I think its pretty straight forward, “unexamined” means thoughtless, unreflective…life isnt worth living unless it is given thought, contemplated, otherwise you might as well be an inanimate object.

I think I left it too straightforward. When living the examined life what ought one be concerned about it? One's place in the world or their intelligence or their wealth?

Or more technically, what kind of analysis or even methodology should a person incorporate when doing this examination? Isn't it really psychoanalysis?

Contemplation seems to be the natural arising thought in regards to the issue. So, what kind of contemplation?

I think its any kind, on any aspect of life. Its not about one particular path or goal or set of goals, its about taking the time to examine carefully whatever goes on in life, whatever preferences one might have. Its about not coasting on autopilot but instead taking the reins by arming oneself with knowledge and wisdom in the pursuit.

Yes, but I'm assuming your a little older than the inquisitive few youngsters around here for them to not want to commit mistakes in life and make it a fun one at the same time.

What would you tell them to work on to live an examined life?

A few years ago I bought and read a book by Stephen Grosz, called, 'The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves'. It was mainly a collection of psychological case studies, with the author being a psychoanalyst. I think that the idea of the 'examined life' is an approach which begins from the starting point of the importance of self knowledge, which incorporates aspects of psychology and, as @DingoJones points out, the centrality of reflection. This can be seen as a starting point for philosophy, including ethics, but with an emphasis on understanding the self, and subjectivity being at the core.

It goes back to Socrates, but has moved on into psychoanalysis and cognitive behavioral therapy, as well as counselling. I remember having some counselling when I was an adolescent by a pastoral counsellor, who used to keep stressing that, 'You have to lose yourself to find yourself'. But, when he went on further, I found this counsellor's philosophy was about the importance of losing one's own individuality in order to conform. I came to the view that finding one's own pathway, even though it often involves getting lost, or facing obstacles, can be extremely important, as both a psychological and philosophy quest.

I guess to apply reason, draw conclusions by taking small steps and to maintain an open mind but not so open your brain falls out.
And to just stop and think. Stop and think often.

Do you think it boils down to ethics again? How so? — Shawn

There are a couple of philosophical works on ‘the metaphysics of morals’. One is by Kant, it’s the central text of his deontological ethics. Another is by Iris Murdoch, which I’ve been informed of on this forum, but haven’t yet read. But the question is, why does the subject exist? Why should morals be a matter of metaphysics?

I think the short answer is that it involves the requirement to ground morality in something other than one’s personal or cultural beliefs. It involves questions of whether there is a real good, independently of one’s opinions about it, or cultural beliefs about it. And it’s a surprisingly hard question to answer without falling back on ‘I believe that…’

I’ve been participating in the thread on the Phaedo, which is one of the dialogues concerned with this question, set in the hours leading up to Socrates death. The subject is the immortality of the soul and various objections to it by Socrates’ interlocutors. The point for this thread in particular, is in Socrates’ attempts to discern the reality the ideas of the good and the beautiful. This in turn is animated by the belief that things are naturally arranged for the best - the form of the good is the underlying rationale for why things are this way.

In such dialogues, the examination of one’s assumptions, what you will accept to be true, is the basic task of philosophy. It can be presumed not to do that, is to live heedlessly, carelessly, unknowingly. But the key point is, in Platonic terms, this is grounded in an acceptance of a real good, understood as the idea of the good, in harmony with which the philosopher seeks to live.

I remember having some counselling when I was an adolescent by a pastoral counsellor, who used to keep stressing that, 'You have to lose yourself to find yourself'. But, when he went on further, I found this counsellor's philosophy was about the importance of losing one's own individuality in order to conform. I came to the view that finding one's own pathway, even though it often involves getting lost, or facing obstacles, can be extremely important, as both a psychological and philosophy quest. — Jack Cummins

The examined life seems to me to be about something a 20s person is not concerned about at their age. It seems more aligned with a concern about ones future instead of past nowadays. I would say that the advice you got doesn't necessarily mean that much apart from the need to analyze yourself after being situated in the world after one comes to understand one's place in it. To navigate requires, I think, a need to see past immediate needs and wants, and instead do a cost benefit or even game theoretic analysis. That's how I governed my own life as seeing under the guise of common rationality where I would successfully be able to perform the needs required. Testing for intelligence seems important...

I can't remember where this comes from (Alphonso Lingis?) but it would have it that "the unlived life is not worth examining". Is this true? If you were not living your life how would you become aware of that, and take the first step towards living it, without examining your unlived life?

Why should morals be a matter of metaphysics? — Wayfarer

Well, yes, isn't this Kant all over again?

I think the short answer is that it involves the requirement to ground morality in something other than one’s personal or cultural beliefs. It involves questions of whether there is a real good, independently of one’s opinions about it, or cultural beliefs about it. And it’s a surprisingly hard question to answer without falling back on ‘I believe that…’ — Wayfarer

Kant could come up with much. But, an intelligent chap might say that utilitarianism does away with this by incorporating axiology into the hedonic calculus of the substituting for "I believe that..." with "It's of preference to do... (xyz)"

In such dialogues, the examination of one’s assumptions, what you will accept to be true, is the basic task of philosophy. It can be presumed not to do that, is to live heedlessly, carelessly, unknowingly. But the key point is, in Platonic terms, this is grounded in an acceptance of a real good, understood as the idea of the good, in harmony with which the philosopher seeks to live. — Wayfarer

But, the concern of the good must come first, no?

If you were not living your life how would you become aware of that without examining your unlived life? — Janus

I'm not sure how to go about this. It seems to me something someone would say of an animal or domesticated pig.

How would an animal or domesticated pig examine their unlived life? What could it even mean to say that an animal was not living its life?

In such dialogues, the examination of one’s assumptions, what you will accept to be true, is the basic task of philosophy. It can be presumed not to do that, is to live heedlessly, carelessly, unknowingly. But the key point is, in Platonic terms, this is grounded in an acceptance of a real good, understood as the idea of the good, in harmony with which the philosopher seeks to live. — Wayfarer

Nice.

Tangential perhaps but I come at this from 30 years of working in the area of addiction and mental health services. A key responsibility for sustaining any worker who is supporting people in crisis - suicidal ideation, sexual abuse, substance misuse, psychosis- is reflective practice. The worker who doesn't examine their own assumptions about themselves (their understanding of meaning and culture for instance) while they assist others may (amongst other problematic end results) succumb to burn out. This leads to harm as the worker projects their own issues upon the client. You are there to do 'good', not work through your own needs on others. In short; examining yourself - being aware of the systems you and the person you are supporting are in, and the beliefs that underpin your choices and actions - is just as beneficial to others as it is to yourself.

How would an animal or domesticated pig examine their unlived life? — Janus

A pig would just squeal or oink itself out of a situation. A squeaky wheel gets the grease as they say.

Jumping off the deep end, some downtrodden antinatalist folk will say that living itself is painful and ought not be promoted. What kind of life is that?

And there I was thinking you were serious!

:100: :ok:

:fire:

But the question is, why does the subject exist? Why should morals be a matter of metaphysics?

I think the short answer is that it involves the requirement to ground morality in something other than one’s personal or cultural beliefs. It involves questions of whether there is a real good, independently of one’s opinions about it, or cultural beliefs about it. And it’s a surprisingly hard question to answer without falling back on ‘I believe that…’ — Wayfarer

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@Wayfarer ,

This isn't as simple as an acceptance of the good as through observation but was cultivated through the academia and supremely by the noetic faculties of one's mind. Children had to be reared and drilled to see this through their own intellect or noesis and understanding.

What I suppose what we have nowadays is the practice of aesthetical judgment by a unit of value that encompasses axiology. And to drive this home is that we have an idiocy in determining a common consensus of the good nowadays, by this method.

This isn't as simple as an acceptance of the good as through observation but was cultivated through the academia and supremely by the noetic faculties of one's mind — Shawn

There's a term in Indian philosophy, 'viveka' which means 'Sense of discrimination; wisdom; discrimination between the real and the unreal, between the self and the non-self, between the permanent and the impermanent; discriminative inquiry; right intuitive discrimination; ever present discrimination between the transient and the permanent' ¹ . This is strongly reminiscent of the discussion of the discernment of the Forms in the Phaedo.

The difficulty modernism has with such ideas is caused by the lack of recognition of universal ideas. As a consequence, ideas are subjectivised and relativised - they are always someone's ideas, either society's or yours or mine. As such, they're always veering close to what Platonic philosophy would categorise as opinion. ('Oh yeah? You say it's that? Well, I say it's this.') Whereas, in modern thinking, those things that are *not* matters of opinion, are only those things that are amenable to measurement and quantification by way of the natural sciences.

Russell has a good discussion of the character of universal ideas:

It is largely the very peculiar kind of being that belongs to universals which has led many people to suppose that they are really mental. We can think of a universal, and our thinking then exists in a perfectly ordinary sense, like any other mental act. Suppose, for example, that we are thinking of whiteness. Then in one sense it may be said that whiteness is 'in our mind'. ...In the strict sense, it is not 'whiteness' that is in our mind, but 'the act of thinking of whiteness'. The connected ambiguity in the word 'idea' ...also causes confusion here. In one sense of this word, namely the sense in which it denotes the object of an act of thought, whiteness is an 'idea'. Hence, if the ambiguity is not guarded against, we may come to think that whiteness is an 'idea' in the other sense, i.e. an act of thought; and thus we come to think that whiteness is mental [and so, particular to one or another mind, 'only in the mind']. But in so thinking, we rob it of its essential quality of universality. One man's act of thought is necessarily a different thing from another man's; one man's act of thought at one time is necessarily a different thing from the same man's act of thought at another time. Hence, if whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object, no two different men could think of it, and no one man could think of it twice. That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them. Thus universals are not thoughts, though when known they are the objects of thoughts. — Betrand Russell, The World of Universals

So you can see how this plays out in modern thought: what had been previously accepted as universal ideas, which formed the basis of standards of morality, now become privatised, subjectivised, and relativised, because there's no analogy for them in much of modern philosophy. Meanwhile the only real basis for public standards are then thought to be provided by the sciences, which, however, due to the 'is/ought' divide, can't directly play a role in adjuticating such issues. (Not that it stops a lot of people from trying.)

If we to take what Socrates said as important to ourselves, then what does it mean to live an examined life, as surely it is to our benefit to do so? — Shawn

My interpretation of "an examined life" is 'unlearning misery as a way of life', as an endless, sisyphusean task (i.e. self-overcoming).

Do you think it boils down to ethics again? How so?

Yes, insofar as the function of ethics is reflective inquiry into (as well as empirical studies and artistic expressions of) practices which prevent increasing or reduce misery (harm, dehumanization) of others in order, more likely than not, to prevent increasing or reduce one's own misery. Thus, Hillel the Elder's "That which is hateful to you, do not do to anyone" (Confucius also expressed this centuries earlier) whereby "hateful" is synonymous with harmful.

When living the examined life what ought one be concerned about it? — Shawn

Paying attention to one's own biases and assumptions as a matter of course first and foremost. And also refrain from being an asshole on that account.

One's place in the world or their intelligence or their wealth?

Cultivate solitude :death: and solidarity :flower: against misery / injustice in whatever forms as much as each day allows or requires; which is easier said then done, of course, although helped considerably by simply living now-here (traveling light, going slow, sleeping easy).

Living an examined life means evaluating our past or current behavior and beliefs by applying moral principles and reason. That's my take on the subject.

How would an animal or domesticated pig examine their unlived life? What could it even mean to say that an animal was not living its life? — Janus

Domesticated pigs don't examine their lives. Does that make the pigs' life not worth living? The pig doesn't think so as it keeps on striving to live and avoid harm and stress instinctively.

Examine one's life is only something humans do, but as shown by the pig, has no bearing on whether or not a life is worth living or not.

Do you think it boils down to ethics again? How so? — Shawn

Define "ethics". If ethics encompasses how you treat others besides just yourself wouldn't that mean that you'd need to examine everyone else's life to know if their life is worth living? And for those whose life that you determine aren't worth living, what do you do with the results of that examination?

Do you think it boils down to ethics again? How so? — Shawn

I feel it more boils down to one's own value in life, rather than ethics. Depending on the value of one's life, the idea, nature and act of examining will be formed more clearly.

Domesticated pigs don't examine their lives. Does that make the pigs' life not worth living? The pig doesn't think so as it keeps on striving to live and avoid harm and stress instinctively.

Examine one's life is only something humans do, but as shown by the pig, has no bearing on whether or not a life is worth living or not. — Harry Hindu

The question I was considering was whether the unlived life is worth examining. Of course animals live their lives; consider the question I asked earlier: What could it mean to say that an animal doesn't live its life?

Animals probably don't examine their lives, either, so that begs the question; are their lives worth living? That question seems irrelevant to the life of an animal, since to ask that question would be to examine their life, which we assume they cannot do.

Now we seem to have arrived back at the first question: is an unexamined human life worth living?, What if the examination interferes with the living? Then the life is not even lived, much less worth living. What if a life is both lived and examined? That would seem to be the richest possibility.

Do you think it boils down to ethics again? How so? — Shawn

If ethics consists at its most basic in the question: How should I live? then it would seem that the questions of whether the unexamined life is worth living and whether the unlived life is worth examining are indeed ethical questions.

The question I was considering was whether the unlived life is worth examining. Of course animals live their lives; consider the question I asked earlier: What could it mean to say that an animal doesn't live its life? — Janus

They're silly questions. I interpret "unlived" to mean non-existent, as in to examine a life that doesn't exist. It doesn't make sense to say that one can not live one's life as you are always living your life, even when examining it.

Animals probably don't examine their lives, either, so that begs the question; are their lives worth living? That question seems irrelevant to the life of an animal, since to ask that question would be to examine their life, which we assume they cannot do. — Janus

The question assumes that a unexamined life isn't worth living. All you have to do it point to the billions of organisms that don't examine their lives and each continues to strive to live. From there, you should be asking to who, or what, is any particular life worth living. I don't see why any life's worth should be determined by some other life's examination, as if that was their life instead of the one that they have. Should you be determining whether some life, other than your own, is worth living or not, examined or not?

Now we seem to have arrived back at the first question: is an unexamined human life worth living?, What if the examination interferes with the living? Then the life is not even lived, much less worth living. What if a life is both lived and examined? That would seem to be the richest possibility. — Janus

I would have to ask, what qualifies as a proper examination?

The second question is another silly question as I pointed out before, you are always living your life, even when examining it. Human beings are inquisitive and examining nature to figure out how it works is as much human behavior as rolling around in mud is a pig's behavior.

I think its pretty straight forward, “unexamined” means thoughtless, unreflective…life isnt worth living unless it is given thought, contemplated, otherwise you might as well be an inanimate object. — DingoJones

Well, you could pick up a cheap women's magazine, and find there instructions on how to contemplate one's life, how to examine it, but you'd probably disagree with the criteria for examination listed or implied there. You could also look into the Catholic method of the Daily Examen, and find it lacking, or too tendentious.

The idea of the "examined life" is that is is examined by particular criteria, but which are not universal.

Its the thought that counts.

I may be way off base, but I seem to remember undertaking various examinations at school.

If he had said, "the untested life is not worth living" would it have been any clearer to anyone? One pontificates to ones hearts content on a philosophy forum about what is right and what is rational, and what is wise. Test it against your life! Bet the farm on your philosophy! That's how I understand the examined life. Test your pacifism in a conflict, and if it sustains you there, it is worth something, and if it falls by the wayside when life gets difficult then it is worthless. Or your courage, or your wisdom or your intelligence or whatever... The Socratic politic was tested in court, and the value of his his life was proved by his death. A life of ease is never tested, and thus never valued evaluated.

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