Dialogue,Analysis And Therapy

which make the clients feel perplexed.In order to resolve these problems,the philosophical practitioners have to investigate the clients’ particular worldviews and ways of thinking.A worldview is just a web of beliefs,and the related beliefs are the expression of people’s views towards themselves and the world that they live in.In the process of reasoning from some beliefs to other beliefs,the validity of people’s ways of thinking determines whether they can obtain true beliefs in a sound way.APP employs the methods of Socratic Dialogue and Neo-Socratic Dialogue,with the former usually being utilized in individual practices and the later in group practices.The "elenchus" is the key element of Socratic dialogue,so the main job of a philosophical practitioner in the Socratic dialogue is just questioning.The classic mode of Neo-Socratic Dialogue is the hourglass model,which focuses on the personal experiences of the clients,and uses the technique of conceptualization to discern universal truths from particular experiences,aiming at obtaining inter-subjective consensus with the participants’collaborative cooperation.The conception "analysis" is not originally proposed by analytic philosophers.It has a long process of evolution in the history of philosophy,and is closely related to the development of geometry.By a brief review of the origin and history of analytic philosophy,it can be seen that there are generally two threads of analytic method in analytic philosophy,i.e.,logical analysis and conceptual analysis.In his later years,Ludwig Wittgenstein endorsed the Socratic Method,and in his philosophical work,he preferred to present the ideas of his own and his possible opponents in a text of dialogue,trying to realize the therapeutic effect of analytic philosophy by means of language game.It is believed by Wittgenstein that philosophy is an activity and a conversation.Therefore,he called on the philosophers to confront and treat the"diseases" in people’s mind.APP tries to utilize the analytic methods that are used by the analytic philosophers in resolving philosophical problems to resolve the life problems of ordinary people.To strengthen the operationability and to improve the efficiency of APP,the author manages to summarize four analyzing strategies from the analytic methods of analytic philosophy.First,"clarifying concepts" means that the philosophical practitioner needs to clarify the concepts that are involved in the targeted perplex,and to distinguish the related problem’s different levels and various aspects.Second,"disclosing presuppositions" implies that the philosophical practitioner should reveal the client’s presuppositions with the help of presupposition triggers that appear in the client’s words,and examine on the rationality of the client’s implicit pragmatic presumptions,semantic presumptions,factual presumptions and mutual presumptions that are related to the client’s presuppositions.Third,"eliminating conflicts" calls on the philosophical practitioner to help the client get rid of the cognitive dissonance that is caused by the inconsistencies that exist among the client’s various beliefs,intentions and behaviors,and to try to restore the cognitive harmony by comprehensively exploring and considering different approaches of belief revision while obeying the principle of holism.Fourth,"inquiring into reasons" indicates that,by resorting to logic-based therapy,the philosophical practitioner should request the client to justify his or her belief,emotion or behavior that is connected with the perplex,and afterwards encourage the client to utilize "transcendent virtues" to overcome the logical fallacies that the client falls into in his or her reasoning.Through formulating and utilizing the aforementioned analyzing strategies,the great importance of logical toolkit in the process of philosophical practice can be manifested full well.Since analytic philosophers believe that value judgments are nonsense,having no truth values,analytic philosophical practitioners ought to obey the principle of value-neutral,which also constitutes the crucial difference between analytic and non-analytic philosophical practice.Besides,although the purpose of APP is to resolve the client’s perplex and to arrive at a therapeutic effect,there are several other concrete and indirect sub-aims,i.e.,the cultivation and promotion of the client’s critical thinking,wisdom,virtue and willpower.Ideally speaking,with the attainment of these sub-aims,the ultimate purpose of therapy can be naturally achieved from the earlier process of dialogue and analysis.And it’s worth mentioning that with the treatment from APP,the client will hopefully stop from being bothered by similar perplexes in the future again.Therefore,the therapeutic effect of APP is fundamental and long-lasting.There are many theoretical and practical predicaments for the conception and construction work of APP.Some of these predicaments stem from the limitations of APP itself,e.g.,the controversy on the merits and demerits between the Euro-Continental and Analytic approaches of philosophical practice,while some other predicaments derive from the practical problems and obstacles that commonly exist in the development of contemporary philosophical practice as a whole,e.g.,the commercial mode of philosophical practice makes philosophical practitioners be reduced to contemporary Sophists who put their own profits at the first place.The author reflects deeply on the related predicaments,and at the same time points out that APP can handle some aspects of those problems well at a vantage point.Finally,the future research and development of APP are briefly discussed and generally predicted.