Spring 2026
Philosophy as Practice
Dates: February 02, 2026 - May 27, 2026Day/Time: Monday; Wednesday 9:50 PM - 11:30 PM EDT
Level: 300-Level
Certificate: Civic Engagement, Global Humanities
Instructor: Will Buckingham, Parami University
We often imagine philosophy is a matter of sitting and thinking about things. But philosophy is also a set of practices, modes of living and ways of life. So, how do we think better about philosophy as a practice? And what role does practice have in our present day approaches to philosophy? To be good philosophers, do we need to do more than thinking? Do we need to instead need to put in place new practices, in pursuit of our philosophical goals? In this course, students will explore the idea that philosophy not only proposes new ways of thinking, but that it also challenges us to adopt a suite of practices relating to the arts of living well. The course will take a global perspective on philosophy not just as a series of experiments in thinking otherwise, but as a series of experiments in living otherwise. Students will be encouraged to put philosophical ideas to the test practically, and to cross the boundary between reflection and practice, scholarship and first-person experience, to ask what it might mean to make philosophy a practice, here in the 21st century. Course materials will range from Diogenes and Hipparchia in Ancient Greece — philosophy as protest and performance art — to Confucian ideas of ritual as a form of social practice, an intricate dance that builds trust. It will ask about the limits of practice along with Daoist thinkers, and explore Buddhist traditions of mediation and Zen ideas of everydayness. And it will ask about how feminist, queer and other marginalised perspectives may challenge our notions of what it means to live, think and practice.
Credits: 4 US / 8 ECTS