| Abstract [eng] |
Summary Philosophical counseling: pro et contra This work presents a discourse on contemporary philosophical practice. It examines one of the most controversial aspects of the discourse; one which has been subject to varying assessments – philosophical counseling. Philosophical counseling, on the one hand, is sometimes regarded as the rebirth of an ancient philosophical tradition that attempts a purposeful approach to resolving the existential problems of daily life; but it is also regarded as "a return of sophistry" or a surrogate for psychological therapy – some see it more as a supplement to psychotherapy than as an independent philosophical practice. The search for what makes philosophical counseling philosophical is complicated by the fact that a significant part of the idea of philosophy as therapy has been taken over and applied by practicing psychologists. This idea is encountered in the humanist strand of psychology, in logotherapy, and in existential therapy, thus making the task of tracing the boundary line between philosophy and psychology more difficult. Through a critical reconstruction of the principal texts of the discourse on philosophical counselling – the classic anthology on the discourse, Essays on Philosophical Counseling; Peter Raabe's monograph, Philosophical Counseling: Theory and Practice; and S.C. Shuster's Philosophical Practice: An Alternative to Counseling and Psichotherapy – this work makes the claim that the problem of the legitimation of philosophical counseling corresponds to the question of philosophical boundaries, because the specifics of the debate are determined by different conceptions of what philosophy is and of what its goals are. In seeking out that which in philosophical counseling is undoubtedly philosophical, we reach the conclusion that philosophical counselling is not a therapy in the classic diagnostic sense, where an illness is diagnosed as a social construct based on the definitions of what is "normal" provided by institutions (however, in no way does this include medical conditions that belong to the domain of psychiatry). Beyond any shadow of a doubt, personal philosophical counseling is a therapy when it is understood in the Ancient Greek sense of therapeia, which means "a service". It is a self-supporting philosophical practice inasmuch as, during the course of counseling, it has the capacity to make use of the tools of phenomenology and hermeneutics, and of certain approaches drawn from analytic philosophy; and inasmuch as it is based upon the conception of philosophical therapy and of philosophy as a way of life. |
