Philosophising towards Wisdom as Nurturing the Tree of life in us

Abstract

In this essay the author poses the hypothesis that the metaphor “to philosophise is to nurture the Tree of life in us” is a better metaphor than “to philosophise is to cease living” when it comes to conceptualizing what people might experience when philosophising the so called “Dialogos Way”. First, the author outlines different usages of the Tree of life metaphor. In line with reflective practice research methodology, she then explores how the metaphor corresponds to the Dialogos approach as a process- and wisdom oriented form of philosophical practice. Further, through original reflection, she narrates six examples from her experience as a philosophical practitioner. From this, six themes are extracted through critical reflection: aha-experience, peak-experience, heart-to-heart synchronization, life-guiding concepts, plateau experience and pluralism. The themes are then reflected upon theoretically and generally. Summing up, the participants seemed to have experienced forms of psychological growth rather than psychological suffering and “death” through participation in Dialogos dialogue series or workshops. The author concludes that even though the long term aim of philosophy might well be to cope with death, and even though philosophising might imply practicing “dying” through letting go of one`s more or less well founded opinions and stances, this might lead to a new “birth” and thus to psychological growth rather than psychological suffering and death, supporting the initial hypothesis.