A strong, good, and happy man...
...through reason, wisdom, and virtue
This philosophical counselling for men helps you to:
It does that in a philosophical way. That is, it helps you to cultivate reason, wisdom, and virtue.
What follows is a long reflection that explores all of this. It is divided into six themes:
Background
As I describe on the about me page, I am a country boy from a world of farmers and tradesmen. I was raised in the working-class version of classical Western wisdom--the cultivation of character--by men who lived it. In adulthood I taught philosophy at the University of Melbourne and elsewhere, but I retained my practical understanding of philosophy as the pursuit of wisdom, and guidance for living well.
The word philosophy is ancient Greek and means love of wisdom, or pursuit of wisdom. To exercise wisdom is to exercise the virtues. Therefore we should say that philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom and virtue.
We see here the difference between classical philosophy, versus modern and academic philosophy which is a more intellectualist activity. Classical philosophy is a challenge and guidance to live deeply and to live well. It is practical and transformational.
I will discuss the nature of virtue in a later section, but I use the word a lot before then, so what is it? A virtue is:
While studying a masters degree in philosophy I studied counselling as well, to masters level, because I wanted to combine philosophy and counselling, in order to make a career as a philosophical counsellor. As a result of that counselling study, I worked for almost two decades in mainstream counselling and psychotherapy. I did that alongside my philosophical pursuits, and as a step toward the philosophical counselling which is now my sole work. So I am a philosophical counsellor, but I possess also the psychological perception, insight, and skill of an experienced therapist, which I now bring as a background to my work.
That journey and skill is important, because psychology has a prominent place in ancient or classical Western philosophy. What is known as Philosophical Psychology is an important field in classical philosophy for the cultivation of wisdom and virtue. Modern psychology, which is much more narrow and ideological, nonetheless provides many powerful insights and tools that complement classical philosophical psychology.
What you are reading now is a secondary website. My main website can be found elsewhere, and it describes a more general form philosophical counselling which is for everybody. In that service, people may come with very different worldviews to my own, and I speak with them using the generally respected tools and insights of philosophy, to help them with their thinking and so with their life. To use the mainstream counselling phrase, that approach is non-directive.
By contrast, the service you are now reading is more specific, and much more directive. When I worked in mainstream counselling one of my areas of passion was men's counselling. For example I worked with services focused on rural men, war veterans, and so on. Men's counsellors are a different breed, in that they often become a little critical of mainstream therapy, because they see very clearly how it has a history of pushing a feminised way of being on to men. Men, it would seem, are defective women, who need to learn to be more like women.
This awareness only deepened after 2015, when so much much of the broader field of therapy went woke, and it was decided that masculinity is toxic. We recognise that the masculine psyche needs something different to the feminising ideologies that are too often embedded into mainstream therapy. For my part, I came to the conclusion that for many men, classical wisdom, classical philosophy, is clearly much more effective and beneficial than mainstream counselling. For it fits the male psyche. Indeed, while in one sense the philosophy is an expression of human nature, and of the best of masculine psychology, that becomes a feedback loop, and in turn the philosophy shapes future men according to its depth and insights. and that has continued now for 2,500 years.
A form of counselling that is based on classical wisdom takes men far beyond the narrow limits of psychological therapy. Far beyond, that is, the mere goals of psychological wellness and satisfaction. This service is for men who want to become wise. Men who want to develop character. Men who want to be strong, good, and happy. Men who want to create a profound life. Hence, unlike the main version of my philosophical counselling, this men's service is directive. This service is not for men who want to debate about whether wisdom and virtue is a worthwhile goal, rather it is for those who want to roll up their sleeves and get to work on it. As Marcus Aurelius wrote: "Stop arguing over what a good man is; become one!"
You come here because you to draw on this classical tradition of objective wisdom for guidance, and because you want to do that work.
We engage in deep reflection. And we engage in practical change. This service is for every man who wants to:
This path meets you where you are. It does not matter whether your IQ is 80, 100, or 120. What matters is your commitment to cultivating wisdom and virtue. Fortunately, wisdom and virtue develop in a feedback loop with one another. Wisdom creates virtue. Virtue leads to wisdom. Some men are more intellectually inclined, and so they start more from reason and wisdom. Other men are more practically-minded, and they may work more from virtue. With my background in mainstream therapy, I am particularly skilled at reading your temperament and talents in that respect, and tailoring my work accordingly.
We move now to the first activity to be cultivated: reason.
Reason
- deal with the same problems you would take to mainsteam counselling
- cultivate a way of being that is strong, good, and happy
- create a successful, flourishing life
- live according to a higher vision of what a man can be, and of what life can be about
It does that in a philosophical way. That is, it helps you to cultivate reason, wisdom, and virtue.
What follows is a long reflection that explores all of this. It is divided into six themes:
- Backround
- The cultivation of reason
- The cultivation of wisdom
- The cultivation of virtue
- The cultivation of success and happiness
- Summary: this practice of philosophical counselling
Background
As I describe on the about me page, I am a country boy from a world of farmers and tradesmen. I was raised in the working-class version of classical Western wisdom--the cultivation of character--by men who lived it. In adulthood I taught philosophy at the University of Melbourne and elsewhere, but I retained my practical understanding of philosophy as the pursuit of wisdom, and guidance for living well.
The word philosophy is ancient Greek and means love of wisdom, or pursuit of wisdom. To exercise wisdom is to exercise the virtues. Therefore we should say that philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom and virtue.
We see here the difference between classical philosophy, versus modern and academic philosophy which is a more intellectualist activity. Classical philosophy is a challenge and guidance to live deeply and to live well. It is practical and transformational.
I will discuss the nature of virtue in a later section, but I use the word a lot before then, so what is it? A virtue is:
- any activity
- which becomes a habit (a cultivated disposition)
- which makes you and your life better, in terms of human flourishing.
- mentally strong
- capable and skillful with life
- wise
- good
- happy
- successful
While studying a masters degree in philosophy I studied counselling as well, to masters level, because I wanted to combine philosophy and counselling, in order to make a career as a philosophical counsellor. As a result of that counselling study, I worked for almost two decades in mainstream counselling and psychotherapy. I did that alongside my philosophical pursuits, and as a step toward the philosophical counselling which is now my sole work. So I am a philosophical counsellor, but I possess also the psychological perception, insight, and skill of an experienced therapist, which I now bring as a background to my work.
That journey and skill is important, because psychology has a prominent place in ancient or classical Western philosophy. What is known as Philosophical Psychology is an important field in classical philosophy for the cultivation of wisdom and virtue. Modern psychology, which is much more narrow and ideological, nonetheless provides many powerful insights and tools that complement classical philosophical psychology.
What you are reading now is a secondary website. My main website can be found elsewhere, and it describes a more general form philosophical counselling which is for everybody. In that service, people may come with very different worldviews to my own, and I speak with them using the generally respected tools and insights of philosophy, to help them with their thinking and so with their life. To use the mainstream counselling phrase, that approach is non-directive.
By contrast, the service you are now reading is more specific, and much more directive. When I worked in mainstream counselling one of my areas of passion was men's counselling. For example I worked with services focused on rural men, war veterans, and so on. Men's counsellors are a different breed, in that they often become a little critical of mainstream therapy, because they see very clearly how it has a history of pushing a feminised way of being on to men. Men, it would seem, are defective women, who need to learn to be more like women.
This awareness only deepened after 2015, when so much much of the broader field of therapy went woke, and it was decided that masculinity is toxic. We recognise that the masculine psyche needs something different to the feminising ideologies that are too often embedded into mainstream therapy. For my part, I came to the conclusion that for many men, classical wisdom, classical philosophy, is clearly much more effective and beneficial than mainstream counselling. For it fits the male psyche. Indeed, while in one sense the philosophy is an expression of human nature, and of the best of masculine psychology, that becomes a feedback loop, and in turn the philosophy shapes future men according to its depth and insights. and that has continued now for 2,500 years.
A form of counselling that is based on classical wisdom takes men far beyond the narrow limits of psychological therapy. Far beyond, that is, the mere goals of psychological wellness and satisfaction. This service is for men who want to become wise. Men who want to develop character. Men who want to be strong, good, and happy. Men who want to create a profound life. Hence, unlike the main version of my philosophical counselling, this men's service is directive. This service is not for men who want to debate about whether wisdom and virtue is a worthwhile goal, rather it is for those who want to roll up their sleeves and get to work on it. As Marcus Aurelius wrote: "Stop arguing over what a good man is; become one!"
You come here because you to draw on this classical tradition of objective wisdom for guidance, and because you want to do that work.
We engage in deep reflection. And we engage in practical change. This service is for every man who wants to:
- deal with their personal problems and challenges
- create a strong, skillful, capable way of being
- cultivate goodness
- craft a successful, happy, flourishing life
- embody a higher, more purposeful vision of life
This path meets you where you are. It does not matter whether your IQ is 80, 100, or 120. What matters is your commitment to cultivating wisdom and virtue. Fortunately, wisdom and virtue develop in a feedback loop with one another. Wisdom creates virtue. Virtue leads to wisdom. Some men are more intellectually inclined, and so they start more from reason and wisdom. Other men are more practically-minded, and they may work more from virtue. With my background in mainstream therapy, I am particularly skilled at reading your temperament and talents in that respect, and tailoring my work accordingly.
We move now to the first activity to be cultivated: reason.
Reason
To reason is to think. Thinking well matters. Why? Because to the degree that you are the free author of your own life, the root of that life is your thinking. Everything else flows from it: your emotions, actions, what kind of man you are, and the general direction and outcome of your life.
This effect of thinking on the rest of our life is one of the most proven claims of modern cognitive psychology. Sages from all times and places have always known it.
Epictetus, Stoic philosopher:
"People are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them."
Marcus Aurelius, Stoic philosopher:
"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts."
Jewish and Christian scriptures:
"For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he..."
"Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life."
The Buddha:
"We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think."
"All that we are is the result of what we have thought. It is founded on our thoughts. It is made up of our thoughts."
The Bhagavad Gita (Hindu scripture):
"A man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is."
Lao Tzu, founder of Taoism:
"Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny."
This universal insight is why Socrates, the greatest philosopher of ancient Greece and of the West, said that "the unexamined life is not worth living." If we do not examine our thinking, then our life is merely the expression of ideology and intellectual error. That matters if you care about truth, and it matters if you care about genuine happiness.
This is very different to the New Thought movement of the 20th century--the New Age notion that everything is a manifestation of thought. That nonsense is a distortion of ancient insight. The classical philosophers were clear that there are many things, good and bad, which are out of our control, which means out of the control of thought. But they recognised that many significant things are within our control, too, and that thought is most in our control, and serves as the root of many other things in our life.
Modernity tends to reduce things to one of their parts, and then treats that part as the whole. Hence, within modernity, some people argue that everything is outside our control (we are completely determined) while others argue that everything is in our control (New Thought, some existentialists and post-moderns). Both are wrong, and the classical integration and balance is correct. It matches out experience of life. We are free in certain respects, and determined in others. The domain of intellect and will is the domain of freedom. Of course, our mind and heart is only so free as our effort to be awake and to grow.
A core practice of true philosophy, is thinking about our thinking. That is not a mind game, rather it is the key to freedom and a good life. We all operate on a foundation of unexamined beliefs—about ourselves, our capabilities, our relationships, and what constitutes a good life. By "unexamined" I mean that we don't see that we hold these beliefs. Or we do see them, but we don't see the errors in them. This is because much of our thinking is implicit or instinctive. We fail to be awake, aware--to see--and we fail to question what we see.
We see this failure of cognitive self-awareness in others, and perhaps criticise them for it, but often we fail to see it in ourselves. That is a problem, and not only because it is hypocrisy, but because our beliefs determine how we think, feel, act, and how our life goes in general. When they are distorted, that distorts our life.
Consider an example: "All women are good, and so this woman I am dating is good and worthy of commitment...despite all the red flags." Because this man believes that all women are good, he cannot see that the woman he is with is...not so good. Later he will go through hell: lose his house, lose access to his children, be falsely accused, all because of a faulty belief.
You may have experienced this, or some related false belief that harmed your life. Or perhaps you may have seen it in other men. This just one, intentionally very obvious, example of the myriad ways, some crude, some subtle, that we direct our lives according to distorted or false beliefs, and suffer for it.
How do you know what you do not know? If you are ignorant, and your ignorance is invisible to you, how do you become aware of it? How do you recognise that there are problems in your thinking. For a start, you need to recognise that there are problems, even if you cannot see them. The alternative is to assume that you are pretty much perfect, even if surrounded by idiots, but that is not a sound or good assumption. Socrates recognised that one of our biggest problems is that we are ignorant about our ignorance. So, he says, we need two things. First, humility. "Oh shit, I'm prone to human stupidity too! I need to dig around and look for my faults." Second, the Socratic method, which is a way of thinking about our thinking, of cross-examining our own thought to improve it.
Here are some common untrue or irrational beliefs, to give further examples of what I am talking about:
-People only respect aggressive men.
-People respect nice men, and will reward their niceness.
-If I lose this job then I will end up in the gutter.
-Whenever somebody cuts me off in traffic they are intentionally disrespecting me.
-When a man falls off the wagon (uses porn, drinks, loses his temper...again) then all the previous effort is undone and wasted.
-Most people are untrustworthy or stupid (but I'm an exception to that).
-There is no meaning to life.
-Life is pure competition.
-To judge others is to display a critical mind, to reveal one's own intelligence
Your distorted, false, or irrational beliefs will be having an effect on your life, leading to forms of low-grade frustration, or chronic unhappiness, or even to misery, and even to disasters in your life. The fact that you are ignorant of some of the errors that lead to such consequences in your life, means that you are trapped in those problems. For you cannot free yourself from entanglement, if you cannot see that you are entangled. If you have ever freed an entangled sheep, you will know that often it was only the animal's lack of intelligence that kept it trapped. Reason is the key that will release you from most of your problems. It will enable you to manage, reduce, overcome, or avoid problems, and to create a positively good life for yourself. It does that by going to the root: the distorted thinking from which your problems flow.
The Socratic method guides us to examine our thinking. Most, we think about objects out there, beyond us. Our thinking focuses on something outside of itself. But we need to think about our thinking itself. For it is our lens. Typically we just look through the lens, without looking at the lens itself. The lens may have flaws or at least limitations.
The essence of the Socratic method is questioning. We cross-examine our own beliefs, as a lawyer might questiona witness in court. We probe the meaning of the concepts, the truth of the judgements, and the rationality of the reasoning.
To speak of concepts, judgements, and reasoning is to speak of "the three acts of the intellect." In classical logic, they represent the process and means by which we know. By examining each of them, we are examining our perception and thinking. Hence, we come to see any problems in our thinking. We are able to reject distortions and errors, and to replace them with a vision of life that is clear, true, and rational.
The conversation I offer you is a form of such questioning, done through a dialogue between us. I guide you by asking questions and noticing things. Your thinking shows itself, and we dig into it, and we notice the problems, and work on improvements. This means that you walk away from the session with insight and improvement in your thinking. That means you walk away with improvements in your life, or the insight and knowledge you need to make those improvements. But you walk away with something else as well, some implicit, but very important. For when I question you, I am guiding you to question yourself: to apply the Socratic method and tools of logic to an examination of your own thinking. You thereby learn how rationally examine yourself and your thinking. By doing it with me, through my guidance, you learn to do it with yourself. You learn by doing. "Teach a man to fish...."
This is the best way to enter into rational self-examination and the art of reasoning. The background I bring to our conversations is Socratic reasoning, but also traditional logic, which is an academic subject, but also an incredibly powerful life skill. Some men will want to go further and study these disciplines explicitly, which I certainly encourage. There are several books I recommend to such men, and we can discuss their ideas as you work through them, and I can help you put their principles into practice. Others will be satisfied with the basics, which are certainly enough to transform life.
A man who cannot question his own thoughts is a slave to them. By mastering the Socratic method, you gain the ability to stand apart from your own mind, to inspect its workings, and to choose your path based on examined truth rather than unconscious impulse. It is the fundamental practice for becoming the author of your own character, and for creating a flourishing life.
We turn now to the outcome of this rational examination: growth in wisdom.
Wisdom
This effect of thinking on the rest of our life is one of the most proven claims of modern cognitive psychology. Sages from all times and places have always known it.
Epictetus, Stoic philosopher:
"People are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them."
Marcus Aurelius, Stoic philosopher:
"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts."
Jewish and Christian scriptures:
"For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he..."
"Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life."
The Buddha:
"We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think."
"All that we are is the result of what we have thought. It is founded on our thoughts. It is made up of our thoughts."
The Bhagavad Gita (Hindu scripture):
"A man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is."
Lao Tzu, founder of Taoism:
"Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny."
This universal insight is why Socrates, the greatest philosopher of ancient Greece and of the West, said that "the unexamined life is not worth living." If we do not examine our thinking, then our life is merely the expression of ideology and intellectual error. That matters if you care about truth, and it matters if you care about genuine happiness.
This is very different to the New Thought movement of the 20th century--the New Age notion that everything is a manifestation of thought. That nonsense is a distortion of ancient insight. The classical philosophers were clear that there are many things, good and bad, which are out of our control, which means out of the control of thought. But they recognised that many significant things are within our control, too, and that thought is most in our control, and serves as the root of many other things in our life.
Modernity tends to reduce things to one of their parts, and then treats that part as the whole. Hence, within modernity, some people argue that everything is outside our control (we are completely determined) while others argue that everything is in our control (New Thought, some existentialists and post-moderns). Both are wrong, and the classical integration and balance is correct. It matches out experience of life. We are free in certain respects, and determined in others. The domain of intellect and will is the domain of freedom. Of course, our mind and heart is only so free as our effort to be awake and to grow.
A core practice of true philosophy, is thinking about our thinking. That is not a mind game, rather it is the key to freedom and a good life. We all operate on a foundation of unexamined beliefs—about ourselves, our capabilities, our relationships, and what constitutes a good life. By "unexamined" I mean that we don't see that we hold these beliefs. Or we do see them, but we don't see the errors in them. This is because much of our thinking is implicit or instinctive. We fail to be awake, aware--to see--and we fail to question what we see.
We see this failure of cognitive self-awareness in others, and perhaps criticise them for it, but often we fail to see it in ourselves. That is a problem, and not only because it is hypocrisy, but because our beliefs determine how we think, feel, act, and how our life goes in general. When they are distorted, that distorts our life.
Consider an example: "All women are good, and so this woman I am dating is good and worthy of commitment...despite all the red flags." Because this man believes that all women are good, he cannot see that the woman he is with is...not so good. Later he will go through hell: lose his house, lose access to his children, be falsely accused, all because of a faulty belief.
You may have experienced this, or some related false belief that harmed your life. Or perhaps you may have seen it in other men. This just one, intentionally very obvious, example of the myriad ways, some crude, some subtle, that we direct our lives according to distorted or false beliefs, and suffer for it.
How do you know what you do not know? If you are ignorant, and your ignorance is invisible to you, how do you become aware of it? How do you recognise that there are problems in your thinking. For a start, you need to recognise that there are problems, even if you cannot see them. The alternative is to assume that you are pretty much perfect, even if surrounded by idiots, but that is not a sound or good assumption. Socrates recognised that one of our biggest problems is that we are ignorant about our ignorance. So, he says, we need two things. First, humility. "Oh shit, I'm prone to human stupidity too! I need to dig around and look for my faults." Second, the Socratic method, which is a way of thinking about our thinking, of cross-examining our own thought to improve it.
Here are some common untrue or irrational beliefs, to give further examples of what I am talking about:
-People only respect aggressive men.
-People respect nice men, and will reward their niceness.
-If I lose this job then I will end up in the gutter.
-Whenever somebody cuts me off in traffic they are intentionally disrespecting me.
-When a man falls off the wagon (uses porn, drinks, loses his temper...again) then all the previous effort is undone and wasted.
-Most people are untrustworthy or stupid (but I'm an exception to that).
-There is no meaning to life.
-Life is pure competition.
-To judge others is to display a critical mind, to reveal one's own intelligence
Your distorted, false, or irrational beliefs will be having an effect on your life, leading to forms of low-grade frustration, or chronic unhappiness, or even to misery, and even to disasters in your life. The fact that you are ignorant of some of the errors that lead to such consequences in your life, means that you are trapped in those problems. For you cannot free yourself from entanglement, if you cannot see that you are entangled. If you have ever freed an entangled sheep, you will know that often it was only the animal's lack of intelligence that kept it trapped. Reason is the key that will release you from most of your problems. It will enable you to manage, reduce, overcome, or avoid problems, and to create a positively good life for yourself. It does that by going to the root: the distorted thinking from which your problems flow.
The Socratic method guides us to examine our thinking. Most, we think about objects out there, beyond us. Our thinking focuses on something outside of itself. But we need to think about our thinking itself. For it is our lens. Typically we just look through the lens, without looking at the lens itself. The lens may have flaws or at least limitations.
The essence of the Socratic method is questioning. We cross-examine our own beliefs, as a lawyer might questiona witness in court. We probe the meaning of the concepts, the truth of the judgements, and the rationality of the reasoning.
To speak of concepts, judgements, and reasoning is to speak of "the three acts of the intellect." In classical logic, they represent the process and means by which we know. By examining each of them, we are examining our perception and thinking. Hence, we come to see any problems in our thinking. We are able to reject distortions and errors, and to replace them with a vision of life that is clear, true, and rational.
The conversation I offer you is a form of such questioning, done through a dialogue between us. I guide you by asking questions and noticing things. Your thinking shows itself, and we dig into it, and we notice the problems, and work on improvements. This means that you walk away from the session with insight and improvement in your thinking. That means you walk away with improvements in your life, or the insight and knowledge you need to make those improvements. But you walk away with something else as well, some implicit, but very important. For when I question you, I am guiding you to question yourself: to apply the Socratic method and tools of logic to an examination of your own thinking. You thereby learn how rationally examine yourself and your thinking. By doing it with me, through my guidance, you learn to do it with yourself. You learn by doing. "Teach a man to fish...."
This is the best way to enter into rational self-examination and the art of reasoning. The background I bring to our conversations is Socratic reasoning, but also traditional logic, which is an academic subject, but also an incredibly powerful life skill. Some men will want to go further and study these disciplines explicitly, which I certainly encourage. There are several books I recommend to such men, and we can discuss their ideas as you work through them, and I can help you put their principles into practice. Others will be satisfied with the basics, which are certainly enough to transform life.
A man who cannot question his own thoughts is a slave to them. By mastering the Socratic method, you gain the ability to stand apart from your own mind, to inspect its workings, and to choose your path based on examined truth rather than unconscious impulse. It is the fundamental practice for becoming the author of your own character, and for creating a flourishing life.
We turn now to the outcome of this rational examination: growth in wisdom.
Wisdom
Life is not random. Through reason (the Socratic method, traditional logic) we move from error in our thinking, to discerning life's truths and patterns.
We see past the surface and appearances, to the underlying forms and principles of life.
That is, we build up a map of life: of what is true, and good, what to avoid, what to pursue, what leads to what, how to achieve these things, and how to live.
This means that wisdom is two things:
Reason leads to wisdom. But there is more to wisdom than reason. After all, we can reason about scientific or scholarly concerns without becoming wise about life. Something else is needed: for reason to generate wisdom, reason must be applied to experience.
Wisdom is generated when we reflect well (rationally) on our experience. We can frame the ingrediants that make wisdom through a formula: experience + rational reflection = wisdom. That gives us a practical formula which guides us in the cultivation of wisdom. It is the recipe for making wisdom:
Step 1: Reflect rationally on your experience.
Step 2: Bake that for a long time (that is, keep doing it, make a habit of it).
Step 3: Remember to add the secret sauce: not only thinking about your experience, but "thinking about your thinking" about your experience.
To merely think about your experience is to think: "I failed" or "He was rude." To think about your thinking about your experience (the Socratic method) is to ask: Is that true, and does it follow logically? What does it mean to fail? How does that apply in this particular situation? Does the conclusion rationally follow from the events?
This is where philosophy differs somewhat from psychotherapy, depending on the therapist. There is a bias in some therapy for feeling good no matter what, and for doing so through irrational and illegitimate means, such as euphemism. This is because some therapists are essentially hedonistic in their worldview, and believe in the magical compassion or magical self-acceptance, and see all struggles as essentially neurotic (i.e., to conclude that I failed is to bully myself). But maybe failure is the best word. Or maybe it is not, and we need to truthfully seek a better description, regardless of whether it feels good or not. Not, of course, that truth is our only criterion. What if three different perspectives present themselves, and each is equally rationally compelling? Wisdom is belief that is true...and good. We seek the perspective that is most beneficial. We do this on the understanding that a false or obfuscating perspective, one designed merely to make us feel good for now, is not truly good.
To use with the other example, if you examine your thinking, in the form of your conclusion that "he was rude", you might discover that he was indeed rude. Y ou may need therefore to develop a more fine grained understanding of the nature of his rudeness, and of how you responded, and what you should do about all this in future, assuming it is a character trait of his, or in case it happens again. "Next time somebody speaks like that I will say x" or "I don't think I'll continue hanging out with those aggressive blokes" or whatever the better conclusion is, which will be based on the particulars of the situation. Alternatively, you might discover that you were being presumptuous, or insecure, or whatever. The issue is to get at truth, as best you can, and not to live by half-baked beliefs. Therapeutic euphemism and tranquilisation might feel good in the moment, but they harm you and your life in the long-term. The thing which makes life better, always, ultimately, is truth.
This discussion leads us to one of my other definitions of wisdom: it is a perspective that is as true and good as possible.
Some counsellors have a confrontational style of getting at truth. That is a reflection of their temperament. I'm the more thoughtful type, with a tendency toward nuance and subtlety. I believe that people speak too quickly, and that silence and time is important. I also believe more in the carrot (encouragement, charity) than in the stick. That is, I work skillfully with the universal fact of our egotism. This more diplomatic and conversational approach reflects my temperament, but it has been honed by my training and work in psychotherapy. The subtle art (as opposed to the confrontational approach that some people romanticise) serves a highly important function. A vital piece of wisdom in psychotherapy is the awareness that the truths which really change people, are those which people come to themselves. If I point something out to you, it is much less likely to have an effect, than if through our conversation you come to see it. Maybe you saw it and I didn't, or maybe I saw it and then led the conversation in such a way that you stumbled onto it--whether there in the session, or a week later in between sessions--but either way, an insight is much more powerful when you come to it as your own discovery. It is then much more likely to impact your thinking, emotions, and actions.
This raises a question: if many of the ways that I help you have this implicit and subtle nature, then how do you know that I am actually helping, that you are getting your money's worth, that our work is effective? As I say, the insights and the effects might occur in between the sessions, and feel like your own doing. That is in fact my goal. They will not only feel like your doing, they will be your doing. Truth is an individual and interior activity, that happens partly because of community. I am a part of your community, helping you come to truth. The way, therefore, to gauge the effect and so value of seeing me, is to consider what is changing in your thinking, feeling, action, and life. Consider whether that change was happening before, when you were not seeing me.
By means of the cultivation of wisdom you:
To apply wisdom to emotion and action, that is, to make our emotions and actions more wise, is to cultivate virtue. We now turn now to virtue.
Virtue
We see past the surface and appearances, to the underlying forms and principles of life.
That is, we build up a map of life: of what is true, and good, what to avoid, what to pursue, what leads to what, how to achieve these things, and how to live.
This means that wisdom is two things:
- It is an ability. It is to be more rational, awake, insightful.
- It is the map of life, which you derive from that habit of rational examination of yourself and of life.
Reason leads to wisdom. But there is more to wisdom than reason. After all, we can reason about scientific or scholarly concerns without becoming wise about life. Something else is needed: for reason to generate wisdom, reason must be applied to experience.
Wisdom is generated when we reflect well (rationally) on our experience. We can frame the ingrediants that make wisdom through a formula: experience + rational reflection = wisdom. That gives us a practical formula which guides us in the cultivation of wisdom. It is the recipe for making wisdom:
Step 1: Reflect rationally on your experience.
Step 2: Bake that for a long time (that is, keep doing it, make a habit of it).
Step 3: Remember to add the secret sauce: not only thinking about your experience, but "thinking about your thinking" about your experience.
To merely think about your experience is to think: "I failed" or "He was rude." To think about your thinking about your experience (the Socratic method) is to ask: Is that true, and does it follow logically? What does it mean to fail? How does that apply in this particular situation? Does the conclusion rationally follow from the events?
This is where philosophy differs somewhat from psychotherapy, depending on the therapist. There is a bias in some therapy for feeling good no matter what, and for doing so through irrational and illegitimate means, such as euphemism. This is because some therapists are essentially hedonistic in their worldview, and believe in the magical compassion or magical self-acceptance, and see all struggles as essentially neurotic (i.e., to conclude that I failed is to bully myself). But maybe failure is the best word. Or maybe it is not, and we need to truthfully seek a better description, regardless of whether it feels good or not. Not, of course, that truth is our only criterion. What if three different perspectives present themselves, and each is equally rationally compelling? Wisdom is belief that is true...and good. We seek the perspective that is most beneficial. We do this on the understanding that a false or obfuscating perspective, one designed merely to make us feel good for now, is not truly good.
To use with the other example, if you examine your thinking, in the form of your conclusion that "he was rude", you might discover that he was indeed rude. Y ou may need therefore to develop a more fine grained understanding of the nature of his rudeness, and of how you responded, and what you should do about all this in future, assuming it is a character trait of his, or in case it happens again. "Next time somebody speaks like that I will say x" or "I don't think I'll continue hanging out with those aggressive blokes" or whatever the better conclusion is, which will be based on the particulars of the situation. Alternatively, you might discover that you were being presumptuous, or insecure, or whatever. The issue is to get at truth, as best you can, and not to live by half-baked beliefs. Therapeutic euphemism and tranquilisation might feel good in the moment, but they harm you and your life in the long-term. The thing which makes life better, always, ultimately, is truth.
This discussion leads us to one of my other definitions of wisdom: it is a perspective that is as true and good as possible.
Some counsellors have a confrontational style of getting at truth. That is a reflection of their temperament. I'm the more thoughtful type, with a tendency toward nuance and subtlety. I believe that people speak too quickly, and that silence and time is important. I also believe more in the carrot (encouragement, charity) than in the stick. That is, I work skillfully with the universal fact of our egotism. This more diplomatic and conversational approach reflects my temperament, but it has been honed by my training and work in psychotherapy. The subtle art (as opposed to the confrontational approach that some people romanticise) serves a highly important function. A vital piece of wisdom in psychotherapy is the awareness that the truths which really change people, are those which people come to themselves. If I point something out to you, it is much less likely to have an effect, than if through our conversation you come to see it. Maybe you saw it and I didn't, or maybe I saw it and then led the conversation in such a way that you stumbled onto it--whether there in the session, or a week later in between sessions--but either way, an insight is much more powerful when you come to it as your own discovery. It is then much more likely to impact your thinking, emotions, and actions.
This raises a question: if many of the ways that I help you have this implicit and subtle nature, then how do you know that I am actually helping, that you are getting your money's worth, that our work is effective? As I say, the insights and the effects might occur in between the sessions, and feel like your own doing. That is in fact my goal. They will not only feel like your doing, they will be your doing. Truth is an individual and interior activity, that happens partly because of community. I am a part of your community, helping you come to truth. The way, therefore, to gauge the effect and so value of seeing me, is to consider what is changing in your thinking, feeling, action, and life. Consider whether that change was happening before, when you were not seeing me.
By means of the cultivation of wisdom you:
- gain insight into yourself, including your thinking but also your emotions and actions
- gain insight into life, human nature, and the ways of the world
- deal with the problems in your life
- avoid unnecessary problems in your life
- come to see what is true and good, and how to pursue that
- develop the practical wisdom to know what to do, and how to do it, in any situation
- develop a sound plan of life, to achieve your particular goals and path
- become more strong, good, and happy
- create a more flourishing life
- develop a more profound vision of life
- live in a more admirable, meaningful, and even profound way, centred on higher value and meaning
To apply wisdom to emotion and action, that is, to make our emotions and actions more wise, is to cultivate virtue. We now turn now to virtue.
Virtue
The nature or essence of virtue
The word virtue can have a moralistic connotation for some people, but that is because of its more narrow use in Christianity. The Christiants borrowed a lot of Greek philosophy, but reshaped it to fit their theology. We need to go back to the source and return to the ancient Greek understanding of virtue. This itself is another example of the impact on our lives of our judgements. For example, is anger and pride a vice? In many forms of Christianity, yes. In classical philosophy, they easily can be vices, but in their proper form they are both virtues.
As Aristotle makes clear, you should be properly proud, and sometimes you should defend your honour, indeed you may need to do it often if you are surrounded by the wrong kinds of people. Likewise, sometimes you should be angry, and it is a failing of character to be meek. Aristotle is concerned with the obvious goods that come from the virtue and the obvious evils which follow from a deficiency of proper pride or anger, but further insights can be added from the 20th century, for as as Freud, Jung, and Nietzsche described, the anger will emerge anyway but in a distorted form (consider slave morality and resentment or rather, "ressentiment"). Many problems emerge from a deficiency, or denial and suppression, of proper pride and anger.
So the ancient Greek conception of virtue is wider than the moralistic version we find in Christianity. It includes moral goodness, but much more. The ancient Greek word that we translate as virtue is arete. Arete is what we are talking about whenever I speak of virtue. English translations for arete include:
A knife that cuts well is arete--a good or excellent knife. A reliable car is arete. A tree that is healthy and well-rooted is arete. An, obediant, fit, well-trained, and skillful sheep dog is arete. A human being whose character makes them strong, good, and happy is arete.
The Romans translated arete as virtus, which in English is virtue. I prefer the word virtue rather than arete or good quality or excellence, because of its resonance and place in the classical tradition. But do keep in mind that it does not mean only moral goodness. An virtuous man is one who sufficiently possesses the various forms of arete that make him and his life good.
The ingrediants that make a virtue
So much for the formal definition of virtue, but what is it made of? A virtue is:
To say that a virtue is a habit is to say that it is something you make into a stable disposition, a trait, and so a quality, of your character. You make it into that by practice and repetition.
To say that a virtue is "guided by wisdom" is to say that it is intelligently directed: you are intentional, purposeful, and critically aware of what you are doing when you enact the wise emotion or action and make it into a habit.
The effects of virtue
Why do virtues matter? Simply put, if you want a good life, then you need to cultivate good habits, good qualities of character. As the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said: "Character is fate." Or as the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tszu so clearly put it above, and I will quote him again: "Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny."
Character is fate.
Virtue is destiny.
I have already noted that this is consistent with the fact that some aspects of us, and of life, are out of our control. For, arguably, the most important elements are in our control.
I have provided a formal definition (or various of them) for a virtue. Aristotel refers to that as the formal cause. I have described the ingrediants that make virtue. Aristotle refers to that as the material cause. But what is its final cause? That is, what is the point of cultivating virtue? What does virtue aim at? What is the effect of embodying virtue? To answer these, we should note that there are many virtues that reflect different domains and needs in our life. Altogether, however, the virtues make you more:
All of this is achieved by the good qualities, the excellences of intellect, emotion, and action, that you cultivate and embody within yourself.
Nature and nurture, versus virtue
A virtue is different to a psychological strength. Likewise, a vice is different to a psychological weakness.
A psychological strength and a virtue might have the same name, and amount to the same activities. For example, we might be courageous, but it might not be a virtue so much as a psychological strength, a product, say, of nature, such as genetics. We might be inclined to ask: so what? What matters is that we are courageous.
First of all, the distinction helps us to recognise that there are seemingly fixed aspects of us, such as our psychological traits and strengths, but also we have freedom to craft our way of being. Psychological traits may be determined or shaped by forces outside of our control, and some people win the lotto in this respect while others draw the short straw, but we also have the freedom to craft our mind and our character. That freedom leads not only to a better life, if we enact it, but also to hope; taking responsibility; a sense of meaning, dignity, pride; and so on.
Likewise, the recognition that in some respects we are behind the eight ball leads to compassion, and patience, for ourselves or for others regarding our psychological flaws and weaknesses. Such compassion and patience is also a form of wisdom. Of course, this compassion is consistent with a sense of responsibility for doing something about our flaws: for changing what we can, even as we accept what we cannot change, or only with slow difficulty.
It also invites humility about the strengths we possess but have not earned. Which is also wisdom.
We are not responsible for our psychological strengths and weaknesses, insofar as they were formed by our genes or upbringing or the like. A virtue, by contrast, is something we reflectively choose to cultivate. Through wise reflection we see that we need to do, and so to be, better in a certain way, whether at the level of thinking, feeling, or acting, and regardless of whether the flaw is a failure of character or a flaw in our temperament.
A virtue is an achievement. This is why we praise virtuous people. They are like somebody who excells at archery or music. It took a great deal of work to cultivate that skill, and likewise with virtue. Furthermore, there is a beauty to virtue; we naturally love it. (Unless there is disorder and vice in us, in which case it mat arouse envy and the like.) All of this is also why the cultivation of virtue raises our self-respect, self-esteem, self-love, and so on. As the psychologist Nathaniel Branden pointed out in his excellent book, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, genuine self-esteem is based in part on a true assessment of our achievements in life. Virtue is a "necessary condition" for the possession of genuine self-esteem. Proper self-esteem is a necessary condition for fuller kinds of happiness and moral goodness.
Character formation as a meaningful and easier life
All of this means that the cultivation of virtue becomes a meaningful way of living. Because virtues are cultivated in the context of the many small and big challenges of daily life, those challenges now become meaningful. Even our suffering becomes meaningful. When we make wisdom and virtue our pursuit, then our daily life becomes what the Jungians call a hero's journey, and that is true no matter how outwardly banal our life appears. The inner life becomes a rich and meaningful place, a zone of adventure and achievement in pursuit of growth that is objectively good. (It is objectively good, because human nature is objectively real, you do not make it up, you encounter it and learn to work with it.)
Some people will react to everything on this page with a sense that it all sounds like hard work and so exhausting. That is a great misunderstanding. Just as the cultivation of virtue makes suffering, daily life, and life in general far more meaningful, we can add that growth in virtue makes life easier. The Stoics referred to virtue as living in accordance with Nature. You don't fight reality, and you craft a way of being that co-operates with reality
Virtue formation is not exhausting. Rather, it is the lack of virtue is exhausting. For you are then out of harmony and even at war with yourself, with others, and with reality. You are unskillful with the things you need to do, to create happiness. The greatest source of happiness, as I will discuss below, is virtue.
Two categories of virtue
There are two types of virtue: intellectual virtues, and character virtues.
The intellectual virtues are virtues at the level of thinking. They enable us to discern what is true and to make sound judgements. They help us do that, when it is difficult to do so. For example when we are inclined to be cognitively lazy, or impatient, or cowardly, or uncharitable, and so on. Reason (logic) is not enough at such moments, we also need to exercise the appropriate virtues: willful effort instead of laziness, patience in place of impatience, and so on.
Like all virtues, the intellectual virtues do not only mitigate problems, but they make our thinking better, they make it excellent. This leads to all the positive growth and change we need.
I spent a whole section discussing reason, but there is a tendency to over-emphasise reason (logic). It is so, so important, but so too is intellectual virtue. Some people go so far as to say that reason is merely a tool, while the intellectual virtues embody value, and value is the primary authority.
By contrast, a character virtue is virtue at the other main two levels of our being: emotion and action. A character virtue is an emotion, or an action, which we have shaped according to a wiser view. That is, according to reason and intellectual virtue and so wisdom.
Levels of virtue
There are levels to the growth of any character virtue. You have probably heard the saying, "courage is feeling the fear but taking action anyway." That is the lower stage of the virtue of courage, where you have cultivated the action of courage, but not the feeling of it. In popular culture we often treat this as the more admirable form, because it looks more heroic in front of an audience (including the audience of the self), but virtue is not about applause, it is about an intrinsic good.
The second, deeper stage of virtue, is one where the emotion is also changed: you no longer feel the fear either, at least not in the relevant domain. Instead you now feel courageous, as a stable trait in your emotional life. It is natural, now, for you to both feel and act in a way that we would call coruageous. This pairs with what I said a moment ago: the more you cultivate a virtue, the less of a struggle the challenge is. hence, virtue makes life not only better, but easier.
Examples of specific virtues
Examples help to make things more clear. I said that there are many virtues. Here are some of them.
The Cardinal Virtues
These four are the most important. They are on the banner at the top of this page.
Wisdom: an understanding of life, and the ability to discern the right course of action in any situation.
Courage: fortitude in the face of fear, challenge, or adversity; the will to act for the good despite risk.
Self-Mastery: command over one's appetites, passions, and impulses; temperance, self-discipline, self-mastery.
Justice: rendering to each person what is due; fairness, honesty, and integrity in all dealings. Also, justice in the soul: to be ordered within yourself, as opposed to an inwardly disordered way of being (we could also call this integrity, in the sense of being integrated).
Virtues of will and action
Discipline: the habit of consistent action aligned with one's goals, regardless of fleeting desire.
Resilience: the capacity to endure hardship and come back from falls and setbacks without being broken.
Perseverance: steadfastness in pursuing long-term goals, especially in the face of difficulty.
Industriousness: a dedication to hard, meaningful work and the pursuit of excellence.
Accountability: the willingness to take full responsibility for one's actions, choices, and their consequences.
Social and relational virtues
Integrity: the state of being whole and undivided; alignment between one's words, actions, and principles.
Loyalty: steadfast allegiance to those to whom it is owed (family, friends, just causes).
Magnanimity: "greatness of soul" (the opposite of pusillanimity). Living honourably and generously.
Humility: a grounded understanding of one's strengths and limitations; freedom from arrogance and pretence.
Compassion: the capacity to recognise suffering in others and the desire to alleviate it.
Friendship (philia): the cultivated capacity for deep, reciprocal, and virtuous bonds with others.
Benevolence: the disposition to do good for others, and to contribute to the common good.
Intellectual and interior virtues
Intellectual humility: the recognition of the limits of one's knowledge and openness to being wrong, which enables learning ("Humility is the beginning of wisdom").
Curiosity: a desire to understand the nature of things, a love of learning.
Judgement: the ability to assess situations and people accurately and form sound opinions.
Serenity, Acceptance: the maintenance of a calm and composed mind, especially in the face of things beyond one's control.
Proper Pride: a justified sense of satisfaction in one's genuine accomplishments and character.
Virtues of expression and demeanor
Gravitas: a sense of the importance of the matter at hand; seriousness of purpose and depth of character.
Humour: the ability to perceive and appreciate the whimsical and ironic aspects of life, and to not take oneself too seriously.
Candour: honest and straightforward speech, free from guile or manipulation.
Decisiveness: the ability to make firm and timely decisions after due consideration.
Consider again my definition of a virtue as any good quality which makes you and your life better, in terms of human flourishing, and reflect on how the above qualities embody that.
The process of virtue cultivation in philosophical counselling
To cultivate virtue in a systematic way, within philosophical counselling, means taking stock of your life. We start with what is going well or badly in your life, or the ways in which you and your life could be better. This points to the areas of wisdom and the kinds of virtue you most need to work on.
This analysis is obviously philosophical, but it also also psychological in a broad sense. I will pay attention also to your psychological strengths and weaknesses, your temperament and traits, and any emotional wounds or psychological problems that show themselves. This will be part of the context, just as we pay attention to the outer contexts of your life such as relationships, work, culture, and so on, and any problems or goals related to them.
From the negative angle, we get clear on your points of foolishness and vice--the opposite of wisdom and virtue--which tell us what needs work.
We also consider also the areas in your life in which you are already adequately wise and virtuous, but which need further work because of the particular challenges in your life. For example, you are patient with your autistic child, or firm and skillful with your narcissistic parent, but given the strength of those challenges you will benefit from deepening even the virtues you already possess.
All of that is an example of how philosophical counselling deals with the same concerns you might take to mainstream counselling. I have repeatedly emphasised that our work goes beyond dealing with problems. The other half of the work involves looking to the virtues you need in order to make yourself, and so your life, better in general: to create an arete, an excellent mind, character, and life.
That positive work is guided by your goals and desires in life, and the wisdom and virtues needed to achieve those things. It is also by guided by the wisdom and virtues that all men need in general, for a strong, good, happy life in this difficult world. We look to both the universal, and the particular: what you need as a man in general, and what you need in particular.
We will also push further, into the realm of "supererogation". What virtues do you need, if you are to embody a higher, more profound vision of what it is to be a man. How do you embody a life of deep truth, justice, and goodness? I sometimes call classical philosophy a rational spirituality, in the sense that it is based on reason, not faith, but it recognises the power of these values as mysteries in life, which we can embody, and which make life profound, meaningful, worthwhile. The embodiment of such values has this effect in good times, but also in bad times, and even in in terrible times.
Examples of problems and corresponding virtues
Here are some of the classic problems that people bring to counselling, and some of the intellectual and character virtues we might work on to help with them. Keep in mind that these are generalised examples; in classical philosophy, the particular details matter greatly, our perspective and choices depend on such details, and so the virtues needed in your case may differ.
For anxiety and chronic worry, the path forward lies in cultivating practical wisdom and courage. Practical wisdom acts as your inner compass, helping you discern between reasonable risks and catastrophic fantasies, allowing you to respond to life's uncertainties with measured, practical steps rather than panic. Coupled with this is courage, which begins not as the absence of fear, but the strength to feel the anxiety and still choose to move forward with what you value, refusing to let worry dictate the boundaries of your life.
When facing despair, despondency, a lack of motivation and so on, we might need to cultivate hope and fortitude. Hope is the intellectual light that pierces the gloom, allowing you to envision a future where things can feel different and good again, challenging the depression's core lie of permanence. Fortitude is the moral muscle you exercise when you take that first difficult step--getting out of bed, making a meal, reaching out--building momentum through action, even when motivation is utterly absent.
To heal relationship conflict, we might work on justice and temperance. Justice here means actively giving your partner, friend, or family member what they are due: your full attention, a fair hearing, and a genuine effort to see the world from their perspective. This is balanced by temperance, the self-control to regulate your own emotional reactions, to pause before speaking in anger, and to listen with the intent to understand rather than to immediately rebut. Of course, justice also means insuring that you are treated fairly in turn.
When struggling with low self-esteem, the antidote is found in virtues like truthfulness and self-respect. Truthfulness requires you to trade the harsh, global label of "I am worthless" for an honest and nuanced inventory of your virtues and vices, strengths and weaknesses, positive qualities and flaws, and so on. This truthful foundation allows for self-respect to grow, which is the practice of treating yourself with the same basic kindness and consideration you would readily offer a dear friend.
Navigating grief and loss requires the gentle strength of patience and courage. Patience is needed for the non-linear and unpredictable journey of grief, allowing the waves of sorrow to come and go without judgment or a timetable for their departure. It is courage that allows you to fully feel the profound pain of your loss, to confront the emptiness rather than numb it, understanding that this brave engagement with the pain is the very process that leads to integration and healing. A virtue like hope may then come in, as you rebuild your life.
For managing anger, the essential virtues are practical wisdom and temperance. Practical wisdom creates a critical moment of pause between the trigger and your reaction, giving you the space to ask, "What is truly at stake here, and what is the most constructive response?" This moment of wisdom is empowered by temperance, which is the practiced ability to restrain the explosive impulse, to master the heat of the moment, and to channel your energy into asserting yourself effectively without aggression.
When feeling lost in life transitions, guide yourself with wisdom and hope. Wisdom calls you to look inward and reflect on your core values, past successes, and what truly gives your life meaning, separating societal expectations from your own authentic desires. It also looks outward to the big picture: what life might mean, what possibilities there are for you in the world and what they can mean. With this clarity, hope provides the fuel to step into the unknown, fostering the belief that new, fulfilling chapters can be built from periods of uncertainty and that your next direction can be one of purpose. As you prove the truth of this hope, bit by small bit, the hope increases.
To overcome perfectionism and procrastination, embrace humility and courage and temperance. Humility, in this context, is the honest acceptance that you human beings learn and grow through mistakes, not flawless performance; it dismantles the tyranny of the "perfect" first step. This then allows courage to take over: the bravery to begin a task imperfectly, to tolerate the discomfort of not knowing how it will turn out, and to value progress over an unattainable ideal. A resistance may arise in some form--say an inclination to distraction and avoidance--but temperance is the honed capacity to recognise that and return your focus and stay the course.
You may have thought, as you read the above examples, "but how do I cultivate, say, hope? Isn't that a feeling? Feelings just happen to me, they are not something I can control!" That is false. You are falling for a fallacy of salience bias. That is, you perceive the feeling first and foremost, and so you assume that the feeling is the root and essence of hope. It is not. Hope is, first and foremost, an attitude. It is a conclusion you draw, and a feeling comes with that conclusion, as a secondary feature. The feeling is painful and so that is what you notice. Your then form a further, false conclusion that the feeling is what hope or despair are essentially made of.
When you break a bone and you know because it is very painful, and your whole focus is on the pain, does this mean that the essence of the injury is the pain? A broken bone is the feeling? This would mean that you could treat a broken bone, or any other injury, by administering anaesthetics. That is absurd, but we tend to believe such absurdities when it comes to our faulty beliefs and the emotions they arouse. We fail to see the belief, and we think we can solve them by reducing the feeling that comes with them. In reality, any emotion is fundamentally and essentially a thought. Which, as I say, arouse sensations.
Modern cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) is one of the most researched and validated psychotherapies, and its central claim is that you can change emotions. It takes many of its ideas and practices from classical philosophy. As he have seen, a virtue is something we intentionally cultivate, and that includes the virtues of emotion. You can cultivate the intellectual virtue of hope, and thereby the character virtue in the form of hopeful feelings (emotion), as well as the actions that embody hope.
Wisdom creates virtue, but virtue creates wisdom
Before moving on, I said at the top of this page that there is a feedback loop between wisdom and virtue: wisdom leads to virtue, but virtue leads to wisdom. I will say more.
Wisdom and virtue each constitute the starting point for the other. This is why I say that my service is for all men, and that some men will be more wisdom-oriented, and some more virtue-oriented, depending on their intellectual and practical predilections.
When I say that virtue leads to wisdom, I mean that in two ways:
Wisdom is made out of reason, but equally--or even moreso--out of the intellectual virtues. Reason on its own is not enough. We also need intellectual courage, and intellectual humility, and so on, to see clearly and well. This is why Aristotle said that "the soul does not develop keen eyesight without virtue."
A celebrated professor of logic who lacks the intellectual virtues lacks wisdom. His arrogance, as an example, blinds him. Reason (logic) is a tool, but the intellectual virtues are values, and so they direct the use of reason. Hence, the man with an IQ of 85 who exercises the virtues to a fine degree, possesses much greater wisdom than the arrogant logician.
I said before that:
experience + rational reflection = wisdom.
Given what I have just said, we must now expand that formula:
experience + rational reflection + intellectual virtue = wisdom.
Moving to the character virtues, wisdom creates them. That is, we reshape our habits of feeling and acting according to a wise understanding of what is better. That sounds like a one-way process, but it goes in the other direction too: character leads to wisdom.
Consider that the character virtues include courage, and humility, and temperance at the level of emotion and action. You need these to think well. The more emotionally courageous and self-controlled you are, the more capable you are of being wise. By contrast, cowardice, arrogance, intemperance will distort your mind. These vices are like rip tides or strong storms that will drag you along, or toss you about like a man overboard in a savage storm, and he will be unable to see or think clearly. This is why Seneca wrote that "no man can be called wise who is unable to be his own master".
We move now to the impact on your life of wisdom and virtue.
Happiness, Flourishing
A life of reason, wisdom and virtue leads to what the Greeks called eudaimonia: happiness or flourishing.
Happiness is a capacity within you, more than a consequence of what happens to you.
Your happiness has more to do with your character--your wisdom and virtue--than with anything else.
Happiness is the confidence of a courageous man. It is the pleasure and self-respect of a man who commands his passions rather than being their slave. It is the pride and of a man whose actions are just, as opposed to the shame and fear of the unjust man. It is the joy of a man who cultivates his deeper potential as a human being, who lives more fully.
But what about outward success and flourishing? The realm of love, children, work, finances, success, achievement in the world--the particular goals you have in life. That also has more to do with your character than with anything else.
The path of wisdom and virtue is also a heroic and a transcendent path. Heroic, not in a chest-beating sense, but in the sense that every man is called to be much more. That is "the hero's journey". It is a way of living in which we rise above our petty egotism, with all its pathetic fears and grievances, and turn our attention to the true, the good, the just, the beautiful, as well as to our particular path and purpose in life.
Philosophical Counselling
There we have it. This philosophical counselling for men helps you to deal with the same problems you would take to mainsteam counselling. It also helps you to cultivate a way of being that is strong, good, and happy. It also enables you to create a successful, flourishing life. It is also about living according to a higher vision of what a man can be, and of what life can be about. It helps you achieve these goals through the cultivation of reason, wisdom, and virtue.
We engage in two main practices:
The goal is to become a wise man of strong, good character, who is the engine of his own happiness and success, and who lives at a higher level of meaning. This is the classical tradition.
The word virtue can have a moralistic connotation for some people, but that is because of its more narrow use in Christianity. The Christiants borrowed a lot of Greek philosophy, but reshaped it to fit their theology. We need to go back to the source and return to the ancient Greek understanding of virtue. This itself is another example of the impact on our lives of our judgements. For example, is anger and pride a vice? In many forms of Christianity, yes. In classical philosophy, they easily can be vices, but in their proper form they are both virtues.
As Aristotle makes clear, you should be properly proud, and sometimes you should defend your honour, indeed you may need to do it often if you are surrounded by the wrong kinds of people. Likewise, sometimes you should be angry, and it is a failing of character to be meek. Aristotle is concerned with the obvious goods that come from the virtue and the obvious evils which follow from a deficiency of proper pride or anger, but further insights can be added from the 20th century, for as as Freud, Jung, and Nietzsche described, the anger will emerge anyway but in a distorted form (consider slave morality and resentment or rather, "ressentiment"). Many problems emerge from a deficiency, or denial and suppression, of proper pride and anger.
So the ancient Greek conception of virtue is wider than the moralistic version we find in Christianity. It includes moral goodness, but much more. The ancient Greek word that we translate as virtue is arete. Arete is what we are talking about whenever I speak of virtue. English translations for arete include:
- good quality
- excellence
A knife that cuts well is arete--a good or excellent knife. A reliable car is arete. A tree that is healthy and well-rooted is arete. An, obediant, fit, well-trained, and skillful sheep dog is arete. A human being whose character makes them strong, good, and happy is arete.
The Romans translated arete as virtus, which in English is virtue. I prefer the word virtue rather than arete or good quality or excellence, because of its resonance and place in the classical tradition. But do keep in mind that it does not mean only moral goodness. An virtuous man is one who sufficiently possesses the various forms of arete that make him and his life good.
The ingrediants that make a virtue
So much for the formal definition of virtue, but what is it made of? A virtue is:
- an activity
- that is guided by wisdom
- which you make into a habit by repeated action and effort
- which makes you and your life better in terms of human flourishing.
To say that a virtue is a habit is to say that it is something you make into a stable disposition, a trait, and so a quality, of your character. You make it into that by practice and repetition.
To say that a virtue is "guided by wisdom" is to say that it is intelligently directed: you are intentional, purposeful, and critically aware of what you are doing when you enact the wise emotion or action and make it into a habit.
The effects of virtue
Why do virtues matter? Simply put, if you want a good life, then you need to cultivate good habits, good qualities of character. As the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said: "Character is fate." Or as the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tszu so clearly put it above, and I will quote him again: "Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny."
Character is fate.
Virtue is destiny.
I have already noted that this is consistent with the fact that some aspects of us, and of life, are out of our control. For, arguably, the most important elements are in our control.
I have provided a formal definition (or various of them) for a virtue. Aristotel refers to that as the formal cause. I have described the ingrediants that make virtue. Aristotle refers to that as the material cause. But what is its final cause? That is, what is the point of cultivating virtue? What does virtue aim at? What is the effect of embodying virtue? To answer these, we should note that there are many virtues that reflect different domains and needs in our life. Altogether, however, the virtues make you more:
- mentally strong
- emotionally healthy and regulated
- integrated within yourself
- self-directed
- capable and skillful with life
- wise, insightful, perceptive, discerning
- good
- happy in yourself
- interpersonally and socially successful and happy
- successful
- purposeful
All of this is achieved by the good qualities, the excellences of intellect, emotion, and action, that you cultivate and embody within yourself.
Nature and nurture, versus virtue
A virtue is different to a psychological strength. Likewise, a vice is different to a psychological weakness.
A psychological strength and a virtue might have the same name, and amount to the same activities. For example, we might be courageous, but it might not be a virtue so much as a psychological strength, a product, say, of nature, such as genetics. We might be inclined to ask: so what? What matters is that we are courageous.
First of all, the distinction helps us to recognise that there are seemingly fixed aspects of us, such as our psychological traits and strengths, but also we have freedom to craft our way of being. Psychological traits may be determined or shaped by forces outside of our control, and some people win the lotto in this respect while others draw the short straw, but we also have the freedom to craft our mind and our character. That freedom leads not only to a better life, if we enact it, but also to hope; taking responsibility; a sense of meaning, dignity, pride; and so on.
Likewise, the recognition that in some respects we are behind the eight ball leads to compassion, and patience, for ourselves or for others regarding our psychological flaws and weaknesses. Such compassion and patience is also a form of wisdom. Of course, this compassion is consistent with a sense of responsibility for doing something about our flaws: for changing what we can, even as we accept what we cannot change, or only with slow difficulty.
It also invites humility about the strengths we possess but have not earned. Which is also wisdom.
We are not responsible for our psychological strengths and weaknesses, insofar as they were formed by our genes or upbringing or the like. A virtue, by contrast, is something we reflectively choose to cultivate. Through wise reflection we see that we need to do, and so to be, better in a certain way, whether at the level of thinking, feeling, or acting, and regardless of whether the flaw is a failure of character or a flaw in our temperament.
A virtue is an achievement. This is why we praise virtuous people. They are like somebody who excells at archery or music. It took a great deal of work to cultivate that skill, and likewise with virtue. Furthermore, there is a beauty to virtue; we naturally love it. (Unless there is disorder and vice in us, in which case it mat arouse envy and the like.) All of this is also why the cultivation of virtue raises our self-respect, self-esteem, self-love, and so on. As the psychologist Nathaniel Branden pointed out in his excellent book, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, genuine self-esteem is based in part on a true assessment of our achievements in life. Virtue is a "necessary condition" for the possession of genuine self-esteem. Proper self-esteem is a necessary condition for fuller kinds of happiness and moral goodness.
Character formation as a meaningful and easier life
All of this means that the cultivation of virtue becomes a meaningful way of living. Because virtues are cultivated in the context of the many small and big challenges of daily life, those challenges now become meaningful. Even our suffering becomes meaningful. When we make wisdom and virtue our pursuit, then our daily life becomes what the Jungians call a hero's journey, and that is true no matter how outwardly banal our life appears. The inner life becomes a rich and meaningful place, a zone of adventure and achievement in pursuit of growth that is objectively good. (It is objectively good, because human nature is objectively real, you do not make it up, you encounter it and learn to work with it.)
Some people will react to everything on this page with a sense that it all sounds like hard work and so exhausting. That is a great misunderstanding. Just as the cultivation of virtue makes suffering, daily life, and life in general far more meaningful, we can add that growth in virtue makes life easier. The Stoics referred to virtue as living in accordance with Nature. You don't fight reality, and you craft a way of being that co-operates with reality
Virtue formation is not exhausting. Rather, it is the lack of virtue is exhausting. For you are then out of harmony and even at war with yourself, with others, and with reality. You are unskillful with the things you need to do, to create happiness. The greatest source of happiness, as I will discuss below, is virtue.
Two categories of virtue
There are two types of virtue: intellectual virtues, and character virtues.
The intellectual virtues are virtues at the level of thinking. They enable us to discern what is true and to make sound judgements. They help us do that, when it is difficult to do so. For example when we are inclined to be cognitively lazy, or impatient, or cowardly, or uncharitable, and so on. Reason (logic) is not enough at such moments, we also need to exercise the appropriate virtues: willful effort instead of laziness, patience in place of impatience, and so on.
Like all virtues, the intellectual virtues do not only mitigate problems, but they make our thinking better, they make it excellent. This leads to all the positive growth and change we need.
I spent a whole section discussing reason, but there is a tendency to over-emphasise reason (logic). It is so, so important, but so too is intellectual virtue. Some people go so far as to say that reason is merely a tool, while the intellectual virtues embody value, and value is the primary authority.
By contrast, a character virtue is virtue at the other main two levels of our being: emotion and action. A character virtue is an emotion, or an action, which we have shaped according to a wiser view. That is, according to reason and intellectual virtue and so wisdom.
Levels of virtue
There are levels to the growth of any character virtue. You have probably heard the saying, "courage is feeling the fear but taking action anyway." That is the lower stage of the virtue of courage, where you have cultivated the action of courage, but not the feeling of it. In popular culture we often treat this as the more admirable form, because it looks more heroic in front of an audience (including the audience of the self), but virtue is not about applause, it is about an intrinsic good.
The second, deeper stage of virtue, is one where the emotion is also changed: you no longer feel the fear either, at least not in the relevant domain. Instead you now feel courageous, as a stable trait in your emotional life. It is natural, now, for you to both feel and act in a way that we would call coruageous. This pairs with what I said a moment ago: the more you cultivate a virtue, the less of a struggle the challenge is. hence, virtue makes life not only better, but easier.
Examples of specific virtues
Examples help to make things more clear. I said that there are many virtues. Here are some of them.
The Cardinal Virtues
These four are the most important. They are on the banner at the top of this page.
Wisdom: an understanding of life, and the ability to discern the right course of action in any situation.
Courage: fortitude in the face of fear, challenge, or adversity; the will to act for the good despite risk.
Self-Mastery: command over one's appetites, passions, and impulses; temperance, self-discipline, self-mastery.
Justice: rendering to each person what is due; fairness, honesty, and integrity in all dealings. Also, justice in the soul: to be ordered within yourself, as opposed to an inwardly disordered way of being (we could also call this integrity, in the sense of being integrated).
Virtues of will and action
Discipline: the habit of consistent action aligned with one's goals, regardless of fleeting desire.
Resilience: the capacity to endure hardship and come back from falls and setbacks without being broken.
Perseverance: steadfastness in pursuing long-term goals, especially in the face of difficulty.
Industriousness: a dedication to hard, meaningful work and the pursuit of excellence.
Accountability: the willingness to take full responsibility for one's actions, choices, and their consequences.
Social and relational virtues
Integrity: the state of being whole and undivided; alignment between one's words, actions, and principles.
Loyalty: steadfast allegiance to those to whom it is owed (family, friends, just causes).
Magnanimity: "greatness of soul" (the opposite of pusillanimity). Living honourably and generously.
Humility: a grounded understanding of one's strengths and limitations; freedom from arrogance and pretence.
Compassion: the capacity to recognise suffering in others and the desire to alleviate it.
Friendship (philia): the cultivated capacity for deep, reciprocal, and virtuous bonds with others.
Benevolence: the disposition to do good for others, and to contribute to the common good.
Intellectual and interior virtues
Intellectual humility: the recognition of the limits of one's knowledge and openness to being wrong, which enables learning ("Humility is the beginning of wisdom").
Curiosity: a desire to understand the nature of things, a love of learning.
Judgement: the ability to assess situations and people accurately and form sound opinions.
Serenity, Acceptance: the maintenance of a calm and composed mind, especially in the face of things beyond one's control.
Proper Pride: a justified sense of satisfaction in one's genuine accomplishments and character.
Virtues of expression and demeanor
Gravitas: a sense of the importance of the matter at hand; seriousness of purpose and depth of character.
Humour: the ability to perceive and appreciate the whimsical and ironic aspects of life, and to not take oneself too seriously.
Candour: honest and straightforward speech, free from guile or manipulation.
Decisiveness: the ability to make firm and timely decisions after due consideration.
Consider again my definition of a virtue as any good quality which makes you and your life better, in terms of human flourishing, and reflect on how the above qualities embody that.
The process of virtue cultivation in philosophical counselling
To cultivate virtue in a systematic way, within philosophical counselling, means taking stock of your life. We start with what is going well or badly in your life, or the ways in which you and your life could be better. This points to the areas of wisdom and the kinds of virtue you most need to work on.
This analysis is obviously philosophical, but it also also psychological in a broad sense. I will pay attention also to your psychological strengths and weaknesses, your temperament and traits, and any emotional wounds or psychological problems that show themselves. This will be part of the context, just as we pay attention to the outer contexts of your life such as relationships, work, culture, and so on, and any problems or goals related to them.
From the negative angle, we get clear on your points of foolishness and vice--the opposite of wisdom and virtue--which tell us what needs work.
We also consider also the areas in your life in which you are already adequately wise and virtuous, but which need further work because of the particular challenges in your life. For example, you are patient with your autistic child, or firm and skillful with your narcissistic parent, but given the strength of those challenges you will benefit from deepening even the virtues you already possess.
All of that is an example of how philosophical counselling deals with the same concerns you might take to mainstream counselling. I have repeatedly emphasised that our work goes beyond dealing with problems. The other half of the work involves looking to the virtues you need in order to make yourself, and so your life, better in general: to create an arete, an excellent mind, character, and life.
That positive work is guided by your goals and desires in life, and the wisdom and virtues needed to achieve those things. It is also by guided by the wisdom and virtues that all men need in general, for a strong, good, happy life in this difficult world. We look to both the universal, and the particular: what you need as a man in general, and what you need in particular.
We will also push further, into the realm of "supererogation". What virtues do you need, if you are to embody a higher, more profound vision of what it is to be a man. How do you embody a life of deep truth, justice, and goodness? I sometimes call classical philosophy a rational spirituality, in the sense that it is based on reason, not faith, but it recognises the power of these values as mysteries in life, which we can embody, and which make life profound, meaningful, worthwhile. The embodiment of such values has this effect in good times, but also in bad times, and even in in terrible times.
Examples of problems and corresponding virtues
Here are some of the classic problems that people bring to counselling, and some of the intellectual and character virtues we might work on to help with them. Keep in mind that these are generalised examples; in classical philosophy, the particular details matter greatly, our perspective and choices depend on such details, and so the virtues needed in your case may differ.
For anxiety and chronic worry, the path forward lies in cultivating practical wisdom and courage. Practical wisdom acts as your inner compass, helping you discern between reasonable risks and catastrophic fantasies, allowing you to respond to life's uncertainties with measured, practical steps rather than panic. Coupled with this is courage, which begins not as the absence of fear, but the strength to feel the anxiety and still choose to move forward with what you value, refusing to let worry dictate the boundaries of your life.
When facing despair, despondency, a lack of motivation and so on, we might need to cultivate hope and fortitude. Hope is the intellectual light that pierces the gloom, allowing you to envision a future where things can feel different and good again, challenging the depression's core lie of permanence. Fortitude is the moral muscle you exercise when you take that first difficult step--getting out of bed, making a meal, reaching out--building momentum through action, even when motivation is utterly absent.
To heal relationship conflict, we might work on justice and temperance. Justice here means actively giving your partner, friend, or family member what they are due: your full attention, a fair hearing, and a genuine effort to see the world from their perspective. This is balanced by temperance, the self-control to regulate your own emotional reactions, to pause before speaking in anger, and to listen with the intent to understand rather than to immediately rebut. Of course, justice also means insuring that you are treated fairly in turn.
When struggling with low self-esteem, the antidote is found in virtues like truthfulness and self-respect. Truthfulness requires you to trade the harsh, global label of "I am worthless" for an honest and nuanced inventory of your virtues and vices, strengths and weaknesses, positive qualities and flaws, and so on. This truthful foundation allows for self-respect to grow, which is the practice of treating yourself with the same basic kindness and consideration you would readily offer a dear friend.
Navigating grief and loss requires the gentle strength of patience and courage. Patience is needed for the non-linear and unpredictable journey of grief, allowing the waves of sorrow to come and go without judgment or a timetable for their departure. It is courage that allows you to fully feel the profound pain of your loss, to confront the emptiness rather than numb it, understanding that this brave engagement with the pain is the very process that leads to integration and healing. A virtue like hope may then come in, as you rebuild your life.
For managing anger, the essential virtues are practical wisdom and temperance. Practical wisdom creates a critical moment of pause between the trigger and your reaction, giving you the space to ask, "What is truly at stake here, and what is the most constructive response?" This moment of wisdom is empowered by temperance, which is the practiced ability to restrain the explosive impulse, to master the heat of the moment, and to channel your energy into asserting yourself effectively without aggression.
When feeling lost in life transitions, guide yourself with wisdom and hope. Wisdom calls you to look inward and reflect on your core values, past successes, and what truly gives your life meaning, separating societal expectations from your own authentic desires. It also looks outward to the big picture: what life might mean, what possibilities there are for you in the world and what they can mean. With this clarity, hope provides the fuel to step into the unknown, fostering the belief that new, fulfilling chapters can be built from periods of uncertainty and that your next direction can be one of purpose. As you prove the truth of this hope, bit by small bit, the hope increases.
To overcome perfectionism and procrastination, embrace humility and courage and temperance. Humility, in this context, is the honest acceptance that you human beings learn and grow through mistakes, not flawless performance; it dismantles the tyranny of the "perfect" first step. This then allows courage to take over: the bravery to begin a task imperfectly, to tolerate the discomfort of not knowing how it will turn out, and to value progress over an unattainable ideal. A resistance may arise in some form--say an inclination to distraction and avoidance--but temperance is the honed capacity to recognise that and return your focus and stay the course.
You may have thought, as you read the above examples, "but how do I cultivate, say, hope? Isn't that a feeling? Feelings just happen to me, they are not something I can control!" That is false. You are falling for a fallacy of salience bias. That is, you perceive the feeling first and foremost, and so you assume that the feeling is the root and essence of hope. It is not. Hope is, first and foremost, an attitude. It is a conclusion you draw, and a feeling comes with that conclusion, as a secondary feature. The feeling is painful and so that is what you notice. Your then form a further, false conclusion that the feeling is what hope or despair are essentially made of.
When you break a bone and you know because it is very painful, and your whole focus is on the pain, does this mean that the essence of the injury is the pain? A broken bone is the feeling? This would mean that you could treat a broken bone, or any other injury, by administering anaesthetics. That is absurd, but we tend to believe such absurdities when it comes to our faulty beliefs and the emotions they arouse. We fail to see the belief, and we think we can solve them by reducing the feeling that comes with them. In reality, any emotion is fundamentally and essentially a thought. Which, as I say, arouse sensations.
Modern cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) is one of the most researched and validated psychotherapies, and its central claim is that you can change emotions. It takes many of its ideas and practices from classical philosophy. As he have seen, a virtue is something we intentionally cultivate, and that includes the virtues of emotion. You can cultivate the intellectual virtue of hope, and thereby the character virtue in the form of hopeful feelings (emotion), as well as the actions that embody hope.
Wisdom creates virtue, but virtue creates wisdom
Before moving on, I said at the top of this page that there is a feedback loop between wisdom and virtue: wisdom leads to virtue, but virtue leads to wisdom. I will say more.
Wisdom and virtue each constitute the starting point for the other. This is why I say that my service is for all men, and that some men will be more wisdom-oriented, and some more virtue-oriented, depending on their intellectual and practical predilections.
When I say that virtue leads to wisdom, I mean that in two ways:
- the intellectual virtues constitute wisdom
- the character virtues lead to wisdom
Wisdom is made out of reason, but equally--or even moreso--out of the intellectual virtues. Reason on its own is not enough. We also need intellectual courage, and intellectual humility, and so on, to see clearly and well. This is why Aristotle said that "the soul does not develop keen eyesight without virtue."
A celebrated professor of logic who lacks the intellectual virtues lacks wisdom. His arrogance, as an example, blinds him. Reason (logic) is a tool, but the intellectual virtues are values, and so they direct the use of reason. Hence, the man with an IQ of 85 who exercises the virtues to a fine degree, possesses much greater wisdom than the arrogant logician.
I said before that:
experience + rational reflection = wisdom.
Given what I have just said, we must now expand that formula:
experience + rational reflection + intellectual virtue = wisdom.
Moving to the character virtues, wisdom creates them. That is, we reshape our habits of feeling and acting according to a wise understanding of what is better. That sounds like a one-way process, but it goes in the other direction too: character leads to wisdom.
Consider that the character virtues include courage, and humility, and temperance at the level of emotion and action. You need these to think well. The more emotionally courageous and self-controlled you are, the more capable you are of being wise. By contrast, cowardice, arrogance, intemperance will distort your mind. These vices are like rip tides or strong storms that will drag you along, or toss you about like a man overboard in a savage storm, and he will be unable to see or think clearly. This is why Seneca wrote that "no man can be called wise who is unable to be his own master".
We move now to the impact on your life of wisdom and virtue.
Happiness, Flourishing
A life of reason, wisdom and virtue leads to what the Greeks called eudaimonia: happiness or flourishing.
Happiness is a capacity within you, more than a consequence of what happens to you.
Your happiness has more to do with your character--your wisdom and virtue--than with anything else.
Happiness is the confidence of a courageous man. It is the pleasure and self-respect of a man who commands his passions rather than being their slave. It is the pride and of a man whose actions are just, as opposed to the shame and fear of the unjust man. It is the joy of a man who cultivates his deeper potential as a human being, who lives more fully.
But what about outward success and flourishing? The realm of love, children, work, finances, success, achievement in the world--the particular goals you have in life. That also has more to do with your character than with anything else.
The path of wisdom and virtue is also a heroic and a transcendent path. Heroic, not in a chest-beating sense, but in the sense that every man is called to be much more. That is "the hero's journey". It is a way of living in which we rise above our petty egotism, with all its pathetic fears and grievances, and turn our attention to the true, the good, the just, the beautiful, as well as to our particular path and purpose in life.
Philosophical Counselling
There we have it. This philosophical counselling for men helps you to deal with the same problems you would take to mainsteam counselling. It also helps you to cultivate a way of being that is strong, good, and happy. It also enables you to create a successful, flourishing life. It is also about living according to a higher vision of what a man can be, and of what life can be about. It helps you achieve these goals through the cultivation of reason, wisdom, and virtue.
We engage in two main practices:
- Wisdom formation Wisdom is, as I say, the product of reason and intellectual virtue focused on experience, which creates a map of what is true and good, and the know-how to deal with challenges and make life better. I draw you into conversation which cultivates reason and intellectual virtue. We focus on the big issues of life, and on your particular concerns. This growth in reason and intellectual virtue, helps you to cultivate your own wisdom, both as true and good map of life, and of your particular life, and as a know-how for living.
- Virtue formation: That wisdom is the basis for character virtue. I coach you as you cultivate the virtues you need at the level of emotion and action. You do this for the sake of you particular problems, and you do it for the sake of general life improvement, and for the cultivation of a better way of being. I support you ongoingly in this work.
The goal is to become a wise man of strong, good character, who is the engine of his own happiness and success, and who lives at a higher level of meaning. This is the classical tradition.