Self reliance not counseling – A contemporary perspective on practicalphilosophy and its relationship with the individual
- Gérald Rochelle
- 10 juil. 2024
- 53 min de lecture
Gérald Rochelle
has worked as a visiting philosopher in schools for the Royal Institute
of Philosophy, was editor of the journal Practical Philosophy and previous chair of the Society for Philosophy in Practice. He has conducted workshops on practical philosophy in Europe and in the US. His desire to have others involved in philosophizing led him to him to write a simple down to earth guide—Doing Philosophy.
Gérald Rochelle a travaillé en tant que professeur invité aux écoles de l'Institut royal de la philosophie. Il a été rédacteur de la revue de Philosophie Pratique et ancien président de la Société de philosophie pratique. Il a organisé des ateliers sur la philosophie pratique en Europe et aux États-Unis. Il a rédigé un ouvrage fondamentalsur la philosophie pratique: Doing Philosophy.
Introduction
Still in 2014 we have to ask what practical philosophy is and who is the practical
philosopher? There is no doubt that practical philosophy is a global enterprise that
has established itself as a way of using philosophy to investigate human problems
applied to the individual 1 1. And on the face of it this would seem to open the door to
what could be a great breadth of enterprise in the true philosophically investigative
tradition. But this has not happened. Under the influence of the contemporary
neoliberal culture the practical philosopher has been largely led astray by the idea
that investigating human problems means following the analytic model of
counselling laid down by post-Freudian/post-Jungian psychoanalysts. The result
has been that under the spell of bringing rational technique to the aid of those
perplexed or confused, the practical philosopher in the guise of counsellor proffers
the thoughts of philosophers mostly gone by as some form of given truth; and this
can so easily become aphorisms of sages for the clinically depressed—Plato not
Prozac 2 . Plato not Prozac, a sound principle, and a revolutionary statement that
injected great force into the modern movement of practical philosophy—Philosophy
not Therapy, but a principle quickly hijacked by the therapeutic method to which it
sought to be an alternative; the step-change in practical philosophy brought about a
tendency to philosophical practice and that has not been practising a method of
1 The International Conferences on Philosophical Practice (ICPP) is the largest organised
event for philosophical practitioners. The 13th conference is planned for 15–18 August 2014 in
Belgrade, Serbia.
2 Plato not Prozac sets out the stall for this type of approach that has in part led to a
proliferation in the training and approval of practitioners. L. Marinoff, Plato not Prozac, New
York, Harper Collins, 1999.
philosophising but instead the organisation of practitioners—philosophical therapists
So, as the Sophist was reviled for selling techniques for winning arguments, so also
modern practical philosophers should be condemned if they simply help plot some
sort of life-coaching course for their couch bound clients.
The true path of practical philosophy should more properly be a metaphysically
based system of examination and enlightenment. It is my belief that contemporary
practical philosophy has invested too much time in training philosophical
counsellors who it then empowers with the authority to earn money from their clients.
This process gives scant or no attention to the enlightening role of metaphysics as a
foundation for the individual’s route to living a good life. I contend that there is
nothing of truth or virtue, and so nothing of philosophical worth, in helping
someone succeed in, for example, a job interview, and any such endeavour should
not be sold as anything truly philosophical.
A practical philosophy for living can be passed on, intoned, inferred, or implied
by action but it cannot be abstracted from the psychological depths by some
counselling technique employed by the psychoanalytically influenced listener in the
quiet room, tissue box at the ready. Practical philosophy is an informing practice; it
can be known and done—it is not necessarily ever a revelation of inner knowledge to
the individual but more a revelation of real truth to the real self. Without some
investigation into the nature of real truth no revelation can be trusted—to be is to be
known. As its name implies practical philosophy is philosophical practice and only
with basic knowledge can the practice can get underway. How philosophical
practice affects the individual will be a matter of personal discovery, but the basis
upon which those affects occur can, with the employment of fitting practical
philosophy, be at least well founded, sound and appropriate. There is no meaningful
description of practical philosophy that defines it as a therapeutic relationship
between trained counsellor and needy client involving the exchange of money.
Practical philosophy should be shared not sold.
Drawing upon metaphysical concepts practical philosophy can enable self
improvement by examination of appropriate human concerns: action based upon an
understanding of change and meaning can lead the individual to recognition of how life
can be most valuably approached. Practical philosophy should not be seen as a
method of making a living but as an involvement in a real world of self
understanding and revealed truth. I have previously discussed how practical
philosophy can benefit from a revealed metaphysical grounding and how such
grounding is a necessary ethical foundation for anything philosophically practical. 3
Here I provide a description of the areas that are most importance to the task of
living, together with ideas on how they can be meaningfully tackled; I judge this
approach eminently practical and properly philosophical.
1. Changing myself
If our lives are not purposeful and rewarding, then our lives are pointless. We are
not, unfortunately, so readily favoured with these essential attributes. In the normal
run of things, if health and inclination allow, in order to attain a purposeful and
rewarding life we need to explore who we are, and expose to ourselves, and
possibly to others, the features of our individuality. This is the creative
3 G. Rochelle, “Practical Metaphysics: dealing with the lie of modern Practical Philosophy”,
HASER, 2 (2011), pp.95-114.
engagement with the world that is exclusively ours. Purpose in our lives is contained
in a sequence: change (in myself), meaning (in my life), freedom (to choose, to
change, to love), action (to open up to possibilities), how we should act. 4 Change in
myself is the basis; we cannot approach the subsequent sequence, in any way,
without this initial openness to the various directions of our lives in the future. 5
It is commonly believed that oil lies beneath the ground in reservoirs—large lakes
lying on the floors of vast underground caverns. Under this impression, we imagine
the drill breaking through the ceiling of the cavern, descending, entering the black
sea and drawing up the contents to the surface. We picture the oil running towards the
light, gushing explosively into the brightness of the surface world. So too, we think of
discovering our true self, or elements of it. Subconscious problems, we judge, lie
within us like encapsulated reservoirs—a childhood experience, a hint of disgust, a
wish unfulfilled and corrupted, or a fear embedded and disguised. Such problems, we
infer, wait to be found, to be cracked open and released. We imagine that giving
them freedom will open our life to a fresh brightness of knowledge, as if release itself
holds the key to change and freedom. It is the same for our conscious problems.
Should we act this way? Is this action in good faith? Is there a moral conflict? We
convince ourselves—perhaps mirroring the consumer trading pattern of neoliberalism
that currently dominates the Western world—that in exchange for the effort of bringing
our problems to the surface, and by seeing them in the light, truth will be our reward.
In this way, we can conveniently cure our latent ills, un-confuse our confusions, give
integrity to our actions, somehow go forward better prepared, cleansed, changed,
enhanced and strengthened.
Sadly, our understanding of geology, if we make the reservoir assumption, is wrong.
Oil only rarely its in reservoirs. Usually it is bonded within the solid rock,
impregnating seemingly boundless masses of sandstone or limestone, buried in the
pressurized subterranean darkness of the earth; where it is, the earth is thick with it,
making denser the already dense, filling up the pores of the deepest strata. Oil is a
permeating blackness filling the already black—as Nigel Smalls says, “None
Blacker”. 6 It is the same with the psychopathology that stalks us, the worries that
inhabit us, and the dilemmas that strain to pull us apart; such features, known and
unknown, are integral to our very being—bonded into us, filling us, making more
dense the already crammed. When it comes to the earth, or the complexity of our
own inner darkness, we can rightly exclaim, “Lady, it’s rock all the way down!” 7
Change in ourselves is not explosive, it does not gush to the surface, and
although we may have moments of revelation, these are more likely pinnacles in
4 What I call Non-Utilitarian (NU-) philosophical counselling, the thinking act of practical
philosophy with another, can usefully utilize these elements and the sequence of which
they form part. NU- philosophical counselling is my term for philosophical counselling that
rejects much of the neoliberal trade basis of conventional professional/client relationships.
It is thinking companionship involving another in the clarity gained from the act of doing
purposeful thinking. In this way, it is a union, an act of love, a gift, and its accomplishment a
testament to our humanity. The activity of NU-philosophical counselling provides a moment
or two of being, a glimpse or two of reality
5 G. Rochelle, “‘Dare to be Wise’: ‘Exchanging the Word’—a new philosophical practice”,
Practical Philosophy, 9:2 (2008), pp.21-44.
6 Nigel Smalls in R. Reiner, This is Spinal Tap, Spinal Tap Productions, 1984.
7 J. Hospers, An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, 4th edn, London, Routledge, 1997, p.59.
the underlying fabric of self-knowledge. Neither do we locate, identify, and remove our
problems as if we were chipping samples from barely exposed strata. Instead, if we
are to become rewarded by individual purpose, we must come to understand the
nature of our own geology; we must come to be acquainted with where the oil lies,
come to accept what we are, and come to accept that the only thing which is
important is our own sense of meaning and how this leads us to act. This does not
mean that we do not examine ourselves, far from it, self-examination is crucial, but we
do not look for reservoirs that we can drain. Instead, we look beyond ourselves at
how we can change, not so much in ourselves but how as individuals we can go
forward in our own creative world of future. We should not expect to purchase
change by trading away our discovered ills. It simply is not like that. If I had a bad
experience when I was four, I will always have had that bad experience when I was
four. That experience has, in one way or another, contributed to what I am, and
nothing can change that. Moreover, I should not want it changed. We are not a shelf
upon which we can assemble only the goods we want. What I can do though, is
change how I am now, change how I act from now on, change how I accommodate
what I am, and change myself into the future which is mine and mine alone.
2. Meaning
2.1 Is there any meaning at all?
Life itself may be meaningless, it may serve no purpose beyond the purposes which it
finds for itself in survival and procreation—there is no way of telling. However, life
almost certainly includes consciousness—we seem to know that we are conscious.
Even if we hold back from Cartesian certainty of a mental existence separate from
our bodies, even if we caste ourselves as little more than a Humean bundle of
perceptions, we still think in some way that we are. What we seem to be conscious
of may be mistaken—it may be a false impression either in part or whole—but
there is a high probability that consciousness is happening and that we are part of it.
Assuming it is, then we must assume it is part of the universal fabric. And any even
brief period of consciousness in a universe which contains consciousness would
appear to enable the realisation of other parts of the universe. Being conscious of
parts of the universe in the Berkeleyan sense, causes them, if not to exist as
material substance then at least to be known as conscious entities and therefore
existence as being. Descent into solipsism is the only threat to this claim. If it is
only consciousness which performs the role of making the universe available, then
consciousness is crucial to universal existence. Such importance though, has
limited individual scope even though it would make our life part of a meaningful
structure. The realisation, and consequent existential impoverishment, often leads to
a desire or need for the authority and security of a greater, maybe divine power.
This way of thinking, however, backfires. We may suppose God exists, and God may
have purpose in mind for us, but any subordination to God’s purpose further reduces
our importance as an individual. Our grip on individual meaning is tenuous in any
circumstance. Anything beyond our own life and certain death can only be
supposed—it cannot be known. If there is any meaning to individual life it can only be
found in our life as we experience it—meaning can only be meaning for me.
2.2 Ultimate meaning
Before we can think about how to conduct our life we must think about whether
or not our life is worth conducting, whether or not our life is worth living, whether
there are any meaningful consequences to living our life. Acting upon free choice
means little unless we attribute some qualitative value to our life. If there is no
(possible) meaning in our life then no amount of action will make any difference to our
experience of it—at best it will be miserable, at worst self-destructive. Misery means an
existence in the absence of happiness though in the knowledge of what it might mean
to be happy. Inaccessible happiness makes life a barely bearable state of misery with
no future hope of change. Personal destruction means suicide and this forms a
boundary beyond which personal meaninglessness cannot go—suicide is, in that
respect, the ultimate act of individual meaninglessness. Suicide is the bringing on of
death and once dead we can no longer access the sensations of life—we have no
facility for personal achievement, purpose, or meaning. Even if death is, as Nozick
points out, “a part of that life, continuing its narrative story in some significant
way”, 8 for the individual, there is no post-mortem occurrence, no way of experiencing
that “continuing narrative”. Nothing of death has any part or meaning for the one who
has died. Camus recognised that the existence of this boundary provides a
justification for philosophising about meaning. Camus, in some respects, believes
suicide the “only truly serious philosophical problem” and by implication, because it
marks out the place beyond which meaningfulness ends, it forces us, if we are to
preserve our existence, to look at the meaning of life as “the most urgent of
questions”. 9 And this seems undeniable. Faced with our own death, faced with our
own ability to extinguish our life and what this would entail (absolute
meaninglessness), and confronted by the apparent absurdity of the
meaninglessness of life anyway, any search for meaning looks unlikely to be
rewarded. But meaning is our only salvation from death. As individuals, this
quandary compels us to discover what meaning means, in both a general and
individual sense—to understand the nature of the meaning of our life as well as
whether life in itself has meaning. Only with some concept of meaning in both these
ways will we be able to attribute meaning of some sort to our life and then find
sufficient purpose to move forward into the future, using action to drive our freedom to
choose.
When people ask what the meaning of life is, they tend first of all to think of an
ultimate meaning, something outside themselves, something beyond—God’s
purpose, a divine will, 42. In the modern Western world, caught between the ever-
tightening pincher-grip of, on the one hand science and on the other the withdrawal of
religion in the face of neoliberalism, this can be a fruitless undertaking. Any
positive proposal can seem at best barely credible, at worst perfunctory. Science
does not authenticate anything divine as it pulls us unerringly away from our
intuitive humanity. In its glare, morality is exposed as superstition and social
convention as trivial. In the modern world, we are, as Frankl says, at risk of
forsaking traditions that tell us what we ought to do, while being “civilised” away from
instincts that tell us what we have to do. 10 And there seems no escape from the
neurosis bred by this existential vacuum. Postmodern man seems doomed to
languish without purpose—burdened by the realisation that science alone is
responsible for interpreting the world and filled with anxiety by the realisation that such
a world cannot support God. On Camus’ account, this situation would lead us
8 R. Nozick, The Examined Life, New York, Touchstone, 1990, p.23.
9 A. Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, trans. J. O’Brien (1955), Harmondsworth, Penguin, 2000,
p.i.
10 V. E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, New York, Simon & Schuster (Pocket Books), 1985,
p.128.
unerringly to suicide and in its absence to misery. That the catastrophe of suicide is
not so prevalent, and humanity is not burdened by unbearable misery, means that
either something is happening which is saving us from the realisation of
meaninglessness and absurdity or Camus is wrong.
The barrier that holds back suicidal despair is constructed from what Lane Craig
refers to as the “Noble lie” 11 —the necessary self-deceit of belief in something
meaningful and purposeful even in the face of an obviously meaningless and
purposeless world. 12 When I say it is good to be kind, or right to be honest, or that
there is a point in doing x, y or z, or that although I may not know it there is some
meaning in my action, I am not drawing upon some divine example or divine
purpose which it makes sense to follow, I am giving myself purpose by using a Noble
lie—I am intentionally deceiving myself.
The Noble lie is a variant of self-deception condemned by Kierkegaard,
Heidegger and Sartre as existential bad faith. Sartre calls bad faith “a lie to oneself
within the unity of a single consciousness”. 13 But the intention to act against what one
knows is right is absent in the Noble lie which is preferred self-deceit—a way of feeling
easier. Pretending that there is some purpose in life, that there is something about
right that makes it better than wrong, is just a way of plugging gaps in
knowledge and making it easier to exist in a world with others. The Noble lie is
ultimately a tool for social conformity. Perhaps the fact that the Noble lie makes life
easier is justification in itself, but this sort of pragmatic support does nothing to isolate
anything that may be true. At the same time, the Noble lie is not bad faith. In its
employment, there is no intention to act against some better version of right; indeed it
is the only way of acting right in the absence of any known true right. “Lying to
oneself” as Sartre, describes it, is something with which we can all identify; even
if we work hard to be in good faith, the test of the possible self-lie is a common
experience. Yet it is hard to understand why the idea of lying to oneself carries any
weight for us in a world empty of absolute values. For Freud, a mechanism of
repression (the super-ego) deceives the conscious self (the ego) and utilizes the
unconscious self (the id) as a repository for the deception. The ego sometimes
cannot cope with some of the more disturbing drives of the id and so the super-ego
represses these disturbing drives which then remain buried in the unconscious id. 14
In this way, self-deceit need not be tested against some outside quality of
deceitedness in order to make it felt. Sartre, on the other hand, would condemn
this view as simply perpetuating one’s evasion of responsibility, as he says, “I
must know in my capacity as deceiver the truth which is hidden from me in my capacity
as the one deceived”. 15
Still we strain for meaning as the world of meaning shrinks irrevocably in the ever-
tightening grip of science, for no matter how noble the lie, it is still a lie. In the
Sartrean sense, we cannot truly deceive ourselves when we know the basis for our
belief is a lie—it is the trap of conscious existence to know when we act in bad faith.
11 This expression was coined by L. D. Rue in “The Saving Grace of Noble Lies”, address to the
American Academy for the Advancement of Science, February 1991.
12 W. Lane Craig, “The Absurdity of Life Without God, in The Meaning of Life, ed. E.D.
Klemke, New York, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp.40-56.
13 J-P. Sartre, Being and Nothingness, London, Methuen, 1969, p.629.
14 S. Freud, “The Ego and the Id” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works
of Sigmund Freud, ed. J. Strachey, New York, Norton, 1961.
15 Sartre, Being and Nothingness, p.49.
If we believe that objective meaning is necessary for happiness, if happiness as
eudaimonia is as Aristotle tells us the ultimate end, then no amount of self-deceit will
convince us it is there if we believe it is not. 16 As Russell says “self-deception cannot
lead to any solid happiness. In the back of your mind you will know the facts are
otherwise”. 17 We do not, therefore, naturally deceive ourselves—we are essentially
undeceivable. Certainly, we can be deceived by the will of others who may use lies
as a political tool, and by those who believe they have some connection with
divine power in order to control our behaviour, 18 we cannot, though, be truly deceived
by ourselves.
This inner contradiction of forces and knowledge is an implicit aspect of the
subjective/objective self; it is a natural part of our being and knowledge of it is no
remedy to its existence. We continually ask ourselves questions, as if there is one
who can ask and one who can respond. “Which way shall I turn?” is an unusual
question for a creature to ask itself when the response can only ever come from the
questioner. In doing this, we are continually asking for an answer from the one who
finds it necessary to ask the question of the other. This process may of course be
merely a pause for explanation or for rational or moral input, but it exposes the
innately duplicitous potential of our condition. Self-discovery is commonly a self-
analysis, and is as commonly not an analysis capable of discovering anything not
already in place. We cannot find something not already there to be found; we can
reveal things hidden to our conscious self, but it is like finding something in your
pocket—it was still always in your pocket.
Nagel’s interpretation of this other self seeing our self from nowhere, reveals no moral
imperative. 19 And the outcome of such scrutiny in the form of say the Delphic
Oracle’s rhetorical advice, “know thyself”, 20 contains no guidance about what
truthful knowledge is. Indeed, the perpetuating adage that knowing yourself
somehow brings about a useful state of knowledge is a vacuous sentiment. For
example, the requirement to know oneself is fulfilled knowing that one is in self-
deceit—“I know I am deceiving myself”. What one is deceiving oneself about is
therefore not a matter of useful self-discovery but is a practical problem which
demands practical remedies. However, if I know I hold a false belief, I certainly
know something about myself, and it is unclear whether I would gain in any way of I rid
myself of that false belief. Certainly it would be a bad idea to strip away false beliefs
and reduce happiness in order to bring about fuller self-understanding. If self-
examination leads to a less fulfilling but less self-deceived life, and we prefer self-
examination, it would seem that self-examination is the most valued quality. But self-
understanding in itself may have no qualitative worth to the individual. In a postmodern
world where intellectual and moral relativism offer no hope of bringing together
morality and cosmology (as scientifically based faux metaphysics), postmodern
man seems out on a limb in seeking self-knowledge when there is nothing that
knowledge can be truly about. The pressure on the individual seems unavoidable: live
only by self-made rules and go insane in a world bereft of social cohesion and
16 Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea (Nicomachean Ethics) in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. R.P.
McKeon, New York, Random House, 1941. pp. 927-1126.
17 B. Russell, The Conquest of Happiness, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1930, p.124.
18 Lane Craig, “The Absurdity of Life Without God”, p.53.
19 T. Nagel, The View from Nowhere, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1986.
20 The statement delivered by Pythia at the Delphic Oracle.
responsibility, or deceive yourself with the only thing on offer to transcend the
absurdity of all-consuming self-interest—the Noble lie.
That we believe moral values are indeed real qualities might mean we are already
in self-deceit. For the theist, of course, moral values must come from
somewhere in order for us to hold them; self-deceiving or not, they must somehow
exist—humans cannot invent qualities not already there to be invented. For the
postmodern relativist, the universe simply does not contain real moral values, they
have instead been devised by humans to suit their psychological, religious, social,
and political needs. Moral values may be useful as human tools but, if removed, the
universe would have no place either for their existence or, in their absence, their
creation. The dilemma is unavoidable and, at root, stark; we can choose only
between scientifically validated futility and a (pseudo) theistic Noble lie. On the one
hand, choosing meaninglessness and purposelessness in an absurd world where our
lives are brief and transitory, on the other, and with a measure of acknowledged
self-deceit, choosing a life that can be fulfilling, meaningful and imbued with
purpose. One root leads us to informed enlightenment and misery, the other to blind
faith and happiness.
The theistic choice has the added benefit that it is perhaps regulated by God’s
principles, and incorporates the potential offer of individual salvation in a life of eternal
bliss. According to Pascal the choice about whether to take this route is easy as one
is clearly the better bet. His gambler’s argument proposes two different bets that give
four possible outcomes. We can bet that God exists. If we win (God does exist),
then we win eternal life, if we lose (God does not exist) then we have not lost too much,
perhaps we have missed some pleasures that we could otherwise have had but
compared to the possibility of eternal life such losses are negligible. We can bet that
God does not exist. If we win (God does not exist), then our worldly life will be free of
illusion and we can indulge in any pleasures we think fit without fear of eternal
damnation, if we lose (God does exist), then we face the possibility of eternal
damnation. Accordingly, the best bet is that God exists; little to lose, infinity to
gain—live a Noble lie on the chance that it might be right wins out over following our
sceptical intuition, acting in good faith, and so running the risk of missing out on the
beneficial opportunity of a clearly non-rational belief. 21 But how can non-rational faith
have any appeal? If faith cannot come from rational thought, which is what defines it
inasmuch as where rationality ends faith begins, then whatever we find appealing in
it cannot be convincing on rational standards. We must, like Tolstoy, be content
with conjuring up faith from the abyss—light out of dark, form out of void. 22 But this
is an unconvincing basis, even for a Noble lie. Tolstoy’s golden age appeal to the
intuitive good sense of the happy peasant has only romantic appeal. Indeed,
petitioning for a reliable natural faith resident in the feudally repressed poor is a
dangerous naturalism, the sort that finds increasing truth in increasing simplicity—a
reductionist unified theory gone mad.
The individual, of course, is often saved from this because the individual is not
always seeking such spiritual salvation. Enlightened misery may well take many
pleasurable, non-spiritual forms, and the threat of eternal damnation means little to
postmodern man. But the principle is still applied in the everyday world—utilise moral
values that we suspect are fictitious in order to live in an ordered world, or lead
21 B. Pascal, Pensées, trans. H.F. Stewart, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1950.
22 L. Tolstoy, My Confession, trans. L. Wierner, London, J.M. Dent & Sons, 1905.
amoral lives in a society bereft of any agreed rules of conduct; not a difficult choice
for most. And the lack of any ultimate or absolute meaning beyond that utility should
not concern us. Unless we have a desire for faith or a desire to feel unhappy without
it, there is no reason to get intellectually involved with the cosmically
imponderable—the ultimate meaning of it all. If there is no meaning, it does not
matter, if there is meaning, it will be revealed in due course.
2.3 Individual meaning
We all die. That fact alone seems to strip meaning from our existence. How can
anything have meaning unless it is permanent? Transience seems to undermine the
essence of meaning—that there is implied or explicit significance, or that there is an
important or worthwhile quality or purpose, seem to demand support beyond the
ability of the merely passing to provide. How, for example, can any achievement have
true worth if we cannot hold it permanently in a place where all things of true worth
reside? This may be, of course, a cultural leftover of Platonism. Or we may be
deluded simply by an impression formed under the false appearance of eternity—the
idea that because our lives are short-lived, we are somehow anachronistic parts of
something entirely without end. If we think this, then we run a great risk of being in the
wrong; for all we know, life maybe the measure of all things, and so too the
consequent sense of suffering that goes with it. Homer’s heroes, ever in the face of
the eternal gods must accept “the sad state of humans to live in futility, unable to rise
above the dismal fate of hardship” 23 and so should we. And there is nothing
individual which can transcend this. Yet it is in death, and our knowledge of it, that the
sweetness of life is borne—we can only treasure that which can be lost, and will
treasure the more that which we know will be lost. Death is, as Schopenhauer tells us,
my entire end, even though my individual life may be only a small part of my “true
inner nature as I am part of the world”, 24 the meaning of this for us is remote.
In truth, nothing is permanent—even the universe seems to have no future; all
avenues seem closed: our faith in subsequent outcomes is damned by Humean
inductive scepticism, Popperean demands for the unfalsifiable truth beyond
empiricism, or by the proclaimed onslaught of scientific authority. Eventually, the
universe will become cold, there will be no possibility of life emerging again, and its
structures will collapse. If it does not disappear from whence it came, it will become
frozen, desolate, and inactive. 25
However, the presumed fact that the universe will end does not destroy meaning
for my life. It is not the meaning of life with which I should be concerned, it is the
meaning of my life—how I conduct it and how I relate to the world and
others—which should monopolise my attention. The meaning of my life is, as
Schopenhauer thought, in its existence. Camus says you will never live if you are
looking for the meaning of life—“don’t wait for the Last Judgement. It takes place
every day”, 26 and if the universe has no meaning, we would never find that out, and it
would not matter. Whether or not Achilles will claim an immortal existence in some
23 E. Nguyen, “The Gods of Homer and the Tragedy of Human Life, Journal of Historical
Studies, University of Toronto, http://cssaame.com/jhs/000478.html, accessed 6 March 2014.
24 A. Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, vol. 2, trans. E.F.J. Payne. New
York, Dover, 1969, p.491.
25 H. Reichenbach, The Philosophy of Space and Time, trans. M. Reichenbach and J. Freund,
New York, Dover, 1958.
26 A. Camus, The Fall, trans. J. O’Brien (1957), Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1963, p.82.
mortally inaccessible world beyond life is not what causes us to identify with him; it is
the human problems which have led him to refuse to fight, and the reasons for his
ultimate decision to take action, which sums him up as a man. It is these qualities
which cause us to think of our own fallibility, our own inability to choose to act, which
lead us to find importance in the story of Achilles. Our true meaning is in being
human not in imagining what being might be like beyond the scope of mortality. It is
our achievements in the face of human frailty that mark out our meaning, not
whether some omnipotent being has designed some purpose for us beyond that
which we presently are. What meaning is can only be found in what we mean in
respect of what we are.
But looking to how we conduct our lives does not automatically reveal the answer to
the question of meaning. Meaning may indeed be found only in our lives, but that
does not mean that it is apparent, or that we can readily recognise it. We are
compromised by the lot of the circumstances in which we find ourselves—our
nature, our talents, our era, can all conspire to mask us from ourselves. We are
faced continually with the absurdity of life—rivalry, political allegiance, the search for
power, envy, false need—that undermines our belief in, and grasp of, the true value
of being. Added to which, it is hard to resist taking life seriously and this darkens
our view of the essential cheerfulness needed to be open to our own meaning.
We inhabit a framework of meaninglessness which is difficult to transcend.
However, looking at these concerns objectively, from a detached, subjective
viewpoint, can lead us to think that what we see initially as compromising
circumstances do not truly matter in either an absolute or an individual context. But
this carries with it a sting in the tail, for now we must ask “how can the
unimportance of my life from that (detached subjective) point of view have any
importance for me?” 27 In other words our subjective detachment from self (the point of
view from which we refer to ourselves when we ask such questions as, “Shall I do this
or that?”) while confirming the meaninglessness of influences on the objective life
also means the subject has no meaning. And as they are one and the same, the
questioner has no meaning if the questioned has no meaning. Pursuing the idea of
objective meaning is fruitless. We have to assume that, in truth, it has no application
to living our life. The only meaning to living our life is living it. Nagel says, “... given
that this person exists, there is little he can do but to keep going until he dies, and try
to accomplish something by the standards internal to his form of life.” 28
It does not matter whether we do or do not achieve our goals. Indeed, it does not
matter whether we do or do not exist. One of the puzzles of my life is after all how it
came to be mine. In other words, why am I not someone else? But, given that we do
exist, and that we can imagine goals for ourselves as we continue to exist, and that
I seem to be me, then there is indeed meaning. We are alive, and being alive is
itself the ultimate end of living—each action is an end in itself. Being alive is our
meaning—meaning for us is in our being. Being alive, is not simply our glimpse of
the world, it is our contribution to bringing the world into being. Without consciousness
of the world, the world loses its being. When we are, we are not just, as Descartes
thought, invoking our own persona as a separate entity (cogito ergo sum), we are
as Berkeley proposed, bringing everything into existence as things now perceived
(esse est percipi). That we are conscious makes the world knowable; it is our
27 Nagel, The View from Nowhere, p.216.
28 Nagel, The View from Nowhere, p.216.
conscious existence that brings light to the darkness—the meaning of life is the act of
living.
2.4 A meaningful life
A meaningful life is found in its being—it is immediate, free, active, and rightly
done. It accommodates change and is not dogmatic. A meaningful life is
unhindered by anxiety. It reflects on what is simple and essential for pleasure or
happiness. A meaningful life is cheerful and reflective but not consumed by concerns
about things far beyond the individual. It bears pain and suffering not in a Stoic way,
but because the individual has a rational framework which underlies individual
actions. The meaningful life is largely an Epicurean life: it recognises that what is
good is easy to get, that what is bad is easy to endure, that we should not worry
about anything beyond our own lives, and that death is not to be feared. This modern
Epicurean should: understand the impermanence of human achievement,
understand his or her place in the universe, realise the absurdity of life, realise that
humour is a natural reaction to absurdity, and rid his or her self of religion, superstition,
borrowed social values and morality. A meaningful individual life needs to understand
that cooperative moral and religious values are created for social not necessarily
individual reasons, and that these created forces tap into simple, natural intuitive
faith and consequent belief in a corrupting way. A meaningful life must resist these
forces. A meaningful life must connect with some value in a non-trivial and substantial
way. The link itself is valuable, and the closer it is made the more meaningful it is. 29 The
linkage of love with another, for example, is a close link that has value in itself as well
as meaning because of this value. My linkage with a movement to save a particular
piece of threatened landscape somewhere in the world would fall short on both these
counts.
2.5 Meaning and the fear of death
We move ever into the future, and nothing in life ends; living is eternal, sub specie
aeternitas, and although death succeeds it, death does not succeed life in life. Dying
is different in this sense than people think—we are lucky to die because life is never
tainted by death, death never inhabits life in any way other than in our reflections
on the fact that it will happen. If we fear death we are foolish, life contains only
life. As Spinoza says, “a free man thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom
is a meditation, not on death, but on life”. 30 Reflection on death is pointless. Death is
nothing we can usefully consider in any worthwhile way, and any such reflection only
reduces our freedom to live. The only quality of death is not having sensation and, if
we think rightly, we take that in our stride. Who has ever had a bit of death in their
life? There is no such thing. Death is a foreign land to which we will never travel
and which is too distant for us even to see. We may imagine the horror of non-
being—the abyss of non-existence—but this is a living reflection on death; life is our
country, and its shores we will never tread beyond. Socrates thought death, at
worst, a dreamless sleep, and at best, as a place populated by all the dead—for
him the best version of heaven imaginable. 31 Epicurus says that anxious thoughts of
death are as pointless as anxious thoughts of existence before we were born. 32 There
29 Nozick, The Examined Life, p.168.
30 B. Spinoza, Ethics, trans. A. Boyle, revised by G.H.R. Parkinson, London, J.M. Dent, 1989,
p.186.
31 Plato, Apology in Plato: The Collected Dialogues, ed. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, Bollingen
Series, LXXI, Princeton University Press, 1994, pp.3-26, 40d-e.
is nothing at all bad about death, as Walt Whitman says, “to die is different from
what any one supposed, and luckier”. 33 Indeed it can be seen as a positive good, as
Sophocles has the chorus say at the end of the story of Oedipus, “...let no mortal be
called happy until the final fated day when he has crossed life’s border without
enduring pain.” 34 For Whitman, as for Socrates, each death heralds the onset of
more life, more nature and that is satisfying; and although this can in a sense be
seen as apologetic it remains true to the principle that the true goodness of death
is the Epicurean view that death simply is not part of life. The goodness of death,
of the abyss of non-existence, is that it can never be part of life. It would be foolish
to worry about anything that is not part of our life, and there is nothing less a part of
being alive than death.
3. Freedom to choose
Our lives can often seem worthless or pointless, or threatened by worthlessness
or pointlessness; anxieties may beset even the strong, even the wise—being
alive can be a difficult task. Time and again, our desire for cheerfulness shivers in the
face of the harsh wind of daunting reality. We are in life, it seems, like Ovid’s storm-
tossed sailors for whom “a separate death seemed to be rushing upon them with
each oncoming wave” 35 or like Hardy’s Michael Henchard 36 and Sisyphus alike, for
whom it is only the brief moments of respite that break the continual suffering of
existence. If we cannot find meaning in our lives and if we believe there is no
ultimate meaning to life anyway, living can seem bleak indeed; and this is not
acceptable—we know it. We know that our lives are not worsened by happiness, that
our sense of well-being increases when we feel the pleasures of contentment,
satisfaction, laughter, or lovingness. Our direction is fixed in time and our psychological
preference is immutably from pain to pleasure. We need, therefore, to remedy
pointlessness with a point and worthlessness with a sense of worth, and our remedy
must convince us in truth—it must be more than a Noble lie. Fixing on pleasure as
the object, however, is insufficient. Indeed, if we do this there is nothing to purchase
on, nothing to lever us away from suffering. The one thing that life provides in
abundance—suffering—is the unlikely candidate which can provide the anchor point
and worth of living. Suffering, far from something to avoid is in fact the main
ingredient of the recipe for human meaning. 37
On the face of it, this seems unlikely; suffering is after all something to be reduced in
order to increase happiness; and this has become a culturally ingrained utilitarian
rule. Suffering is, we think, best avoided. But, in order to reach a happy state, the first
thing we must do is realise the pointlessness of life in an absolute sense, and of
our own life in the sense that everything we do will for us be annihilated by our
own death. We must, like Frankl’s description of the internee of a concentration camp,
force ourselves to the brutal realisation that we have nothing except our own life. 38 This
32 Epicurus, The Vatican Collection of Epicurean Sayings, Text 6, section 60) in The Epicurus
Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonial, trans. and ed. B. Inwood and L.P. Gerson,
Indianapolis, IN., Hackett, 1994.
33 W. Whitman, Song of Myself, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1995, p.9.
34 Sophocles, Oedipus the King in Sophocles, Antigone, Oedipus the King and Electra, trans.
H.D.F. Kitto, ed. E Hall, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008, fn.99, p.171.
35 Ovid, Metamorphosis, trans. M.M. Innes, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1955, p.260.
36 Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge, 1886.
37 Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning.
existential insight concentrates our understanding of the absurdity of life in our
consciousness. From this point there are strictly only two choices: forward into the
next future moment, or suicide. But if life contains no apparent value, suicide is
pointless for there is no point in wiping out something pointless. We may feel
apathetic, or dulled by the bleakness of this realisation, but this point of (suicidal)
surrender opens us to the possibility of the surest route to happiness we have.
From this point can grow the revelation that love, a blissful state of happiness, can
be experienced irrespective of our own circumstances and irrespective of the
mortal existence of our beloved. 39 Anchored by love we can experience the
relative pleasure of the lesser suffering, what Frankl (inappropriately) calls
“negative happiness” 40 and Schopenhauer (appropriately) calls “freedom from
suffering...a gleam of silver that suddenly appears from the purifying flame of
suffering”. 41 From this point of accepting our fate (at the highest level this would be a
saintly acceptance), our lives can begin to grow afresh. From this point on we can
act freely, we can choose our attitude (what Frankl calls our “own way” 42 ) and move
into our future with a true sense of meaning.
This is a spiritual freedom which belongs to the individual, which cannot be taken
away, and it is a freedom which need not be affected by the individual’s
circumstances. Accepting fate in this way—meeting our suffering—allows us the
opportunity to choose how we suffer. This mental grip on life enables us to rationalise
our self-worth. As Spinoza says, “an emotion which is a passion ceases to be a
passion as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea of it”. 43 Just as we can say that
in the absence of faith belief is unacceptable unless arrived at by rational means, so
we can say that any problems associated with suffering are extinguished when we
rationalise them.
We must always be future-looking, we must always have a future-focus. This entails
not being concerned with the meaning of life, but in our response to life—“in right
action and in right conduct”. 44 We must be careful, though, about how we form our
purposefulness; goal-setting can lead to disappointment, we can fail to meet our
targets, or with our eyes fixed too closely on them, lose track of what lies between us
and the object of our desire. As Frankl points out, those in the concentration camp
who focused on what would follow release were doomed to disillusionment. 45 45
More meaningful is identifying our own uniqueness in creativity (for example,
finishing so far unfinished opportunities), or in realisation of our individual and
special place in the world (for example, our irreplaceability as a beloved). Like
George Bailey in Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, 46 46 we should witness our
uniqueness in light of its absence, or like Scrooge in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, 47
we should see our morality in light of the world being another way. In Nietzschean
terms we need only to understand this why in order to understand whatever how we
38 Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, p.33.
39 Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, p.57.
40 Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, p.67.
41 A. Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, vol. 1, trans. E.F.J. Payne, New
York, Dover, pp.392-3.
42 Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, p.86.
43 Spinoza, Ethics, p.202.
44 Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, p.98.
45 Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, pp.77-84.
46 F. Capra, It’s a Wonderful Life, Liberty Films (II), 1946.
47 C. Dickens, A Christmas Carol, London, Chapman and Hall, 1843.
have to face. This will to meaning is life’s primary motivation—and meaning does not
need a completing goal.
4. Action
Having created some point to our lives, and convinced ourselves rationally that an
outward-looking rule system makes for a credible sense of meaning, the next thing
to do is act. But action brings its own problems. Action, based on choice, is the living
aspect of the more abstract discovery of intellectual freedom, but such action still
must take place within the context of a life which we know will end. Can what has
brought us to the edge of action actually convince us it is worth taking the next step
and actually doing something?
It is a common to believe that being rock-like is an admirable personal trait. Being
rock-like invokes ideas of standing firm, having a stiff upper lip, being brave, facing our
destiny, making sacrifices, maybe even sacrificing ourselves. Rock-like qualities are
deemed admirable by Western twenty first century society, but rocks cannot change
(in shorter than geological terms), have meaning (other than have meaning for
someone or for something), be free, or act. Being rock-like will not serve our prime
imperative for change. Our life therefore is best served rolling rocks rather than
being them. Being rock-like put us in the position of being able to desire achievement,
to consider realising it, to reflect on it, to take pride in our attaining it, but it is only
rolling the rock that can make these things happen—that can bring about change. This
deliberative activity of change overshadows the meaning of the rock-like rock that,
although containing potential for action represents the object of inaction and
resistance to change. Rolling the rock, and so our involvement in change, offers
us a perspective on time passing in what McTaggart calls the B series—the
relation of before and after—which is crucial to our experience of time and change. 48
Understanding our fulcral nowness in B-relations enables us to create a worldview of
potential that can occur later than now, that is, in the future. As Nietzsche shows
us, any act of willing is directed wholly towards the future. 49 Our experience of the
change-making movement from the present-now into the next future-now is what
our experience of life consists. Our specious present—the present of our
experience—includes the sense of pastness from memory and place, the sense of
future that is to be, and the sense of movement formed in time in a changing now. The
movement to the next now is our only facility for change. Without this
movement—without change—we can no longer be.
The greatest rock-roller of them all is Sisyphus. Angered by his betrayal of their
divine secrets, the gods condemn him eternally to roll a rock to the top of a
mountain only to have it fall to the base from where it must be rolled again to the top.
On the face of it, there seems no worse fate—an eternity of pointless labour. But to
48 J. McT. E. McTaggart, The Nature of Existence, vol.2, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 1927. According to McTaggart, we exist within what appears a constant movement from
before to after which, although appearing in time, is in fact a series of non-temporal
perceptions of other perceiving selves via love. See also: G. Rochelle, The life and philosophy
of J. McT. E. McTaggart, 1866-1925, Lampeter, Edwin Mellen, 1991; G. Rochelle, (1998).
Behind time: the incoherence of time and McTaggart’s atemporal replacement, Aldershot,
Ashgate, 1998; G. Rochelle, “Killing time without injuring eternity: McTaggart’s C series”,
Idealistic Studies, 28 (3 Fall), 1998, pp.159-169.
49 F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. R.J. Hollingdale, Harmondsworth, Penguin,
1961.
take this view would be to miss the point. The myth of Sisyphus can represent the very
essence of meaning in our life. It is recurring action, not reflection in endless
boredom upon some complete and necessarily imperfect achievement, that brings
value to life. “What counts is that one should be able to begin a new task... because
it is there to be done.” 50 For such an endeavour Sisyphus is perfectly placed, and
except that our eternity is the eternity of our lived lives, so are we.
But what are we to make of such a life that has no ultimate purpose, a life that
contains within its purposelessness a sense of meaning derived from trivial,
meaningless doing? Can we believe that doing still remains a worthwhile purpose
within an overall framework of purposelessness, or must we abandon any concept of
purpose and look to doing as a thing in itself quite irrespective of its value? Is
Sisyphus really setting the example as a foundation for meaning in action with
which we can be satisfied, or is his doing too physical an interpretation—too brutish to
be a satisfactory analogue for a human life?
It maybe that doing needs to be an intellectual activity—a mental act—if it is to have
philosophical appeal. If we are to identify with Sisyphus, we must be able to identify a
freely chosen task in our own life with a Sisyphean task. Sisyphus, even though he did
make choices which set in train the events leading to his ultimate situation has not,
after all, chosen the task he labours with. He does, however, choose how he
performs his task and this is more important than why he performs his task. We do
not choose to be alive, we do not choose the reason why we are here at all, but like
Sisyphus we can choose how we live the lives we have. Sisyphus chooses how he
rolls his rock and by so doing provides himself with, what Frankl calls “Noögenic”
meaning. 51 Why, or for what reason he rolls it is lost in his past and any reflection on
that would for Sisyphus be numbingly pointless. Why we do anything is part of our
philosophical reflection, but why we are here undertaking the task is unlikely to
become part of any worthwhile or trusted knowledge. Action in life is about how not
why.
Camus feels that consciousness of our absurd plight is sufficient as a life
aim—there is no need to act—“being aware of one’s life, one’s revolt, one’s freedom,
and to the maximum, is living, and to the maximum.” 52 But simply being aware gets us
50 R. Taylor, “The Meaning of Life” in The Meaning of Life, ed. E.D. Klemke, New York,
Oxford University Press, 2000, pp.167-75, p.175.
51 According to Frankl, frustration of existential aims can be driven by “noögenic neuroses”
(Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, pp.123-6). Noögenic neuroses do not derive from
conflicts between drives and instincts. Indeed, some conflicts are not neurotic and healthy
conflict should not be discouraged or treated for other than what it is. Suffering may well be
an achievement, particularly if it derives from existential frustration—existential distress is not
mental disease. Working through existential distress can lead to human growth. The
logotherapist assists his or her patient in the discovery of potential meaning to his or her
existence and does not (as psychoanalysis) try to make the patient “aware of what he actually
longs for in the depths of his being” (Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, p.125).
Logootherapy is not oncerned with the conflicts brought about by drives and instincts, the id,
the ego and superego, or to adjustment to society and environment. Inner tension is a
requisite for mental health, and the knowledge that there is meaning to one’s life is crucial to
survival. The tension may well take the form of past and future accomplishments or
progress as a person. The tension is “the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a
freely chosen task” (Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, p.127). Noö-dynamics is set in train
by the tension between the meaning to be fulfilled and the individual who has to fulfil it. Frankl
commends an accent on this tension to help the neurotic.
nowhere on the road from change to rightful action. If we take the view that simple
consciousness is a sufficient aim, then practical philosophy is worthless. Indeed,
practical living is worthless—we would be doomed to stare into our reflective glass
wondering like Wittgenstein if “the solution of the problem of life is seen in the
vanishing of this problem.” 53
Action is crucial to a meaningful existence, but we need to remind ourselves that we
should not be misled into thinking that action implies a goal; no achievement is
worth anything as a countable item beyond our finite existence, or as an achieved
goal within our life. We are directed to act by the impetus of meaning, but we
should not act with the idea that the end result of our action should have been itself the
reason to act. We should wish to act rightly, to act in order to change, to act out of
passion or love, to act out of desire to be at one with life’s absurdity; we should
not act in order to gain satisfaction from an achievement which is a final outcome
to our action. But how, we must ask, is acting to change ourselves different from
acting with a result in mind; change is surely as much a result as being satisfied by,
for example, achieving a powerful position in society or acquiring some desired
object?
The human condition—isolated existence with the knowledge of future
annihilation—is the “price that must be paid for the passions of this earth.” 54 We
might, with Camus, judge Sisyphus (like Sophocles’ Oedipus 55 or Dostoevsky’s
Kirolov 56 ) maximised in his task, 57 but it is the period—the pause—when Sisyphus
returns to the bottom of the mountain to begin his task again, which is crucial and of
most interest. This is after all the moment of philosophising, of self-examination; this
hour of contemplating the continued suffering is the “hour of consciousness”. 58 It is
this consciousness, this awareness of the tragedy of his situation, which
ennobles the suffering Sisyphus. It is this interlude in his tragedy which allows him to
reflect on his predicament. It is this break in the process of unrelenting activity which
allows him time to know that continuing his suffering makes him triumphant—“the
lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory.” 59
This is the example that Sisyphus sets us and it is an example that applies to every
part of the human condition. Following his example, we can during this time of
consciousness experience the realisation of victory over the absurdity of our situation.
At this point of contemplative pause, we are faced with two possibilities: utter
dejection, and a realisation that life is pointless; or a claim on the absurdity of it by
understanding that the task in hand, the task of life, is a joyous occupation worthy of
pursuing. Electing for the latter allows us to realise that our action need not lead to
some glorious, objective yet vacuous accomplishment, but instead to a state of self-
knowledge that makes every aspect in itself a triumphant absurdity. By following
Sisyphus, and reflecting on our situation, we can capture it, bring it down and
absorb it not as a threat or a shadow, but as an elemental part of our being.
52 Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, p.61.
53 L. Wittgenstein, L. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. C.K. Ogden, London, Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1986, 6.521, p.187.
54 Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, p.108.
55 Sophocles, Oedipus the King, pp.47-99.
56 F. Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, The Russian Messenger (Series), 1866.
57 Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, p.111.
58 Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, p.109.
59 Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, p.109.
5. How we should act
5.1 A ‘code of right’
According to Kant, morality can only act if we conceive ourselves as rational beings
able to understand our sense of duty to categorical ethical rules—we act therefore
as rationally coherent beings under the guidance of moral integrity based upon some
sort of code of right. 60 Action with purpose, with the support of dogma, faith or affinity
to socio-political or economic beliefs is common. Such systems of support buoy up
the individual in what otherwise seems the lost cause of an absurd life. The Noble lie
features prominently in such spheres. However, the self-made rules of postmodern
man, existing in a religious or socio-political dogmatic vacuum, is not such a bleak
idea as it at first seems. It is possible to adopt a rational view of our situation and
formulate a personal rule system that relies not only on the essential aspects of
self but continually checks with the world beyond. In this way lived life can be a self-
sustaining system of action for the individual which accommodates: our absurd
condition, the importance to us of the world in which we exist, our own essential good
faith, and our need for change.
In order to be convinced that what we do is right we need a code of right—a set of
rules. These are discovered by the employment of rationality to understand our
approach to life and are formulated and kept up to date by looking continually beyond
our self. Spinoza provides us with a sanction for personal change that allows us both
a sense of freedom from dogma and a sense of belief in honest action. Spinoza
accepts that we do not have a complete or perfect understanding of our mental
state; consequently, we do not have a complete grasp of our moral integrity. Because
of this, we have to construct the best set of moral guidelines we can and be sure that
we know them. Thus armed, we can continually apply this remembered code in all
circumstance in which we find ourselves. Spinoza suggests that practical application
of moral guidelines in different circumstances entails reflection on examples of
how these moral guidelines could be (or have been) applied in the world and what
might be (or has been) the results of their application. This inner reflection of
outcomes beyond the self is a valuable aspect of self understanding in respect of a
world that is naturally beyond the self. Reflection, particularly on bad outcomes, is
well remembered and has great personal impact and we should keenly test our ideas
for action against such circumstances. 61 Instead of looking for the best possible
outcome, we should look to the avoidance of the worst. If we start from the position of
realising what could be the worst outcome, then any outcome other than the worst will
be an improvement. Nothing of our self will realise any level of self-deceit when acting
for change from a worst possible state of affairs—our actions will always be true and
honest manifestations of change.
5.2 Acting in our own best interests—an Epicurean framework
In order to deploy this method of sanctioning personal change without sacrificing
good faith, a framework for how we should act morally is needed. It seems
reasonable that we should act in such a way that our own best interest is served. It
also seems reasonable that we should act in such a way that our own best interest is
served without acting against the interest of others. 62 How we should act therefore has
60 I. Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, eds. M. Gregor and J Timmermann,
trans. C.M. Korsgaard, Cambridge, Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy, 2012.
61 Spinoza, Ethics, p.206.
62 Interesting discussion on this is found in A. Macaro, Reason, Virtue and Psychotherapy,
two distinct parts: what we should do in order to serve our own best interests; what
moral criteria we should apply to our actions. Our own best interest is to live well and
to know we act with self-honesty. Our moral imperatives should be those directed
towards living well and knowing we act with self-honesty. Our ethical imperatives
will be found in translating our honest action into our behaviour, not only with our
other internal self but also with any relevant other with whom we contact.
An Epicurean skeleton helps support the fleshing out of the solutions to these
conjoined issues. 63 Epicurus’ teaching shows us that we are in a world with no
strings attached; we are not puppets—we are constrained only by our own
nature. Realisation of this shows us that life is good, that happiness is possible, and
that we can act truly in ways appropriate to that nature which is ours. Epicurus says
anxiety is the fundamental obstacle to happiness. Reduction of anxiety will allow
us to be cheerful. Cheerfulness unavoidably leads to pleasure and thus
happiness. Epicurus highlights four areas of human concern that spawn anxiety: the
good, the bad, superior powers, and death.
5.2.1 What is good is easy to get
Shelter, safety, food, and simple needs are all our bodies demand. If our bodies
get these things then we feel confidently safe and therefore cheerful. If we are
cheerful, then nothing can stop us from being happy. Wanting more than we need
only feeds dissatisfaction, increases anxiety, and makes a cheerful life less likely.
There is no harm in luxuries as things in themselves, but any dependence we have
on such luxuries or any wishing for unnecessary things increases our anxiety. For
example, acquisitions increase our responsibility to those acquisitions and this
process absorbs us in an anxiety-creating cycle.
It is hard to know where the appropriate level of having only what we need lies. In the
modern consumer world we are faced with a wide choice of things which can in one
way or another service our lives. Some things we have come to think of as, if not
essential, very important, for example, the washing machine, electricity, a choice of
clothing. Because we live in the world in which we find ourselves, it is hard to know
sometimes how to discriminate between basic needs and expectations which draw us
into wishing for the non-essential or superfluous. But in order to free ourselves from
anxiety we must free ourselves from unnecessary desires and the anxiety they
bring—it is a problem that cannot be set aside. Making a list of Epicurean needs
would be foolish, yet at the same time it is clear that open-ended desire for things
would not bring us much happiness. Having only what we can afford is not a good
method of deciding on which things we need as we can easily get drawn into
creating more money by for example, labour, indebtedness or theft. And everyone
seems to strike a different level of needs and what they think are needs necessary
to service a simple, secure life. Epicurus formed a commune, the Garden. In this
environment, his methods were evident to his followers—his justifications for some
things and his condemnation of others were always available as inspiration or for
London, John Wiley, 2006, Ch. 4.
63 Epicurus influence and interpretation of Aristotle have been far reaching. His egalitarian
ideas have found their way into the thinking of John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Arthur
Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, J.S. Mill and Jeremy Bentham. Brief outlines of Epicurus’
life can be found in The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonial, pp.vii-xv; and
trans. E O’Connor, The Essential Epicurus: Letters, Principal Doctrines, Vatican Sayings, and
Fragments, New York, Prometheus Books, 1993, pp.9-15.
scrutiny. And Epicurus’ life took place in a world not filled with an ever-expanding list of
consumer goods, or pressure from capitalist producers to purchase their product—it
was a simpler world.
A simple life consists in not beholding to others or the state, not being fearful of
homelessness, not being fearful of the cold, starvation, social exclusion or crime;
beyond that, a few luxuries, perhaps books or a new garment, or a chance to travel,
but nothing much more. There is a point found fairly low down on the possession
tree beyond which the obligation to work, to debt, to time, to moral compromise
become so great that anxieties cannot be kept out.
Being free from anxiety is for us, as it was to Epicurus and his followers, a discipline.
Requirements, either in the form of things, or power, or influence, need to be seen
for what they are worth—for what we gain from them. If we are to experience
what Epicurus called the “limit of good things” 64 —a cheerful life necessarily filled with
pleasure—we must learn to deny ourselves many of the all too apparent yet
distracting pleasures offered by the world.
5.2.2 What is bad is easy to endure
As we must recognise the limits of our needs for things and safety, so too we must
recognise the limits of what our body or mind is both likely and able to endure. Physical
pain is invariably either short-lived or chronic and either intense or mild; it is rarely
chronic and intense. Under most circumstances, therefore, pain should be tolerable.
This can be easier to appreciate (though not necessarily bear) in later age but
remains a difficult test of anxiety reduction. Epicurus himself died in intense pain,
his cheerfulness enduring as he reminded himself of the times and conversations
he had known with his friends during his life. Mental pain may be eliminated by
acceptance of the Epicurean way as its product is to reduce anxiety and foster
cheerfulness.
5.2.3. We should not worry about any power beyond our own lives
Epicurus thought the gods, imagining them existing in a perpetual state of bliss,
unconcerned about the lives of humans. Indeed, as such, they were good
examples of happiness. Their disinterest, however, meant that appealing to them, or
paying them homage, was pointless. Likewise, any signs we think are signs from the
gods are not, they are simply parts of the natural world we do not understand or for
which we have no explanation. According to Epicurus, the world is composed of
atoms which act in accordance with governing natural laws. Indeed, he may even have
thought that the gods were no more than projections of human ideas.
In the modern Western world, we are not so prone to the reverence of gods, and
particularly not to the pantheistic view of the ancient Greek sort. But religion abounds,
and it focuses on gods who can usually both destroy and save. But there is no room
for such other-worldly creatures in a life of meaning and change. If such entities exist,
they are not an active part of our lives and should be ignored. Anxiety about living up
to standards set by religious organisations on behalf of the proclaimed intention of a
god is pointless. There is no such interested god, and nothing we can do can
arouse any interest.
64 Epicurus, Letter to Menoecus in The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia,
Text 4, section 133, p.31.
But we do create our own, earth-bound gods; political leaders, human icons, power
itself, wealth, nationality, race, influence and social impact can all be sources of
reverence or envy and consequently sources of anxiety. Such divinities should
have no more an important part in our lives than did Zeus for Epicurus, or indeed
Zeus for us.
5.2.4 Death is not to be feared
For some, the greatest fear is fear of death; more than pain, the failure to satisfy
our needs, or the terrors wrought on us by others, the yawning jaws of the abyss of
death are filled with incomprehensible horror. Either we fear approaching an afterlife
and the arbitrating hand of the divine power, or we fear the idea of non-existence—the
thought of annihilation. Yet this fear is ridiculous. Death is not part of life. No one who
lives has to deal with death. No one who is dead is in a position to deal with death.
Concern about death is pointless, “...death, the most frightening of bad things, is
nothing to us; since when we exist, death is not yet present, and when death is
present, then we do not exist.” 65
There are no circumstances in which death can harm us. Neither Epicurus nor
modern science believes a god exists who can harm us after death. Even if there were
such a being, post-mortem our identity would be lost and we could therefore come
to no harm at his hand—either our dualistic soul (which is not capable of
substantial perception without a body anyway) would disappear when separated
from our body, or any harm would be meaningless to us as persisting individuals as our
bodily continuity, and therefore our selfhood, is broken by death. To worry about non-
existence is also pointless; we have already been in that condition before we were
born and as no apparent harm came of it then it is unlikely to again.
Eliminating the anxiety associated with the fearful idea of death dramatically
increases our ability for cheer, consequent pleasure and therefore happiness. It is
an affront to the meaning of our lives, to our rational self-interest, to dwell on
something not part of those lives. We should also apply this to those we love that die;
no harm can come to them in death, and our parting from them should instead cause
us more to concentrate on the benefits of our having known them in life.
And we should not be angry about the span of our lives or the lives of others. The
sweetness of life is in its limitation. We should not be greedy, for as with any
pleasurable thing, satiation leads to discomfort.
5.2.5 Friendship
This Epicurean view of freedom from anxiety operates best within the society’s
moral constraints, not because those constraints are intrinsically right but because the
most anxiety-free life is found by living within them. Standing against the tide is a
sure course for increased worry. We all need protection and society’s prime aim as a
“mutual protection association” is meant to achieve this. 66 However, a friend 67 is more
likely to respond meaningfully to a call for help than an unknown member of the
society, even a society formed for mutual protection. Friendship and philosophy,
according to Epicurus, are our greatest resources against the anxiety of insecurity.
65 Epicurus, Letter to Menoecus, in The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and
Testimonia, Text 4, section 125, p.29.
66 R. Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Oxford, Blackwell, 1980, pp.12-15.
67 Aristotle discusses friendship, philia, at length and much of our understanding of it rests
with him. Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, pp.927-1126, Books VIII-IX, pp.1058-1093.
Friendship can be found via philosophy, mutual need or affection, or mutual
interest. It should be self-satisfying and selfless, utilizing what is needed by the
other to engender sufficient concern to give to the other selflessly. This Epicurean
demand was easier to meet for Epicurus than it might be for us in the everyday
world. Many of Epicurus’ friends were followers, living with him in the Garden,
sharing their beliefs and aims (not their money—Epicurus felt that having to give
personal wealth to a communal purse only showed distrust). Each depended on the
other for fellowship and for philosophical companionship; and they lived withdrawn
from the mainstream of society immunised from many of its problems by their
inward looking mutual compact. Outside this type of environment, friendship is
usually the sharing of time, of information, of confidences. Friendship is hard to find
and commonly tales off into acquaintance where the demands for sharing are less
but the need for knowing another is retained. Knowing another is important but falls
short of the satisfaction of friendship. Humans have traditionally formed pair
bonds that readily satisfy the criteria for friendship. Outside of traditional
partnerships, close companionship as loving relationship is rarer. 68 This sort of
friendship contrasts with Epicurean cultism in allowing the individual to change and
freely act according to their own self-interests. Epicurean friendship, on the other
hand, is formed around the seed of mutually shared belief not necessarily generated
by the individual’s need to express their own personal meaning through action.
For Epicurus, friendship is superior to sex and sexual love which he considers
harmful as it draws us easily into a cycle of lust, infatuation, jealousy and
disenchantment. 69 Again, this reflects more concerns over individuals sticking to the
dogmatic line and not being distracted by personal interest. Such sobriety
towards sex (also an important feature of Christian thinking) has no place within a
framework of genuine mutual engagement. Not all friend-partnerships involve
sex—it is not a pre-requisite, though sex involves the couple in intimate and
engaging ways which do not apply without it.
5.2.6 Possession, envy and jealousy
The terms jealousy and envy are often used synonymously. They are, however,
distinct human emotional conditions. Envy takes place in a two-group and consists in
one wishing for unfortunate results to befall the other who has attributes or acquisitions
not had by the first. Aristotle says in envy we do not wish to have what we envy or
acquire for ourselves, instead, what we hope for is that the present possessor loses
it. 70 Jealousy, on the other hand, never operates in a two-group although
sometimes the third or additional members are fantasised. Jealousy does not involve
attributes or acquisitions, but instead involves an emotional attachment to something or
someone the retention of which is passionately defended.
Both envy and jealousy are about possession—envy begrudges it, jealousy covets
it. And both are about destruction—envy desires it directly, jealousy will surely
bring it about. A free life with meaning cannot involve itself in desire for
possession. Such desire increases anxiety—it leads us beyond our true needs, it
68 NU-philosophical counselling is a good example of a union of friendship outside the traditional
methods but still fulfilling the essential demands.
69 Diogenes Laertius, “Report of Epicurus’ Ethical Views”, in The Epicurus Reader: Selected
Writings and Testimonial, X, p.118.
70 Aristotle, Rhetoric (Rhetoric) in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. R.P. McKeon, trans. W. Rhys
Roberts, New York, Random House, 1941, 1387b, line 22-1387a, line 29, pp.1317-1451.
involves us in unfaithful complicity with ourselves for we are at the same time
conspiring with our self to see something as desirable as we wish no one to desire
it. And our bad faith is exposed in our jealousy that allows, as it runs in parallel, a
desire to keep for oneself something we also reject.
6. Philosophical companionship
Philosophical companionship is not simply thinking about what philosophical
companionship is, or what philosophy is, or what the philosophical life is, or how
the philosophical life may be attained; none of these pursuits are necessarily
companionable nor would they necessarily benefit from having of a companion in
their undertaking. It may be pleasant and indeed fruitful to work with someone in
order to find a solution to these or similar questions but they do not have to be a
companion in order to fulfil this role.
Philosophical companionship involves at least two people acting as companions one
to another. It is a loving relationship. It is a committing relationship. It is an intimate
and engaging relationship. It involves actually being with and being concerned for,
the other. It necessitates assisting the other and wishing for their persistence, both
as an individual and within the companionship framework. Like love, it is a seeing
relationship–a relationship based upon real contact. Philosophical companions act
companionably. They act with love towards their companion—taking part in each
other’s lives, wishing the best for their companion. It is an activity which can be
seen primarily as companionable and secondarily philosophical. It is a relationship
based upon companionability. 71 Asking, “what is the philosophical life?” is not
philosophical companionship. It is not even necessarily practical philosophy. If it
takes place between at least two people it is merely a joint enterprise in trying to
answer a philosophical question with practical implications. Philosophical
companionship is something different than a pooling of philosophical resources in
order to reach a conclusion at present unknown. Philosophical companionship is
about the activity of loving, the activity of being with another, and it is a mistake to
confuse this philosophical activity with theoretical problem solving. Although practical
philosophy may include practical theorists like this, philosophical companionship
occupies an entirely different space.
How do we do philosophical companionship? We commit to another, to seeing them, to
talking with them, to walking with them, befriending them, inquiring about their
lives, offering them something of our own life. And we place this within a reflective
philosophical environment—an attitude of mind that prizes inquiry and reaches always
for increased knowledge, an environment that aspires to more than what is currently
available, an environment which develops what is and opens up that which is
presently in the shadows.
Philosophical companionship is not the world of the practical theorist. It does not set as
its target seeking some particular answer; if a target arises then it is derived
always from the process of companionship. There are gardeners who grow only to
exhibit their vegetables, and there are gardeners who grow produce to eat.
Philosophical companionship is sustaining; practical theorising is there for show.
Exhibitors may stand around their exhibits congratulating each other on their
efforts, but their fruit is fibrous and inedible; their produce has none of the
71 The line of this thinking was originally explored with Ran Lahav whose contribution to the
field of contemporary practical philosophy has been considerable.
succulence, none of the freshness, none of the edibility of the first-picked, the new,
the tasty, or that which comes with the spring.
The philosophical companion retreat not from the world but to the world; it is in the
clatter of the world that the true practical philosopher as philosophical companion
hears the voice of knowledge. It is in the clutter of the world that the true practical
philosopher finds the space to move into. The world is not a place away from which
we should resort–the world is the resort. In life, we cannot escape the world, and
should not seek to.
Inner silence is not the aim. The noise of the world is the aim. Though an increase
in knowledge will gain from metaphysical understanding living a philosophical life
means exposure to the world; it is not enhanced by the sound of silence, or retreat,
or inner quiet. If we are moles that burrow and busy underground, and are
equipped for the subterranean life, would we break our lives for a week or so above
ground—for the silence, the light, the difference? Moles must first and foremost accept
they are moles. They may aim for more change, and action, but the mole should
primarily aim to be more of a mole; the mole should not aim to be not a mole or
something which is incommensurable with moleness—to do so would be to chase
phantoms.
7. Self-reliance and the need for company
Being motivated by the knowledge that there are relevant others is often false and
causes us to live under a false impression. We alone are the measure of all things
in our life. We may decide to act in such a way that takes others into account, in
other words, for others, but we should never act in such a way that means our
actions are set in motion by the existence of others, in other words, because of
others. Someone, as part of a crowd, acting noisily in the street may not, if alone, act
in the same way—this individual’s action is because of others. A radio disk-jockey
talks to his audience and works to entertain them. He is working like this because
his audience is listening and expect entertainment. Acting like this, however, is acting
against the rational self-interest and good faith of the individual. The person in the
crowd cannot have his or her own self-interest highest—it is the interests of the crowd
which dictate the individual’s behaviour. And this cannot be in good faith—the contest
between the known rightful action of the individual and its contrast with the crowd-led
action will invariably be felt in the individual. The disc-jockey is trying to please a
crowd that may not even exist—there may be no one listening—and so the
foolishness of measuring our conduct against the conduct of others is exposed.
8. Doing it
Practical philosophy is like a diet sheet—work out what is best for you, sort it out so
that it is manageable, carry it out, stick to it, stand back and watch the pounds fall
away as the new clothes fit at last and the sense of well-being and confidence
increase. As time goes on, the new way of acting becomes part of the individual; in
the best possible ways it becomes a habit of living.
Doing philosophy means thinking, being rational, asking questions, challenging
actions, reflecting on past conduct, being critical of proposed conduct. Doing
philosophy means regard for the self—change, meaning, freedom to choose, action,
and how we should act. Doing philosophy means enjoying life fully, expressing
ourselves creatively, not being fearful of or beholding to others, not being afraid of what
we are or are not. Doing philosophy is a matter of working out what we have to
accept. 72 And if we are lucky, we may even in some way become a little wiser, even in
certain spheres, wise. And wisdom, combined with a cheerful approach and a
continual expression of the love which is both within and around us, will lead us to
the most meaningful experience that is possible—living a life; and for that we do not
need to pay for philosophical therapy.
This new habit—born of self-reliance and wisdom and distilled from the breadth
of our psychological and ethical world—concentrates us only on those things of
true importance; the ephemeral, the noble lie and bad faith have no place in this way
of life. As Epicurus focused on the problem of anxiety and came up with simple
solutions to eliminate it, so we can achieve the same life-changing result in the same
simple way. Our singular responsibility to this new habit of life is similarly clear—it is
simply doing it; doing philosophy in the true sense, reflecting on our lives to the
practical benefit of our lives. Empowered by self-realisation to act freely on rationally
based psychological well being, our metaphysically grounded and ethically
informed choices lead us to a self-reliant, companionable, good humoured and un-
envious life that faces up to personal mortality and both the meaninglessness and
meaningfulness of life. Change is in our hands; it is our choice to create for ourselves
this free, active and rightly done life. Freedom from bad faith and the noble lie and
acting according to moral principles that lead us to act both rightly and in our own
best interests does not require analysis, guidance or repair from another. Crossing
the bridge is uncomplicated and there is only one imperative for reaching the other
side—doing it.
72 G. Rochelle, Doing Philosophy, Edinburgh, Dunedin Academic Press, 2012.