Philosophy

“Why phi­los­o­phy?” Seth Tichenor has been answer­ing that ques­tion for more than 20 years.

For Seth, it’s just the way he thinks. He remem­bers hav­ing his first philo­soph­i­cal thought at age 3, but it wasn’t until col­lege that he real­ized it was what he want­ed to do.

“I was talk­ing with a friend,” he recalls, “when he point­ed out that what­ev­er I do, I’m going to approach it from a philo­soph­i­cal per­spec­tive.”

Seth, a 2018 TEDxSalem speak­er, real­ized that he would always ask ques­tions such as “why do we do it this way?” “how might oth­ers do this?” and “even if we could, should we?”

Now he talks phi­los­o­phy to any­one will­ing to lis­ten, whether it’s part of his work as a phi­los­o­phy pro­fes­sor, life­guard, swim instruc­tor or dri­ver for vis­it­ing musi­cal acts.

Seth describes him­self as an Ore­gon native and a for­mer All-Amer­i­can swim­mer liv­ing in Asto­ria with his part­ner Gad. He finds a way to use all his pas­sions to bet­ter the com­mu­ni­ty. He spends a lot of his time as a life­guard and swim instruc­tor. With all the water sur­round­ing Asto­ria, Seth sees it as a pub­lic ser­vice.

But the Philosophar­i­an project is his pas­sion.

The Philosophar­i­an project aims to bring phi­los­o­phy into the lives of every­day peo­ple. It start­ed with pro­mot­ing local phi­los­o­phy talks and grew into a larg­er project that includ­ed a road trip of prac­tic­ing “guer­ril­la phi­los­o­phy tac­tics.”

Seth bemoans the fact that study­ing phi­los­o­phy doesn’t finan­cial­ly pen­cil out for most stu­dents. The Philosophar­i­an vision treats phi­los­o­phy as a nor­mal part of the real world. It was inspired by stu­dents who were inter­est­ed in phi­los­o­phy, but who didn’t have room for it in their class sched­ules and Gad’s back­ground in Alter­na­tive Edu­ca­tion and Kines­thet­ic Learn­ing.

In his free time, Seth stays active with hik­ing and water sports. He is a com­pet­i­tive swim­mer in mid­dle dis­tance but­ter­fly and freestyle.

“I’m like Seabis­cuit,” he said, com­par­ing his water skills to the race horse. “I’ve got finesse.”

His swim back­ground also influ­ences the way he thinks. Seth describes his world and his phi­los­o­phy as being dynam­ic and emerg­ing, much like water.

“Water makes its way into a lot of my think­ing,” he said. “My class­room looks out over the Colum­bia, and I will make a ref­er­ence to water at least once a week in my lec­tures.”

Seth also enjoys paint­ing and doing cos­tum­ing work with Gad. He has been a pro­fes­sor of phi­los­o­phy for 23 years and teach­es at Clat­sop Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege. He was named teacher of the year in 2015. He has an M.A. in Phi­los­o­phy of Reli­gion from Boston Uni­ver­si­ty and is a PhD can­di­date at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hawaii at Manoa in Com­par­a­tive Phi­los­o­phy.

If you have ever won­dered how phi­los­o­phy might be rel­e­vant to you, come see Seth at TEDxSalem and expe­ri­ence his guer­ril­la phi­los­o­phy tac­tics for your­self.

---

Speak­er: Seth Tichenor

Favorite Book: The Glass Bead Game by Her­mann Hesse: “It real­ly dis­cuss­es the strengths and lim­its of for­mal intel­lec­tu­al aca­d­e­m­ic work.” Or Can­nery Row by John Stein­beck.

Favorite Music: Chet Baker’s jazz, Arcade Fire and art rock, old punk, under­ground hip hop such as Dead Prez.

Favorite Food: “Thai or Indi­an food with vibrant tastes – I’m aes­thet­ic, but not a good sense of smell. I also got a taste for that kind of food while attend­ing grad school in Hawaii.”

Favorite Drink: “I’m very fond of Fort George Vor­tex IPA, or a well-made Man­hat­tan or a Moscow mule.”

---

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.