Virtues being relatively stable character traits that lead to eudaimonia (flourishing of good potentials and the right kind of happiness) within and between persons, and phronesis being the specific virtue of practical wisdom, all of the virtues are related to phronesis. To have a specific virtue, for example courage, means to acting courageously in the right ways, at the right times, for the right reasons, for the right ends etc.. In order to do so, one must inform and qualify their courage to at least some degree by at least some other virtues. One can only develop virtues more fully through rounding out specific virtuous character traits with other virtues. One can only have gradations of virtues through arriving at gradations of phronesis more broadly– since all such virtues are in part constituted by patterns of right action, in the right ways, at the right times, for the right reasons, and for the right ends. Sophia, in relation to and in contrast with phronesis, refers to contemplative wisdom. Contemplative wisdom and phronesis are handmaidens of each other. They are co-constitutive of each other’s overall development.
Philosophy refers to the love of wisdom–containing the various subcategories thereof including all of metaphysics/ontology/phenomenology, all of epistemology, all of logic, all of ethics, all of aesthetics, and all of technics. All of the above are best understood in relation to each other and they all have various subcategories that are best understood in relation to each other and further sub categories of philosophy– such as but not limited to biology, history, psychology, politics, etc. Philosophy broadly contains all of practical philosophy and not just the above categories and sub-categories and sub-categories of sub-categories as mere contemplation. Good philosophy–love of wisdom– is rooted in love of both sophia (contemplative wisdom) as well as phronesis (practical wisdom). Such a process of practical wisdom is rooted in the overall development good character traits, actions, rules, and ends– including means constitutive of such a developmental processes. The means constitutive of such an overall flourishing of practical wisdom include features of organizations and social relations (and not just features of persons and their individual character traits) and can be referred to as collectively held virtues.
To arrive at contemplative wisdom, one must engage with the world through a back and forth of deduction and induction as well as theory and application to enhance one’s overall knowledge. Knowledge is not merely propositional knowledge (know-that) but practical knowledge (know-how). We can, through our practical knowledge, inform what we know propositionally and vice versa. To use such contemplative wisdom virtuously–in the right ways, at the right times, for the right reasons, towards the right ends, etc.– is to necessarily balance such contemplation with practice and to do so in ethical ways. Virtuous contemplation and reasoning is about the development of what should be rather than only mere contemplation, or mere logos, or mere propositional knowledge (as important as the above are). Contemplative wisdom without practical wisdom is not real wisdom. When marx says “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it” not only is Marx embedded within philosophy and trying to use philosophy to change the world, but is also pointing to what philosophy really can be (and should be) in its fuller form (and so are many philosophers besides just Marx): all those who have ever tried to change the world for the better, are engaging in philosophy. Philosophy is an active process of theory and practice that includes but is not limited to contemplation. Philosophy is the process of developing what ought to be– a process that is constituted by the theory, contemplation, and practice of the various sub-categories of philosophy.
All dialogue about philosophy is itself necessarily a form of practical philosophy. However, such dialogical forms of practical philosophy can be more and less practical (more and less imbued with reason). Furthermore, there are different kinds of dialogical practical philosophy: such as dialogue about ideas or practice to a process of making collective decisions together to then implement according to specific terms of agreed practice. No theoretical or contemplative philosophy exists in reduction of context, conditions, and political, economic, social relations (or lack of social relations through social such as in the case of feral people). Contemplative philosophy relies upon action between people in order for it to flourish, and practical philosophy requires contemplative wisdom to inform and qualify practice with ethical substance and actions that are thought through.
When we start looking at philosophy as praxis–as opposed to mere theory or mere practice– then applied political ethics becomes philosophy par excellence as a kind of collective phronesis that can only be arrived at through a gestalt of collectively held virtues and individually held virtues. Such collective practical reasoning includes good form and good content–prefiguration and consistency of means and ends as well as strategic efficacy. Such collective practical reasoning also includes the minimal dimensions needed for such a process (adapting to all sufficiently relevant variables and conditions) but also goes over and beyond such minimal formal dimensions (and reproduction of good conditions that ought to be reproduced,) into a living content based on people’s desires within a realm of good permissibility.
The New Municipal Agenda 