This volume of fourteen newly translated essays written by Pierre Hadot (1922–2010) is a welcome addition for those interested in approaching philosophy as a concrete practice or, as Hadot put it, a ‘way of life’. Sharpe's illuminating introduction shares the translators’ motives for choosing the volume's essays. They desire, first, to make available to anglophone scholars essays that deepen and broaden the scope of Hadot's project. Second, they see these essays as allowing Hadot to respond to criticism levelled against his work by philosophers such as J.M. Cooper, B. Inwood and M. Nussbaum. Third, the range and topics addressed by Hadot here ‘show elements of Hadot's intellectual persona that are less well known and understood’ (p. 9). On all levels the translators succeed, resulting in a volume that informs and, importantly, forms its readers.
The volume is divided into five parts: ‘Key Parameters’, ‘Aspects’, ‘Nature’, ‘Figures’ and ‘Ends’. Sharpe's introduction describes the parts and summarises the essays, situating each within the context of Hadot's oeuvre, identifying relevant scholarly conversations to which each contributes, and noting where Hadot anticipated future critics. Even though the chapters are drawn from points in a career spanning nearly 50 years, Sharpe keeps the ‘whole’ of Hadot before the readers’ eyes. Newcomers will want to begin with Chapter 1,‘My Books and My Research’, for an accessible introduction to Hadot's thought and to learn how he came to understand philosophy as a ‘spiritual exercise’ or a practice to improve and transform the self. Subsequent essays, although approaching it from different angles, further develop Hadot's insight that ancient philosophy arose from and only makes sense as a living praxis (p. 57). The range of essays serve to deepen our understanding of Hadot as a multifaceted thinker: philologist, historian, dialogue partner, critic and, above all, practitioner of philosophy.
Before suggesting the volume's contribution and relevance, let me raise my sole disappointment: the text's narrow margins prevent readers from adding notes. This is not, of course, a critique of the translators but the publisher. I mention it only because given the nature of Hadot's project it is ironic. For Hadot, reading itself is a spiritual exercise, one that brings the reader into dialogue with the text's author. Ancient philosophy as practised by Plato, Aristotle, the Epicureans and the Stoics required one to enter into philosophical discourse as an active participant. Readers err, Hadot argues, when they approach Platonic dialogues as hermetically sealed ‘systems’ of thought. One needs to approach Plato's texts, instead, as the ‘echo of discussions which had taken place within the Academy’ (p. 86). Philosophical texts should be approached as discursive events into which readers can be drawn and through which they can be transformed. The irony: a text written by a scholar insistent on the importance of dialogue between author and reader actually impedes this interaction. Caveat lector! Those taking up this this book should do so with a notebook at hand.
I raise this because these essays do not treat ancient philosophy as a specimen to be analysed but, rather, as an invitation to transformation. ‘Ancient philosophy’, Hadot argued, ‘was more a pedagogical and intellectual exercise than a systematic construction’ (p. 35). He did not deny, despite critics’ objections, that ancient philosophy involved reasoned argument. He simply refused to cede philosophy to the ‘reassuring universe of concepts and discourse’ (p. 37). For Hadot, philosophy was a mode of life that makes use of discourse while remaining grounded in concrete reality. Hadot regarded philosophy as a full-contact sport. This is clear in Chapter 7, ‘Philosophy, Dialectic, and Rhetoric in Antiquity’, where he observes that philosophy has ‘always implied a conversion, a total transformation of one's way of living and thinking’ (p. 155). Hadot contends that one joined a philosophical school and apprenticed oneself to its master not primarily to learn what to think but how to live philosophically. This ‘way of life’ integrated the intellectual and spiritual dimensions of practitioners’ lives, and philosophical practices changed their orientation towards the world. Were philosophy now taught this way, syllabi would include warnings about the existential risk of philosophical study.
To give a flavour of how some essays work on two levels, let me offer some remarks on Chapter 11, ‘Physics as Spiritual Exercise, or Pessimism and Optimism in Marcus Aurelius’. The chapter's conversational tone invites the reader into a dialogue that is ostensibly about Marcus Aurelius and his Meditations. Hadot notes the Meditations’ ‘abundance of pessimistic statements’ (p. 207) and describes the emperor's vision of human reality as ‘banal’ and ‘ephemeral’ (p. 208). Hadot, it would seem, supports reading Aurelius as a pessimist. And then the teaching begins, as Hadot undermines this interpretation by noting the Meditations’ genre as a form of spiritual direction, a way of learning and living out Stoicism's teachings. Aurelius, one realises, was engaged in an exercise to re-evaluate what we consider valuable. Take sexual union: ‘the rubbing together of abdomens, accompanied by the spasmodic ejaculation of a sticky liquid’ (pp. 207–8). Rather than a sign of nihilism, Hadot reads this as a sign that the emperor practised a method of decomposition that broke down objects and events into their constitutive elements before recomposing them into the whole of the universe. It is an exercise intended to undermine anthropocentrism and to change our perspective towards the world, a practice in re-seeing the world from a new vantage point. Yet as Hadot unfolds his argument, he invites the reader to practise what he preaches and, in so doing, enacts the sage's role. Under Hadot's guidance, readers are informed about the Meditations and its interpretations but, more importantly, they are invited to be transformed by undertaking this exercise themselves. What results from such practices, he avers, is less an increase of data than a renewed disposition towards the world. As he elsewhere summarises it, undertaking these exercises inculcates ‘peace of mind (ataraxia), inner freedom (autarkeia) and, except in the sceptics, cosmic consciousness’ (p. 230).
Thus, what Hadot claims of ancient philosophy applies equally to his own: it is a paideia, a ‘work of formation’ (p. 70). So, although this work will appeal to specialists in ancient philosophy, its broader appeal will be to those interested in reimaging how they approach and teach classical texts. For Hadot models a style of teaching, a way of explicating and evaluating texts that invites readers to participate. Fittingly, he likened ancient philosophy to ‘a musical performance which proceeds by themes and variations’ (p. 57). Hadot allows those who accompany him to participate in this performance, to be animated by the music's rhythm and to be reborn in the process. He enjoins us to embrace the paradox of philosophical life, namely, that ‘at the heart of everyday life, it is a more or less profound rupture with everyday life itself’ (p. 50).
Sharpe and Testa are to be thanked for making this collection available. Their able translation has produced a work that cultivates and contributes to what Hadot described as a ‘poetic’ or philosophical attitude, a way of contemplating nature and living harmoniously with it (p. 166). Aided throughout by the translators’ notes, the essays richly reward careful study. For readers willing to dialogue with Hadot and to practise philosophy under his tutelage, they may find themselves implicated in a ‘process of becoming aware of belonging to the human and cosmic Whole, a sort of dilation or transfiguration of the self which realizes its greatness of soul’ (p. 230). Certainly informative and potentially transformative, I echo the words that called Augustine to a conversion of life: take up, then, and read.
