Philosophy and physical culture

Thoughts on theory and physicality

“A process of education which confers on the individual his proper form, his true nature as a human being. Such was the veritable Greek paideia.” 

(Werner Jaeger, Paideia)

I. Paideia

If you are interested in philosophy, and you believe that the condition of our bodies, and the lives we live, influence our thoughts, then you must be interested in fitness and health. There is no other way. Physical culture and philosophy go hand in hand, by necessity. But yet, we commonly look at philosophy as a purely theoretical activity, diametrically opposed to physical activity. Of what concern is the strengthening of the body for the philosopher? And of what concern is philosophy, for the athlete? It can be argued that this harsh distinction between philosophy and anything that pertains to the physical, is very modern. In Antiquity, there was a much more intimate connection between philosophy and physicality. If you read Diogenes Laërtius’ ‘Lives and opinions of the eminent philosophers’ for example, or any other biographical text on Ancient philosophers, you cannot help but notice that these texts often mention the diets and physical exercises that different philosophers and philosophical schools undertook. Body influences mind, and mind influences body. And if philosophy is concerned with thought, then it must take the body seriously. 

Socrates knew this, when he said that it was a shame to grow old without having seen what one’s body was capable of. The Cynics and the Stoics knew this, when they recommended physical exercise to strengthen the mind. The Neo-platonists knew this, when they recommended purification of the body as a part of philosophical discipline. Nietzsche knew this more than anyone else, when he went for his long hikes. Descartes knew this, when he inspired us to move the vital fluids through our bodies with exercise, in order not to get clogged up in our thinking.

Philosophy was defined as the science of life, and specifically, as the science of living well. A holistic doctrine or ‘discipline’ to attain the best life possible. And living as we are, we are both spiritual and physical beings. And thus, any discipline of living well, must incorporate both the spiritual and the physical. Such was the intent of the Ancient Greek ideal of paideía (παιδεία), which refers to the practices for bringing up the ideal individual and citizen. An ideal, without which philosophy cannot be understood in full.

II. Physical Culture

To understand this relation between philosophy and physicality, it is worthwhile to look at a movement which arose in the 19th century in Europe, going by the name of ‘Physical Culture.’

In the wake of the industrial revolution, and the horrors it brought to individual health, well-thinking individuals sought to bring about a renaissance of physical education. We cannot just develop intellect and industry, but must also care for body and nature. German educator GutsMuths said:

“So let us exercise our bodies! Without them we would not think; they are the machines on which we weave the threads of our thoughts.”

(Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths, 1793).

The movement founded many exercise-centres to educate the youth, and spread its ideas far and wide. But the movement was about much more than just physical exercise. It concerned itself with big questions; “what kind of future do we want to create?”, “do we want a healthy youth living in harmony with nature, or a disconnected youth weakened by industrial poisons?”, “Do we want to live as individuals, bound together through a living community, or do we want to live as insects, enslaved by the chains of society?” As much as it was a movement focused on physical health and exercise, it was also philosophical and political movement, with one sole ideal: health, of mind and body. Seeing the diseases of mind and body brought on by the one-sided belief in industrial and scientific progress, the many doctors and thinkers who founded physical culture reacted strongly, and developed various whole-body approaches to promote health. These approaches incorporated postural regimens, strength-training, conditioning, mobility, breath, art, diet, meditation, poetry, and the best that the bodily sciences had to offer at the time. It was a holistic approach to life.

The movement spread around the Western world, and although most are no longer familiar with it, we are all well aware of the disciplines to which it gave birth. There would be no such thing as bodybuilding, if there were not the 19th century physical culturists who sought to become like a Greek statue. And the now so popular idea of prolonged fasting, would hardly be familiar to the West, if it weren’t for the physical culturists who promoted it. To only give two examples.

In many senses, there was more philosophy in this movement than in what we call philosophy today. For at least these gymnasts recognized, that thought influences body, and that body influences thought. And there was more sense for paideia in them, than in the public schools and universities of today.

Philosophy commands us to know and develop ourselves, and any child knows that we are both spiritual and physical beings.

III. Vitality and politics

What is interesting about the physical culture movement is its political character, although this ‘politics’ is as simple as the belief that health is to be preferred over disease, and that strength is to be preferred over weakness. Nonetheless, it is astonishing what one can achieve with such simple beliefs. It led the American Bernarr Macfadden to oppose the pharmaceutical companies of his time, and oppose the politics of vaccination. It leads one to oppose the poisoning of food with pesticides, and it leads one to support local and natural food-cycles over internationalist one-size-fits-all diets of insects and industrial oils. It leads one to oppose the practice of injecting contaminants into newborns, ‘vaccination’, the practice which Ghandi referred to as “barbarous”, calling it “the most fatal of all the delusions current in our time, not to be found even among the so-called savage races of the world.” (Mahatma Ghandi, A Guide to Health, 107).

In many senses, it is this simple desire for a vital human being, that is all one needs to resist the dominant ideologies of today. 

What the physical culturists took from the Ancient Greeks, was the ideal of paideia: the disciplining and upbringing of the ideal human. An upbringing or education which must encompass both body and mind. For only he who is interested in both aspects of his being, can develop himself to the greatest degree. And only he who is interested in both aspects of his being, can resist the destruction of body and mind brought on by contemporary politics. 

Now if we were to take the unjust distinction between theory and physicality, between health of mind and health of body, as a valuable distinction to moderate our lives, we would see that it is itself detrimental to both mind and body, to both theory and practice. If the thinking person, the ‘philosopher’ as we like to call him today, were to have no interest at all in his body. What would this lead to? It could lead to diseases of the body, a weak brain, and thus, weak thoughts. And if we were to take an athlete for example, blindly following the orders of his trainer, without any concern for thought. What would happen? The athlete would be as a robot, unaware as to the ‘why’ of his behaviour, incapable of self-regulating his training and nutrition. The viewpoint of hyper-specialisation is not only detrimental to the holistic view, it is also detrimental to the specialisation in case. 

IV. Life

“Life is movement. Once you stop moving, you’re dead. Choose life.”

This is what oldtime physical culturist Eugen Sandow used to say. Can we conclude, that philosophy has ceased being interested in life? And Plato was known to say, that the unexamined life was not worth living. Can we conclude that the fitness-junk, unthinkingly scanning his QR-code to go to the gym, has lost interest in the good life? 

The physical culture movement marked one of those wonderful moments in which the echoes of Ancient paideia could be heard, only to go silent not much later, when the thinkers stopped moving, and the movers stopped thinking.  

The term physical culture is worth notice in itself. Do we not usually distinguish the physical and the cultural? The latter pertaining to pursuits such as the arts and literature? And the former pertaining to the ‘un-cultured’ reality of man’s animal nature? Man is both a natural being, and a cultural being, it is said. It is precisely in opposition to this distinction that the physical culturists arose, for they realized that culture and physicality are not to be separated. For in truth, the arts and other ‘cultural’ pursuits are not separate from man’s nature. And the natural movements of man’s body, do not exist in separation from man’s cultural existence.

Man is not an animal which also happens to think. Rather, man is the thinking animal. The moving thinker, the reasonable animal. And thus, to become as we are, the true goal of all education concerned with the flourishing of human nature, we must incorporate both physicality and theory. It must be a physical culture. And thus, as philosophical beings, naturally interested in the truth, naturally loving wisdom —which consists in living in accordance with nature—, philosophy must embrace our full nature as both physical and spiritual beings.

Unless, philosophy decides to cease being interested in the good life. That is, unless philosophy decides to cease being philosophy.