I saw an interesting note on Substack from
, which I interpreted as the following koan: “Doing philosophy undoes philosophy.” Curious, I messaged him, asking a question that has been on my mind:Why is Western philosophy a mistake?
His response:
It’s not Western philosophy, it’s philosophy period. Asian philosophy is also terrible, although there’s a somewhat different set of mistakes, so to some extent they can compensate for each other’s. I think the root error is probably metaphysics. Once you allow yourself to talk about big vague blobby things that don’t exist, and especially when you claim they are more important than things that do, it’s over.
It’s so over. I’m biased, though, because I don’t talk much about metaphysics myself and see wisdom in
’s rule: “When I hear the word metaphysics, I reach for my pistol.” Since I don’t have a pistol handy, I reached out to , who always has some wisdom loaded, and asked her the same question about the mistake of Western philosophy. Her response:Based on separation of people and land, body and mind, individuals and collective. Tries to isolate the variables, for example, in real life we only see people who are courageous AND bullies, lovers AND haters, etc.... so Western philosophy, like Western science, starts by isolating and naming "courage" "love" and then tries to isolate them as ideals. This is a complete abstraction from reality. So... basically not based in/on reality.
If someone has vague, blobby things not based in reality, how can they ever really understand and “meet” reality? I’m trying to dive into François Laruelle’s “non-philosophy,” which is unfortunately impossible to read because he’s so impenetrably French. However, from what I’ve gathered, he describes the mistake philosophy makes—something that Chapman and Roy are gesturing at—as the “philosophical decision.” I asked ChatGPT to explain it in simple terms:
In François Laruelle's non-philosophy, the "philosophical decision" refers to philosophy’s inherent act of dividing reality into conceptual oppositions (e.g., subject/object, transcendence/immanence) and positioning itself as the privileged mediator of truth. This decision involves a circular process: philosophy creates a framework to interpret reality and then assumes that this framework has access to the whole of reality itself. According to Laruelle, this decision prevents philosophy from seeing the world without its own conceptual biases.
Maybe the Chapman/Roy/Laruelle faction is being unfair to Western philosophy, but I currently lean toward the view that much of what passes for philosophy—academic philosophy, the history of philosophy, endlessly name-dropping dead philosophers—is not necessary for what philosophy professes to be: the love of wisdom. In essence, we can forgo much of what is popularly understood as philosophy, and be wiser for it.1
That being said, and maybe I’m a fool, but I don’t want to give up on philosophy—the love of “creaturely Sophia,” as Sophiologists refer to her—which is why I’m interested in what is known as the “practical philosophy movement.”2 I’m influenced by practical philosophers like Andrew Taggart,
, and , who, in their own ways, view the practice of “doing philosophy” as a reasoned inquiry that begins with what is most salient to a person. It’s a kind of inquiry that is personal, embodied, often private, and not beholden to models of reality created by minds that claim to have “access to the whole of reality.”In my journey to see philosophy in new ways—or perhaps in very old ways—I’ve reached beyond Western philosophy and come to appreciate the work of Henry Odera Oruka and his African Sage Philosophy. Oruka, a Kenyan philosopher, challenged the notion that Africa lacks philosophical thinking and argued that African sages were indeed doing philosophy. While these sages were not academically educated or even literate, and thus unaware of Western philosophy, they possess wisdom and the capacity for reasoned inquiry.
My favorite part of Oruka’s argument, and what I find most illuminating, is his taxonomy of African sages, which he divides into “folk sages” and “philosophic sages.” The former are wise individuals who embody the wisdom of their folkways and corresponding indigenous knowledge without critical examination, while the latter not only embody that wisdom but also engage in critical reasoning, challenging their culture when needed. Roughly speaking, folk sages maintain the norms, while philosophic sages change them.
I believe these distinctions, when held lightly, can apply beyond Africa to all corners of the world, including the West. I appreciate them for two reasons. First, wisdom is understood as something that can be arrived at through both reasoned and non-reasoned means. Second, the practice of reasoned inquiry, or doing philosophy, can exist outside the Western philosophical tradition. I agree with these premises, and for me, they serve as a reminder of the following:
Doing philosophy is not the only source of wisdom.
Doing philosophy is about becoming more wise (or less foolish).
Doing philosophy can occur without knowledge of the history of Western philosophy.
The latter especially helps disabuse what most people view philosophy as—largely theoretical, academically inaccessible, and not practical. I also think it helps avoid Laruelle’s “philosophical decision,” as I am not convinced that doing philosophy, as Oruka’s philosophic sages do, will lead to dividing reality into abstractions, prioritizing those abstractions as an arbiter of truth, and building an empire of thought from it, so one can finally know what is wise to do. In essence, not all philosophizing has to be a “footnote to Plato.”
The kind of reasoned inquiry that informs Andrew, John, and Jill’s practices does not seem to lead to such a philosophical decision. In my inquiry practice, I rarely cite Plato or philosophers in the Western canon. Instead, I meet the person with their definitions and arguments, regardless of how muddled they are, honoring the proto-reasons of the felt senses and allowing for non-reasoned flashes of insight to infuse and enthuse the inquiry.
Most importantly, we start with the personal—what is deeply bothersome or alive—and reason together from there. I like the notion that the practical philosophy movement I belong to is not here to create more academic or para-academic philosophers beholden to the history of Western philosophy, but rather new philosophic sages who learn from folk sages the world over while engaging in wise reasoning3 about what is deeply salient in the here and now.
So, perhaps the koan-like phrase “doing philosophy undoes philosophy” simply means the following: engaging in a “practical” philosophical inquiry will remove any unnecessary theoretical and argumentative bloat from one’s life, allowing one to understand and meet reality more clearly, so that one can navigate life with greater clarity.
I scaled down my inquiry/coaching practice over the summer, but I'll be adding a few calls on Saturdays. If you're interested, you can schedule a 90-minute session here. Alternatively, if you'd like to connect first to see if we're a good fit, you can book a free 30-minute call here.
Related Less Foolish read: “All Philosophers Are Charlatans.”
A good history of the practical philosophy movement comes via Ran Lahav’s session at The Stoa.
Igor Grossman is one of the leading researchers on wisdom and wise reasoning, which he defines as "the use of certain types of pragmatic reasoning to navigate important challenges of social life.” You can watch his “Demystifying Wisdom” presentation at The Stoa to learn more.