Philosophies for Life: developing a new course

in ancient wisdom
An AHRC-funded project by Jules Evans,
Centre for the History of Emotions
Queen Mary, University of London
Executive summary:
* I designed and trialled an eight-part course in practical philosophy
* The wisdom approach teaches ancient philosophies and explores how they inspired modern
psychology. It teaches coping skills, facilitates group discussions of values and life-meanings, and
brings people into the great conversation of philosophy.
* The course was trialled at three partner organizations: Saracens rugby club, New College
Lanarkshire and HMP Low Moss prison, and Manor Gardens welfare trust.
* The feedback was very positive.
* Saracens coaches told the Telegraph the philosophy club was the most popular thing weve done
this season.
* The participants at HMP Low Moss said the course was both more enjoyable and more useful
than the CBT courses they are sent on.
* The participants at Manor Gardens said they felt much more socially supported and able to
handle adversity, and also much more interested in philosophy. Comments included It was the
highlight of my week for two months, and I now have the tools to make major changes in my life.
* I plan to launch the course commercially, providing it to business organizations, entrepreneurs
and coaches, while also providing the course and shorter workshops to mental health services,
schools and prisons.
* I also plan to develop teaching materials - online videos, activity sheets and handbooks - which
people can buy to do their own versions of the course.
* And I plan to make Philosophies for Life available via an online course. I am looking into the
possibility of raising capital to fund this.
Introduction
This year Ive developed and trialled an eight-part course in practical philosophy, called
Philosophies for Life. The pilot was nanced by the Arts and Humanities Research Council via
Queen Mary, University of London. I trialled the course with three partner organizations: Saracens
rugby club; New College Lanarkshire and HMP Low Moss prison; and Manor Gardens mental
health charity.
The results were very positive - the coaches of Saracens said the philosophy club was 'the most
popular thing we've done this season'; the participants at Manor Gardens philosophy club reported
feeling more socially supported, more capable of coping with adversity, and much more interested
in philosophy. And the participants of the prison philosophy club said they found the club more
enjoyable and useful than the prison's CBT courses, and became more interested in philosophy as a
result.
I now plan to launch commercially, working with businesses, the NHS and other organizations, and
also developing an online course for the retail market.
The wisdom approach
I tried to develop a model of well-being education that balances evidence-based techniques with
ethical discussion, approaching questions of the meaning of life in a pluralistic and culturally
literate way.
At the moment, well-being courses in schools, mental health services, and businesses tend to be
purely scientic / psychological. They teach evidence-based techniques for well-being, usually from
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). This is very useful from a practical perspective. However, a
purely scientic approach either leaves out any questions of values or the meaning of life, or it
simply assumes one denition of the meaning of life (for example, individual subjective well-
being), and then imposes it uncritically and scientistically on participants. A purely scientic
approach to well-being education easily becomes ethically illiberal and culturally insensitive.
On the other hand, the critical enquiry method used by most philosophy clubs (and by
organizations like SAPERE and the Philosophy Foundation in schools) is very good at facilitating
group discussions of values and meanings, engaging people and respecting their perspectives. But it
is perhaps too open and undirected - it ignores the fact that ancient wisdom and modern psychology
have discovered reliable hypotheses about how the mind and our emotions work, which its helpful
to learn from the point of view of wisdom and cultural literacy. It leaves people adrift to rediscover
wisdom from scratch, and does not teach any spiritual practices people can use.
And both the scientic and the critical enquiry approach to well-being education fail to teach people
about the history and cultural variety of the pursuit of the good life, and how different wisdom
traditions from various cultures have come up with differing answers to the question of the meaning
of life. The Religious Education curriculum in England and Wales ticks this box, teaching young
people about the diversity of religious traditions - but RE tends to be entirely theoretical dogma, and
fails to teach spiritual practices people can use in their lives.
Philosophies for Life tries to combine the best of all these approaches. It teaches people evidence-
based coping skills from modern psychology, and explores their roots in ancient wisdom traditions
(Stoicism, Taoism, Buddhism, Susm, humanism etc). Rather than just teaching instrumental
thinking skills emptied of ethical content, as CBT does, it gives people space to consider and
discuss the original philosophical context for these skills, and the higher ethical goals they were
designed to reach, such as inner peace, happiness, justice or oneness with the Tao / Logos / God.
Each session focused on a different ancient philosopher (Socrates, Epictetus, Epicurus, Plato,
Aristotle, the Buddha, Lao Tzu and others), exploring one or two key ideas of theirs that we can use
in modern life, and whether evidence from modern psychology supports or undermines this idea.
The session on the Buddha, for example, explores the importance of habits and training to the good
life, and how CBT supports the Buddhas claims about human nature and how to change it.
Then the second half of each session is a group discussion, both of the practical usefulness of the
techniques we discussed, and of the philosophers broader ethical philosophy and the moral goal
they were trying to reach (happiness, Nirvana, justice etc). The group discussion enables
participants to accept or reject aspects of each philosophy, and to share their own stories and
wisdom strategies. And it enables the course to cover various ethical life-goals and meanings
without imposing any particular meaning onto participants.
I call my method the wisdom approach and use the wisdom tree as a symbol, because the course
explores various wisdom traditions and how they share certain trunk ideas about human nature,
while then branching out into various different life-meanings (happiness, social justice, Nirvana
etc).
The Wisdom Tree
Psychology now has good evidence for some of these trunk ideas about human nature (like the
belief we can use our reason to know ourselves and change our habits). However, when it comes to
higher life-meanings, science cant prove them or disprove them. It cant prove that happiness is the
proper goal of life, for example. Thats why we need philosophy to help us reect, discuss and
choose our own life-philosophy.
Here are the results of the trial:
Manor Gardens philosophy club
Manor Gardens Welfare Trust is a charity that works for the well-being of people in Islington. Our
club met every Tuesday evening throughout March and April, initially attracting 15 people, which
dropped to 12. Three quarters of the group were women, from their 30s to 50s, and were mainly
Anglo-African and Anglo-Caribbean. The participants were mainly mental health champions for
the charity, some of whom (like me) had been through mental health issues earlier in their life.
The Manor Gardens philosophy club
I gave the participants a well-being questionnaire before and after the course, which asked them the
extent they agreed to various questions, scoring their answer on a seven-point scale (with one being
strongly disagree and seven being strongly agree). This allowed me to get some sense of the
impact of the course, however imprecise. It found the following
I lead a purposeful and meaningful life +12%
My social relationships are supportive and rewarding + 21%
I am engaged and interested in my daily activities + 6%
I actively contribute to the happiness and well-being of others 0%
I have control over my life and can move towards my goals +6%
I am optimistic about my future + 28%
When bad things happen to me, I can take steps to deal with them +27%
The most signicant impacts seemed to be in participants sense of social support, in their
optimism, and their belief in their ability to cope with adversity.
I also asked participants for their own comments about what they liked and disliked about the
course. Their comments can be grouped under four headings. Firstly, community: comments
included Tuesdays have been the highlight of my week for two months, a great sense of
community, sharing, friendship, and great subjects taught and discussed in a very conversational
manner that encouraged everyone to get involved.
Secondly, the participants said they enjoyed learning about practical wisdom which they could use
in their life. Their comments included: I will take time to think about the bigger picture, relating
theory to practice is what makes this course powerful, and the tools I have learned in this course
and my belief in God will enable me to make major changes in my life.
Thirdly, participants enjoyed the pluralism of the course - they felt they could learn about differing
philosophies of life, without feeling their own faith or philosophy was threatened or undermined.
This was a key aim of the course - to give participants a respect for various wisdom traditions,
whether they are theistic, atheistic or agnostic. Participants comments included Variety works
well. It was interesting to hear how different people use different ideologies to guide their lives and
how these ideologies can work well for different problems.
Finally, all the participants said the course made them much more interested in philosophy - most of
them having never read any before the course. Comments included: I found the entire course
inspiring; this motived me to include more philosophy books in my reading list.
Participants said they would have liked more of a range of philosophers, including black
philosophers and female philosophers. They also said they would have liked the course to be longer,
and to have a way to stay in touch with the other participants. Finally, they would have liked more
materials to take away with them.
HMP Low Moss philosophy club
I taught the course over four Fridays in March to a group of 11 inmates in HMP Low Moss prison
outside Glasgow. They were all male, mainly in their 30s and 40s, mainly white Scottish, and
mainly long-term prisoners. The participants were already in a philosophy club run by Nikki
Cameron of New College Lanarkshire, and my course benetted from the thinking culture Nikki
has created over the last year and a half. Nikkis philosophy club explores questions through
philosophical enquiry. I tried more of a wisdom approach, teaching practical ideas for life, and
exploring their connection to modern psychology, particularly CBT.
CBT courses are already widely available in Scottish prisons and in other prisons around the world.
However, these courses are usually compulsory, and either leave ethics out or include them in a
quite dogmatic and non-criticizable form. I was interested in whether the participants would
respond better to similar ideas presented in the context of philosophy, in which participants are not
treated as malfunctioning brains to be xed (low status), but as autonomous free-thinking
philosophers (high status), who were not there just to take onboard ancient wisdom, but also to
share their own wisdom. My sense was this made it more likely participants would engage with the
course.
Some of the members of HMP Low Moss philosophy club, with Nikki Cameron on the right
Feedback from HMP Low Moss philosophy club
I gave participants a questionnaire after the course, which gathered quantitative and qualitative
feedback. It found that 66% of the participants said they found the course more useful and more
enjoyable than the prison CBT courses (some of the group hadnt done the CBT courses). When
asked what they liked about the course, participants emphasized knowledge, wisdom and
community. They liked learning about ancient philosophers and their relevance to modern life. They
liked learning coping skills to help them with the stress of being inside (Stoic philosophy was
particularly popular). And they enjoyed the community of meeting up each week with the same
people to hear each others views.
While I was doing the course, Kristine Szris, a University of Cambridge criminologist who is
doing a PhD on philosophy in prisons, interviewed some of the participants. Here are a couple of
quotes from them. The rst shows one of the coping skills participants learned from Epictetus:
Jules Evans was in doing something about philosophy and he was talking about how we can jump
to conclusions, and I do that when I play chess. I just look at the board and Ill jump to conclusions
and then I make a move and its been the wrong move kinda thing. I think it gave me a better
understanding. I think its just about focusing on things I can control and not focusing on things I
cant control. I nd philosophy really interesting and worthwhile being taught in prison.
And the second shows the benet of a pluralist approach which doesnt impose any particular
ethical philosophy onto participants:
With Jules coming in, his views and opinions are set one way but he talks about all the different
philosophers which we can disagree with or we can agree with if some of their points are valid. It
allows you to take snippets from each one and take something away from it. Its impossible to take
it all in, not in such a short space of time but if you can take a little bit of it away and practice it for
yourself, it benets you greatly.
Participants said theyd like more materials to take away and study in their own time, as well as
suggestions for further reading that is available in the prison library. Its also interesting to think
about how ideas from prison philosophy clubs can be extended out into the rest of the prison, and
also beyond the prison walls once prisoners are released (via probation organizations and
community groups). Sometimes the group discussions were fractious, and discussion topics could
sometimes have been better picked and facilitated by me.
Saracens philosophy club
Saracens FC are one of the worlds best rugby clubs. This season, they broke the record for most
points scored in the Premiership, but sadly lost the Heineken European Cup nal and the
Premiership nal in back-to-back weekends.
I ran the Saracens philosophy club as part of Saracens personal development programme.
Saracens is unusual among professional sports teams in having an explicitly ethical mission, of
focusing not merely on external results, but also on the internal goods of the well-being and
character of players and staff. Saracens also have a willingness to try the new and unusual, hence
the remarkable feat of getting 12 players and staff to attend and enjoy monthly philosophy sessions.
In fact, ancient philosophy seemed to me very applicable to professional sports - if you search
philosophy or Stoicism in Google News, most of the results will be from sports. While many
people in education are wary of talking about values, coaches are more prepared to do it. However,
there can be a culture clash between an internal focus on character and virtue, and an external focus
on winning at all costs. One even felt this clash at Saracens, despite their unusually ethical culture.
The timing of the sessions and the participants in the sessions were all somewhat uid, due to the
teams schedule and xtures. The philosophy club regularly attracted 12 or so participants,
including rst-team players and coaching staff.
Feedback from Saracens philosophy club
Feedback was quite haphazard from Saracens, as the players were very focused on two cup-nals at
the end of the season (both of which they sadly lost), and then immediately went on holiday.
However, the coaches, when interviewed in the Telegraph before the Premiership nal, were kind
enough to speak at length about the philosophy club. Alex Sanderson, the forwards coach, said it
has been the most popular thing weve done this season.
Paul Gustard, the defence coach, said: We spoke about the art of friendship, a higher calling that
could be faith or family and it was nice to hear people speak openly about how they have changed
along the journey that we are all on and where they sat on the Golden Mean. It was pretty cool.
Kevin Sorrell, the backs coach, said: It was an open forum for players to bounce ideas around. It
was pretty enlightening to hear about how players felt individually about certain incidents over the
last 12 months. Everyone left the room with a better understanding of what made that person tick
and how they react to certain situations.
And Neil de Kock, Saracens scrum half, said: I took an enormous amount of value out of
Philosophy Club by having open and having frank discussions with colleagues on various topics
very applicable to our game.
As an organizational method, the philosophy club improved communication within the team, and
also improved communication between the players and the coaches, helping them to see each
others perspectives.
Again, the course would benet from having more developed teaching materials, such as a
handbook which participants could take away with them. Within an organization that has a very
strong team-culture, like Saracens, its interesting to think of nding ways not just to reinforce that
culture, but also to let people challenge it - otherwise group discussions just become group-think,
rather than enabling people to think and speak for themselves.
Practical philosophy Seminar at Queen Mary, University of London, May 2014
After the courses nished, I arranged an evening seminar on practical philosophy at Queen Mary,
inviting many of the participants who had attended the rst seminar I arranged in 2012, as part of
the Philosophical Communities project, as well as some new people, from such organizations as the
Philosophy Foundation, the Stuart Low philosophy group, and Philosophy in Pubs.
The group raised and discussed important questions for practical philosophy, such as: what should
be the goal of practical philosophy sessions? Is it appropriate to choose goals like wisdom or
ourishing, or should the process itself be the goal? How can you measure results or tell if youre
helping people? If participants are vulnerable, how do you protect them and make sure discussions
are not harmful? What is the appropriate funding model for philosophers, and what are the
pressures and compromises that come with various different funding sources?
I was surprised to learn that there are no other conferences or seminars that bring together people
practicing philosophy outside of academia. Considering how vibrant this scene is in the UK - this
country is arguably a leader in practical philosophy - it seems a pity there are not more events or
networks.
We discussed philosophy in schools, in prisons, in the health and charity sectors, in sports and
business organizations, and in informal learning. Most of the participants practice the critical
enquiry method, and some were wary of a wisdom approach which had a more explicitly ethical
focus. Some participants did not like the idea of philosophy courses trying to teach character or
wisdom or even ethics.
For my part, I think critical enquiry within group discussions is a powerful and important part of
community philosophy. However, I dont think it is enough on its own - if your method relies solely
on critical enquiry, youre leaving people to discover wisdom for themselves rather than learning
anything useful from the great minds of the last three millennia. I am interested in nding more of a
balance between wisdom and critical enquiry, by teaching the wisdom of ancient philosophers,
while also putting their ideas up for discussion and criticism.
I think humanities teachers and academics are over-wary of teaching values, particularly in the state
sector. That difdence creates an ethical vacuum that is lled by the scientism of psychology or the
dogmatism of faith. The question is not whether to teach values, but how to teach them critically
and pluralistically.
Conclusions and next steps
The pilot was more successful than I expected. I initially wondered how philosophy would go down
in these various communities (particularly the rugby club), and also how I would go down, as a
plummy-voiced southerner. I think I went down OK, because I was open about my own
vulnerabilities and aws and didnt claim to have all the answers. And the wisdom of ancient
philosophies turned out to be very accessible to people from varying educational backgrounds, for
many of whom this was their rst exposure to philosophy.
The group discussions in the second half of each session worked well - people dont want just to
listen, they want to share their own ideas and experience. However, people also enjoyed the
wisdom teaching rst half of each session - they dont just want to listen to each others
philosophizing, they also enjoyed learning about the ideas of Aristotle, Lao Tzu, Epictetus and
others, and feeling part of that great conversation.
The course worked particularly well with a demographic that is traditionally wary of group therapy
- young men. Opening up about your inner life does not come particularly naturally either to rugby
players or long-term prison inmates. However, both Saracens and Low Moss philosophy clubs were
places where men could talk about what really mattered to them, and share life-strategies for coping
with stress and adversity, without feeling ashamed or broken.
I now plan to launch the course commercially, by selling it to companies, to individuals, and to
charities. It could either be sold as a full eight-part course, or as a one-day workshop, or as a two-
hour session focusing on, say, Stoic wisdom.
There are two questions I need to answer: where would the course make the most money, and where
would it do the most good?
Clearly, the most protable way forward is to sell the course to businesses, business-people and
entrepreneurs. Since the courses nished, I ran a workshop at a conference of business coaches in
Spain, and the very positive feedback from that strengthened my sense of the commercial potential
of running workshops on practical philosophy, resilience and ourishing for organizations. Ive also
joined the faculty of a school for entrepreneurs in London, called Escape the City School.
However, it would be an ethical mistake if the course was only taught to afuent businesspeople. I
also think it has great potential to help people in schools, in prisons, in mental health services, and
in the general population. I can afford to work with these groups if I subsidize it by working with
business-people, and if I use technology to increase my impact.
The next steps, then, are rstly, building a strategy for the commercial launch of the course. I plan
to work with a mentor and business coach to develop this in the next two months. Secondly, design
and create teaching materials, such as online videos, handouts and activity sheets, and a website. I
also plan to do this by September. Thirdly, expand my roster of clients and improving the course as
I go on.
The best way to reach the biggest number of people is via the development of an online course. It
will be important to nd a technological infrastructure that can support this and take payments from
participants. I may need to raise capital to design an online course and will discuss this with
technology partners and possible funders in the coming weeks.
Next steps for the practical philosophy community
Ive also asked participants at the seminar on practical philosophy for feedback about possible next
steps for the community.
Several participants said they would like a longer event to discuss various models of practical
philosophy. It might also be useful to create an online network for practical philosophers (although
www.thephilosophyhub.com already has a blog).
It might also make sense to establish working groups to build links and share strategies in particular
areas, such as philosophy in criminal justice, philosophy in schools, and philosophy in mental
health services. The AHRC might be interested in supporting some of these working groups.
At the moment, I would suggest all these areas could be developed further - philosophy is on the
verge of disappearing as an A-Level subject, although several primary and secondary schools have
philosophy clubs run by SAPERE or the Philosophy Foundation. Philosophy also barely exists
within prisons or mental health services, in businesses or in faith communities. The only place it
could really claim to be ourishing is in informal learning. So although the scene is vibrant and
involves some passionate and creative participants, its still the case that philosophy needs to grow a
great deal if it can be said to have any genuine impact on our culture.
Thanks for their help with this project to: the AHRC; Dr Thomas Dixon at the Centre for the
History of the Emotions at Queen Mary, University of London; Nikki Cameron, Ruth Facchini and
Kirsten Sams of New College Lanarkshire; David Jones and David Priestly at Saracens rugby club;
Nita Uphadhyay at Manor Gardens welfare trust; the participants at the practical philosophy
seminar; and everyone who took part in the clubs.