a living lab for
human-ing
We are a post-disciplinary ed-lab dedicated to exploring how to human well in a more-than-human world.
Why IPeP exists.
The underlying cause of our current predicaments — social, ecological, individual — is a crisis of human-ing: an existential lostness about how to be human well.
This crisis cannot be resolved through technological, organizational, or political solutions alone. It requires a reorientation at the level of live itself - how we understand reality, how we relate to the living world, how we embody that understanding in practice. This is, by its nature, philosophical work.
IPeP exists to do this work in two inseparable ways: as a research institute advancing rigorous, peer-reviewed scholarship, and as a practice laboratory where philosophy is lived, tested, and transformed through direct experience. Research that doesn't transform the researcher remains abstract. Practice without theoretical rigor remains anecdotal. IPeP holds both.
IPeP sits at the intersection of a university and a research institute — but reimagines both. We conduct research not on the world, but with ourselves as participants, using lived experience as primary material. At our core is the development of Life as a Lab: a methodology that treats everyday life as a site of inquiry, experimentation, and transformation. In this way, IPeP is not only a place of research, but a lifelong learning practice — where knowledge is generated through direct engagement with how we live, relate, and make sense of the world.
why eko?
ego + eco
our work is in service of radical self-authorship (ego) + radical love for the whole (eco)
How We Work.
Life is our lab. We treat life itself as a site of research and transformation. We experiment with what it means to be human well — not theoretically, but through how we actually live. Our own lives serve as living laboratories, grounding scholarship in our daily practice of human-ing. This means radically testing theories on ourselves.
Science is participatory. The etymology of science is scientia — knowing. We practice a science of experience that takes lived, first-person inquiry seriously as a mode of knowing. Knowledge is not only measured but also encountered — and therefore not owned by institutions, but participatory by nature. This expands who can do science and shape what counts as knowledge. We see science as a participatory becoming that activates attention, responsibility, and agency.
Reality is relational. We engage more-than-human intelligences as participants. The living world is not a backdrop to human activity but a co-participant in the process of knowing. Our research and practice ground this commitment in both ancient wisdom traditions and latest scientific discoveries.
To that end, we work in three key areas.
our key areas
RESEARCH
We create conceptual pink papers, books and publish in peer-reviewed journals.
You can find our latest research results HERE.
PRACTICES
We offer PhilosophyGyms for the INTERESTED PUBLIC as well as for ORGANIZATIONS. These are spaces to practice human-ing well.
