What is philosophical practice?
Philosophical practice is a term encompassing three main areas of philosophical activity: client counselling, group facilitation and organizational or business consultation. The term “philosophical practice” was developed in an attempt to describe the proactive application of philosophical insights, techniques and methods to a variety of life’s problems. It is hoped that such an approach, embracing a long tradition of some of the world’s greatest thinkers, can contribute to the resolution, dissipation and management of difficulties that arise in everyday life. Philosophical practitioners distinguish themselves from purely academic philosophers. The latter often work in isolation in academic institutions, engaged in abstract theorizing on opaque problems that, while interesting in themselves, have little or no application to world.
Philosophical consultants assist organizations in developing codes of ethics for the practice of business and help to bring philosophical clarity to the structure, foundation and telos of the company. Philosophical facilitators often work with groups for the purposes of philosophical exploration on a particular theme of philosophical interest. Philosophical counsellors engage in a one-to-one dialogue with individual clients, or interlocutors, about problems that can be framed philosophically. Such a frame includes issues of meaning, purpose, fulfilment, value, belief, religion, morality, ethics, existential crises, conflicts of interest, interpersonal relations, and any topic that requires logical clarity or is amenable to philosophical reflection. In antiquity, the time of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, philosophy was not a discipline divorced from life, but was an activity intended to discover the nature of the ‘good life’, the 'real', and 'authentic being'. Philosophical counsellors assist the client to engage in a similar pursuit. Philosophical counselling does not replace psychiatry or psychology, but rather, complements them as a profession of personal counsel.
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