Life Philosophy.

Life Philosophy.

What do you think about life philosophy?
Are there any life philosophers you prefer?


This thread can be interpreted as a supplement to my thread called: „The Meaning of Life“.

I think that it would help a great deal if you would more precisely define what you mean by “Life Philosophy”. :sunglasses:

I think he means something like philosophy about life. You know how most of the philosophy on these boards is about death.

I mean the philosophy of life. Sometimes it is also called “vitalism”, but I would not say that “philosophy of life” is just “vitalism”, because it is a bit more than that (at least to me). Therefore I prefer the term “life philosophy”.

I’ve heard a thing or two about Henri Bergson. Think he was a Jew.

Yes. Henri Bergson (1859-1941) was a Jew. He was not the first and not the most significant life philosopher. Bergson was influenced by former life philosophers, mainly by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) and Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) who were also influenced by former life philosophers, mainly by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) and Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860).

Was Nietzsche a vitalist?

That is exactly the reason why I did not want to call this thread “philosophy of life” but rather “life philosophy”. The term “philosophy of life” is almost always connected with the term “vitalism”. But many life philosophers are not just vitalists. Louis Dumas, Henri Bergson, Johannes Reinke, Hans Driesch, Jakob von Uexküll, Erich Becher, and some others were vitalists, some (thus not all) of them also life philosophers.

Alright then. So what does separate life philosophy from other kinds of philosophies?

You can deduce it from the term “life philosophy”. It is a philosophy not only of or about but also within life, thus also a practical or empirical philosophy (more or less also including existential philosophy and cultural philosophy, for example), which is not like but merely close to empirical science.

To me, the best example for a literary form of a philosophy of life, existence, and culture is Goethe’s “Faust” and Faust the best literary character of a life philosophy. Goethe was not mainly a philosopher, but all what he did can also be used as a philosophy, especially his knowledge about morphology (cp. for example his “Die Metamorphose der Pflanzen”), his novels, for example “Die Leiden des jungen Werthers” or “Wilhelm Meister …”, his tragedy “Faust I and II” (as I alraedy mentioned) or his books “Aus meinem Leben - Dichtung und Wahrheit”, “Maximen und Reflexionen” and others.

Clarify, Verify, Instill, …
:wink:

Arminius wrote

Myself.

Our intrinsic knowledge of life would be as strenuous as living it’s existence. Yet life on the topic of what it is and how we perceive it is just our own interpretation. Nietzsche could have absolutely been teaching us of correct life philosophy as in he did teach us of the consequences of being here living within the grasp of actual life. Yet, only he succumbed to life’s brutality as well and saw nothing but an ugly life within his path.

And (by the way): Goethe lived in a time of two philosophically and scientifically important Occidental eras: (1) Enlightenment, (2) Idealism/Romantic.

Yes. :wink:

Which verb comes semantically very close to the verb „instill“?

“Eine Würdigung Nietzsches wird immer stark davon abhängen, wie man den »Willen zur Macht« auffaßt. Ermunterung zu imperialem Zynismus? Kathartisches Geständnis ? Ästhetisches Motto ? Selbstkorrektur eines Gehemmten ? Vitalistischer Slogan? Metaphysik des Narzißmus? Enthemmungspropaganda?” - Peter Sloterdijk, Kritik der zynischen Vernunft, 1983, S. 389.
Translation:
“An appreciation Nietzsches will always strongly depend on how one understands the »will to the power«. Encouragement to imperial cynicism? Cathartic confession? Aesthetic motto? Self-correction of an inhibited? Vitalistic slogan? Metaphysics of the narcissism? Propaganda of disinhibition?”

Although life philosophy wants to understand life by life itself, it should not be reduced to vitalism and biologism which are aspects of it but not more.

Although I extend the word to include physical installations:

And also:

And:

Basically it refers to making something more permanent.

One just has to wonder for how long she had to hold that pose:

:-k

One needs to ask himself as what comes first in order to determine what is a part of what.

Life always entail a whole-life within the whole of reality.

‘Life Philosophy’ [vitalism ++] would imply partial philosophy and will not cover whole-life and the whole of reality.

Actually it is philosophy per-se that will cover the whole of life and the whole of reality.
Philosophy per se is the management system that is effective to deal with one’s whole life, humanity and the whole of reality optimally.

Within philosophy per-se there are the various categories of specialized Philosophy which are the various tools to be used to deal with life optimally within whatever the existing constraints.

Pierre Hadot introduced his Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault

The above is something but I don’t believe the above is sufficient to deal with the whole of one life, humanity and the whole of reality.
What is needed is to approach the whole of life with a reliance on Philosophy per-se [as appropriately defined.]