About
We read, write, teach and argue about philosophy for a living.
Syntropise is the bit we like most: sitting with interesting people and following good questions wherever they lead.
Why we do this
Some of what people bring us looks impossible. Usually it’s only impossible inside the way they’ve been seeing it.
wisdom /ˈwɪzdəm/ noun as we use it
[Old English, from wise + -dom]
1By wisdom, we mean learning to judge what matters in the situation you’re actually in.
2That includes recognising the limits of what you know, weighing competing responsibilities and acting without the comfort of a certain answer.
See also syntropy
What we’re for
Record of studyA typical adult, age 21 to 55
Your work
Your understanding of life
The relationship is how we do it. Syntropy is the direction we lean. You already have a philosophy
How it started
The curators
Applied philosopher
Former senior lecturer, Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and author of thirty-odd papers on how people think and learn.
Chartered psychologist
HCPC-registered. Decades inside elite football and rugby, global businesses and senior teams, and a long fascination with the philosophy underneath how people behave.
The name
Living things need enough commitment to hold together and enough openness to become something new.
They manage it through constant exchange with their surroundings, well within the laws of physics. Syntropy is our word for whatever helps a life or an organisation stay capable of developing.
Scroll and the type sets itself. Knock it out of line and watch it find its way back.
syntropy
Our work is rooted in syntropology: a philosophy of taking part in a world that’s still taking shape, and creating the conditions for life to flourish and keep developing.
Over the years
The situations we inherit place limits on us. But how we take part can change what becomes possible, for ourselves and for others.
Over the years
Today. Some of your world you chose; some of it you inherited. Where it goes from here depends partly on how you take part.
We’re interested in how we build lives and organisations that help people flourish and open up further possibilities.
You’re welcome to question this philosophy too. Thinking together includes examining our own convictions.
How we work
House rules
No. 1
We see the person, not the title.
Someone who has to decide, act and live with the consequences.
No. 2
We say when we don’t know.
And when we speak with conviction, we hold it lightly enough to revise.
No. 3
Comfort and help aren’t the same thing.
We support you fully, and we’ll still challenge you.
No. 4
We’re not here to think for you.
The aim is that you need us less each year, and enjoy it more.
By order of the curators
The object that named us
Maxwell’s demon is a thought experiment about entropy, information and the second law. It doesn’t beat the second law: sorting takes attention, and attention has a cost. That’s the part we like. Take it out of its compartment and try holding the door.
No. 12 in the collection, and the only one kept in this room. See the cabinet
Private viewings by appointment
Whichever door you came in by, you’re in the right place.
Tell us what’s on your mind, or what you’ve been reading. The first conversation costs nothing, and you don’t need to prepare a thing.
Or write to hello@syntropise.com
Ask yourself
Your week with
Most people skip this. The ones who don’t are the ones it changes.
That’s the whole collection examined, every room. Now imagine doing this with your own life, for a year, with two people who come to know it well. That’s membership.