Either/Or: The Therapeutic Disciplines versus Philosophy and Religion

I trace Shlomit Schuster’s main ideas about the practice of philosophy, and fol­low with a critical characterization of her thought which bears on philosophy’s relation to psychology and psychiatry, on the one hand, and to religion, on the other, as well as on her basis of claiming philosophy’s suitability for non-philosophers. I argue that Shlomit could be unnecessarily uncompromising in implementing her either/or yet not sufficiently discerning of philosophy’s difference with religion. The most conspicuous tenet of Shlomit’s thought – the relation between philosophy and the therapeutic disciplines – has been abundantly debated within the practical philosophy movement. As far as I know, the tacit assumption of her thought regarding the relation of religion with philosophy and its prac­tice, in contradistinction, has not been addressed within this movement. Shlomit’s life and death urges us to tackle this delicate yet significant subject.