Where to Find Your Philosophy
Hello and welcome to rewilding philosophy, your newsletter about ekophilosophical health for our times. Last week I talked about the path of finding a new philosophy, similar to a hermit crab finding a new shell. Today, I want to share a bit more about how to go about finding a philosophy.
When we change our philosophies, they might look very different from those of the people around us. The main philosophy of progress, materialism, and controllability is what most people are familiar with; it’s the dominant one in our culture. It’s the common thread that guides not only how we think about life but also how we create and design it.
When I decided to find a new philosophy to live by, I explored various existing philosophies—Stoicism, Buddhism, process philosophy, and indigenous philosophies among others. Each one offered some answers and insights - and I talk about much of what I learned and continue to learn in this newsletter - but none fully encapsulated what I was seeking. That’s because philosophies are not only like shells but also like plants that need to be rooted. They are context-dependent. Each philosophy I explored was rooted in its own time and space, and transplanting it into my context sometimes felt forced and unproductive.
A healthy ekophilosophy can be built on great traditions, and we can surely find some of their wisdom helpful. Yet, the wisdom and ekophilosophical health I talk about here is always already embodied and thus has to be replanted and nurtured within its new environment.
Philosophical knowledge is always preliminary, always uncertain.
It’s different from knowledge as information. Knowledge as information is certain and more static, structured data that is processed and organized. It is typically concrete, specific, and measurable.
Philosophical knowing thrives on questions, exploration, and the constant reassessment of what we hold to be true. It embraces ambiguity and complexity, recognizing that every answer unveils new layers of inquiry. It’s dynamic, fluid, and ever-evolving.
What happened in academic philosophy—the discourse on grand philosophers—has taken philosophy as information. It confused practicing philosophy with learning about philosophy.
Practicing philosophy, therefore, doesn’t have to take into account existing wisdom traditions. You don’t have to read Sartre, Whitehead, Bard, or Kimmerer. Though I personally find reading others' philosophies deeply satisfying and enlightening, one foundational idea of “rewilding philosophy” is that “non-philosophers” can actually be philosophers. We can gain wisdom and develop a personal philosophy based on intellectual rigor, deep observation of ourselves and the world (this includes reading about facts such as the mechanisms of climate change or the working conditions in mines across the planet), and first-person experience. Philosophy is not written in books. It’s written into our lives. Or at least it can be.
Pieces of your philosophy can be found by watching your flower box on the balcony, by observing a father caring for his child, by listening to the rhythm of the rain tapping gently against your window. It lies in observing instagram’s algorithm, and in the laughter shared between old friends. It can be found during a rollercoaster ride, and in moments of solitude when you go for a walk with your own thoughts.
Reading existing philosophies can be a catalyst for our Western minds, which are used to increasing knowledge through information. For information to become wisdom, though, embodiment and personal experience are inevitable. Embodied knowledge is different from cognitive knowledge. At the same time, we can’t know everything in an embodied way—like that cacao from Nicaragua was used with pesticides—both forms of knowing matter.
To me, finding a new philosophy is a deep intellectual inquiry paired with actually living out the implications of that inquiry. Finding a philosophy and practicing to live this philosophy. Philosophies can be seen as ‘narratives of meaning’—stories we tell ourselves and live by. Engaging with our philosophy experientially means embracing it in daily actions, decisions, and reflections; making a living document of our beliefs and continuously revising it as we go.
Beautiful! Thank you. I really appreciated this.
Maybe, to add another perspective, finding one's own philosophy has collective, collaborative aspects. Not only do we receive philosophical stances from the words and actions of others, but also, in the kind of culture I am seeking, we help each other to find the philosophical ground on which we can stand, the soil in which we can grow, the culture in which we can thrive. Worth remembering that philosophical thought, like any system of ideas, can be misused as a shield against our own shadow. Others can often see through this much more easily than we can ourselves, so if we can live in a culture of loving noticing–awareness–nudging–prompting–requesting, we can help each other find the philosophy that enables good being—to be more fully ourselves. Start with the somewhat meta- view that the philosophy that I find true is unlikely to bring out the best in you, because we are different. But we can still help each other, not by imposing or seeking to impose, but through openness and curiosity.