South China Sunday Morning Post (Hong
Kong)
July 5, 1998, p.2 of the Agenda Section
The New Age sage rage
Want to know the meaning
of life? Plato rather than Prozac is what you may need
Alex Lo
(top) FRESH IDEA: for Stephen Palmquist, cafes are the
idea places for philosophical discussion. Photo: Wan
Kam-Yan
(bottom) HARD TALK: Eva Man
and Man Si-Wai of the Hong Kong Philosophical Society.
Photo: Oliver Tsang
If Stephen Palmquist had
his way, Hong Kong would be full of cafes where philosophers
and ordinary citizens met to discourse on the meaning
of life.
Instead of Prozac and psychotherapy,
troubled people would go to philosophers for counselling
and learn dialectic to resolve their problems rationally.
Ten years into his academic
career and five books later, Mr Palmquist wants to take
philosophy back to the marketplace where it originally
started, at least in the West, more than 2,400 years
ago in Athens.
"The biggest change
in philosophy was with Socrates when a society tried
to extinguish it by putting the philosopher to death,"
he says. "But philosophy is now generally recognised
as an appropriate and necessary part of any education
at most universities around the world.
"This can be taken as
a different kind of marginalisation. Society says, 'This
is where you philosophers can do your thing. Now try
not to disturb the peace by confusing other people with
your strange talk'.
"Many philosophers around
the world are now trying to take philosophy out of the
academy and return it to the marketplace--to make it
relevant to everyday life again."
What Mr Palmquist is talking
about is a new movement known as Philosophical Practice,
which is all the rage in Europe and North America and
may soon be coming to Hong Kong, thanks to people like
him. This is the unlikely dream of a philosophy teacher
at Baptist University.
Money-crazed Hong Kong seems
like the last place for discussions about virtues, ideals
and the nature of good and evil. But stranger fads have
started here in the past decade.
If New Agers, and self-help
and business gurus are earning big bucks by claiming
to take care of our spiritual well-being, then philosophers--those
lovers of wisdom--are perfectly entitled to take a share
of the pie.
"I have organised group
discussions addressing philosophical issues with people
who are not academics or students, and I find the experience
much more rewarding than lecturing in university,"
Mr Palmquist says.
Started in Germany in 1981
by the philosopher Gerd Achenbach, the movement has
evolved into a major fad, spreading to the Netherlands,
the United States, Canada, Japan, Britain, France, Germany,
Israel, Scandinavia and South Africa.
The movement sends philosophers
back to the so-called marketplace, which usually means
the corporate world.
Business schools and large
companies are now paying them top dollar to ponder on
the nature of corruption, industrial pollution and the
moral implications of the excessive salaries of bosses.
Hospitals are hiring them
to conceptualise ethical dilemmas in medical practices.
They are paid to worry about problems that frequently
inspire story writers for such US television series
as *ER* and *Chicago Hope*. For instance: A parent can
only donate one kidney but both of her children need
such a transplant to live. How do you decide which child
should get the kidney?
Others are setting up counselling
practices, like psychologists and psychotherapists.
The idea is that Plato, rather than Prozac, is the solution
to many of life's problems and moral dilemmas. In the
place of "the talking cure", you have a Socratic
dialogue.
Instead of digging into your
unconscious, philosophical counsellors appeal to your
intellect and invite you to work out your presuppositions
that may be mentally blocking your way to see your situation
clearly.
You are encouraged to analyse
your belief systems to see if they hinder or enhance
your understanding of yourself and the world.
Mr Palmquist gives an example.
"This one is taken from a real case. A man was
abused and abandoned by his father as a child. "Twenty
years later, the father wants to reunite with his son.
The son goes to a philosophical counsellor and wants
to find out what a son's duties are and the possibility
of forgiveness in his case.
"That's very different
from going to a psychotherapist, who would probably
make you work out your unconscious guilt feelings."
According to Louis Marinoff,
an associate philosophy professor at New York's City
College and a leader of the movement in the United States,
many people who go to philosophical counsellors are
"refugees from psychotherapy".
In his Internet web page,
he says many of them are tired of wallowing in their
emotions and want to confront their problems on a more
rational basis.
In New York, the state assembly
is presently considering a bill that would certify such
practitioners. If passed, clients could claim insurance
the way they would after going to a doctor or a psychiatrist.
Another feature of the new
movement is the so-called philo cafes. This is happening
mainly in France where there are about 100 such cafes,
according to an estimate in *The New York Times*.
Inside these cafes, a philosopher
holds court. Customers take part in discussions about
anything and everything under the sun, but they are
required to defend any position with reasonable arguments.
Mr Palmquist believes this
could take off in Hong Kong too.
"I think there is a
place for that in Hong Kong," he says. "It
seems a pleasant way to spend your time while having
a cup of coffee."
So far there has been no
taker offering a share of the night's profits at a restaurant
with him.
Not surprisingly, skeptics
doubt whether Mr Palmquist's grand plan will ever advance
from its conceptual stage, even though, as he points
out, Philosophical Practice could take in not only the
ancient Greek philosophers but also their Chinese counterparts.
Pointing to Sun Tzu's *Art
of War* (whose strategies can be applied in business
to defeat the opponent) among others, he says, "the
idea of philosophy as a way of life to be lived, rather
than a body of doctrine to be learned, fits more naturally
into much of the Chinese tradition than it does into
some of the more abstract and theoretical parts of Western
tradition."
However, Eva Man Kit-wah,
a fellow associate professor of religion and philosophy
at Baptist University, is not convinced of Hong Kongers'
appetite for philosophy, let alone philo cafes.
"Hong Kong doesn't have
the cultural atmosphere for that," she says. "A
philo cafe in Hong Kong would probably attract a lot
of weirdos and lonely and mentally unbalanced people.
Look at City Forum in Victoria Park."
Ms Man, who is also the vice-chairperson
of the Hong Kong Philosophy Society, thinks Hong Kong
people are too prejudiced against philosophy to want
to hire its practitioners as consultants or counselors.
"Most people think philosophy
is too abstract, useless and impractical," she
says. "Psychology, yes. It would help me sort out
my problems, most people think, but philosophy, forget
it."
Still, Ms Man admits there
is interest in philosophy in Hong Kong. The existence
of the Philosophy Society, which is now 12 years old,
is proof of that. The society has more than 100 members
and is expanding. Most are not academics but people
from all walks of life with a personal interest in philosophy.
One of its members is Robert
Lee Shiu-keung. By day, he is a senior assistant director
of public prosecutions at the Department of Justice.
Every few weeks, he feels
the urge to have a Socratic dialogue and goes to attend
a meeting for mental refreshment.
"I am not a philosopher.
But ever since a professor in my university recommended
that I read Karl Popper, I have been hooked on philosophy,"
he says. "I still read philosophy books, though
I have a busy work schedule."
One of the goals of the society
is to bring philosophy to a wider public, according
to its chair Man Si-wai, an associate professor of educational
administration and policy at the Chinese University.
"We want people who find philosophy interesting
to take part. We don't just want philosophers and academics,"
she says.
The aim, then, is not so
different from the Philosophical Practice movement,
except the society is non-profit-making.
Every month, the society
and the Urban Council organise a seminar at City Hall
in Central for members of the public to discuss a philosophical
issue with topical relevance.
Subjects include feminism,
sex education, politics and the individual, and the
changing roles and identities of different professionals
in Hong Kong society.
Occasionally, more than 100
people attend a meeting, leaving only standing room,
so obviously ordinary people find the subjects interesting
enough to want to spend an hour or two of their time
in discussion with strangers.
The venue is perhaps not
as trendy, but the purpose is more or less the same
as a philo cafe.
"Everywhere I go, I
always meet people who find philosophical questions
interesting," Mr Palmquist says.
"There is something
about human nature that compels us to ask philosophical
questions.
"Classic metaphysical
questions such as 'Why is there something instead of
nothing?', are really an articulation of a feeling many
people have experienced in their search for meaning."
Such questions are by their
very nature unanswerable. But as Mr Palmquist's hero,
the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant says, only
humans ask such questions and we affirm our humanity
by asking them.
Unlike religion, ideology
and New Age spirituality, philosophy does not give answers
but asks questions.
The danger, as Mr Palmquist
readily admits, is that by taking philosophy back to
the marketplace, it becomes a kind of consultancy for
a fee.
The ancient Greeks had a
word for that: sophistry. Before the advent of lawyers,
a sophist was a teacher of wisdom who, for a fee, would
teach anyone the dialectical skills to make a dubious
argument sound reasonable and a weak position seem stronger.
The irony is that Socrates
acted like a sophist in Athens in order to discredit
the sophists.
So Philosophical Practice
may be the ultimate revenge of the sophists, who may
now be disguising themselves as philosophers.
But if New Age mumbo jumbo
and wacky management training are now everywhere in
Hong Kong, you may as well count philosophy in too.
So get ready for the new
philosophers. They may be marching into your office
and your home soon.
