HC: Philosophies for Life
Lead Research Organisation:
Queen Mary University of London
Department Name: History
Abstract
This Follow-On Funding project will develop a course in practical philosophy, along with supporting materials like handouts and videos, which will then be trialled in three different organisations: in Scottish prisons through Motherwell College; in Manor Gardens, a London mental health charity; and in Saracens rugby club. We will then collect feedback from the participants in these organisations to see what benefit they got from it, and whether it affected their sense of resilience and well-being. We'll write up our findings in an AHRC report, and also present them in a seminar to other academics interested in taking philosophy beyond academia and into other areas of adult education.
If this pilot project is a success, we will then seek further funding for Stage 2 (not covered by this grant), which would establish a social enterprise to sell courses in practical philosophy to private-sector organisations, while also providing them at a subsidized rate for more disadvantaged groups such as mental health charities.
The project follows on from an AHRC-funded research project in 2012, called 'Philosophical Communities', which researched the history and contemporary rise of grassroots philosophy clubs around the world. That report noted the remarkable growth of grassroots philosophy clubs, with over 1000 such clubs listed on meetup.com, and the number of people signed up to such clubs growing at an annual rate of 30%. The report generated a lot of media interest, with articles on grassroots philosophy appearing in the Financial Times, the New York Times, La Reppublica, El Confidencial and Dong-a llbo in South Korea.
This project will take that research into new territory, taking it from the theoretical to the practical. What impact does practical philosophy have on people outside of academia? What benefits do they feel they get from it? Is it commercially viable to sell such courses to companies, as a means not just for improving employee resilience, but also for enhancing character? Can practical philosophy courses enhance the ethical culture of organisations? And does philosophy only appeal to middle-class university graduates, or is it also accessible and useful to more disadvantaged groups?
If this pilot project is a success, we will then seek further funding for Stage 2 (not covered by this grant), which would establish a social enterprise to sell courses in practical philosophy to private-sector organisations, while also providing them at a subsidized rate for more disadvantaged groups such as mental health charities.
The project follows on from an AHRC-funded research project in 2012, called 'Philosophical Communities', which researched the history and contemporary rise of grassroots philosophy clubs around the world. That report noted the remarkable growth of grassroots philosophy clubs, with over 1000 such clubs listed on meetup.com, and the number of people signed up to such clubs growing at an annual rate of 30%. The report generated a lot of media interest, with articles on grassroots philosophy appearing in the Financial Times, the New York Times, La Reppublica, El Confidencial and Dong-a llbo in South Korea.
This project will take that research into new territory, taking it from the theoretical to the practical. What impact does practical philosophy have on people outside of academia? What benefits do they feel they get from it? Is it commercially viable to sell such courses to companies, as a means not just for improving employee resilience, but also for enhancing character? Can practical philosophy courses enhance the ethical culture of organisations? And does philosophy only appeal to middle-class university graduates, or is it also accessible and useful to more disadvantaged groups?
Planned Impact
The project would have the following outcomes:
1) Create and test-out an eight-week practical philosophy course with three different partners.
2) Prepare supplementary materials which can be used in future courses.
3) Collect feedback in the form of qualitative and quantitative forms (the quantitative forms would measure basic well-being factors such as levels of stress, happiness and self-determination, as well as satisfaction with the course).
4) Prepare report for AHRC and present findings to researchers and practitioners at a London event.
5) Consider whether to proceed with Stage 2 by launching a social enterprise for the commercial sale of the course to private-sector, public sector and third sector organisations. Consider also the possible avenues for funding of Stage 2 (including RSA Catalyst funding and potentially a larger AHRC follow-on grant).
6) More broadly, the project would widen interest in philosophy, and create advocates for philosophy in various different industries and sectors. It would also join up academic philosophy to other sectors, particularly to charities and public-sector organisations.
The project would benefit the following groups:
- The primary beneficiaries would be the participants in the courses, who would get the benefit of learning practical techniques for resilience, while also having a space to discuss and explore what flourishing means for them. The course would hopefully enhance their health, well-being, and flourishing. The feedback from the one-off workshops Jules Evans has done has been very positive (see a feedback form from Epsom Library, in the attachments, as an example) and we anticipate a similarly positive response to a longer and more structured course.
- The project would create an evidence base for the course's effectiveness, by taking quantitative and qualitative feedback from the course participants, in the form of well-being questionnaires and brief interviews.
- The project would also serve as a pilot for the possible expansion of the course through the creation of a social enterprise. This would greatly increase the impact of the course.
- We hope the course will prove useful to other organisations similar to our three partners - to prisons, mental health charities, NHS well-being centres, schools, universities and further education colleges.
-Already, some British schools have informally and independently run philosophy work-shops based on some of our material, and reported back excellent results (see the attachments for a letter from one-teacher).
- We also hope the course will prove popular with private-sector organisations, by highlighting the link between stress management and ethics, or between resilience and character.
- The course is already of interest to policy-makers interested in teaching well-being in schools and adult education, including Anthony Seldon, headmaster of Wellington College; James O'Shaughnessy, former head of the Number 10 Policy Unit; and Lord Richard Layard, one of the developers of Improving Access for Psychological Therapies in the NHS; all of whom have spoken of their interest in practical philosophy courses that teach virtue ethics and connect it to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (see attachments for their comments). It fits well the growing 'politics of well-being' movement.
- The course is likely to attract international interest, with our book and blog-posts on practical philosophy already informally inspiring courses in schools and universities in Brazil, Lebanon, Holland, Poland, the US and South Korea (see attachment for emails from some of these).
- More broadly, we hope the course will help people flourish, while promoting a 'thinking culture' in the public. And we hope it will connect academic philosophy to non-academic audiences, revitalizing public interest in philosophy and creating advocates for philosophy.
1) Create and test-out an eight-week practical philosophy course with three different partners.
2) Prepare supplementary materials which can be used in future courses.
3) Collect feedback in the form of qualitative and quantitative forms (the quantitative forms would measure basic well-being factors such as levels of stress, happiness and self-determination, as well as satisfaction with the course).
4) Prepare report for AHRC and present findings to researchers and practitioners at a London event.
5) Consider whether to proceed with Stage 2 by launching a social enterprise for the commercial sale of the course to private-sector, public sector and third sector organisations. Consider also the possible avenues for funding of Stage 2 (including RSA Catalyst funding and potentially a larger AHRC follow-on grant).
6) More broadly, the project would widen interest in philosophy, and create advocates for philosophy in various different industries and sectors. It would also join up academic philosophy to other sectors, particularly to charities and public-sector organisations.
The project would benefit the following groups:
- The primary beneficiaries would be the participants in the courses, who would get the benefit of learning practical techniques for resilience, while also having a space to discuss and explore what flourishing means for them. The course would hopefully enhance their health, well-being, and flourishing. The feedback from the one-off workshops Jules Evans has done has been very positive (see a feedback form from Epsom Library, in the attachments, as an example) and we anticipate a similarly positive response to a longer and more structured course.
- The project would create an evidence base for the course's effectiveness, by taking quantitative and qualitative feedback from the course participants, in the form of well-being questionnaires and brief interviews.
- The project would also serve as a pilot for the possible expansion of the course through the creation of a social enterprise. This would greatly increase the impact of the course.
- We hope the course will prove useful to other organisations similar to our three partners - to prisons, mental health charities, NHS well-being centres, schools, universities and further education colleges.
-Already, some British schools have informally and independently run philosophy work-shops based on some of our material, and reported back excellent results (see the attachments for a letter from one-teacher).
- We also hope the course will prove popular with private-sector organisations, by highlighting the link between stress management and ethics, or between resilience and character.
- The course is already of interest to policy-makers interested in teaching well-being in schools and adult education, including Anthony Seldon, headmaster of Wellington College; James O'Shaughnessy, former head of the Number 10 Policy Unit; and Lord Richard Layard, one of the developers of Improving Access for Psychological Therapies in the NHS; all of whom have spoken of their interest in practical philosophy courses that teach virtue ethics and connect it to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (see attachments for their comments). It fits well the growing 'politics of well-being' movement.
- The course is likely to attract international interest, with our book and blog-posts on practical philosophy already informally inspiring courses in schools and universities in Brazil, Lebanon, Holland, Poland, the US and South Korea (see attachment for emails from some of these).
- More broadly, we hope the course will help people flourish, while promoting a 'thinking culture' in the public. And we hope it will connect academic philosophy to non-academic audiences, revitalizing public interest in philosophy and creating advocates for philosophy.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Jules Evans (Principal Investigator) | |
| Thomas Dixon (Co-Investigator) |
| Description | We developed an eight-part course in practical philosophy, and tried it out in three different organizations - at HMP Low Moss, at Saracens rugby club, and at Manor Gardens mental health charity. We wanted to know if these different groups found practical philosophy useful and therapeutic. The course explored well-being techniques from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, mindfulness CBT and other psychotherapies, and connected these techniques to their original philosophical contexts in ancient philosophies like Stoicism and Buddhism. We wanted to know if there was commercial potential for the provision of such courses in companies, in mental healthcare, in prisons, and in other areas. We evaluated the course using well-being questionnaires and qualitative interviews before and after the course. The pilot proved to be very popular in all three partner organizations, with participants saying the course had enhanced their sense of their ability to cope with adversity. Since the end of the pilot, several companies have approached us to run practical philosophy workshops and courses, including Deloitte, Allianz, and Escape the City school. |
| Exploitation Route | We need to scale up our approach, either by developing an online version of the course, or by training other people in how to run courses. We also need to strengthen the evidence base and build partnerships in order to introduce the course further into community mental healthcare and prisons. We need help in developing our business plan, in growing the business, and in balancing commercial and social objectives. We also think the practical philosophy approach has a lot of potential in schools and universities - we need help in developing this. |
| Sectors | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Agriculture, Food and Drink,Chemicals,Communities and Social Services/Policy,Construction,Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Electronics,Energy,Environment,Financial Services, and Management Consultancy,Healthcare,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Government, Democracy and Justice,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Pharmace |
| URL | https://www.scribd.com/doc/229504007/Philosophies-for-Life-Final-Report |
| Description | The success of the pilot programme has persuaded several companies to launch practical philosophy workshops and courses for their staff, including Allianz, Deloitte and Escape the City school. In addition, professional sports teams have shown an interest in following Saracens' example - Arsenal football club has expressed interest in running similar workshops. Finally, several schools have used our teaching materials in order to teach classes in practical philosophy, and some have got in touch to hire Philosophies for Life to run workshops at their schools. The material has also been incorporated into wellbeing courses at universities in Canada and the UK. We intend to continue the commercial development of our approach and teaching materials, and to expand the development of our approach within the mental healthcare and prison sectors. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2013 |
| Sector | Creative Economy,Education,Financial Services, and Management Consultancy,Healthcare,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |
| Description | Introducing practical philosophy into organizations as a form of resilience-training |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | The aim of this project was to design an eight-session course in practical philosophy, and try it out with three different organizations, and then evaluate it, to see what impact it had, and whether it had commercial and social potential. The three partner organizations were Saracens rugby club, HMP Low Moss (via New College Lanarkshire), and Manor Gardens mental health charity. The course was trying to balance the psychology and philosophy of well-being, by teaching evidence-based techniques for well-being (like, say, meditation), in combination with group discussions of broader ethical and philosophical questions (like, say, is happiness the meaning of life). We wanted to discover if the course could be sold commercially to private companies, thereby subsidizing doing the course with charities, public sector organizations and social enterprises. The trial was a success (see the results in the final report, in the publications section), with participants reporting that they felt more capable of facing adversity, and a greater sense of belonging and self-awareness. Although most participants had no previous knowledge of philosophy, almost all said they finished the course with a much greater interest in exploring ancient philosophy further. Is there commercial potential for workshops and courses in practical philosophy? Our main finding is that there is indeed commercial potential for this sort of course. Since running the pilot, we have continued to provide practical philosophy sessions at Saracens rugby club, and have also started to work with several companies, including Deloitte, Allianz, and a school for entrepreneurs called Escape the City. We anticipate taking on several new clients in the next few months. Within the corporate sector, there is rapidly growing interest in well-being and resilience training, and an interest in ancient philosophies and wisdom practices such as Buddhist mindfulness and Stoic resilience - our work feeds closely into that. More and more companies are accepting the idea that ethical philosophy has a place in business - Google, for example, has an in-house philosopher - and that it can help managers and employees learn resilience, well-being, integrity, social responsibility, and better decision-making. The challenge, within the corporate sector, is evaluating whether your work is really making a difference. Often, Human Resources departments want to hire you to run a two-hour workshop - this is unlikely to make a huge difference to employees or to company culture. People are unlikely to really take on board ethical practices or new virtues, and groups will not learn to relate to each other in a new way. Our young company - Philosophies for Life - is going to try and pick its clients, and find companies and organizations where we can work with a team over time, rather than just for one-off sessions. We also need to continue building the evidence base to persuade companies how best to approach these issues in order to really make a difference rather than simply box-tick 'well-being'. Practical philosophy within professional sports Our work with Saracens drew quite a lot of media attention, simply from the initial strangeness of the idea of professional rugby players regularly gathering to discuss philosophy! The philosophy club is now an established part of Saracens' personal development programme, and we are set to try out a similar format at Arsenal football club. More broadly, we see two significant impact from our work with Saracens. Firstly, we hope the project contributes in a small way to a growing awareness of the importance of mental fitness and well-being within professional sports, particularly within male team sports like rugby and football. Professional sportspeople and clubs are becoming much more aware of problems like depression and burn-out, and are finding ways to reduce the stigma around them. We've found that sportsmen (and men in general) are more comfortable approaching these issues within the framework of philosophy, rather than therapy. Secondly, we think professional sports can play an important role in broader cultural discussions about ethics, character and values, and in the revival of virtue ethics in modern society. We have linked up both Saracens and Arsenal with the Jubilee Centre for Values and Character at Birmingham University, which is promoting a revival of virtue ethics. We hope to explore further how to promote ethics in schools using sportspeople as role models. Practical philosophy within mental healthcare and prisons NHS England recently called for better provision of preventative mental healthcare in communities, through adult education programmes. 'More adult education opportunities and support at work are needed so people can learn how to stop stress from turning into mental health distress', said Geraldine Strathdee, clinical director for mental health at NHS England. We see our work as an important way to explore and improve the 'care of the soul' among adults, through ancient philosophies and wisdom traditions. However, we've come across some resistance to our 'wisdom approach' in the public sector, both in prisons and in clinical commissioning groups. Public sector workers are wary of anything that sounds ethical, moral, or spiritual. They would rather support programmes that are instrumental, amoral and more narrowly evidence-based. One clinical commissioning group told us it was only interested in community programmes which were backed by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), even though NICE has so far provided no guidelines for public mental health interventions. In fact, CCGs spend just 1.4% of their public health budgets on programmes for mental health. We think the way forward for our work within the public and charity sector is to become more evidence-based, and to evaluate the impact of our courses in stronger clinical trials. We take inspiration from the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course (MBSR), a course developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn in the 1970s, which takes practices from Buddhism and yoga and presents them in an eight-week secular course. The MBSR has been tested and evaluated by a number of clinical trials, and this evidence base has enabled it to expand into healthcare, prisons, schools and organizations. We should aim to develop something similar for ancient western philosophy as Kabat-Zinn has done for eastern philosophy. But this will require us to build partnerships with clinical psychologists. Practical philosophy in schools Although this project was focused on adult education rather than schools, it has had a policy impact within schools, with several schools using our materials to teach ancient philosophy, as a means to enhance students' resilience and well-being. All three political parties in the UK recently called for a greater focus on 'teaching resilience' in schools - we think a great way to do this is to teach well-being techniques from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) within their original philosophical contexts in ancient eastern and western philosophies. We hope to find partners and build relationships to enable us to try out this approach in schools - so far, several schools have contacted us to use our course materials and to invite us to run workshops. Conclusions: practical philosophy as a new model of academia If you look at the enormous influence that mindfulness has had on many different aspects of policy - from education to healthcare to prisons to occupational psychology - there is every reason to hope that similar 'wisdom practices' from ancient Greco-Roman philosophy will prove to be similarly popular in the long-run, particularly given the strong evidence base for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. We now have the basic structure for an eight-session course in place, and good initial results from a trial of it. We could improve the evidence base further by working with clinical psychologists. We're already building up these relationships through our work with psychologists on the Stoicism Today project (which was funded by the AHRC in 2012-2013 and is still ongoing). Practical philosophy has proven commercial potential as a way of improving resilience and stress management in the workplace - since the pilot project has finished, we've been hired to run a large-scale programme at Deloitte, and have also done workshops at Allianz and at Escape the City (a school for entrepreneurs). If our work is going to have more significant impact, however, it needs to be scaled up. The evidence base for our approach needs to be strengthened further. We need to start training other people in the approach, perhaps by developing a training certificate in the approach. We need to continue to develop quality teaching materials to support our approach - DVDs, text-books, audio, and online course materials. Looking at the success of mindfulness, we note that its dissemination has been driven by 'mindfulness centres' at various universities, such as the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, or the Harvard Mindfulness Centre, or independent centres like the Mind and Life Institute. Longer-term, we hope to establish such a centre ourselves, either at Queen Mary, University of London, or independently - or to work within an already established centre like the Mind and Life Institute. Finally, we hope that our work is helping to transform academia, by introducing a model of philosophy that involves personal practice as well as theory. We're developing an embodied, lived model of practical philosophy, closer in line with what the ancient Greeks envisaged. It's a model which tries to balance science with philosophy, evidence with ethics. We see this as part of a broader move to revive 'contemplative studies' within academia. This field is quite new in American academia, but barely exists in British academia. The revival of practical philosophy within and beyond academia helps to connect academic philosophy with the outside world, disseminating ideas and practices that mitigate suffering and help people to flourish. But it also helps people within academia to flourish, including both undergraduates, post-graduates and senior academics. |