The Selected Writings of Pierre Hadot

Philosophy as Practice

Pierre Hadot, Federico Testa, Matthew Sharpe

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781474273008
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophie
• Subtopic: Philosophie ancienne et classique

This collection of writings from Pierre Hadot (1992-2010) presents, for the first time, previously unreleased and in some cases untranslated materials from one of the world's most prominent classical philosophers and historians of thought. As a passionate proponent of philosophy as a 'way of life' (most powerfully communicated in the life of Socrates), Pierre Hadot rejuvenated interest in the ancient philosophers and developed a philosophy based on their work which is peculiarly contemporary. His radical recasting of philosophy in the West was both provocative and substantial. Indeed, Michel Foucault cites Pierre Hadot as a major influence on his work. This beautifully written, lucid collection of writings will not only be of interest to historians, classicists and philosophers but also those interested in nourishing, as Pierre Hadot himself might have put it, a 'spiritual life'.

PART ONE

KEY PARAMETERS

1 MY BOOKS AND MY
RESEARCH¹

Let me briefly recall the course of my literary or scientific activity for those^a here tonight who are not familiar with my work.

To begin with, I have produced many editions and translations of ancient texts: in 1960, the theological works of a Latin Christian Neoplatonist, Marius Victorinus; in 1977, Ambrose’s Apology of David; in 1988 and 1990, two treatises by Plotinus. Furthermore, I have written a number of books: first, in 1963, a short book, Plotin: ou la simplicité du regard; then, in 1968, a doctoral thesis devoted to an aspect of Neoplatonism: namely, the relations between Victorinus, this Christian theologian of the fourth century CE, and a pagan philosopher of the same period, Porphyry, Plotinus’ disciple.^b In 1981, I published a work, Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique; and, last year [1992], a book with the title La citadelle intérieure, devoted to the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. If the Collège philosophique has invited me tonight, it is certainly because of these last two works. In these books, one finds the expression of a particular conception of ancient philosophy, as well as an outline of a conception of philosophy in general.

In a word, in these texts one finds the idea that philosophy should be defined as a ‘spiritual exercise’. How did I come to assign such importance to this notion? I think that this dates back to 1959–60, and to my encounter with the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. I developed a series of reflections inspired by this encounter in an article in the Revue de métaphysique et de morale, entitled ‘Jeux de langage et philosophie’, which appeared in 1960. In this article, I wrote: ‘We philosophize within a language game, that is to say, to quote Wittgenstein’s expression, from within an attitude and a form of life which gives its sense to our speech.’ I took up Wittgenstein’s idea, according to which it was necessary to break with the idea that language always only functions in a single way and always with the same goal: to translate thoughts. On this basis, I claimed that it was also necessary to radically break with the idea that philosophical language always functions in a uniform manner. The philosopher is always, indeed, within a certain language game: that is to say, situated in [the framework of] a form of life, or a certain attitude. It is then impossible to understand the sense of philosophers’ theses without situating them within their language game. Moreover, the main role of philosophical language was that of placing the auditors of this discourse within a certain form of life, [or] a particular style of life. This is the origin of the notion of the spiritual exercise as an effort to modify and transform the self.^c If I have been attentive to this aspect of language, and if I came to conceive of this notion of spiritual exercises, it was because, like many of my predecessors and contemporaries, I was struck by a well-known phenomenon: that of the inconsistencies, even the contradictions that one encounters in the works of the philosophical authors of antiquity. We know that it is often extremely difficult to follow the thread of ideas in ancient philosophical writings. Whether it is a matter of Augustine, Plotinus, Aristotle or Plato, modern historians never cease to deplore the blunders in philosophical exposition, and the compositional defects which are found in their works.^d In order to explain this phenomenon, I gradually came to observe that it was always necessary to explain the text in light of the living context in which it was born: that is to say, the concrete conditions of life of the philosophical school, in the institutional sense of the word. In antiquity, the priority of the school was never to disseminate a theoretical, abstract knowledge, as we do in our modern universities. Above all else, it aimed to form the [disciples’] minds^e in a method and a knowledge of how to speak and how to debate.^f In one way or another, philosophical writings were always echoes of an oral teaching. Moreover, for the ancient philosophers, a word, phrase or argument was not primarily intended to inform the reader or listener, but rather to produce a certain psychical effect on them, always pedagogically considering their capacities.^g In this discourse, the propositional element was not the most important one. According to Victor Goldschmidt’s excellent formula regarding the Platonic dialogues, one could say that ancient philosophical discourse aimed at forming rather than informing students.

In a word, one could summarise what I have just put forward by saying that ancient philosophy was more a pedagogical and intellectual exercise than a systematic construction. Furthermore, I later situated this observation in relation to the fact that, at least since Socrates and Plato, philosophy also presented itself as a therapeutics.^h All the ancient philosophical schools, each in its own way, offer a critique of the habitual condition of human beings, a state of suffering, disorder and unawareness,ⁱ and a method to cure them from this state. ‘The philosophical school is a medical clinic,’ as Epictetus said. This therapy is situated, above all, in the discourse of the master which has the effect of an incantation, a sting, a violent shock which upsets the interlocutor, as is said of Socrates’ discourse in Plato’s Symposium. Nevertheless, to be cured, it is not sufficient to be moved. One must really will to transform one’s life. In all philosophical schools, the teacher is thus a director of conscience. On this subject, I should acknowledge all that I owe to the work of my wife, Ilsetraut Hadot, notably her book on spiritual direction in Seneca,^j as well as her more general work on the figure of the ‘spiritual guide’ in the ancient world.^k

The philosophical school imposed a way of life on its members, a way of life which engaged the whole of one’s existence. This mode of life consisted of certain procedures or endeavours which we can more precisely call spiritual exercises: that is, practices that aimed at a modification, an improvement and a transformation of the self. At the origin of these exercises, there is an act of choice, a fundamental option for a certain way of life. One then actualizes this option in the order of inner discourse and spiritual activity: that is, in meditation, dialogue with oneself, examination of conscience or exercises of imagination such as the view from above on the cosmos or the earth. One also embodies this option at the level of action and everyday conduct:^l in self-mastery, indifference to indifferent things, the fulfilment of one’s social duties in Stoicism, as well as the discipline of desire in Epicureanism. All these spiritual exercises should be carried out according to the traditional method of each school. From this perspective, philosophical discourse is only one element of philosophical activity, one which is intended to justify or ground an existential attitude which corresponds to the fundamental existential option of the school. The Stoics, moreover, clearly distinguished philosophical discourse from philosophy itself.^m Philosophy was for them a unique act, a constant everyday attitude. Rather than perfect wisdom, for them philosophy was an exercise aiming at this wisdom, an exercise in which one concretely practiced logic, in thinking reality as it is; ethics,ⁿ in acting in the service of others; and physics, in living in the awareness of one’s place in the cosmos. Philosophical discourse, by contrast, corresponded only to the necessities of teaching: that is to say, to the discursive, theoretical and pedagogical exposition of the reasons one has for living in this particular way. In the other schools, and notably those of Plato and Aristotle – which cannot be examined in detail here – one finds an implicit distinction of this kind, simply because, generally, in the ancient world, the philosopher is considered a philosopher not because he develops a philosophical discourse, but because he lives philosophically. Philosophy is, above all, a mode of life, which includes a certain mode of discourse as one of its integral parts, without being reduced to it.

From this point of view, I think it is important to point out that we can distinguish, in Greek, two meanings of the phrase philosophical ‘discourse’ (l...