If you are studying philosophy, it is well." For this is just what "being well" means. Without philosophy the mind is sickly, and the body, too, though it may be very powerful, is strong only as that of a madman or a lunatic [furiosi aut frenetici] is strong. This, then, is the sort of health you should primarily cultivate; the other kind of health comes second, and will involve little effort, if you wish to be well physically. It is indeed foolish [stulta], my dear Lucilius, and very unsuitable to a literary man [et minime conveniens litterato viro], to work hard over developing the muscles and broadening the shoulders and strengthening the lungs. For although your heavy feeding produce good results and your sinews grow solid, you can never be a match, either in strength or in weight, for a first-class bull....Drinking and sweating, - it's the life of a dyspeptic!--Seneca Letter 15.
Most professional philosophers instinctly recoil at the idea that philosophy is about nurturing the soul or generates psychic well-being. On airplanes we often disabuse our travel companions of the idea that we have anything to do with the 'philosophy and self-help' sections in the bookstore. We don't emendate minds. This is not just a consequence of our professional orientation; David Hume, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein make a compelling case that philosophy is unhealthy and itself requiring a cure. In fact, it's not impossible -- this is a historical hypothesis -- that once philosophers were convinced by the idea that philosophy is itself unhealthy, they were all too eager to recast themselves as scientific philosopher or professional academics facilitating public utility in a variety of ways; this stance facilitates what I will call 'a worldly orientation' (as opposed to emendation of the mind) for philosophy with a number of characteristic (methodological) skills.
But professionalization of philosophers may, in fact, make things worse: it is very likely that the way we are trained, cultivates intellectual reflexes that are, if not immoral, then often deeply inappropriate in lots of circumstances. (Recall Ruth Chang's articulation of such phenomena.) The potential and real harm here isn't just suffered by individual philosophers, the victims of a variety of individual abuses committed by philosophers, and the quality of professional philosophy because of the patterns of exclusion generated by these; it may also infiltrate the activities of our worldly orientation. If we assume that arguments ought to compel we are unable to be sensitive, even receptive to the feelings and sensitivities of our interlocutors; an argument can be a learning device, but it can also be a way to prevent being receptive. So, while here I accept that there is a contrast between our present worldly orientation and psychic emendation, it is not impossible they could be made to harmonize.
Of course, with the rise of well being studies in psychology and economics, some of the very best philosophers (Anna Alexandrova, Erik Angner, Valerie Tiberius, Dan Haybron, etc.) now routinely engage with a whole variety of scientific approaches. With 'naturalizing' programmes, it is not uncommon to see appeals to scientific authority aim at disqualifying species of philosophy (virtue ethics, Kantian deontology, etc.) Here I leave aside how to generalize from empirical results about human behavior in a given institutional context to what humans could be. (As regular readers know, I think currently popular social science methods have an inherent status quo bias.) It is undeniable that Stephen Stich and his talented students & interlocuters have changed the methods of philosophy in non-trivial ways (e.g., the rise of X-PHI). But the worldly orientation of philosophy has remained: philosophers constantly announce that they can help explain and improve the world; we wouldn't know how to heal ourselves.*
Such would-be reformers rarely reflect on philosophical complicity or activity in bringing about the present disasters, and if they do, they tend to assume that, this time is different. In particular, philosophical professionals (and other experts) may well project their own intellectual reflexes onto onto the lives of others.
If ruins generate reflection on the sublime, Seneca's attack on going to the gym is faintly ridiculous. Of course, if read more carefully, Seneca is not claiming that one should be unhealthy or ignore one's physical health; bodies can by and large take care of themselves if not abused. In fact he recommends: "short and simple exercises which tire the body rapidly." (My wife-surgeon often claims that interval training is indeed the healthy thing to do when she tries to get me to go to the gym.) Our physical and intellectual exercises should primarily aim at facilitating psychic health, that is, that we have rational dispositions. This is not what we do inside professional philosophy, or outside.
Even so, a too exclusive focus on one's body is indeed lunacy. Seneca stops short of claiming that a whole society's focus on the body is mad, but it is definitely implied. For in the letter he connects attempts at rhetorical mass appeal to such madness -- and ridicules voice training along the way --, but prudently insists that one should not scorn rhetoric. So, Seneca also raises the question what a 'healthy' society with rational dispositions would be like. More subtly, he makes one wonder to what degree philosophers need to have rational dispositions before they can generate possible laws for others. Either way, he is explicit that healthy dispositions are incompatible with lives driven by what he calls "blind greed" [caeca cupiditas] or limitless accumulation, which makes one dependent on fortune and always means one is never satisfied.
*Perhaps the development of philosophical reflection on cognitive studies of reasoning as pioneered by my NewAPPS colleagues, Helen de Cruz and Catarina Dutilh Noveas, may have a more enduring impact on philosophy's self-conception.
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