The proper object of philosophy

In an article by John Sellars titled ‘Shaftesbury, Stoicism and Philosophy as a Way of Life’ he examines the private notebooks of Shaftesbury. These notebooks are Shaftesbury’s own personal accounts of the “Socratic self-care” he advocated. In much the same way that Marcus Aurelius approached his own meditations, this practice has an individual take the role of both the patient and clinician, reflecting and grasping one’s thoughts through language, to make explicit and concrete that which does not rest in one’s mind long enough to closely examine. It’s through the act of writing that we might articulate and wrestle with our innermost thoughts. For Shaftesbury, this was the ‘proper object of philosophy’.

Although contemporary academic philosophy is often removed from the concerns of the everyday person, philosophy has traditionally always been a way to grapple with the value of human life. For Epictetus, philosophy was the art of living, an art that Shaftesbury suggests ought to be concerned with wisdom, happiness and character rather than the pursuit of scientific knowledge. After all, it is possible for one to know a lot about the world, and still know little of how to be in the world.