Conversations with a Real Live Philosopher

Who is the Philosopher?

This post summarizes the amazing conversation I streamed live with Dr. Cori Wong on November 26th, 2021. If you want to go deeper, you should check out Cori’s full reflections on this conversation and buy her a coffee.

Themes of Philosophy (and Conversation):

· Living our values through our actions (and how they emerge by engaging with reflection and theory, putting theory into practice, embodied practices)

· Felt experiences, especially of what it feels like when we are learning

· What we learn from good teachers and their way of being

· What it means to connect, build relationship, and intimacy in practice

· What happens when we center play, creativity, joy, humor, comedy, and levity (and meta fiction)

· Moving through life with a sense of knowing in the midst of uncertainty

· The power of having language to name and describe our experiences

· The art of living, positive philosophy, and philosophical counseling

· Therapy, liberation, and the relationship to doing philosophy

Timestamps for this Philosophical Journey

This is what philosophy looks like.

If you want to join along in the conversation, or skip around, I hope these timestamps help! Thanks again to Cori Wong for all of her work here putting together the timestamps and showing up with such grace and playfulness.

0:00 — Introductions and What a philosopher, like Cori, does these days

· Introduction of the idea about reflecting on our teachers as those who shape us

4:26 — Context for the conversations (2020–2021)

· Creating space for reflection, learning, and creativity

· Introduction of the idea of not knowing exactly what we are doing, but clearly doing something in the meantime

7:40 — What we learn from our teachers; living out our values; Dr. Marian Caudron

· Embodying one’s values with commitments to be a practitioner; living the practices you are teaching

· Introduction of the idea of “teaching” and practicing philosophy outside of academia and providing therapeutic support for others

14:35 — Identifying our values, a case study across different philosophers

· Positive Psychologist Martin Seligman’s Values in Action (VIA) and Natalie Goldberg’s Katagiri Roshi

· Existentialist queer, feminist, and anti-oppressive values from David Deane (an Irish Catholic Theologian) and the Bodhisattva vows and insights of Marian Caudron

22:00 — Not knowing what you’re doing (but also knowing because you’re already doing it)

· The 2008 observation from Jane Kneller about Cori, “Wherever she’s going, she’s already there” and eventually figuring out what that means after a few years

· Example of being already there: From 2013 Cori’s first LLC in philosophical counseling to 2021, choosing to starting Positive Philosophy Consulting, LLC, and still being a philosopher

26:16 — Ending up where we started IS really getting somewhere and “negative capability.”

· October checkpoints — you will be wrong about what will happen and can still already be there. Getting comfortable with uncertainty

· What does it feel like when you’ve really learned something?

34:43 — Comedy, Playfulness, Humor, Joy, and Levity

· María Lugones on playfulness, “world traveling,” and loving perception, especially when people perceive us as serious but we know ourselves to be playful

· The liberatory practice of cultivating joy, fun, pleasure; allowing for playfulness, honesty, intimacy, and co-creation

· 43:40 — Different channels for practicing philosophy and embodying our values in an artful way

· Commitment to practice and the embodiment of ideas

· Creativity, and “writing” as an act of self-authorship and self-awareness

49:20 — Do philosophers necessarily need to have some comfort with uncertainty?

· Charles Mills on the epistemology of ignorance, which acknowledges the politics of a produced and willful ignorance

· Why philosophers need to go beyond simply asking the questions and reimagine some answers (cf. Grace Lee Boggs and María Lugones)

58:20 — Philosophy should help us live better and in pragmatic ways

· “Designing a life” and what philosophy is supposed to do — participants of The Wisdom Workshop become “more comfortable with uncertainty now because I know a path through it”

· How María Lugones and Elizabeth Spelman describe what characterizes good theory (which provides direction and guidance on how to live a better life)

1:03:21 — Is joy and love required for living a good life?

· Play, levity, joy, laughter, and pleasure as characteristics of a world without oppression and means for resistance to oppression

· There is a collective responsibility for us to create liberation for everyone rather than just independently pursuing our own joy

1:11:40 — About philosophical counseling (finally!!)

· In past decade, philosophical counseling has become more standardized and mainstream enough to be featured in O Quarterly Magazine (Spring 2021)

· Different ways to approach philosophical counseling: logical review of assumptions, assigning a philosophical path of learning, “prescribing” theories to address questions

· Appreciating that philosophical lineages are disciplines with histories, lineages, and wisdom that informs content, context, arguments, and frameworks, and this provides the transformative potential for helping us navigate our everyday lives

· Cori’s approach: how to live a life where you feel rooted, grounded, with clarity. Not about indoctrination, but skills development and the ability to make connections between our own unique experiences, insights, and influences. We develop the skills to think, read, write, share, articulate, problem solve, and creatively experiment

1:23:19 — Languages for THIS philosophical practice that develops the “movement of self” as an art of living in more liberatory ways?

· Miranda Fricker’s concept of hermeneutic injustice highlights the political, philosophical, and personal significance and implications of what we lack in terms of shared language to identify, reference, name, and make meaning

· We are all currently going through a specific, pivotal, and human cultural moment, and we would benefit by having language to describe the skills and practices that help us move through this in healthier, better, and more responsible ways

· Positive philosophy develops the capacity to experience and embody these practices in ways that can be pleasurable and therapeutic. (What does learning feel like? What does healing feel like?)

· Recognizing the felt experience of philosophical practice — when you encounter great teachers, engage in the discipline of philosophical practice, and feel like something is happening even if you can’t quite name what it is

1:35:10 — Where do people begin if they want to develop in philosophical practice? How long does this take?

· To do really transformative work and change culture — individually, as a group, or part of a larger organization — you have to start with understanding the values that are really guiding your life (and potentially undermining your best intentions)

· The point is to practice deeply enough to develop skills that will help you navigate the questions. This depends on presence and quality of your learning as an embodied experience

1:40:40 — Are you learning? How do you know if you’re learning?

· Cori reads excerpt from “Lessons in Liberation: How to Break Up by Writing a Love Letter” to illustrate her own process over the past four months that capture the themes of this whole conversation

· Cori sharing appreciations and gratitudes with Sean for the space, support, and ongoing conversations

· Recognizing the importance those who support you to do your work (like at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/coriwong) and giving thanks to all of our teachers

Want to Learn More?

Join us in the Wisdom Workshop!