Iterating on the Institute for Practical ekoPhilosophy
Hello and welcome to rewilding philosophy. Your letters for ekophilosophical health.
The Institute for Practical ekoPhilosophy (IPeP) is moving into its next phase. I am currently in the process of forming it into a legal entity—a gGmbH—which is the German version of a limited company with social benefits. A gGmbH gives a company personhood—something that should be granted to any more-than-human entity, such as rivers, landscapes, forests, plants, and animals. But that’s for another discussion. For anyone who has ever dealt with German bureaucracy, you know that founding something like this is a whole thing. Anyways, while that is happening on the organizational level and a couple of projects have already started, I am now in the process of re-doing the website. As a first step, I am trying to explain as clearly and comprehensibly as possible what IPeP is about.
And that’s where today’s letter comes in.
If you find the time and feel called to do so: I’d love your feedback on the text. If you can follow, if something is unclear, if it speaks to you—or not, if I forgot something that you think should definitely be added. Anything that comes to your mind really.
And if you are just curious to read on, please read on 😊.
Practical ekoPhilosophy is a deep leverage for healthy people and a healthy planet.
Why ekoPhilosophy Matters
While psychological and physical health and their relation to climate change, species extinction, and many other of our current predicaments are becoming increasingly recognized and understood, what is still overlooked is philosophical health.
Mental health is not just psychological, it is also philosophical.
Philosophical health is about finding meaning, depth, joy, life force, and a sense of belonging and fulfillment in life and in the reasons for pursuing a better world. Being philosophically healthy means we feel like we are living in line with what our soul longs for—we feel existentially well.
We become ekophilosophically healthy when our actions align with our beliefs and our beliefs align with our ecos—our physical home (which includes our body, our community as well as the more-than-human world that we are part of).
What we do
PhilosophyGyms: We tailor ekoPhilosophical workouts to your ability, ensuring you're less foolish today and undeniably wiser tomorrow. It's our commitment to you and the planet.
Research: We research the possibilities and potentials for ekoPhilosophical Health in the context of transformation research, inner transformation, and OneHealth.
Public Awareness: One of our key goals is to spread the idea of ekoPhilosophical health. If you are looking for a speaker at your event, please contact us so we find the best fit.
Why We Are in an ekoPhilosophical Health Crisis
We are facing an ekoPhilosophical Health crisis for two main reasons:
Our philosophies that we hold are “sick,” because they are a poor representation of reality, grounded in a poor representation of our physical realities, such as in separation, mechanism, and individualism.
Any healthy philosophy must be grounded in an ekoPhilosophy: in relationality, post-humanism, indigeneity, multispecies approaches, process philosophy, new materialism, 4E cognition, interbeing, quantum physics and biosemiotics (among others).We become philosophically healthy when our actions align with our beliefs and values, which has become increasingly difficult in this world. Our values cannot be shown in our actions. We are unable to live according to our values, based on the systems that we have created that make it almost impossible to do so.
Old belief systems crumble, yet our structures reflect those beliefs and values and resist change. We must therefore strive to create systems that reflect and are grounded in ekophilosophical principles.
Why IPeP
ekoPhilosophical Health is underrepresented and underresearched in our discourses around health and transformations towards sustainability and regeneration.
IPeP is therefore a postdiscipline action & research institute with the following goals:
Enhancing ekoPhilosophical health as a complement to psychological and physiological well-being.
Facilitating the integration of inner (ekoPhilosophical) dimensions to foster regenerative futures, supplementing technological, organizational, and political solutions.
Mainstreaming the significance of practical ekoPhilosophy in addressing the underlying causes of the meta-crisis.
Establishing a robust framework for practical ekophilosophy and its role in shaping regenerative futures through peer-reviewed publications.
Providing the philosophical groundwork to support multispecies citizenship.
Our Approach
We aim to rewild philosophy - that means that we want to include voices in the philosophical discourse that have so far been largely overlooked. This means including not only indigenous knowledges and the perspectives of marginalized human groups but also insights from the more-than-human world. For instance, what can water teach us about how to show up in life. And it also includes other ways of knowing beyond the conceptual and analytical.
I will also introduce institutions and people collaborating with IPeP. That’s it for now. Looking forward to hear your thoughts 🙏💚
Congratulations on this brave endeavour!
Jessica I think this is rather comprehensive and well written, as a beginning. As you ponder the "constitution" and the practical steps for birthing your institute, think also about dreaming up a birthing ritual. Some action grounded in a physical space with human and more-than human participants intra acting to offer your affirmations to the cosmos and for seeding the new entity....With you in spirit certainly. Godspeed and God bless, who/ whatever she may be to you...