When an ancient Greek or Roman chose to become a philosopher, was he or she committing to a way of thinking, or to a way of living? Here, C. delivers a wide-ranging and highly accessible interpretation of the concept of ‘ancient philosophy as a way of life’, advancing the literature on a topic that has attracted blossoming interest in Anglophone scholarship following the publication of P. Hadot's influential books in English translation, Philosophy as a Way of Life (1995) and What is Ancient Philosophy? (2002).
C. develops two general claims. The first partly follows Hadot: each ancient philosophy was conceived, not as an intellectual exercise or methodology, but as the ‘steersman of one's life’ (p. 7). But ‘rigorous analysis and reasoned argumentation’ and the ‘pursuit of truth’ were also indispensable (pp. x, 17). C.'s second claim is that philosophy did not comprise one ‘way of life’, but several, distinct ways of life. C. ascribes to all of these three strong commitments: (a) ‘[R]eason is … a power of motivation for action’ (p. 11); (b) ‘philosophy perfects reason’ (p. 12); and (c) the person who knows the truth is ‘completely safe from ever doing any wrong thing, and therefore inevitably lives a … good life’ (p. 13). Together, these commitments enable philosophy to foster εὐδαιμονία through the interlocking study of dialectic, ethics and physics, which offer ideas ‘from which a life might be led’ (p. 15). He then expounds these basic commitments in each major school. (C.'s account places greater weight on this conceptual interdependence than on the ‘spiritual exercises’ which play a pivotal role in Hadot's account, though C. argues [pp. 20–1] that these are an important development of late antiquity).
C. treats six ways of life, beginning with the Socratic (Chapter 2). (Here the account naturally leans on ‘early’ Platonic dialogues; the name ‘Socrates’ is just used to signal their protagonist.) Socrates is the paradigmatic philosopher living ‘from’ his philosophy (p. 29), striving in an ‘open-ended’ way towards a complete knowledge of human values (p. 38). The well-being of the soul is the only unconditional value. If we were gods, we could act based upon σοϕία, a ‘complete grasp of the total truth about human values of all sorts’ (p. 46); as humans, we seek the humbler goal of ϕιλοσοϕία, striving constantly to improve our understanding (p. 52). Socratic philosophy is set apart by its ‘committed open-endedness’ (p. 61), in contrast to (say) the Stoic life, which operates on the basis of actually possessed knowledge (pp. 62–4).
C. treats Aristotle next (Chapter 3). (C. focuses on philosophers who ‘advocate … their own views’, pp. 66–7; thus no ‘way of life’ is attributed to Plato, who wrote dialogues). The approach to Aristotle hinges on the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics. What motivates us to act virtuously is a full grasp of what is good about virtue (p. 76). The ensuing life – ‘an activity inclusive of all the activities of the virtues of the human soul insofar as it possesses reason’ (p. 94) – brings εὐδαιμονία. But Aristotle promotes two distinct ways of life: the virtues of theoretical reasoning make us ‘happiest’, while practical virtue (pp. 99–105) brings only ‘happiness’. Practitioners of theoretical virtue can act practically (p. 97), but the practically virtuous will organise the πόλις in such a way that some theoreticians are free to pursue the happiest human good (pp. 138–40).
Stoicism follows (Chapter 4), beginning from Zeno's account of εὐδαιμονία as the life lived ὁμολογουμένως or ‘in agreement’ – perhaps in ‘accordance with nature’ (p. 153). The Stoic concept of ‘nature’ (ϕύσις) differs from Aristotle's: where he regarded nature as a ‘free-standing realm’ treatable apart from human values, the Stoics adapt the Platonic vision of a world-animal with an inherent divine mind (pp. 156–7), whose rational will we should strive to realise (p. 170). Our appetites are thoughts; therefore our psychic movements are rational, and susceptible to reason (pp. 159–61). Reason is a strong motivation to action, so that weakness of will (interpreted as simultaneously competing impulses) is an incoherent notion (p. 213). What would it be like to live as a ‘persuaded Stoic’? (p. 217). Stoicism does not demand a life of formal philosophy, but it does require the exercise of virtue with our divine reason (λόγος), as ‘coagents’ in the execution of god's plan (p. 221).
The assertion of divine reason plays no part in the Epicurean and Sceptic account of happiness (Chapter 5). As an interesting implication, the Epicurean life is open to the uneducated, demanding only good memory (p. 275) and desire for katastematic pleasure that is our birthright (pp. 229–40). A highlight here is C.'s creative reconstruction of an Epicurean account of the traditional Greek virtues (pp. 247–59). The Epicurean life has three key features: recognising that we have nothing to fear from gods (p. 260), that we should not fear death (p. 261) and the injunction to ‘live unnoticed’ (p. 263).
Ancient Scepticism may also be regarded a way of life, not only as a set of epistemological commitments. As Sextus argued following Aenesidemus, scepticism can bring serenity (pp. 277–81). Initially, protosceptics were worried by the ‘anomalies’ in their experience of reality; studying the philosophical schools' contradictory solutions to the anomalies, they suspended assent; thus they found the relief they sought (p. 289).
C. concludes with Platonism (Chapter 6), the dominant philosophy of late antiquity. Where the Hellenistic philosophers had located εὐδαιμονία in a well-lived animal life, for Plotinus fulfilment is found in the transcendence of that life (p. 307), in νοῦς, intellect, alone. Real natures are located above nature (p. 319), and we – true humans – are exclusively our power of abstract thought about them (p. 337). Although we have other experiences, it is ‘up to us’ to focus our attention on what we really are. (These reflections develop from Enneads 1.1 [53]; the following from 1.2 [19] and 1.4 [46]). Plotinus and his successors elaborate an ascending scale for the traditional virtues: our actions are ordinarily wise, brave, moderate or fair on a ‘civic’ level, but we can ‘ascend’ to be virtuous in a higher, purifying way. This might sound detached and abstract. But Plotinus' ‘key idea’ is that the correct life is ‘the spirit of caring’ for our bodies and their proper place and role in the natural world, including the society of other embodied human beings (p. 367). Here too, reason, perfected by philosophy, enables us to live a good human life. But the turn toward a more ‘religious’ sensibility came to Platonism with Iamblichus, who had philosophical reasons to maintain that the human soul required healing through theurgical practice (p. 385). This shift made of Platonism, not a reasoned, philosophical way of life, but ‘a philosophized pagan religion, facing, and losing out to, a philosophized Christian one’ (p. 387).
Readers familiar with other literature in this area may reasonably feel that this book is more concerned with philosophical arguments than with the philosophical life itself – with what Hadot has called ‘philosophical discourse’, in contrast to philosophy. But the theme of a ‘way of life’ succeeds as an Ariadne's thread through the rich labyrinth of some seven centuries of intellectual history, and C.'s gift for charitable but rigorous interpretation is on display throughout the volume. He strives to make each argument as plausible and engaging as possible, driving home its ‘interestingness’ (p. x) both to professional philosophers and to laypeople. This point brings me to a challenge posed to academic readers of the book: with such a wealth of material evaluated in 387 pages of discussion, the student or scholar will inevitably wish for a more detailed exposition and defence of the positions that are adopted. Here the organisation – footnotes for casual readers, endnotes for deeper cuts into scholarship and a list of ‘further readings’ – could function as a gentle Vademecum leading from the body text to the relevant debates. This is often but not consistently the case: from the text, it is not always easy to recognise where the book offers just the tip of a vast scholarly iceberg. (For instance, consider the brief treatment of the capacities ascribed to νοῦς in Aristotle's De anima 3, p. 310). But this is a relatively minor quibble.
This volume is a pleasure to read – indeed, a romp. It should easily spark further discussion and debate and, above all, succeed in inviting at least some non-scholarly readers to discover the vital and vibrant ‘ways of life’ of antiquity.
