Respiratory philosophy
Philosophy is the love of wisdom. The philosophy of breath is to love the wisdom of breath.
What is Respiratory philosophy or Philosophy of Breathing?
Breathing is a rare theme in today's philosophy. In this text, I first examine it from the perspective of Western philosophy.
In recent years, however, respiratory philosophy as a new way of philosophizing has begun to interest a few academic thinkers. The pioneers of this philosophical orientation are Luce Irigaray (1983), David Kleinberg-Levin (1984), David Abram (1996) and Peter Sloterdijk (1998). It wasn't until the 2010s that the first publications focusing only on respiratory philosophy appeared. My PhD dissertation from 2018 is the world's first dissertation on the ontology of breathing (You can find it here).
Respiratory philosophy studies our relationship with the air and the atmospheres of breathing. Breathing may sound like a strange philosophical research topic, or at least foreign from the point of view of self-understanding and goals of Western philosophy. This alienation is due to the fact that Western philosophy has almost completely forgotten breath and air - Irigaray and Abram have especially highlighted this forgetting of breathing and air in their studies.
The new respiratory philosophy seeks to make Western philosophy aware of its own "blind spots" by bringing in non-Western sources and insights, and revealing how breathing is a fundamental, even if forgotten, element in its own history. This shift in thinking has potentially far-reaching implications in the fields of ontology, ethics, poetry, politics, art, environmental humanities, well-being, and spirituality.
My philosophy of breathing - to wonder the wisdom of breathing
My philosophy of breathing starts from ontological questions: what is the connection of breathing to being and how can we understand the world in a new way from this point of view. Thus, the guiding idea of the philosophy of breathing is that all questions and phenomena of life can be thought about, wondered about and experienced in a new way in the experiential atmosphere of breathing. I often say that "philosophy is loving wisdom and the philosophy of breathing is loving the wisdom of breathing".
This philosophy arises from experience: we breathe air. If we really open ourselves to this experience, how rich it is. Air surrounds us all the time, even if we don't often think about it. Namely, we pay attention to objects: things, objects, objects, etc. We forget the air that is between the objects. The word atmosphere (ilmapiiri) in the Finnish language contains deep wisdom - we are surrounded and pierced by air all the time. The atmosphere is always open, spacious, vast, directionless. Thus, breathing is a person's first and most important relationship with the world.
Respiratory well-being that permeates the whole life
I have found a deep connection with the breath through meditation and chanting. I have been doing both for over 30 years. It is important to me that the philosophy of breathing is deeply connected to life. Therefore, alongside my academic work, I always want to understand the experiential wisdom of breathing in my own life.
With my wife, singer and singing teacher Saara-Maija Strandman, we are developing the Respiratory well-being thinking. Understanding the wisdom of breathing is a shared passion for us, so together we wonder about the different dimensions of the breathing life attitude.
In connection with respiratory well-being thinking, we describe the importance of atmospheres and the importance of learning atmosphere skills. Read more here (In Finnish).
What is my breathing philosophy based on?
I have researched, developed and taught the philosophy of breathing for over 20 years. I gave the first lectures on the philosophy of breathing "The Breathing World and Philosophical Attitude" in 2002-2004 while working as a philosophy teacher at Lahti University of Applied Sciences. In 2010, I coined the term respiratory philosophy in my article "The Inspiration and the Expiration of Being", which deals with the philosophy of breathing and the poetry of breathing from the perspectives of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Gaston Bachelard. Respiratory philosophy has since become a term used by other philosophers of breathing. Through my work as a researcher, I am involved in several academic projects through which we develop the philosophy of breathing and compile publications. You can familiarize yourself with the publications here. In my book Phenomenological Ontology of Breathing: The Respiratory Primacy of Being, which was published in 2023, I open up the philosophy of breathing, e.g. asking how we breathe air is the basic experience of being human, what can be revealed through it and what kind of research method does it require?
My research approach is phenomenological. Phenomenology can be called a pre-theoretical elementary science - following the founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl: the phenomenologist is always a beginner. The phenomenology of breathing is a return to wondering about the breathing experience. This is a skill that I think is quite important for us modern people living in a hectic world.