Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of existence, being and the world.

Arguably, metaphysics is the foundation of philosophy: Aristotle calls it "first philosophy" (or
sometimes just "wisdom"), and says it is the subject that deals with "first causes and the principles of
things". Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality,
including the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between
potentiality and actuality. It asks questions like: "What is the nature of reality?", "How does the world
exist, and what is its origin or source of creation?", "Does the world exist outside the mind?", "How can
the incorporeal mind affect the physical body?", "If things exist, what is their objective nature?", "Is
there a God (or many gods, or no god at all)?"

Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and
recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct. The field of ethics, along with aesthetics,
concerns matters of value, and thus comprises the branch of philosophy called axiology. Ethics, also
called moral philosophy, the discipline concerned with what is morally good and bad, right and wrong.
The term is also applied to any system or theory of moral values or principles. Ethics deals with such
questions at all levels. Its subject consists of the fundamental issues of practical decision making, and
its major concerns include the nature of ultimate value and the standards by which human actions can
be judged right or wrong.

Epistemology is the study of the nature and scope of knowledge and justified belief. It analyzes the
nature of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth, belief and justification. It also
deals with the means of production of knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge
claims. Epistemology, the philosophical study of the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge.
The term is derived from the Greek epistēmē(“knowledge”) and logos (“reason”), and accordingly the
field is sometimes referred to as the theory of knowledge. Epistemology asks questions like: "What is
knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?", "What do people know?", "What are the necessary and
sufficient conditions of knowledge?", "What is its structure, and what are its limits?", "What makes
justified beliefs justified?", "How we are to understand the concept of justification?", "Is justification
internal or external to one's own mind?"

Aesthetics, also spelled esthetics, the philosophical study of beauty and taste. It is closely related to the
philosophy of art, which is concerned with the nature of art and the concepts in terms of which
individual works of art are interpreted and evaluated. In practice, we distinguish between aesthetic
judgments (the appreciation of any object, not necessarily an art object) and artistic judgments (the
appreciation or criticism of a work of art). Thus aesthetics is broader in scope than the philosophy of
art. It is also broader than the philosophy of beauty, in that it applies to any of the responses we might
expect works of art or entertainment to elicit, whether positive or negative. In very general terms, it
examines what makes something beautiful, sublime, disgusting, fun, cute, silly, entertaining,
pretentious, discordant, harmonious, boring, humorous or tragic.

Philosophy of logic, the study, from a philosophical perspective, of the nature and types of logic,
including problems in the field and the relation of logic to mathematics and other disciplines. the
study of reasoning, or the study of the principles and criteria of valid inference and demonstration. It
attempts to distinguish good reasoning from bad reasoning.
The term logic comes from the Greek word logos. The variety of senses that logos possesses may
suggest the difficulties to be encountered in characterizing the nature and scope of logic. Among the
partial translations of logos, there are “sentence,” “discourse,” “reason,” “rule,” “ratio,” “account”
(especially the account of the meaning of an expression), “rational principle,” and “definition.” Not
unlike this proliferation of meanings, the subject matter of logic has been said to be the “laws of
thought,” “the rules of right reasoning,” “the principles of valid argumentation,” “the use of certain
words labelled ‘logical constants’,” “truths (true propositions) based solely on the meanings of the
terms they contain,” and so on. Logic investigates and classifies the structure of statements and
arguments, both through the study of formal systems of inference and through the study of arguments
in natural language.

Philosophy can be divided into 5 branches based on the questions these topics answer:

Epistemology is the study of “knowledge.” Epistemology deals with the process by which we can know
that something is true. It addresses questions such as: What can I know? How is knowledge acquired?
Can we be certain about anything?

Metaphysics is the study of “reality.” More specifically it is the study of reality that is beyond the
scientific or mathematical realms. (the term “metaphysics” itself literally means “beyond the
physical.”) The metaphysical issues most discussed are the existence of god, the soul, and the afterlife.

Ethics is the study of moral value, right and wrong. Ethics is involved with placing value to personal
actions, decisions, and relations. Important ethical issues today include abortion, sexual morality, the
death penalty, euthanasia, pornography, and the environment.

Logic is the study of right reasoning. It is the tool philosophers use to study other philosophical
categories. Good logic includes the use of good thinking skills and the avoidance of logic fallacies.

Aesthetics is the study of art and beauty. It attempts to address such issues as: “What is art?” “What is
the relationship between beauty and art?” “Are there objective standards by which art can be judged?”
“Is beauty in the eye of the beholder?”

Knowledge is the accumulation of facts and information. Wisdom is the synthesis of knowledge and
experiences into insights that deepen one’s understanding of relationships and the meaning of life. In
other words, knowledge is a tool, and wisdom is the craft in which the tool is used. Knowledge is the
accumulation of facts and data that you have learned about or experienced. It’s being aware of
something, and having information. Knowledge is really about facts and ideas that we acquire through
study, research, investigation, observation, or experience.

Wisdom is the ability to discern and judge which aspects of that knowledge are true, right, lasting, and
applicable to your life. It’s the ability to apply that knowledge to the greater scheme of life. It’s also
deeper; knowing the meaning or reason; about knowing why something is, and what it means to your
life.
Knowledge is knowing how to manage your money, budgeting, spending, saving.

Wisdom is understanding how money impacts the quality of your life and your future.

Knowledge is learning how to paint and using that skill to cultivate a livelihood.

Wisdom is expressing your passion through painting and understanding that art is a form of
communication that touches the lives of others.

In contrast to knowledge, wisdom is generally considered to be morally good. Why is this the case?
Albert Einstein once said, ‘Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire
it.’ Such a process is lengthy and arduous, which teaches the pursuer patience and humility. Seldom is
a person unchanged by such a trial. When one finally uncovers a connection or insight that he or she
believes to be universally applicable ‘truth,’ it often inspires awe akin to a spiritual experience.

‘Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers,’ wrote Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Truths stay with a person for the
rest of his or her life, coloring all subsequent thoughts and actions. Wisdom requires no law or threat
of punishment to ensure compliance. The practitioner typically feels a strong compulsion to obey his or
her own beliefs. The wise can still fall prey to indiscretions and questionable moral behavior–being
flesh and blood like us all–however, if one tracks such statistics, the odds of such failings are likely to
be very small compared to the general populace.

“Philosophy as we understand it is a Greek creation.” – Martin Litchfield West

Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BCE and continued throughout the Hellenistic
period and the period in which Ancient Greece was part of the Roman Empire. It dealt with a wide
variety of subjects, including political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, ontology, logic, biology,
rhetoric, and aesthetics.

Some claim that Greek philosophy, in turn, was influenced by the older wisdom literature and
mythological cosmogonies of the ancient Near East. Martin Litchfield West gives qualified assent to
this view, stating, “contact with oriental cosmology and theology helped to liberate the early Greek
philosophers’ imagination; it certainly gave them many suggestive ideas. But they taught themselves to
reason. Philosophy as we understand it is a Greek creation“.

Subsequent philosophic tradition was so influenced by Socrates (as presented by Plato) that it is
conventional to refer to philosophy developed prior to Socrates as pre-Socratic philosophy. The periods
following this until the wars of Alexander the Great are those of “classical Greek” and “Hellenistic”
philosophy. Who are we? How can we be happy? Does the universe have a purpose? Greek
philosophers approached the big questions of life sometimes in a genuine scientific way, sometimes in
mystic ways, but always in an imaginative fashion. One of the key points of Ancient Greek philosophy
was the role of reason and inquiry. It emphasized logic and championed the idea of impartial, rational
observation of the natural world. The Greeks made major contributions to math and science.

Philosophy of the medieval period was closely connected to Christian thought, particularly theology,
and the chief philosophers of the period were churchmen. Philosophers who strayed from this close
relation were chided by their superiors. Medieval philosophy continued to be characterized by this
religious orientation. Its methods were at first those of Plotinus and later those of Aristotle. ... Thus,
religion and philosophy fruitfully cooperated in the Middle Ages. Philosophy, as the handmaiden of
theology, made possible a rational understanding of faith. The history of medieval philosophy is
traditionally divided into two main periods: the period in the Latin West following the Early Middle
Ages until the 12th century, Medieval philosophy places heavy emphasis on the theological.[5] With
the possible exceptions of Avicenna and Averroes, medieval thinkers did not consider themselves
philosophers at all: for them, the philosophers were the ancient pagan writers such as Plato and
Aristotle.[4]:1 However, their theology used the methods and logical techniques of the ancient
philosophers to address difficult theological questions and points of doctrine.

The period of modern philosophy is marked by the development of science and art in which the
Catholic church is beginning to lose power in a Europe that is developing intellectually and
emotionally. As a result, the same intellectual spirit that saw the ancient Greeks questioning
mythology and asking deep questions returned. Modern philosophy, thus, consists of a mix of new
approaches to philosophy fueled by science, rejections of religious teachings and, on the other hand,
defenses of religion based on the new evidence.

The modern philosophical era also saw the revival of epistemology as one of its central features, as
new forms of science brought forth the question of whether or not empirical data is a suitable source
of knowledge.

Defining the modern period

What counts as ‘modern philosophy’ is often disputed. On some accounts, it includes everything since
the middle ages, and hence from the Renaissance on. On others, modern philosophy did not occur
until the seventeenth century. For the purposes of this site, the Renaissance period from the late-
fourteenth century to the early seventeenth century (around the time of Descartes) will count as ‘early
modern philosophy’, while everything until the twentieth century will count as the modern period.

The Modern period in Philosophy runs roughly from 1600 to 1800. It is defined by the attempt to come to terms
with the intellectual implications of the Scientific Revolution. There has long been a standard canon (or accepted
body of significant work) for this period that includes seven philosophers arranged into three groups: Descartes,
Leibniz, and Spinoza (The Rationalists); Locke, Berkeley, and Hume (The Empiricists); a nd Kant (who is generally
thought to have combined the best insights of the other two groups). This course is a study of t he thought,
mainly on metaphysical and epistemological issues, of these philosophers.

The course centers on two main problems: (1) How is knowledge of the external world possible? And
(2) What is the place of humans in the new view of the universe revealed by science? The Modern
period covers the first attempts to solve these problems following the scientific revolution. It moves
from the massive confidence of the first scientists in our ability to solve these problem s to the
skepticism of Hume and Kant. The aim of the course is to give you an understanding of the intellectual
foundations of the Modern world, as well as the beginnings of the Post-Modern world in the failures of
the Modern project.

The course aims to be both a history of ideas and a philosophy course. Hence, you will not only have
to master the ideas of these thinkers, but also evaluate them for yourselves.

Modern philosophy. Modern philosophy is philosophy developed in the modern era and associated
with modernity. It is not a specific doctrine or school (and thus should not be confused with Modernism),
although there are certain assumptions common to much of it, which helps to distinguish it from
earlier philosophy. Modern Philosophy. The period of modern philosophy is marked by the development
of science and art in which the Catholic church is beginning to lose power in a Europe that is developing
intellectually and emotionally.
Concept- A concept is a mental abstraction which allows generalization and the extension
of knowledge from some known objects to others unknown. It integrates two or more particulars
into a common mental unit. For example, the concept "book" subsumes all particular books. It does
so based on the essential characteristics of multiple pieces of paper or pages combined into a bound
stack.

A concept is formed by taking a number of similar entities and deciding what makes them similar
in an important way. The differences and the unessential similarities are not important and are
abstracted away from the newly created mental entity. Each concept serves a particular purpose and
is created to allow higher-level thinking. People do not waste their time forming arbitrary concepts.

While concepts integrate particulars, concepts can also act as particulars. In this way, it is possible
to form higher levels of abstraction, combining concepts into more complex concepts, and
furthering one's understanding and knowledge by increasing the amount that can be integrated.
Higher level concepts can also allow more complicated combinations that are not possible by trying
to integrate lower level particulars. The concept wife is not possible without the concept marriage,
the concept relationship, and so on down a long tree of complex concepts.

Although a concept is built from particular entities, it is not tied to those specific entities. If those
entities were changed or destroyed, the concept would still be intact, but would no longer include
those particulars. The concept combines any entities with those particular characteristics. It
encompasses any entity with those particular characteristics, past, present, or future.

Philosophy (from Greek φιλοσοφία, philosophia, literally "love of wisdom") is the study of general and
fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Such questions are
often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ... Historically, "philosophy" encompassed any body of
knowledge. Concept, in the Analytic school of philosophy, the subject matter of philosophy,
which philosophers of the Analytic school hold to be concerned with the salient features of
the language in which people speak of concepts at issue. Concepts are thus logical, not
mental, entities. A typical instance of the use of concept is in The Concept of Mind (1949)
by Gilbert Ryle, an Oxford Analyst, which implies that the purpose of the author is not to
investigate matters of fact empirically (i.e., by the methods of psychology) about the mind
itself but to investigate its “logical geography.” Similarly, investigation of the logical
features of discourse about pleasure or duty or remembering is concerned with the
concepts of pleasure or duty or memory. To be able to use these linguistic expressions is
to apply, or possess, the concepts.
Process philosophy is a longstanding philosophical tradition that emphasizes becoming and changing
over static being. Though present in many historical and cultural periods, the term “process
philosophy” is primarily associated with the work of the philosophers Alfred North Whitehead (1861-
1947) and Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000).
Process philosophy is characterized by an attempt to reconcile the diverse intuitions found in human
experience (such as religious, scientific, and aesthetic) into a coherent holistic scheme. Process
philosophy seeks a return to a neo-classical realism that avoids subjectivism. This reconciliation of the
intuitions of objectivity and subjectivity, with a concern for scientific findings, produces the explicitly
metaphysical speculation that the world, at its most fundamental level, is made up of momentary
events of experience rather than enduring material substances. Process philosophy speculates that
these momentary events, called “actual occasions” or “actual entities,” are essentially self-
determining, experiential, and internally related to each other.

Actual occasions correspond to electrons and sub-atomic particles, but also to human persons. The
human person is a society of billions of these occasions (that is, the body), which is organized and
coordinated by a single dominant occasion (that is, the mind). Thus, process philosophy avoids a
strict mind-body dualism.

Most process philosophers speculate that God is also an actual entity, though there is an internal
debate among process thinkers whether God is a series of momentary actual occasions, like other
worldly societies, or a single everlasting and constantly developing actual entity. Either way, process
philosophy conceives of God as dipolar. God’s primordial nature is the permanent ground of value
and determinacy and a storehouse for universals, or “envisaged potentialities.” God’s consequent
nature, on the other hand, takes in data from the world at every instant, changing as the world
changes. A considerable number of process philosophers argue that God is not a necessary element of
the metaphysical system and may be excised from the process model without any loss of consistency.

Process philosophy has also been cited as a unique synthesis of classical methodology, modern
concerns for scientific adequacy, and post-modern critiques of hegemony, dualism, determinism,
materialism, and egocentrism. In this respect, process philosophy is sometimes called “constructive
postmodernism,” alluding to its speculative method of system building with a hypothetical and fallible
stance, over the alternative of deconstruction.

Process philosophy is based on the premise that being is dynamic and that the dynamic nature of being
should be the primary focus of any comprehensive philosophical account of reality and our place within it.
Even though we experience our world and ourselves as continuously changing, Western metaphysics has
long been obsessed with describing reality as an assembly of static individuals whose dynamic features are
either taken to be mere appearances or ontologically secondary and derivative. For process philosophers the
adventure of philosophy begins with a set of problems that traditional metaphysics marginalizes or even
sidesteps altogether: what is dynamicity or becoming—if it is the way we experience reality, how should
we interpret this metaphysically? Are there several varieties of becoming—for instance, the uniform going
on of activities versus the coming about of developments? Do all developments have the same way of
occurring quite independently of what is coming about? How can we best classify into different kinds of
occurrences what is going on and coming about? How can we understand the emergence of apparently
novel conditions?
While process philosophers insist that all within and about reality is continuously going on and coming
about, they do not deny that there are temporally stable and reliably recurrent aspects of reality. But they
take such aspects of persistence to be the regular behavior of dynamic organizations that arise due to the
continuously ongoing interaction of processes. In order to articulate a process view of reality, special
theoretical efforts are required, however, since the standard theoretical tools of Western metaphysics are
geared to the static view of reality. Especially the standard interpretation of predicate logic in terms of
static individuals with properties that are exemplified timelessly or at a temporal instant consolidates what
is from the process-philosophical perspective an unhelpful theoretical bias. This has forced upon process
philosophy a double role as metaphysical and metaphilosophical enterprise—pushing for a paradigm
change, process philosophy has the double task of developing new explanatory concepts and providing
arguments for why these concepts better serve the aims of philosophy.
Process philosophy centers on ontology and metaphysics, but it has full systematic scope: its concern is
with the dynamic sense of being as becoming or occurrence, the conditions of spatio-temporal existence,
the kinds of dynamic entities, the relationship between mind and world, and the realization of values in
action.

Philosophy is man's attempt to understand how all things are related ,to give cohesive purpose. Basically
really seeking to fill the void in their ultimate purpose for living. Thus the need for universal guidance, the
question What is God like is the highest question and DETERMINES ALL other outcomes or byproducts
of this variable understanding best accomplished by John 7:16–18 such brings Revelation of Messiah (the
Anointed One) Who desires to be Our Life the more we forsake Vanity the brighter life becomes since He
is the light of the world all who follow Him shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of Life.
Philosophy is the result of people’s desire to make sense of the world, including the existence and nature
of god and how we as social animals should conduct ourselves. All of philosophy is related to human life
for that reason. A good chunk of this effort has been taken over by science.

The Importance of Philosophy in Human Life

PHILOSOPHY is a study that seeks to understand the mysteries of existence and reality.
It tries to discover the nature of truth and knowledge and to find what is of basic value
and importance in life. It also examines the relationships between humanity and nature
and between the individual and society. Philosophy arises out of wonder, curiosity, and
the desire to know and understand. Philosophy is thus a form of inquiry--a process of
analysis, criticism, interpretation, and speculation.

The term philosophy cannot be defined precisely because the subject is so

The first known Western philosophers lived in the ancient Greek world during the early 500's B.C.
These early philosophers tried to discover the basic makeup of things and the nature of the world and
of reality. For answers to questions about such subjects, people had largely relied on magic,
superstition, religion, tradition, or authority. But the Greek philosophers considered those sources of
knowledge unreliable. Instead, they sought answers by thinking and by studying nature.

Philosophy has also had a long history in some non-Western cultures, especially in China and India.
But until about 200 years ago, there was little interchange between those philosophies and Western
philosophy, chiefly because of difficulties of travel and communication. As a result, Western
philosophy generally developed independently of Eastern philosophy.

The Importance of Philosophy

Philosophic thought is an inescapable part of human existence. Almost everyone has been puzzled
from time to time by such essentially philosophic questions as "What does life mean?" "Did I have any
existence before I was born?" and "Is there life after death?" Most people also have some kind of
philosophy in the sense of a personal outlook on life. Even a person who claims that considering
philosophic questions is a waste of time is expressing what is important, worthwhile, or valuable. A
rejection of all philosophy is in itself philosophy.

By studying philosophy, people can clarify what they believe, and they can be stimulated to think
about ultimate questions. A person can study philosophers of the past to discover why they thought
as they did and what value their thoughts may have in one's own life. There are people who simply
enjoy reading the great philosophers, especially those who were also great writers.

Philosophy has had enormous influence on our everyday lives. The very language we speak uses
classifications derived from philosophy. For example, the classifications of noun and verb involve the
philosophic idea that there is a difference between things and actions. If we ask what the difference
is, we are starting a philosophic inquiry.

Every institution of society is based on philosophic ideas, whether that institution is the law,
government, religion, the family, marriage, industry, business, or education. Philosophic differences
have led to the overthrow of governments, drastic changes in laws, and the transformation of entire
economic systems. Such changes have occurred because the people involved held certain beliefs
about what is important, true, real, and significant and about how life should be ordered.

Systems of education follow a society's philosophic ideas about what children should be taught and
for what purposes. Democratic societies stress that people learn to think and make choices for
themselves. Nondemocratic societies discourage such activities and want their citizens to surrender
their own interests to those of the state. The values and skills taught by the educational system of a
society thus reflect the society's philosophic ideas of what is important.

Our sense of time, and ability to communicate across it with language means that our perspective of
existence is lacking in the immediacy of other species. Whilst some animals exhibit a sense of cause
and effect, and some degree of planning and even some levels of abstract thinking, it is this sense-
and understanding- of our place in the arc of time which, perhaps, created the necessity for humans
to understand not just the dynamic of our existence- but the context.

Understanding our context, our place in that context as individuals and as societies has been an ever-
present part of our intellectual discourse for thousands of years forming the basis of practically every
aspect of our culture.

To understand more about the role of philosophy in our lives, I spoke to Jules Evans Policy Director
of the Centre for the History of Emotions at Queen Mary University of London.

Q: Why do we need philosophy?

[Jules Evans] Our ability to do philosophy is one of the things that distinguishes us from other
animals- in some ways, it is that which makes us sapiens, ‘wise monkeys’.

Other animals definitely question why they do things a certain way, and try to find strategies that are
more intelligent to meet goals (such as developing tools) and whilst you could say this is
‘philosophising,’ only humans seem to have developed this capacity for higher order questioning….
asking ‘to what end are we doing this?’ – ‘why are we doing this at all?’
Philosophy is embedded in everything. We all have philosophies which form the basis for our
motivations and what we do with our days. Everyone has their own philosophy of life; every
institution has a philosophy. Donald Trump has a philosophy, Walmart will have a philosophy,
Playboy magazine will have a philosophy, your next-door neighbour will have a philosophy… but for
most of us, those philosophies are unexamined and more or less automatic and instinctual.

Philosophy as a named activity, is quite recent in human history- and is the attempt to examine these
instinctive and automatic motivations and say, ‘is this definitely wise?’, ‘is this coherent?’.

We can date the origins of this type of philosophy to Socrates 2500 years ago which is very recent in
the history of homo sapiens. This was the period when humans changed from ‘we do this because
this is the way it’s always been done, this is the way the gods told us to do things, this is the way your
elders did it so therefore that’s just how it is and you’ll be punished by the gods if you don’t do it that
way’, to an active, conscious rational way of thinking: ‘Why?’, ‘Why like this?’, ‘Is this definitely the
best way?’ and that’s a radical moment in human history… Socrates didn’t last very long when he
started doing this kind of questioning and was sentenced to death.

Q: Can philosophy help us understand our public institutions?

[Jules Evans] If you dig deep enough into the history of any public institution, you uncover some kind
of philosophical ideal, or a response to a particular kind of cultural problem- the reason for the
institution, and what it was formed to do. Aristotle calls this telos, or its end.

Over time, this purpose gets drowned in habits and in bureaucracy- things just run on automatic pilot
for decades or centuries, and people can easily forget what the point of that institution was. It’s useful
to try and uncover what institutions were set-up to achieve philosophically to understand if they’re still
doing what they were intended to.

I’ve been looking at universities, and the idea of what a university is for which is actually not a
question that is asked that often. We’re now in the era of mass Higher Education where close to 40%
of the population goes to university. It can cost people a huge amount of money, and yet there’s not
always a clear understanding either in students’ minds or in the institutions’ minds of what they are
actually trying to do here, what is the university for?

Coming from my interest in ancient philosophy, I love the idea that university can be a place to help
people to flourish and to think about how to take care of their souls and how to set their goals for
life. How to find a useful life philosophy. Within the context of Higher Education, people might think
‘that sounds very strange, a new wishy-washy idea’ but when you look back at the history of Higher
Education, and the history of universities going all the way back 2400 years to Plato’s academy or
the university of Nalanda, India, which was even earlier – it’s been an accepted that one of the roles
of universities is to help people flourish, and to develop their character. It’s only really in the past few
decades that that idea has rather declined, and been marginalised.

Q: What is the role of ancient philosophy in our well-being?

I went to interview the people who invented CBT, two psychologists called Albert Ellis and Aaron
Beck, and found that their inspiration for this therapy, which now helps millions of people, was Ancient
Greek philosophy, and particularly the ideas from Stoic philosophy, Socrates, and the Epicureans.

The Ancient Greeks believed philosophy was a medicine for the soul. Socrates said ‘I teach my
student how to take care of their souls’, which is where the word psychotherapy comes
from. Cicero said, ‘there’s a medical art for the soul, and its name is philosophy’. Most of the ideas
in contemporary cognitive therapy come directly from Ancient Greek philosophy and it gives us three
simple ideas which I can describe to you.

Firstly, our emotions are connected to our beliefs and opinions. Epictetus said what causes men
suffering is not events, but their opinion about events. That piece of wisdom is very useful because it
gives you some ability to have control over your emotions. When you recognise that your emotions
attach to your beliefs, your opinions and your interpretations, then you can start examining your
beliefs and your interpretations using what is called in cognitive therapy the Socratic method. Just
asking yourself questions, ‘why am I reacting so strongly to this?’, ‘what’s going on?’, ‘what’s the
belief or opinion underlying this strong emotional reaction?’ and ‘is it definitely true?’ can change your
beliefs or opinions or your attitude, and that will change your emotions.

Secondly, Stoicism notes that you can’t control what happens to you, you can only control how you
react to it. So, focusing on what’s in your control and accepting for the time being what’s beyond your
control is a really useful therapeutic idea.

Thirdly, habit. Greek philosophers had this idea that philosophy has to be a daily practice. It can’t just
be this kind of French existentialist idea of a nice conversation once a week in a café. It has to be a
kind of, daily practice. With practice, your philosophy becomes automatic habit, it becomes ingrained.
We’re not just critical, reflective agents, most of the time we’re on automatic pilot. You’ve got to
practice your principles daily so that they become ingrained into what they call your automatic, self-
talk and actions. They (in CBT) have loads of great techniques for turning your philosophy into
automatic habit- like maxims for example, just repeating little, almost sound bites. Greek philosophy
is full of these little sound bites which you repeat over and over until they become part of your
automatic self-talk. This also involves going out and practicing in real life
situations. Like Epictetus says, it’s no good if you just do philosophy in the classroom, you’re kind of
shipwrecked when you head out into the street.

Ancient philosophy almost hasn’t been bettered as a kind of therapeutic toolbox in 2400 years, and
have a certain aesthetic to them which makes you feel part of a long tradition, not just some therapy
invented 10 years ago.

You’re part of a three millennia old tradition of wisdom that you know, thousands and thousands and
thousands of people have read the same book that you’re reading, and found it therapeutic in very
dark times. So that’s an empowering thing, to feel part of this long, great tradition of wisdom.
Q: What is the role of ecstatic and extreme experiences in our lives?

[Jules Evans] As humans, we often have experiences which- by their nature- put us into a state that
is difficult to describe in words.

People sometimes talk about these being religious experiences (which is how William
James described them), but that’s not quite right because they don’t always happen within a religious
context, and they don’t always involve encounters with Gods.

Abraham Maslow called them peak experiences, that doesn’t quite work either because sometimes
these experiences happen to people not when they’re totally sorted, but actually the opposite when
they’re a real mess. So sometimes they’re more like trough experiences.

I use the word ecstasy, which people think means being very, very happy- but in Ancient Greek it
means ecstatic, which means standing outside. It’s a moment where you go beyond your ordinary
sense of self and feel connected to something great and new; that could be god, it could be nature, it
could be some kind of deeper state of mind, it could be other people.

We, as humans, can get stuck in loops of self-rumination and negative thoughts about ourselves and
about the world. We get cocooned into this rumination, and I think there are two ways to get out.

One is through rational philosophy. Examining these beliefs and saying, ‘is that definitely true?’ and
kind of unpicking that cocoon.

The other is through ecstatic experiences which shift your consciousness somehow through a kind of
shock. And you just break out of that loop.

Both of them are important, and both of them are healing.

Ecstasy gives you that ability to break out when you’re stuck in a negative toxic mood. It gives you
the ability to step out of it, and that can be extremely healing, it can be extremely connecting because
you suddenly feel deeply connected to other people that you’re sharing this ecstatic experience with.

Throughout history, ecstatic rituals and ceremonies have been important ways in which people have
bonded, particularly in cities where they might otherwise feel rather alienated. You go to some kind of
festival, or ritual at church, together and you feel bonded at a sub-rational, emotional level.

Ecstatic experiences are also important for inspiration. People find a sense of meaning, a sense of
connection to the universe, a sense of connection to something beyond death.

People, artists and scientists have sometimes used kind of ecstatic techniques for their muse or
inspiration.
In our culture, particularly in the last 300-500 years in Western culture, people have become much,
much more ambivalent (if not hostile) to ecstatic experiences.

The idea of losing control is seen as dangerous and shameful and ignorant… the idea of connecting
to some kind of spiritual dimension has become seen as ignorant and embarrassing. We’re a culture
that’s very much about individual autonomy, and ecstasy is (in some ways) the opposite of that – it’s
about surrendering control.

There has been a shift in our culture to marginalise ecstatic experiences, turning them
inti pathologies. Psychiatry in particular has tended to be very hostile to ecstatic experiences and to
interpret them as disorders or illnesses. It’s called things like hysteria, psychosis, enthusiasm (which
was a kind of bad thing in the enlightenment, it meant an accident).

The 60s changed something in Western culture and there was a kind of explosion of ecstatic
practices- things like psychedelics, rock and roll, Eastern practices.

Today, I think we are trying to integrate these kinds of ecstatic experiences after that shock of the
1960s where I think we realised that often these new ecstatic practices were dangerous as
well. We’re aware that a lot of people who joined communes ended up brainwashed in toxic
cults. We’re aware that people harm themselves on psychotropic drugs. We’re aware that some
ecstatic movements are kind of violent and toxic like football hooliganism or Islamic extremism or the
far right. So, I think where we are as a culture, and what I was asking in my book is, the question is
not should humans have outlets for ecstasy? because I think humans always do. The question
is does our culture has enough outlets for healthy ecstasy? For healthy transcendence that’s good
for individuals and that’s good for their culture. Do we have places people can go for healthy ecstatic
experiences rather than toxic experiences? And part of that is destigmatising the ecstatic and the
transcendent and recognising this is a fundamental human urge and not something backwards or
regressive or shameful.