Philosophical Exercises

In November 2024, I focused on an eco-philosophy exercise called “Walking the land”. It consists in immersing yourself in the care-taking of a piece of land, th us experiencing the land’s possibilities, needs and resistances. With time, you come to view yourself primarily as a caretaker of nature. Now… A month was too short to uncover all aspects of this exercise, but I have a few remarks already. The practice is very intriguing, but I found it interestingly difficult to access.      Freya Mathews’ article “ ‘Walking the Land’: an Alternative to Discourse as a Path to Ecological Consciousness and Peace” 1 tackles a fascinating problem: environmental philosophers have debunked the anthropocentric ideology that underpins the systematic exploitation and destruction of nature, yet this has not resulted in society shifting towards ecological consciousness. As the article explains , this state of affair s can be explained by “historical materialism”: it is the mode...

  For October 2024, I spent the entire month practicing intuitive action. The pitch was this: instead of scheming so hard, you can follow your intuition when it comes to choosing what your next action should be. On paper, it seemed simple enough, but as you can imagine, it required a lot of clarification. What the hell is an intuition ? How is it different from a scheme ? In the end, intuitive action revealed itself to be a form of non-dual thinking and non-dual doing. Looking for Intuitive Action Last time, I was speaking to Zhuangzi , and it led me to wanting more wu-wei in my life. Wu-wei is an ancient Chinese concept, the paradox of “doing without doing” or “effortless action”. The anecdotes of the Book of Zhuangzi 1 aim at giving the reader this ability, or at least depict all kinds of characters who are able to do this. Their lives seem all the better for it. One beautiful example is that of the dexterous butcher carving up the ox 2 . He does his job, but at the same tim...