Transformative Exemplars

 Pierre Hadot has transformed our idea not only of ancient philosophy, but of philosophy as such. From his early works on Neoplatonic philosophy to his last book on Goethe and the tradition of spiritual exercises, 1 Hadot has made us see and understand the value of ancient philosophy for the entire history of philosophy. According to Hadot, in ancient philosophy, all philosophical discourses, theories and abstractions are in the service of the philosophical life—the concrete practice of philosophy. Philosophy without flesh and soul, that is, without philosophers, is but an intellectual pastime, since it lacks the dimension of an existential choice to live in a certain way.

Hadot summarises his fundamental idea as follows:

[A]ll ancient philosophical schools refused to consider philosophical activity as purely intellectual, purely formal or theoretical. Rather, the ancients considered philosophy as a choice which committed a person’s entire life and soul. This is why the exercise of philosophy was not solely intellectual but could also be spiritual. The philosopher did not finally form his disciples only in the sense of a knowing how to speak or to debate, but a knowing how to live in the strongest and noblest sense of the term. It is to an art of living, a way of life that the ancient philosophers invited their disciples. 2 

This spiritual force of philosophy is not simply located in its ethical dimension. The practice of philosophy is found within each of its traditional disciplines: ethics, logic, physics. Philosophy is at one and the same time a practiced ethics, a practiced logic and a practiced physics. Each part of philosophy comprises a theoretical discourse and a lived practice. Hence:

lived philosophy is not limited to the practice of moral duties. It also involves a control of the activity of thought and a cosmic consciousness. Lived philosophy is thus a practice or a way of life which embraces all human activity; it is not only an ethics in the narrow sense of the word. 3

Living philosophy requires an appeal to the guidance of an exemplary figure who, in antiquity, was called a sage: “The philosopher will ask himself in all circumstances: ‘what would the sage do in this circumstance?’ ” 4 If some ancient philosophical schools considered the sage as “an ideal which is nearly inaccessible, more like a transcendent norm than a concrete figure,” 5 we must not forget that “the ideal figure of the sage has not been abstractly projected in the absolute, it is not a theoretical construction.” 6 Rather:

the figure of the perfect sage ultimately corresponds to the idealisation, the transfiguration or, as we might say, the canonisation of very concrete figures, who are these righteous men [ hommes de bien ], these sages living amongst human beings. 7  It thus becomes possible to understand why, in antiquity, biography was a philosophical genre of great value. The concept of figure , so important for Hadot’s interpretation, is strictly linked to this vision of philosophy. The exemplary life of the sage (a state of ideal and transcendent perfection) and the exemplary life of the philosopher (at least a relative perfection, a limited wisdom) delineate not merely an example (too particular and individual) but a figure, namely “a model, an ideal, that orients and inspires the way of life.” 8 

As the figure of the ancient sage is a model that orients human conduct, Hadot’s own work constitutes for us both the model of a radically new way of writing the history of philosophy, and of practicing philosophy as such.

Indeed, in order not to impose our own, modern categories and prejudices on the ancient texts that we read, and thus allow them to transform our idea of what philosophy is, we need to consider the activity of reading itself as a spiritual exercise. Hadot teaches us how to re- read the history of philosophy in order to create space for the idea of philosophy as a way of life.

When one reads a philosophical text—whether written by Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Plotinus, Descartes, or Merleau-Ponty—it is critical, Hadot argues, that one tries to “undo oneself from one’s subjectivity,” thus overcoming one’s prejudices, habits and passions. And although a state of perfect objectivity is probably unattainable, it is still (as in the case of the figure of the sage) an “ideal that one must attempt to attain through a certain practice.” 9 As with the practice of other spiritual exercises, we can strive for spiritual progress, but without expecting spiritual perfection. Human, all too human, spiritual exercises never come to a definitive end for us; they are existential exercises that continue throughout the stages of our life. Yet objectivity for Hadot is nothing less than a guiding virtue, or better, a “spiritual exercise of detachment from the self” which allows one to “undo oneself from the partiality of the individual and impassioned self in order to elevate oneself to the universality of the rational self.” 10 If something like wisdom is still possible today, it depends, at least within the practice of philosophy, on the practice of this spiritual exercise.

Learning to read is a spiritual exercise that requires us to move away from the idea of an egoistic reading and to conceive of the practice of reading philosophical texts as essentially dialogical —the foundation of a genuine encounter both with others (the authors of the texts) and with oneself that transforms our way of seeing the world and of living. Thus, Hadot invites us to conceive of each philosophical text as a living reality, the result of an intellectual and social practice that we must take into account if we want to be able to really understand the force of the words we read. Just as a sage can be an exemplary figure, so a dialogical text can also become an active exemplar. Self-formation includes reading, meditating on, such exemplary texts. Hadot shows us how to engage in this practice of self-(trans)formative reading. At the end of his article “Spiritual Exercises,” quoting Vauvenargues, Hadot expresses the wish that his article be able to make his readers love “a few old truths,” and he continues:

Old truths . . . There are some truths whose meaning will never be exhausted by the generations of man. It is not that they are difficult; on the contrary, they are often extremely simple. Often, they even appear to be banal. Yet for their meaning to be understood, these truths must be  lived, and constantly re-experienced. Each generation must take up, from scratch, the task of learning to read and to re-read these “old truths.” 11 

Reading as a spiritual exercise has three main aspects. To understand the meaning and scope of a philosophical text, Hadot argues, one must first ask what the author must say—for example, because he belongs to a certain philosophical school, or because of the literary genre being employed, or because he addresses “a particular audience that is more or less formed.” Second, one must ask what the author can say—for example, he may exaggerate the presentation of a doctrine in order to produce a more striking effect on the mind, or be unfaithful to the dogmas of his own school because he wants “to adapt to a certain audience.” Finally, one must ask what the author wants to say, his “deep intention,” provided however that one does not try to decipher his “more or less secret psychology,” but attempts to understand the “choice made with regard to the goal of his work, his mode of presentation, his method, the way in which he has been able to play with all the rules that impose themselves upon him.” 12 

Thus, by criticising historical psychology, Hadot once again clearly suggests that looking at the past from our own, modern point of view necessarily implies missing its distinctiveness—and its value.

If it is true, as Michel Foucault once claimed, that one of our main tasks, today, is to elaborate an ethics which does not rely on religion, law or science, and that Greco-Roman society provides us with the example of an ethics which does not depend on these points of reference, 13 then learning how to read ancient philosophical texts is one of the most crucial spiritual exercises that we should learn how to practice. Thus, according to Hadot, “there is no point in distorting the meaning of a text in order to adapt it to the requirements of modern life, or to the aspirations of the soul, and so on.” 14 What we must learn to do is precisely to overcome our modern demands and our purely personal aspirations. Otherwise, self- transformation will be, at best, limited and superficial. Hadot’s lifelong philosophical work, and the exemplary texts collected in this volume, constitute for us a model of this fundamental philosophical task.

January 2020  Arnold I. Davidson 15 & Daniele Lorenzini 16

from the book The Selected Writings of Pierre Hadot Philosophy as Practice