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Julian Piras graduated from the University of Saarbrücken (Germany) with a M.A. in Philosophy. He spent the academic year 2000-2001 as an exchange student at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. Before university, he graduated from Blair-High School, Pasadena (California) and from the bilingual French-German Gymnasium in Saarbrücken. Parallely to university, he worked in a German telecommunications-company, did an internship at the International Federation of Organic Farming (IFOAM) and volunteered at the International Training Program for Conflict Management (ITPCM) of the Scuola Sant’Anna, Pisa. The Philosophical Basis of Therapeutic Action. Five Paradigms of Sanity in Aldous Huxley’s Thinking.
In the
different traditions, therapy and cure are undertaken on the basis of
different categorisations of sanity and disease. These in turn are founded
on different views of human nature and of its
relation to the environment. Basing on the work of Aldous Leonard Huxley
(1894-1963), this presentation wants to discuss five paradigms of sanity.
Each of these consist (a) in a different
understandings of human nature that lead to (b) different ideals of
sanity; these in turn lead to (c) different programs of therapeutic
action. The five paradigms are: (a) It is a quest for understanding: Huxley searches for a paradigm that would restore a kind of unity to the different outlooks on human problems and their relation to non-human nature. (b) It is a quest for values: on the basis of an understanding of what is, Huxley wants to formulate a realistic goal of what could be, a holistic model of sanity integrating the physiological, the socio-political, the economical, the emotional, the environmental and the spiritual dimensions. (c) It is a quest for the right kind of action: as Huxley was very aware of the gap between the formulation of high flying goals and their realisation, the third key-concern in his program was the question about the means whereby one can effectively pass from a given situation to the realisation of an ideal. In his attempt to find a satisfying solution to these three questions, Huxley, from 1908 to 1935 worked himself through 4 different paradigms: The Biological Paradigm (Darwin, T.H. Huxley), The Socio-Political Paradigm (Marx, Freud, Henry Ford, Alfred Mond), The Paradigm of Aesthetics and Emotions (D.H. Lawrence), The Paradigm of Absurdity (Kierkegard, Nietzsche) Finally, around 1935, Huxley found the solution that would become the main topic of his writings until his death in 1963. This fifth paradigm can be called his Paradigm of Spirituality; in certain respects, it constitutes a synthesis of the former four. As all these 5 paradigms underlie many current debates and the necessary holistic, intercultural and interdisciplinary approach is still conspicuously absent from most fields, Huxley’s reflections haven’t lost their relevance. Bibliography:
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