Abstract
This chapter provides a brief introduction to the notion of philosophical therapy, its connection to the eighteenth century Scottish School of Common Sense, and further back still to its connection with ancient Greek philosophy.
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Notes
- 1.
In the mid-1960s, as a response to what they saw as the ineffectiveness of Freudian psychoanalysis, Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis began, independently, developing empirically driven therapies. Beck researched what he called Cognitive Therapy (CT) and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), while Ellis developed what came to be known as Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). They later worked together.
- 2.
However, in an earlier work Beck , like Ellis, says the “philosophical origins of cognitive therapy can be traced back to the Stoic philosophers” (Beck, Rush, Shaw, Emery.1979: 8).
- 3.
Robertson makes this connection too.
- 4.
In Sharon Lebell’s interpretive translation of the Stoic philosopher, Epictetus, entitled, The Art of Living: the Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness, Lebell writes, “Epictetus would have had little patience for the aggressive position-taking and -defending and verbal pirouettes that unfortunately sometimes pass for ‘doing’ philosophy in today’s universities…Inasmuch as he passionately denounced displays of cleverness for its own sake, he was committed to non-patronizing explanations of helpful ideas for living well. He considered himself successful when his ideas were easily grasped and put to use in someone’s real life, where they could actually do some good elevating that person’s character” (Lebell 2007: vvii).
- 5.
For instance, the Cynics and the Skeptics, the latter of which was still active in the third century CE, especially in Plato’s Academy, both were tied to the goal of a way of life free from anxieties as well as the goal of intellectual “peace of soul.” My thanks to Paul Streveler for pointing this out to me.
- 6.
I say “intellectually question” in order to emphasize how Cartesian or intellectualist philosophy does not take seriously the second of the 5 CBT strategies listed above; particularly that our thinking and emotions have to square with our actions. Radical skepticism is so inconsistent with our actions that no one can live a life as a radical skeptic. It’s a purely notional or parlor game conception.
- 7.
A distinction should be made here between “intellectual” and “intellectualist.” An intellectual is someone who, after receiving a thorough education, possesses a highly developed intellect; this is a good and highly sought after goal. But being intellectualist, on the other hand, is an excessive devotion to the intellect. By way of comparison, think of the difference between scientific and scientistic, moral and moralistic.
- 8.
It should be noted that Reid’s appeal to Common Sense developed mostly out of his frustration with Humean skepticism. Broadly speaking, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries produced two veins of skepticism: Cartesian skepticism that which emerged as a result of David Hume’s Problem of Induction. Descartes questioned whether one could trust one’s senses, whether one was dreaming, and finally, whether one lived in a world where an evil demon was trying to deceive people on things they found most manifest. The sort of skepticism David Hume introduced—the Problem of Induction—stemmed from his analysis of inductive reasoning. To reason inductively means one begins with a limited sampling of something before arriving at a generalization based on that limited collection. For example, the sun came up this morning. The sun came up the morning prior, too. In fact, as far back as I can remember, the sun has risen. Hume says that “[f]rom causes which appear similar we expect similar effects.” Therefore, I should expect a similar effect with the sun tomorrow. Here, I am making an inference that the sun will come up tomorrow just as it has in the past. In fact, all inference from past and present experience rests on the very assumption that the future will resemble the past. But Hume noticed that this leads to the extremely skeptical conclusion that much of what we think we know we really don’t know. For our assumption that the future will resemble the past is itself an unprovable assumption. How do we really know that the future will resemble the past? We can’t say that it’s because experience shows us that the future has always resembled the past. For a moment’s reflection illustrates that our experience comes from past events. That is, one cannot say that the future will resemble the past because the future has always resembled the past, for now one is appealing to the very principle that we wish to establish, and note, one is appealing to it through induction.
- 9.
Braid was not an academic philosopher but he was influenced by the philosophers of his day. He cites and references the “Scottish realist philosophers” throughout his writing.
- 10.
Hypnotism has had a few different names. Initially it was called “animal magnetism,” a theory developed by Franz Mesmer (1734–1815). Mesmer believed a magnetic force existed throughout the universe. This force affected the health of the human body. He experimented with magnets in an effort to heal sick bodies. While grasping magnets, Mesmer slowly waved his hands before people. “[A]round 1774 he…[began] referring to this action as making ‘Mesmeric passes.’ He used the word ‘mesmerize,’ formed from his last name” https://www.bookofdaystales.com/hypnosis/ After James Braid began applying scientific tools to it, he was able to reproduce the state without any of the “occult” connections that Mesmer had associated with it. Braid renamed this state, “hypnosis” (from the Greek hypno, meaning “sleep”). He described hypnosis as a “shift of the nervous system into a new condition” (Tinterow 1970: 271).
- 11.
In his 1843 book, Neurypnology, Braid described it this way: “I now proceed to detail the mode which I practise for inducing the phenomena. Take any bright object (I generally use my lancet case) between the thumb and fore and middle fingers of the left hand; hold it from about eight to fifteen inches from the eyes, at such position above the forehead is may be necessary to produce the greatest possible strain upon the eyes and eyelids, and enable the patient to maintain a steady fixed stare at the object. The patient must be made to understand that he is to keep the eyes steadily fixed on the object, and the mind riveted on the idea of that one object. It will be observed, that owing to the consensual adjustment of the eyes, the pupils will be at first contracted: they will shortly begin to dilate, and after they have done so to a considerable extent, and have assumed a wavy motion, if the fore and middle fingers of the right hand, extended and a little separated, are carried from the object towards the eyes, most probably the eyelids will close involuntarily, with a vibratory motion. If this is not the case, or the patient allows the eyeballs to move, desire him to begin anew, giving him to understand that he is to allow the eyelids to close when the fingers are again carried towards the eyes, but that the eyeballs must be kept fixed , in the same position, and the mind riveted to the one idea of the object held above the eyes” (Braid 2010: 27–28).
- 12.
And although these philosophical methods can be traced back to the ancient Greeks, Braid grounds them in Common Sense. Some scholars argue a direct line can be drawn back to Aristotle from the Common Sense Realists. For instance, in Bernard Mahoney’s The Empirical Tradition and Newman’s Concept of the Conscience (his Ph.D. dissertation), Mahoney contends that the line of British Empiricists—Locke, Hume, and to a certain degree Berkeley—begins with the study of Aristotle at Oxford. When Aristotle was banned at the University of Paris in the thirteenth century, a group of scholars moved north to Oxford to continue their research. These scholars, inspired by the empiricism of Aristotle, influenced not only the aforementioned philosophers but also (much later) exercised an amount of influence on Thomas Reid and his Scottish School of Common Sense. Reid’s School is an important link to the empirical tradition, for it can be seen in the work of Henry Sidgwick, G.E. Moore’s instructor at Cambridge. Reid’s work can also be seen in a contemporary of Moore’s, H. H. Price, who, in his book Perception, said, “[t]he position maintained in this chapter with regard to the nature and validity of perceptual consciousness is in essence identical with that maintained by Reid against Hume” (Price 1984 203.) Mahoney’s study shows that the British empirical tradition began at Oxford well before Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, and, that these Aristotelian scholars have influenced every empirical movement well into the twentieth century including the School of Ordinary Language, i.e., Wittgenstein, J. L. Austin.
- 13.
Engaging in philosophy was often deeply personal for Wittgenstein. Indeed, it seems Wittgenstein was sometimes unable to separate the two, as Bertrand Russell recounts: “He used to come to see me every evening at midnight, and pace up and down the room like a wild beast for three hours in agitated silence. Once I said to him: ‘Are you thinking about logic, or about your sins?’ ‘Both,’ he replied, and continued his pacing. I did not like to suggest it was time for bed, for it seemed probable both to him and to me that on leaving me he would commit suicide” (Russell 1968: 137).
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Brice, R.G. (2022). Introduction: Philosophical Therapy. In: Wittgenstein's On Certainty: Insight and Method. SpringerBriefs in Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90781-5_2
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