their humanity connoted as negative in order to maintain a positive self image. The highlight is on the main characteristics of efficient confrontations with oneself and others, so as to engender reasoning competence training without an unnecessary loss in the quality of the consultative relationship. Working in psychotherapy and having progressively integrated more philosophical work into this professional practice, the author puts together a few concepts and ideas that are likely to facilitate the processes in the psychotherapeutic and the philosophical approaches to intrapsychic and interpersonal dialogue.

Till date most people still believe that compute grows exponentially in accordance with Moore’s law, meaning that computational capacity doubles approximately every 18 months. This, however, does not hold for Machine Learning. Since 2012, the computational capacity of Machine Learning has doubled every 3.4 months.1 Given this incredible growth rate we need to start considering whether Artificial Intelligence through the practice of Machine Learning will be able to automate the philosophical counseling profession. I will begin by giving an overview of AI and of GPT3 the AI model used in the experiments run for this paper. Next, I will define a job description for the philosophical counselor. Using GPT3 I will reveal that a surprising number of activities that are performed by philosophical counselors already fall under the purview of AI. I will also dedicate a segment to reflecting on the limits of the AIs capabilities and how with a bit of fine tuning some of these limitations can be overcome. Finally, I will present those limitations which I doubt that the current version of GPT3 can overcome.

Contemporary research offers a more compelling account on the complex emotion of envy than the traditional view of envy as simply something bad. This essay explains how Logic-Based Therapy can use this account to coach individuals struggling with negative species of envy. Given that jealousy and envy are often equated, the essay differentiates the two; explains the conditions that make the four species of envy possible; identifies cardinal fallacies associated with negative species of envy; proposes counteractive virtues, and describes ways to help people struggling with negative species of envy acquire these virtues.

Social media is known to be one of the finest achievements of the 21st century. However, it is no surprise that there are two sides to every coin. While there are a lot of advantages of social media in our day-to-day life it is difficult to ignore its negative consequences. As the interactions between people have increased so have the standards and expectations of people and undoubtedly, so has the mental distress that people constantly face. Multiple researches conducted on the negative impacts of social media indicate towards the downside of social media, especially it's negative footprint on people's identities, social life, mental health and emotional well-being. Although there are various modalities that have been used to identify and solve the problems that people experience with social media, there are other modalities of counseling that have the potential to be effective and helpful but have not been explored in this regard. One such modality is Logic-Based Therapy. Logic-Based Therapy and Consultation is a philosophy-based practice that aims to help identify the different emotional and behavioral ways in which people upset themselves by their own faulty thinking. LBT identifies a number of fallacies or incorrect reasonings that people use very frequently in their lives and also suggests ways in which individuals can learn to cope with these fallacies. A lot of the fallacies identified by LBT can be seen in practice through social media. This paper aims at providing an insight into the reality of social media and online presence while highlighting the most common fallacies that people commit in emotional and behavioral reasoning as identified by LBT. The paper will also explore how and why people often commit these fallacies and suggest some antidotes to combat these fallacies.