Rel 342: on Therapy of Desire

This is not the greatest summary in the world. I was intending to revise it before posting here, but then it will never get done.
So instead, I'll post it now, imperfect, and next time I feel like procrastinating, I'll probably try editing further.


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Summary of the reading from Martha Nussbaum’s Therapy of Desire


In Therapy of Desire, Martha Nussbaum explains the intentions and opinions of Hellenistic philosophers with a focus on a medical analogy approach as opposed to either a Platonic approach or an ordinary-belief approach. She thoroughly explains conditions and considerations that apply to the medical analogy – or therapeutic philosophy. She gives each major school of Hellenistic philosophy an explanation of main tenants, values, and what information each had to go on while discussing how major themes such as the consideration of ‘what is nature?’ fit into the body of considerations that each school had to deal with. She also explains the differences between what we might assume the goal of philosophy or the influence of ‘nature’ means and how the Hellenistic philosophers understood and worked with these broader ideas. However, despite her remarks on how it is necessary to understand the traditions and social context in which a particular philosophy functioned, she offers relatively few references for such context beyond her own explanations. She does offer herself a disclaimer by suggesting that the spread of Hellenistic philosophy over six centuries and two societies is a difficult one to enclose in any explanation or narrative, especially since we don’t have many primary sources beyond a few champions of the major schools of thought.
It is important to recall that though we may consider modern philosophy and ethics to be more concerned with worldly or external matters, to the Hellenistic philosophers, their philosophy was the search for truth, the search for the good, and the search for the good life. Nussbaum takes up the comparison of philosophy to a practice, particularly as that of a physician - a compassionate physician whose art is healing of the human body. The medical analogy then, is that of a compassionate philosopher whose art – the art of living – is for healing of the human soul. She claims that they did not see philosophy as a mode of detached thinking, but as something which was vitally important to living, and which sought to responded to real problems of human misery and suffering. For much of the reading selection, she examines the ways that this analogy compares to other approaches and the ways in which it interacts with major themes.
In order to speak of it generally and not piecemeal for each different philosophy, Nussbaum establishes the medical analogy as a concept important to and inclusive of all Hellenistic philosophies. Despite their differences, important to all three major schools of thought – Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Skepticism – was the internal grasp of the good life. Each of the philosophies sought to respond to human suffering and look for the inner change necessary for living the good life free of suffering.
“In all three schools, the truly good and virtuous person is held to be radically independent of material and economic factors; achieving one’s full humanity requires only inner change (Nussbaum, 11).”
The philosophers were not concerned with the external situations surrounding a person, but rather that person’s ability to stand, consistent with himself, undistracted by outside events, firm in his own appreciation for the condition of his soul and of the good life. The philosophers were concerned with the internal conditions under which people could ‘flourish’. She contrasts the approach of the medical analogy to that of Platonism and ordinary-belief, describing a Platonic approach as observing objectively, and deciding independently of anyone concerned, what the good life is. The ordinary-belief approach suggests that the opinions of the individuals concerned as to the goodness of their own life carry much more weight. Always, the comparison is to a doctor treating a patient. In the Platonic approach, the doctor decides what is best for the patient indifferently to any input from the patient himself. In the ordinary-belief approach, the doctor may inquire, but if the patient claims that their life is good, then the doctor accepts that judgment. The medical analogy aligns itself with the image of the doctor which receives and considers input from the patient, but also recognizes that the patient may not understand what is happening, how far he actually deviates from a standard of health, or know what is best for him.
As the study of medicine is to find cures for physical ailments, so the study of philosophy is to find cures for the lives of individual people. This study of what is good and bad, valuable or invaluable to people, is closely related to nature. But, it’s not the objective, value-free nature that we usually consider to go along with a scientific study. The pervading view was that if humans acted according to their nature, they would flourish and lead the good life. Certainly, politics and society are important to the culture for a people to flourish, but it is also possible that the society will impose false or unnatural norms upon the people that will disorient them from following after their true nature, preventing them from flourishing. And, if people believe what is not natural, misery and suffering will enter their lives as a result of the inconsistency of their own beliefs. Because of the lies they believe from society, they will have confused desires, believing that they want things that are not the best for them. Nussbaum states that some of the debts we owe to the Hellenistic philosophers include the ways they found to consider emotions and passions as well as their exploration of unconscious emotions and desires. The dialectic is one of the championed cures for inconsistent beliefs, if it is taken far enough, with knowledge on the philosopher’s part that a confused, inconsistent patient may be incapable of answering rationally or truthfully.
Passions and emotions (desires) may seem like difficult things to cure with rational philosophy, but Nussbaum points out that the passions arise from beliefs and respond to argument. They are a part of the ‘social fabric’ which is fair game for ruthless inquiry. And, if a society can impose unnatural beliefs upon a people that result in inconsistent thinking and improper desires, then it makes sense that a rational inquiry could cut to the root of a belief system to determine what is natural and what is imposed. Once the patient understood and explored these ideas, the passions and false desires would be modified and cured.
Nussbaum effectively works through the details and implications of a medical analogy (therapeutic) approach to philosophy and the good life in a way that clearly presents its responses to the main topics dealt with by all schools of philosophy such as nature, social norms, the good life, human suffering in a way that explains how each of these themes appeared to the ancient philosophers, and how they understood their interactions. She makes the workings of the analogy clearer by comparing different analogies for pursuing the good life (Platonism and ordinary-belief). The picture she paints of this philosophy and its capabilities in actively changing lives for the better is a beautiful one, but at this point in the book, we remain to be convinced beyond a small collection of relevant quotes, that the philosophy worked this way in practice.