Introductory Course of Practical Philosophy - details
Week 1 - The wisdom within
The opening sessions consider how philosophy can help us enjoy richer, less stressful lives.
What is practical philosophy?
'What would a wise person do here?'
Philosophy means the love of wisdom. Our course is intended to show how philosophy can help us enjoy richer, less stressful and more useful lives. This opening session considers these aims, and introduces a simple exercise in mindfulness and the application of wisdom you can practise in daily life.
The Awareness Exercise - click here.
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Week 2 - Know thyself
Who or what am I?
What is my potential?
Who am I, really? My body? My emotions? My strongly held beliefs? My soul? Possibly all of these? Possibly none?
Such questions have preoccupied philosophers down the ages. We look at practical ways to explore who we really are and how to tap our true potential.
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Week 3 - Being awake
What is our state of awareness?
Why does it fluctuate during the day?
Often the most notable quality of wise people is their alertness to the subtleties of a situation. They are awake, perceptive and curious.
We look at deeper levels of awareness, and consider how we may become more awake to ourselves, our surroundings, and the events we meet.
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Week 4 - The present moment
Living in the now, mindfulness.
What is the potential of the present moment?
We review our own experience of attention through a model featuring attention centred, captured, open and scattered, and how each of these relate to the past, present and future.
We examine the extraordinary brightness and freedom naturally available in the present moment. A straightforward practice is introduced.
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Week 5 - Living justly
Plato's view on justice.
What does it mean to live justly?
According to Plato, justice and injustice do not start 'out there'. They begin within us. For justice to prevail, Plato suggests that we must learn to avoid being 'tyrannised' by our passions and fears to the extent that they overrule our reason.
We discuss the practicality of Plato's ideas on justice in our daily lives.
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Week 6 - The threefold energy
The Vedic model of three fundamental energies.
Sometimes we seem not to have enough energy, or the wrong kind. A wise person can act consistently despite these varying conditions.
We consider how to recognise differing energies, how to gain and conserve them and how to use them wisely.
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Week 7 - The light of reason
What is reason? How can it enrich our lives? We look at guidelines for Socratic dialogue and how to use them. Developing reason in decision-making and action are also discussed, with practical applications. Obstacles to reason are considered. Everyone has the faculty of reason and we can all use it and develop it.
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Week 8 - The power of beauty
What is beauty?
Is there such a thing as absolute beauty?
Beauty has the capacity to open the heart and bring delight. In this session we discuss our direct experience of beauty in its different form: of the sensory world, of thought, of feelings, of the inner nature, and of conduct.
We consider Plato's idea of there being ultimately one beauty - beauty absolute - 'not knowing birth or death, growth or decay'.
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Week 9 - Unity in diversity
Looking for the common thread of life.
What is the effect of finding unity?
When we look around, we see enormous diversity in nature. The wise person looks for the unifying factor: that which allows all this apparent diversity to be seen as part of a single whole.
Seen in this way, life then has the best chance of being led freshly an openly.
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Week 10 - The desire for truth
What is truth?
How does the desire for truth show itself?
Practical philosophy is about discovering the truth of things - not theoretically, but in our own experience.
In this final session we look back and ask ourselves how our search for truth has fared as the term has progressed. We discuss what has been discovered and how, in our own way, we may continue to develop it in our own lives.
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