Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault

by Pierre Hadot

This book presents a history of spiritual exercises from Socrates to early Christianity, an account of their decline in modern philosophy, and a discussion of the different conceptions of philosophy that have accompanied the trajectory and fate of the theory and practice of spiritual exercises. Hadot's book demonstrates the extent to which philosophy has been, and still is, above all else a way of seeing and of being in the world.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, History, Spirituality, Psychology, Self Help, Personal Development

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Pierre Hadot (né à Paris, le 21 février 1922 - mort à Orsay, le 25 avril 2010) est un philosophe, historien et philologue français, spécialiste de l'antiquité, profond connaisseur de la période hellénistique et en particulier du néoplatonisme et de Plotin. Pierre Hadot est l'auteur d'une œuvre développée notamment autour de la notion d'exercice spirituel et de philosophie comme manière de vivre.

Spécialiste de Plotin et du stoïcisme, en particulier de Marc-Aurèle, il est un de ceux qui ont accompagné le retour à la philosophie antique, considérée comme pratique, manière de vivre et exercice spirituel. Ses livres, très agréables à lire et d'une très grande érudition, manifestent constamment un rapport avec l'existence, l'expérience, voire la poésie, la littérature et le mysticisme.

Reviews

[Elena · Rating 5 out of 5]

This incomparable work tasks itself with resurrecting a lost tradition of reading, and therefore of understanding and of doing philosophy, in which the use of spiritual exercises is seen as an integral part of the meaning of philosophic texts, theories, and practices. Hadot's is an effort to excavate and make available for contemporary use older, but larger, meanings which would allow us once again to see how philosophy can be more than just an abstract theoretical endeavour: a personally transformative life-practice. In the end, Hadot reminds us that philosophy, at its best, is an exercise engaging the totality of one's being, the purpose of which is greater integration of all our capacity for experience. Rightly pursued, philosophic practice deepens our presence to ourselves, to the world, and to one another.

Hadot's proposition is deeply intriguing and worth pondering carefully: What if the contemporary nihilism which results form the inability of the best scientific theory to inform life practice is born of an impoverished mode of philosophizing? And what if this impoverishment of philosophizing is due to our thought's operating with impoverished meanings, which express a restriction of the fuller meaning that philosophy once had and that it must always have if it is to inform and heal life?

If we're impoverished in available meanings, Hadot shows us the means to re-construct more capacious meanings that can more fully answer to our longing for personally transformative philosophizing. In particular, he excavates the meanings that shaped the more spacious horizons of philosophizing as it was practiced during the Hellenistic period. We wander with him in the freer spaces in which the Pythagoreans, Neo-Platonists, Skeptics, Stoics, Epicureans, and Cynics encountered themselves, one another, and their world.

And he shows us that the key to philosophic meaning turns out not to lie in the systematic, theoretic, formal, conceptual content of these philosophies (which, as the critics of these thinkers point out, was rather fragmentary, where present, as well as being fraught with contradictions compared to the more systematically-organized philosophies of the modern age). Rather, what these thinkers teach us is that philosophic meaning is something that can only be fully specified through a personally-transformative engagement with the texts via spiritual exercises. He shows how in the Hellenistic period, as well as in some of the most existentially transformative philosophies beyond (of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Spinoza, Goethe, and Rousseau, among others), spiritual exercises served to supplement philosophical theorizing by grounding it in existential, experientially-transformative insight.

A spiritual exercise he defines as a method of focusing, drawing on, and transforming the total structure of the personality in order to reveal deeper resources for engaging with reality than we normally draw on in our blinkered, habitual, culturally pre-programmed perception of the world. Hadot makes a sharp distinction between habitual perception and philosophic perception, the latter being the perception of the fully realized personality, which can only be uncovered on the other side of sustained practice. Spiritual exercises are the means to such perception. Usually, they are exercises of defamiliarization which remove the dead weight of superficial familiarity off of experienced things in order to show us the world as if we were seeing it for the first time: inexhaustibly poignant, and an ever-renewable source of meaning and value. Their aim is the shedding and stripping of all inessentials, in the form of culturally-received opinions, which lays bare for the first time the essential values and meanings by which we can live lives of inner freedom and harmony.

Philosophy's ultimate subject matter, according to Hadot, consists of such spiritual exercises as: learning to live, learning to die, learning to dialogue, learning to read, learning to see all things experienced in the light of the idea of the irreducible one, learning to relate concrete experiences to universal principles, learning to master our inner dialogue, learning the distinction between living according to the true nature of man and living according to the deformed image of human nature that we inherit from our societies through our “education”, learning the psychological attitude of ego-transcending objectivity, and learning to live according to our most comprehensive perspective attainable on the world, among other things. I'd add that Christian mysticism added one crucial exercise: learning the deepest meaning of love.

Rather than being optional extras to philosophizing, Hadot insists that such exercises supply the core content of philosophies. Most importantly, the depth of the reader's commitment to the search for personal transformation supplies the very lifeblood of philosophic meaning, providing the existential, experiential content without which encountered theoretical concepts remain hollow husks.

“The philosophical act is not situated merely on the cognitive level, but on that of the self and of being. It is a progress which causes us to be more fully, and makes us better. It is a conversion which turns our entire life upside down, changing the life of the person who goes through it. It raises the individual from an inauthentic condition of life, darkened by unconsciousness and harassed by worry, to an authentic state of life, in which he attains self-consciousness, an exact vision of the world, inner peace, and freedom.”

Life rightly conceived is a 24/7 practice aimed at spiritual transformation. The goal of this transformation is to “re-learn to see” the world and to relate to it more fully. Philosophy, rightly conceived, is an ever -renewed act in the service of this transformation, taken up and practiced at each instant. Such practice, over time, takes up the dim, scattered material of our experience and intensifies it, gathering it into a unified pattern. All the philosophic schools he discusses recognized that the end goal, wisdom, is never reached as a stable, persisting state of being. Rather, they each affirm philosophy as the ever-renewed commitment to practice aiming at attaining an ever deepening degree of realization within our lived, day-to-day experience which transforms the inner economy of desires, attitudes and tastes, value-estimates, and conduct in the world.

The goal of philosophic exchange thus is not the transference of ready-made, free-standing theoretical constructs that remain inert possessions in my mind. Philosophic exchange at its best seeks to fuel the reader's pursuit of self-realization by pointing to modes of attunement to aspects of reality previously missed. It is my seeing informed and expanded by others'. Hadot shows how philosophic understanding grows through this process of progressive integration of multiple perspective worlds, towards ever-greater approximation of the ideal of a universal perspective, in which the fullest concept of unity can be experientially realized. Our usual academic methods of purely discursive, exegetic and theoretical philosophizing fall short of the philosophic insights we could glean by such personally-transformative methods.

Hadot takes seriously the ancient ideal of philosophy as paideia (or education in the service of self-realization), which saw the attainment of philosophic perspective over one's life as the fullest consummation of the developmental trajectory of the human psyche. Unlike other animals, the human animal is a self-birthing animal. Philosophy is the consciously-regulated process of that self-birthing.
We begin the life of consciousness in a state of fragmentation and seemingly irresolvable flux. The most powerful (and perennially relevant) spiritual exercises he describes concern this effort to integrate our psyche into a working unity, a perspective capable of unifying the flux, ambiguity, paradox, and fragmentation of our experience.

All the philosophic schools he describes urge us that in order to realize the inherent potentialities of our experience, we must place it in a universal perspective by relating it to general principles via sustained meditation. The ultimate goal is the cognition of the unity of things through the fully realized unity of the self. Philosophy can only attain this developmental goal if it is more than an abstract, academic exercise, but is grounded instead in the context of a sustained life-practice via spiritual exercises which teach us how to relate the most universal principles (which differ slightly in emphasis with each school) to the most concrete, intimate details of our lived experience.

All the philosophic schools he describes share one this one crucial exercise in common: the effort to take a reflective step back from our usual ego-centred selves in order to place our personal experience in the context of the most universal perspective attainable. For each, “philosophy signified the effort to raise up mankind from individuality and particularity to universality and objectivity.” Our sustained effort to conceive reality as a whole makes a unity out of our scattered experience and reveals our true relationship to being. The self thus becomes a genuine, fully-living unity only when it strives against its limitations to vividly conceive the unity of the whole. Above all, the effort to escape from the confines of ego-centered perspective by vividly imagining and meditating on the expanse of infinities within infinities is liberating. It is empowering, by bringing the self back to a more accurate estimate of the values of things than is given us by our culture. In the end, this exercise leads to the realization that the most essential values cannot be derived from adherence to external conditions, but spring rather from the quality of our presence to ourselves and to the world. Most importantly, this spiritual exercise he describes as the basis for genuine theoretical insight and for truly moral action.

Each school he discusses agrees that two key components of this exercise are the confrontation with death and the insistence on the absolute value of the present moment. The meditation on our death throws us back on the present moment, which we recognize as the only absolute in our purview. We do not see the present moment rightly until it becomes for us both the first and the last moment of life – which it invariably is. Only the present is our own. Yet it is an inexhaustible sufficiency, carrying within it the germ of perennially renewable creation. The value of the present moment is given theoretical formulation in philosophies, such as Stoicism and Epicureanism, which affirm the mutual implication of all things with all others, and that “the whole universe is present in each part of reality”:

“For them, each instant and each present moment imply the entire universe, and the whole history of the world. Just as each instant presupposes the immensity of time, so does our body presuppose the whole universe. It is within ourselves that we can experience the coming-into-being of reality and the presence of being. By becoming conscious of one single instant of our lives, one single beat of our hearts, we can feel ourselves linked to the entire immensity of the cosmos....

...by concentrating one's attention on one instant, one moment of the world: the world then seems to come into being and be born before our eyes. We then perceive the world as a “nature” in the etymological sense of the world: physis, that movement of growth and birth by which things manifest themselves. We experience ourselves as a moment or instant of this movement; this immense event which reaches beyond us, is always there before us, and is always beyond us. We are born along with the world.”

He describes the fundamental philosophic attitude as “prosoche,” or living in sustained attention to the present, which is a living always at the beginnings of life, not at its culturally pre-fabricated ends. Death emerges as the universal solvent which dissolves everything but the value of personally transformative insight the seed of which is in each moment of life. Attention to the moment against the ever-present background of death concentrates the self's powers, such that it can at last leap out of its exclusive identification with itself in order to genuinely engage with reality outside itself. That is, the encounter with death alone can make us true knowers.

Philosophy is not just about education and psychological consummation. It is also about therapy. It seeks to heal that part of us that remains unengaged by our culture, and that always nags and torments us by asking for “something more” even in our most glowing moments of immersive experience in the world at hand. In this guise, philosophy seeks to answer to the needs of that part of our being that is scarcely nourished by most of our lives in society. It seeks the mode of its healing, and strives to lift it up from its gutter, dust it off, give it voice, and put its pieces back together in the way they were supposed to fit. Once brought forth, it hobbles awkwardly and we'd wish to be rid of it again for the sake of functionality, but the best of philosophy is the nagging gadfly that will not grant us lasting peace of mind through self-forgetfulness.

In contrast to this personally-engaged mode of reading philosophy, which supplies content to the conceptual husk of the text via spiritual exercises, we are rather used by habits derived from our Analytic tradition to expect philosophic texts to dish out for us pre-masticated, aseptic (and therefore anemic) content that we can survey from a remove, without engaging ourselves in any thoroughgoing way in the joint pursuit of insight that was once, in dialectic, the heart of philosophic practice. Logic-chopping and conceptual analysis are the standard of rigour for us, even if our rigour comes at the expense of existential irrelevance. Life in the world goes on untouched by our formal philosophies. This mode of philosophizing purchases formal rigour at the cost of missing the central content of philosophy, which is self-realization. As Hadot notes:

“the same thing happens in every spiritual exercise: we must let ourselves be changed, in our point of view, attitudes, and convictions. This means that we must dialogue with ourselves, and hence we must do battle with ourselves.”

"We must let ourselves be changed" by a philosophy if we are to understand it. We must enter the perspectival universe which we'd seek to criticize.

Moreover, the content of a philosophy is often to be discerned between the lines. It is a dialectic, a dialogue, between us readers and the writer. More specifically, the content of a philosophy is the differential between our mode and level of spiritual development and that of the writer. So, a key spiritual exercise is to learn to dialogue, to snap out of our natural, self-sealed monologues in order to learn to genuinely attend to the presence of others. In doing so, we more fully bring into articulateness the meaning of the presence within us. The ancients can show us that friendship, in its truest meaning, is a joint spiritual practice:

“The intimate connection between dialogue with others and dialogue with oneself is profoundly significant. Only he who is capable of a genuine encounter with the other is capable of an authentic encounter within himself, and the converse is equally true. Dialogue can only be genuine within the framework of presence to others and to oneself. From this perspective, every spiritual exercise is a dialogue, insofar as it is an exercise of authentic presence, to oneself and to others.”

No personal struggle + no personal engagement in the process of mutual transformation = no philosophic meaning.

In the end, what the ancients can teach us is that happiness lies in the return to the essential values of life, in living in accord with our true nature, and in achieving the fullest relation with being-as-it-is that we are capable of. Above all, it lies in transcending the ego-centred orientation to life in favour of a more universal perspective. In this, each philosophy recognizes that self-realization involves self-transcendence. We are the most universal perspective that we are capable of attaining. Hadot urges us not to subjectivize the “care of the self” that the spiritual exercises represent:

“Thus, all spiritual exercises are, fundamentally, a return to the self, in which the self is liberated from the state of alienation into which it has been plunged by worries, passions, and desires. The “self” liberated in this way is no longer merely our egoistic, passionate individuality: it is our moral person, open to universality and objectivity, and participating in universal nature and thought.”

Such a cosmic perspective radically alters our awareness of ourselves. Hadot insists that while the worldview of modern science, which tends to quantitative, impersonal representations of nature, is nonetheless compatible with the ancient spiritual exercises which reveal the self not merely as isolated individual, but as -part- of a whole. It is this feeling, realized at the end of sustained practice, that is our ultimate response to the fear of death.

I could conclude perhaps with Hadot's reminder that, to know ourselves, we must know ourselves as “philo-sophos” - not as knowers (because we never really are), but as lovers of knowledge, at a stage on the journey to realization. Who we are is precisely the degree of our distance from this center of our lives, from our ultimate realization as the unique selves that we are, with their incomparable modes of inhabiting and revealing being that they have. Hadot doesn't have much of a creed, and in this lies his greatest honesty. He cannot be pegged as either a materialist or idealist. His thought grows instead from that experiential source that lies beyond all philosophical creeds, and he asks us to grow ours from the same inexhaustible ground.

In the end, he changes the way you read ALL philosophy. Plato, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, he shows, can each be best understood as inheritors of ancient spiritual exercises. Behind their explicit theories lies an implicit existential orientation to a certain model of human perfectibility. Their goal is not theoretical insight for its own sake. Rather, theory is used by each as an instrument that is an integral part of a larger life practice aimed at transforming the reader's entire orientation to life, by offering a vision of what our fuller being might be. They attempt to show ways of relating to ourselves and to the world that draw on more of our capacity for knowing and for experiencing meaning than we usually do.

“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 these truths 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.'”

And now we need a comparative study of the "old truths" and spiritual exercises of the West to those of other cultures, especially those of Indian and Chinese philosophy.

[withdrawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exceptional book. Highly recommended.

I Blocked. Not only have I struggled with writing this review, but I have let it get in the way of others reviews. Time to get over it so here goes.

Point 1. If you want to read an overarching review of this excellent book, read Elena’s review below. She serves the author, Pierre Hadot, well.

Point 2. In my view, ‘Philosophy as a Way of Life’ is really about attaining the “good life”. This is not to be confused with “living the good life” as defined as having everything you need in life and not having to struggle for it. (I’ve got that but it’s really not anything like the “good life”.) Nor is it about joining a gym and promising yourself that you’re going to go. It’s also not about the life some of you are seeking by buying books on how to get rich, starting your own business on the internet or, making friends and influencing people. That last one could maybe be part of it though, depending on how you approach it. The “good life” was a concept held by most Ancient Greek philosophers. They were seeking a way to live their lives that would make it fulfilling or ‘right’ in the sense that they were living in tune with the cosmos (so to speak). The “good life” was really what Socrates was after.

3. Hadot wants his readers to take a new look at ancient Greek philosophers beyond the teachings of modern day academics, beyond the view of the ancients as a bunch of dry pedagogues and scriveners. This book is a call for “Philosophy as a Way of Life”. A call for his readers to approach the Greeks from their standpoint, the standpoint that says that philosophy is about living. The goal is to discover road to the”good life” and to walk that road, not just read about it. The goal lies in practice as it was described in Ancient Greek philosophies. To this end, Hadot discusses the main schools of thought coming out of that time and place: Platonism, Aristotelianism , Stoicism, Epicureanism, Cynicism and Pyrrhonism.

4. Although Hadot presents us with this list in his earlier essay, he, in fact, focuses on Stoicism and Epicureanism with some discussion of Socrates/Plato and Aristotle, barely doing more than mentioning Cynicism and Pyrrhonism. From my perspective, this last is something of a disappointment for I most closely identify with Pyrrhonism. It would have seen more on the sceptical schools but there are other sources. Sextus Impiricus provides the closest thing there is to a guide to Pyrrhonic ‘practice’ to be found in Ancient philosophy. (Although Hadot dismisses Buddhism as a source of such practice, I find there to be a great deal of parallel thought between Mahayana Buddhist philosophy and Pyrrhonism.)

Point 5. I would suggest that Hadot would agree that just as one cannot become a Buddhist without practicing a path to Buddhism; and one cannot become a Christian without practicing one of the forms of Christianity; or, indeed, become an auto mechanic without practicing the craft of auto mechanics, it is also not possible to become a philosopher without practicing philosophy. This is more than simply reading a bunch of books, or teaching some courses on the topic. It is necessary to practice the vocation, to learn what is involved and to take it into one’s daily life. Not an easy thing to do - but quite rewarding. Take it up as a full time vocation. It’s fun and rewarding - even more so than ‘making friends and influencing people”. Thanks Elena.

[Omar Kassem · Rating 5 out of 5]

"مَعيبٌ أن تتأذى من هذه الأشياء مثلما هو معيب أن تشكو من رشاش ماءٍ نالك في الحمام ، أو من أنك دُفعتَ في زحام ، أو تلوثتَ في بركة وحل صغيرة . يحدث الشيء نفسه في الحياة مثلما يحدث في الحمامات وفي الزحام وفي الطريق.. الحياة ليست شيئا رقيقا!!"

يعمل هذا الكتاب المبهر على إحياء تقليد مفقود في عالم القراءة عند الأعم الأغلب، وهي عملية الفهم، وبخاصة الفهم المُعتمد على الممارسة الفلسفية..
يُوضح لنا الكاتب كيف يمكن ان تكون الفلسفة أكثر من مجرد مسعى نظري بحت، بل هي ممارسة عملية وتمرين يشمل مجمل كيان المرء، الغرض والغاية منه يكون تكامل أكبر لجميع قدراتنا على التجربة...
الممارسة الفلسفية تعمق فهمنا لأنفسنا وللآخر والعالم!

تتغير الطريقة التي نقرأ بها كل الفلسفة. ويوضح لنا الكاتب ان أفلاطون وكيركجارد ونيتشه يمكن فهمهم على أفضل وجه على أنهم ورثة للتدريبات الروحية القديمة.
يكمن وراء نظرياتهم الصريحة توجه وجودي ضمني لنموذج معين من الكمال البشري. هدفهم ليس البصيرة النظرية في حد ذاتها. بدلاً من ذلك ، يتم استخدام النظرية من قبل كل واحد منهم كأداة تشكل جزءًا لا يتجزأ من ممارسة حياة أكبر تهدف إلى تحويل اتجاه القارئ بالكامل إلى الحياة ، من خلال تقديم رؤية لما يمكن أن يكون عليه وجودنا الكامل.
إنهم يحاولون إظهار طرق للتواصل مع أنفسنا وبالعالم تعتمد على قدر أكبر من قدرتنا على المعرفة واختبار المعنى أكثر مما نفعل عادة ما أطلق عليها الكاتب الحقائق القديمة
هناك بعض الحقائق التي لن تستنفد الأجيال البشرية معناها أبدًا، ليس الأمر أنها صعبة، على العكس من ذلك ، فهي غالبًا ما تكون بسيطة للغاية، بل في كثير من الأحيان تبدو مبتذلة،ومع ذلك ، لكي تُفهم هذه الحقائق ، يجب أن تُعاش وإعادة تجربتها باستمرار!
يجب على كل جيل أن يتولى ، من الصفر ، مهمة تعلم القراءة وإعادة قراءة هذه "الحقائق القديمة". والآن نحن بحاجة إلى دراسة مقارنة "للحقائق القديمة" والتدريبات الروحية للغرب مع تلك الخاصة بالثقافات الأخرى ، وخاصة تلك الخاصة بالفلسفة الهندية والصينية...

[Pia G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

hadot bu kitabında da bize, felsefenin sadece akademik bir çalışma olmadığını, aynı zamanda bir yaşam tarzı olduğunu güçlü bir şekilde hatırlatıyor. kitap, felsefenin modern dünyada neye dönüştüğünü sorgularken, kökenine dönerek antik düşünürlerin asıl amaçlarına ışık tutuyor: insanları daha iyi, daha bilinçli bireyler haline getirmek.

kitapta, özellikle stoacı ve epikürosçu okulların üzerinde durduğu ruhsal egzersizler, bireyin zihinsel durumunu geliştirmek, korkularını yenmek ve doğayla uyum içinde yaşamak için tasarlanmıştır. bu bağlamda, hadot ilkçağ filozoflarının sadece teorisyenler değil, aynı zamanda 'ruh doktorları' olarak hareket ettiklerini ortaya koyuyor. bu noktada büyük bir aydınlanma yaşadım: felsefe sadece düşünmek değil, kendimizi yeniden yaratmaktır. modern yaşamın hızına kapılan bizler için bir duraklama anı adeta ve hadot’nun söylediği de felsefenin hayatımızın her anında uygulanabilir olması gerektiği.

günlük stres, kaygı ve hedefler arasında sıkışan bizler, hadot’nun rehberliğinde adeta felsefenin derinliklerine inerek daha anlamlı bir yaşamın kapılarını aralayabiliriz diye düşünüyorum.

[Mary-Jean Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great book, though not at all like I expected. It was a series of lectures about practices in ancient philosophy (primarily Stoicism, Epicurianism, and Platonism) and how they are focused on living a good life. I expected a practical guide, but this was more of a historical overview of the philosophies that talk about living a philosophical life. If you want to know how philosophy can be applied to your life (the spiritual exercises spoken of in this book), you have to read the books the author is talking about rather than this book. But saying that, it was an amazing guidebook and having read some of the works he talks about (e.g., Marcus Aurelius' Meditations) I have a new understanding of them and am better able to apply the wisdom within them in my life. So this definitely gets 5/5 stars!

[Massimo Pigliucci · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the three books that comprise Pierre Hadot's landmark trilogy on practical philosophy (the other two are The Inner Citadel and What is Ancient Philosophy?). Although the structure of the book isn't quite as linear and compelling as that of The Inner Citadel, the section on spiritual exercises is a must read. At the time of this review (July '22) I am preparing to write a multi-part series of essays on the book for my Medium publication, not at all coincidentally entitled Philosophy as a Way of Life.

[Tiago F · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's impossible to understate the importance of this book, and I'm somewhat embarrassed that I have no read it before. And I'm baffled at the lack of its popularity.

What the book argues is that philosophy as we currently conceptualize it is in some ways deeply misguided. Far from being an abstract and purely intellectual enterprise, philosophy as its core was a way of life, as the title implies.

Hadot was a historian of philosophy specializing in ancient philosophy, and he brings a new light to how we view philosophy in the past. One of the large problems of studying philosophy is that we are inherently divorced from it, culturally and linguistically, in which many of its core ideas get lost.

One of the first things he draws attention to is how we think of ancient philosophical books is wrong before we even read them. The books follow a literary and conceptual structure which is a byproduct of their time, but we inherently frame old books in how we currently think of books. For example, we think of Augustine's Confessions as the first autobiography in the West, but Hadot argues that many details of the books indicate that it's much less an autobiography than commonly thought. Some of the events and histories are allegories for mankind, and the way he tells is part of how the work is constructed.

Another instance of ancient Greek philosophy. The texts that survive we now consider them manuals of the philosophy of their authors, but they are not written that way, since philosophical teaching was for the most part in oral form, and philosophy wasn't thought of being possible from writing and reading alone. The texts were only supplements for classes, sometimes little more than scribbled notes. This is likely what creates many of the incoherences and contradictions of ancient texts. To read an ancient author is nothing like reading a contemporary author and requires extensive knowledge of the culture to which he belonged.

Problems such as these prevented the West in modernity to realize the true nature of philosophy: personal transformation into a wiser human being. One way of achieving that was what he calls "spiritual exercises", which are philosophical practices that make that transformation happen. Perhaps the best illustration of which being Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, which is deeply misunderstood. Aurelius wasn't writing knowledge propositions, but rather practising ways of conceptualizing the world to better be able to grasp reality and act virtuously.

Philosophy was the process in which one became wiser. It was far from simply a profession of creating or discussing abstract ideas. In fact, individuals were philosophers in so far as they acted philosophically, which could include people who weren't scholars or professors. Hence Christianity at the beginning being called "Christian philosophy". The main goal wasn't specific beliefs, but living a Christian way of life. It was a way of being.

The latter was also partially responsible for the decay of the connection between philosophy and wisdom. In the Middle ages, spiritual exercises were increasingly associated with the spiritual life and practice of Christian monks, and philosophy became nothing but a "servant of theology" with logical argumentation.

The value of the book is immense, and in addition to the broad points I've made, the details Hadot goes into are incredibly insightful. He spends a large amount of time discussing two figures in particular: Socrates and Marcus Aurelius, and seeing his arguments "embodied" in these authors was fantastic.

The book does have its flaws. Sometimes the historical analysis or criticisms of specific arguments for a given interpretation get a bit tedious. It also tends to repeat the same ideas throughout the book. This likely accounts for the book not being more popular. I wish someone wrote a book that discusses these ideas but in a shorter, more concise format. The ideas could easily be transmitted in half the length. This would make it much more friendly to those outside of the field of philosophy and history.

But despite this, the book is still very enjoyable to read. This one is one of the few books that I would say that if you're interested in philosophy, it is a must-read. You may study philosophy for decades and easily miss the core argument that Hadot offers. Doing so would be shamefully beyond comprehension and an offence towards the wisdom accumulated throughout millennia by the smartest people who ever lived. It

[Milan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forma razgovora, ili zapravo intervjua, u kom na odlična pitanja, koja se tiču mahom predmeta Adoovih filozofskih interesovanja, slede jasni i odmereni odgovori: proizvod višedecenijskog rada i zdravorazumskih stavova koji su često izostajali kod pojedinih njegovih savremenika. Knjiga od prve do poslednje strane drži pažnju, nije zahtevna, ne nastoji da poduči, a opet pomalo to i čini. Kao posledica čitanja može se razviti želja za ozbiljnim izučavanjem Plotinovog dela.

[Ahmed Oraby · Rating 4 out of 5]

قد تكون ميزة الكتاب الوحيدة - وإن شئت العدل، قلت الكبرى - أنه ونظرًا لتاريخ إصداره، فهو أهم وأكبر وأشمل الكتب التي تهتم بالفلسفة كفن للعيش، والفلسفة الحياتية، والفلسفة كعملية، وكعلاج، وممارسة، وكنظرية وتطبيق، وليس من المستبعد أن نعد الكتاب وكاتبه أبًا لكل ما صدر ويصدر ليومنا هذا من كتب ومؤلفات تضم أفكار الرواقية والإبيقورية والمسيحية والبوذية وفلاسفة التصوف المسيحي واليهودي
الكتاب ضخم للغاية ويجمع بين دفتيه كل ما يمكن أن يكون ذا علاقة من قريب أو بعيد بالفلسفة والحكمة وبالتالي الألم وطرق تجنبه، وبالتالي يتقاطع الكتاب كثيرا مع الدين والموت والخلود والله والشيطان والإيمان والإلحاد
تظل الإبيقورية للآن فلسفتي الحياتية المفضلة، ولا تزال لليوم الرواقية هي عدوي الأول، الذي ما يني يخيب ظني من آن لآخر بقصد أو من دون.
لكن على الرغم من ذلك لا زلت أجدني - غصبا - أقترب منها وأتسامح معها بدون وعي، وأفاجأ من ذوبان الحدود بينها وبين الإبيقورية في عديد من المسائل المتعلقة بالحكمة النظرية أكتر من العملية.
كتاب جميل، ولا شك. ويستحق لا القراءة فقط، لكن المدارسة، والمطالعة والممارسة قيد المستطاع.
ترجمة عادل مصطفى كالعادة لا يعلى عليها، وإن كان بها - كعادة ترجماته - بعد الحذلقة، والتي أجدها أحيانا ضرورية، وتباهٍ أجده مستحق.

[Uroš Đurković · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nije slučajno što upravo knjiga razgovora nosi ovakav naslov. Današnje mnjenje o filozofiji svodi se na sliku o okoštaloj, često i zaumnoj akademskoj disciplini čiji je domet prvenstveno vezan za neki oblik nastavne prakse. Filozofija je, dakle, ono što se uči na kursevima istorije filozofije. Razmatranja njenog statusa su samo dopričavanja, ne preterano korisna i produktivna. Svakodnevica je, dakle, ne-filozofija.

Pjer Ado je, srećom, starovremen čovek.

Nesavremenost nije isto što i neaktuelnost, a Ado upravo, posredstvom pre svega antičkih mislilaca, donosi svež pogled na stvarnost. Pristalica je klasičnog, filološkog pristupa starim tekstovima, a neretko su njegovi pogledi obojeni i hrišćanskim obrazovanjem. Ipak, kao svaki veliki um, Ado nadilazi opšte odrednice koje mu se pripisuju. Zanimljivo je njegovo insistiranje na kontekstualnoj i diskurzivnoj prirodi ostvarenja antičkih filozofa. Sveža mi je bila pomisao da sfera podrazumevanog nije istovetna današnjem i, u najširem smislu, ne-savremenom čoveku, te da, u odnosu na to, filozofska dela nisu u antici (samo) sistem, već svedočanstvo metoda! Uvek je posredi nekakav razgovor, ili povod za njega. Dakle, ključna kategorija filozofije je interakcija - a ona je sve samo ne ona često prisutna predstava koju sam naveo na početku. Filozofija nas vodi naivnijem pogledu na svet. Njega otključava čuđenje. A čudeći se, tragamo i živimo celovitije.

Ado nije cinik, akademsko self-help naklapalo i mistifikator, niti hiperaktivni entuzijasta. Ima neku finu meru. (Antičku?)

O utiscima dovoljno, svim znatiželjnicima koje makar malo interesuje ova oblast, topla preporuka!

[Ragad · Rating 5 out of 5]

الأسئلة الشائعة :

مكان شراء ؟ متجر صفحات

السعر ؟39 ريال

عدد الصفحات ؟404 صفحه

مستوى القراءة ؟ من متوسط الى صعب

قبل أن ابدأ بكتابة مراجعتي ، يهمني ذكر أن مقدمة هذا الكتاب و التي كانت بقلم عادل مصطفى من افضل المقدمات على الأطلاق ، جرت العادة على تجاهلي للمقدمات لطولها و لأنها لا تحوي على الشيء الذي من اجله اقتنيت الكتاب ، لكن هنا كانت كالكتيب الصغير داخل كتابٍ عظيم .

و للمقدمة اثر عظيم علي و ألهمتني الصبر على مواضيع كثيرة كنت اجهلها و اصعبها . الترجمة هنا كانت افضل و ايسر ترجمة و لا اعتقد انها ستكون بهذه الروعة إن لم تكن بأسلوب عادل مصطفى ، ولهذا كان الكتاب رائع و ممتع .

- كانت غاية الفلسفي التكوين لا التلقين

احدى الأفكار التي بدأ فيها الكتاب ، وأرى انه كان من المهم وضعها بالمقدمة ؛ لتهيئة القارئ و تذكيره أنما يقرأ فهو يقرأ لنفسه ، وأي ما كان ما يستوعبه فيجب عليه تحكيم عقله و ألا ينجرف مع الأفكار وحدها .

- بينما نتحدث فَرَّ الزمن الغيور

بجانب تحكيم عقلك ، أشار الكتاب الى أهمية “ أن تقبض على اللحظة “ و أن في اللحظة الحاضرة فقط ، يجتمع المستقبل و الماضي و المعنى كله ، لا سعادة تُرجى في المستقبل و لا حنيناً للماضي ، كله هنا و الان “ بوسعك أن تكون سعيداً الان و إلا فلن تكون سعيداً ابداً”

- انهم لا ينهارون تحت ضربات القدر

من اهم الأفكار و التي ظل الكاتب يذكرها طوال الفصول هي ان تَحسّب ما قد يأتي بيومك هذا و ما انت بصانعٍ فيه يعود بالنفع إليك و يكسبك الهدوء لتنعم بالسلام في يومك ، يقول سنكا “ معيب أن تتأذى من هذ الأشياء مثل مثلما ما هو معيب أن تشكو من رشاش ماء نالك بالحمام ، او من أنك دُفعت في زحام ، او تلوثت في بركة وحل صغيرة . يحدث الشيء نفسُه في الحياة مثلما يحدث في الحمامات و في الزحام و في الطريق “ “ الحياة ليست شيئاً رقيقاً” . و ما يجب فعله كما ذُكر ان تستعرض المواقف في ذهنك في بداية اليوم ما قد يحدث من خير وشر و تعد نفسك ، تجنباً للأنفعالات و تهيئةً للنفس .

- الكل متعجل لأن الكل هارب من نفسه

في حين أن الحياة تمشي برتم العادة و يمضي الكل في طريقة ، و لا يكادوا يتفكرون فيما ما حولهم او في انفسهم ، و كأن لعنة ما أُلقيت ، كل ما يمثلونه و ما يقفون من اجله كل صباح مجرد “قناع” لا احد قد تفكّر وسأل عن السبب الأكبر ؛ لأن عندما يتم التشكيك في خلية واحده من مصفوفة ، سيسقط كل ما بنوه ، و لسوف يؤرقهم معرفة ان كل ما رأوه قابل للهدم و التشكيك ليس ثابتاً كما اعتقدوا و ان الان يجب عليهم البحث عن جدار اخر ليلقوا عليه أفكارهم .



ذكر الكتاب الكثير من الفلاسفة مثل نيتشه ،كيركجاد ، ماركوس أوريليوس ، سقراط و افلاطون

لا ينتهي الأمر بالمواضيع أعلاه ،بل الكتاب يحوي اكثر وربما افضل مما قمت بصياغته ، إعادة قراءة كتب كهذا هي حاجةً؛ النفس البشرية بحاجة للتذكير و التكرار ، فنحن ننساب و ننسى بسهولة ، فوجب علينا ان نتولى امر انفسنا وأن نتحمل المسؤولية .

تم بحمد الله

[Davis Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent look at the classical meaning of philosophy, with some acute and helpful readings of Plato, Hellenistic philosophies, the monastic habitus mentis, and some select 19th-century thinkers. Worthy of gracing the shelves of any lover of the West.

[Yashvir Dalaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hadot's clear-cut understanding of the Hellenistic schools of philosophy, particularly Stoicism and Epicureanism, is manifestly presented, albeit in thesis form, in this book. He points out how philosophy, in its current practice, has become more about abstract theorizing on the manner of the universe and our own lives, from its purpose in antiquity of serving as a practical guide to a "way of life".

This book will serve more as an exposition of the several schools of philosophical thought that propound their atomistically different, but holistically similar ideologies, rather than as a thorough guide to learning those spiritual exercises of which the title, somewhat disingenuously, alludes to.

Summing up, this is a great book for those who wish greater lucidity on the ofttimes mystical and hard-to-grasp nature of antiquated philosophy.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for anyone interested in ancient philosophy and seekers of wisdom. This book has a great way of explaining how it was when philosophy was a way of life and will give you suggestions on how to think for yourself and for the present moment.

[كَنْدِيد · Rating 5 out of 5]

«فِرَّ كل يوم! ولو لحظة، مهما تكن ضئيلة ما دامت مكثفة. مارسْ كل يوم (تدريبًا روحيًّا)�� فرديًّا أو بمعية إنسان يود هو أيضًا أن يرتقي بنفسه … خَلِّ الزمن الاعتيادي وراء ظهرك. ابذلْ جهدًا لكي تُخلِّص نفسك من أهوائك الخاصة … كن أبديًّا بأن تتجاوز نفسك. هذا الجهد الباطن ضروري، هذا الطموح عادل. ما أكثر أولئك المستغرقين بكُليَّتهم في السياسة النضالية، استعدادًا للثورة الاجتماعية! وما أندر أولئك الذين لكي يستعدوا للثورة، يريدون أن يكونوا جديرين بها»

- جورج فريدمان
 
العام الماضي قرأت المختصر لابكتيتوس وقبله التأملات لماركوس اوريليوس وفي بداية العام أثناء تجهيز قائمة القراءة وقع اختياري على هذا الكتاب باعتباره ضمن الكتب الشارحة للفلسفة الرواقية. وأحمد الله على اختيار هذا الكتاب الذي لا تكفيه قراءة واحدة...بل يمكن الاستعاضة به عن كل الكتب في الفلسفة الرواقية.

في الجزء الأول، يقف الكاتب على المنهج المتّبع قديمًا وحديثًا في إنتاج وتفسير الفلسفة القديمة والوسيطة، متناولًا أخطاء التأويل، ومركزية النصوص القديمة، وعلاقة المسيحية بالفلسفة.

أما في الجزء الثاني، فينفذ إلى جوهر الفلسفة القديمة، محاولًا تقديمها كما كانت تُمارس فعليًا: "تدريبات روحية" لا مجرد خطاب نظري كما تُعرض اليوم على أيدي المؤرخين والفلاسفة المعاصرين. إذ يرى "أن فعل التفلسف هو أن تمارس فن العيش، أن تعرف كيف تعيش، عن وعي وحرية: وعي نتجاوز به حدود فرديتنا ونعي بأنفسنا كجزء من كونٍ مفعم بالعقل، وحرية بمعنى أن نُقلع عن أن نرغب فيما لا يعتمد علينا وما يخرج عن سيطرتنا، وأن نُعنى فحسب بما يعتمد علينا: أفعالنا العادلة القويمة المسايرة للعقل."

يستند الكاتب إلى أمثلة من مدارس فلسفية كالرواقية، والأبيقورية، والأفلاطونية، والكلبية، ويقدّم نماذج من بعض الشخوص مثل ماركوس أوريليوس، وأبكتيتوس، وأبيقور، وأفلاطون، وسقراط، كمجسدين للفكرة المركزية: الفلسفة كطريقة عيش، وتدريبٍ روحي.

10/5

[Magdi · Rating 4 out of 5]

.
"ما الإنسان؟ إناء يمكن لأدنى اهتزاز أو حركة أن تكسره… جسد ضعيف، وهش، عارٍ، عاجز عن الدفاع عن نفسه في حالته الطبيعية، معتمد على الآخرين، ومعرض لجميع إهانات القدر." | سينيكا

لا شك بأن الحياة البشرية اختلفت اختلافًا كبيرًا بين الماضي والحاضر، وقد سبب هذا الاختلاف تطور الحضارة الإنسانيّة وتغيرة أشكال وأنماط معيشتها، فلم نعد نحيا كأسلافنا عُزلًا وسط طبيعة قاسية لا رادع لهم ولا ملجأ أمام تقلباتها وكوارثها المهلكة. لكن على الرغم من التقدم والتطور الكبير الذي وصلنا إليه؛ الذي قد يصيب الإنسان بالغرور ويحسب (أن لن يقدر عليه أحد) إلا أنه عاجزًا على الوقوف بصلابة أمام مصاعب حياته الفردية؛ فأرواحنا هشّة عزلاء أمام الحياة، ينهشها القلق من الداخل أمام أي تهديد أو خطر، تصاب بالإحباط كلما تغيرت دفة القدر في اتجاه مخالف لرغباتها، وتسيطر عليها مشاعر والقلق، والخوف من الموت والمستقبل.

إلا أن أسلافنا القدماء وجدوا في الفلسفة بعض العزاء والسلام الداخلي من أجل أرواحهم المتعبة، فالفلسفة تُعين المرء على هول الحياة ومرارة العيش. وتجعله أكثر صلابة أمام تهديدات الحياة، وتقلبات القدر. "لقد كان القدماء مثلنا يحملون عبء الماضي، ولا يقين المستقبل، وخوف الموت. والحق أنه إنما لهذا الكرب الإنساني سَعَت الفلسفات القديمة - وبخاصة الأبيقورية والرواقية - إلى تقديم علاج. كانت الفلسفات علاجات، قُصِدَ بها تقديم شفاء من الكرب وجلب الحرية والسيادة على النفس، وكان / هدفها أن تتيح للناس أن يُحرّروا أنفسهم من الماضي والمستقبل لكي يتمكنوا من العيش في الحاضر."

كانت الفلسفةُ في العصر القديم علاجًا للانفعالات المرضية: الأهواء المنفلتة والمخاوف الموهنة، التي تسيطر على الإنسان وتحرمه من أن يعيش حياةً حقيقية. "كانت الفلسفةُ تدريبًا روحيًا يفضي إلى تحول عميقٍ في أسلوبِ المرءِ في الرؤيةِ وفي الوجود." تُعين المرء على هول الحياة ومرارة العيش. ومن شأن مهمة كهذه أن تبيّن أهمية الجانب العملي من الفكر، وأن الجانب النظري يحل في المرتبة الثانية، "ولا تكون له قيمة إلا بقدر ما يُترجم إلى حياة، وبقدرِ ما يُعاش ويُمارس". فالفلسفة القديمة لم تكن بناءً نظريًا يبحث ويضع النظريات حول معضلات الكون، والإجابات عن الأسئلة الكبرى المحيطة بالوجود، بل اعتبروها فنًا للعيش، وطريقة حياة وعزاء ومواساة وممارسة علاجية، "كانت الفلسفة القديمة تقترح على الجنس البشري فنّا للعيش. وعلى العكس من ذلك تبدو الفلسفة الحديثة، فوق كل شيء، كنشييد لرطانة تكنيكية مقصورة على المتخصصين."

لم تعد الفلسفة في الجامعة الحديثة طريقة حياة أو فن للعيش كما كانت في السابق. فالفلسفة الحديثة حسب بيير هادو: خطاب ينشأ في الفصل الدراسي، ليس متجهًا إلى أناس يرجى تعليمهم لكي يصبحوا كائنات بشرية ناضجة، بل متجهًا إلى متخصصين لكي يدربوا متخصصين آخرين. و"هذا هو خطر "السكولائية " Scholasticism، ذلك النزوع الفلسفي الذي بدأ في التشكل في نهاية العصر القديم وبلغ أشده في العصور الوسطى، والذي يمكن تمييز وجوده في الفلسفة اليوم" إن عنصر الفلسفة وبيئتها النشطة هذه الأيام هو المؤسسة التعليمية الحكومية ؛ وقد كان هذا دائمًا، وربما لا يزال خطرًا على استقلالها وبتعبير شوبنهاور: "بصفة عامة فإن فلسفة الجامعة مجرد مبارزة أما المرآة. وهدفها في النهاية هو أن تقدم للطلاب آراء توافق هوى الوزير الذي يمنح الكراسي الجامعية ... والنتيجة أن هذه الفلسفة الممولة حكوميا تجعل من الفلسفة أضحوكة".

يرى الكاتب أن الفلسفة الحقيقية انتهت بانتهاء الحقبة القديمة -اليونانية والرومانية- التي كان التفلسف فيها وسيلة تُعين على العيش، وهو الجوهر الأساسي للفلسفة. "الفلسفة في العصر القديم تدريبًا يمارس في كل لحظة. إنها تدعونا إلى أن نركز في كل انةٍ من آناتِ الحياة، كي نصبح على وعي بالقيمة اللانهائية لكل لحظة حاضرة فور وضعها داخل منظور الكون؛ فتدريب الحكمةِ يستلزم بُعدًا كونيا. وبينما فَقَدَ الشخص العادي صلته بالعالم، ولم يعد يرى العالم بما هو عالم بل يتعامل معه كوسيلة لإشباع رغباته، فإن الحكيم لا يغفل طَرفةَ عين عن تَمثْلِ الكلِّ أمامَ عقلِه. إنه يفكر ويفعل داخل المنظور الكوني، وإن لديه شعورًا بالانتماء إلى الكل الذي يتجاوز حدود فرديته."

الفلسفة كي نحيا بها تقتضي مجموعة من (التدريبات الروحية)، ومنها: أن نتعلّم كيف نحيا، أن نتعلم كيف نحاور، أن نتعلم كيف نموت، أن نتعلم كيف نقرأ، وللقراءة هنا خصوصياتها وفراداتها، فلا يتعلق الأمر بالتعليق على النصوص، وتفسيرها؛ لكن بالقراءة كأسلوب في الحياة، "فنحن نقضِي أعمارَنا (نقرأ)، أي نُجرِي تفسيرات، بل وأحيانًا تفسيراتٍ لِتفسيرات. إلا أننا نسينا كيف نقرأ، كيف نتوقفُ ونحررُ أنفسَنا من شواغلنا، ونعودُ إلى أنفسنا ونتخلى عن بحثنا عن الحِذق والجِدة، لكي نتأملَ بهدوء ونَجتَرَّ ونتركَ النصوصَ تتحدث إلينا". يقول مارتين هيدجر في كتابه (الطريق إلى اللغة) متحدثًا عما ينبغي على القارئ أن يفعله بإزاء نص ينتمي إلى أزمنة وأمكنة أخرى؛ كما هو الحال مع الفلسفة القديمة: على المرء هنا ألا يفعل بل ينفعل ألا يتكلم بل يُصغِي، ألا يفسر بل يفهم الشيء الذي أسفر عن نفسه، أن يفتح كيانه كله لعملية "التجلي"، العملية التي يتفتح فيها معنى النص ويمنح فيها نفسَه للقارئ دون عَنَتٍ وإجبار.

يبيّن لنا بيير هادو أن الفلسفة مرتبطة بالحياة، وبالتالي فالعودة إلى النصوص الفلسفية القديمة، يجب أن تكون عودة إلى زمن كتابتها، أي يجب أن تكون عودة إلى حياة الفيلسوف نفسه، وأن نضع أنفسنا في موضع؛ زمانيا ومكانيا في قراءتنا فيلسوف ما، لا إلى فلسفته بما هي بناء نظري فقط. وقد قام الكاتب بدلك في قراءته لبعض الفلاسفة مثل: سقراط، وماركوس أوريليوس، وأبكتيتوس، وغوتا.
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فالفلسفة حسب بيير هادو؛ ليست تعليم نظرية مجردة، وهي أبعد ما تكون عن عملية تفسير نصوص. إنما الفلسفة هي فن العيش. الفلسفة موقف عياني وأسلوب محدد في الحياة يشمل الوجود بكليته. الفعل الفلسفي ليس واقعًا على المستوى المعرفي وحده، بل على مستوى الذات ومستوى الوجود. "إنه تقدم يؤدي بنا إلى أن "نوجد" وجودًا أكثر امتلاء وأن يجعلنا أفضل حالا. إنه تحول وجودي حاسم (conversion) يقلب حياتنا كلها رأسًا على عقب مغيرًا حياة الشخص الذي يخوض فيه الفعل الفلسفي يرفع الفرد منا من حالة حياتية غير أصيلة، وغيبوبة معتمة، وهم منغص - إلى حالة حياتية أصيلة يمتلك فيها المرء الوعي الذاتي، والرؤية الدقيقة للعالم، والسلام الداخلي، والحرية."

"لو أمكن فقط للبشر أن يدركوا صراحةً منذ البداية أنهم سيموتون، أي سيكون عليهم بعد مكوث وجيز في الحياة أن يرحلوا عن هذه الحياة مثل حلم ويتركوا كل شيء وراءهم على الأرض، هنالك سيَخلُقُ بهم أن يعيشوا أكثر حكمةً ويموتوا أقل ندما".

يقول سنكا: "مَن تَعلَّم كيف يموت فقد تعلَّم كيف لا يُستعبد". ويذهب كلمنت السكندري إلى أن المعرفة الكاملة هي نوع من الموت! فهي تفصل النفس من الجسد، وتؤازر النفس لكي تعيش حياةً مكرسة تمامًا للخير، وتتيحُ لها أن تَعكِفَ على التأمل في الحقائق الأصيلة بعقل مطهَّر. شيء آخر ندركه من منظور الموت: نفاسةُ الحياة، كل لحظة من لحظات الحياة، ومتعة الوجودِ، مجرد الوجود. لقد دأب الناسُ على التهرب من حقيقة الموت بالتشبث بعَرَض الحياة، والتكالُبِ على حطام الدنيا: المال السلطة، والشهرة، الأبهة... إلخ، الحطام الذي هم تارکوه لا محالة. يُظهرنا وعي الموت على أن القيمة النهائية هي في الحياة نفسها لا في أعراضها الزائلة، وأن علينا أن نعيش ملء اللحظة، وألا نتركها نهبًا لأوجاع الماضي أو هواجس المستقبل. استحضار الموتِ إذن هو في صميمه استحضار للحياة!! استحضار لقيمة الحياة ونفاسة كل لحظة فيها.

"ولما كان هدفهم هو حياة سلام وصفاء، فإنهم يتأملون الطبيعة ويتأملون كل شيء يوجد فيها: يستكشفون الأرض بتيقظ، والبحر، والجو، وكل طبيعة توجد فيها. ويرافقون، في الفكر، القمر والشمس وأفلاك النجوم الأخرى، الثابتة منها والمتجولة. أجسامهم تبقى على الأرض ولكنهم يمنحون أرواحهم أجنحة لكي تصعد في الأثير فتشاهد القوى التي تقيم هناك، مثلما يليق بأولئك الذين أصبحوا مواطني العالم" (فيلون السكندري: " في القوانين الخاصة".

هذا هو درسُ الفلسفة القديمة: دعوة لكل كائن إنساني بأن يُحوِّل نفسه. الفلسفةُ تَحَوُّل conversion، تحول لطريقة المرء في الوجودِ والحياة، ومسعى إلى الحكمة وليس هذا بالأمر اليسير. وكما كتب سبينوزا في نهاية كتابه؛ الأخلاق: "إذا كان الطريق الذي بينته على أنه يؤدي إلى هذه النتيجة يبدو عسيرا للغاية، فإن من الممكن اكتشافه ب��غم ذلك. وقد كان لزاما أن يكون صعبا حقا، ما دام نادرًا جدًا. أكان بالإمكان أن يكون الخلاص ميسورًا ومبذولًا دون عناء كبير ثم نجد الجميع تقريبًا غافلًا عنه مهملًا إياه؟ صعبة هي ممارسة الفلسفة ولكن الأشياء الممتازة هي دائمًا صعبة بقدر ما هي نادرة". #تمت😍

[VONX · Rating 5 out of 5]

" الحكمة قدوة مفارقة
نجم يهدي ولا يُطال
نعلم أنها غاية لا تُدرك
غير أن حبها يعمر القلب
ويمنح أقدامنا الطريق "

[Olivier Goetgeluck · Rating 5 out of 5]

"People are not troubled by things, but by their judgments about things."
- Epictetus

Epictetus' three acts or functions of the soul:
- judgment
- desire
- inclination or impulsion

Since each of these activities of the soul depend on us, we can discipline them, we can choose to judge or not to judge in a particular way, we can choose to desire or not to desire, to will or not to will.


The goal of spiritual exercises is to influence yourself, to produce an effect in yourself.

In every spiritual exercise it is necessary to make oneself change one's point of view, attitude, set of convictions, therefore to dialogue with oneself, therefore to struggle with oneself.

"A carpenter does not come to you and say 'Listen to me discourse about the art of carpentry,' but he makes a contract for a house and builds it ... Do the same thing yourself. Eat like a man, drink like a man ... get married, have children, take part in civic life, learn how to put up with insults, and tolerate other people ..."
- Epictetus


We should not be surprised to find that there are certain people who are half Stoic and half Epicurean, who accept and combine "Epicurean sensualism" and Stoic communion with nature," who practice both Stoic spiritual exercises of vigilance and Epicurean spiritual exercises aimed at the true pleasure of existing.
F.e. Goethe, Rousseau, Thoreau

Stoicism and Epicureanism seem to correspond to "two opposite but inseperable poles of our inner life: tension and relaxation, duty and serenity, moral consciousness and the joy of existing.

The normal, natural state of men should be wisdom, for wisdom is nothing more than the vision of things as they are, the vision of the cosmos as it is in the light of reason, and wisdom is also nothing more than the mode of being and living that should correspond to this vision.

Every school practices exercises designed to ensure spiritual progress toward the ideal state of wisdom, exercises of reason that will be, for the soul, analogous to the athlete's training or to the application of a medical cure.

Self-control is fundamentally being attentive to oneself.

Plutarch on self-control:
"Controlling one's anger, curiosity, speech, or love of riches, beginning by working one what is easiest in order gradually to acquire a firm and stable character."

It is necessary to try to have these dogmas and rules for living "ready to hand" if one is to be able to conduct oneself like a philosopher under all of life's circumstances.

"Take flight each day! At least for a moment, however brief, as long as it is intense. Every day a "spiritual exercise," alone or in the company of a man who also wishes to better himself ... Leave ordinary time behind. Make an effort to rid yourself of your own passions ... Become eternal by surpassing yourself. This inner effort is necessary, this ambition, just."

The fundamental rule of life: the distinction between what depends on us and what does not.

We must confront life's difficulties face to face, remembering that they are not evils, since they do not depend on us.

The exercise of meditation and memorization requires nourishment. This is where the more specifically intellectual exercises, as enumerated by Philo come in: reading, listening, research, and investigation.

Healing consists in bringing one's soul back from the worries of life to the simple joy of existing. People's unhappiness, for the Epicureans, comes from the fact that they are afraid of things which are not to be feared, and desire things which it is not necessary to desire, and which are beyond their control.

On worry, which tears us in the direction of the future, hides from us the incomparable value of the simple fact of existing:
"We are born once, and cannot be born twice, but for all time must be no more. But you, who are not master of tomorrow, postpone your happiness: life is wasted in procrastination and each one of us dies overwhelmed with cares."

"Keep death before your eyes every day ... and then you will never have any abject thought nor any excessive desire."

"If one wants to know the nature of a thing, one must examine it in its pure state, since every addition to a thing is an obstacle to the knowledge of that thing. When you examine it, then, remove from it everything that is not itself; better still remove all your stains from yourself and examine yourself, and you will have faith in your immortality."
- Plotinus

All schools agree that man, before his philosophical conversion, is in a state of unhappy disquiet. Consumed by worries, torn by passions, he does not live a genuine life, nor is he truly himself. All schools also agree that man can be delivered from this state, transform himself, and attain a state of perfection. It is precisely for this that spiritual exercises are intended. Their goal is a ind of self-formation, which is to teach us how to live, not in conformity with human prejudices and social conventions - for social life itself is a product of the passions - but in conformity with the nature of man, which is none other than reason.

Why people are unhappy:
People are unhappy because they are the slave of their passions. They are unhappy because they desire things they may not be able to obtain, since they are exterior, alien, and superfluous to them. It follows that happiness consists in indepence, freedom, and autonomy. In other words, happiness is the return to the essential: that which is truly "ourselves," and which depends on us.

Goethe on learning how to read:
"Ordinary people don't know how much time and effort it takes to learn how to read. I've spent eighty years at it, and still can't say that I've reached my goal."

"Everything highly prized in life is empty, petty, and putrid: a pack of little digs biting each other, little children who fight, then laugh, then burst our crying."
- Marcus Aurelius

"Think about what they are like when they're eating, sleeping, copulating, defecating. Then think of what they're like when they're acting proud and important, when they get angry and upbraid their inferiors."
- Marcus Aurelius

Marcus on refusing to add subjective value-judgments:
"Always make a definition or description of the object that occurs in your representation, so as to be able to see it as it is in its essence, both as a whle and as a dividend into its constituent parts, and say to yourself its proper name and the names of those things out of which it is composed, and into which it will be dissolved."

Epictetus:
"We shall never give our assent to anything but that of which we have an objective representation.

So-and-so's son is dead.
What happened?
His son is dead?
Nothing else?
Not a thing.

So-and-so's ship sank.
What happened?
His ship sank."

The Epicureans on senseless people (Ibid):
"Senseless people live in hope for the future, and since this cannot be certain, they are consumed by fear and anxiety. Their torment is the most intense when they realize too late that they have striven in vain after money or power or glory, for they do not derive any pleasure from the things which, inflamed with hope, they had undertaken such great labors to procure."

Nature made necessary things easy to obtain, things which are hard to obtain, unnecessary.

The fundamental Stoic attitude:
Attention, vigilance, and continuous tension, concentrated upon each and every moment, in order not to miss anything which is contrary to reason.

"Here is what is enough for you:
1. the judgment you are bringing to bear at this moment upon reality, as long as it is objective;
2. the action you are carrying out at this moment, as long as it is accomplished in the service of human community; and
3. the inner disposition in which you find yourself at this moment, as long as it is a disposition of joy in the face of the conjunction of events caused by extraneous causality"
- Marcus Aurelius

Seneca on focusing on the present moment:
"Two things must be cut short: the fear of the future and the memory of past discomfort; the one does not concern me any more, and the other does not concern me yet."

"Rich people are proud of completely unimportant things."
- Menippus

In order to live, mandkind must "humanize" the world; in other words transform it, by action as well as by his perception, into an ensemble of "things" useful for life. Thus, we fabricate the objects of our worry, quarrels, social rituals, and conventional values. That is what our world is like; we no longer see the world qua world. In the words of Rilke, we no longer see "the Open"; we see only the "future."

[Mahmut Erkan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Genelde yaşamımız kelimenin en güçlü anlamıyla tamamlanmamıştır, çünkü bütün umutlarımızı, özlemlerimizi ve dikkatimizi, şu veya bu amaca ulaştığımızda mutlu olacağımızı söyleyerek, geleceğe yansıtıyoruz. Amaca ulaşılıncaya kadar korku içerisindeyiz, ama ulaştığımızda da artık bizi ilgilendirmiyor ve başka bir şeyin arkasından koşmaya devam ediyoruz. Yaşamıyoruz, yaşamayı umuyoruz, yaşamayı bekliyoruz. Stoacılar ve Epikurosçular, bu nedenle, bizleri zamanla ilişkimizde kökten bir dönüşüm gerçekleştirmeye davet ediyorlar. İçinde yaşadığımız tek anda,yani şimdide yaşamak... Kendimize şunu da diyebiliriz: buradayım, yaşıyorum ve bu yeterli, yani varoluşun değerinin bilincine varabiliriz, var olmanın hazzından keyif alabiliriz."

[عبدالعزيز · Rating 4 out of 5]

كتاب قائم على إثبات فكرة أن "الفلسفة قديماً كانت فناً للعيش، وأسلوباً للحياة، وطريقةً للوجود" باختلاف مدارسها الرواقية والأبيقورية وغيرها.. بينما الفلسفة الحديثة انحرفت عن الأصل وأصبحت موغلة في التجريد والبناء النظري والكتابة النسقية. الكتاب ممتع وترجمته مميزة وفي ثناياه الكثير من النصوص والاقتباسات الساحرة لمحبي الشذرات الفلسفية والنصوص المكثفة.

[Paolo Piccolo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Se amate la filosofia, quella antica in particolare, questo è un testo imprescindibile e bellissimo. Hadot vi accompagna sul sentiero della saggezza antica con uno stile godibilissimo. Se poi amate lo stoicismo direi che la lettura di questo testo vi regalerà emozioni vivide.

[Ghala Anas · Rating 5 out of 5]

"نحن نولد مرة واحدة، ولن نولد بعد ذلك إلى الأبد، وبرغم ذلك فما تزال أنت، يا من لا حكم لك على الغد، تسوِّف بهجتك؟ غير أن الحياة تُهدر سدى في هذه التسويفات، ويموت الواحد منا ولم يعرف قط طعم السلام"
الفلسفة طريقة حياة – بيير هادو \ ترجمة عادل مصطفى
كتابٌ بسيط ونافع للمُبتدئين في قراءة الفلسفة، يقف على بعض المواضيع والمُقدمات الفلسفية التي تناولت الجانب المعيشي من الفلسفة، ويقدِّم لبعض الشخصيات البارزة في هذا الجانب.
تحدث الكاتب عن الهمِّ الفلسفي الفردي، وضرورته في انتشال المرء من واقعه المرير إلى آفاق المعاني المتنوعة والنظريات البهيجة، لا سيَّما أن الظروف التي تصنع الفيلسوف عادة ما تكون بشعة وأليمة، ومن هنا، فإن الفلسفات الأولى كانت طرقاً للحياة اعتمدها البعض هرباً من تعقيد حياتهم وزيادة الجنون فيها، فظهر ما يسمى بالتدريبات الروحية التي ظهرت على شكل وصايا نفسية، يُلزم بها الإنسان نفسه لينأى بها عن الألم والخسارة، وعن التصور المَرَضي للموت الذي ينغص على الفرد حياته.
وتناول الكتاب امتزاج التدريبات الروحية بالتعاليم المسيحية، قبل أن يتناول، كمثالٍ على الحياة الفلسفية الجديرة، التهكم السقراطي الناجم عن توترٍ يُصيب العلاقة بين الجهل بالمفهوم اللغوي لدى الشخص، وبين الخبرة المباشرة التي تضعه في قلب هذا المفهوم فيعيشه واقعاً. وتحدث عن صورة سقراط في الفلسفة القديمة، فهو المتشكك المتسائل الذي لا يعرف شيئاً ولا يصبو إلى تثبيت رأي أو موقف بل إلى طرح الأسئلة، متهكماً أثناء ذلك باللغة وحدودها المتواضعة أمام الفكر البشري، فكان موته بذلك انتصاراً للفلسفة ولتعاليمها. لذلك كانت غاية المحاورات السقراطية الوصول إلى نوعٍ من الوجود لا يمكن الوصول إليه من دون الآخر.
ثم تحدث الكاتب عن ضجر ماركوس أوريولوس من الحياة والملل الذي كان يعتريه للتكرار الذي بدت في نظره، فظل يؤكد مراراً على رتابة الوجود الإنساني ومسرحية الحياة التي ما تفتأ تُعيد نفسها، فيضع فلسفة جديرة للخروج من هذه الألاعيب عبر اليقظة والانتباه والتيقن من أن الموت لن يحرمنا شيئاً جوهرياً إذ يسلب منا الحياة الرتيبة، ويلفت نظر قارئه إلى التمسك باللحظة الحاضرة ونفي الحكم القيمي عن الأشياء، لرؤية العالم على ما هو عليه دون أحكام مسبقة.
ثم يتحدث الكاتب عن القيمة العلاجية للكتابة في أنها لا تكتفي بالتعبير عن الكاتب، بل إنها تُشكِّله من جديد في نظر غيره حتى أثناء عملية الكتابة، فهي تُلقي بصاحبها إلى الكُل المجتمعي ليُحقق من خلاله وجوداً خارجياً ضرورياً لأداء واجباته الإنسانية، ومن هنا فإنه يعدُّ الكتابة تدريباً روحياً، وفعل تطوري يحمل نفس الكاتب عبر المراحل ويسمو بها عالياً، فنفس الكاتب تتشكل بالكتابة وتتطور لتخدم الروح المجتمعية:
"فالكتابة، شأنها شأن غيرها من ا��تدريبات الروحي، تغيِّر مستوى النفس، وتُضفي عليها الكلية. ومعجزة هذا التدريب، الذي يمارس في الوحدة، هي أنه يُتيح لممارسه أن ينفذ إلى كُلية العقل داخل حدود المكان والزمان"
ثم يركز الكاتب حديثه حول لذة الوجود لدى الرواقية وغيرها من الفلسفات، ورؤيتها للحظة الحاضرة على أنها منطوية على اللذة الوجودية العظمى التي لا يمكن للمرء أن يدركها في ماضيه أو حاضره، بل إنه يتمتع بها في اللحظة الآنية التي تُعبر عنه وتنطوي على أفعاله وأفكاره وأحاسيسه ومشاعره. لذلك فإن "فنَّ العيش" كامنٌ في قدرة المرء على التقاط اللحظة الحاضرة الحُبلى بالمعاني وتذوق لذتها في نفسه: "دَع الروح السعيدة بالحاضر تتعلم أن تبغض الانشغال بما يكمُن في البَعد".
ثم ينتقل الكاتب إلى الحديث عن الاتجاه الذي نحته جميع الفلسفات في الارتفاع بالفرد عالياً عن محيطه وموقعه ومكانته، للتخلص من النظرة الجزئية له عن العالم واستبدال النظرة الكُلية بها، أي أن يملك الفرد ملاذاً لنفسه يلجأ إليه ليسمو ويعلو ويراقب من منظوره سير الحياة، وفي هذا الصدد فإنه يتناول آراء بعض الفلاسفة في أن الوجود ليس سوى فقاقيع مائية لا تلبث أن توجد حتى تنفجر فلا يعود لها أثر:
"ليس أبهج من أن يكون لديك ملاذات وطيدة آمنة، شيدتها تعاليم الحكماء، بوسعك أن تلقي منها نظرة من عِلٍ على الآخرين وتشهدهم جميعاً تائهين هائمين على وجوههم يلتمسون سبل الحياة".
ويتناول كذلك "أنسنة" الأفراد للطبيعة من حولهم، ليرونها مُلبية لحاجاتهم ورغباتهم التي لا تنضب، الأمر الذي يحول بينهم وبين فهمهم لها ولقوانينها الذاتية وجودها المُستقل عنهم واللغة التي تُحدثهم بها، ويجعلهم أكثر اندفاعاً في حياتهم وتعاركاً وأكثر ميلاً إلى تقديس الطقوس الاجتماعية والنظم الموضوعية على الحقائق الواقعية التي تقدمها لهم الطبيعة. ومن هنا فإنه ينتقد الرؤى الفردية للعالم الخالية من "الدهشة الفلسفية" أو "اللمسة الفنية" التي ترى العالم كما هو مُستقل بجماله وكينونته.
وينتقد الكاتب أخيراً الدراسات الفلسفية الحديثة التي حولت الفلسفة إلى دراسة تاريخية جامدة، أو مساقات أكاديمية جافة تخضع للقوانين والأنظمة واللوائح أكثر ما تخضع للإبداع الفردي والابتكار اللفظي، الأمر الذي كان نتيجة طبيعية لسيطرة رأس المال على مؤسسات علمية وأكاديمية، يُطلب منها في المقام الأول توفير البيئة الملائمة لبناء الإنسان الحديث، لقد كانت الفلسفة القديمة مُعبرة بالدرجة الأولى عن فنٍّ للعيش، بل كانت نتيجة هذا الفن، غير أن الفلسفة الحديثة تحولت إلى "رطانة تكتيكية مقصورة على المتخصصين". أما الحكمة الفلسفية فيُثبت الكاتب وجودها في قدرة المرء على تحرير نفسه من رغباته وأهوائه وتحقيق وجودٍ جدير له في الحياة مع الآخرين، يحفظ له خصوصيته الفكرية ويجعله منخرطاً في الوقت نفسه في واجبات الحياة العامة.
وبهذا تكون الفلسفة تهذيب للنفس وتأديبها وعلوٌ بها إلى المراتب العليا من الوعي والفكر والعقلانية المجردة، وهي طريقة في العيش تنأى بالفرد عن سفاسف الأمور والأحكام العاطفية التي تعميه عن إدراك الجمال الكوني، بعيداً عن التلقين الجامعي لها الذي يهدف إلى حشو أدمغة الطلبة بمذاهبها وطرقها: "صعبة هي ممارسة الفلسفة ولكن الأشياء الممتازة هي دائماً صعبة بقدر ما هي نادرة".
إنه كتاب جميلٌ ونافع بلا شك، ولعله يُقرأ مراراً.

[Ira · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good read and it cheers me up. The chapter on Socrates is particularly interesting: insights into approaches to teaching and dialogue, as well as the role of Eros as demon. And about incommunicability, language and death. Finally some ancient wisdom. I will re-read Euripides tragedies. The form of dialogue is first a form of friendship. It is a journey in which the interlocutors do not know the destination. They do not respectively defend a ‘truth’ or conclusion yet it is a kind of battle with oneself and the other, because it requires a constant shifting of the goal post. Socrates was known for saying ‘All I know is that I do not know anything’. Yet the imparting of an attitude of questioning and an openness to unpredicted detours of reflection was the character of his style. So the dialogue is friendship for knowledge, an attitude of love towards it that demands an engagement that is dialectical. The nature of dialogical dialectic of the Platonic form is this battle and constant questioning, where the interlocutor brings a random element to the engagement that makes it capable of transforming oneself and the other. This random element is freedom. The dialogue is a spiritual exercise, to an extent it entails a conversion- but it is not a manipulation in so far as both interlocutors are open to the process of transformation. What is the basic difference then between sophism as the art of persuasion and the platonic dialogue? The latter is the exercise of method, a participation to the logos that knows no pre-established conclusions. Yet the theme of conversion and persuasion are already present in Plato. This is important for politics, for the sophists will be accused of not being in the service of truth but in the service of power. It is the first attack on discourse, the critique of sophism. An attack on the tools of philosophical discourse as ends in themselves. The Epicureans were the first to introduce the idea that the value of presence, of being present was the cancellation of worries and anxieties towards the future.

[Kang · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hadot strikes me as a cross between Foucault and Leo Strauss: he shares with the Strauss the view that, as the book title suggests, philosophy is not primarily and perhaps not even ultimately concerned with assigning truth values to assertoric propositions. He shares with Foucault a certain historicism; the way he talks about the doctrines and methods of so-called "schools of thought" is somewhat symptomatic of this fact. The editing in this volume is lazy, and Hadot is repetitious and his style is sometimes, shall we say, less than riveting. Those complaints, however, are mainly stylistic and matters of taste, and do not touch upon substance (but on Goodreads I rate based on what I like rather than what I esteem). Certainly his chapter 3, "Spiritual Exercises," is an important chapter and deserves the reader's attention and respect, for it makes plain why the philosophy of antiquity is a "possession for all time."

[Tasshin Fogleman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read much of this book on a one-to-one study group with Dresden; we both enjoyed what we read, although she said that John said that he had heard Hadot was "Foucault light." Hadot is certainly simple, and one can tire of his seemingly endless search for sources and authors that match his thesis—and yet that thesis opens up a new realm for philosophy past and future, but most especially in the present. Now. Yes. Now. (Did you get that?)

Hadot made me want to re-read Plato properly, and I thank him for that. More generally, he nicely delineated a path of reading that could be continued, whether I want to delve into ancient or modern philosophy. I especially want to revisit Epictetus, Lucretius, Plotinus, and read Marcus Aurelius for the first time; in the "future" aka recent past, I want to read Hegel (coming soon to a library near you!), Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Camus... And most importantly I am trying to continue the Quixotic Quest.

[James Henderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hadot presents philosophy as "spiritual exercises" through essays on Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, and others. In addition to the exercises the book includes essays on the methods of philosophy, discussions of Socrates and Marcus Aurelius. The essay on Marcus Aurelius was enhanced by my concurrent reading of his Meditations which can be seen as an example of the way of practicing philosophy described in Hadot's book. The book concludes with a section on "Themes" where the nature of happiness and understanding the world through philosophizing are considered. He concludes with the title essay that recommends practicing philosophy as 'a way of life'. This was an intriguing and invigorating read that, as with all good books, left this reader with as many questions as it did answers.

[Timothy Kestrel · Rating 5 out of 5]

What if I was to say that, in the end, your life was nothing but a stain on the pavement? Quite likely you would be offended and retort how I dare to utter such repulsive remark. However, in my defence I would say that is exactly the point for I am a philosopher. I am not here to please anyone. Philosophy as a way of life does not involve being rude, but it does mean to express ideas that may seem odd and/or offensive to some. I would also maintain that instead of being offended, you should answer like, “Pavement, eh? That implies a road. Then someone built it. Who was it? Where does it lead to?” A Stoic philosopher would be asking that kind of questions. That is the point, I believe, among others that Pierre Hadot makes in his book.

[Özgürel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite his own thesis that ancient philosophy "was a mode of existing-in-the-world, which had to be practiced at each instant and the goal of which was to transform the whole of the individual's life", Hadot's book does not provide much information on the ancient philosophers' mode of existing in-the-world and the relationship between their philosophy and their way of life. There is not much historical evidence on the lives of ancient philosophers that their philosophy determined their way of living. In some cases, there seems to be contradictions between their philosophy and lifestyle. Seneca's life is such an example which contradicts his Stoic philosophy.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book.

Unfortunately I only understood every third paragraph. Much of the book went over my head, but the third that I did understand made it one of the best books I've read.

If you are interested in Stoicism then I would recommend giving this book a read. I would love to have someone to discuss it with and perhaps help me gain some insights on the bits I couldn't fully appreciate.

[Gary Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superlative examination of philosophy's evolution through practical guide to the good life, scholastic theological foil, to it's present academic, abstract form. Hadot details the spiritual exercises of Stoicism, Epicureanism, Pythagors and Plotinus; concentrating also on themes in common such as devotion to the present moment, virtue as a lived exercise and philosophy as a means of living well. Recommended.