Welcome to Coffee with Pierre & the Philosophical Community
Cafe Terrace at Night, Vincent Van Gogh (Public Domain)
Pull up a chair and pour yourself a cup,
Rarely do we have the opportunity to sit down over a favorite hot beverages with a Master Midwife and Teacher and a table full of philosophers.
Often, discussions with Pierre and the community of philosophers open into dialogues and reflections about:
Plato, Buddhism, Religion, Philosophy, Psychology, Theology, Cosmology, Metaphysics, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts, Dreams, Mythology, Homer, Philosophical Counseling, Neoplatonists, Philosophical Midwifery,
don't spill your cup. . .would you like some cream?
Fortunately for those of us deeply curious about ideas, Pierre's friends and colleagues have been thinking about these talks, writing articles, and occasionally capturing them on audio and video tape. Some meet late every Friday Nights for public talks.
Here at the cafe, relax, have a look around and you will find articles written by our colleagues, videos of "Coffee with Pierre" (coming soon) Videos and audio recordings of his classroom work (coming soon) essays written by Pierre Grimes, To ARTEMIS the virtual Midwife, links to books and journals if you choose to purchase your own collection of texts, both written by Pierre, and texts recommended by Pierre and the Philosophical community. Blogs
If you wish to visit a live dream exploration with Pierre or to study Plato's Dialogues on a Friday Night (currently, we are reading Plato's Parmenides) visit the Noetic Society Friday Night Meeting in California.
The Condition of Man
A Guide through the Site Contents,
The Art of Philosophical Midwifery
and
Platonic Philosophy
Man desires both to know the nature of the reality he has been born into and to discover his role within that reality. Yet, as noble as this desire is, we find man has, unknowingly, succumbed to delusions about reality that bind him. As if this were not strange enough, it is stranger still to recognize that man cannot detect the delusions he has about himself because they exert a power that disguises their presence. To free ourselves of the fetters that bind us and to find a cure for our folly is the double role of philosophy; for the one there is contemplation and for the other there is Philosophical Midwifery.
These delusions are the false beliefs we have about ourselves and our reality. They were learned, but no one taught us or persuaded us of their truth, yet they are our most primary beliefs. They were drawn from our own experiences, we made each of them, but since they were never expressed we can't recall them and so we have to find a way to put them into words. Until we can express them we are ignorant of them. Even though they are the cause of our suffering and the fundamental cause of our failures we can't give them up because we don't know how to identify them or rid ourselves of their influence. They block us from realizing our ideals because these beliefs are irreconcilable with the attainment of our most meaningful goals.
The knowledge that frees one from ruinous folly is the antidote to the ignorance that enslaves man's soul. The kind of problems that obscure the understanding are of a special kind, and to grasp the nature of them one must be clear about the signs of a problem.
For more information please read: The Signs of a Pathologos Problem
The Art and Method of Philosophical Midwifery
The art of delivering oneself of false beliefs is through the examination of one's life. It is by learning this art that we discover how false beliefs block us from gaining insight and understanding into our life. For these beliefs are the root cause of a class of problems and these problems manifest themselves in our everyday problems, in the plots of our fantasies, and in the content of our dreams. When we attempt to reach for our highest aspirations we are not aware that these beliefs compromise those goals and diminish our capacity to maintain them. Further, these false beliefs even undermine our desire to realize our most meaningful goals.
This art moves from surfacing and resolving problems of belief, to the problems of opinion, to those of understanding, and to the problem of knowledge. The method of Philosophical Midwifery can be learned by applying this general outline to pathologos problems.
For more information please read: The Step-by-Step Analysis of the Problem
Philosophical Midwifery & the Platonic Tradition
The name of Philosophical Midwifery comes from Plato's dialogue the Theætetus. In that dialogue Socrates refers to his art as midwifery because he assists in the delivery of men who are pregnant with either truth, ideas, or with false beliefs. Since the application of Knowledge to the benefit of a subject is called an art, we have called Philosophical Midwifery an art. While this understanding of the idea of art may be far removed from the current use of the idea, it does represent an ancient idea in a favorable light. Plato applied it to ideas that blocked one from participating in philosophy. It reached a high-point with Proclus; he applied it to resolving obstacles to understanding Platonic metaphysics. The adaptation of Socratic midwifery to a new class of problems is the result of Pierre Grimes' work. The adaptation meets the needs of those who are not aware that their unsuspected acceptance in their youth of a false belief has undermined their most personally meaning goals and there subverted their noblest intentions. In Platonic thought ignorance is defined as holding to beliefs that will never reach or hit the truth. Thus these false beliefs we have identified are equivalent to Plato's idea of ignorance and since we persuade ourselves of their truths we are sophists against ourselves.
Platonic Philosophy
Man is by nature a philosopher because love is awakened within us when we recognize beauty. At the sight of beauty love spontaneously arises within us because we want to reach out and possess what we recognize as beautiful and good. It is not at all unusual for man to reach a state of distress before that which is most beautiful since we seek to possess what we lack and have not. Even though it is not generally known it is nonetheless true that wisdom is among the most beautiful of experiences and once it has been glimpsed it is avidly sought by those who have seen her. The love and pursuit of this wisdom is named philosophy. The philosophy of Plato was the first to express this truth and to have shown that this goal is attainable through the use of the mind. His dialogues are crafted with matchless mastery as they lead us to understand that beauty itself, the divine, and what is most real are all one and the same.
The most profound expression of the divine, the One, is the goal of Platonic thought and it is reached through the cultivation of understanding. The One is not an object of knowledge because it is beyond knowledge in both dignity and power. And, since the understanding prepares the mind for this kind of lofty spiritual vision, it can be likened to the path of wisdom in Hinduism called Jñana yoga. The mind sees clearly and directly; and we only need to discover why we cling to beliefs that dwarf the soul and bind us to illusion. The influence of Platonic philosophy can be seen in every renaissance, for many of our great thinkers returned to Platonic thought for models not only to reflect upon, but more essentially, to use in their creative works.
For further explanation please read:
An Introduction to Platonic Philosophy and The Dialectic in Plato's Republic
Dream Study
Dream study will also surface and reflect on the nature of the Dream Master - for the Dream Master presents us with our dreams. It is by coming to recognize how dreams select and represent the dynamics of our problems that we are brought to appreciate the intrinsic intelligibility of the Dream Master's reality. For the dream draws from our past unresolved conflicts and offers them to us for our reflection within an art form of unmatched artistry. Further, the drama presented to us through dreams and fantasies has a common dynamic and structure which can unlock those personal blocks to our achievement of excellence.
It is by understanding and realizing the significance of the Dream Master that we may conduct our art on a higher level of reflection -the metaphysical- where it becomes a bridge to the highest expression of philosophy. The method of dream analysis can be learned by applying this general outline to your dreams.
For even greater insight please read:
The Dream Master and the Pathologos
The Master Craftsman of our Dreams
The President and Founder of the Program
The art of delivering oneself of these false beliefs has its roots in Ancient Greece, and Dr. Pierre Grimes has revived and adapted it to our present conditions. It is a method for discovering the nature, origin, maintenance, and dissolution of these beliefs. These beliefs necessarily surface when an effort is made to achieve any goal considered most significant to oneself. While these beliefs interrelate and function as if they were formidable structures, when they are seen for what they are they can be resolved, and then they dissipate as the morning mist. Dr. Grimes has identified these underlying false beliefs as the pathologos.
For more information about Dr. Grimes please read:
May we preserve these philosophical beauties, and exhibit them to others. May this web site expand their elegance by the enlivening rays of the philosophic fire; and by the powerful breath of genius, scatter abroad in this virtual world these latent but copious seeds.
If some sparks of this celestial fire shall animate the reader, consider yourself as well rewarded for this laborious undertaking. Ancient philosophy has been, for centuries, the only study to break the shackles of ignorance; and in which one finds an inexhaustible treasure of intellectual wealth, and a perpetual fountain of wisdom and delight.
Presuming that such a pursuit bestows the highest benefit, I, Webmistress, desire no other reward than the wealth of wisdom, and Reason as my constant Guide. If successful, may I see the praise of the liberal; and if not, I expect no defense for failure, other than the decision of the candid, and discerning few, thus the opportunity to learn, and purgation by philosophic fire.