Paper Short Abstract:

Philosophical practitioners infuse philosophical thought with concrete daily experience. It is done by embodied reading of philosophic texts, and experimenting with sound, vision, art and movement. These unconventional techniques presuppose non-observable modes of knowing which reshape philosophy.

Paper Abstract:

This presentation explores the multimodal approach to knowledge in philosophical practice. Rather than creating concepts and solidifying systems of thought customary in academic philosophy, the international movement called "philosophical practice" claims that it aims to liberate philosophy from the constraints of academic thought. This movement that emerged in the early 1980s is striving to transform philosophy into practical knowing and acting accessible to a broader world-wide audience. Based on my ethnographical inquiry into the unconventional techniques of philosophical practice, in this presentation I ask: How practitioners transform the often abstract philosophical knowledge into embodied forms of knowing, and into alternative modes of perception and interaction with environment? To develop an explanation to this question I have conducted a longitudinal multi-sited research at meetings and retreats of the philosophical practice movement in Italy and Norway. My findings suggest that practitioners transform the philosophical knowledge into practice via the unexpected modes of knowing. Thus, rather than relying only on intellectual capacities and treating philosophical ideas as objects of analysis, in the retreats practitioners entwine the ideas and texts into interactive group activities that emphasize visual, auditory and kinesthetic sensitivities as vital aspects of philosophizing. Following the work of Christina Grasseni (2011), I examine the fleeting process of knowledge transformation using Pecha Kucha presentation. Applying the multimodal approach to philosophy, practitioners reshape and redefine it introducing new ways of knowing. My work contributes to the debate on how anthropological reflection on unconventional philosophical activities can reshape or redefine anthropology.