Pour une philosophie en acte - part II - To philosophize is to die

"Learning to philosophize is learning to die".
Montaigne.

We can understand this proposition as a way of saying: "Dying? you have to take it philosophically, there's nothing you can do about it".

But to take things philosophically is not to philosophize. Learning to philosophize is learning to die a little every day. It's about avoiding too great a distortion between one's library of beliefs, one's "philosophy in action", and impermanent reality, which is always being re-signified.

A person's identity is both the content of their beliefs and their limits. The movement of reality constantly questions our library of beliefs and the way they are organized.

If we fail to question our model of the world, we condemn ourselves to always meaning the world in the same way, with the same thought routines, even though the world is changing every day.

So how can we continue to be ourselves without changing in a world where, as the Buddhists say, "the only thing that is permanent is impermanence"?

This is the question posed by Theseus' ship[1]: If I change all the elements that make up my boat day after day, is it still "my boat"?

If so, what defines "my boat"? What will define it is not what constitutes it, its materiality, but its social utility, its modes of interaction with reality, its raison d'être. What defines me is not the set of beliefs that constitutes me, but my social reason, my modes of social interaction, my effects on the world.

I can therefore lose beliefs without feeling that I'm "losing myself", as long as this doesn't call into question my social usefulness and my raison d'être. Especially when it makes them more effective in fulfilling my mission and reinforcing my social purpose!

There's a commonly-held belief in society that every ten years or so, we may consider that we've changed most of our cells, but we're still ourselves. But are we still ourselves? Is it the same "us"? What's always the same? The structure of thought? The configuration of representations? The project of thought?

So, to question one's philosophy in action is to constantly deconstruct and reconstruct the complex, protean puzzle that constitutes my identity, that shapes my identity, that shapes who I am.

It means giving yourself the opportunity to criticize your beliefs and the limits of your identity. Giving yourself the opportunity to go beyond your limits and build other possibilities. Offering oneself the opportunity to consider one's beliefs as an object. In the end, no longer be identified with your beliefs. To be able to die every day to our old beliefs and not be suddenly destabilized by a regulatory earthquake when the distortion between our established beliefs and reality is no longer acceptable.

The object of our beliefs

Being able to consider our beliefs as objects means no longer being identified with them.

It's only when a belief is considered as an object that it can be transformed and abandoned, without the feeling of losing oneself and one's identity.

Losing a belief is no longer life-threatening. To die a little every day is to get used to dying, and to see definitive deaths such as leaving a job, leaving a person, leaving one's body, coming with a certain detachment. Basically, when I die, I'll have been dead for a long time, so it won't be so serious. The "I" who speaks today will have been dead for a long time.

Beliefs live and die, making and unmaking identity as the environment changes. Undoing limits to offer opportunities for new thoughts. Undoing obsolete beliefs to make way for more operational ones.

Beliefs, like shoes, are used to walk in, but as we grow they sometimes become too narrow, and it's better to change them to keep moving forward. We can certainly walk better by adopting beliefs with a wider shoe size.

The philosopher as soul-seeker?

The practice of philosophy leads us to search for ourselves. It relies on an alternating mechanism between experimentation and experimentation. I experiment to verify and criticize my beliefs (experimentation), and I use my experience of the world (experimentation) to elaborate new beliefs and new postures.

My experience of the world, when it produces dissonance - because it doesn't happen as I expected it to happen - offers me the possibility of constructing other hypotheses about the Real. The analysis of error thus leads to the elaboration of hypotheses or a field of hypotheses that I can test through experimentation. The function of experimentation is to filter hypotheses, to clear away this field of hypotheses to allow the most useful hypothesis to emerge, which will become my new belief - a belief just as provisional as the others, but which will allow me to relax my field of experimental possibilities.

It's in this sense that philosophy in action brings death. It allows me to let go of old beliefs, to let go of parts of myself that have become obsolete but that I hadn't identified as dead. Disquamations of the mind, dried-up beliefs that no longer play their role, to make way for the emergence of new beliefs. Basically, when I die, who I am today will have been dead for a long time. So there's no need to be afraid!

François Dosse[2] in his article on Ricoeur reminds us that "for a long time, the dialogue between philosophy and history was a dialogue of the deaf. What is true at the societal level is often true at the individual level: it is the absence of dialogue between one's philosophy in action and one's history that prevents the individual from living in a certain internal harmony.

This contract of truth is a contract with oneself which, to a certain extent, determines the contract of trust one can enter into with oneself to move forward with a minimum of apprehension. Lack of self-confidence is often directly linked to a person's inability to have a clear idea of who they are, what they can do and what their limits are. The wise man is the one who knows his limits. He is then able to cross them with eyes wide open when necessary.

Dying to your beliefs, yes, but dying slowly[3].

In all traditions, death symbolizes a change of state, not a definitive and total end. Learning to die is just learning to change state.

If philosophy is the practice of wisdom, what is the practice of wisdom? There's a difference between being wise and practicing wisdom. What do I have to do? What do I have to do that tells me I'm practicing wisdom?
Reading books on philosophy and thinking that they give you the skills of a philosopher is like thinking you can solve your problems by reading all the books on psychoanalysis. It's like buying a high-quality toolbox and thinking that's all you need to make beautiful work.

The practice of philosophy presupposes a conceptual toolbox, but does not guarantee knowing how to use it. The main difficulty lies in the ability to read the situations we experience through the concepts of philosophy, and for this we cannot do without confrontation with others; it is in this sense that coaching, psychotherapy and supervision can at times be work on one's philosophy in action.

Philosophical accompaniment is both the accompaniment of the development of one's own tools and their sharpening, as well as their use. It's learning an art that's the art of dying every day so as to be always alive.

Illustration: DepositPhotos - ngupakarti

[1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bateau_de_Th%C3%A9s%C3%A9e

[2] Dosse F., "Le moment Ricœur", Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire, 2001/1 (no. 69), pp. 137-152. DOI https://www.cairn.info/revue-vingtieme-siecle-revue-d-histoire-2001-1-page-137.htm