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Philosophy and Health: The 13th Dialectical Symposium of the World Philosophical Forum 2022

Publication date: 03.07.2022
Author: Jeffrey Levett

Our problems keep growing, become more complex and ever more confusing to us. They contribute to fear and mental disturbance.  On the other hand our leaders show few success stories, have few new ideas and stagnation is everywhere. HELLO there government our pockets are getting smaller. Yours?

A solution is urgently needed, but where to find it?

Where everything had been tainted one idea surfaces; Philosophy

Yes philosophy! This peaceful ally of man can help. Philosophy has always been a spiritual comfort to men. It can help today too. Philosophy is good for all people and for the environment. Philosophy is good for health.

However, everything is being clouded, mixed up, mystified with the ridiculous to non-existent solutions that have been proposed and circulated by the powerful, whereas philosophy may be the Solution. Yes, not just in something new but in old and tested, something new and guaranteed to be successful and can propose sustainable solutions. No more to would be solutions that only ensure big profits for some few and small crumbs for the many whose lives melt away. No more mystification.

It is time to for government to reinvest in the philosophy. It knows it will cost less than the wingtips of a Rafale or an F-35 that can protect us from the dangers that have accumulated in the minds of some men and those to come. The business world that it will not fill the pocket. Perhaps our stubborn persistence is also a form of madness, since all our efforts lead to the same result No to philosophy. By the Greek government, by the international community. Who's Afraid of Philosophy? Whose afraid of public health?

In democratic nations, the state is supposed to be the most legitimate force for implementing change. But I don't think government cares much about philosophy or for its citizens much beyond tax collection. Current policy seems to support action after demise. What philosophy is, I cannot say. The World Philosophical Forum might. It can become a compass that directs us on the right path is something very big.

The World Philosophical Forum is one place to express philosophical ideas. It is a unique organization based in Greece since 2009. Its ultimate goal, is the eradication of social dementia, and the removal of the world from absolute destruction. It encourages the protection of the beauty and richness of nature and the earth and the culture and history of humanity. It promotes increasing use of philosophy by society. Perhaps it will never have a shrine like St. Sophia or the Rockefeller Center but just glimpse at the Acropolis and contemplate the geometry of the Greeks.

Yes again to philosophy. Yes to highlighting the beauty and fertility of the earth. Yes to the promotion of culture and the history of humanity. Yes to the use of classical philosophy.

Forget not that the concept of the Hippocratic do no harm, Hygiene the goddess of public health to whom Heracles provided great service to health when he slew the Hydra to rid the swamp of malaria that emerged in classical Greece.

These are not just slogans. In today's terms they can become new tools for society that if used correctly  will manage to eradicate social dementia- some call it madness and help to move the world away from total destruction- which others call doomsday-Armageddon. It will conserve population health.

No matter how one says it, the message is clear. We need to move fast, make better use of every cognitive tool better that is available in the box- education, public health, philosophy.  If we don't philosophize about the dreadful plight of humanity and its habitat and deploy our knowledge we may not find relief before someone presses a button. And finally what?

The magnitude, the horror, and the human perception of these threats are beyond the ability of our minds to grasp. Social dementia has weakened altruism in the human brain. Decision making in centers of power has slipped from the sophisticated heights of the upper cortex of the brain to lower centers. Philosophy can provide great benefit to everyday living and high-level decision making. Do not forget, healthy in mind healthy in body. Know that the WHO while pointing to the coming avalanche of mental health problems and the coming fallout from long-covid has not even considered health and philosophy or the placement of a classical philosopher on any committee.

Our goal is colossal and our means few but it reflects our collective imagination. Being unrealistic is a virtue that may not take us far. Our voice is small and unrecognized, our support zero but we must persevere. Even a whisper is enough to become a wind and maybe a storm. Let us have the momentum of a stone thrown from a sling, which Goliath did not see coming. We may have insufficient resources to begin with, but in our struggle we are accompanied by the teachings of Brecht: The situation is such that: If we do not achieve the impossible We have no hope. If we don't do what no one can ask of us We will be lost. Our enemies wait for us to get tired. When the fight is at its hardest, the fighters have the greatest fatigue. The tired, lose the battle. For the sake of our children and our children’s children at a very minimum we have to say we are trying!

So much has been said by individuals with much greater prestige calling for a change in human consciousness, for a socio-political transformation and for us to remember our humanity, and forget the rest, but who listened? Philosophy has never been tied. So we stubbornly try and in the recognition that for one fleeting moment the international community did come close but abandoned it, a long way from Ithaca.

Czeslaw Milosz tells us that in times of cataclysm and turmoil, poetry becomes popular as an expression of hope and the most expressive voice of freedom. In the dangerous chaos of our days, poetry is necessary but insufficient. We must apply classical philosophy as espoused in Odysseus Elitis: When evil finds you brothers, when your mind is clouded, when you are at a dead end or in the middle of the road and don't know where to turn, turn back and get knowledge, provisions and water from the sources mainly of the Ancient Greek Secretariat.

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