Philosophy as a Spiritual Discipline

Philosophy was originally seen as a spiritual path: this lecture considers how philosophy can be restored to its true place.

For most people the idea that philosophy is a guide to life would seem to be rather difficult to accept – it appears to be somewhat divorced from what is called real life and best left, like a rather obscure crossword puzzle, for those with "that kind of mind" and the required time on their hands. To go further and see philosophy as a way of spiritual life as profound as any Eastern discipline seems even more outlandish: but that is how philosophy was first envisaged, and for many centuries that's how Pythagoreans and Platonists treated it. One thousand years after Plato wrote his dialogues there was still a strong tradition of philosophy as an inner path amongst the sages of Athens and Alexandria: it was only after the enforced closure of the pagan centres of philosophic study that philosophy began its decline and detachment from the spiritual life. The lecture looks to the originating impulse of philosophy, and explores how we can reconnect with it. After the formal lecture there will be time set aside for a discussion.

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