Practical Philosophy as Relationship Education from consciousness of the ego through consciousness o

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Practical Philosophy as Relationship Education
from consciousness of the ego through
consciousness of the situation to universal
consciousness

• Guro Hansen Helskog
• Modum Bad Family Relations Centre
• Norway

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Peace

• Even though the striving towards peace in the
  world through an inner transformation of
  individuals is difficult, it is the only way.
  Peace must first be developed within the
  individual. And I believe that love, empathy, and
  unselfishness is the fundamental buildingstone
  for peace. As soon as this is developed within
  one person, he or she is capable of creating an
  atmosphere of peace and harmony. This atmosphere
  can be spread from the individual to the family,
  from the family to society, and then to the whole
  world.
• Dalai Lama

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Herder Bildung zur Humanität

• Becoming truly human is a task for every
  individual and every generation if they are to
  avoid sinking into brutality and destructiveness.
  
• In the process of becoming truly human, a person
  especially needs language. Words are like glasses
  or eyes, and language is the only way to see
  yourself, your thinking, your actions and your
  relations to others and to the world
• The enlightenment humanists treated the
  individual and the collective, the subjective and
  the objective, the particular and the general,
  the private and the public, the educational and
  the political as two sides of the same case.

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200 years later Fragmentation, specialization,
individualization

• Of the way the human being is treated and talked
  about by the state
• - health/psychiatry (diagnosis,
  victimization, helpgiving)
• - children/youth/family (systemic
  thinking)
• - education (the pupil taked about as a
  tecnical object)
• Of the sciences treating and talking about the
  human being in totally different ways
• - natural sciences
• - social sciences
• - humanities
• Of the education of the human being
  fragmentation of subjects and themes, focus on
  skills, knowledge, information, but no real
  reflection on what education is really about.
• Of the individual

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• Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
• Where is the knowlegde we have lost in
  information?
• T.S. Eliot 1934

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My questions

• What does it mean to become human?
• What is human fullfillment and inner peace?
• What is needed for the education and self
  creation of human beings who are able to act with
  prudence and wisdom in concrete situations, for
  the best of oneself and others?
• How can I create a basis for an education
  that
• a) points in direction of these ideals?
• b) goes beyond and in between the fragments
  of contemporary culture?

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One of my answeres

• Letting human beings of all ages engage in
  dialogue on the fundamental questions of life
  nourishing their ability to wonder and to seek
  wisdom, truth, goodness and beauty

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• A human being who only lets himself be guided
  by reason, is a barbarian. A human being who only
  lets himself be guided by feelings, is a wild
  man.
• Friedrich Schiller (1795)

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Three areas

• 1. School/educational aerea
• The theoretical perspective and the practice is
  developed and described in the books
• Dialogos - Practical philosophy in school and in
• Dialogos - Mentoring teachers and fascilitators
  of philosophical dialogues
• 2. Family and health area
• The perspective is also integrated in the
  education of group leaders within the program
• Continued parenthood cooperating well enough
  after divorce, and in courses for divorced
  parents within this program.
• 3. Church and culture/integrational area
• The Norwegian government has given me a
  scholarship called Gandhi stipendet in order to
  try out philosophical dialogues in a
  multicultural and multireligious setting, trying
  to find out if philosophical dialogues will lead
  to greater tolerance, understanding and respect
  for difference.

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Both Dialogos and Shared Parenthood

• Trying to go in between all the fragments and
  splits and pieces of conteporary culture in order
  to look for what is the common excistensial
  struggles for all human beings, and for a method
  that actually can point out a path that leads
  towards wisdom, prudence and true humanity.
• Trying to create a way of thinking an practicing
  philosophy that is true to this persepctive.
• Making it simple

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Aim of continued parenthood To help parents move
from a more or less ego-sentered perspective
towards a situational oriented perspective in
order to see and act for the best of everyone
involved in the situation
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Philosopical questions used in courses both for
professionals and parents

• What does in mean to act prudently?
• What does it mean to free yourself from another
  person?
• What does it mean to see a child?
• Can conflict be fruitful?
• What does it mean to accept the situation as it
  is?
• What does it mean to brake a pattern of action?
• What is forgiveness?

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DIALOGOS Practical Philosophy in School

• Philosophy in practice
• 2. Argumentation and reasoning 
• 3. Criterias and perspective
• 4. Interpretation and understanding
• 5. Experience
• 6. Existence 
• 7. Feelings
• 8. The human being in context
• 9. Ethics and moral action
• 10. Wisdom

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Dialogos

• Dialogos
• dia through
• logos word, speech, reason and wisdom.
• working with and investigating our words, or our
  language, concepts and imaginations
• speaking together, and thereby creating and
  investigating relationships
• training our ability to reason, hoping that it
  will lead to reasonable and prudent action
• the work is driven by the search of wisdom

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• Lecture 5 in Shared Parenthood Towards
  forgiveness, reconciliation and inner freedom?
• What can I do now, in order to act with
  prudence and forsight in the situation I find
  myself in together with the people around me?
• Lecture 85 in Dialogos Peace (as inner freedom)

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Central in the dialogues

• To work with concepts and conceptualization
• To work with opposites
• To work with differences and similarities
• Knowledge is the art of dialectics. Only the
  person able to put two opposite possibilities in
  balance, is knowing - Kierkegaard.
• The road towards absolute knowledge goes through
  doubt and despair
• - Hegel

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Chapter 1. Philosophy in practice

• Is it stupid to ask questions?
• Yes, because
• No, because
• Philosophy and fact
• Philosophical questions
• Listening
• Taking the perspective of others

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Chapter 8. The human being in context

• The human being among other human beings
• The human being in language
• The human being in history
• The human being on earth
• The human being in society
• The human being in the media world

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Chapter 10. Wisdom

• To control ones mind a conversation with Buddha
• The order of the universe a conversation with
  Muhammed
• In the beginning was wisdom a conversation with
  Jesus
• Eros, Filos and Agape
• The Talisman or just being satisfied
• Peace

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From ego conciousness to situational conciousness

• In the dialogues we (ideally) step out of
  ourselves out of our more or less ego conscious
  perspective, in order to take the perspective of
  others in investigating a common matter.
• These experiences will hopefully lead to a more
  situational oriented perspective also in every
  day life.

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Prudence

• The situation is the place for moral action, and
  requires an ability to understand what the
  situation demands in order to act with prudence
  and foresight - for the best of oneself and
  others.
• This is true for all kinds of situations, from
  private life to global policy making.

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Wisdom as universal conciousness

• Wisdom has to do with knowledge, sensitivity and
  morality
• Universal, altruistic love lays at the core of
  true wisdom
• Searcing wisdom is to search Truth, Goodness and
  Beauty.

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True humanity

• To be human is to live with the possiblity of
  evil and good within yourself
• To become human is to grow towards The good
• To be truly human is to be fullfilled with The
  good
• The wise person has seen and confronted the bad
  sides within himself, and is therefor able to
  meet the evil actions of others with The good.

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• When you dig deep anough, you will meet
  mystery at the bottom
• Wilfrid Stinissen
• The most beautiful we can experience is mystery.
  This is the source of all true science and art.
  He who are strange to this feeling, who no longer
  are able to stand still and wonder, and be
  stonished by awe, he is like dead His eyes are
  shut.
• Albert Einstein

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Two statements

• Both grown ups, youth and children can work
  with Dialogos.
• Through participating in philosophical
  dialogues over time, we can grow and mature in
  direction of true humanity, prudence and wisdom.
• Dialogos p. 5