Category: philosophical counseling

• June 28, 2012

  Philosophical friendships: A gentle refutation

  A few days ago I tried to meet an objection to leading a philosophical life that ran something like this: “Andrew, it is all well and good for a philosopher to surround himself entirely with philosophical friends, but the rest of us live, and have to live, more ‘in the world,’ where living ‘in the…
• June 27, 2012

  Portrait rendered in marker

  My heartfelt thanks to one especially dear friend who drew this remarkable likeness of me.
• June 26, 2012

  What is it like for someone not to ‘get me’?

  “[E]loquence consists of saying the right things and only the right things.” –Rochefoucauld What is it like for someone not to ‘get me?’ She can be focused on me but ask the wrong questions. He can be focused on me but look at the wrong things. She can care for me but fail to recognize…
• June 25, 2012

  There is no ‘double life’ in philosophical life

  One concern has been raised many times by many conversation partners in many quarters. It is that philosophical friendships and erotic lovers are rare. Yet if most of our lives are spent in the world among those of a non-philosophical persuasion, how are we to make sense of this “double life,” a life both apart from the…
• June 23, 2012

  Good marriages can’t be thrown away

  Imagine that a marriage is falling apart and that the disaffected demands of the other, “How can you throw away what we’ve worked so long and hard for–how after all these years together, and for what?” Suppose that these questions are not simply expressions of sorrow and imminent grief. Suppose that the questions are asked…