RAN LAHAV

PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELING AND TAOISM:

WISDOM AND LIVED
PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERSTANDING

Modem Western philosophy has occupied itself primarily with

theoretical investigations of abstract issues that are not directly applicable
to the individual’s everyday concerns. In this respect, it is fundamentally
different from various traditional Oriental schools of philosophy according
to which philosophical understanding is seen as embodied in the person’s
entire way of being. One salient modem attempt in the West to bridge
the traditional gap between philosophy and concrete life is the new
growing field of Philosophical Counseling’ (sometimes called Philosophical
Practice). It is based on the idea that philosophy can be seen as pervading
our everyday life rather than as an isolated subject matter for theoretical
reflection. Here Philosophical Counseling resembles those Oriental schools
of thought which also regard philosophy as inseparable from everyday
life.
In this paper I will argue that Philosophical Counseling’s attempt to
make philosophy relevant to everyday life is based upon a certain
conception of the nature of philosophical understanding; and that this
conception resembles a parallel conception of philosophical understanding
in traditional Oriental phiIosophy, specifically in Taoism, which similarly
allows for philosophy to be intimately related to everyday life.

WHAT IS PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELING?

Like any other field of human endeavor, Philosophical Counseling

-is not a single unitary approach. Like science, art, or psychotherapy, it

Journal of Chinese philosophy 23 ( I 9%) 259-276

Copyright 0I996 by Dialogue Publishing Company, Honolulu,Hawaii, U . S A .
260 RAN LAHAV

comprises a cluster of related ideas and methodologies which cannot be

captured by one simple defMtion. For this reason, the present discussion
expresses my own views about the field, but I believe that it is also close
in spirit to other important approaches.
As I see it, Philosophical Counseling aims at helping individuals to
philosophically examine their predicaments and life, develop their philoso-
phical understanding of themselves and their world, and go beyond their
narrow, self-contained personal perspective, reaching towards edification
or wisdom. The philosophical counselor is a philosopher who discusses
with counselees their personal predicaments, usually in a series of one-hour
sessions. Through philosophical investigations counselees develop their
philosophical understanding of the meanings or ideas that are interwoven
into their lives, and open up to wider horizons of understanding. In this
sense, Phdosophical Counseling is faithful t o the original Greek meaning
of “philosophy” (philo-sophia), namely love of wisdom. W o r n here is
understood as an overall way of being in the world-unlike smartness or
knowledge which involve only certain cognitive faculties within the
person-and more specifically, as a way of being that is open and sensitive
to the infinite network of ideas which underlie our world. And love here
means that edification towards wisdom is valued for its own sake, as part
of what makes life valuable. Hence, philosophizing in Philosophical Coun-
seling aims at helping counselees in their search for wisdom as a way of
being, thus helping them t o deal with their predicaments and lives through
greater depth and wisdom.
Despite some superficial similarity between Philosophical Counseling
and psychotherapy-both usually involve one-hour talking sessions
between a counselor (or therapist) and a client-the two are fundamentally
different. It is outside the scope of this paper to try to define the exact
boundary between the two disciplines,’ but perhaps the most salient
difference is that unlike the psychotherapist and the patient, what the
counselor and the counselee do is primarily philosophize. To be sure, both
philosopher and psychologist relate to the individual’s concrete life
(experiences, thoughts, fears, hopes, etc.), but each one “projects,” so t o
 PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELING AND TAOISM 26 1

speak, this material onto an entirely different plain, one philosophical and
one psychological. Consequently, the elements of the two disciplines-
their goals, methods, basic concepts, topics of conversation, dynamics of
interaction, etc.-take place in different domains, the former operating
within the domain of ideas (conceptual analysis, logical relations, etc.)
while the latter in the domain of psychological processes and mechanisms
(emotional, behavioral, cognitive, etc.).
This points to a deeper unique characteristic of Philosophical Coun-
seling. In aiming at wisdom, philosophical Counseling aims at horizons
that lay beyond the current person, to conceptual coordinates that extend
beyond the person’s present way of living. This contrasts with most
forms of psychotherapy which attempt to deal with psychic materials that
are already within the person, consciously or unconsciously, actually or
in the form of a yet undeveloped potential: hidden desires, unconscious
traumas, unelaborated conceptions of life, unexpressed tendencies, etc.
While psychotherapy aims mostly at modifying the person’s current
psychic forces and processes, Philosophical Counseling attempts to take
him to new ideational landscapes outside himself.
In this sense, philosophizing in Philosophical Counseling is not a
solipsistic endeavor, it does not h i t itself to the domain of humanly
generated ideas, but is rather a dialogue between human life and the
broader horizons in which it is embedded. As Pierre Hadot aptly says in
discussing the ancient Greek conception of wisdom : “For wisdom, says
Diotima in Plato’s Symposium. is not a human state, it is a state of
perfection of being and knowledge that can only be divine. It is the love
of this wisdom, which is foreign to this world, that makes the philosopher
a stranger in it.”3 Wisdom is not invented in the person’s minds but
appears in the person’s philosophical encounter with the world.
This conception of philosophizing may be compared to the one
expressed in Plato’s cave parable. philosophizing enables the person to go
out of the narrow confines of his current life and reach out to broader
understandings. It is not satisfied with reshuffling and modifying the
shadows which the person already has, but seeks to go beyond them.
262 RAN LAHAV

We should not, however, be carried away by this comparison. In Philoso-

phical Counseling the going out of the cave need not be as dramatic and
radical as in Plato s parable, and the world outside the cave need not be
seen as the Absolute Truth in a metaphysical realist sense. Ln fact, the
process of going beyond our current confines is familiar t o all of us from
more ordinary, everyday contexts: when we go abroad and meet unfami-
liar ways of life, when we are initiated into the world of art or of music
and learn new ways of seeing and thinking, and when we encounter new
ideas and values. In such cases, the person comes t o live in a broader
horizon of meanings, something he could not have done had he remained
inside his personal psychic world. In an analogous manner, Philosophical
Counsehg uses philosophizing for going beyond the person’s narrow cave.
The idea of using philosophical considerations to examine the indivi-
dual s life can be found in various Western schools of philosophy, especial-
ly in ancient Greece. Thus, the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Cynics, to
name only a few, developed philosophies which their adherents tried
to follow in their everyday life. However, unlike most of these traditional
schools which applied t o the person definite theories about how life
should be lived, contemporary Philosophical Counseling offers no ready-
made theories. Its aim is to help counselees develop their individual
path to wisdom, by raising issues rather than supplying solutions, and by
offering counselees philosophical raw materials and thinking tools to use
in their own way. For example, the philosophical counselor may intro-
duce into the conversation various ideas, distinctions, concepts, etc. as
raw materials for counselees to accept, reject, modify, or develop in
constructing their own understanding. The philosophical counselor is
therefore a partner to an open-ended philosophical dialogue. He or she
helps t o raise questions, uncover hidden assumptions, suggest possible
implications, but imposes no specific philosophical view about what is
right or wrong, what is important, normal, healthy, or what life is all
about.
This modern form of Philosophical C o u n s e h g was fust introduced
by the German philosopher Gerd Achenbach, who in 1981 opened his
 PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELING AND TAOISM 263

philosophical practice in Kijln, Germany. Today, a number of organiza-

tions for Philosophical Counseling (or Philosophical Practice, as it is
sometimes called in Europe) are operating in Germany, Holland, USA,
and France. They organize lectures, workshops, and colloquia,and some of
them publish journals. In addition, individual philosophical counselors
are now operating in several other countries, such as Israel, Norway,
Canada, England, and South Africa. In 1993 I gave the first university
(graduate) course on Philosophical Counscling at Haifa University, Israel,
and since then have continued to teach similar courses. In July of 1994
the First International Conference o n Philosophical Counseling was
held at the University of British Columbia in Canada (organized by Louis
Marinoff and myself). These events will hopefully facilitate the further
development of the field.
Although the idea of using philosophical thinking t o deal with every-
day issues is not new, it is revolutionary within the context of the 20th
century. It counters the modern tendency, so common nowadays to
entrust personal predicaments almost exclusively into the hands of psycho-
therapists, leaving philosophy in universities, away from concrete lives.
This modern tendency represents a shift which took place at the end of
the 19th century, from the more traditional approach of addressing life-
issues through philo-sophia (love of wisdom) towards the psychologist s'
professional, specialized, departmentalized knowledge. Professional
knowledge is, of course, welcome, but unfortunately it compltely pushed
aside philo-sophia, instead of living side by side with it. To be sure, a
number of psychotherapeutic approaches (Existentialist, Cognitive, etc.)
have felt the need for the philosophical perspective, and accordingly
incorporated some limited philosophical elements in their therapies.
However, they too typically d o not philosophize with counselees, but
rather rely on readymade theories (often implicit) about life: about
the value and nature of freedom, creativity, assertiveness, productivity,
self-confidence, etc. Furthermore, since most of their practitioners are
devoid of significant philosophical education, it is hard to expect them to
carry out genuine philosophical conversations.
264 RAN LAHAV

The growing influence of psychotherapy during the present century

is only part of a broader trend in the modern world, namely, psychologi-
zation: that of viewing all aspects of life from a psychological perspective.
It is found nowadays not only in therapy, but also in the cinema,
literature-including children’s literature, education, and virtually all
aspects of modern life. This trend expresses the self-centered character
of our modem society Everythmg is Seen as already contained within the
psyche. Personal predicaments start and end inside our heads. In order
to live the good life all that is needed is for the patient to delve into his
psyche and modify it. Life is no longer an encounter with the beyond but
a private game within ourselves. Consequently, there is no longer room for
distinctions between the deep and the superficial, the sublime and the
base, wisdom and crudity. Personal taste and self-satisfaction are the
measure of all things.
Against this background, philosophical Counseling expresses a new
vision: Philosophy should no longer be limited to the construction of
abstract theories about general issues, for it has important things to say
about the living moment, the individual’s concrete life, the most mundane
issues. It helps the individual t o go beyond the current psyche into new
horizons of understanding.

TWO CONCEPTIONS OF PHILOSPHICAL SELF-UNDERSTANDING

In contrast t o Philosophical Counseling, when one reads mainstream

modern Western philosophical discussions, one is struck by how far
removed they are from the non-academic concerns of the individual.
Admittedly, these discussions sometimes deal with topics such as know-
ledge, the self, love, and morahty, which also appear in everyday life, but
they are usually discussed on a level of abstraction which makes them
inapplicable to everyday concerns. In this respect, mainstream philosophy
is clearly different from Phdosophical Counseling and Oriental schools
such as Taoism. I w ill argue that this difference in relevance to everyday
life expresses a fundamental difference between two basic conceptions of
 PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELING AND TAOISM 265

the nature of philosophical understanding;where by "philosophical under-

standing" I mean, roughly speaking, the understanding achievable through
philosophy.
What conception of philosophical understanding underlies the main-
steam abstract type of philosophizing? I suggest that the mainstream
trend towards abstraction reflects the presupposition that there exists a
sharp distinction between the realm of philosophy on the one hand and
the individual's concrete living on the other, between philosophical under-
standing and everyday life. The underlying idea here is that philosophical
understanding is a function of a specific cognitive faculty which is isolable
from the rest of the person's life: from the person's emotions, inter-
personal encounters, moral attitudes, habits, etc. Presumably, in order
to gain philosophical understanding one needs to put aside one's everyday
life and to exercise a specific mental capacity, namely abstract thinking,
while concentrating o n the specific issue at hand. Anythmg other than
thoughts about the issue is regarded as irrelevant to the philosophical
enterprise, or even a harmful intrusion of confounding elements. The
ideal philosophical inquirer is a disinterested thinker. It follows that one
may be an excellent philosophical thinker while being at the same time a
crude insensitive person, or conversely be a good person and lead a good
life without any philosophical ~nderstanding.~
Here 'modern mainstream philosophy in the West is fundamentally
different from various Oriental philosophical schools (as well as some
ancient Western schools of philosophy) for whom philosophical under-
standing and concrete life are not separable in this way. Thus, for
example, Taoist or Confucian texts often deal both with abstract ideas and
concrete life-issues without attempting to distinguish between them.
Indeed, practical and theoretical considerations are often intertwined so
intimately that it is impossible to divide them into pure philosophy on
the one hand and its concrete applications on the other.
In recent years, several attempts have been made in the West to
bridge the traditional gap between philosophical thought and concrete
life. Much popularity has been gained in English-speaking countries by the
266 RAN LAHAV

field of Applied Ethics, which uses ethical considerations t o address

dilemmas commonly found in real life. However, although this represents
an attempt t o apply philosophical thought t o real-life situations, it still
assumes a distinction between theory and practice: between the theoreti-
cal considerations for solving an ethical dilemma and the person’s concrete
life t o which these considerations are t o be applied. Dilemmas are first
to be solved in the abstract, and the solutions are then t o be applied to
specific cases.
A more far-reaching attempt t o abolish the gap is Philosophical
Counseling. Like some Oriental traditions, it does so o n the basis of a
different conception of philosophical understanding, one which makes
philosophy an integral part of life. On the basis of this conception, Philo-
sophical Counseling attempts t o develop the counselees’ philosophical
understanding of their predicament or life and unfold the broader horizons
towards which they can grow. I am often asked by (Western) philosophers
how philosophical understanding can possibly be applied t o mundane
situations. As I see it, the answer is that philosophical understanding need
not be applied t o everyday life, because it already pervades it. To live is
to embody a specific understanding of oneself and one’s world. A philoso-
phical understanding is an aspect of the individual’s way of being in the
world.
More specifically, the idea is that in our everyday life we constantly
interpret ourselves and the world, or in other words, we express various
understandings of reality. Not only our thoughts, but also our emotions,
plans, hopes, behaviors, fantasies, choices, are ways of relating to, or ways
of understanding, the world and ourselves. For example, if I indulge
myself in a fantasy about being a basketball player and being admired by
crowds of people, I am thereby expressing the value of being admired. My
pleasant fantasy is a statement, so t o speak, about what is valuable in
life, namely, that it is good t o be admired by many people (even though a
moment later another fantasy may express a contradicting idea). Similarly,
if 1 suffer from feelings of worthlessness, these f e e h g s reflect a certain
conception about what counts as worthy. They express the idea that there
 PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELING AND TAOISM 2 67

are certain standards of personal worth, and that I fall short of them. In
sum, to feel or behave or think one way rather than another is to express
a certain understanding about the nature of the self, about what is
important, moral, or beautiful, about what is love, friendship, courage,
and so on. We constantly interpret our world, not just through beliefs
and thoughts, but through our entire way of being.
Hence, our way of being expresses certain ways of understanding
life and our world (although they are not necessarily coherent and unitary;
our lives are often inconsistent). It embodies an understanding of life
which resembles a personal philosophical ‘Yheory”; although it is a
“theory” which the person lives, not necessarily thinks in words. I will
call a philosophical understanding that is embodied in the person’s way of
being a lived philosophical understanding, or for short, a lived under-
standing.
It is important to note that people are usually not fully conscious
of their lived understanding. But neither do they have it in their un-
conscious. Lived understanding is not statements residing in the person’s
head, but rather the “statements” made by the person’s way of being
towards himself and his surroundings. It is embodied in the way the
person relates to the world through his behavior and feelings and comports
himself towards life. For example, my tormenting guilt-feeling may be
said to express the idea that what I did was morally wrong. However, to
the extent that this is a lived understanding, “I am morally wrong” is
not an idea in my mind but ope which I embody’in my attitude towards
myself. The structure of my attitudes and feelings reflects the structure
or meaning of the concept of guilt-which includes moral wrongness-
but this meaning need not have a psychological reality in my head, either
consciously or unconsciously.
A few analogies may illustrate this point. Consider, for example,
a piece of art and its aesthetic meanings, or a move in a chessgame and its
strategic meaning. A painting can be said to express a balanced composi-
tion without regard to the psychology of the painter, and a move on a
chess board may constitute a threat to the right flank independently of
268 RAN LAHAV

what goes on in the player’s mind. In an analogous manner, a person’s

attitude to herself and t o her environment may express a certain under-
standing of her world, regardless of her depth psychology. Just as a brush-
stroke on canvas may express a joyful mood even if the artist was sad
while painting it or unaware of its meaning, a counselee’s anxiety may
express the idea that life leads nowhere, even if this idea is not an actual
part of the person’s psychology. A lived philosophical understanding is
not a mental process or event within the person’s cognition.
Philosophical counselors are like art critics or tutors, in the sense
that they help explore the canvas of the counselee’s life for meanings that
need not have any psychological reality inside the person’s head, and open
new avenues for transcending the current canvas to other, broader and
richer canvases. The aim of Philosophical Counseling is to explore the
world as “understood” by the counselee’s emotions, behavior, thoughts,
hopes, desires, and unfold broader worlds which can be ‘ h d e r s t o o d ”
through other ways of being. And just like an ordinary philosophical
theory, a person’s lived understanding can be examined philosophically.
One can examine how rich or coherent that lived understanding is, expose
its fundamental structure and interconnections, uncover its hidden pre-
suppositions, analyze its basic concepts and values, and so on. Through
such an investigation, counselees develop new ways of comporting them-
selves towards the world. They broaden their horizons of understanding
of what is important, interesting, pretentious, mediocre, humiliating,
cowardly or courageous, and how these and other notions are interrelated.
This edification also helps counselees deal with greater wisdom with their
personal problems and predicaments.
The above discussion is not intended to serve as an account of philo-
sophical understanding, but rather to delineate the direction in which
more work needs t o be done in order to explicate the theoretical basis of
Philosophical Counseling.’ But even this preliminary discussion is suffi-
cient to make my point: Philosophical Counseling (as I see it) is capable
of making philosophy relevant to everyday life because it uses a
conception of philosophical understanding (whose details are to be investi-
 PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELING AND TAOISM 269

gated) which is interwoven within everyday life. This conception is

fundamentally different from the one common in mainstream Western
philosophy. The latter regards philosophical understanding as a specific
mental function that is isolable from much of the person’s life. In Philoso-
phical Counseling, in contrast, philosophical understanding is embodied
throughout one’s entire way of being.

A CASE STUDY

Since it is outside the scope of this paper to present an entire case

study, from beginning to end, let me illustrate the main ideas described
above through a particular move that took place within a broader context
of a series of counseling sessions.
The counselee, let us call her S.,a free-lance journalist and mother
of two, sought my counseling in connection with her feeling of being
constrained and unfree in her life. She had married at the age of thirty,
mainly for the sake of the possibility of raising children, despite the
fact that she had previously enjoyed her l i e as a single woman. Now,
several years after her marriage, S’s feelings towards her husband were
rather cool. She longed for her previous kind of lifestyle in which.she
could meet new people, have fun, be able to return home whenever she
wished, meet new men and fall in love again. Not wanting to hurt her
children, she rejected the idea of divorce. A home like theirs, she said,
where the parents treated each other with respect’and consideration, even
if without real love, was incomparably better than a single-parent family.
She saw no way out of this situation. What she missed most was not
so much specific activities such as going out with new people, but the very
fact of being able to do whatever she wished. She felt shackled, forced
to perform chores she had not chosen, to carry on in a meaningless
relationship with her husband, and be constrained to a definite time
schedule as a mother and wife.
I made it clear to S. that if she chooses to see me, our aim would be
primarily to deepen and enrich her understanding of her way of being.
270 RAN LAHAV

This may or may not open new avenues for overcoming her predicament.
Greater understanding does not always lead to solutions for personal
problems. She agreed.
The move which I would like to mention here was the exploration of
the concept of freedom. Through our conversations we came t o see that
her attitudes expressed a particular conception of the nature of freedom.
Freedom for her was the state of not being constrained by external
constraints, or what in the philosophical jargon is termed “negative free-
dom” (freedom-from). This conception was not something she had
thought about in words, but one which was ‘lived” by her through her
longing not t o be constrained, her nostalgia for her previous lifestyle,
the absence of any clear idea what she wanted t o do with her freedom,
and so on.
After we exposed this conception of freedom, I pointed out that it
is only one among several others, and furthermore, that it is not obviously
the most valuable. During the following conversations we explored other
conceptions of freedom. Using my phdosophical knowledge, 1 brought up
alternative conceptions: freedom-for, i.e., the inner capacity t o have an
inner ideal or goal, follow it, and thus do whatever one really wants t o do;
the Bergsonian freedom of acting spontaneously out of one’s entire
personality; Gabriel Marcel’s view of freedom as a capacity to create one’s
life in a way that stands against societal norms and pressures the Stoic
notion of freedom as accepting whatever happens t o one; and the
conception of freedom, often appearing in religious writings, of the
capacity to do that which is good.
We explored these conceptions keeping one foot in her concrete
world of experiences and the other foot in philosophical considerations.
Thus we examined the inner logic of each of these conceptions; their
implications concerning the concepts of the self, authenticity, responsi-
bility, and other related concepts; and their connection to concrete life,
and specifically to her past, present, and future life.
The result was that S. came to see her predicament from a broader
perspective. She now saw the broader network of ideas that were inter-
 PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELING AND TAOISM 27 1

woven into her way of being in the world, as well as of further horizons of
other possible ways of being. She realized how narrow her urge for
freedom-from had previously been, and now wished to go beyond it. In
our following conversations we worked on expanding and exploring this
new understanding in a way that could be interwoven into her concrete
way of living.

TAOISM AND PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELING

I suggest that there are important parallels between the conception

of philosophical understanding found in Philosophical Counseling and that
which is found in certain prominent Oriental schools of thought. In order
to illustrate this point, I will focus here on Taoism, or more specifically
on the writings attributed to Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu.
It is clear that Philosophical Counseling is different in important
respects from these two Taoist philosophers. For example, the latter
reject the use of words and analysis, whereas in Philosophical Counseling
important insights are brought about through describing and analyzing
one's predicament. Also, the Taoist philosophers propose a d e f d t e way
of living-one which is harmonious, spontaneous, flows with nature, etc.-
whereas Philosophical Counseling aims at helping counselees develop their
individual way of living.
However, despite these important differences, there are also two
fundamental similarities between the conception of philosophical under-
standing found in Taoism and in philosophical Counseling: First, both
regard philosophical understanding as embodied in the person's entire
way of life. Philosophical understanding is not an abstract endeavor that
is about life or applicable to life, but is interwoven within the individual's
concrete way of living. This similarity is hardly surprising, since the
Taoists too, like contemporary philosophical counselors, were interested
not in an abstract theoretical picture of the world but rather in a philo-
sophy that can be lived. If philosophical understanding is to permeate
life, as both Taoism and Philosophical Counseling believe, then it must be
27 2 R A N LAHAV

capable of existing within an ordinary everyday moment, not just in

special philosophical reflections.
Second, both philosophical Counsehg and Taoism regard the deve-
lopment of philosophical understanding as an act of going beyond the
person’s present way of thinking, feeling, and behaving, into a way of
being that embodies something broader than the person’s psychology.
Taoism aims at going beyond self-centered concerns and at embodying
the Tao, like the embodiment of wisdom in Philosophical Counseling.
In order to see these similarities, let us have a brief m p s e at some
Taoist passages. One salient point at which the Taoist conception of
philosophical understandmg is illustrated is related t o the idea, found
throughout Lao Tzu’s Too Te Ching, that the Tao-or ultimate reality-
cannot be described in words. This implies that one cannot understand
the Tao propositionally (descriptively), through a theory about its nature,
or even by entertaining an explicit thought about it. In order t o be in
touch with the Tao one needs to live properly, rather than think about it.
Ttus does not mean, however, that Lao Tm despairs of the prospects of
understanding the Tao. After all, the way of living which he proposes is
not a blind automatic behavior, but one which involves insights, under-
standing, or knowledge of the Tao:6

Without stirring abroad

One can know the whole world
Without looking out of the window
One can see the way of Heaven.
The further one goes
The less one knows.
Therefore the sage knows without having to stir,
Identifies without looking to see,
Accomplishes without having to act.

Here we see that although it is impossible to capture the Tao

through propositional knowledge (“The further one goes the less one
 PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELING AND TAOISM 21 3

knows”), nevertheless knowledge (or, in the present terminology, under-

standing) in another sense is still possible. As noted by the contemporary
scholar ChungYing Cheng,’ the Taoist sage understands the Tao by
embodying it through his entire way of being. By identifying with it and
participating in it he achieves an appreciation of the Tao which is beyond
words. This appreciation is not a specific isolated thought or other mental
event. It is, in the present terminology, a lived understanding of the Tao:
an understanding that is expressed through one’s way of being in the
world.
A similar point can also be found in the writings of Ch;iang Tzu, in
which numerous passages suggest that the sage, who has turned his back
on propositional knowledge, understands or knows the Tao in some other
sense:’

He who has a clear understanding of the Virtue of Heaven and

Earth may be called the Great Source, the Great Ancestor.
He harmonizes with Heaven; and by doing so he brings equit-
able accord t o the world and harmonizes with men as well.

Thus, understanding is achieved through harmonizing with, or embodying.

It is this notion of philosophical understanding which enables Taoism t o
make philosophical understanding most relevant to everyday life. For it
implies that living and understanding cannot be separated. A worthwhile
life cannot merely folJow the theoretical dictates of understanding, it must
live it.
It should be clear now that, beyond obvious differences, this
conception of philosophical understanding is fundamentally similar to the
one used in philosophical Counseling. There too the fundamental type of
understanding is one which is lived by the person and which leads t o a
supra-personal way of being, a life that extends beyond self-contained and
self-centered concerns. Furthermore, the role of this conception within
the frameworks of the two approaches is similar: In both cases this
conception allows philosophy to be directly relevant to the person’s
214 RAN LAHAV

concrete way of life, in fact t o be inseparable from it. In contrast, philo-

sophies that are based on a cognitive type of philosophical understanding
(i.e., one that requires exercising an isolable cognitive capacity), like
those common in the Western tradition, are bound t o be divorced from
everyday concerns.

CONCLUSION

The above discussion points to the important theoretical role of the

concept of lived philosophical understanding in Philosophical Counseling,
as well as to the parallel role which it plays within the framework of
Taoism. Philosophical Counseling is a developing field, especially in
comparison with the ancient Taoist tradition. Many ideas are not yet
worked out in sufficient detail, including the issue of the nature of lived
philosophical understanding. Only on the basis of a proper explication of
this concept would it be possible to fully see how philosophy is t o be
intimately related to everyday life and predicaments. It is therefore
crucial for philosophical counselors to further clarify this concept.
The basic similarity, discussed in this paper, between the nature and
function of understanding in Taoism and in Philosophical Counseling,
suggests that in this project ,of clarification philosophical counselors may
benefit from the ideas which have been developed for centuries in this
ancient Oriental school. More generally, it suggests that various Oriental
traditions are capable of making important contributions t o contemporary
philosophical developments in Western thought.

HAIFA UNIVERSITY ISRAEL

 PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELING AND TAOISM 275

NOTES

1. For various approaches to Philosophical Counseling (including my previous

approach) see articles by various authors in Ran k h a v and Maria TillmaMs
(eds.). Essays on Philosophbl Counseling, Lanham, USA: University Press
of America, 1995. See also Ran Lahav, ‘What is philosophical in
philosophical counselling?”. J O U ~ of
U Applied
~ Philosophy, forthcoming, and
“Using analytic philosophy in philosophical counselling,” Journal of Applied
philosophy 10, 1993, pp. 93-101 (Reprinted in: Inquiry: cziticul rhinking
a c r m the disciplines 12, 1993, pp. 3-81. In German, see Gerd B. Achenbach,
Philosophbche Praxis [Philosophical practice], K6h: Jiirgen Dinter, 1984;
Gerd B. Achenbach and Thomas H. Macho, Dos Prinrip Hedung [The principle
of healing], K8h: Jiirgen Dintcr, 1985.
2. For a more detailed discussion on the difference between philosophical coun-
seling and psychotherapy sce Rachel Blau, ‘The ‘Person’ in philosophical
counseling versus psychotherapy and thc possibility of interchange between
the fields,” forthcoming in J o m l of Applied Philosophy. S e e also various
articles in Ran Lahav and Maria Tillmanns (eds.), Essays on Philosophicul
Counseling, bid., especially Ran Lahavs “A conceptual framework for
philosophical counseling: worldview interpretation”, ibid.. pp. 3-24; Michael
Shefczyk’s “Philosophical counseling as a critical examination of lifedireeting
conceptions”, Ibid., pp. 75-84; Ben Mijuskovic’s ‘Some reflections on philo-
sophical c o u n x h g and psychotherapy,” Ibid., pp. 85-100; and Steven Segal‘s,
‘Meaning crisis: philosophical counseling and psychotherapy,” pp. 101-119.
3. Philorophy asa Wuy of Life, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, p. 57.
4. For a further discussion on mainstream Western conceptions of philosophical
understanding, as well as some of its opponents (including a brief discussion of
Chinese philosophies), see my article ”On thinking clearly and distinctly,”
Mefaphilosophy 23,1992, pp. 34-36.
5. For possible directions in which the idea of a lived undadanding (or know-
ledge) can be further developed see, for example, Michael P o h y i ’ s notion of
“tacit knowledge” in his PenonaZ Knowledge; towrds u partcn‘ricOl philo-
sophy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958; Ran Lahav’s “On thinking
clearly and distinctly,” bid.
6. Tao Te G i n g , translated by D.C.Lau. Middlmx. England: Penguin Books,
1976, section XLVII, p. 108.
216 RAN LAHAV

7. "Logic and language in Chinese philosophy," Journal of Chinese Philosophy

14,1987,p~.285-301,
8. The Complete Works of Oluong TZU,translated by Burton Watson, New York:
Columbia University Pres, 1973, p. 144.'