Over 2500 years ago, philosophy
emerged as a distinct way of life
in the ancient Mediterranean world.
By the claims of its own founders and their disciples—like Thales, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Socrates, and Plato—this way of life was derived from many other cultures, including the religious practices of the Egyptians, the Persians, and the teachings and traditions ascribed to Orpheus.
Philosophy was thus from its foundations so concerned with religious things that a great scholar could even claim the word “philosophy” to be the only word in Greek antiquity that comes close to corresponding to our sense of “religion” today. Philosophy found its highest expression in its reflection on the gods, which it called theology…
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Christians took over this idea of philosophy and emerged as a powerful alternate tradition of philosophy in the Roman Empire, one that, through its political triumph, would end up preserving and transforming the ancient idea of philosophy. This was so much that case that monasticism, the highest life of the Christian church, was referred to as the philosophical life from its earliest history well into the Middle Ages.
This tradition of philosophy was transformed by the rise of the European university but only in the nineteenth-century would philosophy undergo a conscious crisis of identity as it sought to position itself as a field of comprehensive knowledge and one academic discipline among others. Theology and philosophy were formally separated in subject matter and, with the secularization of the university system, theology’s cultural importance diminished even as philosophy increasingly forgot its history and aspiration to help humans become “as much like the divine as possible.”
The last fragments of philosophy’s religious origins in academia lie in an area that first concerned itself with the truth and coherence of religious claims (a task academic theologians largely abandoned), and later dissolved into a variety of pursuits whose principle of unity seemed to fade into academic convenience.
“The Myth of Secular Philosophy: Philosophy of Religion’s Origin and Fate.” Religions, 14.3 (2023): 356.
We live in the most complex society in history.
Insights fragment as the need for unity and coherence increases.
The wisdom required for living life well comes from seeing the whole, yet how is the possible today?
Education embodies our ideal of humanity, and it is the means by which we become ourselves. When we have forgotten what humans are, or no longer agree as a culture, we cannot educate. For a democracy to flourish, its citizens must be offered the skills needed to participate fully in economic and civil life. That is a demand of the common good, a requisite of our republic.
But training is different than education. Our confusion has led us to conflate schooling, job-training, and certification with education…
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Schooling stops at a certain age; degrees end and are restricted to those with the power to pay. True education ends when we do; it is a life-long process and should not be restricted to the privileged and elite.
At the heart of every educational venture must be a clear answer to the question: what does it mean to be human? Humans are philosophers, destined to achieve the freedom to understand themselves and determine the kind of person they wish to become. Philosophy is a way of life, not an academic discipline; philosophers are a species, homo sapiens, not a professional class.
Education is a philosophical enterprise. To become human is to practice philosophy as a way of life.
“Why Listen to Philosophers? A Constructive Critique of Disciplinary Philosophy.”Metaphilosophy 47.1 (2016): 3-25.
“Philosophy is a way of life, the way called Human.”
Enduring questions about the meaning of human life, the nature of society, and the pursuit of happiness are increasing in importance. Dimensions of culture such as politics, religion, art, the university, and business widen these gaps instead of closing them.
An ancient innovation made new, the Becoming Human Project revives the revolutionary birthplace of our greatest ideas and most enduring institutions: the philosophical school.
A cross between a contemporary research institute, consulting firm, spiritual community, book club, and social revolution, this way of life took shape in philosophical communities dedicated to becoming human.