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Articles

Philosophical Counseling

Maria daVenza Tillmanns on understanding self and others through dialogue.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them.” – Albert Einstein

The philosophical counseling movement started during the early Eighties in Europe and the US. It seemed to be a zeitgeist phenomenon: the time was ripe, and a number of people around the world who had a strong interest in philosophy ‘suddenly’ had the brain wave, why not apply philosophy to everyday life? Some present-day philosophical counselors recount how they wanted to study philosophy precisely for its merits with respect to everyday life, and how disappointed they were to find out that academic philosophy seemed to have stripped philosophy of its application to lived reality. Academic philosophy seemed to be only that – academic. Where did the philosophy of Socrates go – the philosophy of the market place? The idea behind the philosophical counseling movement was to rescue philosophy from the ivory tower and let her live in the world of the everyday.

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