Hadot and Foucault on Ancient Philosophy: Critical Assessments 9789004693517, 9789004693524

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the ��rst extensive critical assessment of these interpretations. It brings together specialists in ancient philosophy, as well as Hadot and Foucault scholars, in order both to explore criticisms and clarify Hadot’s and Foucault’s accounts. In doing so, it not only o�fers an overview of the main trends in Philosophy as a Way of Life, but also recasts the debate and opens new paths of inquiry in the ��eld. MARTA FAUSTINO, Ph.D. (2013), is an Appointed Research Fellow at the NOVA Institute of Philosophy (IFILNOVA/NOVA-FCSH). She has published several articles and chapters on Nietzsche, Hadot and Foucault and co-edited ��ve books, including The Late Foucault: Ethical and Political Questions (Bloomsbury, 2020). HÉLDER TELO, Ph.D. (2018), is an Appointed Research Fellow at Praxis: Centre for Philosophy, Politics and Culture (University of Beira Interior, Portugal). He has published articles and chapters on Plato, Aristotle, Stoicism and Heidegger, among others, and co-edited two books, including In the Mirror of the Phaedrus (Academia, 2013).

PHILOSOPHY AS A WAY OF LIFE Texts and Studies, 5 9 789004 693517

issn 2666-6243 brill.com/pwl

Hadot and Foucault on Ancient Philosophy

interpretations have been criticized in several crucial points. This book provides

Critical Assessments

ancient philosophy, as well as their impact, are well-known. However, these

Marta Faustino and Hélder Telo (eds.)

The a���nities between Pierre Hadot’s and Michel Foucault’s interpretations of

P H I L O S O P H Y A S A WAY O F L I F E T E X T S A N D S T U D I E S

Hadot and Foucault on Ancient Philosophy C R I TI C A L A S S E S S M E N TS

Edited by M A RTA FAU STI N O A N D H É L DE R TE LO

Hadot and Foucault on Ancient Philosophy

Philosophy as a Way of Life texts and studies Series Editors Michael Chase, Eli Kramer, Matthew Sharpe Advisory Board Western Philosophy Arnold Davidson (University of Chicago) Philipe Hoffman (École Pratique des Hautes Études Paris) Sir Richard Sorabji (University of Oxford) Richard Goulet (cnrs Centre Jean Pépin) Han Balthussen (University of Adelaide) William O. Stephens (University of Omaha) East and South Asian Philosophy Jonardon Ganeri (New York University Abu Dhabi) David Fiordalis (Linfield University) Marc-Henri Deroche (Kyoto University) Middle Eastern and Islamic Philosophy Sajjad H. Rizvi (University of Exeter) North American Philosophy Randall Auxier (Southern Illinois University Carbondale) Andrew Irvine (Maryville College) Medieval Philosophy Irene Caiazzo (cnrs-ephe-lem Paris) Psychiatry/Psychology Zofia Rosińska (University of Warsaw) African and Africana Philosophy Oludamini Ogunnaike (University of Virginia)

volume 5 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/pwl

Hadot and Foucault on Ancient Philosophy Critical Assessments Edited by

Marta Faustino Hélder Telo

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Cover illustration: Parthenon from South by Thermos, 2005. Photograph published under Creative Commons license BY-SA 2.5. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at https://catalog.loc.gov LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023054340

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 2666-6243 isbn 978-90-04-69351-7 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-69352-4 (e-book) doi 10.1163/9789004693524 Copyright 2024 by Marta Faustino and Hélder Telo. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Brill Wageningen Academic, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress. Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents

Acknowledgments ix



Introduction: The Task of Assessing Hadot’s and Foucault’s Interpretations of Ancient Philosophy 1 Marta Faustino and Hélder Telo

PART 1 General Accounts 1

To What Extent Can Greek Philosophy Be Characterized as an “Art of Living”? 25 Christoph Horn

2

Ancient Philosophy as a Way of Life Examined: Clearing up the Confusion between “Way of Life” and “Art of Life” 45 Annie Larivée

3

The Problem of the Dandy in the Aesthetics of Existence: Foucault’s Dialogue with Hadot, Kant, and Baudelaire 69 Paul Allen Miller

PART 2 Spirituality 4

Philosophical Mythoi: The Birth of Spirituality from the Nature of Things 89 Gianfranco Ferraro

5

A Contamination of Philosophy by Religion? Reassessing Hadot’s Notion of Spiritual Exercises 115 Marta Faustino

6

Pierre Hadot and His Critics on Spiritual Exercises and Cosmic Consciousness: From Ancient Philosophy to Contemporary Neurology 137 Michael Chase

vi

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Ancient Stoicism: Between Spiritual Exercises and Cognitive Therapy 163 Konrad Banicki

8

Towards a Comparative Archaeology of the Notion of “Spiritual”: Michel Foucault and “Ancient Philosophy” as “Spirituality” 183 Pierre Vesperini

PART 3 Logos and Truth 9

On the Role of Reason in Ancient Philosophical Practice: An Intellectualist Reframing of Hadot’s and Foucault’s Approach 205 Hélder Telo

10

Foucault on Parrhēsia and Rhetoric: A Reassessment 230 Daniele Lorenzini

11

From Speech to Pure Visibility: A Problem in Foucault’s Conception of Socratic Parrhesia 241 Paulo Alexandre Lima

12

Between Care of the Other and Truth-Telling: The Place of Epicureanism in the Interrupted Dialogue between Michel Foucault and Pierre Hadot 263 Federico Testa

PART 4 Hermeneutical Questions 13

Physics, Periodization & Platonism: Inflecting the Foucault-Hadot Dialogue in Light of L’Herméneutique du sujet 289 Matthew Sharpe

14

Foucault, Reader of Plato: The Problem of ἐπιμέλεια τοῦ βίου 313 Fábio Serranito

Contents 

15

Aristotle and Philosophy as a Way of Life 338 John Sellars

16

Creative Error Genealogy: Toward a Method in the History of Philosophy 359 Eli Kramer and Gary Herstein



Index 385

vii

Acknowledgments The idea for the book we now present to the reader resulted from many years of discussion about the accuracy of Hadot’s and Foucault’s interpretation of ancient philosophers. We wish to express our gratitude, first of all, to our colleagues at the Art of Living Research Group (IFILNOVA), as well as the team of the FCT project “Mapping Philosophy as a Way of Life: An Ancient Model, A Contemporary Approach” (2022.02833.PTDC), in the context of which these discussions developed until they took the form of the present volume. We would also like to thank IFILNOVA (NOVA Institute of Philosophy / NOVA University of Lisbon) for providing the ideal conditions for the development of this project and especially for supporting the organization of the online Symposium “Hadot and Foucault on Ancient Philosophy: Critical Assessments” (2021), where preliminary drafts of most of the essays contained in this volume were presented and discussed. We are grateful to the speakers, as well as to the audience’s lively interest and contribution to the discussions. A special thank you is due to the editors of the series “Philosophy as a Way of Life: Texts and Studies” – Michael Chase, Eli Kramer and Matthew Sharpe – for the enthusiasm with which they welcomed our proposal and encouraged us to submit a manuscript to the collection. We are also indebted to Helena Schöb and Brill’s editorial team for their support and assistance, as well as to the three anonymous reviewers, whose invaluable suggestions have significantly improved this volume. Finally, we are particularly thankful to all the scholars who contributed to this volume for the excellence of their work, their openness to discussion and their patience during all the stages of the process. Their passionate engagement and insightful contributions moved our discussions far beyond what we imagined when we first thought about editing a book on this topic.

Introduction

The Task of Assessing Hadot’s and Foucault’s Interpretations of Ancient Philosophy Marta Faustino and Hélder Telo The idea of publishing a book that brings together Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault with respect to their readings of ancient Western philosophy may seem obvious and unoriginal.1 Indeed, the similarity of their approaches is well-known, as is the impact they have had on ancient studies and beyond. Yet despite the increasing relevance of both authors’ readings of ancient ­philosophy—not only in the field of classical studies but also in metaphilosophical discussions on the nature of philosophy and its possible applications beyond the academic world—we are far from possessing a comprehensive critical assessment of their interpretations of ancient thought. To be sure, there have been several studies on Hadot’s thought, especially on his conception of philosophy as a way of life,2 and much has been written on the so-called “late Foucault.”3 In both cases, Hadot’s and Foucault’s interpretations of ancient philosophy are often brought to the fore. However, even though Hadot’s and Foucault’s interpretations have many aspects in common, they are in most cases treated separately.4 Moreover, even though their interpretations are far from uncontroversial, the existing studies tend to stress their philosophical relevance rather than critically assessing the validity and accuracy of their readings of ancient philosophy. This kind of appraisal (as well as eventual replies) can be found in the few articles that consider Hadot’s and 1 This work was funded by national funds through FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia under the project UIDB/00183/2020, the Institutional Scientific Employment program, and Norma Transitória DL 57/2016/CP1453/CT0042. The volume was completed in the context of the FCT Exploratory Project “Mapping Philosophy as a Way of Life: An Ancient Model, A Contemporary Approach” (2022.02833.PTDC). 2 See e.g. Davidson and Worms 2010; Chase et al. 2013; Ure and Sharpe 2021; Ambury et al. 2021. 3 See especially Gros and Lévy 2003; Detel 2005; Elden 2016; Faustino and Ferraro 2020; Miller 2022. 4 Despite this, there is a growing tendency to compare their interpretations. See e.g. Simonazzi 2007; Stimilli 2008; McGushin 2009; Montanari 2009; Righetti 2010; Hunt 2013; Banicki 2015; Cremonesi 2015; Stephan 2016; Testa 2016; Lorenzini 2017; Megías 2020; Jusmet 2021; Stettler 2022a. © Marta Faustino and Hélder Telo, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004693524_002

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Foucault’s ­interpretations of philosophy from a more critical standpoint5 and in brief remarks made in books by authors who engage with similar themes and want to distinguish their interpretations of ancient philosophy from Hadot’s and/or Foucault’s.6 However, these critical considerations leave out many controversial aspects, and even if combined they would still not amount to a systematic discussion on the topic. Paving the way for such a critical discussion is precisely the aim of this volume, which seeks to shed new light not only on Hadot’s work and Foucault’s late thought but also on ancient philosophy, both in its different parts and as a whole. A deep interest in and passion for ancient philosophy is precisely what unites Hadot and Foucault. Indeed, both followed a strategy—one that began in early modernity (with Leibniz, Spinoza, and the influence of Stoicism and Epicureanism on modern ideas, etc.) and that intensified in the nineteenth century (with authors like Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, among others)—of developing original thought in intense dialogue with, and often inspired by, a certain interpretation of ancient philosophy. In the twentieth century, not only Hadot and Foucault but also authors such as Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Simone Weil, Iris Murdoch, Bernard Williams, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Martha Nussbaum, among many others, revealed the fruitfulness of this dialogue with ancient thinkers. In fact, these fruitful appropriations of antiquity were often the result of dissatisfaction with modernity and an attempt to think beyond it. From this perspective, ancient philosophy serves not only as a vehicle for understanding ourselves and our history but as a way of discovering new ways of thinking, being, and living—possibilities that were once open and which can be recovered and recast in the present context. In this regard, ancient philosophy is extremely fertile ground. For ancient thinkers, philosophy was originally a new practice that had to be defined in contrast to pre-existing ones; in its transposition to a different culture—the Roman ethos—we see the first efforts to rethink it and to adapt it to a new context. In all this, philosophy appears in its original form, at a time prior to Christianity and modern science, and thus prior to its redefinition in light of the institution we now call the university (which itself has a long and complex history). It was precisely this original form of philosophy that interested Hadot and Foucault, who, like other authors mentioned above, provided an innovative interpretation of ancient philosophy that not only cast it in a new light but also turned it into a normative model with potential implications for the present.

5 See e.g. Scott 1996; Flynn 2005; Lamb 2011; Bénatouil 2015; Atack 2019; Cseke 2021. 6 See e.g. Nussbaum 1994; Sellars 2009; Cooper 2012; Horn 2016; Vesperini 2016.

Introduction

3

Hadot and Foucault followed very different intellectual trajectories and developed their work in entirely different contexts for most of their lives. They would likely never have met or shared anything in common were it not for Foucault’s so-called “ethical turn” in the 1980s, when his growing interest in ancient philosophy drew him to the work of Hadot. They were thus drawn to ancient philosophy on the basis of very different intellectual concerns and goals, which are worth recalling here, albeit briefly. A former priest and philosophy teacher at the Rheims Grand Séminaire, Pierre Hadot (1922–2010) completed his philosophy degree with a thesis on Marius Victorinus at the Institut Catholique and the Sorbonne, and, after leaving the priesthood (to marry his first wife) in 1952, he started his training in philology and patristics. In 1964, he was elected Director of Studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, and in 1983 (following Foucault’s suggestion) he became a professor at the Collège de France, where he held the chair for the History of Hellenistic and Roman Thought until his retirement in 1991. At the beginning of his career, Hadot edited and translated a series of Greek and Latin authors, notably Marius Victorinus, Ambrose of Milan, Porphyry, Plotinus and Marcus Aurelius, before publishing his most influential works, Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique (1981) and Qu’est-ce que la philosophie antique? (1995a).7 Hadot claims that it was precisely his philological work and contact with ancient sources that gave rise to his pivotal and ground-breaking intuition regarding ancient philosophy. In order to explain the “incoherence” and “apparent inconsistencies” of many ancient philosophers, which were often viewed by historians of philosophy as blemishes, Hadot consistently argued that ancient philosophical works had been written not to construct a system but rather “to produce an effect of formation” in the reader (cf. Hadot 2009, 59). Thus, the different genres of philosophical literature were intended to have such an impact and should therefore be understood as “language games,” in Wittgenstein’s sense (cf. Hadot 1962, 341), or as “spiritual exercises,” in Hadot’s paradigmatic formulation. Moreover, it was his intense occupation with the works of Plotinus and Marcus Aurelius as a young scholar that led him to reflect on what he called “the phenomenon of ancient philosophy” (Hadot 2009, 35) and to more general considerations about what being a philosopher consists in and what it means to do philosophy. These reflections, and his increasing interest in the existence of spiritual exercises in antiquity (which marked a point of continuity between ancient and Christian spirituality), reinforced by his reading of Paul Rabbow’s Seelenführung (1954) and his exchanges with his second wife, Ilsetraut Hadot, determined from early on the 7 Translated into English as Philosophy as a Way of Life (1995b) and What Is Ancient Philosophy? (2004), respectively.

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subsequent orientation of his work on ancient philosophy and his influential conception of philosophy “not as pure theory but as a way of life” (Hadot 2009, 35), which served not only as a succinct description of the essence of ancient philosophy but also as Hadot’s own model of philosophical practice. Compared to Hadot’s life-long engagement with and work on ancient philosophy, Foucault’s interest in ancient philosophy was decidedly briefer and largely restricted to the last years of his life. Following his studies in philosophy and psychology at the Sorbonne, Michel Foucault (1926–1984) taught in several universities in France and Tunisia before taking up a professorship at the Collège de France (1969), where he held the chair for the History of Systems of Thought until his death in 1984. Throughout most of his career, Foucault was particularly concerned with the relation between power and knowledge—in particular, with how disciplinary power is exercised over individuals and shapes subjectivity via societal institutions such as the asylum, the clinic, the hospital, the prison, the school, and so on. His critical work and archaeo-genealogical method have been influential in a variety of fields besides philosophy, such as anthropology, sociology, psychology, criminology, and literature. Towards the end of his career, his research interests took a considerable turn when, while writing his History of Sexuality, Foucault shifted his focus to ancient philosophy. His interest in ancient sexuality quickly led to an admiration for ancient ethics, which had an important impact on the final trajectory of his thought, as is evident in volumes 2 and 3 of his History of Sexuality (The Care of the Self and The Use of Pleasure), his five last lecture courses at the Collège de France, held from 1979 to 1984 (from On the Government of the Living to The Courage of Truth), and the short texts and interviews from the same period. As Foucault explains in a late interview, what he found most striking about ancient ethics was its total disconnection from any “attempt to normalize the population” (Foucault 1997, 254) and its connection to what he saw as the aesthetic goal of rendering one’s life beautiful. The general precept of “care of the self,” as well as the diverse set of ascetic practices that can be found in ancient philosophy (especially in the Hellenistic period)—which Foucault calls “techniques” or “technologies” of the self—led Foucault to reconceptualize his model of (coercive and heteronomous) processes of subjectivation and to admit the possibility of an active (self-)constitution of the subject. This model of active self-cultivation and ascetic work on the self—or, in Foucault’s terms, this “aesthetics of existence”—shaped not only his late interest and studies in ancient philosophy but also his ideal of the ethical relationship one should establish with oneself in order to resist external coercive powers and to preserve one’s own (even if limited) sphere of freedom and autonomy. In this late shift and development of Foucault’s thought, Hadot’s previous work on ancient philosophy played a decisive role. As the latter reports,

Introduction

5

Foucault had been an attentive reader of his work even before they first met, in 1980, when Foucault advised him to apply for a professorship at the Collège de France (Hadot 2020, 227). Foucault cites Hadot as a reference several times throughout his late works and lecture courses and explicitly acknowledges his direct influence on his reading of fundamental ancient topoi, such as the idea of philosophy as an “art of living” or a “cultivation of the self” (Foucault 1986, 43 n.3), the notion of philosophical conversion (Foucault 2005, 216), and the practice of spiritual exercises (Foucault 2005, 292, 417). Foucault acknowledges the importance not only of Hadot’s texts but also of his personal interactions and conversations with Hadot during the 1980s (Foucault 1990, 8), a dialogue that was prematurely interrupted by Foucault’s death in 1984. As Hadot laments, this was an exchange that “was only just beginning, and from which we would undoubtedly have mutually profited, both from our agreements and also, above all, from our disagreements” (Hadot 2020, 228). Indeed, there are important differences between the two authors’ overall depictions and appropriations of ancient philosophy, some of which Hadot had the opportunity to point out in an essay—“An Interrupted Dialogue with Michel Foucault: Convergences and Divergences”— which was published after Foucault’s death. As main “disagreements” Hadot mentions Foucault’s notion of the “aesthetics of existence,” his emphasis on the self (as opposed to one’s relation to others and the cosmos), his presentation of ancient ethics as an ethics of pleasure, his understanding of the historical moment that led to the disappearance of the ancient conception of philosophy and, consequently, his exclusion of important philosophers from this tradition of thought, most notably Descartes (see Hadot 2020, 227–232; 2009, 136).8 One might question, of course, how well Hadot and Foucault actually knew each other’s work and whether these critical remarks are accurate, considering the totality of Foucault’s writings on ancient philosophy, including the lecture courses, to which Hadot did not have access. Be that as it may, it seems undeniable that Hadot’s and Foucault’s accounts of ancient philosophy converge in several important respects and that even their divergences are meaningful when it comes to understanding and appraising each author’s thought and reading of ancient philosophy. As Hadot observes at the end of his essay on Foucault, it is “a sign of the times” that he and Foucault, 8 For a critical assessment of some of Hadot’s criticisms of Foucault, see Miller’s, Testa’s and Sharpe’s essays in this volume. On the dialogue between Hadot and Foucault and some of their divergences, see also Davidson 1995, 24–26; Nehamas 1998, 255 n.65; O’Leary 2002, 71ff.; Davidson 2005, 2008; Stimilli 2008; McGushin 2009; Wimberly 2009; Irrera 2010; Montanari 2010; Righetti 2010; Iftode 2013; Smith 2015; Agamben 2016, 95ff.; Testa 2016; Jusmet 2017; Sellars 2020; Testa 2020; Cseke 2021; Stephan 2021; Sharpe and Stettler 2022; Stettler 2022a; Stettler 2022b, 91–93.

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and many others, “at the conclusion of totally different trajectories, came together in this vital rediscovery of ancient experience” (Hadot 2020, 232). It would thus seem to be important to keep this dialogue alive and to consider its possible implications for our times. To that aim, it is important to keep in mind that, in the context of their overall thought and work, the convergence between Hadot and Foucault is relevant not only at the hermeneutical or historiographical level but also in the metaphilosophical and normative domain. In particular, what unites Hadot’s and Foucault’s readings of ancient philosophy (and what distinguishes them from other interpreters) is their emphasis on the practical, existential and self-transforming potential of philosophy, in contrast to the traditional view of philosophy as an abstract and mainly theoretical discipline. In seminal works such as Qu’est-ce que la philosophie antique? and Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique, Hadot argues that philosophy was conceived in antiquity not primarily as a theory or discourse, but as an art of living, a lived practice, a way of life, which was meant to transform one’s way of being and one’s life and, more specifically, to bring inner freedom, cosmic consciousness and peace of mind (see Hadot 1995b, 265). As such, philosophical activity was not reduced to theoretical speculation but also included and emphasized the daily practice of what he called “spiritual exercises.” Foucault followed the same interpretive trend, and this can perhaps be more clearly seen in his late lecture courses at the Collège de France (1980–1984). In L’herméneutique du sujet, for example, Foucault places at the origins of Western philosophy not an epistemological or gnoseological concern, but the ethical imperative of caring for the self (see Foucault 2005, 4ff.). Similarly to Hadot, Foucault also claims that at the heart of ancient philosophy one finds a set of “practices” or “technologies of the self,” which individuals performed upon themselves in order to transform their characters and their lives towards a state of purity and perfection. This constitutes what he calls spirituality, in contrast to a Cartesian conception of truth that is based on the correct application of a method and knowledge of the self (Foucault 2005, 14ff.). The practical, performative and self-transformative potential of philosophy is what both Hadot and Foucault primarily identified in ancient philosophy, and it was on this basis—i.e., on the basis of what they took ancient philosophy to be—that they developed their own ideal of philosophical practice. Contrasting it with current models of the nature and practice of philosophy, Hadot rejects the idea of philosophy as a specialized discourse marked by technical jargon with little to no relevance to how we live; instead, he defines it as a way of life—i.e., as an ascetic practice that transforms our perception of the world and our entire being (see Hadot 1995b, 82ff., 265; 2004, 231, 274–75).

Introduction

7

Foucault, in turn, focuses on the practices of the self (placing special emphasis on parrhesia), which create or reshape one’s existence, and calls for a revival of an “aesthetics of existence,” whereby each individual aims to create her self and life as a work of art (see Foucault 2000, 261; 2005, 251). Although Hadot rejects Foucault’s ideal of an “aesthetics of existence,” when appraising the similarities between Foucault’s model of philosophy and his own Hadot ultimately endorses Foucault’s conception of philosophy as “an ‘ascesis’, askêsis, an exercise of oneself in the activity of thought” (Foucault cit. in Hadot 2020, 229) and claims to “recognize in this work of the self on the self, this exercise of the self, an essential aspect of the philosophical life: philosophy is an art of living, a style of life which engages all of existence” (Hadot 2020, 229). Thus, for both Hadot and Foucault, the ancient model of philosophy is regarded as an ideal from which we can learn, and it is in this sense that their analyses contain not only a historical but also a normative element: they intend to show how ancient philosophers conceived of and practiced philosophy and, at the same time, how we can draw inspiration from them in order to reshape our own understanding of and relationship with philosophy (i.e., how we relate to philosophical contents, develop philosophical thought and, most importantly, implement it in our life and actions). Hadot’s and Foucault’s ideas have been influential in several fields. First, they have of course had a considerable influence in the field of historiography and the history of philosophy, most notably in ancient studies.9 In this context, their importance extends both to our appreciation of those aspects of philosophy that deal more directly with transforming one’s life (which fits into a larger trend of interest in the rhetorical, pedagogical and protreptic aspects 9 There are many examples of Hadot’s and Foucault’s influence on ancient studies. For instance, Cooper’s presentation of ancient ethics is based on Hadot’s notion of philosophy as a way of life (Cooper 2012) and Sellars likewise presents his understanding of Stoic philosophy as an art of living in dialogue with Hadot (Sellars 2009). More recently, Sharpe and Ure (2021) interpreted Socrates, Epicureanism, Stoicism and ancient Platonisms in light of Hadot’s notion of philosophy as a way of life. Apart from these general discussions, Hadot has had a significative impact on the interpretation of Hellenistic and Neoplatonic philosophy, especially Stoicism (e.g. Braicovich 2011, Sharpe 2014 and 2020b). As for Foucault, his work has been influential in the studies of ancient sexuality (cf. e.g. the introduction and the first chapter of Nussbaum and Sihvola 2002, and Schusterman 2021, esp. chap. 2) and his focus on the notions of “care of the self” and “parrhesia” in interpreting ancient works has been object of discussion, especially with respect to Plato (see e.g. Scott 1996, Tilleczek 2014, Joosee 2015 and Atack 2019). Moreover, Foucault is one of the most discussed interpreters of ancient Cynicism (see e.g. Flachbartová 2017 or Caraus 2022). It would be possible to give many more examples and the fruitfulness of both authors’ interpretations of ancient philosophy is still very far from being exhausted.

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of ancient philosophy) and to our understanding of the connection between different periods—with special emphasis on the importance of Roman philosophy, late antiquity and the transition to patristic thought. Moreover, Hadot’s and Foucault’s approaches have also had a considerable influence on the study of medieval, modern and contemporary authors, insofar as their accounts emphasize not only the existential orientation, transformative aim, and ­practical-spiritual aspects of ancient philosophy but also the persistence of these traits throughout the history of Western thought. In this vein, although Hadot and Foucault conceive of this tradition in somewhat different terms and include or exclude different authors from it, they both outline the task of an alternate history of philosophy, which would involve not so much the study of lesser-known authors but the exploration of a different perspective on the main philosophers of the Western tradition (and even beyond it): one which would emphasize the role of practices, attitudes and ways of life rather than theories, doctrines and systems in the history of thought (see Foucault 2011, 210). Second, they have had a major influence on contemporary metaphilosophical discussions, analyses of how philosophy operates in different fields, and our contemporary understanding of the importance of ancient philosophy. In this regard, Hadot and Foucault’s emphasis on the practical and transformative potential of philosophy has encouraged attempts to criticize and rethink the excessively theoretical and technical patterns that tend to dominate in universities today.10 Finally, Hadot and Foucault have also inspired the development of new teaching strategies, including higher-impact strategies for disseminating philosophy to wider audiences. In the field of higher education, a clear example of this is the work of the Mellon Philosophy as a Way of Life Network, which comprises over one hundred teachers from around the world,11 and in the field of outreach it is exemplified by Modern Stoicism, an association dedicated to promoting Stoic ideas and precepts of the good life to a non-academic audience through a series of initiatives, including the famous “Stoic Week.”12 Despite the undeniable influence of their ideas (including their interpretations of ancient philosophy) on contemporary scholarship and their impact both inside and outside the Academy, however, Hadot’s and Foucault’s 10

For Hadot’s explicit criticism of modern universities, see Hadot 1995b, 270–72; 2004, 260. For recent approaches developed in the wake of Hadot and Foucault, see Chase (2013), Sharpe and Turner (2018), Sharpe (2020a), Faustino (2021), Kramer and Faustino (2021). 11 See https://philife.nd.edu/. 12 For more information, see: https://modernstoicism.com/. Other similar initiatives include: Daily Stoic (https://dailystoic.com/), Stoicare (https://www.stoicare.com/), and The Stoic Fellowship (https://www.stoicfellowship.com/).

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interpretations of ancient philosophy are not universally accepted, and renowned thinkers and interpreters of ancient thought (such as Martha ­Nussbaum, John Sellars, and John Cooper, among others) have objected to them. Some of these objections apply to both authors, others just to one; some concern particular aspects of their accounts, others involve their overall depiction of ancient philosophy. John Cooper (2012, 17ff.), Martha Nussbaum (1994, 353–54) and Brad Inwood (2010, xv–xvii), for example, have criticized both authors’ insufficient consideration of the role of reason, argumentation and truth in ancient philosophy and their overemphasis on the practices by which we transform our lives, thus making it difficult to distinguish philosophy from other ascetic practices, such as religion. In this context, Cooper (2012, 20ff.) is particularly critical of the very notion of “spiritual exercises,” which according to him only appears in late Hellenistic schools and Christian asceticism and thus should not be anachronistically ascribed to ancient philosophy as a whole. A similar criticism has been voiced by Pierre Vesperini (2015; 2016, 17ff.), for whom the application of the notions “spiritual” and “spirituality” to ancient philosophy involves a flawed unhistorical approach that relies on teleological analogies with later intellectual contexts (especially Christian thought and German Idealism). The notion that spiritual exercises were central to ancient philosophy has also been criticized by Sellars (2009, 111ff.), who argues that they are not essential to philosophy but secondary, simply playing a role in the implementation of philosophical doctrines, theory and discourse. Nussbaum (1994, 353–54) further stresses that by emphasizing the role of techniques, habit and constraint, Hadot and especially Foucault failed to convey the ideals of freedom and lightness that were at stake in Hellenistic schools (and particularly Stoicism). Other criticisms include Hadot’s prioritization of existential choice over rational persuasion (see Flynn 2005; Bénatouil 2015); Foucault’s subjective and individualistic conception of self (see Jaffro 2003; Inwood 2005, 322–352; Gill 2006, 330ff.); Foucault’s focus on parrhesia as a truth-telling practice, disregarding ancient thinkers’ use of irony, lies, etc. (see Scott 1996; Atack 2019); Foucault’s neglect of scepticism (Lévy 2003) and insufficient consideration of Epicureanism (Gigandet 2003); Hadot’s excessive emphasis on Hellenistic or late ancient philosophy (as opposed to Plato and Aristotle, for example) as representative of all ancient philosophy (see Lamb 2011; Cooper 2012, 22); and Hadot’s expansion of the model of ancient philosophical practice to modern and contemporary authors (Cooper 2012, 10ff.). The number of critical remarks that have recently appeared in the specialized literature alone points to the need for this volume—especially since these critical observations have thus far been scattered throughout a few, often disconnected, journal articles and short comments in monographs dedicated to

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ancient philosophy. Moreover, there has been little engagement with or discussion of these criticisms. Occasional replies or attempts to address these criticisms have been offered by some Hadot scholars (e.g. Sharpe 2014, 2016; Faustino 2020; Sharpe and Ure 2021), but these are likewise dispersed in different works and are often brief and peripheral to the discussion. Finally, critical discussion of Hadot’s and Foucault’s readings of ancient philosophy is certainly far from being exhausted, as this book amply shows by revealing the diverse angles from which one can approach Hadot’s and Foucault’s views of ancient philosophy. These angles concern not only particular topics and concepts, particular ancient thinkers or schools, but also general considerations regarding ancient philosophy as a whole and philosophy generally construed. In fact, when approaching Hadot’s and Foucault’s work on ancient philosophy, we can adopt different perspectives and evaluative criteria. We can approach them as philosophers in their own right and evaluate their philosophical proposals in the context of contemporary debate on the nature of philosophy and its role in human life and society, but we can also approach them as interpreters of ancient sources. In the latter regard, there are also different possibilities: we can consider them as interpreters of particular ancient writers, of certain periods of antiquity or of the whole of ancient philosophy, including its twilight and transition to the medieval period. Indeed, we find in their texts not only discussions of particular authors, texts and practices, but also a general picture (in some aspects coincident, in others somewhat divergent) of the whole of ancient philosophy, and each of these elements gives rise to different questions and problems.13 Finally, since both view ancient philosophy as a model that can inspire and transform current philosophical practices, we can also approach and discuss their accounts in metaphilosophical terms, evaluating the validity and fruitfulness of applying an ancient model to present times. Bringing together these different possible approaches to Hadot’s and Foucault’s works on ancient philosophy is precisely the aim of this volume. Given the difficulty and broadness of the task, as well as our wish to include a wide variety of interpretive perspectives and angles, the volume collects contributions from different kinds of specialists, with different philosophical/ hermeneutical backgrounds and sensitivities. More specifically, the volume comprises the work of specialists in ancient philosophy and classical studies, on the one hand, and in the thought of Hadot and/or Foucault, on the other. While scholars of ancient philosophy and culture (such as John Sellars, Christoph Horn, Annie Larivée, Fábio Serranito, Paulo Lima, Hélder Telo and Pierre 13

Cf. in particular Sharpe’s chapter in this volume.

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Vesperini) and scholars working in contemporary approaches to ancient philosophy (Konrad Banicki) put Hadot’s and/or Foucault’s approaches to ancient philosophy to the test by confronting them with ancient sources and revealing possible gaps or inadequacies, scholars of Hadot and/or Foucault (such as Eli Kramer, Michael Chase, Matthew Sharpe, Marta Faustino, Paul Allen Miller, Daniele Lorenzini and Federico Testa) reply to well-known polemic issues and illuminate the significance of Hadot’s and/or Foucault’s readings of ancient philosophy in contrast to other interpretations. As a result of this approach, the book discusses Hadot’s and Foucault’s most important concepts and ideas from different angles and perspectives in order to better assess both their weaknesses and their strengths. This approach reflects the general aim of this volume, which was conceived not just as a way of extending the debate about Hadot’s and Foucault’s interpretations of ancient philosophy and helping to prepare a more comprehensive discussion of the topic, but also as a proposal regarding the most appropriate way to go about this task. Rather than providing definitive answers as to whether their interpretations of ancient philosophy are accurate, it is important to stimulate questioning and dialogue regarding ancient philosophy, as well as Hadot’s and Foucault’s thought. Thus, the present volume was conceived neither as a forum for questioning Hadot’s or Foucault’s importance nor as a simple apologetic effort for confirming their views. Rather, it is based on the conviction that Hadot and Foucault are very important for ancient philosophy—but primarily as stimulating questions and forcing us to rethink our assumptions, independently of whether this process involves rejecting certain aspects of their approach or confirming the richness and strength of their interpretations. Seriously and critically assessing their views is the best way to pay tribute to Hadot and Foucault. Just as crucially, it is important to bear in mind that this is not just a book on Hadot and Foucault and their interpretations; it is also a book on ancient philosophy and on what we can learn about it from Hadot and Foucault. In confirming central features of their interpretations and discussing possible limitations (some of them perhaps clearer, others more questionable), the book aims to expand our own understanding not only of Hadot and Foucault’s thought but also of ancient philosophy as a whole. Thus, throughout the sixteen chapters that compose the volume, very different scholars engage with the most polemic points of Hadot’s and Foucault’s readings of ancient philosophy, evaluating the validity, accuracy and fruitfulness of their interpretations, exploring aspects that may have been neglected or unilaterally described, and assessing how their work has been read by other thinkers and interpreters, thereby contributing to the clarification, enrichment

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and possibly even the transformation of our understanding not only of H ­ adot’s and Foucault’s thought but of ancient philosophy in general. Some chapters recommend rejecting certain aspects of Hadot’s and Foucault’s approach, and others try to reinvent it. Still others attempt to deconstruct criticisms and to push the limits of our own interpretations of Hadot and Foucault. Some contributors invoke new arguments in defense of these authors’ main insights, while others reflect on the validity and possible creativity of certain interpretations, which opens the door to a new set of questions. Some authors focus exclusively on either Hadot’s or Foucault’s interpretation of ancient thinkers; others put the two authors’ views in dialogue with each other—either by way of comparison or by considering Hadot’s criticism of Foucault and Foucault’s possible reply. The volume is thematically divided into four sections. The first section includes reflections on some of Hadot’s and/or Foucault’s most general descriptions of ancient philosophy—namely, “philosophy as a way of life,” an “art of living” and the “aesthetics of existence.” Here, the contributors put the meaning and applicability of these concepts to the test, considering ancient sources, contemporary understandings of these expressions, and the dialogue between Hadot and Foucault (as well as their relation to other modern references). In the first chapter, titled “To What Extent Can Greek Philosophy Be Characterized as an ‘Art of Living’?,” Christoph Horn offers an overview of how ancient thinkers from different periods conceived of philosophy, in order to determine the exact scope of Hadot’s characterization of ancient philosophy. Horn argues that although Hadot’s notion of philosophy as an art of living is hardly applicable to the pre-Socratics, it is relevant to Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Hellenistic schools, the late Platonists and the Christians, even though philosophy during these periods cannot chiefly be categorized in such terms and these authors and periods had very different understandings of what it means to say that philosophy is an art of living. Nevertheless, Horn concludes that Hadot’s characterization remains useful insofar as most of these differences can be regarded as variations of a single concept. In the second chapter, “Ancient ‘Philosophy as a Way of Life’ Examined: Clearing up the Confusion between ‘Way of Life’ and ‘Art of Life,’” Annie Larivée argues that, in contrast to its use in the literature on philosophy as a way of life, “way of life” should be understood in a stricter sense, as referring to a specific life pattern (either socially transmitted or deliberately chosen). According to Larivée, this limited understanding of the notion (and its contrast with the broader notion of an art of living) offers a valuable conceptual tool for considering the differences between the philosophies and schools of antiquity—namely, the way in which some schools (such as Stoicism and Epicureanism) offer a particular

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art of living that can be applied to different life patterns. The last essay in this section, “The Problem of the Dandy in the Aesthetics of Existence: Foucault’s ­Dialogue with Hadot, Kant, and Baudelaire,” by Paul Allen Miller, takes a close look at Foucault’s discussion of Kant, Baudelaire and dandyism as a way of replying to Hadot’s accusation that in viewing ancient philosophy as an aesthetics of existence, Foucault reduces it to a form of dandyism, or, as Hadot also claims, that Foucault reduces ethics to aesthetics and fails to see that to kalon should not be separated from to agathon. Miller argues that rather than doing so, Foucault is instead showing that the ethical, aesthetic and epistemic dimensions are constitutively intertwined in ancient philosophy. The second section focuses on the most distinguishing feature of Hadot’s and Foucault’s approaches to ancient philosophy, namely what they call spirituality. The essays included in this section discuss whether this category is appropriate for characterizing ancient philosophy, whether its use should be somewhat restricted, or whether it should even be expanded beyond what Hadot and Foucault identified (extending it, for instance, to pre-Socratic and pre-Platonic thinking). In the first chapter of this section, “Philosophical Mythoi: The Birth of Spirituality from the Nature of Things,” Gianfranco Ferraro explores the development of philosophical mythoi and argues that they constitute the birth of spirituality in the Western tradition. In so doing, Ferraro tries to trace Hadot’s notion of spiritual exercises (as well as Foucault’s notion of spirituality) to their earlier forms (especially the so-called pre-Socratics) and, at the same time, challenges Cooper’s contention that philosophical practice is exclusively based on logico-rational argumentation and persuasion. In the second text in this section, “A Contamination of Philosophy by Religion? Reassessing Hadot’s Notion of Spiritual Exercises,” Marta Faustino defends the legitimacy of Hadot’s notion of spiritual exercises and their role in ancient philosophy against several of the criticisms described above, especially John Cooper’s claim concerning the putative contamination of philosophy by religion in Hadot’s account. After examining both Cooper’s criticism and Hadot’s description of such exercises, Faustino concludes that the divergence between the two authors is mainly terminological and essentially grounded in different understandings of what philosophy is about. In the same vein, in an essay titled “Pierre Hadot and His Critics on Spiritual Exercises and Cosmic Consciousness: From Ancient Philosophy to Contemporary Neurology,” Michael Chase discusses previous evaluations and classifications of Hadot’s spiritual exercises (notably those by Pierre-Julien Harter and Christoph Horn) and defends Hadot against common critical remarks, especially those that accuse him of projecting his own mystical views upon ancient philosophers. In order to clarify Hadot’s notion of spiritual exercises and add plausibility to its application

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to ancient philosophy, Chase focuses on the connection between spiritual exercises and cosmic consciousness (especially in the context of Stoicism) and shows the convergence between Hadot’s views and the findings of neural Buddhism, as exemplified by James Austin. The next chapter, “Ancient Stoicism: Between Spiritual Exercises and Cognitive Therapy,” by Konrad Banicki, argues for the need to approach ancient Stoicism via a discussion of contemporary perspectives. The first perspective considered is precisely the one outlined in Hadot’s notion of spiritual exercises, which Banicki considers fruitful with respect to Stoicism but at the same time problematic because of how opaque or misleading the term “spiritual” can be. He then considers cognitive therapy and its approach to Stoicism, arguing that it offers a better account of certain aspects of Stoicism, such as the cognitive dimension of emotions. However, Banicki argues that both approaches have limitations, and in order to overcome them he proposes two complementary models: Martha Nussbaum’s therapeutic arguments and his own account of philosophy as therapy. Finally, in his polemic essay “Towards a Comparativist Archaeology of the Notion of ‘Spiritual’: Michel Foucault and ‘Ancient Philosophy’ as ‘Spirituality,’” originally published in French and translated here into English, Pierre Vesperini subjects Foucault’s notion of spirituality and the way he applies it to ancient philosophy to a historiographical critique, arguing that the category of “the spiritual” is not appropriate as a description of ancient practices since, on the one hand, it is too vague and plastic, and, on the other hand, Foucault derives it from nineteenth-century philosophy, especially Hegel and German Idealism. The third section is dedicated to two essential elements of philosophy that are often viewed as neglected by Hadot’s and Foucault’s focus on the practical or performative dimension of (ancient) philosophy: logos (understood either as reason or discourse) and truth. The texts included in this section try to demonstrate how these components fit and play a role in their accounts, discuss common criticisms, and suggest how these elements could be further developed in the framework of their thought. In “On the Role of Reason in Ancient Philosophical Practice: An Intellectualist Reframing of Hadot’s and Foucault’s Approach,” Hélder Telo engages with Nussbaum’s, Sellars’s and Cooper’s criticisms regarding the apparent neglect of reason and rational argument in Hadot and Foucault. Telo argues that, according to ancient philosophers, reason requires exercises and practices of self-transformation in order to be developed and strengthened and that even though Hadot and Foucault tend not to emphasize the rational element, their respective concepts of spiritual exercises and practices of the self can and should be understood as involving at their core a transformation of reason and of one’s relation to it. The second chapter in this section, “Foucault on Parrhēsia and Rhetoric: A Reassessment,”

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by Daniele Lorenzini, defends Foucault against criticisms related to his notion of parrhesia, focusing in particular on Foucault’s alleged inability to coherently distinguish it from rhetoric, as argued by Geoffrey Bennington. Through a careful analysis of Foucault’s evolving characterization of the relations between parrhesia and rhetoric in his final lecture courses at the Collège de France, Lorenzini shows, with recourse to Austin’s notion of a perlocutionary effect, that at the end of his career Foucault does manage to clearly distinguish the two notions. In the next essay, “From Speech to Pure Visibility: A Problem in Foucault’s Conception of Socratic Parrhesia,” Paulo Lima shows that the novelty of Foucault’s conception of Socratic parrhesia (which is developed in his account of the Cynics) derives from a certain historical imprecision as to the meaning of parrhesia, according to which a secondary aspect of the notion (i.e., pure visibility) is presented as its essential aspect and, in turn, its essential aspect (i.e., discourse) becomes secondary. Opposing Foucault’s view, Lima argues that pure visibility (understood as having a non-discursive or extra-­ discursive character and referring to Socrates’ way of life) does not belong within the strict scope of the meaning of parrhesia and, moreover, is mediated by logos in an extra-parrhesiastic sense of the term. Finally, in the last text in this section, “Between Care of the Other and Truth-Telling: The Place of Epicureanism in the Interrupted Dialogue Between Michel Foucault and Pierre Hadot,” Federico Testa reassesses Hadot’s criticism of Foucault’s reading of ancient philosophy, especially the latter’s alleged silence regarding Epicureanism. After discussing the philosophical presuppositions of Hadot’s critique, Testa revisits Foucault’s treatment of Epicureanism in his late lecture courses (which Hadot did not read) and highlights its relevance to Foucault’s construal of the importance of the other in the care of the self and to his ­development of the notion of parrhesia. Testa concludes that due to their different philosophical assumptions, Hadot’s and Foucault’s uses of antiquity are also significantly divergent. The chapters in the fourth section are unified not by reference to a thematic domain but rather by the fact that they take into special account hermeneutical questions. Indeed, these chapters pay close attention to particular texts, authors or ideas, and in doing so they not only explore central concepts of Hadot’s and Foucault’s accounts of Plato, Aristotle and Hellenistic thought but also discuss criteria for assessing different interpretations and even the possible usefulness of mistakes. In the chapter “Physics, Periodization & Platonism: Inflecting the Foucault-Hadot Dialogue in Light of L’Herméneutique du sujet,” Matthew Sharpe shows how a reexamination of The Hermeneutics of the Subject challenges several of Hadot’s criticisms of Foucault’s reading of ancient philosophy, in particular the charge that the latter failed to account for the

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“cosmic dimension” in ancient thought. After analyzing Foucault’s treatment of Epicurean and Stoic physics in this lecture course, Sharpe concludes that the main point of divergence between Hadot’s and Foucault’s readings of ancient philosophy is not their different appraisals of the cosmic dimension within the ancients but rather Foucault’s strong periodization of the ancient philosophies and his distinction between the Hellenistic-Roman care of the self and the so-called “Platonic model,” two operative distinctions that are absent in Hadot’s account. The next chapter, “Foucault, Reader of Plato: The Problem of ἐπιμέλεια τοῦ βίου” by Fábio Serranito, examines the relation between Plato’s conception of the mouldability and changeability of the human condition and Foucault’s own ethopoetical project. By revisiting the Laches in search of the Foucauldian conception of epimeleia tou biou and showing that this form of epimeleia is not understood as an alternative to the epimeleia tēs psukhēs, but rather as something that is based on the care of the soul, Serranito marks a clear contrast between Foucault’s ethopoetical project and Plato’s conception of philosophy as a way of life. In the third chapter in this section, “Aristotle and Philosophy as a Way of Life,” John Sellars discusses one of the most challenging cases for Hadot’s depiction of all ancient philosophy as a way of life— Aristotle—and asks whether “the master theoretician,” who explicitly claimed that knowledge should be pursued for its own sake, can be accommodated within Hadot’s model. Following a close examination of Aristotle’s conception of philosophy (where Sellars shows that Aristotle did not understand philosophy as a practical guide for living well) and of Hadot’s case for why Aristotle confirms (rather than refutes) his general description of ancient philosophy, Sellars concludes that the notion of philosophy as a way of life only fits Aristotle’s conception of philosophy if we understand it in a broad sense that goes beyond mere guidance for how to live well. Finally, in the chapter “Creative Error Genealogy: Toward a Method in the History of Philosophy,” Eli Kramer and Gary Herstein explore Hadot’s hermeneutics of “creative mistakes” and develop the latter’s idea that the entire history of philosophy can be read as a series of (creative) misreadings of previous philosophers. Drawing on ideas from Whitehead, Kramer and Herstein complement Hadot’s account, filling out aspects that Hadot himself never fully articulated and that could also apply to his own interpretation of ancient philosophy. In so doing, the final chapter provides a new perspective on the entire volume and opens a whole new set of questions and avenues for further research. The polyphony and diversity of the different chapters in this volume both express and demonstrate the complexity of critically assessing Hadot’s and Foucault’s interpretation of ancient philosophy. In particular, they show the

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many different methodologies one can use to talk about Hadot, Foucault and ancient philosophy, and they call attention to the need to reflect on the nature of our access to antiquity: whether it is legitimate to apply contemporary terms and ideas to ancient philosophy, what constitutes a valid or accurate ­interpretation, whether one can generalize and discuss ancient philosophers as having the same essential features (and if so, what the boundaries of this generalization might be), among many other relevant questions. While the wide range of topics and perspectives included in this volume certainly covers an important part of the task outlined above, the book itself does not, of course, exhaust the subject. Questions surrounding the validity, accuracy and relevance of Hadot’s and Foucault’s readings of ancient philosophy are indeed still open to debate. We hope that this book will stimulate further discussion and other decisive steps towards a full and systematic assessment of Hadot’s and Foucault’s readings of ancient philosophy, as well as their impact on current philosophical practices—and perhaps even on our lives. References Agamben, Giorgio. 2016. The Use of Bodies: Homo Sacer IV. Stanford: Stanford ­University Press. Ambury, James M., Tushar Irani, and Kathleen Wallace, eds. 2021. Philosophy as a Way of Life: Historical, Contemporary and Pedagogical Perspectives. Malden, MA: Wiley. Atack, Carol. 2019. “Plato, Foucault and the Conceptualization of Parrhēsia.” History of Political Thought 40, no. 1: 23–48. Banicki, Konrad. 2015. “Therapeutic Arguments, Spiritual Exercises, or the Care of the Self. Martha Nussbaum, Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault on Ancient Philosophy.” Ethical Perspectives 22, no. 4: 601–34. Bénatouil, Thomas. 2015. “Stoicism and Twentieth Century French Philosophy.” In Routledge Handbook of the Stoic Tradition, edited by John Sellars, 360–73. London: Routledge. Braicovich, Rodrigo. 2011. “Ejercicios espirituales e intelectualismo en Epicteto.” ­Classica (Brasil) 24, nos. 1/2: 35–56. Caraus, Tamara. 2022. “The Horizon of Another World: Foucault’s Cynics and the Birth of Radical Cosmopolitics.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 48, no. 2: 245–67. Chase, Michael. 2013. “Observations on Pierre Hadot’s Conception of Philosophy as a Way of Life.” In Philosophy as a Way of Life, Ancients and Moderns: Essays in Honor of Pierre Hadot, edited by Michael Chase, Stephen Clark, and Michael McGhee, 262–86. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.

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Chase, Michael, Stephen Clark, and Michael McGhee, eds. 2013. Philosophy as a Way of Life, Ancients and Moderns: Essays in Honor of Pierre Hadot. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell. Cooper, John. 2012. Pursuits of Wisdom: Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy from ­Socrates to Plotinus. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cremonesi, Laura. 2015. “Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault on Spiritual Exercises: Transforming the Self, Transforming the Present.” In Foucault and the History of Our Present, edited by Sophie Fuggle, Yari Lanci, and Martina Tazzioli, 195–209. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Cseke, Akos. 2021. “Vita Spiritualis: Hadot, Foucault et la Tradition des Exercices ­Spirituels.” Revue de l’histoire des religions 238, no. 1: 87–124. Davidson, Arnold. 1995. “Introduction: Pierre Hadot and the Spiritual Phenomenon of Ancient Philosophy.” In Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, edited by Arnold Davidson, translated by Michael Chase, 1–45. Malden / Oxford / Victoria: Blackwell. Davidson, Arnold. 2005. “Ethics as Ascetics: Foucault, the History of Ethics, and Ancient Thought.” In The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, edited by Gary G ­ utting, 123–48. New York: Cambridge University Press. Davidson, Arnold. 2008. “Michel Foucault e la tradizione degli esercizi spirituali.” In Foucault oggi, edited by Mario Galzigna, 163–79. Milano: Feltrinelli. Davidson, Arnold, and Fréderic Worms, eds. 2010. Pierre Hadot. L’enseignement des antiques, l’enseignement des modernes. Paris: Éditions Rue d’Ulm/Presses de l’École normale supérieure. Detel, Wolfgang, ed. 2005. Foucault and Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Elden, Stuart. 2016. Foucault’s Last Decade. Cambridge / Malden, MA: Polity Press. Faustino, Marta. 2020. “Philosophy as a Way of Life Today.” Metaphilosophy 51, nos. 2–3: 357–74. Faustino, Marta. 2021. “‘Philosophy as a Way of Life’ as a Practice of Dissidence and Experimentation.” In Philosophy as Experimentation, Dissidence and Heterogeneity, edited by José Miranda Justo, Elisabete de Sousa, and Fernando Silva, 340–57. ­Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Faustino, Marta, and Gianfranco Ferraro, eds. 2020. The Late Foucault: Ethical and ­Political Questions. London: Bloomsbury. Flachbartová, Lívia. 2018. “The Care of the Self and Diogenes’ Ascetic Practices.” In Care of the Self: Ancient Problematizations of Life and Contemporary Thought, edited by Vladislav Suvák, Lívia Flachbartová, and Pavol Sucharek, 50–96. Leiden / Boston: Brill-Rodopi. Flynn, Thomas. 2005. “Philosophy as a Way of Life: Foucault and Hadot.” Philosophy & Social Criticism 31, nos. 5–6: 609–22.

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Foucault, Michel. 1986. The Care of the Self. Volume 3 of The History of Sexuality. ­Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Pantheon Books. Foucault, Michel. 1990. The Use of Pleasure. Volume 2 of The History of Sexuality. ­Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books. Foucault, Michel. 1997. “On the Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview of Work in Progress.” In Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984. Volume 1: Ethics, edited by Paul Rabinow, 253–80. New York: The New Press. Foucault, Michel. 2005. The Hermeneutics of the Subject. Lectures at the Collège de France 1981–1982. Edited by Fréderic Gros. Translated by Graham Burchell. New York: Picador. Foucault, Michel. 2011. The Courage of Truth: The Government of Self and Others II. ­Lectures at the Collège de France 1983–1984. Edited by Fréderic Gros. Translated by Graham Burchell. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Gigandet, Alain. 2003. “Présences d’Épicure.” In Foucault et la Philosophie Antique, edited by Frédéric Gros and Carlos Lévy, 137–150. Paris: Kimé. Gill, Christopher. 2006. The Structured Self in Hellenistic and Roman Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gros, Frédéric, and Carlos Lévy, eds. 2003. Foucault et la Philosophie Antique. Paris: Kimé. Hadot, Pierre. 1962. “Jeux de langage et philosophie.” Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 67, no. 3: 330–43. Hadot, Pierre. 1981. Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique. Paris: Études Augustiniennes. Hadot, Pierre. 1992. La citadelle intérieure. Introduction aux Pensées de Marc Aurèle. Paris: Fayard. Hadot, Pierre. 1995a. Qu’est-ce que la philosophie antique? Paris: Gallimard. Hadot, Pierre. 1995b. Philosophy as a Way of Life. Edited by Arnold Davidson. Translated by Michael Chase. Malden / Oxford / Victoria: Blackwell. Hadot, Pierre. 2004. What is Ancient Philosophy? Translated by Michael Chase. ­Cambridge: Belknap. Hadot, Pierre. 2009. The Present Alone is Our Happiness: Conversations with Jeannie Carlier and Arnold I. Davidson. Translated by Marc Djaballah. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Hadot, Pierre. 2020. The Selected Writings of Pierre Hadot. Philosophy as Practice. Translated by Matthew Sharpe and Federico Testa. London / New York: Bloomsbury. Horn, Christoph. 2014. Antike Lebenskunst: Glück und Moral von Sokrates bis zu den Neuplatonikern. München: C.H. Beck. Hunt, Harry. 2013. “Implications and Consequences of Post-Modern Philosophy for Contemporary Perspectives on Transpersonal and Spiritual Experience, I. The Later Foucault and Pierre Hadot on a Post-Socratic This-Worldly Mysticism.” International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 32, no. 1: 1–15.

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Iftode, Cristian. “Foucault’s Idea of Philosophy as ‘Care of the Self’: Critical Assessment and Conflicting Metaphilosophical Views.” Social and Behavioral Sciences 71: 76–85. Inwood, Brad. 2005. Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Inwood, Brad. 2010. “Introduction.” In Seneca: Selected Philosophical Letters, xi–xxiv. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Irrera, Orazio. 2010. “Pleasure and Transcendence of the Self: Notes on ‘A Dialogue Too Soon Interrupted’ Between Michel Foucault and Pierre Hadot.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 36, no. 9: 995–1017. Jaffro, Laurent. 2003. “Foucault et le stoïcisme: sur l’historiographie de l’Herméneutique du sujet.” In Foucault et la Philosophie Antique, edited by Frédéric Gros and Carlos Lévy, 51–83. Paris: Kimé. Joosse, Albert. 2015. “Foucault’s Subject and Plato’s Mind: A Dialectical Model of Self-Constitution in the Alcibiades.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 41, no. 2: 159–77. Jusmet, Luis Roca. 2017. Ejercicios espirituales para materialistas: El diálogo (im)posible entre Pierre Hadot y Michel Foucault. Barcelona: Terra Ignota. Jusmet, Luis Roca. 2021. “Construirse como sujeto ético para una vida verdadera. Las propuestas de Pierre Hadot, Michel Foucault y François Jullien.” Enrahonar 67: 159–72. Kramer, Eli, and Marta Faustino. 2021. “Reconstructing Professional Philosophy: Lessons from Philosophy as a Way of Life in Times of Crises.” Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 77, nos. 2–3: 513–46. Lamb, Matthew. 2011. “Philosophy as a Way of Life: Albert Camus and Pierre Hadot.” Sophia 50, no. 4: 561–76. Lévy, Carlos. 2003. “Michel Foucault et le scepticisme: réflexions sur un silence.” In Foucault et la Philosophie Antique, edited by Frédéric Gros and Carlos Lévy, 119–135. Paris: Kimé. Lorenzini, Daniele. 2017. Étique et politique de soi: Foucault, Hadot, Cavell et les techniques de l’ordinaire. Paris: Vrin. McGushin, Edward. 2009. “Arts of Life, Arts of Resistance: Foucault and Hadot on Living Philosophy.” In A Foucault for the 21st Century: Governmentality, Biopolitics and Discipline in the New Millennium, edited by Sam Binkley and Jorge Capetillo-Ponce, 46–61. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Megías, Fernando Fuentes. 2020. El filósofo, el psicagogo y el maestro: Filosofía y ­educación en Pierre Hadot y Michel Foucault. Barcelona: Mino y Dávila. Miller, Paul Allen. 2022. Foucault’s Seminars on Antiquity: Learning to Speak the Truth. London: Bloomsbury. Montanari, Moreno. 2009. Hadot e Foucault nello specchio dei Greci: La filosofia antica come esercizio di trasformazione. Milano: Mimesis Edizioni. Montanari, Moreno. 2010. “La filosofia antica come esercizio spirituale e cura di sé nelle interpretazioni di Pierre Hadot e Michel Foucault.” Studi Urbinati, B – Scienze Umane e Sociali 80: 343–53.

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Nehamas, Alexander. 1998. The Art of Living: Socratic Reflections from Plato to Foucault. Berkeley: University of California Press. Nussbaum, Martha. 1994. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic ­Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Nussbaum, Martha, and Juha Sihvola. 2002. The Sleep of Reason: Erotic Experience and Sexual Ethics in Ancient Greece and Rome. Chicago/London: The University of ­Chicago Press. O’Leary, Timothy. 2002. Foucault and the Art of Ethics. London and New York: ­Continuum. Rabbow, Paul. 1954. Seelenführung. Methodik der Exerzitien in der Antike. Kösel: München. Righetti, Stefano. 2010. “Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault: Two Readings on Self-Care in the Ancient Philosophy.” Montesquieu.it 2, no. 1: 143. Scott, Gary Alan. 1996. “Games of Truth: Foucault’s Analysis of the Transformation from Political to Ethical Parrhêsia.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 34: 97–114. Sellars, John. 2009 [2003]. Art of Living: The Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy. London: Bristol Classical Press. Sellars, John. 2014. Review of Pursuits of Wisdom: Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus, by John M. Cooper. Mind 123: 1177–80. Sellars, John. 2020. “Self or Cosmos: Foucault versus Hadot.” In The Late Foucault: Ethical and Political Questions, edited by Marta Faustino and Gianfranco Ferraro, 37–51. London: Bloomsbury. Sharpe, Matthew. 2014. “How It’s Not the Chrisippus You Read: On Cooper, Hadot, Epictetus, and Stoicism as a Way of Life.” Philosophy Today 58, no. 3: 367–92. Sharpe, Matthew. 2016. “What Place Discourse, What Role Rigorous Argumentation? Against the Standard Image of Hadot’s Conception of Ancient Philosophy as a Way of Life.” Pli: 25–54. Sharpe, Matthew. 2020a. “Introduction: Situating Hadot Today.” In The Selected ­Writings of Pierre Hadot. Philosophy as Practice, translated by Matthew Sharpe and Federico Testa, 1–29. London / New York: Bloomsbury. Sharpe, Matthew. 2020b. “Pierre Hadot: Stoicism as a Way of Life.” In French and Italian Stoicisms: From Sartre to Agamben, edited by Kurt Lampe and Janae Sholtz, 260–80. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Sharpe, Matthew, and Kirk Turner. 2018. “Bibliopolitics: The History of Notation and the Birth of the Citational Academic Subject.” Foucault Studies 25: 146–73. Sharpe, Matthew, and Michael Ure. 2021. Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions. London / New York: Bloomsbury. Sharpe, Matthew, and Matteo Stettler. 2022. “Pushing against an Open Door: Agamben on Hadot and Foucault.” Classical Receptions Journal 14, no. 1: 120–39. Shusterman, Richard. 2021. Ars Erotica. Sex and Somaesthetics in the Classical Arts of Love. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Simonazzi, Moreno. 2007. La formazione del soggetto nell’antichità: La lettura di Michel Foucault e di Pierre Hadot. Roma: Aracne Editrice. Smith, Daniel. “Foucault on Ethics and Subjectivity: ‘Care of the Self’ and ‘Aesthetics of Existence.’” Foucault Studies 19: 135–50. Stephan, Cassiana Lopes. 2016. “Pierre Hadot e Michel Foucault: Sobre a Felicidade Estoica e a Experiência da Alegria.” Sapere Aude 7, no. 13: 228–39. Stephan, Cassiana Lopes. 2021. O si mesmo, os outros e o mundo. O diálogo interrompido entre Michel Foucault e Pierre Hadot. Rio de Janeiro: Via Verita. Stettler, Matteo. 2022a. “The Use and Misuse of Pleasure: Hadot Contra Foucault on the Stoic Dichotomy Gaudium-Voluptas in Seneca.” Foucault Studies 33: 1–23. Stettler, Matteo. 2022b. Review of The Late Foucault: Ethical and Political Questions, edited by Marta Faustino and Gianfranco Ferraro. Foucault Studies 33: 90–94. Stimilli, Elettra. 2008. “Esercizi spirituali o tecniche di vita? Pierre Hadot e Michel Foucault a confronto.” Il Pensiero: rivista di filosofia 47, no. 1: 91–108. Testa, Federico. 2016. “Towards a History of Philosophical Practices in Michel Foucault and Pierre Hadot.” Special Volume: “Self-Cultivation: Ancient and Modern,” PLI: The Warwick Journal of Philosophy: 168–90. Testa, Federico. 2020. “The Great Cycle of the World: Foucault and Hadot on the ­Cosmic Perspective and the Care of the Self.” In The Late Foucault: Ethical and Political Questions, edited by Marta Faustino and Gianfranco Ferraro, 53–70. London: Bloomsbury. Tilleczek, Will. 2014. “Care for Self and Other in Plato’s Laches.” Pseudo-Dionysius 16. Vesperini, Pierre. 2015. “Pour une archéologie comparatiste de la notion de ‘spirituel’. Michel Foucault et la ‘philosophie antique’ comme ‘spiritualité.’” In Michel Foucault et les religions, edited by Jean-François Bert, 133–58. Paris: Le Manuscrit. Vesperini, Pierre. 2016. Droiture et mélancolie. Sur les écrits de Marc Aurèle. Lagrasse: Verdier. Wimberly, Cory. 2009. “The Joy of Difference: Foucault and Hadot on the Aesthetic and the Universal in Philosophy.” Philosophy Today 53, no. 2: 192–203.

PART 1 General Accounts

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CHAPTER 1

To What Extent Can Greek Philosophy Be Characterized as an “Art of Living”? Christoph Horn How shall we look at ancient philosophy? Was philosophy in this period predominantly done as an “art of living” as some have claimed? In what follows, I will first introduce this thesis which was famously formulated by Pierre Hadot. In the next section, I will turn to the Presocratics, where, as I think, the evidence for Hadot’s thesis is very limited; what we find there instead are three models of doing philosophy that are quite different from an art of living. Then I will investigate Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Socratic schools, and the Epicureans: here, in the classical and post-classical period of ancient philosophy, there are many indications for the adequacy of Hadot’s thesis; nevertheless, the label “art of living” does not seem to be the first and foremost characterization of it. Finally, when taking into consideration late antiquity, both pagan and Christian sources still show some affinity to Hadot’s paradigm. But clearly, in this context, two other types of philosophizing are by far more important. 1.1

Pierre Hadot on the Ancient Art of Living

Is there anyone who might be able to answer the most relevant questions of our lives? In our times, we tend to think first of the competence of psychology, perhaps also of religions and maybe of certain wisdom traditions. In contrast to this, in ancient Europe (and maybe very similarly in ancient India and ancient China), answers to life problems were rather expected from philosophy. Questions about the meaning of life, about the position of man in the cosmos, about the right way of living and about success in life, as well as about methods and practices for the transformation of someone’s personality, were addressed to professional philosophers. It might have been even the most important task of this profession in antiquity, whereas the practice of defending an abstract standpoint in a scholarly discourse may have been only of secondary importance. This at least is the famous claim defended by the French historian of philoso­ phy Pierre Hadot who developed it especially in his books Exercices spirituels et © Christoph Horn, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004693524_003

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philosophie antique (1981) and Qu’est-ce que la philosophie antique? (1995). Following Hadot, ancient philosophy should be seen, first and foremost, as “way of life” or as an “art of living” (technē tou biou, ars vitae). If this is correct, philosophy is about self-transformation. The purpose of philosophy would then be to provide a coherent system of spiritual exercises.1 More precisely, Hadot interprets the ancient idea of self-management and self-transformation as based on arguments as well as on training. The arguments concern our attitudes toward life, its brevity, contingency, and vulnerability, as well as the goods we should follow and the evils we should avoid. The training practices in this tradition include philosophical thought experiments, imaginings, and literary routines designed to lead to a change of one’s inner attitudes. Hadot distinguishes between four basic strategies of the philosophical art of living, which he locates in the various ancient schools and summarizes under the following headings: a) learning to live, b) learning to dialogue, c) learning to die, and d) learning to read (Hadot 1981, chap. 1). He assigns to these four areas specific exercises which are intended to bring about a personal transformation and which, if successful, should ensure a good life. The concrete content of these exercises, however, differ, as Hadot shows, from school to school; they depend on the respective understanding of a good life. It is certainly true that we find in ancient philosophy some subtle theories of self-transformation, based on reflection and exercise. The Greek expressions for “exercise,” i.e., askēsis, meletē and gumnasia, and their Latin equivalents meditatio and exercitatio are highly relevant for philosophy.2 On this point, Hadot’s writings are of outstanding importance. The Socratic and Platonic formula of a “care for the soul” (epimeleia tēs psukhēs) or the description of Hellenistic philosophy as “therapy of the affects” only gets its full meaning when seen from this perspective. As these formulas indicate, practical concerns form the backbone of philosophical activities. They rest upon the shared observation that passions, such as dissolute desires and exaggerated fears, are for men the main cause of suffering, debauchery, and unconsciousness. The therapies, however, differ widely from one another. To give an example, the Stoics aspired to tension (tonos), characterized by constant vigilance (prosochē), while the Epicureans prefer relaxation (anesis). In both exemplary cases, these

1 Sellars 2003, 115–16 criticizes Hadot for a misreading of two passages which seem to express this point. However, though Sellars’ objection is certainly justified, it seems that Hadot’s claim does not depend on these references. 2 Cf. e.g. the older (but still valuable) studies by Goulet-Cazé 1986, Hijmans 1959 and Newman 1989.

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ideals of lifestyle can be achieved through proper exercises, thus producing an attitude that would ultimately lead towards a good life. Consequently, the relation between teacher and student was organized as a personal relationship of guidance. According to Hadot, philosophical knowledge in antiquity, unlike in modern times, is always oriented to the person who seeks knowledge or orientation: it is agent-centered. Philosophy as a discipline and as professionally imparted knowledge is related to the intellectual capacity, the character disposition, the level of knowledge and the need for knowledge of the respective student. The intended result of this process lies in the rational cultivation of a person, her self-shaping, the correction of misguided attitudes in life or in a fundamental revision of her goals in life. Therefore, we find in ancient philosophy the ideal of the perfectly developed, virtuous individual: the philosophos, the sage (sophos), the spoudaios, the phronimos and the like. Philosophy thereby functions—to use a metaphor especially popular among the Stoics (SVF 3.471)—as a therapeutic strategy, as a cure: just as medicine cures the human body, it should be the task of philosophy to cure the human soul, in the sense of activating its own powers. Look for example at a passage from Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations in which Stoic ethics is presented: Philosophy is certainly the medicine of the soul, whose assistance we do not seek from abroad, as in bodily disorders, but we ourselves are bound to exert our utmost energy and power in order to effect our cure. (Tusc. 3.6)3 The medical paradigm for philosophy is not limited to such a comparison; it also has a more direct importance: philosophical training included physical workout. Physical exercises are of preliminary value and include diet, sports, the regulation of sleep and sexuality. These exercises are based on the ideas of self-­simplification, physical self-strengthening and toning, or on the idea that one can increase the level of self-disposal or self-mastery by depriving oneself of certain pleasurable goods. Spiritual exercises, afterwards, do the core business of character transformation and personality development. Up to this point, the studies published by Hadot on ancient philosophy as a form of life or an art of living seem attractive. Hadot, however, argued that ancient philosophy as a whole should be understood as a form of life or an art of living. By this he meant that in antiquity the practical orientation of 3 Transl. C.D. Yonge. In Tusc. 4.23, Cicero additionally discusses the Stoic opinion that health problems can proceed from mistaken sorts of belief.

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philosophy had been the shared focus of interest for philosophical authors and schools. It would follow therefore from Hadot’s claim that, even if we find authors who prioritize theoretical issues, we would ultimately have to understand this as reducible to the art of living. Is this claim correct? In what follows, I will discuss this point with a critical regard to our sources. Hadot’s reading of ancient philosophy as an art of living has been taken up and discussed in much detail by several scholars.4 Probably the most important impact of Hadot’s work, however, was the influence he exerted on the late Michel Foucault. Being his colleague in Paris, for some time at the Collège de France, Foucault in his ambitious project on the history of sexuality maintained that ancient philosophy should predominantly be seen as an esthétique de l’existence, i.e., as a reflected aesthetic strategy to cultivate and transform one’s personality. Foucault, in his investigations, differentiates between three epochs of the ancient conception of self, to which he devotes three separate investigations: First, classical Greek antiquity, especially the 4th century, for which he draws predominantly on texts by Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle; it is discussed in L’usage des plaisirs. He distinguishes from this, second, Roman late antiquity, primarily the 1st and 2nd centuries, for which he draws on authors such as Artemidorus, Plutarch, Seneca, and Galen; this period is the subject of Le souci de soi. Third, and finally, he treats the epoch of early Christianity, which has both continuous and discontinuous elements to the self-care of pagan antiquity; this last epoch is presented in the volume Les aveux de la chair which appeared only long after Foucault’s death in 2018. 1.2 “Art of Living” in Presocratic Philosophy and in the Sophistic Movement Is it appropriate to describe ancient philosophy in general—that is, the entire tradition from the Presocratics to the late Neoplatonists—according to the model of an art of living? To be sure, there are various other possible interpretations of how philosophy is seen by those who practice it. Besides (i) the paradigm of an art of living, one might differentiate between (ii) philosophy as an investigation into first principles, (iii) as some sort of emancipatory knowledge, 4 See especially the books of Voelke 1993, Nussbaum 1994, Horn 1998, Nehamas 1998, and Sellars 2003. Almost all these authors, however, put a stronger emphasis on the role of rationality within the process of philosophical self-transformation. P. Hadot, by the way, was indebted to the investigations of Rabbow 1954 as well as of I. Hadot 1969.

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and (iv) as a quest for wisdom. Philosophy appears as an investigation into first principles (ii), if it aims at general insights, e.g., the identification of fundamental causes; it is then done as a theoretical undertaking, and its main fields are metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and philosophy of nature. For such an understanding of philosophy, a methodical or systematic procedure is characteristic; the development of arguments within a more or less consistent theory is in the foreground. One can speak of a model based on emancipatory knowledge (iii) if philosophy serves the critical examination of conventions, traditional world views and shared knowledge claims. In this case, it would primarily have an anti-ideological function within some sort of “enlightenment” movement. To understand philosophy as a search for wisdom (iv) means that an author or a school is concerned with a profound view on the nature of life and the universe we are living in. Following this paradigm, rational standards might be to some extent replaced by intuitive ways of gaining knowledge. Wisdom is mostly seen either as experience-based or as transrational; the notion of a “wise insight” thus implies the idea of transcending rational comprehensibility. Obviously, good examples from antiquity can be adduced for all these different concepts of philosophy. Should we then conclude from the outset that Hadot’s claim is mistaken? Not necessarily. It could still be the case that theoretical philosophy according to paradigm (ii) is done for the sake of an art of living, or that an emancipatory knowledge (iii) is the key to a certain form of life, or that wisdom (iv) is only a part of such an art, even if maybe its most important one. So let us look more carefully at ancient philosophy to assess Hadot’s thesis. Philosophy seems to have been practiced as a fundamental search for causes and principles starting with the Ionian philosophers: Thales, Anaximenes, and Anaximander regarded “nature” (phusis) as their topic. As far as our sources tell us, it is unambiguous that they did not see theoretical philosophy as a means for something else; they simply did it for the sake of the discovery of ultimate truth. Their identification of “material causes” (as Aristotle calls them) such as water, air, or the apeiron as first principles is not meant as an instrument that leads to a better life. But shortly thereafter, in Heraclitus, we find at least traces of considerations that can be subsumed under the heading of an ethics of self-reflection and self-improvement (cf. the Heraclitean saying “I investigated myself”: DK 22 B101). The most important fragment for this is “The behavior [or: the character] of man is his fate” (ēthos anthrōpōi daimōn: DK 22 B119). It seems somewhat close to an art of living, since it describes how someone’s destiny depends on his inner attitude. The other ethical fragments of Heraclitus, however, rather discuss issues of justice, law, and the good; therefore, perhaps we should not make too much of fragment B119 of Heraclitus.

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This is even more true for Parmenides and the Eleatic School. The poem of Parmenides combines elements of paradigm (ii), the search for first principles, with aspects of paradigm (iv), the search for wisdom. But there are no signs of an art of living.5 A possible exception among the Presocratics is Pythagoras. In principle, his interest in questions concerning the correct way of living can be regarded as certain; what remains unclear is whether one can therefore already speak of a full-fledged art of living. Pythagoras’ ethics is probably related to an older wisdom tradition of mystery religion, expressed in figures like the centaur Chiron and the musician Orpheus. Among the certain facts about the Pythagoreans of the sixth century is that they possessed numerous rules of life and doctrinal sayings (akousmata). These were based on the principle of authority (cf. the formula autos epha—“he [Pythagoras] himself said it”) and ordered life in detail. In the background of the Pythagorean rules of life there seems to have been the idea of reincarnation. It is also known that secret teachings (aporrhēta) were passed on in the inner circle of the Pythagoreans; similar to Orphism and the ancient mystery religions, this seems to have been life-changing initiatory knowledge. The affinity with religion is also evident from the emphasis on cultic and ritual elements. On the basis of this evidence, we can conclude that the Pythagorean paradigm of philosophy was in fact rather a search for wisdom than an art of living. Finally, the political uprisings directed against the brotherhood of the Pythagoreans in the 5th century also point to their sectarian character. The assumption that already the Pythagoreans could have attributed a theory-guiding role to the end of living appropriately, is therefore somewhat plausible, but not highly convincing. It could perfectly well be the case that Plato’s occasional presentation of the philosophical ideal of life on the basis of the Pre-Socratics Thales (Tht. 174a) and Pythagoras (Resp. 600a) might be back-projections of Platonic ideals, as Werner Jaeger (1960) suspected. In Empedocles, we find a praise of those who gained “divine insight” whereas those who stick to a dark opinion (doxa) about the gods (DK 31 B132). The fragment goes into the direction of an art of living since it implies a certain rationalism concerning one’s choice of a life-form which replaces traditional religiosity. At the same time, elements of traditional religiosity are clearly preserved in Empedocles. The same holds true for the ethics of Democritus. Democritus seems to be influenced by the wisdom of life which we also find in the “Seven Sages” and which recommends an ethics of right measure and restraint against sensual pleasures. The Seven Sages (Plato counts 5 In fact, Hadot himself does not present an elaborated study into the Presocratics regarding the art of living.

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among them Thales, Pittacus, Bias, Solon, Cleobulus, Myson and Chilon: Prt. 343a) are not cultic figures, but archaic legislators, judges, philosophers and politicians; the religious coloring of their ethics, however, results from the fact that their sayings were to be read in Delphi on the temple of Apollo as well as on a column erected especially for this purpose. In a similar vein, Democritus also urges not to overestimate one’s own talents and nature and to lead a moderate and modest life. Whoever desires more external goods or pleasures easily gets into a restless mental state, which reduces the overall enjoyment of life (DK 68 B3; 68 B191). Democritus recommends that one should seek a prudent, serene, and balanced state of mind which he calls euthumiē. He explicitly links his notion of euthumiē to the moral notion that a good-humored person is also attracted to just and lawful actions (DK 68 B174). Democritus was perhaps even the first to compare the function of philosophy to that of medicine: “The art of healing treats the diseases of the body, but wisdom frees the soul from passions” (DK 68 B31). However, Democritus should not be taken as a representative of a Presocratic ethics. Rather, he must be classified as a contemporary of the Sophists and Socrates. In general, in the case of the Presocratics, Hadot’s thesis can hardly be confirmed. The examples of Pythagoras and Democritus are not alone sufficient for us to assume that there was already, in this period, a conception of philosophy as an art of living. Before Socrates the organizing motivations for engaging in philosophy seem to have been indeed different: it is based on the models (i) and (ii) distinguished above. Maybe even for Socrates the thesis seems a bit too strong. At least, it wouldn’t be correct to attribute a radical change to this singular figure. The Sophistic movement, which predates Socrates and does not depend on him, raised philosophical problems of how to lead one’s life. Thus, we come to the question whether the Sophistic understanding of philosophy can be included to the art of living model. The Sophists—Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus and Hippias—were approximate contemporaries of Socrates. If there is indeed an epochal break in Greek philosophy in the second half of the 5th century BC, it would have to be attributed to the Sophists at least as much as to Socrates. For outsiders, moreover, Socrates was not easily distinguishable from the Sophists even if he did not offer his service for money. In the comedy The Clouds (423 BC), however, Aristophanes counted him among the Sophists without further qualification. The common innovation of the Sophists and Socrates was to offer reflections on the appropriate way of life to broader circles of the population. The Sophists, like Socrates, believed in the value of enlightenment and education and advocated the idea of personality training on a rational basis. Incidentally, besides the teachings offered by the Sophists and Socrates, rhetoric represented the third educational offering of the

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period. While the Sophists still discussed issues of cosmology, epistemology, and ontology, Socrates seems to have dealt exclusively with “human affairs” (cf. Xenophon, Mem. I.1.11–12). What distinguished him from the Sophistic movement is that Socrates did not share with them their anti-conventionalism, their relativism or their pragmatism. But no matter how one judges Socrates’ relationship to the Sophists, the decisive indication of an epochal change in philosophy may lie in the fact that both the Sophists and Socrates appeared publicly and were available to all citizens as teachers. The most appropriate way of classifying them is to subsume the Sophists under the category (iii) of emancipatory knowledge as their philosophical paradigm. That philosophy is seen as a technique for the right conduct of life can be traced back to the enormous spread of philosophical, rhetorical and scientific education in Athens of the 5th century. Thucydides, in his famous funeral oration, puts into the mouth of the Athenian statesman Pericles a detailed praise of the freedom of education in Athenian democracy (Thuc. 2.37–46). The rhetorician Isocrates, a student of the Sophists Gorgias and Prodicus, also shares the idea of exercise and develops a program for a knowledge that is practical with respect to how one lives and relevant to the situation. In doing so, he sharply militates against a merely theoretical knowledge: “Philosophy, I think, must not be called that which at the moment is of no use to us either for speech or action; rather, I call such an occupation ‘training of the soul’ or ‘preparation for philosophy’” (Antid. 266). Later, Isocrates insisted on understanding philosophy as a directly applicable, everyday expertise, and one to be imparted through rhetoric (Antid. 271). The extent to which the historical Socrates wanted to set himself apart from the Sophists and the rhetoric movement is difficult to ascertain. In any case, his student Plato paints a decidedly anti-Sophistic and anti-rhetorical picture of Socrates. Concerning the Sophists and Isocrates, Hadot’s thesis is helpful, but again not absolutely convincing. 1.3

Socrates, the Socratics, Plato, and Aristotle

According to the testimony of Aristotle, Socrates was the first who “dealt with ethical problems and no longer with nature as a whole” (Metaph. 1.5.987b1–2; cf. 1078b17). Following Cicero, too, it was Socrates who had “summoned philosophy down from heaven to earth,” “settled it in the cities, brought it moreover into the houses, and compelled it to deal with life, morals, and goods and evils” (Tusc. 5.4). Socrates himself is said to have been interested in natural philosophy while still a young man. The reasons for his turning away from natural philosophy and his preference for moral philosophy seem to have been of an

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original kind: Plato makes himself report this in the famous “autobiography” (Phaedo 95e–99d). Be that as it may, it is a historical fact that the actual emergence of the art of living was not a purely Hellenistic phenomenon but might be understood in the context of the Platonic Socrates and of Plato (cf. Tsouna 2016). This approach, elaborated especially by Sellars (2003), explains exactly how the concepts of bios and technē, as well as logos and askēsis, were already prefigured by Socrates. Our most important witness for this is Plato. In Plato’s concept of philosophy, we can identify much evidence for the conception of self-care and the art of living. They seem to go back partly to Socrates and partly to be of non-Socratic origin, even if this distinction can hardly be precisely spelled out. The idea that philosophy consists in a rational examination of one’s own and others’ conduct of life is probably Socratic in origin (Ap. 28e): an “unexamined life” is “not worth living for a human being” (38a). Philosophy thus represents a “care for the soul” (epimeleia tēs psukhēs: 29e; 30b; similarly psukhēs therapeia: Lach. 185e), that is, the attempt to form a harmonious personality. An example of the method through which the examination is carried out is found in Plato’s dialogue Laches. There we learn that Socrates leads everyone with whom he speaks “incessantly around in conversation until the person concerned can no longer help but give an account of how he now lives and how he has spent his previous life” (Lach. 187e). Plato’s idea that the philosopher is, as it were, only on his way to wisdom, and that whoever is really wise, on the other hand, no longer philosophizes, also seems to be connected with Socrates, namely with his proverbial “ignorance.” The philosopher appears as an “eroticist” (Lysis 218a and Symp. 203e) who at first has no substantial knowledge, but seeks education, practice, and enlightenment in order to gradually attain true insight. The philosopher’s activity, moreover, is characterized as a “midwifery” for the benefit of others: He himself remains barren and confines himself to “delivering” the mental “children” of others and testing their fitness for life (Tht. 148e–152d). Further, the figure of the historical Socrates seems to be related to Plato’s ideal of proper self-knowledge, of appropriate self-assessment. The inscription “Know thyself” (gnōthi seauton) on the temple of Apollo at Delphi appears, in Plato’s work, interpreted philosophically. In Plato’s Phaedrus it is said that it is meaningless to occupy oneself with anything else as long as one has not followed the Delphic call to self-knowledge; one must first know whether one is by nature a wild animal or a noble, divine living being (229e). Close to the Delphic motif, the theme of a self-referential knowledge is also treated in the Charmides, where knowledge of oneself (heautou epistēmē: Chrm. 165d) is associated with prudence, that is, measured behavior (166c; 169b). An explicit treatment of the motif of self-knowledge in the sense of a philosophical art of living is found especially in the “allegory of the eye” of the Alcibiades I: there,

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self-knowledge is identified with the Platonic “care for oneself” or “care for one’s own soul” (Alc. I 129a). These points may count as genuinely Socratic. Numerous further aspects can be cited as evidence for a conception of the art of living in Plato. First of all, the idea of “practicing to die” is relevant; according to Plato, the “real philosophers” strive all their lives “for nothing else than to die and to be dead” (Phd. 64a–b). Philosophy is hence characterized as an “exercise in dying” (meletē thanatou: Phd. 81a1). Philosophy thus acquires a redemptive function, which not only ensures happiness in this life, but should also lead to the best possible life after death. In addition, philosophy provides the philosopher in this life with knowledge of virtue, thus bringing him at the same time into possession of virtue and guaranteeing his happiness, as it is argued both in the Gorgias and in the Republic. Furthermore, the motive of an “assimilation to God” as far as possible is important, which Plato emphasizes several times as the goal of philosophical endeavor (Tht. 176a). Plato in this way forms an emphatic concept of the personality-changing effect of philosophy: the philosopher possesses true knowledge (epistēmē) as opposed to mere opinion (doxa), for the objects of his knowledge are said to be unchanging and “always constant.” (Resp. 5.474b–480a) The philosopher is contrasted with the sophist who is characterized as a mere conjurer and trickster. In order for someone to become a philosopher, he or she must have made a change or conversion (periagōgē, peristrophē). Philosophy, viewed in this way, stands for an ascent (epanodos) of the soul (Resp. 518d and 521c). Admittedly, the philosopher appears to ordinary people as little fit for life because of his distance to the everyday world (487d; Tht. 173c–d). That philosophy represented a life-determining knowledge for Plato is thus correct independently of the question on which sources his concept of philosophy goes back and whether the evidence adduced can be synthesized to form a consistent picture of Plato’s whole philosophy. Further evidence can be found in Plato’s environment. In the pseudo-Platonic Definitions which originate from Plato’s circle of students, philosophy is characterized (a) as the “striving for a knowledge of the always-being,” (b) as the “contemplative attitude of the true in which way it is true,” and (c) as the “care for the soul combined with right deliberation” (414b). All three determinations obviously place the person of the philosopher in relation to true knowledge. One should especially emphasize the role of two Socratic schools for the development of the ancient art of living: the Cyrenaics and the Cynics. Whereas the Cyrenaics are hedonists and anti-eudaemonists, the Cynics defended anti-hedonism and a sort of aretaic eudaemonism. Diogenes Laertius provides us the following important report on the view of the Cynic Diogenes of Sinope:

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He used to affirm that training was of two kinds, mental and bodily: the latter being that whereby, with constant exercise, perceptions are formed such as secure freedom of movement for virtuous deeds; and the one half of this training is incomplete without the other, good health and strength being just as much included among the essential things, whether for body or soul. And he would adduce indisputable evidence to show how easily from gymnastic training we arrive at virtue. For in the manual crafts and other arts it can be seen that the craftsmen develop extraordinary manual skill through practice. Again, take the case of flute-players and of athletes: what surpassing skill they acquire by their own incessant toil; and, if they had transferred their efforts to the training of the mind, how certainly their labors would not have been unprofitable or ineffective. Nothing in life, however, he maintained, has any chance of succeeding without strenuous practice; and this is capable of overcoming anything. Accordingly, instead of useless toils men should choose such as nature recommends, whereby they might have lived happily. Yet such is their madness that they choose to be miserable. For even the despising of pleasure is itself most pleasurable, when we are habituated to it; and just as those accustomed to a life of pleasure feel disgust when they pass over to the opposite experience, so those whose training has been of the opposite kind derive more pleasure from despising pleasure than from the pleasures themselves. This was the gist of his conversation; and it was plain that he acted accordingly, adulterating currency in very truth, allowing convention no such authority as he allowed to natural right, and asserting that the manner of life he lived was the same as that of Heracles when he preferred liberty to everything. (Diog. Laert. 6.70–71) This is a classical text for ancient asceticism—and doubtlessly, Hadot is right in the case of Hellenistic cynicism as well as in the case of Stoicism and Epicureanism. Much less clear is the evidence in favor of philosophy as an art of living when we consider Aristotle. Aristotle, in fact, makes a clear distinction between theoretical and practical knowledge; he differentiates between areas of knowledge both by subject and by method, and finally by interest. Theoretical knowledge represents the highest form of knowledge; it is to be chosen for its own sake alone (Metaph. 982a12–17). Apparently, this consideration seems to exclude the view that Aristotle could have understood philosophy as a whole as an art of living. For practically relevant knowledge is supposed to form an independent domain and, moreover, to be of only subordinate epistemic importance. Further, according to Aristotle’s well-known principle of object-related accuracy, a

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single (strict or weak) ideal of precision cannot be used for all sciences. Rather, different standards would have to apply to a rhetorician and to a mathematician. Especially in ethical topics, according to Aristotle, one must reckon with considerably diverging opinions and complex, changing conditions (Eth. Nic. 1094b11–27). Aristotle thus advocates epistemic pluralism, which, it seems, sets the fields of knowledge far apart from one another. The idea of a practical orientation of ethics is hence based on epistemological reasons, not on Aristotle’s preference for model (i) of philosophy. Admittedly, knowledge as treated by Aristotle in the ethical writings has an action-guiding function. Thus, at the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle says that young people, because of their emotional nature, have no use for moral philosophy. The goal of ethics is not knowledge, but action (Eth. Nic. 1095a2–6). Similarly, at the beginning of the Eudemian Ethics, he says that one must primarily investigate what the good life consists of and how it can be acquired (Eth. Eud. 1214a15–16). However, Aristotle explicitly distinguishes from this moral philosophical procedure a “purely theoretical philosophy” (philosophian monēn theōretikēn: Eth. Eud. 1214a13), which he equally considers a justified way of doing philosophy. Within practical knowledge, moreover, he further differentiates between knowledge relevant to acquisition and knowledge relevant to action (Eth. Eud. 1214a11). This means that he regards morally indifferent practical interests as legitimate as well. Aristotle has a clear awareness of the independence of different areas of knowledge. He explicitly opposes Plato’s synthesis of metaphysics and ethics, arguing that there is no unified knowledge of the good; goods are of fundamentally different kinds (Eth. Nic. 1096a29–34). So far, the philosophical model based on the art of living seems to be implausible for Aristotle. In a certain contrast to this, Aristotle in the Protrepticus, a philosophical promotional writing for a larger audience, represents a similar philosophical view as we found in Plato. He says, for example: “We do not remain healthy by knowing things that promote our health, but by supplying them to the body; … we live a beautiful and noble life not by knowing some of what exists, but by acting well; for this is truly the happy life” (B52; cf. B13, B34). In other respects, the Aristotelian Protrepticus also recalls positions of Plato. On the one hand, an emphatic concept of philosophy appears, both in ontological terms (“The philosopher is an observer of things themselves, not of their imitations”—B48) as well as in an epistemological sense (“philosophy comprises correct judgment and infallible insight …”—B9). In the text, moreover, we find the idea of a reward “on the islands of the blessed” (B44) which appears on several occasions in Plato. Even the practical use of philosophy for the other disciplines and crafts is emphasized (B46–47). If one had to judge by

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the Protrepticus alone, philosophy would also be understood by Aristotle as a superior art of living according to the Socratic and Platonic model. The tension which exists between these two kinds of observation can be mitigated with reference to Aristotle’s theory of happiness. On the one hand, the practical orientation of the ethical writings aims at a life according to the virtues of character, which Aristotle considers secondarily recommendable. On the other hand, he represents a philosophical ideal of life; he understands the purposeless philosophical “contemplation” (theōria) as the most valuable human activity. Consequently, the theoretical way of life (ho kata ton noun bios) possesses for him a priority over an ethical and political life (Eth. Nic. 1178a6–8). According to Aristotle, a theoretical life is the highest good which is intrinsically choiceworthy; purposeless knowledge is thus relevant to happiness, although it is not directed toward external action. The theorist is, to some extent, even able to achieve the happiness of the gods. A fully theoretical life is, however, beyond the capacity of a human being; it is no longer a human being who lives in this way, but something divine in him (Eth. Nic. 1177b26–28 et al.; cf. 1175a4 and 26, Protrepticus B28). Even if Aristotle emphatically distinguishes philosophical knowledge of principles from knowledge of ethics, both forms of knowledge are nevertheless understood as relevant for happiness. Philosophical knowledge remains for him constitutive for a personal habit, and it establishes its own, particularly recommendable form of life. To sum up, Hadot’s thesis is not completely convincing for Aristotle, but at least has a certain value. In Hellenistic philosophy, we find, especially in Stoic and Epicurean sources, much more evidence for the relevance of Hadot’s thesis. Persuasive examples can be given with regard to philosophical exercises that were recommended for students who want to enter philosophy. There are, for example, practices of self-­examination and self-criticism which are intended to remedy the evil of projecting one’s own faults onto others. The Stoic Cleanthes is said to have frequently berated himself and to have answered the question of whom he was berating thus: an old man with gray hair, but no sense (Diog. Laert. 7.171). The Stoics practiced the memorization of the so-called kanōn, i.e. the basic Stoic conviction of the worthlessness of all unattainable goods. This includes the repeated recitation of single sentences or of general rules as well as of single instructions, in which valuable insights were summarized in a condensed formulation. Epicurus, too, recommends such an exercise (meletē) to the student; it should consist of a memorization of his main teachings repeated “day and night” (Diog. Laert. 10.135). These main contents (kuriai doxai, kuriōtata) are found, among others, summarized in the so-called Tetrapharmakos, the “fourfold medicine.” It had the following wording: “One need not be afraid of God;

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one should not face death with suspicious fear; the good is easy to procure; the bad, on the other hand, is easy to bear” (Usener, p. 69). Moreover, in some schools there was the practice of memorizing sayings (apophthegmata) of eminent philosophers. Imaginative exercises are purposefully evoked imaginings with which the practitioner sought to influence the realm of his emotions, attitudes, fantasies, and dreams. An early example of such a procedure has come down to us from the Cyrenaics. Cicero reports that they practiced a technique of anticipating future evil (Latin: praemeditatio futuri mali), including their own death. The guiding principle seems to have been the conviction that one could take away the tip of impending evil by imaginative anticipation. By preparing oneself in the inner imagination for the possibility of adverse future events, one reduces the element of surprise and thus also the feeling of helplessness when the evil actually occurs. Cicero refers that the Early Stoa also practiced such a procedure, but with an intention slightly different from the Cyrenaic intention. He engaged in imaginative anticipation of one’s own death (praemeditatio mortis) with the goal of systematically eliminating the fear of death (cf. Tusc. 3.28–31; 52). Chrysippus stands here in the Socratic-Platonic tradition, which conceived of philosophizing as an exercise in death. Epicurus argued, against this practice, that forethought of future evil is foolish because one unnecessarily burdens oneself with thoughts of misfortune (Tusc. 3.32). But also he appreciated a “practice of appropriate dying” (meletē tou kalōs apothnēskein: Usener, p. 205). Among the Epicureans, moreover, there is evidence of an imaginative technique in which the student tries to imagine how Epicurus would behave under the given circumstances; Epicurus’ philosophical stance served as an extensive role model. 1.4

Philosophy in Late Antiquity: Pagan and Christian Models

In the case of the philosophers and schools of the imperial period and late antiquity, the thesis that their philosophical self-understanding was based on a technē tou biou does not seem quite plausible at first. There are two main reasons for this. On the one hand, there is no seamless institutional continuity between Hellenism, the imperial period and late antiquity; it therefore seems doubtful whether there could have been a continuity of teaching in terms of content. On the other hand, it is striking how much the schools of philosophy in the Roman Empire were interested in teaching orthodoxy, cultivating tradition, commenting on texts, and synthesizing different positions. They seem to have possessed primarily an educational interest in classical Hellenistic philosophy that was philologically preservative and systematically harmonizing.

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On the other hand, the imperial Stoics, namely Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus offer good examples of the unbroken appeal of the art-of-living model. But this does not apply only to them. The concept of the art of living and the guidance of the soul also proved to be relevant for the Neoplatonism of late antiquity, as can be seen in the biography of Plotinus written by Porphyry. Plotinus is portrayed as an intellectual, spiritual, and at the same time philanthropic teacher; he had never slackened “his attention to himself” (tēn pros heauton prosochēn ouk echalasen: Plot. 8.20–21). In the aristocracy of Rome, Plotinus was given numerous young people to educate; he is said to have always been available to his extensive circle of friends (Plot. 9). It is also relevant that Plotinus planned the foundation of an ideal community called Platonopolis, in which he wanted to live with his students according to Platonic principles (Plot. 12). An impressive text on the Neoplatonic art of living is Iamblichus’: Music therefore performed this Pythagorean adjustment. But another kind of purification of the discursive reason, and also of the whole soul, through various studies, was effected [by asceticism]. He had a general notion that disciplines and studies should imply some form of labor; and therefore, like a legislator, he decreed trials of the most varied nature, punishments, and restraints by fire and sword, for innate intemperance, or an ineradicable desire for possession, which the depraved could neither suffer nor sustain. Moreover, his intimates were ordered to abstain from all animal food, and any other that are hostile to the reasoning power by impeding its genuine energies. On them he likewise enjoined suppression of speech, and perfect silence, exercising them for years at a time in the subjugation of the tongue, while strenuously and assiduously investigating and ruminating over the most difficult theorems. Hence also he ordered them to abstain from wine, to be sparing in their food, to sleep little, and to cultivate an unstudied contempt of, and hostility to fame, wealth, and the like; unfeignedly to reverence those to whom reverence is due, genuinely to exercise democratic assimilation and heartiness towards their fellows in age, and towards their juniors courtesy, encouragement, without envy. (VP, 16.68–69) A similar relationship to the one shared between Porphyry and Plotinus existed between the Neoplatonist Proclus and his teacher Syrianus; Proclus referred to him as his “soul guide” (hēgemōn). Syrianus was for him the “guide to all that is good and beautiful” (Theologia Platonica I.1). In the case of the Neoplatonic philosopher and politician Boethius, who was imprisoned in the Ostrogothic Ravenna

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of the early 6th century for alleged treason, another aspect of the art of living model can be observed; for him, the philosophical arguments he wrote down before his execution meant a “consolation,” a reassurance, and an admonition to serenity. The interactions of Christianity and ancient philosophy cannot be summarized into a thesis alleging either their univocal conflict or harmony. This begins with the observation that the New Testament itself—contrary to the superficial impression—does not contain a rejection of philosophy. The Pauline texts that seem to exhibit an anti-philosophical tendency (namely, Colossians 2:8 and 1 Corinthians 1:17–21 with 3:19) by no means reject philosophy as a whole but oppose individual doctrines. Also, it would be a misunderstanding if one wanted to apply the famous saying from the Sermon on the Mount “Do not worry about your soul … !” (Matthew 6:25) as a rejection of philosophical self-care. The target here is only the care for everyday goods; only an anxious and self-centered accumulation of goods is rejected. Conversely, it would be just as exaggerated to see in Jesus’ call to watchfulness and to “be ready” (Mark 13:35) a close parallel to the philosophical training of spiritual attention. In the New Testament context, the expectation of the near end of times forms the background for such an exhortation to watchfulness. The New Testament proves to be neutral towards the philosophical model of the art of living. Thus, for a Christian, approval and rejection of ancient philosophy were equally possible. In fact, both tendencies are found to a considerable extent: while Greek church writers tended to take a positive view of philosophy, the rejection of a “worldly” or “pagan” wisdom with reference to Paul prevailed in the Latin West. The predominantly positive attitude with which the Greek apologists resorted to argumentative and expressive means of philosophy since the second half of the 2nd century resulted, on the one hand, from prestige reasons. Abandoning the conceptual resources of philosophy would have given Christianity the character of a vulgar sect; the ridicule of the educated pagan public is in any case palpable in the anti-Christian tracts of Celsus and later Porphyry. Christian authors therefore show at the same time appreciation, instrumentalization, overbidding, and repudiation of pagan philosophy, but this largely with its conceptual means. Also, the very fact that ancient philosophy had a practical character seems to have formed a bridge to the self-understanding of Christianity. The fact that religions, wisdom, and salvation teachings could claim the term “philosophy” for themselves is, moreover, a phenomenon that is older than Christianity: it can already be proven in Hellenistic Judaism and in Gnosticism. Philo of Alexandria, in particular, offered an impressive synthesis of religious revelation and philosophy; he acted as an important model for Christian authors with his combination of arguments from Scripture and reason, and with his use of Platonic and Stoic terms to interpret the Bible.

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The conscious adaptation of philosophy by Christian apologists begins with Justin, who was a philosopher before his conversion and retained this self-­ designation even as a Christian; he went so far as to characterize Christianity as a whole as philosophy, using an expression from the Platonic tradition as “true philosophy.” Justin thus expressed the conviction that pagan philosophy is completed in Christianity; because Christians “live with the Logos [i.e., with Christ]” (meta logou biountes), they are, according to Justinus, “the true philosophers” (Apol. 46; PG 6, 397). In particular, Clement of Alexandria, in his Strōmateis, further elaborated this thesis of Christianity as the true philosophy. The central representative of a Christian philosophy, which was at the same time conceived in a practical-ascetic way, is in the Greek East, besides Clement, Origen. Clement speaks of a “service to men” (peri tous anthrōpous therapeia) with the goal of moral improvement (Strom. 7.1.3.1). In the Strōmateis, we also find the following passage: We must then exercise ourselves in taking care about those things which fall under the power of the passions, fleeing like those who are truly philosophers such articles of food as excite lust, and dissolute licentiousness in chambering and luxury; and the sensations that tend to luxury, which are a solid reward to others, must no longer be so to us. For God’s greatest gift is self-restraint. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” as having judged thee worthy according to the true election. Thus, then, while we attempt piously to advance, we shall have put on us the mild yoke of the Lord from faith to faith, one charioteer driving each of us onward to salvation, that the meet fruit of beatitude may be won. “Exercise is” according to Hippocrates of Cos, “not only the health of the body, but of the soul—fearlessness of labours—a ravenous appetite for food.” (Strom. 2.20) An aspect that has to do with the art of living in Origen’s understanding of philosophy is tangible, among other things, in the reports that Origen “practiced a philosophical life to the highest degree, partly by fasting exercises, partly by limiting the length of his sleep” (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.3.9). Moreover, the value of ancient education for the life of a Christian was defended by Basil of Caesarea in the writing Pros neous; moreover, he significantly influenced Eastern monasticism with his Ascetica. The Platonic motif of homoiōsis theōi had a significant effect in the philosophical mysticism of early church authors. Moreover, Christianity retained the parrhesiastic tradition, the concept and practice of asceticism, and likewise the figure of the “wise master” (cf. the collection of sayings of the Desert Fathers: Apophthegmata Patrum; Hadot 1991, 48–65). In the Latin West, Ambrose, Marius Victorinus, and Augustine in particular drew

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positively on philosophy. Augustine translated “philosophy” in the wake of Cicero as studium sapientiae or amor sapientiae and, in addition to Christianity, also certified Platonism to be more than just a “wisdom of this world.” Gregory of Nyssa describes the philosophical life of his sister Macrina as follows: And such was the order of their life, such was the high level of philosophy and the holy conduct of their living by day and by night that it exceeds the power of words to describe it. For just as souls are freed from their bodies by death and at the same time liberated from the cares of this life, so was their existence separated from these things, removed from all of life’s vanity and fashioned in harmonious imitation of the life of the angels. In them no anger, envy, hate, arrogance, nor any other such thing was seen; the desire for foolish things of no substance, for honor, glory, delusions of grandeur, the need to be superior to others, and all such things had been eradicated. Self-control was their pleasure, not to be known was their fame, their wealth was in possessing nothing and in shaking off all material surplus, like dust from the body; their work was none of the concerns of this life, except in so far as it was a subordinate task. Their only care was for divine realities, and there was constant prayer and the unceasing singing of hymns, extended equally throughout the entire day and night so that this was both work and respite from work for them. (Vita Sanctae Macrinae 11.13–33) During the 4th century, a disdain for the practical achievements of philosophy seems to have arisen among Christian authors. Even Justin conceded that non-Christians such as Heraclitus and Socrates had led a life “according to the Logos.” In contrast, in John Chrysostom we find a very unfavorable judgment of the ethical practice of the pagans, including polemics against Socrates or against the Cynic Diogenes. Chrysostom estimated the ethical practice of the philosophers as inferior and insignificant compared to that of the Christians. In this way, he subsequently favored a judgment that limited the value of philosophy to the realm of the theoretical and reserved ethical and religious practice entirely for Christianity. A similar devaluation of the philosophical form of life as in Chrysostom is found in the late Augustine. Augustine also asserts the inadequacy of the ancient conception of virtue for the attainment of happiness and attacks the moral failure of philosophers. The virtues of the philosophers, he argues, have no foundation in God, are therefore imperfect and even more likely to be classified as vices (vitia potius quam virtutes: De civ. D. 19.25). This Augustinian judgment is not a blanket devaluation; on his conception, the ancient practice of virtue acquires a complete meaning only against the

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background of the Christian conception of grace. The Church Father himself, with his intention to prove Christianity as a theoretical as well as a practical perfection of philosophy, remains decisively determined by the ancient model of self-care; philosophy is also for Augustine a “spiritual exercise” (exercitatio animi: cf. De trinitate 11–13). However, through the negative judgments in Chrysostom and Augustine, the tendency is to discard the art-of-living model in favor of characterizing the Christian approach as an exclusively religious practice of piety. 1.5

Conclusion

Can Hadot’s thesis be confirmed after this brief look at the history of almost 1100 years of ancient philosophy? In the case of the Presocratics it is certainly not convincing; the understanding of philosophy of Socrates, the Sophists, Plato, Aristotle, the authors of the imperial period and the Platonists of late antiquity, on the other hand, can all be grouped under the model of philosophy understood as an art of living. Admittedly, the models are by no means congruent: they even differ from each other in quite essential points, including the question of the ideal type of life to be achieved by philosophical means. One might therefore reproach Hadot that his description differentiates too little between a need for enlightenment and education (as among the Sophists), the conception of a philosophical unified science that is supposed to properly order the life of the individual and the state (Plato), philosophy as a political and as a purposeless-theoretical way of life (Aristotle), the search for appropriate conduct of life, attainment of happiness, and therapy of the affects (Hellenistic schools), and the search for redemption or metaphysical salvation (Neoplatonists and Christians). On the other hand, these differences can also be understood as differentiations within a single concept of philosophy. Viewed in this way, Hadot’s thesis still deserves to be taken seriously.

References

Alciati, Robert, ed. 2018. Norm and Exercise. Christian Asceticism between Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Annas, Julia. 1992. The Morality of Happiness. New York / Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hadot, Ilsetraut. 1969. Seneca und die griechisch-römische Tradition der Seelenleitung. Berlin: De Gruyter.

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Hadot, Pierre. 1981. Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique. Paris: Études Augustiniennes. Hadot, Pierre. 1992. La citadelle intérieure. Introduction aux pensées de Marc Aurèle. Paris: Fayard. Hadot, Pierre. 1995. Qu’est-ce que la philosophie antique? Paris: Gallimard. Hijmans, Benjamin. 1959. Askesis. Notes on Epictetus’ Educational System. Assen: Van Gorcum. Horn, Christoph. 1998. Antike Lebenskunst. Glück und Moral von Sokrates bis zu den Neuplatonikern. Munich: C. H. Beck. Horn, Christoph. 2007. “Objektivität, Rationalität, Immunität, Teleologie: Wie plausibel ist die antike Konzeption einer Lebenskunst?” In Kritik der Lebenskunst, edited by Wolfgang Kersting and Claus Langbehn, 118–48. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Irwin, Terence H. 1986. “Stoic and Aristotelian Conceptions of Happiness.” In The Norms of Nature. Studies in Hellenistic Ethics, edited by Malcolm Schofield and Gisela Striker, 205–44. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jaeger, Werner. 1960. “Über Ursprung und Kreislauf des philosophischen Lebensideals.” Scripta Minora I: 347–93. Nehamas, Alexander. 1998. The Art of Living: Socratic Reflections from Plato to Foucault. Berkeley / Los Angeles: University of California Press. Newman, Robert. 1989. “Cotidie meditare: Theory and Practice of the meditatio in Imperial Stoicism.” In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, edited by Wolfgang Haase, 1473–517. Berlin: De Gruyter. Nussbaum, Martha. 1994. The Therapy of Desire. Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rabbow, Paul. 1954. Seelenführung. Methodik der Exerzitien in der Antike, Munich: Kösel Verlag. Sellars, John. 2003. The Art of Living. The Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy. Aldershot: Ashgate. Tsouna, Voula. 2016. “Die stoische Lebenskunst und ihre platonischen Vorläufer.” In Philosophie als Lebenskunst. Antike Vorbilder, moderne Perspektiven, edited by Gerhard Ernst, 161–206. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Voelke, André-Jean. 1993. La philosophie comme thérapie de l’âme. Etudes de philosophie hellénistique. Fribourg: Presses universitaires de Fribourg.

CHAPTER 2

Ancient Philosophy as a Way of Life Examined: Clearing up the Confusion between “Way of Life” and “Art of Life” Annie Larivée 2.1

Introduction1

In the wake of Hadot’s pioneering work on what he chose to call “spiritual exercises,” several expressions are now used to capture the specificity of ancient philosophy in contrast with contemporary academic philosophy. As things stand now, “philosophy as a way of life” (PWL) is the most ubiquitous in English, but “philosophy as an art of life/living” is also frequently used, as are “philosophy as care for the soul/self,” “philosophy as therapy,” and transliterations of ancient expressions (authentic or not) such as epimeleia heautou, tekhnē tou biou, therapeia tes psukhēs, etc. Typically, authors writing on the subject show a predilection for one of these expressions over others in their work. Although their choice may be grounded in reasons (explicitly or implicitly), often, it seems to reflect a personal preference—as is indicated by the fact that these descriptions are routinely treated as interchangeable. Hadot himself uses a profusion of expressions as equivalents, as if not much was at stake in choosing one description or another.2 My suggestion is that they are 1 Drafts of this paper were presented at the “Philosophy and Education Colloquium Series” (Columbia University), the annual conference of the Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy (St. Johns, NL), and the Symposium “Hadot and Foucault on Ancient Philosophy” (Universidade Nova de Lisboa) in 2021. I thank the participants of these events for their useful comments. I am especially grateful to Jo Chalupiak, Marta Faustino and Hélder Telo, whose critical remarks at different stages of development enabled me to improve my argument substantially. Thank you also to Ian Maclean-Evans for his editorial assistance. 2 If I’m not mistaken, in his Exercices spirituels (Hadot, 2002), “mode de vie” appears only once in the chapters written in the ’70s. The emphasis is on “exercices spirituels” but we find a plethora of apparently synonymous expressions such as “art de vivre,” “style de vie,” “manière de vivre,” “vie philosophique,” “état de vie.” Further in the book, in texts published in the ’80s, “mode de vie” becomes more frequent, as well as other expressions such as “forme de vie,” “règles de vie,” “manière d’être,” “choix de vie,” “genre de vie,” “modèle de vie,” “sagesse vécue.” In Qu’est-ce que la philosophie antique? (Hadot, 1995), “mode de vie” and “choix de vie” become prominent. © Annie Larivée, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004693524_004

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not equivalent, and that it matters. Indeed, when closer attention is paid to their meaning and intension, we see that many of these descriptions differ significantly, carry diverse connotations, and are thus meant to play distinct roles. Failing to distinguish them creates confusion. More importantly, it deprives us of precious conceptual tools to capture aspects of ancient philosophy that remain concealed without their contribution. All descriptions of ancient philosophy (ancient philosophy as x, y, or z) call for an in-depth critical examination of a relational kind. Although I hope to conduct a more comprehensive comparative analysis in the future, there are good reasons to initiate this inquiry with the description of ancient philosophy as a “way of life”. The first is scholarly. For better or for worse, PWL has become the dominant expression to refer to Hadot’s work on ancient spiritual exercises in English.3 The second reason is metaphilosophical. Over the past decade, PWL (also known as PWOL) has emerged as an alternative paradigm to understand philosophy. Under that name, a more practice-oriented, more experiential way of engaging in philosophy is gaining momentum outside and inside academia. The vigor of this trend alone justifies beginning my conceptual inquiry with PWL. In what follows, my proposal is to resist the pressure created by the current popularity of PWL as a metaphilosophical paradigm and refrain from using “philosophy as a way of life” as an all-purpose, blanket type of description to refer to all of ancient philosophy without qualification. Note that my revisionist proposal is more radical than Cooper’s decision to reserve the expression PWL to describe specific ways of life such as the “Socratic way of life,” the “Aristotelian way of life,” the “Stoic way of life,” etc. (Cooper 2012, x).4 But it is also more modest, if not deflationary, since it advocates for a minimalistic, down to earth understanding of what “way of life” (βίος or ζωή in Greek) means in ancient philosophy. This semantic reduction is combined with an invitation to establish a clear conceptual distinction between philosophy as a way of life and philosophy as an art of life. We will see that once a robust definition of “way of life” is agreed upon, describing ancient philosophy as a way of life becomes interestingly problematic in some cases. This holds true of Stoicism and Epicureanism, two schools that Hadot sees as prime examples of PWL. Shedding light on this situation is the most unexpected outcome of my inquiry. 3 This is illustrated by recent books that contain “PWL” in their title. E.g., Cooper 2012, who appropriates Hadot’s paradigm while radically altering it, and more recently, Sharpe and Ure 2021, heavily indebted to Hadot, as well as Ambury, Irani, and Wallace 2021. 4 This is illustrated in the structure and subtitle of his book “Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy” (my emphasis).

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Robust Meaning of the Locution “Way of Life,” Today

Before I proceed, let me emphasize that my project is not exegetic. My objective is to question a linguistic use that has become prevalent, not to explore Hadot’s specific understanding of ancient philosophy. Please note, then, that whenever I write Hadot*, this indicates that the target of my critical assessment is less Hadot himself than the reception of his work in English translation. As for Hadot(*), it refers to both Hadot and his followers. And when I just write Hadot, this is not an oversight. I am referring to Hadot’s original work in French. Let us start with a simple question. There are many ways for humans to live. If we accept that philosophy can be a way of life, in what way is it a way? And in what way is it different from other ways of living a human life? Is PWL largely a matter of cultivating certain “philosophical” attitudes and abilities (living mindfully, critically, inquisitively, in a rational, principled manner, or what have you), in which case many kinds of life could include it? Or is philosophy a way of life in the sense that it involves a specific kind of life? To use religion as a point of comparison, is adopting PWL comparable to Sam Doe, a physician and family person, attempting to be a good Christian, or to Sam Doe embracing the life of a Benedictine monk or nun? In the first case, embracing the “Christian way of life” does not require a special sort of life, it is compatible with the type of lives lived by people like Sam in Sam’s society. In the second, the “Christian way of life” becomes itself a kind of life, a distinct pattern of living with a special design, rules, and concrete material conditions. Whereas the former could well remain invisible, the second is conspicuous, tangible. In fact, let us set aside the philosophy part for now to focus on the way of life part of the description. The terms that come closest to our “way of life” in ancient Greek are βίος and ζωή.5 But what do we mean by “way of life” exactly? Before attempting to apply a paradigm such as PWL to a cultural practice found in a distant past, it is a good idea to clarify what “way of life” refers to today.6 I am no linguist or cultural anthropologist, and the following suggestion calls for empirical corroboration. But I want to propose that in contexts relevant to the topic of the present inquiry, “way of life” refers to two main things. The 5 According to the Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek Lexicon (LSJ) the first meaning of βίος is “life, i.e. not animal life (ζωή), but mode of life … manner of living (mostly therefore of men, … ; but also of animals.” As for ζωή, the first meaning is “living, i.e., one’s substance, property” as well as “life, existence, opp. death” and “way of life.” 6 Sellars mentions that βίος is to be understood as way of life or “manner of life,” not just life (2009, 1 n.6, 21). But he seems to assume that we all well know what “way of life” means and share this understanding with the ancients. I think this requires elucidation.

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first is a socially inherited, collectively shared mode of living. And the second, normatively loaded (positively or negatively), refers to the voluntary adoption of an alternative, special kind of life in relation to the pursuit of a specific end (what Greek philosophers, after Aristotle, called τέλος). This basic typology can be fleshed out as follows. 2.2.1 Type 1: Ordinary, Conventional Way of Life. Way of Life as a Socially Inherited Life Pattern There are different ways humans go about getting the things they need, organizing their time, structuring their activities in the private and social sphere, as well as manners in which they replenish their energy. All this usually displays a pattern. Transmitted mostly through imitation and habituation, these diverse patterns of living are socially shaped. This explains why even though it is individuals who do the living, we often refer to cultures as ways of life. We speak, for example, of the American way of life, the French, the Scandinavian, or Mediterranean way of life, and we also apply this to past cultures, contrasting the Athenian with the Spartan way of life.7 In this first sense of the expression “way of life,” everyone has a way of life in virtue of living in a particular environment, within a particular social group, at a particular point in time. From the moment we are born, we learn to live a certain way through imitation of people around us, through praise, blame, punishment, reward, etc.8 Individuals who fail to conform to the common way of life are often criticized for their “lifestyle.” Not fitting into the shared pattern even leads to ostracism in some societies. In that first sense of the locution, “way of life” is not the result of a decision. Choice can enter the scene when one deviates from the shared social pattern. I thus refer to this first type as the “ordinary” or “conventional” way of life. One roughly lives the way one lives in a given group at a given time.9 7 The expression is not found in the passage of Thucydides’s text he quotes, but Hadot refers to Athens in those terms when alluding to Pericles’ “Funeral Oration” (Thuc. 2.40): “Périclès, l’homme d’État athénien, fait en ces termes l’éloge du mode de vie que l’on pratique à Athènes …” (1995, 38). I don’t know if βίος and ζωή were widely used to refer to whole societies as ways of life in ancient Greek (at 2.36, Thucydides uses the words “πολιτείας καὶ τρόπων”), but it was done. See Letter VII, 336d, where Plato contrasts the Dorian and the Sicilian ways of life. It is also clear from Aristotle’s Politics that βίος could be applied to a polis, see 1325b10 for instance. At 1295b5, Aristotle describe a polis’ constitution as a way of life of sorts: “ἡ γὰρ πολιτεία βίος τίς ἐστι πόλεως.” 8 Cohoe and Grimm 2021, 229–30, who start with similar observations, seem to suggest that such unreflective patterns are undeserving of the title “way of life.” In contrast, I do not adopt a normative stance. Understanding the role of the concept of way of life in ancient philosophy requires that we take its meaning in ordinary language seriously. 9 Even in a highly unified culture, not everyone shares the same way of life. There are differences linked to age, gender, class, etc. But all members share some aspects of the collective

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2.2.2 Type 2: Way of Life as a Deliberately Chosen, Special Mode of Existence But we also use the locution way of life to refer to manners of living that diverge from the collectively inherited pattern. They can be deemed “special” in the negative sense of the expression “lifestyle” just mentioned. A person or group of people fail to conform. But they can also be seen as special in a positive sense. Here, we are still talking about concrete patterns of living. But these patterns result from a deliberate choice and are out of the ordinary somehow. We can be more precise and distinguish four main alternative types: 2.2.2.1 Vocational Way of Life First, there are vocational modes of existence where daily life is designed to favor the attainment of a strong telos and structured by rules that members of a specific group follow in their daily activities. We could describe the discipline followed by Zen or Christian monks as being ways of life in that sense. Inclusion in these ways of life typically involves admission as well as a commitment (e.g., vows), and are often oriented towards a long-term spiritual goal (e.g., enlightenment, salvation, etc.), though not necessarily. Military life would be a good example of a non-spiritual vocational way of life. Highly organized ways of life in that sense are like alternative sub-cultures. They are often granted special status within the society in which they are integrated as isolated cells or are tolerated at its margins. 2.2.2.2 Aspirational Way of Life Another special way of life arises when individuals choose to pursue one goal or dedicate their life to one value without necessarily joining an organized community. In democratic liberal societies, we could think of the way of life of the passionate artist absorbed in their work, or the engaged life of the full-time environmental activist or war reporter dedicated to promoting human rights around the globe, etc. Special ways of life in that sense are typically motivated by ideals (social, artistic, political, ethical, etc.), which is why I propose to call this type “aspirational.” But what justifies their description as “ways of life” is the impact the pursuit of that telos has on the concrete shape of one’s existence. Like the vocational type, though to a lesser extent, modes of living in that sense typically have a recognizable shape distinguishing them from the conventional way of life of type 1. But in contrast with the stable frame that characterizes both type 1 and 2(a), the life pattern that distinguishes the aspirational type way of life. This also applies to democracies in which there is room for variations. We could say that being free to shape one’s own way of life is part of the collective way of life in democracies (as Pericles explains about Athens in Thuc. 2.36–37).

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is often more on the side of chaos than of structure. Being constantly “on the move” in the pursuit of a strong goal—literally or figuratively—is typically not conducive to routine. It tends to disrupt the dimensions of life that require stability, such as family for instance. 2.2.2.3 Hedonic Way of Life A third type of special way of life comprises a manner of living that, without being vocational or even aspirational, is strongly organized around one dominant source of satisfaction, like the existence of the refined hedonist, say, or extreme adventurer or socialite. In this type, we could say that there is no distinct telos pursued (what we find instead is a series of punctual targets: tasting this fine wine, climbing this mountain, or attending that reception, say, and then that one, and then that other one, etc.), or that the telos is somehow indistinguishable from the person’s cycle of activities on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. The way of life’s enjoyment, in the present, is the telos if there is one. Let us call this type “hedonic” while keeping in mind that enjoyment can take different forms, many of which require effort and are not necessarily mindless. 2.2.2.4 Counter-Cultural Way of Life That last type is “reactive.” It refers to kinds of life shaped by a deliberate rejection of the habits and norms defining type 1. Think of hippies, punks, or “offthe-grid” homesteaders, and, in Antiquity, the Cynics. Because of their reactive nature, these ways of life are highly visible. Among these are also ways of life that result less from deliberate rebellion than from social exclusion. We could think of homelessness as a way of life on this model. In what follows, I will use that typology to bring more clarity to our understanding of ancient philosophy. Obviously, it is tentative and could be refined, and there are certainly many cases that don’t fit neatly in one of the types. But more than casuistic complexities, what matters for my inquiry is distinguishing what is common to all types identified, in other words, what explains their description as way of life in the first place. It seems to me that in the two main senses mentioned, in type 1 and all variants of type 2, the description of something as a way of life captures aspects of existence that are tangible. Namely, the way priorities and goals structure action, the way one’s time and activities are regulated by a routine (or not), the way one collaborates and interacts with others (or not), the way one is integrated in society (or not), the way one attends to their bodily and material needs, etc. When someone tells you about their way of life, they are usually not referring to their inner life and mental states. It being passively inherited or enthusiastically chosen;

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it involving a strong telos or not; it being linked to the attainment of a telos instrumentally or incidentally; all of this changes nothing to the fact that what is captured with the expression “way of life” is the presence of a tangible pattern of activity in the structural, relational, social, physical, material sense. This is what I will henceforth refer to as way of life in the robust sense. Although beliefs, values, and norms play an important role in motivating and defining these ways of life, we are not dealing with something mostly mental or psychological here. Having a certain way of life is something that an external observer can see. To be clear, I do not claim that the most meaningful aspect of the life lived by a person who has a way of life of the types described is the concrete pattern (physical, material, structural) it displays. Especially for the vocational and aspirational types, it may well be that the most meaningful element is the end pursued for which the way of life is instrumental (e.g., a strict discipline as a method to reach enlightenment) or accidental (e.g., leading a life of constant traveling and danger as a condition for the war reporter to accomplish their humanitarian goal). What I am saying, though, is that when we speak of the way of life of the activist, artist, monk, or Spartan citizen, what we are drawing attention to is the pattern of living, the mode or kind of life that supports the pursuit of the special telos (type 2 of all four kinds) or that characterizes the life of the social group (in type 1). Making the choice of dedicating oneself to the pursuit of a strong end will impact one’s pattern of living most of the time, since the telos cannot be pursued without the person being almost forced to live a specific way incidentally (the war zone reporter), or instrumentally (the Buddhist monk). But the telos pursued and the way of life that comes with it are not the same thing and must be distinguished. It may seem difficult to imagine a life lived in the pursuit of a strong telos that would not require or entail a way of life in the robust sense. But as I will show, ancient Greek and Roman philosophy offers examples of such a disconnect. My review would be incomplete if I were to omit another common use of the expression “way of life,” to which I now turn. 2.2.3 Ways of Life of the “Kind of” Kind In addition to the robust meaning of way of life just identified, we cannot deny that the expression “way of life” is also used to refer to psychological dispositions, beliefs, experiences, and attitudes. Think, for instance, of descriptions such as “loneliness as a way of life,” “forgiveness as a way of life,” or “Prozac as a was of life” (expressions found in the titles of books owned by my university library). Such cases, it seems to me, constitute a figurative use of the robust sense identified.

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But there is also the more subtle case of expressions such as “Buddhism as a way of life” or “the Christian way of life,” in which “Buddhism” and “Christian” can be replaced with Judaism, Hinduism, Islamic, or any other religion or spirituality. Let us ignore situations where a religion or spirituality is the basic cultural framework that shapes the life of a given society (in which case the way of life in question is very close to type 1). Let us ignore, also, cases where a religion has led to the development of highly organized vocational orders (way of life in sense 2(a). When used in a general sense that applies to all co-religionists, what “way of life” means in such expressions becomes somewhat elusive. Wouldn’t it sound odd at best (and at worst, hypocritical) to claim that a rich fundamentalist televangelist in the Bible Belt, a trafficked sex slave in Montreal, and a monk in a peaceful, self-sufficient Benedictine monastery all share the same way of life since they all somehow partake in the “Christian way of life”? If what is meant by “Christian way of life” essentially consists in a belief in Jesus, the adoption of a Christian cosmic narrative, various elective practices (e.g., prayers, mass attendance, reading of the Bible, charitable actions) and values (e.g., forgiveness, love), we need to realize that the locution “way of life” is used in a much weaker sense than the robust meaning identified above. The expression “way of life” is here used in a “kind of” kind of way. If we wanted to be more precise and tried to describe what such “ways of life” in the derivative sense amount to, I suppose we could say that they consist in Weltanschauungen supplemented with more or less clear and flexible rules of conduct often inspired by the life of a founding figure (Jesus, Mohammed, etc.). Or we could simply continue to call them … religions. While they can impact one’s way of life in significant ways, religions can also be integrated in a multiplicity of ways of life. They don’t require adopting one particular sort of life in the robust sense of the word. This is something interesting about them. With these distinctions made, it is now time to turn to ancient philosophy. 2.3 Way of Life as a Tangible Pattern of Living in Antiquity: Evidence from Plato’s Republic In subsequent sections, I will use my robust definition and my typology to see what happens when we consider ancient philosophy with these conceptual tools. Is this approach anachronistic? I do not think so. But to assuage possible concerns the reader may have, let me present two passages from book X of Plato’s Republic as evidence that the robust definition of way of life identified above (i.e., way of life as a mode of living in the tangible, concrete, visible sense of a life pattern) would have been fully intelligible in Antiquity,

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and, in fact, highly pertinent to understand philosophy as a way of life. This sample cannot replace an extensive philological inquiry about the meaning and use of βίος and ζωή in ancient times (which I cannot undertake here), but the passages are illuminating.10 The first one is about Pythagoras as the founder of a “Pythagorean way of life.” It is found in the context of Socrates’ critical assessment of poetry as a form of imitation twice removed from reality. There, Socrates scorns Homer for possessing none of the arts his poems describe, neither in theory nor in practice (599e–600a). While Homer made no contribution to the public sphere, unlike figures like Solon or Lycurgus, Socrates asks the following: Then if there is nothing of a public nature, is Homer said to have been a leader, in his own lifetime, in the education of people who loved associating with him and passed on a Homeric way of life (βίου Ὁμηρικήν) to those who came later? Is he like Pythagoras, who was himself particularly loved for this reason, and whose followers even today still seem to be conspicuous for a way of life (τρόπον … τοῦ βίου) they call Pythagorean? (600a–b, trans. C.D.C. Reeve) “Conspicuous” stands for the more developed description “διαφανεῖς πῃ δοκοῦσιν εἶναι ἐν τοῖς ἄλλοις” which literally means a way of life “through which they appear to stand out among other (people).”11 Pythagoras’s followers take pride in their special way of life and are easily distinguishable from other people because of their βίος. What Socrates is drawing attention to is not those philosophers’ beliefs in the sacred nature of numbers, say, or their inner disposition. We are talking about obvious behaviors that could include things like adopting a special diet, dressing a certain way, abiding by odd, esoteric rites and rules, remaining silent, sharing financial resources, etc. The specifics of the Pythagorean way of life are debated (Kahn 2001, 5–22), but this does not matter here. Whatever it was, it was highly perceptible.12 10 11

12

The historiographical evidence presented by Moore 2021, to illustrate that ancient Greeks thought of φιλοσοφία as a type of βίος is largely compatible with my analysis. Here are few alternative translations: “… that makes them seem somehow outstanding among men” (Bloom), “… which distinguishes them in the eyes of the world from other people” (Lee), “… which to this day distinguishes them from the rest of the world” (Cornford). Nietzsche highlighted this tangible aspect of βίος when he invited philosophers to offer an example in their “visible life … in the way the philosophers of Greece taught, through facial expressions, demeanor, clothing, food, and custom …” in Schopenhauer as Educator, § 3 (quoted by Sellars 2009, 3). In the section of his book on the philosopher’s beard

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The second piece of evidence I offer is found at the very end of the Republic, in the Myth of Er. Socrates shares the account of a man called Er who was dead for several days, came back to life right before his cremation, and shared what he had witnessed. The relevant episode of Er’s journey is the stage where souls are invited to choose their next life (617d–620d). After drawing a lottery ticket, individual souls are asked to select, in turn, their next βίος among a wide selection of lives (617e2, 618a2). What this means is that each soul must choose a kind of existential package that includes a set of concrete features. Er explains that a wide variety of “life patterns” or “life models” or “kinds of lives” (βίων παραδείγματα, 617d4–5, 618a1) are displayed for souls to pick from. Socrates recounts this phase as follows: … the spokesman placed the models of lives (τὰ τῶν βίων παραδείγματα) on the ground before them … all animal lives were there, as well as all human lives (βίους). There were tyrannies among them, some life-long, others ending halfway through in poverty, exile, and beggary. There were lives (βίους) of famous men—some famous for the beauty of their appearance or for their other strengths or athletic prowess, others for their nobility and the virtues of their ancestors, and also some infamous in these respects—and similarly for women. But the structure of the soul (ψυχῆς δὲ τάξιν) was not included, because with the choice of a different life (βίον) it would inevitably become different. But all the other qualities were mixed with each other and with wealth or poverty, sickness or health, or the states in between … . [E]ach must, to the neglect of all other subjects, take care above all else to be a seeker and student of that subject which will enable him to learn and discover who will give him the ability and the knowledge to distinguish a good life (βίον) from a bad … . He must calculate the effect of all the things we have mentioned just now, both jointly and severally, on the virtue of a life (βίου), so as to know what the good and bad effects of beauty are when it is mixed with wealth or poverty and this or that state of the soul; what the effects are of high and low birth, private lives and ruling offices, physical strength and weaknesses, ease and difficulties in learning, and all the things that are either (2009, 15–19), Sellars appears to share this understanding of βίος. But the equivalence he establishes later in the book between βίος and disposition of soul (2009, 83, 168) blurs things. This may be due to his emphasis on the importance of actions (ἔργα) as a reflection of character (20–21, 83). Actions certainly matter in the ancient understanding of βίος, but typical behaviour (τρόπος), general ways of comporting oneself and concrete life conditions appear to be more central.

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naturally part of the soul or can be acquired by it, when they are mixed with one another. On the basis of all that he will be able, by considering the nature of the soul, to reason out which life (βίον) is better and which worse and choose accordingly, calling worse the one that will lead the soul to become more unjust, and better the one that leads it to become more just. (618a–e) With no doubt possible, this passage and the context that surrounds it show that the βίος consists of very concrete features: type of body (animal or human species, gender) and physical features (beauty, strength), material resources, occupations, station in life, private or public life, political power, etc. Obviously, in a non-mythical context, many of the features mentioned are not elements one can choose as part of their way of life. But what matters is that choosing a βίος means selecting a life characterized by a series of tangible features. Although mental abilities are mentioned, Socrates takes special care to emphasize that inner dispositions such as virtue and vice are not part of the βίος chosen. In fact, Socrates’ take on Er’s account is precisely that concrete life conditions and circumstances will impact the soul’s condition, which is why one must be especially careful when choosing a way of life. This aspect—the impact of concrete life conditions on the disposition of the soul and its care— is generally neglected in the philosophy as a way of life literature. Sellars is right to regard philosophy “as an art concerned with transforming one’s way of life” (Sellars 2009, xii).13 But βίος is not just an object of transformation, it can be a source and tool of self-transformation, too.14 Of special interest for us is the fact that although philosophy is later evoked in Socrates’ exegesis of the myth, it is not presented as one of the ways of life available for selection. Rather, Socrates mentions φιλοσοφία as the type of activity that enables one to closely scrutinize ways of life and correctly choose one’s βίος (see 619d1, d8–9). That said, there is no doubt that different ways of life will be more or less compatible with that activity. At the end of his account, Socrates makes clear that he does favor one specific way of life. It is the life he calls the “middle life,” depicted by him as “the happiest” one.15 Interestingly, that way of life is also favorably mentioned by Aristotle in a chapter of his Politics 13 14 15

See also 2009, 35: “… for Socrates, philosophers search for knowledge in order to transform their way of life. For Socrates, the primary function of philosophy is this transformation of one’s βίος.” For more on this, see my chapter, Larivée 2012, 239–46. τὸν μέσον … βίον, 619a5. It is also this “middle” way of life that Socrates seems to be praising at 591a–592b.

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strikingly reminiscent of the passage quoted.16 Could this mean that, in their view, unless one lives in a society where special life conditions are provided to philosophers,17 the “middle life”—i.e., the simple, moderate, peaceful, politically uninvolved, unhindered βίος of the private citizen—is the way of life that best suits philosophers? The Er passage reveals four things: (1) Βίος is used in the robust sense of the expression, i.e., a tangible pattern of living; (2) No, philosophy did not constitute a way of life per se; but (3) Yes, the assessment of diverse βίοι and the possible impact of ways of life on the soul were regarded as crucial philosophical questions. And (4), the question of knowing what ways of life were conducive to or compatible with philosophy as a virtuous activity of the soul was also of great import. Although a detailed philological investigation would have to confirm this point, I am confident that this way of approaching βίος, way of life, as a philosophically pertinent question was prevalent in the lineage that extends from Socrates to Aristotle through Plato, and in Hellenistic philosophy.18 I now return to the more general question of the issues raised by the application of the way of life paradigm to ancient philosophy in general. 2.4 The Compatibility between Philosophy as an Art of Life and Diverse Ways of Life in Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism If we accept the robust definition of way of life as a tangible pattern of living, or kind of life, what happens to Hadot(*)’s proposal to understand ancient philosophy as a way of life? The short answer is that it does not really work unless it is substantially qualified in more than one way. Did certain ancient philosophical schools require, favor, or involve the adoption of a special way of life? Certainly. Pythagoras (as described by Plato) is the perfect example. But it does not apply to all schools, in the same manner, for the same reason. Some did require a particular way of life, some didn’t, some did only incidentally 16 17 18

“… τὸν μέσον ἀναγκαῖον εἶναι βίον βέλτιστον” (1295b35). See Pol. 4.11, esp. 1295a1–b10. Like in Egypt, where a life of leisure (σχολή) enabled the sacerdotal cast to discover mathematics, as Aristotle mentions in his Metaph. (981b20), or to a lesser extent, in a city like Plato’s fantasized Καλλίπολις. Consider a striking aspect of Aristotle’s assessment of a life focused on θεωρία. This βίος is best in part because it is the less tiring (Eth. Nic. 1177a22), provides stable pleasures (1177a25), does not require the contribution of benefactors or beneficiaries (1177a30), is free of troubles unlike βίος πολιτικός (1177b5–20), does not require power or abundant material resources (1178a25–b5, 1179a1–15), and thus favors self-sufficiency. These are highly pragmatic types of considerations.

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while others did in a way that was more instrumental. Remarkably enough, the schools on which Hadot relies the most heavily to illustrate his “philosophy as a way of life” paradigm did not clearly involve a way of life in the vocational sense (type 2(a)) or even in the aspirational sense (type 2(b)), the two robust types that seem the closest to what he had in mind when he talked of ancient philosophy as a way of life.19 In fact, I would argue that the description of philosophy as a way of life is problematic when applied to philosophy in the post-classical age. Interestingly so. We could even go so far as to say that what makes many schools that emerged in the Hellenistic period special in contrast with the long philosophical tradition that preceded (namely, the tradition of βίος θεωρητικός, to use Aristotle’s expression), is that the core principles of their doctrine were used to develop an art of life that did not require adopting a special kind of life, or way of life in the robust sense. Not unlike religions in that regard, these philosophical arts of life could be integrated in a variety of ways of life, including the conventional type 1 identified above. Let us consider Stoicism. Our knowledge of early Greek Stoicism is limited, but one thing is for sure: in Imperial Rome, being a Stoic was possible for individuals living a wide variety of lives. One could be a humble teacher like Epictetus, or an ultra-wealthy courtier like Seneca, and be a serious Stoic. One could be on duty 24/7 as a slave, a soldier or as a Roman Emperor and be a fully dedicated Stoic philosopher.20 Declaring that a slave, a wealthy orator, and an emperor shared the same way of life because they all subscribed to a Stoic world view and embraced Stoicism as a (predominantly) mental type of practice would be a bit of a stretch. Something important would be missed. We would lose sight of one of the reasons that explain Stoicism’s success in Rome. Namely, the fact that it could be integrated in pretty much any way of life that was not intrinsically vile according to Stoic standards, especially a politically engaged life. This is so true that we can even imagine someone living her whole life as a fervent Stoic practitioner without anyone ever being aware of it. I use the feminine pronoun on purpose, here. Could it be the case that some women in Rome (possibly many) who lived “normal,” conventional lives were self-identified Stoics 19

20

Hadot’s emphasis on “conversion” and the choice of a school brings to mind vocational type (2a), while his insistence on the ideal of the aspirational figure of the sage recalls type (2b). In the case of Hellenistic schools, though, my claim is that it does not suffice to turn philosophy into a βίος in the robust sense. Cooper 2012, 221, agrees with this. But this seems to be in tension with his understanding of the “Stoic way of life” as requiring extensive study and in-depth comprehension of the Stoic system as a whole (2012, 217–18). How a slave (or an emperor) could ever find the time required to engage in such sustained studies remains unclear.

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without anyone ever knowing about it?21 This is a fascinating possibility to consider. But what is at stake is more than visibility. We could go so far as to say that not having the way of life of one’s choosing was the way of life “prescribed” by Stoicism. Remember Epictetus’s insistence on the fact that humans are like actors who do not get to pick their part on life’s stage.22 One’s life conditions (“… poor, cripple, king, commoner”) seem to be part of the realm of things that are “not up to us,” or “externals,” and therefore, indifferent from a Stoic point of view.23 In fact, since “what stands in the way becomes the way” as Marcus Aurelius puts it, virtually any way of life could be “the way” for a Stoic (Med. 5.20). There is not one specifically Stoic way of life as such, not in the robust sense described as concrete pattern of living. Stoicism is for the most part a mental practice relying on spiritual exercises, as Hadot rightly reminded us, which means that it can be integrated in a variety of ways of life, even the most physically or socially consuming ones. And now as then, this is in part what makes its strength. Stoicism does offer something like an art of life, but this art of life, largely internal, mental, can be applied in any way of life. At this point, let me open a parenthesis about the description of philosophy as an “art of life.” Plato’s dialogues suggest that the philosophical search for an art of life was first launched by Socrates.24 Defining precisely what constitutes an art of life would require a whole separate study which, luckily for us, has already been conducted by Sellars with great acumen (2009). For the sake of brevity, I will just say that philosophy as an art of life perfectly expresses what Hadot and his followers seem to have in mind when they describe ancient philosophy as a way of life. Namely, the sustained application to one’s 21 22

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In his Letters to Lucilius, Seneca insists on the importance for a Stoic not to be conspicuous by adopting a way of life that appears to be special. See Letter 5 for instance. “Remember that you’re an actor in a play, which will be as the author chooses … If he wants you to play the part of the beggar, act even that part with all your skill; and likewise if you’re playing a cripple, an official, or a private citizen. For that is your business, to act the role that is assigned to you as well as you can; but it is another’s part to select that role.” Handbook, 17. Cf. Epict. diss. 2.10. This contradicts Sellars’ claim (2009, 56) that βίος is “up to us” and “in some sense internal” based on Epictetus’ explanations on “the art of living” at Epict. diss. 1.15. I agree that the Stoic art of life is focused on the soul’s disposition. But I think that Sellars is overinterpreting the meaning of βίος in that passage. Way of life is not the only meaning of βίος. It can also refer to one’s life in the sense of one’s existence. Here, Epictetus is simply trying to convey to a visitor asking for advice, in simple language, that one cannot control someone else’s actions (another person’s “life”), only what one’s own (“each person’s own life”: ὁ βίος αὐτοῦ ἑκάστου). Βίος, here, means something like “your life,” “yourself,” “your own actions” in contrast with “your brother’s life/actions.” The results of my own research on the topic concord with Sellars’s (Larivée, 2003).

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life, in daily life, of reasoned principles expressing the nature of things (at the cosmic, social, and psychological level) as a form of transformational practice supported by spiritual exercises, aimed at the good human life. If we consider Stoic philosophy as practiced, concretely, by figures as varied as Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, defining it as an art of life appears to be a very accurate description of its nature and ambition. So, why not call it that? And why not avoid describing it as a way of life, which is inaccurate and obliterates one of Stoicism’s greatest assets, i.e., its compatibility with different kinds of life?25 We need the locution “way of life” to refer to βίος as a concrete pattern of living. And like religions, it appears that Stoicism can only be called a way of life in a derivative, “kind of” kind of way. Note that I am fully aware that my robust definition only captures a fraction of what Hadot means when he refers to philosophy as a way of life. Anyhow, I can only repeat that my goal is not exegetical. Whatever it is that Hadot and Hadot* exactly mean, my point is that the expression “philosophy as a way of life” is ill chosen. I now close my parenthesis and return to the issue of the Stoic art of life’s compatibility with diverse ways of life. I previously stated that the Stoic art of life could be applied to any way of life. This may be going too far. Saying, instead, that it is compatible with many ways of life seems more accurate. In fact, there is a way of life with which Stoicism as an art of life seemed hardly compatible. Namely, the way of life of leisure which, as we will soon see, was regarded as the condition to engage in sustained θεωρία, philosophical contemplation. Indeed, a theoretical life, or any way of life incompatible with social and political duties, was not unproblematically open to a practicing Stoic since it went against the Stoic conception of human nature as social and their theory of “appropriate actions” (see Hadot 1995, 208–209). Seneca and Marcus Aurelius struggle with that tension. While remaining aware of the primordial importance of performing their social duties, a central axiom of the Stoic doctrine, both philosophers

25

Hadot does not distinguish philosophy as a way of life and as an art of life: “ La philosophie à l’époque hellénistique et romaine, se présente donc comme un mode de vie, comme un art de vivre, comme une manière d’être ” (2002, 295). See also 296: “… la conception de la philosophie comme art de vivre, comme forme de vie … . [L]a philosophie est un mode de vie, une technique de la vie intérieure.” It is therefore unsurprising to find the same lack of precision in many of his followers. Sellars is more rigorous. He clearly defines philosophy as an art of living, and while “way of life” (βίος) and “spiritual exercises” are central in his account, he distinguishes these elements and commends Foucault for doing the same (see 2009, 118).

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sure enjoyed spending time in solitude, reading books and engaging in reflection.26 Chrysippus, one of Stoicism’s most eminent theorists, faced the same difficulty. Through fragments of his Περὶ Bίων, we learn that despite his own taste for θεωρία, Chrysippus condemned the life of leisure (σχολαστική) that was promoted by Epicurus among others. His reflection on ways of life led him to consider the best ways to make a living and to promote a “mixed life.” On the basis of their compatibility with Stoicism, Chrysippus argued that the three best ways of life were that of the king, of the statesman, and of the teacher.27 As Joly observes, these βίοι are concrete activities, professions (Joly 1956, 143). The fact that Chrysippus celebrates three particular βίοι does not mean that all other ways of life were incompatible with Stoicism or prohibited. The case of Epicureanism is more complex. Like Chrysippus, Epicurus was a philosopher-scientist engaged in serious studies about nature, epistemology, and the good human life. He probably expected his most dedicated followers to study equally seriously. However, Epicurus’ Garden seems to have been welcoming of people of all ages, status, gender, and from all walks of life. There are mentions of courtesans and slaves being included in the Epicurean circle (Diog. Laert. 10.7, 10.10; cf. Hadot 1995, 195; Nussbaum 1994, 117). We can thus assume that different members of the community had different occupations and responsibilities, familial and professional.28 Integrating philosophy into their lives was made possible through the application of an Epicurean art of life. Indeed, with the help of tools such as summaries of his doctrine in letters, maxims, and the very condensed Τετραφάρμακος or Fourfold Remedy, the basic principles of Epicurus’ doctrine were distilled in an art of living that could be applied by anyone at any time and did not require extensive studies (Cooper 2012, 274–76). While this Epicurean art of life impacts concrete aspects of the practitioner’s way of life such as diet and reliance on a community of friends, it does not require the adoption of one specific way of life and can be integrated in many different kinds of life in light of personal circumstances, needs and preferences.29 26

27 28 29

While Marcus Aurelius seems resigned with his choice (“Throw away your books … ,” see Med. 2.2, 2.3, 3.14, 4.30), Seneca uses all the resources of his eloquence to present his retreat from public life and his studious way of life as a choice that benefits humanity (see Ep. 2.8). Cf. Joly 1956, 165–70. For all this, see SVF 3.686–87 quoted and interpreted by Joly 1956, 143–45. The sage marries and has children (Diog. Laert. 10.19); Epicureans do not put their financial resources in common (Diog. Laert. 10.11). Cooper’s general description of the “Epicurean life” emphasizes this adaptability to one’s favored activities (2012, 245). In contrast, Nussbaum (1994, 120) depicts it as a rather rigid program structuring “the entirety of an alternative way of life.”

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But here too flexibility is not without limits: not all ways of life are compatible with the Epicurean art of life. To find happiness as ataraxia, or tranquility of soul, one of Epicurus’ concrete recommendations was to “live hidden” or “unnoticed.”30 This is hard to achieve if one is a statesperson or military leader, say. Hence Epicurus’s explicit ban, in his own Περὶ Βίων, of the ways of life of statesman, tyrant, as well as the cynic life of mendicity (Diog. Laert. 10.119; cf. Joly 1956, 141). Still, many ways of life can allow one to live unnoticed. A moderate, leisurely, sheltered way of life that enables one to engage in the scientific understanding of nature in the company of like-minded friends is certainly an ideal one. But many other less ideal ways of life appear to be compatible with Epicurus’ art of living. To sum up, my claim is that these two schools did not require the adoption of one special βίος, or way of life in the robust sense. This does not mean that practicing Stoics and Epicureans did not care about daily life as a field of application for philosophy, quite the opposite. These schools did offer an art of living that could have effects on the practitioners’ way of life. But this art or method was applicable in the context of a variety of ways of life. In fact, this is part of what explains the success of these schools. Like religions, they were accessible to all to a certain degree, and the principles they relied on could be applied in a wide array of life patterns and circumstances. The case of Skepticism is intriguing. The skeptic principle of ἐποχή, suspension of judgment, and indifference (οὐ … μᾶλλον τόδε ἢ τόδε: “no more this than that,” Diog. Laert. 9. 61) are incompatible with the choice of any special way of life of type 2. In fact, the pragmatic disposition to “follow appearances” lead the Skeptic practitioner towards a very conventional, ordinary way of life (Sext. Emp., Pyr 1.23–24, 2.246, 3.235). This may explain why stories about Pyrrho describe him quietly cleaning the house and bringing chickens and piglets to the market, an anecdote that Hadot likes to recall (Diog. Laert. 9. 66; Hadot 1995, 175). Diogenes Laertius, who reports this vignette, must have regarded Pyrrho’s way of life as especially non-special to consider such details worthy of mention. Now, how informative is it to describe Skepticism as a way of life when what distinguishes it is that it is especially not special? Well, in fact, it is very significant, just not in the edifying sense given to the expression “philosophy as a way of life” by Hadot(*). Here, a philosophical epiphany of sorts concerning one’s lack of knowledge leads to the adoption of a very ordinary way of life (Thorsrud 2009, 173–200), my type 1. Depending on one’s society and immediate surroundings, “following appearances” can translate into a variety of conventional 30

“Λάθε βιώσας,” we learn this through Plutarch who wrote an essay on the topic, see Mor. 1128–30, but a similar idea is found in Epicurus’ Capital Maxims, 14. Cf. Cooper 2012, 263.

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ways of life (as Cooper admits, 2012, 290–98). Just no ways of life of type 2, particularly the aspirational kind (2b), which requires strong convictions. I now turn to two philosophical lineages in which becoming a philosopher necessarily meant embracing a special way of life (type 2): the Cynics, and philosophers belonging to the theoretic tradition, a long tradition that began with the Presocratics, reached its peak with Plato and Aristotle, and ended its course in Neo-Platonism. Reflecting on them in parallel is illuminating. 2.5 Freedom as a Way of Life in the Cynic Movement and the Theoretic Tradition Let us start with the Cynics since they offer the clearest example of a way of practicing philosophy that intrinsically involves the adoption of a tangible and highly recognizable way of life.31 Think of stories about Diogenes of Sinope using a wine jar in lieu of a house, eating raw meat as a dog would, and satisfying his basic needs, including sexual ones, publicly. All this in the name of a life “κατὰ φύσιν” (in accordance with nature) and a rejection of social conventions which the Cynics appear to have regarded as the main obstacle to human happiness. Although this reactive orientation suggests that the Cynic way of life belongs to type 2 (d), the counter-cultural type, this is not the whole story. Indeed, the unique way Cynics qualify as philosophers is through their way of life. They use their rough, dog-like way of life as a training method in self-reliance (αὐτάρκεια), which they see as the condition of virtue and εὐδαιμονία. For them, philosophy is a 24/7 exercise that uses bareness and πόνος, physical pain, as a path to freedom. They have no time, no patience for θεωρία. While others speculate on definitions and split hairs at the Academy, bare life (in the literal sense, the cynics Crates and Hipparchia walked around naked) is their “shortcut to virtue” (Diog. Laert. 6. 104). With the Cynics, the expression “philosophy as a way of life” reaches its maximal level of adequacy. Their “philosophy” is essentially a very distinctive, very ostensible way of life.32 What is “philosophical” about this way of life, though, one may ask? The easiest way to answer the question is probably to point out that the Cynics’ way of 31 32

My main source for this section on the Cynics is Book 6 of Diog. Laert., especially sections 70–71 and 103–5. Diog. Laert. 6.103 mentions this dominant opinion when he writes “But we will go on to append the doctrines which they held in common—if, that is, we decide that Cynicism is really a philosophy, and not, as some maintain, just a way of life.” It is interesting, for our purpose, to notice the distinction made between philosophy and way of life.

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life seem to imitate certain aspects of the life of a philosopher whom many saw as a model of wisdom: Socrates. The excessive nature of their imitation and the fact that the Cynics discarded the intellectual (or at least, the dialectical) component of the Socratic quest for an art of living a good human life may explain why Plato declared that Diogenes was “Socrates gone mad” (Diog. Laert. 6.54). But for the Cynics, the real-life example offered by Socrates suffices to prove that embracing a way of life of poverty and toughness is the only “art of life” one needs. To put it more accurately, there is no art of life, no reasoned expertise or τέχνη about the good life, although there is a way of life that leads to virtue and εὐδαιμονία as the example of Socrates’ life and death proves.33 Away from the noise and dust of the agora, we have philosophers who wholeheartedly subscribe to the pre-Socratic ideal of θεωρία, contemplation, violently rejected by the Cynics. With Hadot, to avoid the passive connotation of the term “contemplative,” I refer to them as theoretics.34 Is describing philosophy as a way of life in the robust sense of the expression “way of life” justified in their case? In a sense, yes, it is. But in another sense, it is not precise enough. This is a long tradition including several major philosophers who would deserve individual attention.35 The situation of the “Pythagorean way of life” evoked earlier seems clear enough. We are faced with a special way of life in the vocational sense, and it seems safe to infer that this way of life was seen as a mean to attain a goal (purification of the soul, or whatever it was). We then have a special way of life in the vocational sense (2(a)) with an instrumental link between way of life and telos. Several centuries later, a similar combination is found in Neo-platonism (Hadot 1995, 243–51). The case of Plato and Aristotle is a bit more intricate. There is no doubt that, for them, being a philosopher entails a special way of life. But here, the connection between way of life and telos does not seem essential: the way of life is less an instrument to reach a goal than an incidental condition. This structure is characteristic of type 2 (b) where the aspiration toward a strong goal impacts one’s way of life in concrete ways without being the focus of attention. The telos in question is both vast (understanding the world and its principle(s) through the activity of θεωρία) and contained (“… for its own sake” Arist., Nic. Eth. 1177b2–4). Aristotle describes this life as “the life of the mind” (Nic. Eth. 1178b7) and as βίος θεωρητικός (1095a5). Should we simply say that θεωρία is 33 34 35

Diog. Laert. 6.2 describes Antisthenes, the precursor of Cynicism, as imitating Socrates’s endurance and impassibility. For Aristotle’s critique of the idea that θεωρία is not active, see Pol. 1325b15–30. On the longevity and diversity of that tradition, see Joly 1956, 190 and Festugière 1975, 13–44.

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the way of life adopted by theoretic philosophers, then? Yes and no. Strictly speaking, βίος θεωρητικός, a constant life of active understanding, is not fully livable for humans. Such a βίος belongs to the gods. When engaging in θεωρία, philosophers get a taste of that divine life, but as humans, they can only experience it temporarily, tangentially (Nic. Eth. 1177b27–1178a). What is the concrete way of life, then, that enables philosophers to engage in θεωρία in the measure accessible to humans? This way of life is defined negatively as an attempt to remove, as much as possible, the obstacles to θεωρία created by the human condition. It is a moderate way of life of σχολή, leisure, equipped with sufficient resources. Or, put negatively, a way of life free of material distress and of ἀσχολία, lack of leisure (Nic. Eth. 1177b5–15, 1178a24–b7, cf. Pl., Tht. 172d–e). Like the Cynics, then, theoretic philosophers aspire to a way of life that is characterized by freedom. But the freedom they aspire to is freedom from the concerns, troubles, and obligations that result from the necessities of life— physically and socially. Does their life of σχολή qualify as a way of life in the robust sense? It is certainly not as “in your face” as the way of life of the Cynics, and it is not even as “conspicuous” as the Pythagorean way of life. But it is nonetheless distinctive and noticeable. Of course, the activity of θεωρία is not visible to an observer per se—or only indirectly if one considers the unusual type of immobility displayed by Socrates while he is mentally absorbed in a problem (Pl., Symp. 220c–d), or the lengthy philosophical discussions he is known to engage in.36 But the way of life of σχολή, is. In fact, we could say that from the layperson’s point of view, the theoretics’ way of life is “visible” through a series of lacks and deficits. First, there is a lack of practicality that makes the contemplative’s way of life seem odd, laughable even (Pl., Tht. 174a; cf. Grg. 484c–e, 486a–c). Second, there is a lack of usefulness or what we would nowadays call “productivity” (Ar., Metaph. 981b5–982a, 982b10–983a10). Third, there is a deficit in care. Those philosophers do not care about what others care about, wealth, sensual pleasures, prestige, power, etc. (Arist., Pol. 1259a6–20). And last but not least, this way of life is for the most part asocial and a-political in so far as it is not compatible with constant, sustained engagement in active politics. This last feature provides the perfect occasion to highlight a crucial difference between the role played by the Hadotian “philosophy as a way of life” paradigm in today’s world and the conceptual web in which philosophy as a way of life made sense in antiquity. Nowadays, “philosophy as a way of life” 36

Despite his focus on ethical questions, I see no reason not to include Plato’s Socrates in the theoretic tradition. The most passionate eulogies of a life free of physical, material, practical, and political hindrances are his, see Phd. 64d–67b, Tht. 172c–177c.

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is contrasted with another way of practicing philosophy, i.e., purely abstract, purely theoretical “academic philosophy” (Hadot 1995, 387–91; Faustino 2021, 203). This was not the case in ancient philosophy. In Antiquity, philosophers (theoretics in particular) opposed their way of life to other, non-philosophical ways of life. The socially engaged way of life of politics—what Aristotle calls βίος πολιτικός (Nic. Eth. 1095b19, 24, 31)—being the main one, and the life of pleasure being another (1095b19, cf. Joly 1956, 7). Is the best way of life “philosophical” (i.e., “scholastic” in the original meaning of the word σχολή), or is it political? This is the context in which the topic of βίος mattered to ancient philosophers. And it was more than a merely theoretical question for them. It was possibly a matter of life and death. Indeed, there was something perplexing and unnerving about the apolitical, a-practical orientation of these philosophers’ βίος (Pl. Grg. 485d, Tht. 173d–174d). While the Cynics adopted animals as a model of the good life (Goulet-Cazé 2016, 61–65), the theoretics went in the opposite direction of an “assimilation to god,” as both Plato and Aristotle describe it (Pl., Tht. 176b; Arist., Nic. Eth. 1177b25–1178a8). This grandiosity and the lack of care for ordinary stuff was enough to generate suspicion and hostility. It even exposed philosophers to political persecution. Theoretic philosophers had to navigate this social tension. And it resulted at least in part from their un-involved, a-political way of life. Before proceeding with my conclusion, let me get back to Hadot briefly. Interestingly enough, many of the critiques Hadot addressed to contemporary academic philosophy seem to apply to the ancient theoretic tradition, which, paradoxically, is one of the only two ancient lineages to which the concept of “philosophy as a way of life” applies unproblematically. Obviously, there are major differences between ancient θεωρία and modern academic philosophy— a fascinating topic that I cannot delve into here. But in many regards, ancient θεωρία too was elitist, abstract and very complex at times, hermetic (as any reader of Plato’s Parmenides can attest to), disconnected from practical considerations, and uninterested in daily life and common human experience. If we want to consider these traits as defects, we need to acknowledge that involving a way of life did not protect ancient θεωρία from displaying such flaws. Be it as it may, it seems to me that what Hadot admired about (some aspects of) ancient philosophy and what he loathed in contemporary philosophy are two largely unrelated questions that should be approached as such. Don’t get me wrong. Hadot is right to point out that contemporary academic philosophy tends to be hermetic, elitist, abstract, disconnected from life, and jargony. In many (most?) contexts, he may also be right to consider these traits as flaws. But if there is a problem, perhaps the way to tackle it is simply to make theoretical philosophy more accessible, more democratic, more relevant, more

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concrete, and less jargony? Of course, this sounds less exhilarating than promoting the adoption of the alternative paradigm of PWL, whatever that means. But it has the advantage of really addressing the issues raised. And if what one is really looking for is philosophy as an art of life, then one knows where to look (i.e., elsewhere). 2.6

 onclusion: The Multiple Benefits of a Strong Distinction between C Philosophy as a “Way of Life” and Philosophy as an “Art of Life”

Let me summarize the results of my critical examination. Describing, without qualification, ancient Greek and Roman philosophy as a way of life is not only unhelpful, but inaccurate for reasons that are philosophically meaningful. I am aware that it may seem constraining to limit the application of the concept of way of life to the type of concrete life-pattern described in section 2.2. But the advantages are great and many. First, this decision seems to reflect the literal use of the locution in ordinary language both now and in ancient Greek. Second, and more importantly, this robust definition is the condition to have a concept at our disposal to highlight the fact that, whereas certain ancient schools did involve a specific βίος in that sense (either intrinsically, as a method to reach the telos pursued, like the Cynics and Pythagoreans, or incidentally, as was the case of most theoretic philosophers), others did not, like the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Skeptics. Them not requiring a specific way of life is very significant and deserves attention. It made philosophy accessible to a wide variety of people and partially explains the success of these schools. Third, it allows us to identify which particular ways of life were compatible or incompatible with the principles on which specific philosophical schools were built, and why. Fourth, identifying two main types of ways of life (type 1, conventional, and 2, special) allows us to see that these two types are in tension. Being aware of this tension is very useful to understand ancient philosophy as a social phenomenon. For ancient philosophers more than for contemporary philosophers, negotiating their relationship to society was no easy task, especially in the case of schools requiring a special way of life. This tension was negotiated differently by different schools and different philosophers. Last but not least, the robust definition of way of life I advocate for allows us to fully acknowledge the emergence of something new in Hellenistic and Roman philosophy: philosophy as an art of life. Remember my suggestion that the practical and existential elements Hadot most admired in ancient philosophy are better understood as materializations of the Socratic project of an art of living. Philosophy as a way of life and philosophy as an art of life are not the

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same.37 Although they can be connected, they do not necessarily go together: schools that proposed an art of life did not necessary entail the adoption of one specific way of life, while those that involved a specific way of life did not necessarily offer or require the application of an art of life as part of their philosophical activity.38 The reader may have noticed the quasi-total silence on Socrates in my inquiry. This is not due to an undervaluation of his influence. To be complete, my study would require a discussion of the pivotal role Socrates played in the search for an art of life, and the way in which the entanglement of philosophy as a way of life and as an art of life in his own existence led to an obliteration of the distinction between the two. Socrates struck the imagination of his contemporaries both because of his odd, distinctive way of life, and because of his relentless, uncompromising, missionary search for a reasoned art of life. These two dimensions are not unrelated, and both contributed to the deep and durable impact Socrates had on the orientation of philosophy in the post-classical age. But Socrates’ peculiar way of life and his search for an art of life are not the same, and the fact that they are combined in intricate ways is no excuse to confuse them. On the contrary, this complex situation calls for greater conceptual acumen. But this would be the topic of another text.

References Ambury, James M., Tushar Irani, and Kathleen Wallace, eds. 2021. Philosophy as a Way of Life: Historical, Contemporary, and Pedagogical Perspectives. Chichester: Wiley. Aristotle. 1984. Metaphysics. Translated by W.D. Ross. In The Complete Works of Aristotle. Vol. 2, edited by Jonathan Barnes, 1552–728. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Aristotle. 1984. Politics. Translated by B. Jowett. In The Complete Works of Aristotle. Vol. 2, edited by Jonathan Barnes, 1986–2129. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Aristotle. 1985. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Terence Irwin. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.

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I would argue that there is nothing like philosophy (singular) as a way of life in ancient times. There are philosophers and schools that require, favor, reject, assess different βίοι, ways of life. Varro’s listing of philosophical schools according to different combinations between telos and ways of life shows that these features were not intrinsically connected. See Augustine, De civ. D. 19.1. In my view this applies to Plato and Aristotle who heard Socrates’ call for an art of life politically. There is no Aristotelian or Platonic art of living comparable to what we find in Stoicism and Epicureanism. If they offer an art of life, it can be found in their political works.

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Aurelius, Marcus. 2003. Meditations. Translated by Gregory Hays. New York: The Modern Library. Cooper, John. 2012. Pursuits of Wisdom: Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Diogenes Laertius. 1972. Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Translated by R.D. Hicks. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Epictetus. 2014. Discourses, Fragments, Handbook. Translated by Robyn Hard. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Faustino, Marta. 2021. “Philosophy as a Way of Life Today: History, Criticism, and Apology.” In Philosophy as a Way of Life: Historical, Contemporary, and Pedagogical Perspectives, edited by James Ambury, Tushar Irani, and Kathleen Wallace, 195–212. Chichester: Wiley. Festugière, André-Jean. 1975. Contemplation et vie contemplative selon Platon. Paris: Vrin. Goulet-Cazé, Marie-Odile. 2016. L’Ascèse cynique. Un commentaire de Diogène Laërce. Paris: Vrin. Hadot, Pierre. 1995. Qu’est-ce que la philosophie antique? Paris: Gallimard. Hadot, Pierre. 2002. Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique. Paris: Albin Michel. Joly, Robert. 1956. Le Thème des genres de vie dans l’antiquité classique. Bruxelles: Palais des académies. Larivée, Annie. 2003. “L’Asclépios politique. Étude sur le soin de l’âme dans les dialogues de Platon.” PhD diss., Université Paris I–Panthéon-Sorbonne. Larivée, Annie. 2012. “Choice of Life and Self-Transformation in the Myth of Er.” In Plato and Myth Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths. Edited by Catherine Collobert, Pierre Destrée, and Francisco Gonzalez, 235–57. Leiden: Brill. Moore, Christopher. 2021. “Ancient Greek Philosophia in India as a Way of Life.” In Philosophy as a Way of Life: Historical, Contemporary, and Pedagogical Perspectives, edited by James Ambury, Tushar Irani, and Kathleen Wallace, 7–24. Chichester. Nussbaum, Martha. 1994. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Plato. 1941. The Republic of Plato. Translated by Francis M. Cornford. Cambridge: Oxford University Press. Plato. 1991. The Republic of Plato. Translated by Allan Bloom. New York: Basic Books. Plato. 2004. Republic. Translated by Charles D. C. Reeve. Indianapolis: Hackett. Sellars, John. 2009. The Art of Living: The Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy. London: Bristol Classical Press. Sharpe, Matthew, and Michael Ure, eds. 2021. Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Thorsrud, Harald. 2009. Ancient Scepticism. Berkeley: University of California Press.

CHAPTER 3

The Problem of the Dandy in the Aesthetics of Existence: Foucault’s Dialogue with Hadot, Kant, and Baudelaire



Paul Allen Miller 3.1 It’s a cry repeated by a thousand sentinels, an order returned by a thousand megaphones, a lighthouse illuminated on a thousand citadels, the call of hunters lost in the great woods!

…

For truly, Lord, it is the best testimony we could give of your grandeur, this ardent sob rolling through the ages, coming to die on your eternal shore. Baudelaire, “Les Phares”1

∵ The notion of the dandy originates in the late eighteenth century in such frivolous and immaculately coiffed individuals as Beau Brummel and the French King of Naples, Joachim Murat.2 It is, however, only in Baudelaire’s “The Painter of Modern Life” (1863) that dandyism receives its first real definition 1 “C’est un cri répété par mille sentinelles, / Un ordre renvoyé par mille porte-voix; / C’est un phare allumé sur mille citadelles, / Un appel de chasseurs perdus dans les grands bois! / Car c’est vraiment, Seigneur, le meilleur témoignage, / Que nous puissions donner de notre dignité / Que cet ardent sanglot qui roule d’âge en âge / Et vient mourir au bord de votre éternité!” All translations are mine unless otherwise noted. 2 Many thanks to Federico Testa, who read and commented on my text. Any faults, of course, remain mine. © Paul Allen Miller, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004693524_005

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as a concept and begins to function as a theoretical operator, as an articulated mode of relation to the world. The centrality of the aesthetic for Baudelaire’s understanding of modernity is not doubted (cf. Jameson 1985), yet while he is not an austere philosopher in the manner of a Seneca, a Descartes, or a Kant, it would be a mistake to see his embrace of the dandy as pure frivolity, as signaling a refusal of philosophical, political, or moral seriousness. “Dandyism is not … as many thoughtless people appear to believe, an immoderate taste for one’s toilette and material elegance” (Baudelaire 1968, 560).3 Rather, this essay offers his fullest elaboration of what he understands as “l’art moderne” (“modern art”) and its critical engagement with the world. “Man finishes by resembling what he would wish to be”4 is a sentence whose import merits serious reflection, as it suggests that each of us forms ourselves in the image of our desire, that is, according to an unstated vision of what we and the world should be (Baudelaire 1968, 547). This critical ontology is not limited to a single essay. Indeed, the aesthetics of resistance is on evidence throughout Les fleurs du mal: a consciousness of the artist as social, spiritual, and ethical critic. Thus, in “Les phares,” whose final stanzas are cited above, Baudelaire fashions a concise history of painting from de Vinci to Delacroix, by way of Rubens, Michelangelo, and Watteau. Each of these masters stands as a lighthouse, recalling the original pharos of Alexandria, illuminating the surrounding darkness. Together, they form a chain of sentinels that testifies to our finitude and to our historical longing to join what lies beyond. Nonetheless, the dandy has often been a figure of ridicule. There is a kind of puritanism or disdain for beauty and the body that creeps into our philosophical discourse, a rigorist impulse that seeks to degrade the “merely” literary or aesthetic in favor of the “scientific,” the “serious,” or the “intellectual.” Within this discourse, the dandy is made to stand for everything the rigorist impulse seeks to oppose. Yet, I want to argue with Michel Foucault that this is a mistake, that Baudelaire’s embrace of the dandy should force us to pause and reconsider, to challenge the notion that the aesthetic can ever truly be separated from our most profound ethical, political, and ontological commitments. Instead, I would contend, we should see the elaboration of an aesthetics of existence as a challenge to the world as it is and to our engagements therein. Before embracing the disdain of the dandy, we would do well to pause and think seriously about what a world that did not engage the aesthetics of our existence would actually entail: a grey world of power and calculation alone, 3 “Le dandysme n’est … pas, comme beaucoup de personnes peu réfléchies paraissent le croire, un goût immodéré de la toilette et de l’élégance matérielle.” 4 “L’homme finit par ressembler à ce qu’il voudrait être.”

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one from which our enjoyments and our pleasures were evacuated, from which all qualities had been reduced to the currency of the universal equivalent. What would freedom, justice, or the good look like in such a world? Would we even want them if they were not also beautiful? What would it mean for them not to be desirable? It is within this context that I would like us to reconsider the fact that Foucault has often been accused of reducing the Stoics to a form of dandyism, through his focus on the aesthetics of existence in ancient philosophy, and thus of a failure to appreciate their gravity. This is a charge he specifically denies in the Hermeneutics of the Subject. In the following year’s lectures, Foucault opens with a reading of Kant’s “Answer to the Question ‘What is Enlightenment,’” a text on which he published contemporaneously both in French and English. In the version he published in English, he specifically compares Kant’s text to the Baudelaire’s “The Painter of Modern Life,” in which Baudelaire directly compares the figure of the dandy to the Stoics. In what follows, this paper will first examine Hadot’s charge that Foucault overemphasizes the aesthetic dimension of ancient philosophies of self-formation, reducing them to a form of dandyism.5 It will then look at Foucault’s rethinking of the dandy in Baudelaire as a serious philosophical figure and not as a mere aesthete. It will close by returning to Hadot’s contention that in ancient philosophy to kalon cannot be separated from to agathon and argue that Foucault, rather than reducing ethics to aesthetics, argues instead that the ethical, aesthetic, and epistemic are co-implicated and cannot be thought apart from one another. 3.2 To recapitulate a well-known story, Pierre Hadot was a major influence on Foucault’s thought throughout the eighties, and the primary source for Foucault’s concept of philosophy as a spiritual practice, a practice aimed at producing an “art of existence” through ethical self-formation. In 1977, Hadot, a professor of ancient and early Christian philosophy had published an essay entitled 5 See Wimberly’s salient comment, “This charge of Dandyism or its like occurs so often in print and in conversation that it seems suspicious in its ubiquity. I suspect that Foucault’s homosexuality and some of his interpreters’ homophobia might play a role in the prevalence of this idea, especially since his aesthetics of existence is developed out of a study of the history of sexuality that had a focus on homosexuality. In comparison, Marcuse, who also had a significant aesthetic dimension to his later philosophy, was never referred to as a Dandy as far as I am aware” (2009, 203 n5). Many thanks to Federico Testa for pointing me to this important note.

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“Exercices spirituels” (“Spiritual Exercises”). There he argued that the principle aim of ancient philosophical discourse was not the elaboration of theoretical systems but the formation of the spirit of the reader or interlocutor. The aim of the discourse was a transformation of the interlocutor that allowed her self to be shaped and realized through a series of dialogical practices: with herself, with a master and members of the community, and with texts. These exercises, Hadot contends, become most visible and formalized in the philosophers of the Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods. He uses the term “spiritual” to refer to them because, while words like “psychic,” “moral,” “ethical,” and “intellectual” all cover a portion of what he means, they are each partial in relation to the phenomenon of a specifically philosophical self-formation.6 When Foucault began his work on the care of the self, he discovered Hadot’s writings on ancient philosophy. They made a strong impression, and Foucault urged him to present his candidacy for a chair at the Collège de France, which he obtained in 1982. Foucault is, in fact, largely responsible for making Hadot’s work known to the larger philosophical world (cf. Foucault 2001, 207–8, 218). Unsurprisingly, however, these two men of very different backgrounds and experiences were not in complete agreement. Spirituality for Foucault falls under the larger category of the care of the self. Where the latter was primarily an ethical concern, in the sense of the formation of an ēthos (“character,” “disposition,” “self”), the former had a distinctly epistemic flavor, referring to the formation or transformation of the self necessary to have access to the truth (Foucault 2001, 227–28). It would be wrong, however, to understand this distinction as rigid. The care of the self leads to a process of self-formation. Through these processes, one comes to understand the nature of the self and its relation to the world, which is a form of knowledge. In this manner, the care of the self leads the subject to perform spiritual practices necessary to accede to knowledge, and that knowledge in turn reinforces the ethical imperative to care for the self, producing a virtuous, self-reinforcing cycle. Thus, in his May 6, 1981 lecture at Louvain, Foucault argued that one of the central tenets of ancient philosophy was that a certain style of life, what he would later refer to as an askēsis, was required to have access to the truth and that this idea would later be central to Christian monasticism (Foucault 2012, 125; McGushin 2007, xii–xiii). This stylization or self-fashioning of the subject became known as the art (tekhnē), the technology, or the aesthetics of existence in the various later formulations it would receive before Foucault’s death.7

6 Hadot 2002, 20–33, 61; cf. 272–73, 278; Hadot 1995, 20–21, 269–71, 412; Davidson 2002, 12. 7 Foucault 1994b, 415; Foucault 2014, 34–38; Gros 2014, 308; cf. MacCleod 2009, 247.

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These formulations owe a lot to Hadot himself, who says directly “Ancient philosophy proposes to man an art of living, as opposed to modern philosophy that presents itself as before all the construction of a technical language reserved for specialists” (2002, 300, my emphasis).8 Nonetheless, while Hadot recognizes the importance of Foucault’s engagement with ancient philosophy in general and the Stoics in particular, after Foucault’s death he advanced certain decisive objections that have since been taken up more widely (Pradeau 2012, 138–39). In particular, Hadot objects to Foucault’s emphasis on the aesthetic, arguing that “[b]y defining his ethical model as an aesthetics of existence, M. Foucault proposes a culture of the self that is too purely aesthetic, that is to say, I fear, a new form of dandyism, one for the end of the twentieth century” (Hadot 2002, 331).9 While the first time he makes this objection in print appears to be in an article of 1989, it is perhaps reasonable to assume he had already shared his view with Foucault directly, although their personal interactions were quite limited. At any rate, Foucault seems aware of the charge as early as his 1982 course on the Hermeneutics of the Subject, where he specifically argues that to reduce the “care of the self” and the “art of existence” to a mere foppish “dandyism” or to an umediated aestheticism would be a mistake (Foucault 2001, 14–15; Gros 2001, 511; Sellars 2021, 40–44). Nonetheless, the topic predates Foucault. Foucault’s good friend Paul Veyne as early as 1978 had embraced the term, arguing in the context of Seneca’s approval of the conjugal bond, that it would be easy to show that other even more ascetic moralities, such as those of the Neo-Pythagoreans and Middle Platonists, were best viewed as aesthetic variations on this more general ethic: “the ascetic is a moral dandy” (“l’ascète est un dandy de la moralité”—Veyne 1978, 49). Nonetheless, Hadot’s charge stuck and has been widely repeated.10 Hadot zeroes in on one passage in Volume 3 of the History Sexuality (1984, 83), where Foucault has emphasized the “joy” (gaudium) or “pleasure” (laetitia) 8 9 10

“La philosophie antique propose à l’homme un art de vivre, au contraire la philosophie moderne se présente avant tout comme la construction d’un langage technique réservé à des spécialistes.” “[E]n définissant son modèle éthique comme une esthétique de l’existence, M. Foucault ne propose une culture du soi trop purement esthétique, c’est-à-dire, je le crains, une nouvelle form de dandysme, version fin du XXe siècle.” See inter alia Testa 2020, 53; Boyle 2012; Chase 2007, 5; Miller 1998; Ure 2007. Porter, while not engaging the term “dandy” directly, is clearly relevant to the debate on whether Foucault overly aestheticizes ancient philosophy, and he too is following in the wake of Hadot (2005, 2006, 2012). For a critique of Hadot and his understanding of the ontology of the subject in Foucault, see Agamben (2015, 95–108), but see also Sharpe and Stettler’s response, who argue Agamben fundamentally misreads Hadot (2022). Neither piece, however, directly confronts the figure of the dandy.

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to which Seneca says the care of self gives rise. Hadot’s contention is that Foucault misconstrues Seneca because Foucault understands this pleasure as being directly related to the turn inward to the self, where in Seneca “it is a question of the joy one finds … in the better part of oneself” (Hadot 2002, 324). Likewise, where Foucault, according to Hadot, seems to equate gaudium and laetitia with voluptas, translating all three with the word plaisir, Seneca in effect opposes them, arguing for the joy of self-possession over the life of pleasure. “Happiness [for the Stoics] does not consist in pleasure, but in virtue itself, which is in itself its own recompense.” (Hadot 2002, 325).11 Let us place aside for a moment the question of whether one page in a multi-volume work dedicated to the topic of tracing the genealogy of the modern sexual subject through the figure of one who desires (Foucault 1984a, 11–12) is sufficient to convict Foucault of transforming the Stoics into “purely aesthetic” dandies in the mode of Beau Brummel. Let us also set aside the fact that Hadot fails to engage the separate work Foucault was planning on the care of the self in ancient philosophy and to which he had dedicated the last three years of his lectures at Collège de France but did not live to complete. The fact is that the passage to which Hadot refers, and on which consequently the argument of those who have followed in his wake depends, is more subtle than Hadot allows. Foucault begins by observing that the turning of the gaze of the self to the self (convertio) in Stoic philosophy was presented in terms of an “ethic of mastery,” which was characterized by an agonistic struggle between forces internal to the self and that this self-relation was expressed in terms of a juridical model, as witnessed by Seneca’s use of phrases such as sui iuris (“of its own law”) and potestas sui (“power over the self”) (1984b, 82). This initial description of the conversion of the self makes clear that Foucault is not talking about simple self-absorption or narcissism in Seneca. In fact, he outlines a relation between one part of the self, which wields power, and the other parts, which would be subject to the law and therefore subordinate to the superior part. It is within this relation of self-regulation and self-possession that Foucault, Hadot, and Seneca all locate gaudium and laetitia, and as Foucault explicity acknowledges, “[t]his sort of pleasure [i.e., gaudium and laetitia] can be contrasted point by point with that designated by the term voluptas; this latter term designates a pleasure whose origin is located outside of us and in objects whose presence is not assured to us.” (1984b, 83).12 Whether Foucault makes 11 12

“Le bonheur [pour les stoïciens] ne consiste pas dans le plaisir, mais dans la vertu elle-même, qui est à elle-même sa propre récompense.” “Cette sorte de plaisir [i.e. gaudium and laetitia] peut être opposée trait pour trait à ce qui est désigné par le terme voluptas; celui-ci désigne un plaisir dont l’origine est à placer hors de nous et dans des objets dont la présence ne nous est pas assurée.”

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an error in translating all three terms with the French plaisir is surely a minor point, when it is clear he understands the distinction and acknowledges that Seneca is making it. Indeed, as Irrera has shown (2010), Hadot himself in other works struggles rigorously to distinguish Stoic and Neoplatonic joy (gaudium) from pleasure (voluptas) on a consistent basis.13 The basis of Hadot’s and Foucault’s differend is philosophical, not philological. Hadot might well respond, nonetheless, that Foucault by emphasizing pleasure and the aesthetic gives short shrift to what the Stoics viewed as the universal. Hadot contends that the joy Seneca finds in his self is not a joy in his own ego but rather in the better part of his self, which Hadot claims can be identified with perfect divine reason and is therefore a transcendence of the self rather than an affirmation of it (Hadot 2002, 325). This perfect divine reason, in turn, is what he identifies as a “cosmic consciousness” (Hadot 2002, 325–26; Hadot 1995, 256; Davidson 2002, 13).14 The liberation from suffering and the gaudium promised by ancient philosophy in general and Stoicism in particular is effectuated by a passage from the suffering individual subject to the universal perspective of the cosmic whole. One effects this passage by performing a series of practices through which the subject refashions herself so as to bring the relation between the better part and the subordinate parts of her self into alignment with universal reason (Hadot 2002, 310, 325–26, 345; cf. Testa 2020, 61–62). Hadot at times verges on the mystical. He argues that a return to such a concept of universal reason and to “the cosmic dimension” of existence is both possible and desirable for individuals in the modern world, that we can have access to the “All, the Universal, the Divine, God” through a kind of fusion with Romain Rolland’s “oceanic feeling.”15 He sees the emphasis on the aesthetic as a truncated version of this more comprehensive vision of a universal understanding, one that has been made necessary by the rise of modern science. Aesthetic perception has become a necessary mode for people to conserve a consciousness of that “cosmic dimension that is necessary to human existence” (Hadot 2002, 349). This reduction of the cosmic to the aesthetic signals for 13

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Stettler (2022) has contended that, in fact, gaudium and voluptas can in certain contexts refer to the same basic feeling in Seneca, the difference being dependent on whether the philosopher is addressing a Stoic audience or the general public. Thus, he contends the whole terminological controversy is a modern “pseudo-problem.” This term has occasioned much debate, which extends beyond the confines of the Foucault-Hadot dialogue. The nature of this concept in Hadot and the controversies surrounding it are well covered in Michael Chase’s article in the present volume. He also makes an intriguing argument comparing productively Hadot’s concept of cosmic consciousness to the Zen notion of “enlightnement” or kensho. Hadot 2002, 345–46, 355; cf. Wimberly 2009, 196, 200; Sellars 2020, 44–46; Testa 2020, 63.

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him an attenuation of its full epistemic and spiritual force. The disagreement between Hadot and Foucault is clearly about more than the interpretation of gaudium and voluptas in Seneca’s text (McGushin 2007, 101–02; Wimberly 2009, 197). Now, it is certainly true that neither “universal reason” nor “cosmic consciousness” appear on the pages in question from the History of Sexuality, nor to my knowledge are they the focus of Foucault’s exposition anywhere within the four volumes. Nonetheless, as I have shown elsewhere at more length (Miller 2021, chapter 3),16 Foucault was hardly unaware of these aspects of Stoic philosophy, even if they did not occupy the center of his attention. Indeed, in the final lecture of 1982’s Hermeneutics of the Subject Foucault acknowledges that in Hellenistic philosophy, at its culmination, one lives not for one’s possessions, one’s power, or any of the other numerous things in the world the Stoics labelled adiaphora, “indifferents.” One lives “for oneself” in the sense of becoming indistinguishable from reason and God, from the cosmos itself. One has transformed oneself so that best parts of the self rule over those which are the worse and so that the subject becomes united with universal reason itself: Between the rational God who, in the order of the world places around me all the elements, the entire long chain of dangers and misfortunes, and myself, who is going to decipher these misfortunes as so many tests and exercises for my perfection, between this God and me, there is henceforth only myself. (Foucault 2001, 430; cf. Sellars 2020, 47) The self becomes identified with the rational principle of the world and thence views all its experience, all its suffering as a means towards its perfection. The spiritual practices of Hellenistic and Roman imperial philosophy are not aimed at a shallow or immediate pleasure in the self, and Foucault does not argue that. They are aimed at the subject experiencing a plenitude it has never known, an absolute freedom from contingency and error, from the deceptions of attachment, and hence from the illusion of the self’s own separation from phusis or nature (Foucault 2001, 125; cf. Testa 2020, 65). To reduce this care of the self either to solipsism, to a mere foppish “dandyism,” or to an unmediated aestheticism, Foucault says from the beginning, would be a mistake (Foucault 16

See Matthew Sharpe’s excellent article on this topic in this volume. He notes that while Foucault cannot be legitimately accused of neglecting these topics, his treatment of them is “is riven with tensions and characterized by contestable textual selections and omissions.” These tensions in turn are linked with Foucault’s perennial concern with periodization, which is a very different question from Hadot’s.

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2001, 14–15; Gros 2001, 511). That, however, is something very different from separating the care of the self and its associated spiritual practices from either pleasure in its broadest sense or the aesthetic per se.

3.3 Whether these men be called “refined,” “unbelievable,” “beautiful,” “lions,” or “dandies,” all are issued from the same origin; all participate in the same character of opposition and revolt; all are representatives of what is best in human pride, of that need, too rare today, to combat and destroy triviality. (Baudelaire 1968, 560)17 Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore, Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding! (Kant 1991, 54) Foucault opens his 1983 lecture course on the Government of the Self and Others, which continues his work from the previous year’s Hermeneutics of the Subject, with a reading of Kant’s “Answer to the Question ‘What is Enlightenment.’” In May 1984, shortly before his death, he published an extract from this lecture in the Magazine Littéraire. He also published in English translation, “What is Enlightenment,” an expanded essay built around the same material (1984c). In this expanded treatment, he makes an explicit comparison between Kant’s conception of enlightenment and Baudelaire’s project of modernity. Both Kant and Baudelaire stress an acute awareness of the nature of the present as a moment of decision, a moment in which autonomy of judgment can be exercised or refused, a moment in which a consciousness of freedom can arise. Foucault uses this unlikely conjunction of Kant and Baudelaire to ask the question of whether we cannot envision modernity less as a period than as an attitude, “a manner of thinking and feeling, a manner also of acting and conducting oneself, which at once marks our adherence and task. A little, no doubt, like 17

“Que ses hommes se fassent nommer raffinées, incroyables, beaux, lions ou dandys, tous sont issus d’une même origine; tous participent du même caractère d’opposition et de révolte; tous sont des representants de ce qu’il y a de meilleur dans l’orgueil humain, de ce besoin, trop rare chez ceux d’aujourd’hui, de combattre et de détruire la trivialité.”

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what the Greeks called an ēthos” (1994d, 568). Thus, if enlightenment for Kant is both the name of the present and a recurring moment in which the self emancipates itself from its tutelage to external authority; for Baudelaire, modernity is a recognition of the “will to ‘heroize’ the present” (Foucault 1994d, 569, citing, Le Peintre de la vie moderne). It is, as Foucault avers, a moment of “transfiguration,” a moment of the difficult interplay “between the truth of the real and the exercise of freedom.” This transfiguration of the self requires the practice of a certain “asceticism.” “To be modern, is not to accept oneself just as one is, in the flux of moments that pass.” It is not passively to accept, with cowardice or laziness, one’s minority, and hence conformity. Rather, “it is to take oneself as the object of a complex and difficult elaboration, what Baudelaire calls in the vocabulary of the time, ‘dandyism’” (Foucault 1994d, 570). Foucault is precise with his language here. He does not claim that Kant was a dandy, nor does he claim that what Baudelaire terms a dandy is what it means in the vocabulary of Foucault’s time. Rather he observes that for Kant enlightenment is a process of self-emancipation that can only take place in a present defined as what is actual at this moment, as the active sum of the past that opens into the future, and this process of emancipation necessarily entails a process of self-­ formation or transfiguration in which the subject frees itself from an unthinking, unreasoning submission to the structures of what has been, to “the flux of moments that pass.” By the same token for Baudelaire, modern man “is not he who sets off to discover himself, his secrets and his hidden truth, he is the one that searches to invent himself” (Foucault 1994d, 571). For Baudelaire, as for Kant and Foucault, this invention is achieved through a focused and intense “attention to the present.”18 The present, as Baudelaire notes at the beginning of “The Painter of Modern Life,” is not constituted to the exclusion of the past but in relation to it. The past is interesting not only through the beauty that the artists for whom it was the present have known how to extract from it, but also as past, for its historical value. The pleasure that we draw from the representation of the present consists not only in the beauty in which it is robed, but also in its essential quality as present. (Baudelaire 1968, 547)19

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I owe this formulation to Federico Testa, per litteras. “Le passé est intéressant non-seulement par la beauté qu’ont su en extraire les artistes pour qui il était le présent, mais aussi comme passé, pour sa valeur historique. Le plaisir que nous retirons de la représentation du présent tient non-seulement à la beauté dont il peut être revêtu, mais aussi à sa qualité essentielle de présent.”

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As the next passage makes clear, Baudelaire does not conceive the beauty that is his object of study, in this subtle interplay between the present and the past, as existing to the exclusion of la morale (“ethics, morality”) but rather as the incarnation of what the human in a given moment “wants to be” (ibid.). Similarly, Foucault characterized his own work as an ontology of the present, a tradition of thought he locates beginning with Kant (Foucault 1988a, 145–46), in which he understands the present that we live in, and hence the possibilities of freedom and action we possess, as constituted by the discourses and practices of the past that have produced it (Kelly 2014, 71; cf. Geuss 2017, 157). It is only in understanding the ontology of the present that we can cease to operate solely within its bounds and thus to reproduce its fundamental structures of power and domination (Artières 2012, 31). It is a question of making things more fragile through this historical analysis or rather, of showing at the same time why and how things have been able to be constituted in this fashion, but also of showing at the same time that they were constituted through a precise history. (Foucault 2012, 243; cf. Brion and Harcourt 2012, 266) Through this practice, it becomes possible to think, and so to act, differently. This is what Foucault defines as philosophy’s task today (Foucault 1984a, 14–15). Freedom is the capacity to think differently (Rajchmann 1991, 114, 122). Thus, for Foucault, the main interest in life and work was the possibility of self-transformation, not as a form of solipsistic absorption but as a practice that seeks to overcome the limitations of our thinking and of our being (Foucault 1988b, 9; cf. Gratton 2016, 260). This is the essence of the genealogical project: a focused attention on the present. “One must write the whispering voices so ‘loudly’ that the whole world and everyone goes into becoming, or more precisely has the potential to become otherwise than how they are today” (Lawler 2016, 270). In the 1980s for Foucault this work manifests itself as a series of studies on “the aesthetics of existence and the government of the self and others in greco-roman culture” (Foucault 1994b, 415). These are not understood as separate realms. Aesthetics is understood as coterminous with ethics (self) and politics (others). The purpose of Foucault’s reflection on ancient modes of subjectivation was not antiquarian but to transcend the normalized subject of the present (Pradeau 2012, 147–48). “What astonishes me is that in our society art now only has a relation with objects, not with individuals or with life, and also art has become a specialized domain, a domain of experts” (1994c, 617). The study of the aesthetics of existence, therefore, does not represent a retreat from politics, ethics, or other concerns but an investigation of what human

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beings “wish to be” through a careful attention to the ontology of the present (Gros 2014, 320–21). For Foucault, Kant’s text formulates the problem of the relation between the government of the self and others through a focus on the autonomy of the individual’s knowledge of truth in relation to various forms of authority (Foucault 2008, 8–9, 29–30). While we generally associate the early Foucault with a certain effacement of the subject, seeing the problematic of the self as a development in his late “ethical turn,” in fact Kant’s views on freedom had been a topic of interest since at least his minor thesis on the Anthropology, and as Stewart Elden’s recent work shows probably well before (McGushin 2007, 174; Fimiani 2012, 93–94; Elden 2021, 12–42). In particular, Foucault’s later interest is primarily focused on the question of what is the present moment, that is to say how do we recognize ourselves within the present moment and thereby preserve our ability both to think and ultimately to act differently, to resist domination and normalization (Wimberly 2009, 197). Foucault understands his own concept of critique to be close to Kant’s, in that both ask what is the ontology of the present. Where Kant says “dare to know,” Foucault asks, “what is the field of our experience, what is its genealogy, and how can I think beyond its limits” or even more precisely, “How can I form myself to think differently” (Foucault 2012, 235–36; cf. Brion and Harcourt 2012, 288; Lawlor 2016, 168–69). Thus Foucault will argue that Kant’s distinction between majority and minority in the passage quoted above rests on liberating reason from public conformity and obedience, even while we may, and ultimately must, privately obey. We cannot each decide the norms we will adhere to in private life on an ad hoc basis, whether it be paying the rent, showing up for work, or other basic forms of decorum. These are not the dictates of universal reason, but mere whim or momentary advantage. However, Foucault argues, “when to obey is confused with not reasoning, and when, in this confusion of obeying and not reasoning, one oppresses what ought to be the public and universal usage of our understanding, at this moment there is minority” (Foucault 2008, 36). The loss of autonomy stems from our acceptance of a certain type of self-­ relation (Foucault 2008, 32). “Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large proportion of men, even when nature has long emancipated them from alien guidance … nevertheless gladly remain immature for life” (Kant 1991, 54). The question becomes what sort of discourse must one undertake to change this self-relation, to fashion oneself to become what Foucault in his study of ancient parrhēsia calls a “fearless” speaker of truth (Foucault 2008, 322; cf. Brion and Harcourt 2012, 322). For Foucault, this problematic of self-­ formation is what constitutes the immediate philosophical relevance of both the Stoic care of the self and Baudelaire’s formulation of the dandy: for there is

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no shaping of the self by the self that is not at the same moment a stylization of one’s existence, an aesthetics and an art of living, not in opposition to reason in its most universalizing aspirations, but precisely as its enactment, as a mature, emancipated act of truth. Thus, when Baudelaire speaks of dandies as “lions” of “opposition and revolt,” he does so not in opposition to ethics, politics, or reason, but as their instantiation. One sees that from a certain perspective dandyism borders on spirituality and stoicism. But a dandy is not able to be a vulgar man. If he commited a crime, he would perhaps not be demeaned, but if this crime were born from a trivial source, the dishonor would be irreparable. Let the reader not be scandalized by this seriousness in frivolity, and let him remember that there is a greatness even in follies, a force even in excess. A queer spirituality! (Baudelaire 1968, 560)20 Thus, Foucault would argue that rather than his reducing the cosmic consciouness of the Stoics to mere dandyism, it is precisely Hadot who reduces the challenge of the dandy to mere aestheticism, as if the question of what we consider the beautiful can ever be radically separated from what we understand to be the good. Askēsis, spiritual practice, does not only allow you to access true discourses and thus to know, but it also allows you to be the subject of those discourses, to be united with a certain vision of the world and thus to come to resemble what you would want to be (Foucault 2001, 366). Baudelaire makes the connection between the Stoic and the dandy—not because Stoicism is a trivial pursuit of style for its own sake—but because there is always a seriousness and a spirituality in what to the untrained eye seems frivolous: in the strange figure of the philosopher who withdraws from the world to seek wisdom, who leaves the cave of normal life in order to see things in the clear light of the sun, who pursues a vision of spiritual beauty even among the blooming evils of the Paris streets. The dandy for Baudelaire is precisely the “lion” who refuses to accept the triviality of day-to-day existence as constituting the limits of the world. So while it is a mistake to argue that Foucault reduces Stoicism to dandyism (he quite explicitly does not); it is important to 20

“On voit que, par de certains côtés, le dandysme confine au spiritualisme et au stoïcisme. Mais un dandy ne peut jamais être un homme vulgaire. S’il commettait un crime, il ne serait pas déchu peut-être; mais si ce crime naissait d’une source triviale, le déshonneur serait irréparable. Que le lecteur ne se scandalise pas de cette gravité dans le frivole, et qu’il se souvienne qu’il y a une grandeur dans toutes les folies, une force dans tous les excès. Étrange spiritualisme!”

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recall that as Pradeau observed, his reflections on ancient modes of subjectivation were always a means to find a way beyond the normalized subject of the present (Pradeau 2012, 147–48) and that, as such, his “queer spirituality” (“Étrange spiritualisme”) was anything but reductive or trivial. 3.4 There is then perhaps no small irony in the fact that Hadot in his essay from the revised edition of Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique, “Un dialogue interrompu avec Michel Foucault: Convergences et divergences,” makes the argument that: the word “aesthetic” evokes in effect for us moderns very different resonances from those that the word “beauty” (kalon, kallos) had in antiquity. In effect, moderns have a tendency to represent the beautiful to themselves as an autonomous reality, independent of good and evil, whereas for the Greeks, in contrast, the word, when applied to human beings, normally implies a moral value. (Hadot 2002, 308) In short, he accuses Foucault of failing to recognize one of the most basic lessons of the Symposium, that to kalon is an aspect of to agathon. But as we have seen, in fact, Foucault never argues for the autonomy of the aesthetic, and he explicitly repudiates any conception of the dandy in this sense. He most certainly does not pair Kant with Baudelaire’s reading of the “Painter of Modern Life” to argue that Kant’s concept of majority is equivalent or reducible to either a bloodless aestheticism or some simplistic notion of l’art pour l’art. Rather had he lived, he might well have retorted: that it was, in fact, Hadot who sought to separate to kalon from to agathon in his debate with Foucault, and thus to see what is beautiful and fine as apart from what is good; and that it was Hadot’s contention rather than his own that the question of how we form ourselves as ethical, epistemic, and spiritual beings, could be separated from what we value, what we love, and what we think it might be beautiful to be. For Foucault, the study of the art of living was never a retreat from politics, but rather it was the art of living that established the point of contact between the subject, its self relation and the goverment of the self and others. Who we understand ourselves to be and who we want to be, what we find admirable, cannot be separated from how power is exercised upon us and how we choose to resist (Gros 2014, 320–21). In forming ourselves to think differently, we change who we are. We change the nature of our selves. We change the

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ontology of the present. This was integral to Foucault’s project from beginning to end (Penfield 2016, 7). Foucault always saw his work as a form of self-­ fashioning, as a way of changing who he was. This was not just a solipsistic retreat into the self, a refusal of community, politics, and the good, but a way of creating “new possibilities for life,” new technologies of the self that “are directly useful to the public,” particularly to “excluded, oppressed groups that have not been able to speak in their own voice” (Nehamas 1998, 168; cf. Testa 2020, 56–57). These are new forms of beauty, products of rigor and discipline, products of careful and patient work in the archive from which the present has sprung, all in the effort to create new forms of existence. Never will those beauties of cheap engravings, spoiled products, born of a worthless time, those feet in ankle boots, those fingers with castanets, know how to satisfy a heart like mine. (Baudelaire, “L’idéal”)21

References Agamben, Girogio. 2016. The Use of Bodies. Translated by Adam Kotsko. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Artières, Philippe. 2012. “Dire l’actualité. Le travail de diagnostic chez Michel Foucault.” In Foucault: Le courage de la vérité, edited by Frédéric Gros, 11–34. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Baudelaire, Charles. 1968. Baudelaire: Oeuvres complètes. Edited by Marcel A. Ruff. Paris: Seuil. Boyle, Brendan. 2012. “Foucault Among the Classicists, Again.” Foucault Studies 13: 138–56. Brion, Fabienne and Bernard E. Harcourt. 2012. “Situation du Cours.” In Michel Foucault, Mal faire, dire vrai: Fonction de l’aveu en justice, edited by Fabienne Brion and Bernard E. Harcourt, 263–326. Chicago: University of Chicago Press / Louvain: UCL Presses Universitaires de Louvain. Chase, Michael. 2007. “Observations on Pierre Hadot’s Conception of Philosophy as a Way of Life.” Practical Philosophy 8 (2): 5–17.

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“Ce ne seront jamais ces beautés de vignettes, / Produits avariés, nés d’un siècle vaurien, / Ces pieds à brodequins, ces doigts à castagnettes, / Qui sauront satisfaire un coeur comme le mien.”

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Davidson, Arnold I. 1994. “Ethics as Ascetics: Foucault, the History of Ethics, and Ancient Thought.” In The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, edited by Gary Gutting, 115–40. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davidson, Arnold I. 2002. “Préface.” In Pierre Hadot, Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique. 7–14. Paris: Albin Michel. Elden, Stuart. 2021. The Early Foucault. Cambridge: Polity. Fimiani, Mariapaola. 2012. “Le Véritable amour ou le souci commun du monde.” In Foucault: Le courage de la verité, edited by Frédéric Gros, 87–127. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Foucault, Michel. 1984a. L’Usage de plaisirs. L’Histoire de la sexualité. Vol. 2. Paris: Gallimard. Foucault, Michel. 1984b. Le souci de soi. L’Histoire de la sexualité. Vol. 3. Paris: Gallimard. Foucault, Michel. 1984c. “What is Enlightenment?” Translated by Catherine Porter. The Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow, 32–50. New York: Pantheon. Foucault, Michel. 1988a. “The Political Technology of Individuals.” In Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, edited by Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick H. Hutton, 145–62. Amherst: University of Massachusetts. Foucault, Michel. 1988b. “Technologies of the Self.” In Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, edited by Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman, Patrick H. Hutton, 16–49. Amherst: University of Massachusetts. Foucault, Michel. 1994a. Dits et écrits: 1954–1988, vol. 4. Edited by Daniel Defert and François Ewald. Paris: Gallimard. Foucault, Michel. 1994b. “L’écriture de soi.” In Michel Foucault, Dits et écrits: 1954–1988, vol. 4, edited by Daniel Defert and François Ewald, 415–30. Paris: Gallimard. Foucault, Michel. 1994c. “À propos de la généalogie de l’éthique: un aperçu du travail en cours.” In Michel Foucault, Dits et écrits: 1954–1988, vol. 4, edited by Daniel Defert and François Ewald, 609–31. Paris: Gallimard. Foucault, Michel. 1994d. “Qu’est-ce que les Lumières?” In Michel Foucault, Dits et écrits: 1954–1988, vol. 4, edited by Daniel Defert and François Ewald, 563–78. Paris: Gallimard. Foucault, Michel. 2001. L’herméneutique du sujet. Cours au Collège de France, 1981–82. Edited by Frédéric Gros. Paris: Hautes Études / Gallimard / Seuil. Foucault, Michel. 2008. Le gouvernement de soi et des autres. Cours au Collège de France, 1982–83. Edited by Frédéric Gros. Paris: Hautes Études / Gallimard / Seuil. Foucault, Michel. 2012. Mal faire, dire vrai: Fonction de l’aveu en justice. Edited by Fabienne Brion and Bernard E. Harcourt. Chicago: University of Chicago Press / Louvain: UCL Presses Universitaires de Louvain. Foucault, Michel. 2014. Subjectivité et vérité. Cours au Collège de France, 1979–80. Edited by Frédéric Gros. Paris: EHESS / Gallimard / Seuil. Geuss, Raymond. 2017. Changing the Subject: Philosophy from Socrates to Adorno. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Gratton, Peter. 2016. “Philosophy on Trial: The Crisis of Deciding Between Foucault and Derrida.” In Between Foucault and Derrida, edited by Yubraj Aryal, Vernon W. Cisney, Nicolae Morar, and Christopher Penfield, 251–62. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Gros, Frédéric. 2014. “Situation du Cours.” In Michel Foucault, Subjectivité et verité. Cours au Collège de France. 1980–81, edited by Frédéric Gros, 303–321. Paris: EHESS / Gallimard / Seuil. Hadot, Pierre. 1989. “Réflexions sur la notion de ‘culture de soi.’” In Michel Foucault philosophe, 261–68. Paris: Seuil. Hadot, Pierre. 1995. Qu’est-ce que la philosophie antique? Paris: Gallimard. Hadot, Pierre. 2002. Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique. Paris: Albin Michel. Irrera, Orazio. 2010. “Pleasure and Transcendence of the Self: Notes on a ‘Dialogue too Soon Interrupted’ Between Michel Foucault and Pierre Hadot.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 36: 995–1107. Jameson, Fredric. 1985. “Baudelaire as Modernist and Postmodernist: The Dissolution of the Referent and the Artificial ‘Sublime.’” In Lyric Poetry: Beyond New Criticism, edited by Chaviva Hošek and Patricia Parker, 247–63. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1991. “An Answer to the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment?’” In Political Writings, edited by Hans Reiss, translated by H. B. Nisbet, 54–60. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kelly, Mark. 2014. Foucault and Politics: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Lawlor, Leonard. 2016. From Violence to Speaking Out: Apocalypse and Expression in Foucault, Derrida, and Deleuze. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press. MacCleod, Colin. 2009. “The Poetry of Ethics: Horace, Epistles 1.” In Oxford Readings in Classical Studies. Horace: Satires and Epistles, edited by Ed. Kirk Freudenburg, 245–69. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McGushin, Edward. 2007. Foucault’s Askēsis: An Introduction to the Philosophical Life. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Miller, James. 1998. “The Prophet and the Dandy: Philosophy as a Way of Life in Nietzsche and Foucault.” Social Research 65: 871–96. Miller, Paul Allen. 2021. Foucault’s Late Lectures on Antiquity: Learning to Speak the Truth. London: Bloomsbury. Nehamas, Alexander. 1998. The Art of Living: Socratic Reflections from Plato to Foucault. Berkeley: University of California Press. Penfield, Christopher. 2016. “Introduction.” In Between Foucault and Derrida, edited by Yubraj Aryal, Vernon W. Cisney, Nicolae Morar, and Christopher Penfield, 1–26. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Porter, James. 2005. “Foucault’s Ascetic Ancients.” Phoenix 59: 121–32. Porter, James. 2006. “Foucault’s Antiquity.” In Classics and the Uses of Reception, edited by Charles Martindale and Richard Thomas, 168–79. London: Wiley Blackwell.

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Porter, James. 2012. “Discipline and Punish: Some Corrections to Boyle.” Foucault Studies 14: 179–95. Rajchman, John. 1991. Truth and Eros: Foucault, Lacan, and the Question of Ethics. London: Routledge. Sellars, John. 2020. “Self or Cosmos: Foucault versus Hadot.” In The Late Foucault: Ethical and Political Questions, edited by Marta Faustino and Gianfranco Ferraro, 37–52. London: Bloomsbury. Sharpe, Matthew J. and Matteo J. Stettler. 2020. “Pushing Against an Open Door: Agamben on Hadot and Foucault.” Classical Receptions Journal 14: 120–39. Stettler, Matteo J. 2022. “The Use and Misuse of Pleasure: Hadot Contra Foucault on the Stoic Dichotomy Gaudium-Voluptas in Seneca.” Foucault Studies 33: 1–23. Testa, Federico. 2020. “The Great Cycle of the World: Foucault and Hadot on the Cosmic Perspective and the Care of the Self.” In The Late Foucault: Ethical and Political Questions, edited by Marta Faustino and Gianfranco Ferraro, 53–70. London: Bloomsbury. Ure, Michael. 2007. “Senecan Moods: Foucault and Nietzsche on the Art of the Self.” Foucault Studies 4: 19–52. Veyne, Paul. 1978. “La famille et l’amour sous le Haut-Empire romain.” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 33 (1): 35–63. Wimberly, Cory. 2009. “The Joy of Difference: Foucault and Hadot on the Aesthetic and the Universal in Philosophy.” Philosophy Today 53: 191–202.

PART 2 Spirituality

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CHAPTER 4

Philosophical Mythoi: The Birth of Spirituality from the Nature of Things Gianfranco Ferraro 4.1

Introduction1

Beyond their more or less explicit differences, Hadot’s notion of “spiritual exercises” and Foucault’s notion of “care of the self” recover a concept of spirituality that runs throughout both the history of ancient philosophy and certain aspects of modern philosophy. It is precisely this investigation into philosophical spirituality, that is, into the presence of a spiritual element in ancient philosophy, that constitutes the roots of Foucault’s and Hadot’s approaches to philosophy as a practical activity, or “philosophy as a way of life.”2 Both authors clarify that their approach to philosophy as a practical, spiritual activity must in most cases be viewed as different from, or as a radical alternative to, religious experiences (see Foucault 2005, 485–86; Hadot 1995, 126–41 and 2001, 151–54). Early Christianity’s derivation of several techniques from previous philosophical ways of living makes clear the extent to which they differ.3 According to Foucault and Hadot, Platonic writings initiated a philosophical spirituality that would go on to influence religious spiritualities and that would be presented anew as a non-religious, philosophical form of spirituality in the modern era.4 This approach, based on a genealogy of philosophical spirituality, was in turn criticized by Cooper, who argued that a conception of “philosophy as a way of life” is possible if and only if it is based on a logos—a logos that, according to his description, can only be expressed through a logical and demonstrative 1 This essay was written with the support of FCT Portugal (ref. 2020.05403.BD and 2022.02833. PTDC) and reviewed with the support of IFILNOVA-FCSH. 2 “Philosophy was a method of spiritual progress which demanded a radical conversion and transformation of the individual’s way of being” (Hadot, 1995, 265). See also Sellars 2017. 3 The same concept of religious, Christian conversion should be seen as deriving from more ancient, philosophical forms of conversion. 4 Hadot’s and Foucault’s positions part ways in the case of Descartes, who gave rise, according to Foucault, to the birth of a theoretical practice that was entirely distinguished from any ethical interest. © Gianfranco Ferraro, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004693524_006

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form of discourse, hence excluding all non-propositional modes of thinking (see Cooper 2007, 23; 2012, 6 and 14; 2013, 40). Therefore, all philosophical practices that are not strictly connected with a logico-demonstrative logos, i.e. the spiritual or even mystical content of philosophy—such as “cosmic consciousness” or the “view from above,” to use some of Hadot’s examples (see Hadot 2001, 23–25 and 261–265)5—must be traced back to religious influences. While ancient philosophy “is nothing more, but also nothing less, than the art or discipline that develops and perfects the human capacity of reason” (Cooper 2012, 6), what characterizes human reason is “the power of inquiring into and recognizing truth as such,” which “is also, psychologically speaking, a power of motivation for action” (Cooper 2012, 11). Cooper clarifies that this moral approach to philosophy as a practice for conducting life was founded by Socrates and that “later thinkers, adopting Socrates’s ambitions for philosophy, successively applied and elaborated his conception in their own individual ways” (Cooper 2012, 7). Nevertheless, Cooper admits that this conception of philosophy includes, “if not for Socrates … , then for his successors,” not only moral philosophy but also the philosophy of nature and metaphysics. Cooper thus narrows the boundaries of philosophy as a way of life, both chronologically and conceptually. According to him, it was impossible in modernity insofar as modern philosophers did not sufficiently connect moral action to logos, as the ancients did.6 Cooper’s rejection of a logos “contaminated” by spiritual elements also led him to deny that philosophy as a way of life could accurately be ascribed to Presocratic practices, for instance the Pythagorean brotherhoods and schools, precisely because of their mixture of philosophical and “religious” components (see also Cooper 2007, 21; Constantinos 2013). The second component of Cooper’s denial that the Presocratics had genuinely philosophical experiences concerns their lack of properly philosophical “schools,” based on a foundational logos:7 “it is only what came to be called philosophy, under the influence of Socrates and Plato … , that made it possible even to conceive of philosophy as a way of life” (Cooper 2007, 21). Moreover, to support the claim that only from Plato on was it possible to speak of “philosophy” as a way of life, Cooper reports that in Plato’s time “there was in play a well developed notion of a ‘philosopher’ as someone engaged in logical argument and trusting to reason” and that therefore “Plato drew upon a 5 In this regard, see Faustino’s and Chase’s essays in this volume. 6 On the religious contamination of late Stoicism and of Neoplatonism, see Cooper 2007, 20–23; 386. On the impossibility of a modern philosophy as a way of life, see Cooper 2007, 10–11; 15. 7 Conversely, see Hadot 1995, 71.

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pre-existing tendency to use the term specifically for those devoted to logical argumentation and prepared to follow reason, in pursuit of the truth” (Cooper 2007, 24). Although Cooper does ultimately recognize the Pythagoreans—and Empedocles, insofar as he was directly influenced by them—as “suggestive forerunners” (Cooper 2007, 32) of Socratic philosophy as a way of life, admitting that the extent of the reciprocal influence between Socrates and the Pythagoreanism of his time is unclear, his conception of “philosophy and the reasoning on which it rests as grounding a whole life” must necessarily be traced back to a “notional Socrates” (Cooper 2001, 32). There is thus no possibility of recognizing the ancient phusikoi or the orphic brotherhoods as “philosophical” on this approach. Yet Cooper seems to deny the historical processes that gave form to “philosophy,” without deeply considering the relevance, for the emergence of the Platonic form of philosophizing, of previous and contemporary spiritual practices, as well as the social role of phusikoi in determining “ways of life.” Unlike Hadot and Foucault, who likewise took great care to distinguish philosophical from religious influences, Cooper’s conception of philosophy would thus seem to preclude the possibility of a “philosophical spirituality.” Whereas for Cooper spirituality necessarily has to do with religion and has no place in the context of philosophy, for Hadot and Foucault there is a kind of philosophical spirituality that can be distinguished from religious spirituality. In this chapter, I will argue that both Cooper’s approach and Hadot and Foucault’s approach are open to criticism. Against Cooper, I will argue that a genealogy of ancient philosophical practices—even those most anchored in a logico-demonstrative discourse—reveals the unavoidably complex origin of the philosophical “logos,” which is rooted in ancient mystical, “spiritual” and religious non-propositional practices. Concerning Hadot and Foucault, I will extend their genealogy of “philosophical spirituality” to show how tightly connected and intermingled this type of spirituality is with other kinds of spirituality. A more careful genealogy of ancient philosophical spirituality—in contrast to an abstract, ahistorical and “notional” definition of “logos” and “philosophy”—can demonstrate the extent to which ancient philosophy included forms of non-strictly-philosophical spirituality. In addition, examples taken from Presocratic thought demonstrate the degree to which early philosophy was connected with Orphism and exoteric purifications, suggesting that the birth of logos was much more complex than either Cooper or Hadot supposed (the latter partly reconstructing it in terms of the transformation of mythical figures into the rational elements of phusis—see Hadot 2004, 11). At the same time, these examples demonstrate the extent to which concrete “ways of life” determined the meaning and practice of “philosophy”—not the other way around.

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Indeed, neither Hadot’s nor Foucault’s genealogy of philosophical spirituality, beginning with Plato, takes into account the results to which a genealogical investigation of spirituality before Plato leads—results which can be precisely useful for answering Cooper. By taking into account the role of myth in Plato’s own philosophy, the presence of literary and mythical images in philosophical poetry from the fourth to the first century B.C., and the derivation of these myths and figures from more ancient rituals and spiritual techniques, and by comparing them with the Presocratic tradition’s combination of philosophical, religious and “literary” figures, it is possible to formulate two core hypotheses. On the one hand, the notion of spirituality must be extended to broader, earlier techniques, including and even preceding philosophical and religious ones. On the other hand, a genealogy of ancient philosophical spirituality will be rooted in expressions and forms of living in which ancient “religious” spirituality and prototypes of philosophy are indistinguishable. Ancient philosophical spirituality appears as a substrate that cannot be completely understood from either a philosophical or a religious perspective alone. These hypotheses prompt us to reconsider not only which came first, religion or philosophy, but how Western spirituality was born and how it acquired its determinate characteristics: namely, the observation of phusis and the transformation of the notion of psukhē through specific practices. 4.2

Hadot’s and Foucault’s Concepts of Spirituality

In his core essay on “spiritual exercises,” Pierre Hadot defines them as practices that involve a complete reversal of our usual way of looking at things. We are to switch from our “human” vision of reality, in which our values depend on our passions, to a “natural” vision of things, which replaces each event within the perspective of universal nature. Such a transformation of vision is not easy, and it is precisely here that spiritual exercises come in. (Hadot 1995, 83) For Hadot, the notion of spiritual exercises expresses the specific form assumed by philosophy in Antiquity and recovered in certain strands of modern thought. They are characteristic of a specific approach to philosophy as an “art of living,” “a concrete attitude and determinate lifestyle, which engages the whole of existence” (Hadot 1995, 83). As such, the “philosophical act” “is a conversion which turns our entire life upside down, changing the life of the

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person who goes through it” and raising “the individual from an inauthentic condition of life, darkened by unconsciousness and harassed by worry, to an authentic state of life” (Hadot 1995, 83). Equivalent to, or interchangeable with, this kind of philosophy, these practices are characterized by Hadot as “spiritual.” Hadot justifies his use of an expression that he admits is “disconcerting for the contemporary reader” (Hadot 1995, 81) as follows: “It is nevertheless necessary to use this term, I believe, because none of the other adjectives we could use—‘psychic,’ ‘moral,’ ‘ethical,’ ‘intellectual,’ ‘of thought,’ ‘of the soul’—covers all the aspects of the reality we want to describe” (Hadot 1995, 81). Hadot chooses to call these exercises “spiritual” to emphasise the extent of the transformation of the subject who undertakes them: the aim of such exercises is “a transformation of our vision of the world” and “a metamorphosis of our personality” (Hadot 1995, 82). Precisely because the “spiritual” implies the involvement of “the individual’s entire psychism” rather than mere thought, it reveals “the true dimensions of these exercises” (Hadot 1995, 82). To complete this definition, Hadot adds a final Hegelian consideration: through spiritual exercises, corresponding to an act of “transcending” oneself, “the individual raises himself up to the life of the objective Spirit; that is to say, he re-places himself within the perspective of the Whole” (Hadot 1995, 82). The choice to underscore the “spiritual” content of this work, performed by the individual on herself, reveals the important role played by this notion. At stake in spiritual exercises is a type of work, or askēsis, the aim of which is to transcend the individual, the spirit as psukhē—also in an immanent sense—so as to assume the “perspective of the Whole” (see Sellars 2020). After all, following Rabbow and Friedmann, Hadot is careful to distinguish this philosophical notion of spirituality from the religious one. Ancient askēsis—which became the exercitium spirituale in the first centuries of Christianity—did not have any religious features in itself. It wasn’t until later that it acquired its religious meaning, subsequently recovered by St. Ignatius. As such, this “spirituality,” as an experience of transcendence, does not necessarily belong to religious practices and can therefore be used in ways that transcend them (Hadot 1995, 82; 2001, 151–54). The Hegelian reference we find in Hadot can also be identified in Foucault, whose Hermeneutics of the Subject indeed ends with an interpretation of Hegel’s Phänomenologie des Geistes. As Foucault clarifies, Hegel’s work should be considered the “summit” of modern philosophy, precisely because it takes up the most important challenge of Western philosophy: making the world “the object of knowledge (connaissance) and at the same time the place of the subject’s test …” (Foucault 2005, 487). For Foucault, this duplicity, which relates “spirit” and “world,” is rooted in the ancient practices of the “care of the self” (epimeleia heautou) and shaped Western spirituality—including philosophical

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spirituality (Foucault 1997). As a specific corpus of “techniques,” philosophy is born from practices that Antiquity developed in order to transform the individual and his relation with himself and the world. Foucault isolates three developmental moments in the “care of the self”: the Socratic-Platonic moment, i.e. “the appearance of the epimeleia heautou in philosophical reflection”; the “golden age of the culture of the self” (the first two centuries A.D.); and the “transition from pagan philosophical ascesis to Christian asceticism” (Foucault 2005, 30). Whereas Hadot is more interested in distinguishing the specificities of philosophical askēsis, Foucault’s genealogy allows us to investigate the roots of this askēsis in a more complex way. Indeed, the principle on which ancient forms of veridiction are based—the principle “know thyself” (gnōthi seauton)—can be traced to broader techniques implicit in the practice of the “care of the self” (epimeleia heautou). The birth and the development of philosophical techniques are due to previous transformations of practices that only progressively acquire a philosophical semblance. While Foucault recognizes the specificity of “philosophical techniques,” he also recognizes the extent to which spiritual techniques are shared with other fields, such as religion and politics.8 Giving form to a type of “spirituality” that constitutes a common element of philosophical, political, and religious traditions, the different practices related to the “care of the self” characterize what can be defined as “spiritual,” according to Foucault. As a genealogy of the “care of the self,” the Hermeneutics of the Subject can be interpreted as a genealogy of Western spirituality, a genealogy of the relation between philosophical, religious and other forms of spirituality. As characteristics of spirituality, Foucault mentions, first, the following: Spirituality postulates that the truth is never given to the subject by right. Spirituality postulates that the subject as such does not have right of access to the truth and is not capable of having access to the truth. It postulates that the truth is not given to the subject by a simple act of knowledge (connaissance), which would be founded and justified simply by the fact that he is the subject and because he possesses this or that structure of subjectivity. It postulates that for the subject to have right of access to the truth he must be changed, transformed, shifted, and become, to some extent and up to a certain point, other than himself. The truth is only given to the subject at a price that brings the subject’s being into play. (Foucault 2005, 15) 8 The main difference between Hadot’s and Foucault’s perspectives concerns what Foucault calls the “aesthetics of existence.” See Foucault 2005, 208–9; 531 and Hadot 1995, 211.

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A second aspect of Western spirituality mentioned by Foucault concerns “conversion.” Foucault clarifies that “from this point of view there can be no truth without a conversion or a transformation of the subject.” Conversion takes the form of “a movement that removes the subject from his current status and condition,” and this in two ways: the first consists of “an ascending movement of the subject himself,” the second of “a movement by which the truth comes to him and enlightens him” (Foucault 2005, 15–16). As mentioned above, Hadot also acknowledges the relevance of these different modes of conversion for spirituality (Hadot 1995, 103; 2020, 93–103). By taking into account Platonism and Neoplatonism, Foucault stresses that conversion follows the movements of erōs. At the same time, conversion can be approached as a “work of the self on the self, an elaboration of the self by the self, a progressive transformation of the self by the self” (Foucault 2005, 16), corresponding to askēsis. He thus argues that erōs and askēsis can be defined as the two main modalities used by the subject to transform himself in order to become capable of grasping the truth. The third aspect of Western spirituality according to Foucault concerns “rebound effects,” namely the effects of the truth on the subject: “The truth enlightens the subject; the truth gives beatitude to the subject; the truth gives the subject tranquillity of the soul” (Foucault 2005, 16). In itself, the truth has the function of “transfiguring” the subject’s being. In conclusion, although Foucault proposes a distinction between philosophy and spirituality, he admits that in antiquity “the philosophical question of ‘how to have access to the truth’ and the practice of spirituality … were never separate” (Foucault 2005, 16). What are the main characteristics of these two practices, destined to be separated from each other throughout history? We will call “philosophy” the form of thought that asks what it is that enables the subject to have access to the truth and which attempts to determine the conditions and limits of the subject’s access to the truth. If I call this “philosophy,” then I think we could call “spirituality” the search, practice, and experience through which the subject carries out the necessary transformations on himself in order to have access to the truth. (Foucault 2005, 15) For Foucault, the separation of the two practices—the first focusing on access to the truth and the second on the transformations necessary to gain access to the truth—is not recognizable in the Pythagoreans, Socrates, Plato, the Stoics, the Cynics, the Epicureans or the Neoplatonists, the only exception being Aristotle. These “spiritual philosophies” (or “philosophical spiritualities,” as we

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might call them) are precisely brought together with the “epimeleia heautou” as a “set of conditions of spirituality” (Foucault 2005, 17). Foucault clarifies that the ancient bond between philosophy and spirituality, expressed in the care of the self, will be broken when access to truth becomes autonomous from the conditions for transforming the self that is searching for the truth. This separation is also recognized by Hadot, who writes of the interruption of the tradition of spiritual exercises in philosophy, although Hadot and Foucault differ as to when, precisely, this “moment” occurred.9 In short, for Hadot and Foucault, what characterizes a practice as “spiritual” is the aim of transforming the subject: when these practices of transformation are connected with access to a non-predetermined truth and to the right action, spirituality becomes strictly “philosophical.” Nevertheless, both view “spirituality” as something from which philosophy appears in antiquity as one among many spiritual paths. Despite their occasional references to pre-Platonic philosophical practices,10 they do not push their genealogies of spirituality or of “philosophical spiritualities” to their extreme consequences. How was ancient philosophy born as a spiritual attitude, as “care of the self” or a “spiritual exercise”? While Platonism provided “the climate for the development of what could be called a ‘rationality,’” “it is meaningless to contrast spirituality and rationality, as if they were two things at the same level” (Foucault 2005, 77): Platonism should be understood as a movement in which the activity of knowing the truth ultimately absorbs or reabsorbs “the requirements of spirituality” (Foucault 2005, 77). Although Platonism created the conditions for a non-spiritual philosophy, that is, for a type of philosophy governed by rationality, by a logico-demonstrative discourse, it did not completely do away with spiritual techniques. The birth of logos would thus appear to have been quite spurious. In Platonism, the practice of logos, the search for the truth (to be distinguished from the transformation of the subject), grafts onto practices for the transformation of the psukhē: both are present, and indeed sometimes indistinguishable (see Vernant 2020, 65–68). Therefore, the search for a philosophical logos detached from “spiritual practices” results in mere philosophical myth. Only by tracing and extending Hadot’s and Foucault’s genealogy of spirituality can we understand how ancient philosophical practices were connected to the slow 9 10

For Foucault, this “break” coincided approximately with Descartes; for Hadot, it coincided with the Scholastics, although he associated Descartes’ Meditations with a recovery of spirituality. See Hadot 1995, 73, 270; 2004, 264–65; 2020, 231–32. In the case of Hadot, this concerns Hadot 2006; see infra. In the case of Foucault, see Foucault 2005, 46–50.

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transformation of spiritual traditions and of the notion of the psukhē as an object of askēsis or epimeleia heautou. Moreover, this genealogical effort can also give us a better understanding of the co-presence of “spiritual” and “rational” motives in late ancient philosophy, as well as the unexpected affinities between philosophical and religious “mysticisms.” A key task is thus to trace the birth of philosophy to the concrete, historical ground of the practices in which it was based—practices that, even before Plato, connected the transformation of the psukhē to knowledge of phusis. We can imagine philosophical logos as having been born from a spiritual, pre-Platonic investigation into psukhē and phusis, the latter being the child of other spiritual practices.11 It is true that neither in Hadot nor in Foucault do we find an investigation that extends to the techniques of the Presocratic world and of those philosophical experiences that are connected to a more figurative kind of philosophy. However, adopting their genealogies of philosophical practices allows us to discover both the sources of these experiences and the spiritual ground that they manifestly share with other techniques. Doesn’t Presocratic sophia imply a certain “way of living,” certain techniques, and thus a certain “spirituality”? Are not those aspects of “conversion” highlighted by Hadot applicable to Presocratic “wise men” or to poets entirely devoted to knowledge of nature— aspects such as abstracting oneself from “social prejudices” and acquiring a “way of looking at the world radically metamorphosed into a cosmic-‘physical’ perspective” (Hadot 1995, 104)? If it is true, as Hadot and Foucault suggest, that the type of philosophy that informs our way of living cannot be detached from spirituality, we need to approach “spirituality” as an independent notion—a “meta-philosophical” notion. This allows us to circumvent the difficulties provoked by the relation between philosophy and religion in notions such as “spiritual exercises.” Through Foucault’s and Hadot’s approach, we can try to construct a genealogy of spirituality, as a third and autonomous element that, after absorbing philosophy, or religion, makes them a way of life. Its practice, in whatever form, depends on the cosmos, which is taken as a reference for the pragmatic use of specific techniques. To give form to this genealogy of Western spirituality, and 11

Hadot is aware of the problematic status of Pythagoreanism, but he singles out as a central feature of philosophy the “rational control” that emerges with Socrates: Hadot 1995, 116 n.79. Moreover, he offers a hint in this regard when describing the forms of conversion typical of ancient religions and Buddhism. See Hadot 2020, 94–95. Detienne highlights the role of political and juridical practices at the origins of philosophical thought: see Detienne 2006, 152–83.

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to investigate the slow transformation of the notion of psukhē as an object of askēsis or of epimeleia heautou according to Hadot and Foucault, the following will approach “spirituality” through the lens of the imagetic tradition present in Plato’s myths, as well as through the Orphic influences on his thought. This will be followed by an examination of the role played by such influences in the thought of the Presocratic philosopher Empedocles. 4.3

Platonic Myths: Orality, the Imagetic, and Orphism

Ancient philosophy reveals the persistence of non-logico-demonstrative motives and practices. Particularly relevant is the influence on Platonism of Pythagoreanism and Orphism, a philosophical-poetical tradition the roots of which can be found in Presocratic thought, poetry and myths. The use of myth and of a philosophical tradition not based on writing, the persistence of a field that is identifiable as the “imaginary” in the ancient tradition, thus testifies to the complex history of breaks and combinations within Greek logos. The recovery of apparently or clearly “religious” practices and conceptions in late ancient philosophy can also be compared with the permanence of non-logico-demonstrative discourses in philosophy. Given Christianity’s absorption of not only Judaic but also ancient Hellenistic religious rituals, we should not be surprised by the late intersections between philosophical and religious practices. To investigate the spiritual dimension of Platonic philosophy—the first step of Hadot’s and Foucault’s genealogies—is to approach, on the one hand, the practical dimension of the dialogues and, on the other, the connections between their imagetic discourse—their use of myths—and the spiritual traditions that precede and influence it, namely Orphism. The practical character of Platonic philosophy has been stressed by Hadot, who connects Plato’s practice with that of his master, Socrates—in particular regarding the oral substrate of dialogues: The borderline between “Socratic” and “Platonic” dialogue is impossible to delimit … . Platonic dialogues are model exercises. They are models in that they are not transcriptions of real dialogues but literary compositions which present an ideal dialogue. (Hadot 1995, 91) Hadot stresses the pivotal role played by the interlocutor, who prevents “the dialogue from becoming a theoretical, dogmatic exposé”: the dialogue assumes the form of a “combat, amicable but real” (Hadot 1995, 91). For Hadot, dialogues

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thus play the role of a spiritual exercise aimed at making progress within that “intermediate state” (Hadot 1995, 103) between wisdom and non-wisdom, which is characterized by an attempt to achieve the former, that is, literally, philo-sophia: “love of, or progress toward, wisdom” (Hadot 1995, 103). For this reason, spiritual exercises—including dialogues—“must be taken up again and again, in an ever-renewed effort.” Precisely thanks to this effort—this philein, which spiritual exercises embody—the philosopher “is not a sage, but he is not a non-sage, either.” Far from simply being attached to the texts, Platonic “spirituality” must be reconsidered as a broader, open practice involving the transformations that the interlocutors actually undergo. The relationship between written and oral dialogues reveals the “intermediate state” in which philosophy as a “spiritual exercise” is practiced. According to Hadot, Platonic spirituality implies the presence of unwritten ways of communicating and sharing doctrines. Written dialogues are protreptic to the oral exercises on which ancient philosophy is based: “[T]he ancient book was, nearly always, the echo of a speech intended to become speech once again” (Hadot 2020, 84). This claim concerning the centrality of Plato’s “oral, unwritten doctrines” when it comes to comprehending his thought was not original. Based on the Phaedrus’s condemnation of writing (274b–279c), on the personal testimony of the Seventh Letter (340b–345c), and on certain passages from Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Physics (4.2.209b11–17), the new “Tübingen School,” in particular Haiser, Krämer, Szlezák and Reale, had already clarified the pivotal role played by the “unwritten doctrines,” and thus oral practices, in Plato’s works: “The ‘hypomnematic’ or recollective function of many dialogues[,] affirmed in the Phaedrus, clearly presupposes a preceding activity of teaching, which is indeed also attested to by the doxographic reports” (Krämer 1990, 53).12 What is particularly important in Krämer’s approach is the role played by “unwritten doctrines” and by Plato’s “existential-communicative method of teaching” (a “datum”; Krämer 1990, 61), both of which help us to understand the indirect traditions and “the historical philosophical evolution from the Presocratics to Aristotle and then to Neoplatonism better than we could without them” (Krämer 1990, 61). According to these interpreters, Plato’s dialogues should, first, be traced back to the orality of dialectic discussion. Second, the content of these oral doctrines should be approached through ancient testimonies and by identifying their references to orality. As an example of Plato’s declaration

12

On Hadot’s approach to the interpretation of Plato by the Tübingen school, see Hadot 2020, 81–90.

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concerning the absence of written Platonic doctrines, members of the Tübingen School cited the following passage from the Seventh Letter: There does not exist, nor will there ever exist, any treatise of mine dealing therewith (oukoun emon ge peri autōn esti sungramma oude mēpote genētai). For it does not at all admit of verbal expression like other studies, but, as a result of continued application to the subject itself and communion therewith, it is brought to birth in the soul on a sudden, as light that is kindled by a leaping spark, and thereafter it nourishes itself. (Plato, VII Letter, 341c–d; Plato 1999, 531) Following Krämer, Szlezák explains how the term sungramma, “an accomplished exposition,” should be interpreted as referring to the “peri autōn,” that is, “the most important doctrines” (ibid.). Therefore, according to Szlezák, the sense of Plato’s sentence should be interpreted as follows: against the tyrant Dionysius’s pretension that it is possible to learn and approach philosophy simply through writing, Plato says that he does not entrust his most important doctrines to writing, because writing implies the possibility of misunderstanding (Szlezák 1985, 376–405). Partially critical of this interpretation—and while admitting the existence of oral Platonic doctrines—Isnardi Parente assumes that the meaning of sungramma should be approached not—as in the case of the Phaedrus’s myth of Theuth—as a contrast between orality and writing, but rather as a contrast between an authentic form of communication, written or oral, and any other inauthentic way of sharing doctrines. Isnardi Parente interprets the question of the “agrapha dogmata” as being connected to the oral debates that were internal to the philosophical work of the Academy, to Plato’s mathematical interests, as expressed in the Timaeus, and above all to the attempt by Plato scholars to trace the dialogues’ doctrines and Plato’s oral reflections to a unique and accomplished system of thought, in truth nearer to their own interests than to Plato’s.13 What emerges from the debate concerning Plato’s “unwritten doctrines,” which eventually culminated in a debate on Pythagorean forms of spirituality (although one may doubt the existence of “exoteric” Platonic doctrines) is the presence of an oral practice that reveals the complexity and heterogeneity of the process of shaping doctrine—namely the doctrine of the Forms. This practice would seem to be based—for Plato and at least in the first phase of the Academy—on face-to-face conversations.

13

For a contextualization of the debate on the “unwritten doctrines,” see Fronterotta 2014.

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Thus, if we are to understand Platonic “spirituality,” the relevance of “unwritten doctrines” and “oral practices” should be placed side by side with the role played by “myths,” as bearers of an imaginative discourse. Speaking of the Timaeus, Hadot observes that it can be considered the “archetypical model” of what he considers the “Orphic attitude” (Hadot 2006, 156). If “[t]he birth of the world and all natural processes are divine secrets,” and if “human beings, by contrast, can understand only what they can produce by their own art,” with discourse being man’s only true art, the secret of the fabrication of the universe can only be revealed through a mimetic operation of this generation (Hadot 2006, 156).14 This “game” would be recovered by Plato in the following dialogue, the Critias, the beginning of which constitutes a prayer to “that God who has recently been created by our speech [logois arti theōi gegonoti] (although in reality created of old), that he will grant to us the conservation of all our sayings that have been rightly said” (Criti. 106a). The game of creating a God through speech becomes necessary for Plato because of the need to connect the ways of being of the cosmos, that is, what is “existent always and has no becoming” and what is “becoming always and never is existent,” where the first is “apprehensible by thought” and the second “is an object of opinion” (Ti. 27d; Plato 1999, 49). Plato assumes that the “cosmos should be a copy of something (ton kosmon eikona tinos einai)” (Ti. 29b; Plato 1999, 53). With this principle established, the accounts will only be akin to the object, mirroring and replicating the fabrication of the universe: “the accounts of that which is copied after the likeness of that model, and is itself a likeness, will be analogous thereto and possess likelihood” (Ti. 29c); as paintings, they have “the nature of imitations and representations” (Criti. 106b; Plato 1999, 261). What can be expected from such narratives of the Gods and the generation of the universe are “accounts that are inferior to none in likelihood” (Ti. 29d; Plato 1999, 53). In Plato, moreover, mimetic and poietic forms of discourse are characteristic not only of the Timaeus’s myth of the creation but also of the use of myth as a discourse in itself. Myth innervates logical discourse through a different logic, a different exercise, one that belongs to the imaginative field of “likelihood.” At the same time, the logic of myth concerns the need for a practice and an understanding that cannot be satisfied by a logico-demonstrative discourse. As Plato writes at the very end of the Republic, after the myth of Er: “And so, Glaucon, the tale (muthos) was saved, as the saying is, and was not lost. And it

14

For Hadot’s contextualization of what he calls the “Orphic attitude,” in contrast to the “Promethean attitude,” see Hadot 2006, 95–98 (where the Timaeus is also traced back to a “physics of contemplation”) and Hadot 2006, 155–59.

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will save us if we believe it, and we shall safely cross the river of Lethe, and keep our soul unspotted from the world” (Resp. 621b–c). As the form of the dialogue itself replicates the personal, oral form of dialegesthai, the imagetic logic of myth mimes a “making,” a “poiein” that appears in the dialogue as an expression of an understanding that can be illustrated by an exercise of the imagination. This is the case in the Republic’s myth of the cave, in which the released prisoner returns to darkness, figuratively repeating the very movement of descending to Piraeus that Socrates narrates at the beginning of the dialogue. Giorgio Colli argued that knowledge of the good is only achievable through a “work in common” and that, precisely because of this poiein external to writing, it is only possible to merge with the good through practices that lead to a sort of epiphany, to seeing the “sublime light” (Colli 2007, 96), as declared in the Seventh Letter. The connection between myth and oral discourse is also highlighted by Jean-Pierre Vernant: This functional difference between speech and writing has a direct bearing on the position of myth … . [O]ral narration stimulates its public to an affective communion with the dramatic actions recounted in the story. This magic quality of speech … is considered by the Greeks to be one of the specific qualities of muthos as opposed to logos … . It is only when it has thus assumed the written form that a discourse, divested of its mystery and, at the same time, of its suggestive force, loses the power to impose itself on others through the illusory but irrepressible constraint of mimesis. (Vernant 1990, 206–7) Written myths transpose into the logic of argumentation something that would otherwise be extraneous: by doing so, they lose the power exercised by oral myths, but at the same time they possess something that argumentative logos lacks. Vernant clarifies that, despite the differences between them, myths have common characteristics.15 They belong to the same tradition; they are narrations that are able to fascinate the public, despite being “serious”: they involve a “fictional, fantastical manner [of speaking] of things that are essential, touching upon the most fundamental truths of existence.” Finally, they use 15

In order to discover the structure of mythical thought, Vernant’s comparative approach to myths proceeds “from the religious ideology to the literary compositions instead of seeking to treat religious phenomena and mythical traditions in a literary way” (Vernant 1990, 227; 245). His aim is to understand how interferences among codes, metaphorical assimilations, and transgressions constitute myth as an expressive form that differs from other expressive forms of logic. See Vernant 1976.

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a form of narration that makes possible an alteration of the initial situation through the actions of their “agents” (Vernant 1990, 219). For these reasons, the Greeks “did not simply relegate myth, in the name of the logos, to the shadows of unreason and the untruths of fiction” but continued to make a literary use of myth, “as the common treasure-house on which their culture could draw in order to remain alive and perpetuate itself” (Vernant 1990, 220). Beyond this, they attributed to myth the function of conveying truth, although “this truth could not be formulated directly” (Vernant 1990, 220). Assuming an attitude that was opposed to the language of myth, Greek philosophy thus “continued to use it or transposed it to another level, divesting it of the purely ‘fabulous’ element in it” (Vernant 1990, 222). In this sense, for Vernant, philosophy can be seen “as an attempt to formulate and demythologize that truth that myth, in its own way, was already aware of and transmitted in the form of allegorical stories”—as shown by Aristotle (Metaph. 1074b), according to whom myth can be considered “a preliminary sketch for rational discourse” and its fables “the vehicle for the first mumblings of the logos” (Vernant 1990, 222). Myth expresses, allegorically or symbolically, the same truth that is expressed by logos, yet it is also necessary insofar as it expresses something that “has nothing to do with speech articulated according to the rules of demonstration” (Vernant 1990, 221). For this reason, according to Vernant, Plato had no choice but to use muthoi when writing about the gods, the birth of the world and the soul: it is impossible to use logoi heautois homologoumenoi and is preferable to use eikôn muthos (Ti. 29b–c), as is the case with Plato’s use of the myth of Mnemosyne to clarify his theory of reminiscence. Although there are many places where Plato speaks of myth in a negative sense—for example Phaedo (61b), where Socrates clarifies that muthoi are the concern of the poets (excluded from the polis in the Republic)—“Plato grants an important place in his writings to myth, as a means of expressing both those things that lie beyond and those that fall short of strictly philosophical language” (Vernant 1990, 221). It is impossible to give expression to the concept of the Good, which, as the source of Being and Knowing, is beyond any essence. Similarly, it is difficult to speak about the “becoming” that cannot be “the object of a true knowledge,” but “only of a belief, pistis, opinion, doxa” (Vernant 1990, 221). As an imaginative, allegorical logic shared with oral discourse, Platonic myth is also ascribable—as Hadot stressed—to the complex interplay of influences derived from Orphism and from pre-Platonic thought, including Pythagoreanism. If for Aristotle Platonic philosophy was not the “first” to have the right to bear the name “philosophy,” it can be argued that the “spiritual” influences that gave shape to Presocratic practices might also be considered “philosophical.” In the Metaphysics, Plato’s doctrines are presented as chronologically following other “philosophies” (meta de tas eirēmenas philosophias)

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(Metaph. 1.6.987a29), namely the “Italic” (Pythagorean) tradition. A follower of both the Heraclitan Cratylus and Socrates, the latter of whom was described as searching for definitions in the ethical world rather than nature, Plato invented the “Ideas” to separate the world of stable definitions from sensible realities. The Platonic model of interaction between the two entities is traced back by Aristotle to a simple innovation with regard to the word for Pythagorean interaction: what was described as “imitation” by the Pythagoreans became “participation” in Plato. In connection to the Presocratic world, Plato is described as a phusikos, as an investigator of nature, among a list that includes the Pythagoreans, Empedocles and Anaxagoras (Metaph. 1.7). Aristotle thus perceived a continuity between Plato and the pre-Platonic practice of philosophy.16 The use of figures and of non-demonstrative logoi ties Plato to Presocratic genres in which a re-semantization of previous practices was connected to spiritual transformation. Whereas Orphic rituals would appear to be particularly relevant to the cathartic process represented in the myth of the cave, the Pythagorean influence is evident in other myths of the Republic, the Phaedrus, the Timaeus, and the Statesman, in the Symposium’s analysis of erōs as daimōn, in the concept of pharmakon, and in the concept of epimeleia.17 According to Cornford, who traces the components of a mystical tradition in Plato (even detecting a “conversion to Pythagoreanism” in his work), “Plato’s development obeys the general rule … at work throughout Presocratic philosophy—the rule that the view taken of the ‘nature of things’ reflects and is determined by beliefs about the nature and destiny of the soul” (Cornford 1957, 243).18 Characterized by a communitarian way of living and by strict forms of learning and teaching, Pythagoreanism is difficult to distinguish from Orphic traditions: we can even ascribe the “invention” (or the reinvention) of Orphic myths to the Pythagoreans, based on previous oral traditions (Kahn 2011, 22; West 1968). The influence of Orphic themes and practices on Plato can be viewed as also having been mediated by Pythagoreanism. As Plato reveals in the Seventh Letter, his final salvation from Dionysius was due to the Pythagorean Archytas (the tyrant of Tarentum), and the imaginary character Timaeus of Locris, who explains the mathematical model of the Timaeus, can be interpreted as a personal tribute to the eminent scientist and politician (see Kahn 2011, 39–43). Beyond this mathematical influence, the destiny of the immortal soul 16 17 18

Following the poetic model of the Presocratics, Plato’s Timaeus can be viewed, according to Hadot, as strictly connected to the previous tradition. See Hadot 2006, 208. In the Statesman, the first subject of care is the god (epimeloumenos). See Cornford 1903, 440, 444. According to Cornford, “as Orphism was a reformation of Dionysiac religion, so Pythagoreanism may be regarded as a further reformation of Orphism”: Cornford 1957, 198. On Platonic mysticism as connected to Pythagoreanism, see Cornford 1957, 243–61.

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that is recovered in the Meno and that lies at the centre of both the Phaedo’s notion of the purification of the soul and the Phaedrus seems to imply the creation of a “new Pythagorean philosophy” (Kahn 2011, 51; see also Dombrovski 2005, 27). In the Phaedo—the dramatic setting of which is the Pythagorean community of Phlius—the final myth can be traced back to an Orphic poem. In the Theaetetus (176b), Plato describes the transition from the Pythagorean way of “following god” to the philosophical way of living, through the pursuit of the unity of virtue (Kahn 2011, 52). Therefore, according to Kahn, “in Plato’s conception of philosophy the Orphic and Pythagorean streams merge, and both traditions find their huponoia, their deeper meaning, in Plato’s own theory of the soul and its transmundane destiny” (Kahn 2011, 45). While the Pythagorean-Orphic influence on Plato’s myths, on his conceptions of the psukhē and, finally, on the use of logos is undeniable—even allowing us to approach Platonism as a reinvention of Pythagoreanism—Platonic “philosophical” practice appears to be much more connected to previous spiritualities than Cooper supposes. In this sense, it is as doubtful that “philosophy as a way of life” began with Plato as it is that spirituality is to be excluded from the truly philosophical life. 4.4

Purifications and the Birth(s) of Physis

According to Colli, original Orphism belongs to an age characterized by a pessimistic crisis of the philosophical culture typical of the phusikoi. Nevertheless, the influence of Orphic and mystic cults on the Presocratic philosophers has been proven. Whereas Cornford argues that Empedocles’ poems “show us a religious doctrine and a translation of it into physical terms, which stands out as extraordinarily ingenious and successful” (Cornford 1957, 240), Colli is careful to clarify how they reveal the influence, but also the re-application, of the “expressive tools” furnished by their cultural milieu. It is from this perspective that we should approach Purifications (Katharmoi), the first of Empedocles’ poems (cf. Colli 1988, 28).19 Pierre Hadot explains the complex relationship between poetical theology and philosophical thought as follows: Thus, rituals and myths contained a hidden teaching on the subject of nature … . The mythical representation of the gods was criticized by those who were called the phusikoi, who gave a purely material explanation for 19

Tonelli traces some of the references in Empedocles’ poems back to shamanic practices. Cf. Tonelli 2021, 16–18. Convincingly, Hadot is sceptical about the possibility of tracing a comparative study of Greek forms of ascesis back to shamanism: see Hadot 2004, 181–88.

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the birth of the world … . [P]hilosophers of the Platonic and Stoic traditions gradually developed a kind of doctrine of double truth … . On the other hand, these philosophers considered that the poets of yesteryear had, in an enigmatic or hidden way, taught an entire science of nature beneath the veil of myth, which was none other than the Platonic or Stoic science of nature. (Hadot 2006, 40–41)20 Before Hadot, Colli developed an interpretation of Presocratic thought as based on concrete forms of life. Colli also highlights the necessity of understanding the historical, cultural and social elements that influence philosophical expression as such, as well as the connection between the expression of thought in writing and the life that is expressed (Colli 1988, 21). In this sense, he clarifies that Presocratic philosophy does not aim at a “universal” morality or an impartial, objective set of rules. The absence of oppressive religion, of dogmatism concretized into a priestly cast, allowed for the appearance, in the sixth century BCE, of “interiority as such,” of thumos (Colli 1988, 24). It is in fact in thumos that Presocratic thought developed the first expression of individuality: in Homer’s poems in particular, thumos is identified with the “psychic organ,” and more generally with the presence of life.21 Colli’s account allows us to understand how a peculiar, social attitude characteristic of the Presocratic phusikoi shows itself in the form of the “transcendence” typical of these philosophical experiences: the plurality of the gods, embodying metaphysical qualities in itself, is translated—already “rationalized”—by these philosophers into multiple, “natural” essences, the cryptic, hidden nature of which cannot be fully grasped. Colli speaks of a mystic condition of Presocratic thought, characterized by a game that connects the vision of phusis to the manifestation of interiority: the science of nature is nothing more than an “aristocratic entertainment … in which phantasy and rational extravagances can join pleasantly” (Colli 1988, 29). Knowledge is a way of dominating the world of appearance, and the philosopher is the one who is able to create and interact with relations among concepts, which express the constitutive ambiguity of the world. Things cannot be fully revealed by concepts, and therefore concepts should remain open to several interpretations, “because a living thing cannot be captured univocally” (Colli 1988, 30). Coming from an aristocratic background, which is still visible in his philosophical way of living, and being at the same time a democratic statesman, then a religious 20 21

Hadot returns several times to Empedocles’ doctrines and his poetic model for approaching phusis: see Hadot 2006, 8, 207. On the interpretation of thumos in the Homeric poems, cf. Cairns 2018.

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prophet, a magician and, finally, a suicide, Empedocles was—according to Colli—essentially a “mystic” (Colli 2019, 27) in which soul and world appear as the same thing. Empedocles was variously described as a Pythagorean, according to the Pyrrhonist Sextus Empiricus (Adv. Math. VII, 6), as being “like” the Pythagoreans, according to Plato (Gorgias, 492e–493a), and as a follower of Pythagoras, due to his vegetarianism.22 His poetic form of writing left the ancients disoriented: Aristotle (Poet. 1.1447b17) considered Empedocles a phusiologos rather than a poet; Lactantius (Div. Inst. 2.12.4) compared him to Lucretius, leaving undetermined whether he was chiefly a philosopher or a poet. Nevertheless, what in truth seduced the ancient interpreters was precisely the manner of his death (see also Colli 1998, 214). Diogenes Laertius testifies to the different stories surrounding his demise: it is told that he simply ascended to the Gods; that he was exiled to the Peloponnesus; that he suffered a fall on a journey to Messina; that he slipped into the sea; or, most famously, that he flung himself into the crater atop Mount Aetna to demonstrate his divine nature (Diog. Laert. 8.51ff.; Graham 2010, 331ff.).23 According to Colli, Empedocles did not aim to become a philosopher or a poet. He wanted instead to reach “his true expression” through these techniques, his bios (Colli 1988, 215). The poetic form favoured by Empedocles differed from the forms used by his contemporaries: this choice is interpreted by Colli as strictly connected to an “essentially musical” attitude (Colli 1988, 216). These poetical appearances reveal the variable appearances of the world, while being constrained by a law of necessity (Colli 1988, 217). Precisely through the poetic form of his philosophical expression, Empedocles succeeds in tracing transcendence back to the terms of “concrete life.” In his examination of the first verses of Peri phuseōs, Colli highlights the meaning of the poem: due to the difficulty of understanding the “diffused powers (palamai)” and to the shortness of life, men can discover the nature of things precisely through the poem (DK B2; Graham 2010, 341, mod.). Thus we discover a way to connect the world of humans to the world of cosmic phusis: truth can assume the form of an “expression”—as Colli translates logos—reflecting a divine principle inside of man. The detachment from daily experience (epei ōd’eliasthēs) achieved by “⟨every one⟩” who “claims to have found / the whole” permits access to a superior kind of knowledge (peuseai). The beginning of this process corresponds to the empowerment of sensible knowledge through the

22 23

Likely the heir of the later transformation of Pythagoreanism into an “ascetic counterculture” (Kahn 2011, 9). The latter episode was also attested to by Strabo 6.274.

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unification of the inner powers (palamai).24 The connection of the different palamai constitutes nous, which can approach things through aesthetic knowledge, made possible through a process of individualizing the sensibility that in itself belongs to every being. In DK B110, these types of knowledge appear as something that can be fixed (adinēisin) in the “crowded wits.” The contemplation of these learnings leads to the empowerment of knowledge throughout life, that is, the development of an attitude through which one conducts one’s life according to one’s specific nature, following a movement that belongs to all things.25 Empedocles’ practice does not take the form of a pure contemplation of nature, without any effects on concrete life. This aesthetic learning, made possible through poetic images, participates in the metaphysical, hidden movement of phusis (cf. Colli 1988, 227–236).26 The human philosophical tension is part of a broader tension between the cosmic figures of the Sphairos and of the Neikos. To the individual human being the poem appears as a collection of pharmaka, or medicines (as we have seen, the heir of a previous Pythagorean and Orphic notion), meant to guard “against ills and old age”; it is precisely the acquisition of these pharmaka that gives rise to a magical attitude that can intervene in natural phenomena, even leading “back from Hades the life of a deceased man” (DK B111; Graham 2010, 405). The connection of the palamai (of the dispersed ability to learn proper to the human being) in nous thus allows for a type of knowledge by which humans, as natural phenomena, can enter into communication with other natural phenomena, allowing them to be acted upon. The poem furnishes not only metaphoric medicine but the ability to activate or reactivate human forces so as to allow for consciousness of the nature of those things in which humans can participate, collaborating in recreating the solitary joy of Sphairos, before the beginning of another cosmic cycle.27 The connection between this learning and the transformation of the individual clearly reveals the “spiritual” content of the poem: Empedocles’ philosophical practice is inherent in phusis, and human knowledge is possible precisely thanks to the same principles of transformation that govern the macro-cosmos and are inherent to human nature (DK B109; Graham 2010, 399). 24 25 26 27

DK B3 (Graham 2010, 343). “For these will / grow / in each character, according to its nature” (DK B110; Graham 2010, 343). Cf. also DK B108: “Inasmuch as they become different, similarly their thought becomes different” (Graham 2010, 401, mod.). For a view of Empedocles’ cosmic cycle “from above,” cf. DK B17 (Graham 2010, 351–353). “A rounded Sphere rejoicing in circular solitude”: DK B27 and DK B28 (Graham 2010, 363).

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The philosopher occupies a dedicated, decisive place in the movement of this phusis, resisting, through his own poem and his bios, the laws of Neikos. In his first poem, Purifications (Katharmoi), the Pythagorean influence is clear in passages such as DK B125 (“For from living things [he] made dead shapes, changing them”: Graham 2010, 411), DK B117 (“For ere now I have been a boy, a girl, / a bush, a fowl, and a fish skipping in the sea”: Graham 2010, 407, mod.), DK B115, and DK B129. These passages testify to the presence of a doctrine similar to that of Pythagorean or Orphic metempsychosis, even if conditioned by the specific characteristics of Empedocles’ conception of phusis (See Reinhardt 1950). This conception is clarified, for example, in DK B17 (Graham 2010, 353). The transformational purpose of these poetical and philosophical katharmoi is revealed, on the one hand, by the picture Empedocles paints of himself in the poem—as a prophet or a magician, similar to “an immortal god, no longer mortal” (DK B144; Graham 2010, 417), gazing into the very truth of the cosmos28 and revered by those who follow him, “seeking oracles, some seeking / to hear the healing word for all sorts of diseases” (DK B112, Graham 2010, 407)—and on the other hand by his description of the poem as an instrument which allows one to grasp, through a human “agathon logon” “about the blessed gods” (DK B131, Graham 2010, 343), that irrepresentable being that is “holy and ineffable mind alone, / darting through the whole cosmos with swift thoughts” (DK B134; Graham 2010, 413). Plato recognized Empedocles’ figures as comparable to his own myths: “Each thinker seems to me to be telling us a story (muthon) as if we were children … . Later certain Ionian and Sicilian muses got the idea that the safest thing was to connect enmity and love” (Soph. 242c–d; Graham 2010, 355). In the century that separated Plato and Empedocles, the function of myth remained the same in some respects, but not in others. What for Empedocles was a true and beautiful discourse connecting the human being with the cycle of nature was for Plato only an imitation, a form of explaining what could not be logically expressed. Nevertheless, for both philosophers, the power of logos cannot completely ensure the expression of what phusis keeps hidden. The complications prompted by the various questions posed by phusis imply, or follow, a diversification of the organ that the ancient Greeks associated with apprehending phusis: from the physical beginnings of thumos, psukhē, nous, phrenes, knowledge becomes the aim of progressively unified, “abstract,” principles.29 Similarly, within a hundred years, the function of logos was redefined, from providing a true figurative “expression” of the cosmos to providing a 28 29

DK B132 (Graham 2010, 413) and DK B146 (Graham 2010, 417). On the physical origin of these terms in Archaic Greece, see Snell 1982, 1–21.

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dialectical approximation that sometimes required stories and myths. Within a century, the social role of the philosopher also changed. Whereas for Empedocles’ generation politics was one of many possible ways of living open to the philosopher who had contemplated phusis and had recovered a connection with it, with the crisis of the polis the philosopher’s aim was to exercise logos through confronting a kind of truth that is only reachable through the maieutic method: the nature of things was to be extracted from the irrational psukhai of the city. Nevertheless, as Plato reveals in his Seventh Letter, his story is that of successive failures. He fails to trace mankind—and the human psukhē—back to the stable principle of phusis, and his last chance of building a city governed by philosophers also fails in practice. His subsequent recovery of an “Orphic attitude” in the Timaeus seems to testify to an attempt to recover that ancestral attitude that had almost been irreparably lost in Greek culture. A new recovery of Empedocles’ philosophical-poetic discourse would later be undertaken by Lucretius, whose poem De rerum natura traces the contours of Epicurean logos through a discursive form that differs from the logico-­demonstrative approach.30 The use of poetry and mythical figures to represent elements or forces of phusis—for example Venus, a symbol of cosmic harmony, echoing Empedocles’ goddess Aphrodite31—places the poem within the philosophical genre inaugurated by the philosopher of Akragas, of whom Lucretius says that his homeland had “nothing in it more glorious than this man, nothing more holy, more marvellous and loved” (1.729–33; Bayley 1948, 51).32 Empedocles’ oracular style and Pythagorean language inspired the “spiritual” technique recovered by Lucretius, who would go on to use poetry to transform the reader’s (i.e. Memmius’) cosmic perspective, causing him to move away from the fears provoked by traditional religion.33 The poem uses words (dictis) and chants (carmina) to spark a light in the mind of the reader, who is able to discover “hidden things.”34 This light imagery is repeated at the end of the first book, when we discover that the philosophical-poetical path

30 31 32 33 34

Published in the first Century BCE, De rerum naturae was meant to be a didactic compendium to Epicurean philosophy and a protreptic to philosophy. For Lucretius’ recovery of the Presocratic poetic model, see Hadot 2006, 207. Lucr. 1.1–61 (Bayley 1948, 27–29); Empedocles, Peri phuseōs, DK B17 (Graham 2010, 353). Empedocles’ description echoes that provided for Epicurus: see De Rer. Nat. I 62–19 (Bayley 1948, 29). The image of Epicurus, who “in mind and spirit [mente animoque] traversed the boundless whole,” also echoes Empedocles’ image of the mind embracing the cosmos. Lucr. 1.50–51 (Bayley 1948, 28). Lucr. 1.144–145 (Bayley 1948, 31).

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is immerged in a cosmic cycle of correspondences.35 As in the case of Empedocles, Lucretius’ poem functions as a type of medicine, a pharmakon, which is also in accordance with the Epicurean tradition: here too, the recovery of the concept of philosophy as medicine functions as a poetic image—the kind of image that is useful for children, according to Plato—following also in this case the cathartic schema of knowledge.36 4.5

Conclusion

While we can trace—through a demonstration of Pythagorean and Orphic influences and an analysis of the mimetic character of figures and logos— the presence of a Platonic “spirituality,” the same can be said of Empedocles. In Empedocles, the contemplation of phusis is not ancillary but rather pivotal to the transformation of one’s form of living. At the same time, both in Empedocles and in Plato, Orphic elements are progressively re-used by each philosopher to define his myths and worldview. The Pythagorean notion of philosophical discourse as a pharmakon demonstrates that the techniques that Foucault related to the epimeleia heautou were actually more ancient than he assumed. The role of myth and logos changed as the techniques connecting psukhē to phusis evolved: indeed, the history of the practices that connect psukhē to phusis can be considered the history of spirituality. Imbued by previous spiritual models, the birth of philosophy can be understood as a slow evolution of the techniques that allow for the expression—or logos—of the relation between psukhē and phusis, or the nature of things. Precisely because it is not a static model but rather an effort to express the connection between psukhē and phusis, logos continues to involve the transformation, the purification, the conversion of psukhē.37 In sum, the foundationalist conception of logos that lies at the heart of Cooper’s notion of ancient philosophy as a way of life can itself be viewed as a myth of sorts—or more precisely, as a linguistic procedure the genealogy of which is itself rooted in whatever practical experience one decides to emphasize 35

36 37

“namque alid ex alio clarescet nec tibi caeca / nox iter eripiet quin ultima naturai / pervideas: ita res accendent lumina rebus”: Lucr. 1.1115–1117; “for one thing after another shall grow clear, nor will blind night snatch away your path from you, but that you shall see all the utmost truths of nature: so shall things kindle a light for others”: Bayley 1948, 64. See also Empedocles, DK B3. Lucr. 1.934–950 (Bayley 1948, 58). On the continuities and discontinuities—concerning the “truth”—of the archaic thought with previous religious models, see Detienne 2006, 237–39.

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(or neglect).38 Hadot’s and Foucault’s genealogy of philosophical spirituality can be extended in this way, beyond the intentions of the two authors and towards a more complex notion of spirituality, one that was only partially absorbed by a logico-demonstrative philosophy. Although we can distinguish philosophy from religion in terms of how each conceives of logos and, consequently, in terms of how the relation between psukhē and phusis is exercised in each sphere, ancient philosophical techniques approached phusis always with the aim of modifying previous ways of conceiving of and “orienting” the psukhē—and this is, precisely, the source of what we know as “spirituality.” After all, this genealogy comes close to Nietzsche’s genealogy of ancient philosophy: if, as Nietzsche suggests, philosophy must ultimately be traced back to tragedy and music, that is, to the religious and aesthetic origins of mousikē, Hadot’s and Foucault’s genealogies break off where Nietzsche’s begins. The “aesthetic” and “musical” origins of philosophy are intrinsically “spiritual” insofar as their object is the transformation of the psukhē through the forging of a new relation to phusis. The spirit of music appears as just one step in a genealogy of Western spirituality to which Hadot and Foucault allude without fully exploring.

References

Cairns, Douglas. 2018. “Thymos in Homer: Philological, Oral-poetic, and Cognitive Approaches.” Quaestiones Oralitatis IV: 13–30. Colli, Giorgio. 1977. La Sapienza greca, I. Dioniso, Apollo, Eleusi, Orfeo, Museo, Iperborei, Enigma. Milano: Adelphi. Colli, Giorgio. 1988. La natura ama nascondersi. Physis kryptesthai philei. Milano: Adelphi. Colli, Giorgio. 2007. Platone politico. Milano: Adelphi. Colli, Giorgio. 2019. Empedocle. Milano: Adelphi. Cooper, John. 2007. “Socrates and Philosophy as a Way of Life.” In Maieusis: Essays in Ancient Philosophy in Honour of Myles Burnyeat, edited by Dominic Scott, 20–43. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cooper, John. 2012. Pursuits of Wisdom. Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cooper, John. 2013. “Ancient Philosophies as Ways of Life.” In The Tanner Lectures on Human Values: Volume 32, edited by Mark Matheson, 23–42. Utah: University of Utah Press.

38

See Gargani 1975, viii.

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Cornford, F. M. 1903. “Plato and Orpheus.” The Classical Review, 17 (9): 433–45. Cornford, F. M. 1957. From Religion to Philosophy. A Study in the Origins of Western Speculation. New York: Harper Torchbook. Detienne, Marcel. 2006. Les Maîtres de Vérité dans la Grèce archaïque. Paris: LGF. Dombrovski, Daniel. 2005. A Platonic Philosophy of Religion. A Process Perspective. Albany: State University of New York Press. Foucault, Michel. 1997. “The Technologies of the Self.” In Essential Works of Michel Foucault, 1954–1984. Vol. I, Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth, edited by Paul Rabinow, 223–51. New York: The New Press. Foucault, Michel. 2005. The Hermeneutics of the Subject. Lectures at the Collège de France. 1981–1982. Edited by F. Gros, translated by G. Burchell. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Fronterotta, Francesco. 2014. “Gli ágrapha dógmata di Platone e il dibattito con la scuola di Tubinga.” Giornale Critico della Filosofia Italiana, 93 (95): 98–109. Gargani, Aldo Giorgio. 1975. Il sapere senza fondamenti. Torino: Einaudi. Graham, Daniel W. 2010. The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy. The Complete Fragments and Selected Testimonies of the Major Presocratics. Part I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hadot, Pierre. 1995. Philosophy as a Way of Life. Edited by A. I. Davidson, translated by M. Chase. Oxford / Malden: Blackwell. Hadot, Pierre. 2001. La Philosophie comme manière de vivre. Paris: Albin Michel. Hadot, Pierre. 2002. Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique. Paris: Albin Michel. Hadot, Pierre. 2004. What is Ancient Philosophy? Translated by Michael Chase. Cambridge / London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Hadot, Pierre. 2006. The Veil of Isis: An Essay on the History of the Idea of Nature. Translated by Michael Chase. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Hadot, Pierre. 2020. The Selected Writings of Pierre Hadot. Philosophy as Practice. Translated by M. Sharpe and F. Testa. London / New York: Bloomsbury. Kahn, Charles. 2011. Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans. A Brief Story. Indianapolis / Cambridge: Hackett. Krämer, Hans Joachim. 1990. Plato and the Foundations of Metaphysics. A Work on the Theory of the Principles and Unwritten Doctrines of Plato with a Collection of the Fundamental Documents. Edited and translated by J. R. Catan. Albany: State University of New York Press. Lucretius. 1948. On the Nature of Things. Translated by C. Bailey. London: Oxford University Press. Macris, Constantinos. 2013. “Charismatic Authority, Spiritual Guidance, and Way of Life in the Pythagorean Tradition.” In: Philosophy as a Way of Life: Ancients and Moderns: Essays in Honor of Pierre Hadot, edited by M. Chase, S. R. L. Clark, and M. McGhee, 57–83. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell.

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Plato. 1999. Timaeus, Critias, Cleitophon, Menexenus, Epistles. Translated by R. G. Bury. Cambridge Mass. / London: Harvard University Press. Reinhardt, Karl. 1950. “Empedokles, Orphiker und Physiker.” Classical Philology 45, no. 3: 170–79. Sellars, John. 2017. “What is Philosophy as a Way of Life?” Parrhesia 28: 40–56. Sellars, John. 2020. “Self and Cosmos: Foucault versus Hadot.” In The Late Foucault, edited by Marta Faustino and Gianfranco Ferraro, 37–51. London / New York: Bloomsbury. Snell, Bruno. 1982. The Discovery of the Mind in Greek Philosophy and Literature. Mineola / New York: Dover Publications. Szlezák, Thomas Alexander. 1985. Platon und die Schriftlichkeit der Philosophie. Interpretationen zu den frühen und mittleren Dialogen. Berlin / New York: De Gruyter. Tonelli, Angelo, ed. 2021. Negli abissi luminosi. Sciamanesimo, trance ed estasi nella Grecia antica. Milano: Feltrinelli. Vernant, Jean-Pierre. 1976. Religion grecque, religions antiques. Paris: Maspero. Vernant, Jean-Pierre. 1990. Myth and Society in Ancient Greece. New York: Zone Books. Vernant, Jean-Pierre. 2020. Les origines de la pensée grecque. Paris: PUF. West, Martin. 1968. “Notes on the Orphic Hymns.” The Classical Quarterly 18, no. 2: 288–96.

CHAPTER 5

A Contamination of Philosophy by Religion? Reassessing Hadot’s Notion of Spiritual Exercises Marta Faustino 5.1

Introduction

One of the most pivotal and influential aspects of Hadot’s interpretation of ancient philosophy is his notion of spiritual exercises.1 As early as 1962, in his essay on Wittgenstein, Hadot argued that in ancient philosophy, “more than theses, one teaches ways, methods, spiritual exercises” (Hadot 1962, 341). In his most popular work, translated into English as Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, Hadot defines philosophy in antiquity as “a method of spiritual progress which demanded a radical conversion and transformation of the individual’s way of living” (Hadot 1995, 265). Spiritual exercises were precisely the diversified set of practices and techniques that, according to Hadot, individuals performed upon themselves in order to facilitate this long and often difficult process of self-transformation toward the philosophical life. In his words, spiritual exercises were “practices which could be physical, as in dietary regimes, or discursive, as in dialogue and meditation, or intuitive, as in contemplation, but which were all intended to effect a modification and a transformation in the subject who practiced them,” thus allowing the philosopher to “make spiritual progress and transform himself within” (Hadot 2004, 6). For Hadot, spiritual exercises were the precondition for spiritual progress, such that, in fact, philosophy in antiquity could be described as a spiritual exercise (cf. Hadot 1995, 100, 104). Even though Hadot acknowledges that theory or philosophical discourse is an integral part of the ancient art of living, “theory is never considered an end in itself; it is clearly and decidedly put in the service of practice” (Hadot 1995, 60). In fact, it was precisely the

1 This work was funded by national funds through the FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the Norma Transitória DL 57/2016/CP1453/CT0042 and the Exploratory Project “Mapping Philosophy as a Way of Life: An Ancient Model, A Contemporary Approach” (2022.02833.PTDC). I wish to thank Hélder Telo, Gianfranco Ferraro, Federico Testa and Michael Chase for their insightful comments on previous versions of this paper. © Marta Faustino, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004693524_007

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centrality of spiritual exercises in ancient philosophy that prompted Hadot to define it as a way of life (see Davidson 1995, 23). Even though Hadot was a historian of philosophy who specialized in antiquity, he believed that the concept of spiritual exercises was central to our understanding “not only of ancient thought, but of philosophy itself” (Hadot 1995, 82). It is true that, as he himself acknowledged, spiritual exercises were particularly present and popular in Hellenistic philosophy. However, Hadot was convinced not only that the practice of spiritual exercises was “rooted in traditions going back to immemorial times” (Hadot 1995, 89), but also that throughout the history of Western culture we find “a certain permanence and survival of the ancient notion” (Hadot 2004, 261). Without developing it at length, Hadot mentions a few modern and contemporary authors who, “in one way or another, were influenced by the model of ancient philosophy, and conceived of philosophy not only as a concrete, practical activity but also as a transformation of our way of inhabiting and perceiving the world” (Hadot 2004, 270). These include Montaigne, Descartes, Kant, Schopenhauer, Emerson, Thoreau, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Bergson, among others. Most importantly, besides this historical approach, Hadot also presents philosophy as a way of life and the corresponding practice of spiritual exercises as a normative conception of philosophy, that is, as his own model of philosophical practice, opposed to current academic models, which he deemed too theoretical, abstract and detached from everyday life. As he claims in an interview with Michael Chase, after criticizing academic philosophy and scholastic pedagogy, “I’ve always believed that philosophy was a concrete act, which changed our perception of the world, and our life: not the construction of a system. It is a life, not a discourse” (Hadot 1995, 279). Despite the influence of Hadot’s work in contemporary scholarship, the conception of philosophy as a way of life (and similar conceptions that emphasize and prioritize philosophy’s practical dimension and ascetic exercises) has been the object of various criticisms, most of which by Anglo-American philosophers with an analytic orientation.2 In this essay I will discuss one of the most frequent criticisms made against Hadot’s interpretation of ancient philosophy and, in particular, his notion of spiritual exercises, focusing on one of his most 2 In addition to Cooper 2007, 2012, 2013, see especially Nussbaum 1994, 5 (for a criticism of Foucault’s overemphasis on practices of self-shaping in ancient philosophy), Williams 1994 (in which Williams resists Nussbaum’s depiction of ancient philosophy as a therapeutic practice and strongly opposes Foucault’s interpretation of it in terms of techniques directed at a souci du soi) and Inwood 2004 (for a criticism of Sellars’s interpretation of ancient philosophy as an art of living, following Hadot’s and Foucault’s lead).

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fervent critics, John Cooper.3 According to the latter, the notion of spiritual exercises is derived from—and thus “contaminated” by—religion. As such, in Cooper’s view it cannot belong to any philosophy worthy of the name and Hadot’s use of it inaccurately blurs the distinction between the philosophical and the religious way of life. Although Cooper admits that a small number of spiritual exercises can be found in some late Hellenistic schools, he considers the latter decaying forms of ancient philosophy, in fact already contaminated by the rise of Christianity. For this reason, on his view, they speak against— rather than for—Hadot’s account (cf. Cooper 2012, 19–20). After outlining and discussing this criticism in greater detail in Section 5.2, this essay will argue that Cooper’s critical reading of Hadot is strongly determined by a different understanding of what philosophy is (and even should be) and, as such, does not do full justice to Hadot’s account. Section 5.3 will clarify Hadot’s notion of spiritual exercises and show how a closer reading of Hadot’s description of these exercises, as well as his own direct answers to similar criticisms, dispels most of Cooper’s concerns while at the same time providing a more nuanced understanding of Hadot’s conception of philosophy as a way of life. Section 5.4 will contextualize the notion of spiritual exercises in ancient forms of askēsis and bring together Hadot’s and Cooper’s accounts on the matter, showing that they actually agree more than Cooper suggests in his texts. Hence, in Section 5.5, the chapter concludes that Cooper’s divergence from Hadot is more terminological than philosophical or even hermeneutical in nature, although their contrasting accounts do bring to light two different metaphilosophies and two competing understandings not only of what philosophy was in antiquity but also of what it should become in contemporary times. 5.2

Cooper’s Criticism

Cooper presents his most detailed criticism of Hadot’s notion of spiritual exercises in the book Pursuits of Wisdom: Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus (2012), on which this chapter will essentially rely. Besides this work, two essays will be relevant and complementary to this study, namely “Socrates and Philosophy as a Way of Life,” published in a volume dedicated to Myles Burnyeat in 2007, and Cooper’s Tanner Lecture on “Ancient Philosophies as Ways of Life” (2012), published in the proceedings of these lectures in 2013. 3 For previous discussions of Cooper’s criticism of Hadot’s account, see Sharpe 2014, 2016, 2021; Sellars 2017; Faustino 2020. For support for Cooper’s position and a dialogue with previous discussions of other related criticisms, see Cseke 2021 and Vilchis 2022.

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In each of these texts, Cooper begins his criticism of Hadot by acknowledging how the work of the latter has greatly influenced and inspired his own (see e.g. Cooper 2012, x). In particular, he fully endorses Hadot’s description of ancient philosophy—or at least a good part of it—as a “way of life.” By this expression Cooper means, just like Hadot, that for most ancient philosophers “philosophy was not merely and purely a subject of study” (Cooper 2007, 20). On the contrary, “philosophers lived their philosophy” (Cooper 2007, 20) and, as such, “philosophy was assiduously studied in every generation by many ancient philosophers and their students as the best way to become good people and to live good human lives” (Cooper 2012, 2). Philosophy was thus something one should not only learn and understand but incorporate and live as the very basis of one’s behavior, actions and life’s choices. As he explains in his first essay on the topic: A philosopher made philosophy the basis of his whole life. In fact, more even than it meant investigating, discussing, and teaching the subject, being a philosopher, for many ancient philosophers, meant living one’s whole life a certain way—philosophically—and encouraging others to live that way, too. (Cooper 2007, 21) However similar the two accounts may seem at first glance, for Hadot this totalizing and all-encompassing character was a feature of ancient philosophy as a whole, from pre-Platonic philosophers to the rise of Christianity, and can even be recognized in some modern and contemporary authors, who revived important traits of ancient philosophy. For Cooper, by contrast, not every ancient philosopher thought of philosophy in this way. According to his reading, it was only Socrates who inaugurated this conception of philosophy, and it applied only to six major schools in antiquity, namely the six ways of life he analyses in his book: Socratism, Aristotelianism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, Skepticism, and Neoplatonism. As a consequence, Cooper makes two first strong claims against Hadot’s account of philosophy as a way of life. First, he argues that the conception of philosophy as a way of life did not exist before Socrates, because pre-Socratic philosophers did not have a “special way of life” and did not think “of their philosophical inquiries or arguments as helping to define or support any such life” (Cooper 2007, 21 n.2).4 Second, even though Cooper 4 Even though Cooper acknowledges that some pre-Platonic philosophers formed communities which shared a similar way of life, he maintains that these schools combined philo­ sophical ideas with religious dogmas and rituals and that the role of philosophy, rational argument and analysis was not at all comparable to their role in later schools, which indeed

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acknowledges that something of this tradition has remained in the popular understanding of philosophy,5 he claims that the conception of philosophy as a way of life did not survive antiquity, since post-Renaissance philosophy rejected the fundamental assumptions that made philosophy in antiquity a way of life (cf. Cooper 2012, 11ff.).6 This divergence is based on two different understandings of the grounds for thinking that philosophy could indeed have been a full and complete way of life for its adherents in antiquity. For Hadot, philosophy was indeed “a concrete attitude and determinate life-style” that engaged one’s “whole existence” and implied a “profound transformation of the individual’s mode of seeing and being” (Hadot 1995, 83). But this transformation was accomplished through the daily practice of what he called “spiritual exercises,” the aim of which was precisely to bring about this transfiguration: “such a transformation of vision is not easy, and it is precisely here that spiritual exercises come in. Little by little, they make possible the indispensable metamorphosis of our inner self” (Hadot 1995, 83). Thus, for Hadot, the fact that philosophy was a way of life in antiquity is strictly connected to the practice of spiritual exercises: “ancient philosophy is a spiritual exercise because it is a mode of life, a form of life, a choice of life” (Hadot 2009, 94). For Cooper, by contrast, living a philosophical life meant solely and exclusively “living according to reason, conceived as a capacity for argument and grounded the idea of philosophy’s constituting a way of life. For a different interpretation of pre-Platonic philosophies and a criticism of Cooper in this regard, see Ferraro’s essay in this volume. 5 According to Cooper, even though philosophy is now essentially a discipline and subject of study like so many others, the philosopher is still conceived of as a wise person—one with deep knowledge of human life and its problems and hence able to behave properly and give valuable advice on how to live one’s life. Furthermore, the widespread notion of a “philosophy of life,” used to designate any “set of ideas about what to value and strive for” (and not necessarily connected to professional philosophy), also reveals a deep-seated popular belief in the relation between philosophy and wisdom concerning human life (see Cooper 2012, 1–2). 6 These assumptions included, first, the idea that reason can be the sole motivating force of human action; second, the belief that philosophy is the only art whereby reason is made perfect and hence the sole authority as to what is true; and finally and consequently, the firm conviction that by living a philosophical life one will be safe from ever judging falsely or acting wrongly and hence will necessarily lead a good life (cf. Cooper 2012, 11ff.). Because these assumptions—which for Cooper are the very ground of philosophy as a way of life—are absent in the post-Renaissance philosophical landscape, one can no longer speak of philosophy as a way of life in this period. One notable exception is Spinoza, who “like the ancients presented his work as something to be lived as well as grasped intellectually …” (Cooper 2012, 16 n.23). For a discussion and criticism of this claim, see Faustino 2020.

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analysis in pursuit of the truth” (Cooper 2007, 23, my emphasis). If there is something that distinguishes ancient philosophers from philosophers of later periods, Cooper argues, it is their firm belief in the power of reason, which was both a power of inquiring into and finding the truth and a power of motivating one to act according to it (Cooper 2012, 11). Philosophy, as the pursuit of wisdom and truth, was conceived as the only art whereby reason was made perfect and truth was secured. It was on the basis of this assumption that philosophy was believed to be the only form of knowledge capable of saving and guiding one’s life: as the basis of a life led according to reason and truth, philosophy ensured that one would never judge or act wrongly and hence guaranteed a thoroughly good and flourishing life. In other words, it was because they believed they were living the “life of perfected reason” that ancient philosophers—be they Socratists, Aristotelians, Stoics, Epicureans, Skeptics or Neoplatonists—lived “happy and completely and unassailably good lives” (Cooper 2012, 14). According to Cooper, it was precisely this fundamental belief in and commitment to philosophical reason that characterized the philosophical way of life and distinguished it from other ways of living, in particular the religious one: a philosophical life is a life led solely and exclusively by reason. Contrary to religious ways of life, which rely on different presuppositions, in ancient philosophy full knowledge and reasoned understanding of practical truths was enough to move one to action and to ground a life according to those truths, that is, the good life.7 In this context, not only would spiritual exercises be unnecessary for leading a strictly philosophical life, but they would even be incompatible with it. As Cooper explains in his Tanner Lecture on the topic: What was crucial for philosophy (as opposed to religion) as a way of life, all the way through, is that what was to keep you going and keep you living your philosophy was nothing more than your fully developed philosophical, reasoned understanding of what you thought was the truth about human beings and their place in the world. You did not need spiritual uplift and purification, and it would indeed be a serious distraction in 7 Cf. Cooper 2012, 17–18: “One must take with utmost seriousness that what the ancient philosophers, following Socrates’s innovative lead, are proposing is that we live our lives from some set of argued through, rationally worked out, rationally grasped, and rationally defended, reasoned ideas about the world and one’s own place within it. They propose that we live from these ideas precisely on the basis of just that reasoned understanding. A philosophical way of life is therefore in fundamental ways quite a different thing from any religious way of life … . The key here is the idea of reason … . To live a life of philosophy is to live committed to following philosophical reason wherever it may lead. The promise is that by doing so—but only by doing so—one will achieve the best possible human life.”

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most of the ancient philosophical lives. It is that sort of life, one growing out of and deriving from exercises of philosophical reason, that I have emphasized in this lecture. In fact, no quasi-religious devotional practices, such as Hadot describes, had, or even could have had, anything essential to do with living a life of philosophy, given what philosophy itself, both in antiquity and, in fact, in its whole history, is: an exercise of reason. (Cooper 2013, 40) On the basis of this fundamental position, Cooper develops three main arguments against Hadot’s conception of ancient philosophy as a practice in which spiritual exercises are central. First, he argues that this is a conception derived from—and thus “contaminated” by—Christianity (Cooper 2012, 19–20). As such, it inaccurately blurs the distinction between the philosophical and the religious way of life. According to Cooper, the motivation for Hadot’s work was his “interest in what he saw as ways in which the ancient philosophies resembled religions” (Cooper 2013, 39).8 The very expression “spiritual exercises,” Cooper claims, was taken from Saint Ignatius of Loyola’s Exercitia Spiritualia (Cooper 2012, 20) and inspired by the latter’s meditations on sin and on the passion of Christ (Cooper 2012, 402 n.4)—exercises that, as we have seen, Cooper views as totally foreign to (and indeed incompatible with) a philosophical life. Second, Cooper claims that spiritual exercises can only be found in late Hellenistic philosophies and that Hadot unfairly reads them back into the whole tradition. According to Cooper, the first reference to spiritual exercises that can be found in ancient philosophical texts is in Seneca’s On Anger (from the first century AD), which approvingly mentions a daily bedtime examination of conscience (Cooper 2012, 20). There is no evidence, Cooper claims, that previous philosophers practiced the kind of exercises that Hadot describes.9 In fact, their gradual appearance in late antiquity is to be explained by the mutual contamination of pagan philosophy and Christian religion, a phenomenon which Hadot very accurately illuminates (Hadot 2020, 237–64) but does not adequately incorporate into his own account of ancient philosophy (cf. Cooper 2012, 19–20). Due precisely to this contamination and the consequent intermingling of the philosophical and the religious ways of life, Cooper 8 For a thorough development of this argument, see Cseke 2021. 9 A couple of pages later Cooper contradictorily admits Epicureanism as an exception, though: “It is in fact only in the Epicurean life that anything of that kind [spiritual exercises] has a place, and that is for reasons deriving from specific philosophical views of Epicurus, primarily his empiricist account of what knowledge and understanding requires and is” (Cooper 2012, 22).

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considers late Hellenistic philosophy a decaying form of ancient philosophy which distorts rather than represents the heyday of Greek philosophy.10 Finally, Cooper claims that Hadot’s account of ancient philosophy omits “virtually altogether the central and indispensable place in philosophy (in Greece and ever since) of rigorous analysis and reasoned argumentation” (Cooper 2012, x). As we have seen, in Cooper’s reading the development and perfection of human reason was not only the very core of ancient philosophy, but also the condition of the possibility of philosophy’s ever constituting a way of life, since it was precisely reason, and only reason, that constituted the basis of the philosophical way of life. Consequently, for Cooper, philosophy “is nothing more, but also nothing less, than the art or discipline that develops and perfects the human capacity of reason” (Cooper 2012, 6). According to Cooper, by emphasizing the role of spiritual exercises in the philosophical life and diminishing the relevance of theory, discourse and rational argumentation— or what Cooper calls the “specifically and recognizably philosophical, style of logical, reasoned argument and analysis” (Cooper 2012, 17)—Hadot’s account not only misses the core of ancient philosophy but also blurs, in a confusing and dangerous way, the specificity of philosophy compared to other fields of study and/or guides to life. Cooper thus concludes that Hadot’s interpretation of ancient philosophy amounts to “a badly distorted account of what ancient philosophy was and of how, unlike most of philosophy over its long history since the end of antiquity, the ancient philosophies managed to be ways of life for their adherents” (Cooper 2013, 41). 5.3

The Roots of Hadot’s Notion of “Spiritual Exercises”

Let us now turn to Hadot and address Cooper’s objections from an Hadotian perspective, evaluating whether they survive a thorough assessment of what

10

Cf. Cooper 2012, 21–22: “The sharp separation ceased between, on the one hand, the life of philosophy as grounded in an individual’s personal grasp, through fully articulated reasoning and argument, of the true reasons why a certain way of life was best, and, on the other hand, a religious life grounded in sacred texts and validated through intense feelings of conviction generated in prayer or in the sense of having a personal relationship to a higher power. Those nonrational practices that Hadot describes as “spiritual exercises”—meditation, self-exhortation, memorization, and recitation to oneself of bits of sacred text, causing in oneself devoted prayerful or prayer-like states of consciousness and mystical moments—had, and could have, at most a secondary and very derivative function in the philosophical life during the heyday of ancient philosophy.”

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Hadot had in mind when he described ancient philosophy as essentially constituting a spiritual exercise (Hadot 1995, 104). Starting with the first objection, Cooper seems to ignore (or neglect) Hadot’s motivation for turning towards ancient philosophy in the first place, on the one hand, and the process that drew him to the conception of spiritual exercises, on the other. Indeed, despite Hadot’s religious background, there is no evidence in his works that his major interest in ancient philosophies was the fact that he saw them as “resembling religions.” On the contrary, Hadot dates the origins of his interest in philosophy back to an experience that was “entirely foreign to Christianity” and that Christian spirituality could not respond to, given its bond to “everyday banality”: a sentiment of strangeness, astonishment and wonder before the world, which corresponded to questions such as “What am I?,” “Why am I here?,” “What is this world I am in?” (Hadot 2009, 5–7). Hadot describes this experience as a deeply philosophical one, as on his understanding (admittedly different from Cooper’s) “philosophy means this awareness of existence, of being-in-the-world,” and consists essentially in “a transformation of one’s perception of the world” (Hadot 2009, 6). For Hadot, this consciousness of the world and our existence in it is what characterizes the philosopher—and what in the wake of Heidegger he calls “authentic existence”—and sets him apart from those immersed in everyday life and social convention (a group in which he also includes Christians). According to Hadot, philosophy differs from religion insofar as the latter relies on faith, prayer, grace and obedience to an external authority (God) (cf. Hadot 2009, 26), while the former presupposes a life led in accordance with (universal) reason (cf. e.g. Hadot 1995, 102, 207, 229; 2004, 133, 211). Furthermore, religion is a phenomenon that involves “images, people offerings, celebrations, and places that are devoted to God or to gods,” elements which are completely absent in philosophy, which does not mean there can’t be some form of spirituality or even mysticism in philosophy (Hadot 2009, 37). It is in this sense that philosophy appears, for Hadot, as a spiritual alternative to those who do not identify with religious ways of living.11 Explicitly contrasting his fundamental experience with religious experience—characterizing it as “much more essential, much more fundamental” (Hadot 2009, 7) than any experience he could glean from Christianity—Hadot claims he has been a philosopher ever since.

11

Cf. Hadot 2009, 36: “I gradually developed the sense that what I had proposed in this article [“Spiritual Exercises”], to those who cannot or do not want to live according to a religious life, was the possibility of choosing a purely philosophical mode of life.”

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Indeed, he would seem to be describing a philosophical conversion that deeply shaped his life and determined his interest in philosophy.12 When it comes to the notion of “spiritual exercises,” Cooper seems to take for granted that Hadot took the expression from St. Ignatius of Loyola, and it is also on this basis that he understands and criticizes Hadot’s account. Interestingly, Hadot was already familiar with this association in his lifetime and had the opportunity to explicitly deny this influence or any other religious roots of the expression. Before we come to Hadot’s own explanation, however, some context is needed in order to understand and evaluate his conception of spiritual exercises—a context which, again, Cooper seems to have overlooked. In one of his interviews with Jeannie Carlier and Arnold Davidson (which Cooper must have read; see Cooper 2012, 402 n.5), Hadot explains that his notions of philosophy as a way of life and spiritual exercises were conceived as a solution to a philological problem that deeply interested him, namely the alleged incoherencies and inconsistencies of ancient philosophical texts: Concerning the genesis of the notion of philosophy as a choice of life or of the notion of spiritual exercises in my work, it should also be said that I began by reflecting on this problem: how to understand the apparent inconsistencies of certain philosophers … . I did not begin with more or less edifying considerations about philosophy as therapy, and so on, as opposed to philosophy as, for example … . No, it was really a strictly literary problem, which is the following: For what reasons do ancient philosophical writings seem incoherent? Why is it so difficult to recognize their rational plane? (Hadot 2009, 59) Hadot concludes that such frequent criticisms were motivated by a poor understanding of what was at stake in these philosophies and by an attempt to read ancient texts through the lens of modern systematic treatises. Unlike the latter, Hadot claims, “the philosophical works of antiquity were not written as the exposition of a system but in order to produce an effect of formation” (Hadot 2009, 59).13 In other words, ancient philosophical texts were themselves written in the form of spiritual exercises, taking into consideration not only the difficulty of this process of formation and self-transformation, but

12 13

On the notion of philosophical conversion, see Hadot 1953 and 2020, 93–103. In another formulation: “in antiquity, philosophy was … essentially dialogue, a living relationship between people rather than an abstract relation to ideas. It aimed to form rather than to inform …” (Hadot 2009, 55).

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also “the time it will take the reader to be able to change his mentality and transform his way of seeing things” (Hadot 2009, 59).14 Pivotal to Hadot’s understanding and elaboration of this subtlety of ancient texts was his work on Wittgenstein and particularly the latter’s notion of “language games.” In an early essay titled “Jeux de langage et philosophie [Language games and philosophy],” Hadot claims that Wittgenstein’s critique of language can help philosophy to understand its own contradictions and shed light on its historical development (cf. Hadot 1962, 331). In particular, for Hadot, the fact that we always philosophize within a certain language game means that philosophy always takes place in the context of a certain “attitude and form of life that gives sense to our words [parole]” (Hadot 1962, 339, my translation). This means that philosophical language does not work in a uniform way and that therefore, in order to understand a certain philosophical text, thesis or discourse, one needs to contextualize it in its own specific language game. In other words, depending on the purpose and literary genre of each text, philosophers aim to do and actually do different things with their words. In the case of ancient texts, it is crucial to take into account that written texts were often direct transpositions of an oral speech, which was addressed to a particular audience (the students of a given philosophical school) with the pedagogic aim of “transform[ing] the disciple’s soul” (Hadot 1962, 341). Hence, ancient philosophical texts were themselves spiritual exercises which aimed “less to inform than to form” (Hadot 1962, 341), and it is only in the context of this particular language game that they can be properly received and understood.15 For our purposes, it is important to emphasize that it is in this context and as 14 15

For Hadot, this intent characterizes not only ancient philosophy but also several modern philosophical works, such as Montaigne’s Essays, Descartes’ Meditations, Schopenhauer’s and Nietzsche’s aphorisms, and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Cf. Hadot 2009, 59. Cf. Hadot 1962, 341–342 (my translation): “All the efforts of historians of philosophy to reduce Plato, Plotinus, or even Aristotle to a system are therefore doomed to failure. Here again the theses only have full meaning within the limits of a given ‘discourse’, and must not be separated from the general intention of this ‘discourse’. It can happen that theses of the same philosopher, situated in different speeches, are apparently contradictory. Contradiction and non-contradiction always relate to a given discourse and not to an ideal and absolute discourse.” According to Hadot, this particularity changed in the Middle Ages, when philosophy began to address a “universal audience” and written texts acquired prevalence over orality. Modern systematic philosophy, from Descartes to Hegel, is the heir to this transmutation, but even in this case it is important to have the particular language game at stake in mind, because “the meaning of the doctrines is inseparable from the demonstrative technique which they have used to express themselves” (Hadot 1962, 342). On the importance of context and literary genres for understanding philosophical works, see also Hadot 1995, 104ff.; 2009, 52ff.; 2020, 33ff.

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an appropriation of Wittgenstein’s notion of “language games” that Hadot uses the notion of spiritual exercises for the first time in his work. Despite the clearly philosophical roots of Hadot’s notion, one could still object, with Cooper, that the expression “spiritual exercises” must have been inspired by the work of St. Ignatius of Loyola and hence must bear at least something of its religious dimension. However, Hadot had the opportunity to directly address this concern and indeed explains his choice of the term despite the religious connotations of which he was well aware (cf. Hadot 2009, 92ff.). As he reports in another interview with Arnold Davidson, his choice of the term was motivated by three main factors, none of which related to St. Ignatius’ Exercitia Spiritualia. First, he was struck by the title of a special issue of the journal Fontaine, “Poetry as spiritual exercise [La Poésie comme exercice spirituel]” (1942), and by the fact that Beethoven referred to pedagogical exercises of musical composition as spiritual exercises (cf. Hadot 2009, 92–93). Second, he was persuaded by Rabbow’s demonstration (in his 1954 Seelenführung: Methodik der Exerzitien in der Antike) that St. Ignatius’ “spiritual exercises” were inherited from ancient thought and thus had a philosophical origin (cf. Hadot 2009, 93)—a thesis that he would go on to endorse and defend throughout his works, in Rabbow’s wake.16 Finally, he resisted the expression precisely because of its possible religious connotations and tried several alternatives, none of which ultimately seemed suitable. As he explains:

16

On the influence of Rabbow’s Seelenführung and the thesis that Christian spiritual exercises were borrowed from ancient philosophy, see also Hadot 2009, 36: “We believe that spiritual exercises are of a religious order because there are Christian spiritual exercises. But spiritual exercises appeared in Christianity only and precisely because of Christianity’s will, beginning in the second century, to present itself as a philosophy on the model of Greek philosophy, that is, as a mode of life comprising spiritual exercises borrowed from Greek philosophy.” This means that even though there is a continuity between ancient philosophical exercises and St. Ignatius’ spiritual exercises, the primary meaning of those exercises is philosophical, not religious. In other words, and against Cooper, it is St. Ignatius who appropriates philosophical exercises, and not schools from late antiquity that practice quasi-religious exercises (as would be implied in Cooper’s idea of “contamination”). This should, by itself, dispel the idea that Hadot has simply tried to “empty” this notion “from its religious (and theoretical) content”, in order to give it a “‘philosophical’ meaning” (Cseke 2021, 99), with which he would be more comfortable after leaving the Church (see Cseke 2021, 96). Even if Hadot’s religious background might have played a role in his choice of the expression, one should take seriously both his efforts to demarcate his use of the notion from the Ignatian one and his insistence on the continuity between pagan and religious ascetic practices. In the same interview, Hadot also mentions the importance of the work of his wife, Ilsetraut Hadot, for his own conception of spiritual exercises (cf. Hadot 2009, 36).

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Why did I choose it [the expression “spiritual exercises”] and why can I say that it was not because of its possible religious connotations? … I nevertheless attempted to avoid the words, and I tried everything that one could say instead. “Moral exercises” was not good because they were not only exercises of a moral order; “ethical exercises” did not work either; and “intellectual exercises” did not cover everything that is represented by the notion of spiritual exercises … . Thus I have resigned myself to employ the expression “spiritual exercises,” and all things considered, this is quite standard; the notion has been employed frequently and for a long time to designate the voluntary practices I have discussed. Finally, the expression “spiritual exercises” does not fool anyone; people—philosophers, historians—have used it without thinking of either religion or Saint Ignatius. (Hadot 2009, 92–93) In his essay “Spiritual Exercises,” Hadot mentions other alternatives to “spiritual” exercises (“psychic,” “moral,” “ethical,” “intellectual,” “of thought,” “of the soul”) and adds further clarification on why none of them was appropriate. Regarding the possibility of using the expression “thought exercises” or “intellectual exercises,” Hadot explains that even though the object of spiritual exercises is thought (which “seeks to modify itself”), and even though intellectual factors such as definition, division, ratiocination, reading, investigation, etc., play a large role in them, these expressions seemed to neglect the role and importance of imagination and sensibility in these exercises (cf. Hadot 1995, 81–82). As to the possibility of choosing either “moral exercises” or “ethical exercises,” Hadot argues that even though spiritual exercises contribute to a therapeutics of the passions and have an impact on one’s behavior and life conduct, they do not belong exclusively to a moral or ethical order, but rather involve one’s “entire psychism” and vision of the world (cf. Hadot 1995, 82). In short, none of the alternatives seemed fitting because none was broad and encompassing enough to imply that the transformation these exercises produce is a radical transfiguration not only of a particular (moral or cognitive) trait of individuals but of their entire characters and inner selves—and accordingly, of their lives. In Hadot’s famous definition, spiritual exercises are “voluntary, personal practices meant to bring about a transformation of the individual, a transformation of the self” (Hadot 2009, 87, my emphasis), or, as he writes in a longer description from his essay “Spiritual Exercises”: [Philosophy] is a concrete attitude and determinate life-style, which engages the whole of existence. 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 … . The

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object of spiritual exercises is precisely to bring about this transformation … . Little by little, they make possible the indispensable metamorphosis of our inner self. (Hadot 1995, 83)17 Finally, Hadot associates spiritual exercises with a constellation of ancient technical terms, which allows us better to apprehend his own understanding of the expression. The first of these is paideia: the goal of spiritual exercises is self-formation, intended to teach us how to live, in conformity not with social convention but with human nature, which is reason (cf. Hadot 1995, 102). The second is gumnasion. Hadot describes spiritual exercises as a kind of training of the mind (“spiritual gymnastics”): just as one might strengthen and modify the body through physical exercises, through spiritual exercises one can strengthen the soul, modifying one’s inner climate and worldview, and hence one’s entire being and way of living (Hadot 1995, 102). This firm conviction that one is free and able to modify and improve oneself with the aim of self-perfection and self-realization is frequently illustrated by the metaphor of the sculptor of one’s own statue in ancient texts, particularly in Stoicism and Neoplatonism. Thirdly, Hadot claims that his notion of spiritual exercises essentially corresponds to the Greek notion of askēsis, as “exercise” or “training” and “self-discipline,” that is, a work of the self on the self (self-transformation) in order to attain a certain ideal state or end point (cf. Hadot 1995, 82, 128; 2004, 179–80, 188ff.). Finally, Hadot contextualizes his notion of spiritual exercises in the framework of the ancient conception of philosophy as a tekhnē peri ton bion (cf. Hadot 1995, 107, 272). Ancient philosophers saw philosophy as an art of living and, just like any other art (in the sense of “craft”), this is a type of knowledge that must not only be theoretically apprehended but practically applied, trained, and exercised.18 For the ancients, doing philosophy meant practicing how to live, i.e., exercising oneself in the art of living—and it is ultimately in this commonly accepted sense that Hadot defines it as a spiritual exercise. 5.4

Spirituality and Askēsis in Antiquity

Cooper’s second and third objections—that spiritual exercises can only be found in late Hellenistic schools and that Hadot neglects or downplays the role 17 18

Cf. also Hadot 2020, 59: “[T]he 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.” On the technical conception of philosophy as an “art of living” in antiquity, see Sellars 2009. On philosophy as an art of living more broadly construed, see Nehamas 1998.

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of reason in ancient philosophy—oblige us to take a closer look at the specific practices that Hadot includes in the group of spiritual exercises he ascribes to ancient philosophy as a whole. Several classifications and discussions of Hadot’s spiritual exercises have been offered in recent scholarship,19 but we need look no further than his most generic presentation of such exercises in his essay dedicated to the topic to appreciate the breadth and diversity of his use and understanding of the expression.20 In this essay, Hadot refers to three main categories of spiritual exercises.21 First, he distinguishes what we might call mind, thought or meditational exercises, which take place in thought and are meant to prompt its transformation, control one’s inner discourse and change the individual’s worldview (Hadot 1995, 84ff.). These include exercises as varied as attention (prosochē), meditation (meletē) and memorization (mnēmē), as well as variations of these three basic types, such as concentrating on the present moment, distinguishing between what is and what is not in one’s power, preparing for the difficulties of life (praemeditatio malorum), morning and evening meditation, self-examination or the examination of conscience, inner detachment (from both objects and people), training for death (liberation of the soul from the body), contemplating the physical world, the view from above, memorizing persuasive formulae and arguments, remembrance of good things, and practicing gratitude toward nature and life, among others. Second, there are strictly intellectual exercises, the aim of which is to provide “nourishment” for the other exercises, especially memorization and meditation (Hadot 1995, 86). In this group Hadot includes dialogue (elenchos), dialectic, definition, division, ratiocination, argumentation, reading (anagnōsis), listening (akroasis), research (zētēsis), thorough investigation (skepsis) and study of the disciplines (physics, ethics and logic). Finally, Hadot mentions practical or active exercises, which consist in the application of fundamental rules and are intended to transform old habits and create new ones (Hadot 1995, 86). Examples of this type of exercise include self-mastery (enkrateia), fulfilling duties, indifference to indifferent things, the therapy of the passions, limiting desires, friendship and a set of ascetic or purification practices, among others. 19 20

21

See Horn 1998, 39ff.; Harter 2018, 152ff., and especially Sharpe and Ure 2021, 5ff., 338–39 (a table of spiritual exercises). Cf. also Michael Chase’s essay in this volume. Indeed, Hadot’s spiritual exercises are so broad and diverse that his descriptions of them have been criticized for being too “loose and comprehensive” (Harter 2018, 153). Cooper makes a similar point and acknowledges that he uses the expression in a narrower sense (Cooper 2012, 402–3 n.5). In some cases, Hadot is not completely clear in the determination of the category to which each spiritual exercise belongs. Part of the systematization that follows is of my responsibility.

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This brief description and classification of Hadot’s spiritual exercises, as well as the clarifications outlined in the previous section, allow me to make the following points against Cooper’s criticism of Hadot’s account. First, Hadot’s conception of spiritual exercises is evidently broader than Cooper implies and far from restricted to those “quasi-religious devotional practices” to which Cooper reduces Hadot’s account of ancient philosophy. Second, understood in this broader sense (as essentially askēsis, in Hadot’s own clarification), it is difficult to contest their presence (or at least some version of them) long before Hellenistic philosophies—even if they were indeed intensified and diversified in the Hellenistic period, as Hadot readily recognizes (Hadot 1995, 82). Finally, Hadot’s long list of spiritual exercises explicitly includes those intellectual “exercises of reason,” such as rational argumentation and logical analysis in pursuit of truth, which Cooper sees as the essence of ancient philosophy and indeed of philosophy itself—even if he does not restrict them to these and does not rank them as highly as Cooper does. Contrary to Cooper’s claims, Hadot’s notion of spiritual exercises includes all kinds of (philosophical) exercises—indeed involving all faculties of the individual (not just reason or the intellect)—that are designed to facilitate the transition (that is, the conversion) to a philosophical perspective and the continuous translation of theory into lived practice. In fact, Hadot’s emphasis on spiritual exercises as the core of philosophical practice in antiquity stresses both philosophy’s ability to transform ways of living and the difficulty of doing so. Cooper, on the other hand, seems to neglect the possibility that, no matter how rigorously grounded in rational arguments and proofs, and no matter how convinced one might be of its truth, philosophy might fail to have an effect on one’s actual character and way of life. This is the core of Hadot’s fundamental distinction between philosophy and philosophical discourse (or discourse about philosophy) (Hadot 1995, 192, 266–67, 281–82; 2004, 138ff., 172ff.), but also between notional and real assent: while “notional assent” is a purely intellectual acceptance of a theoretical proposition, to which one adheres in an abstract way, “real assent” corresponds to adherence to a proposition the acceptance of which commits one’s entire being and changes one’s way of life (cf. Hadot 1995, 277; 2009, 58).22 22

Hadot borrows this distinction from Cardinal John Henry Newman. See Newman 2010, 34–94. Hadot himself stresses that this distinction was fundamental to his conception of spiritual exercises: “Newman shows in this work that it’s not the same thing to give one’s assent to an affirmation which one understands in a purely abstract way, and to give one’s assent while engaging one’s entire being, and ‘realizing’—in the English sense of the word—with one’s heart and one’s imagination, just what this affirmation means for us. This distinction between real and notional assent underlies my research on spiritual exercises” (Hadot 1995, 277).

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Spiritual exercises are precisely those practices (as part of an ongoing training in, incorporation of and habituation to a certain philosophy) that allow a notional assent to become a real assent. They are designed to reinforce the persuasive force of previously acquired truths (dogmas) and grant their continuous translation into practice; i.e., they guarantee that knowledge is assimilated and internalized, made perfectly familiar and connatural, and that those dogmas “become ‘nature and life’ within us” (Hadot 1995, 100). In Cooper’s own formulation (in an important footnote to his main work on the topic), they are “ways of getting oneself to understand the real meaning and implications of philosophical arguments and philosophical positions, to fix them in one’s mind and make oneself ready to apply them smoothly to situations of life as they may arise” (Cooper 2012, 402 n.4). Even though Cooper acknowledges that the “intellectual training required to live philosophically” is an important part of ancient philosophy, he insists that “there is nothing at all ‘spiritual’ in Hadot’s sense of the term” because such exercises “have no affinity with St. Ignatius’s meditations on sin and on the passion of Christ” (Cooper 2012, 402 n.4). Since Hadot would (at least partially) agree with this last claim, it seems fair to conclude that Cooper’s divergence from Hadot in this respect is to a large extent based on a misreading of his account—a misreading which, in turn, is mainly grounded in his adherence to a different definition of philosophy, on the one hand, and a significantly narrower conception of the meaning of the term “spiritual,” on the other. Their disagreement is thus more terminological than philosophical—or even hermeneutical—in nature.23 That some kind of training, exercise and/or habituation is required in order to lead a philosophical life is amply confirmed by all major philosophers of antiquity. It is recognizable in Plato’s definition of philosophy as a training for death in the Phaedo; in Aristotle’s insistence on the role of training and habituation in the attainment of excellence (and his definition of it as a habit, not an act) in the Nicomachean Ethics; in Epicurus’ exhortation at the end of his Letter to Menoeceus: “Meditate therefore on these things and things akin to them night and day by yourself, and with a companion like to yourself …” (Ep. Men. 135); in Epictetus’ appeal to the importance of practice and training in his Discourses: “These are the thoughts that those who pursue philosophy should ponder, these are the lessons they should write down day by day, in these they should exercise themselves … . Here you see the result of training as training should be, of the will to get and the will to avoid …” (Epict. diss. I.1); in Diogenes’ practice of rolling over hot sand and embracing statues covered with 23

In this respect I follow Sellars, who in his review of Cooper’s book argues that the latter’s “view is closer to Hadot on this point than he might think” (Sellars 2014, 1180).

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snow as a means of “inuring himself to hardship” (Diog. Laert. 6.23–26); and finally in Porphyry’s claim that the contemplation that produces happiness “does not consist in the accumulation of discourse and abstract teachings” but must rather “be accompanied by an effort to make these teachings become nature and life within us” (Abst. 1.29, cit. in Hadot 1995, 100), among many other possible illustrations. Whether this practice or training is spiritual of course depends on how one understands the term. Once we rid ourselves of Cooper’s narrow (and religiously-laden) definition and accept Hadot’s description of spiritual exercises as equivalent to askēsis—“spiritual” insofar as they imply a transfiguration of perception that involves not only the intellect but one’s “entire psychism” and “inner self”—it is not difficult to find instances of them not only in pre-Hellenistic philosophy but even in modern and contemporary philosophers. Under this broad understanding, even seemingly exclusively intellectual activities— such as Plato’s dialogues, dialectic, the disputation of arguments, etc.—are conceived as spiritual exercises, insofar as they take place not as a mere theoretical and abstract exposition of knowledge but in a specific form, so as to produce an “effect of formation” in the interlocutor (cf. Hadot 1995, 89–93; 2004, 177–78; 2020, 58–59). They acquire different forms in each of the schools and are meant not only to make the interlocutor think, argue, and speak well but also to make him/her judge, act, and live better (Hadot 2020, 71). Hence the already emphasized relevance of the diversity of literary genres in ancient philosophy for Hadot’s conception of spiritual exercises (Hadot 2009, 87ff.; 2020, 56ff.): if what were at stake in ancient philosophy were merely the exposition of rational arguments (or if this exposition were considered sufficient to produce a change in one’s life), then the variety of literary genres in antiquity would simply be incomprehensible. As we have seen, if one does not situate them within the context of the particular purpose of formation, ancient texts will necessarily seem weak, incoherent, inconsistent, or even contradictory. Finally, not only does Hadot not omit the role of intellectual exercises—or in general, the place of “rigorous analysis and reasoned argumentation”—in ancient philosophy, but he even stresses their cardinal importance in several of his essays (see especially Hadot 1995, 89–93; 2004, 62, 177–78; 2020, 133ff.). Theory is a fundamental presupposition of the philosophical way of life, and strictly intellectual exercises—such as study, reading, research, discussion, rational argumentation and disputation—are the “nourishment” of thought or mind exercises. In this sense, Hadot’s conception of philosophy “presupposes the existence of a highly systematic theoretical discourse” which is “itself a crucial part of philosophy” and “plays a vital role in the philosophical life” (Hadot

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2020, 60, 69)24—but this discourse must be internalized; it must become inner discourse if it is to give form to one’s way of life. For this reason, Hadot insists that theory or philosophical discourse was “only one element of philosophical activity,” intended to ground the particular way of life and spiritual exercises of each philosophy—without, however, being an end in itself (cf. Hadot 1995, 60).25 What was crucial was the practice of this theory, the effort to translate it at each instant (in every action and behavior) into one’s way of life. In Hadot’s brief formulation, “philosophy is, above all, a mode of life, which includes a certain mode of discourse as one of its integral parts, without being reduced to it” (Hadot 2020, 36). 5.5

Conclusion

As I hope to have shown, the main point of divergence between Hadot and Cooper seems to lie not directly in their interpretations of ancient philosophy, but rather in their different metaphilosophies—which clearly also have an impact on how they read ancient philosophy. One can argue, with Cooper, that spiritual exercises without theory and rational argumentation do not count as philosophy—and thus read ancient philosophies exclusively on the basis of their theories, doctrines and arguments. But we can also argue, with Hadot, that theory and rational argumentation without spiritual practice and transformation likewise do not count as philosophy—and thus read ancient philosophy in a way that stresses the spiritual exercises of each school. The most significant difference between the two authors’ accounts is that while Hadot would agree with Cooper’s premise, Cooper entirely rejects Hadot’s. Hadot’s emphasis on spiritual exercises and self-transformation (and his apparent “neglect” of the “central and indispensable” role of theory and rational 24 25

On the importance of theory and discourse in philosophy as a way of life, see also Hadot 2004, 4, 174. Even Aristotle, who admittedly could be an exception to this rule, is interpreted by Hadot as ultimately prioritizing a way of life, even if it is the “‘theoretical’ way of life” (Hadot 2004, 80). Although Aristotle considers knowledge an end in itself, his conception of philosophy must not be restricted to a theoretical pursuit (as opposed to a practical one), insofar as the pursuit of knowledge involves a “way of life which consists in devoting one’s life to this mode of knowledge” (Hadot 2004, 81). Hadot thus concludes that in Aristotle what is at stake is also “a philosophy which is practiced, lived, and active, and which brings happiness” (Hadot 2004, 81). For a thoughtful discussion of Aristotle in the context of philosophy as a way of life, see Sellars’s chapter in this volume.

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argumentation) in ancient philosophy seems to be—at least to some extent— motivated by a wish to challenge dominant, Cooper-like conceptions of philosophy, in the context of which these elements are already established and need not be reaffirmed as important components of philosophy. One might, thus, even risk the supposition that Hadot himself has made a performative use of language, in an attempt to change how we perceive ancient philosophy (and thus the original vocation of philosophy), thereby hoping to transform how we conceive of it and practice it today. Admittedly, there is a sense in which Hadot did indeed view ancient philosophies as resembling religions: both involved a disruptive break with common ways of living and an absolute and totalizing commitment (or conversion) to a radically new way of life. This, in principle, is a claim that Cooper himself would not contest. But Hadot also stressed the way in which philosophy was radically opposed to the religious—as well as the ordinary—way of life: the philosophical way of life implies an “existential choice” and commitment to live not on the basis of social convention, not according to one’s egoistic point of view, not in obedience to or reliance on some external and/or transcendent authority (God); rather, the philosopher commits to living a life in accordance with human nature (reason), adopting a cosmic perspective and dedicating it to the constant actualization and perfection of his/her harmony with universal reason (logos) in the pursuit of wisdom (sophia). The imperfect condition of the philo-sopher implies that this is essentially a life of training and exercitation (askēsis) and progressive self-transformation—what Hadot calls “spiritual progress”—towards a state (sophia, wisdom) the achievement of which is never certain: “under normal circumstances, the only state accessible to man is philo-sophia: the love of, or progress toward, wisdom,” and it is for this reason that “spiritual exercises must be taken up again and again, in an ever-renewed effort” (Hadot 1995, 103). This fundamental insight is, I believe, the core of Hadot’s reading of ancient philosophy, which in turn explains the centrality of spiritual exercises to his account—a core that Cooper seems to have completely overlooked or altogether neglected. References Ambury, James, Tushar Irani, and Kathleen Wallace, eds. 2020. Philosophy as a Way of Life: Historical, Contemporary, and Pedagogical Perspectives. New York: Wiley. Chase, Michael, Stephen Clark, and Michael McGhee, eds. 2013. Philosophy as a Way of Life, Ancients and Moderns: Essays in Honor of Pierre Hadot. Chichester: Blackwell.

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Cooper, John. 2007. “Socrates and Philosophy as a Way of Life.” In Maieusis: Essays in Ancient Philosophy in Honour of Myles Burnyeat, edited by Dominic Scott, 20–43. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cooper, John. 2012. Pursuits of Wisdom. Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cooper, John. 2013. “Ancient Philosophies as Ways of Life.” In The Tanner Lectures on Human Values: Volume 32, edited by Mark Matheson, 23–42. Utah: University of Utah Press. Cseke, Akos. 2021. “Vita spiritualis: Hadot, Foucault et la tradition des exercices spirituels.” Revue de l’histoire des religions 238, no. 1: 87–124. Davidson, Arnold. 1995. “Introduction: Pierre Hadot and the Spiritual Phenomenon of Ancient Philosophy.” In P. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, edited by Arnold Davidson, translated by Michael Chase, 1–45. Malden / Oxford / Victoria: Blackwell. Diogenes Laertius. 1925. Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Translated by R. D. Hicks. London / Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Epictetus. 1940. Arrian’s Discourses of Epictetus. In The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers. The Complete Extant Writings of Epicurus, Epictetus, Lucretius, Marcus Aurelius, edited by Whitney J. Oates, 222–457. New York: Random House. Epicurus. 1926. Letter to Menoeceus. In: Epicurus: The Extant Remains, edited by Cyril Bailey, 82–93. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Faustino, Marta. 2020. “Philosophy as a Way of Life Today: History, Criticism, and Apology.” Metaphilosophy 51, nos. 2–3: 357–74. Faustino, Marta. 2021. “‘Philosophy as a Way of Life’ as a Practice of Dissidence and Experimentation.” In Philosophy as Experimentation, Dissidence and Heterogeneity, edited by José M. Justo, Elisabete de Sousa, and Fernando Silva, 340–57. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Hadot, Pierre. 1953. “Epistrophe and Metanoia in the History of Philosophy.” Proceedings of the XIth International Congress of Philosophy 12 (4): 31–36. Hadot, Pierre. 1962. “Jeux de langage et philosophie.” Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 67 (3): 330–43. Hadot, Pierre. 1995. Philosophy as a Way of Life. Edited by Arnold Davidson, translated by Michael Chase. Malden / Oxford / Victoria: Blackwell. Hadot, Pierre. 2004. What is Ancient Philosophy? Translated by Michael Chase. Cambridge: Belknap. Hadot, Pierre. 2009. The Present Alone Is Our Happiness. Conversations with Jeannie Carlier and Arnold I. Davidson. Translated by Marc Djaballah. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Hadot, Pierre. 2020. The Selected Writings of Pierre Hadot. Philosophy as Practice. Translated by Matthew Sharpe and Federico Testa. London / New York: Bloomsbury.

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Harter, Pierre-Julien. 2018. “Spiritual Exercises and the Buddhist Path: An Exercise in Thinking with and against Hadot.” In Buddhist Spiritual Practices. Thinking with Pierre Hadot on Buddhism, Philosophy and the Path, edited by David V. Fiordalis, 147–79. Berkeley, CA: Mangalam Press. Horn, Christoph. 1998. Antike Lebenskunst. Glück und Moral von Sokrates bis zu den Neuplatonikern. München: Beck. Inwood, Brad. 2004. Review of The Art of Living: The Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy, by John Sellars. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. https://ndpr.nd.edu /reviews/the-art-of-living-the-stoics-on-the-nature-and-function-of-philosophy/. Kramer, Eli and Marta Faustino. 2021. “Reconstructing Professional Philosophy: Lessons from Philosophy as a Way of Life in Times of Crises.” Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 77, nos. 2–3: 513–46. Nehamas, Alexander. 1998. The Art of Living. Socratic Reflections from Plato to Foucault. Berkeley / Los Angeles / London: University of California Press. Newman, John Henry. 2010. An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nussbaum, Martha. 1994. The Therapy of Desire. Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton / New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Sellars, John. 2009. The Art of Living. The Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy. London / New York: Bloomsbury. Sellars, John. 2014. Review of Pursuits of Wisdom: Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus, by John M. Cooper. Mind 123, no. 492: 1177–80. Sharpe, Matthew. 2014. “It’s Not the Chrysippus You Read: Epictetus and Hadot Contra Cooper on Philosophy as a Way of Life.” Philosophy Today 58 (3): 367–92. Sharpe, Matthew. 2016. “What Place Discourse, What Role Rigorous Argumentation? Against the Standard Image of Hadot’s Conception of Ancient Philosophy as a Way of Life.” Pli: The Warwick Journal of Philosophy: 25–54. Sharpe, Matthew. 2020. “Introduction: Situating Hadot Today.” In The Selected Writings of Pierre Hadot. Philosophy as Practice, translated by Matthew Sharpe and Federico Testa, 1–29. London / New York: Bloomsbury. Sharpe, Matthew. 2021. “Between Too Intellectualist and Not Intellectualist Enough: Reading Pierre Hadot via Julia Annas.” Journal of Value Inquiry 55: 269–87. Sharpe, Matthew and Michael Ure. 2021. Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions. London / New York: Bloomsbury. Vilchis, Rogelio. 2022. “The Place of Discourse in Philosophy as a Way of Life.” Metaphilosophy 53: 418–30. Williams, Bernard. 1994. “Do Not Disturb.” Review of The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, by Martha Nussbaum. London Review of Books. https:// www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v16/n20/bernard-williams/do-not-disturb.

CHAPTER 6

Pierre Hadot and His Critics on Spiritual Exercises and Cosmic Consciousness: From Ancient Philosophy to Contemporary Neurology Michael Chase 6.1

Introduction

Pierre Hadot’s notion of Philosophy as a Way of Life (hereafter PWL) has attracted quite a bit of attention since it was first proposed in the 1970s, some favorable, some critical, and some a mixture of both. One of Hadot’s more controversial theses is that the goal of ancient philosophy was primarily self-­ transformation, envisaged as a gradual process of perfecting oneself by transforming the way we look at the world, a process that culminates not only in a new way of perception, but also a state of being in which, it is claimed, we can come to be or exist more intensely. This process of self-transformation was to be carried out by means of spiritual exercises (hereafter SE s). Here is where many contemporary philosophers, especially those who work within the Analytic tradition, often start to get uncomfortable. Surely, they argue, this attempt to achieve a state of transformed being, allegedly pursued by ancient philosophy, is mystical or religious in nature, rather than properly philosophical. Hadot’s tendency to frame this goal in terms of “seeing things in accord with the objective Spirit” or “Universal Reason”1 merely confirms their suspicions: for some, this way of speaking confirms that Hadot is a crypto-Hegelian;2 for others, we have here a relic of his training as a priest, of his lifelong interest in all manifestations of mysticism, and of his own personal mystical experiences, as attested by some passages of his autobiographical interviews (Sellars 2020; cf. the review in Comtois 2021). In my opinion, the borderline between religion, mysticism and philosophy is not quite as easy to draw as is commonly supposed. All three of these terms 1 For instance, Hadot (1995a, 99) speaks of the spiritual exercise of physics as granting access to a level at which one “dies to one’s individuality to accede simultaneously to the interiority of consciousness and to the universality of the thought of the All.” 2 Cf. Vesperini 2015. Contra: I. Hadot 2016. On Hadot’s work as a “more or less conscious adoption of an anti-Hegelian position” (my emphasis), cf. Spinelli 2022, 104 and n.6. © Michael Chase, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004693524_008

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are ill-defined, which does not prevent scholars from writing as if everyone agreed on precisely what each of these phenomena are. “That’s just mysticism” is a common term of abuse, often used, like the term “metaphysics,” in the so-called hard sciences, to dismiss the views of one’s opponents. In the history of philosophy, the debate can assume the form of whether a particular philosopher was or was not a “mystic” (Chase 2015). One senses, in such debates, that what is at stake transcends mere rational considerations. Some scholars seem to feel a deep-seated emotional aversion to everything that smacks of “mysticism,” and are extremely anxious to defend specific philosophers or philosophical conceptual structures against the accusation that they may be “mystical,” it being taken for granted that if the philosopher or set of doctrines in question were indeed to be convicted of the sin of “mysticism,” they could no longer be considered worthy of “serious” philosophical study. Seldom, however, do those who exhibit a strong aversion to “mysticism” define precisely what they mean by that term. I will not rehash this debate here. Instead, I will take for granted that there is such a thing as a different way of perceiving and experiencing reality which some authors designate as “mysticism.” It is characterized by some or all of the following features: a feeling of the unity of all reality, with the consequent dimming or even extinction of sense of the distinction between subject and object; a diminution of the acute sense of the importance or the reality of one’s own ego-centered individuality; a diminution of feelings of fear, anxiety and depression; and a correlated sense of deep empathy, not only for all living beings, but even, to some extent, for what we consider inanimate nature. That such “peak experiences” exist has, I believe, been amply documented cross-culturally (Hulin 1993; Austin 1988, 536–48, 542–44; Austin 2006, 407–10, 414–15, 428). What I wish to consider here is some current evaluations of Hadot’s writings on ancient philosophy as consisting primarily in the practice of spiritual exercises aimed at self-transformation, and the function and status of one such peak experience, which Hadot designates as “cosmic consciousness” within this conception. My argument will proceed as follows. I begin with a survey of Hadot’s conception of SE s as practices deliberately engaged in to carry out a transformation of the subject’s personality, and of the various attempts by his critics and interpreters to classify them and subdivide them. Most of these attempts are judged to be inadequate, mainly because they neglect Hadot’s emphasis on the transformative nature of SE s, and on the key notion of the identification of our true self. For Hadot, the self we usually identify as “ours” is egocentric, individualistic and closely tied to our perceived interests. Yet Hadot denies that this is our genuine self: instead, he argues for the existence of a more rational,

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objective and universal element within us, which the Platonic tradition designated as the daimōn. Achieving identification with this true Self is the goal of SE s, and can also be described as the achievement of cosmic consciousness, interpretated as a mystical or peak experience. In the second part of the paper, I propose an interpretation of SE s based on recent studies of neural Buddhism. I argue that two basic types of Buddhist meditation, focused or concentrated, which is top-down, volitional, and egocentric, and open, which is bottom-up, automatic and allocentric, correspond well to Hadot’s distinction between SE s devoted to concentration and contraction, intended to discover the true nature of the self, and SE s of expansion and transcendence, intended for the realization of cosmic consciousness. Hadot’s views thus converge with those of such scholars of contemplative studies as James Austin, who maintain that a balanced alternation of focused or concentrated and open meditation may be conducive to the occurrence of peak or mystical experiences that contribute toward the positive transformation of the personality. This convergence of views between Hadot and Austin, who were completely unaware of each other’s work, adds plausibility to their views and makes it unlikely that, as some commentators have proposed, Hadot is guilty of projecting his own mystical views, inspired by Catholicism and/or Neoplatonism, upon the philosophers of Greco-Roman Antiquity. Instead, Hadot and Austin seem to have identified a cross-cultural, transtemporal practice of meditation whose efficacy can be, at least to some extent, explained by the structure and function of human neurophysiology. 6.2

What Is Cosmic Consciousness, Anyway?

Hadot has given various accounts of what he means by “cosmic consciousness.” He sometimes speaks of a state or process of “transcending the limits of individuality to recognize oneself as part of a cosmos animated by reason” (Hadot 1993a, 25), or of “abandoning the biased, partial viewpoint of the individual ego, discovering oneself as a conscious, active part of the All, and thus raising oneself to a transcendent level of universality and objectivity” (Hadot 2014, 148). Describing the attainment of this state, he writes that “the individual … discovers himself qua thought, that is, as a thinking ego raising itself up to the universal and the idea of the infinite. There is a transcendence of individuality into universality” (Hadot 1996, 198). Cosmic consciousness is “the awareness of being a part of the cosmos; the expansion of the ego into the infinity of universal nature” (Hadot 1995a, 266). In ancient Stoic thought, it was held to be a characteristic of the Sage, consisting of “the feeling of belonging to a

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whole which goes beyond the limits of … individuality,” and was the result of “a spiritual exercise that consisted in becoming aware of the place of one’s individual existence within the great current of the cosmos and the perspective of the whole” (Hadot 1995a, 273). Today, Hadot suggests, such an experience or state of mind can be brought about by “a disinterested, aesthetic perception of the world” (Hadot, 1995a, 255), but it can also be induced by attentiveness, as when he writes that: “attentive people live in the constant presence of the universal Reason which is immanent within the cosmos. They see all things from the perspective of this Reason, and consent joyfully to its will” (Hadot 2002b, 138). We can see from these quotes, then, why cosmic consciousness is a crucial element of Hadot’s conception of PWL, so much so that he could severely criticize Foucault for allegedly neglecting it as a component of the latter’s notion of aesthetic self-fashioning.3 Whether conceived as a SE, intended to help achieve an improved and intensified state of mental and spiritual well-being, or as a key element of that state itself, the notion of cosmic consciousness echoes many of the features that, according to Hadot, characterize the goal of ancient philosophy as a whole. Hadot describes this goal as an effort to liberate oneself from the partial, passionate viewpoint, linked to body and the senses, and to rise up to the universal, normative viewpoint of thought, to submit oneself to the demands of the Logos and to the norm of the Good. (Hadot 1995a, 94–95) 6.3

Cosmic Consciousness and the Daimōn

The notion of cosmic consciousness seems paradoxical at first glance. It implies, first, that there is something deficient and inauthentic about our everyday consciousness. When we think, at a pre-reflective level, about what we mean by “ourselves,” Hadot wants to say that the isolated, individualized entity we first identify when we perform a pre-philosophical introspection is one that is obsessed with its own interests, passions, regrets about the past and worries about the future; but this “self” is, in some sense, not really our

3 See, for instance Comtois 2021, 283–84; Sharpe in this volume. However, on the sense in which Foucault, in his last lectures at the Collège de France, came increasingly close to Hadot’s notion of cosmic consciousness, Chase 2011; Spinelli 2022, 112, with literature n.23.

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true and authentic Self.4 For the ancients, Hadot claims, there is a higher, more authentic Self, and by means of hard, transformative work on ourselves, which he chooses to call “spiritual exercises,” he believes that even today, we can gain access to, and even identify ourselves with, this higher Self. This state of identification with our higher, truer, more authentic Self is at least part of what Hadot means by “cosmic consciousness,” or “raising oneself to the level of Reason, or of the Objective Spirit.” What, according to Hadot, was the evidence that this idea, which some commentators have condemned as mystical and Neoplatonic, existed already in the time of classical Greek thought? Hadot cites several key texts. Its origin is, of course, Socrates’ famous daimōn, that inner voice which dissuaded him from taking bad decisions (Hadot 1995a, 164–5; 2002, 34), although we have no evidence that Socrates considered this entity to be a higher Self rather than an external divinity. As far as Plato is concerned, he quotes Timaeus 90c,5 in which Plato declares that God has given each person a daimōn that is the principal part of our soul, adding that the goal of philosophy, which is to provide each human being with happiness and a form of immortality, is to keep this inner daimōn in a state of good order. Here, Plato is probably alluding to the fact that the etymological meaning of eudaimonia, the most common Greek word for “happiness,” is “good-daimōn-ness,” or the state in which one’s daimōn is in an optimal condition. In the case of Aristotle, Hadot points to the paradox that what is most divine within us—the intellect—simultaneously transcends us. Happiness thus consists in the life of the mind, but such a life is in itself supra-human. As Aristotle states in the Nicomachean Ethics and the Metaphysics, mankind’s supreme happiness is a state of intellectual contemplation 4 Cf. the works of James Austin, who characterizes this inauthentic self, which Zen Buddhism seeks to diminish and eventually to dissolve, as the “I-Me-Mine”; cf. infra, n.30. 5 Plato, Ti. 90a–c: “we declare that God has given to each of us a daimōn, which we say dwells in the highest summit of our body … and inasmuch as he [i.e., the philosopher—MC] is forever tending his divine part and maintaining in good order that daimōn who dwells along with him, he must be supremely happy” (ὡς ἄρα αὐτὸ δαίμονα θεὸς ἑκάστῳ δέδωκεν, τοῦτο ὃ δή φαμεν οἰκεῖν μὲν ἡμῶν ἐπ’ ἄκρῳ τῷ σώματι … ἅτε δὲ ἀεὶ θεραπεύοντα τὸ θεῖον ἔχοντά τε αὐτὸν εὖ κεκοσμημένον τὸν δαίμονα σύνοικον ἑαυτῷ, διαφερόντως εὐδαίμονα εἶναι; translation Bury in LCL, modified). Cf. Hadot 1992a/2014, 98. This passage is quoted by Galen, De consuetudinibus, pp. 126–29 Helmreich-Marquardt-Müller; and Emperor Julian, Or. 2.69A: “… these things are not the self (autos); his real self is his intellect, his intelligence, and, in general, the god that is in us.” Plato elsewhere calls it both “the god within us” and “the most proper form of the soul that is within us,” and says that “God has given it to each one of us as a daimōn” (οὐ μήν ἐστι ταῦτα αὐτός· ἀλλὰ νοῦν καὶ φρόνησιν, φησί, καὶ τὸ ὅλον τὸν ἐν ἡμῖν θεόν· ὃ δὴ καὶ αὐτὸς ἑτέρωθι κυριώτατον ἐν ἡμῖν ψυχῆς εἶδος ἔφη, καὶ ὡς ἄρα αὐτὸν δαίμονα θεὸς ἑκάστῳ δέδωκε”; translation Wright, LCL, modified).

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(theōria) which we, unlike God, can only achieve for brief, exceptional moments;6 and yet it is the most admirable kind of life, and in some sense the ultimate goal or end (telos) of human existence. In Stoicism, Hadot cites Seneca, who, in his Letters to Lucilius, writes that “a sacred spirit [spiritus = daimōn] is within us, the observer and guardian of our good and our evil acts … . He gives magnificent, upright advice.”7 We find this notion of an inner divinity in Stoicism from Chrysippus to Epictetus, who, according to Arrian’s account, spoke as follows: Yet he (i.e., God) has stationed by each individual’s side as guardian his particular daimōn,—and has committed the individual to his care,—and he is a guardian who never sleeps and is not to be deceived. For to what other guardian, better and more careful, could He have committed each one of us? Thus, when you close your doors and make darkness within, remember to never say that you are alone, for you are not alone; but God is within, and your own daimōn is within.8 The notion of the inner daimōn also plays a key role in the thought of Marcus Aurelius. For Marcus, the daimōn is said to be equivalent to the self, the intellect, the faculty of discursive thought, or the psychic guiding principle (hēge­ monikon). Yet while he sometimes speaks of the daimōn as if it were an inner divinity that we must keep pure from any possible contamination,9 at others 6 Hadot, op. cit., citing Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 10.8.1178b; Metaph. 1072b28. Cf. Hadot 2014, 183: “these rare moments of pure thought seem, according to Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics, to be above the human condition, to be a divine life that transcends human life and which, nevertheless, corresponds to what is most proper to mankind, life according to the Mind. Here we encounter a fundamental theme … wisdom is the state in which man is simultaneously essentially man and above man, as if man’s essence consisted in being above himself.” 7 Seneca, Ep. 41.2: “Ita dico, Lucili: sacer intra nos spiritus sedet, malorum bonorumque nostrorum observator et custos … . Ille dat consilia magnifica et erecta.” Implicit in this image of the daimōn as an advisor, is, of course, the famous daimonion of Socrates (Plato, Ap. 31d, 40a; Xenophon, Mem., 1.1.2; 1.1.4; 1.1.9, etc.). 8 Epict. diss. 1.14.11–14: ἀλλ’ οὖν οὐδὲν ἧττον καὶ ἐπίτροπον ἑκάστῳ παρέστησεν τὸν ἑκάστου δαίμονα καὶ παρέδωκεν φυλάσσειν αὐτὸν αὐτῷ καὶ τοῦτον ἀκοίμητον καὶ ἀπαραλόγιστον. τίνι γὰρ ἄλλῳ κρείττονι καὶ ἐπιμελεστέρῳ φύλακι παρέδωκεν ἡμῶν ἕκαστον; ὥσθ’, ὅταν κλείσητε τὰς θύρας καὶ σκότος ἔνδον ποιήσητε, μέμνησθε μηδέποτε λέγειν ὅτι μόνοι ἐστέ· οὐ γὰρ ἐστέ, ἀλλ’ ὁ θεὸς ἔνδον ἐστὶ καὶ ὁ ὑμέτερος δαίμων ἐστίν. 9 Marcus even speaks (Med. 3.12) of “returning or restoring the daimōn” at death. In his account of Stoic physics (Math. 9. 87), just after quoting Hesiod (Op. 252–253) on the existence of 30,000 guardian demons, Sextus Empiricus speaks of a Stoic proof for the existence of the gods which argues that “there is in the aithēr a nature of living beings, whence human beings share in an intellectual faculty, drawing it in from there (πάντως εὔλογον καὶ ἐν τῷ

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he emphasizes that we must carry out the will of the daimōn that God has given to us, which implies that the entity in question is in some sense transcendent (Hadot 1998a, 123, citing M. Aur., Med. 3.5.2; 5.27). For instance, we find this notion in Meditation 5, 27: “Live with the gods.” But he is living with the gods who continuously shows them his soul as satisfied with those things that have been allotted, and doing what the daimōn, the portion of himself which Zeus has given to each man to guard and guide him, wills. And this daimōn is each man’s intellect (nous) and reason (logos).10 For Marcus, our daimōn is immanent with us because it is, in some sense, identical to our intellect and reason. At the same time, however, it is transcendent, because it is a fragment (apospasma) of Zeus, which Zeus himself has delegated to watch over to each one of us. Hadot, for his part, interprets this daimōn is equivalent to Reason as a transcendent norm. As in Aristotle’s self-transcending theōria, therefore, obeying and preserving our inner daimōn can thus be interpreted as another case of what Hadot (1998a, 142) calls “the paradox of moral life, for the self identifies itself with a transcendent Reason which is simultaneously above it and identical with it.” In an important recent article, Christoph Horn has called attention to what he calls the ancient ethics of “becoming what you are.”11 Horn remarks that

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αἰθέρι ζῴων εἶναι φύσιν, ὅθεν καὶ ἄνθρωποι νοερᾶς μετέχουσι δυνάμεως, ἐκεῖθεν αὐτὴν σπάσαντες). Did the Stoics paraphrased by Sextus believe that there was some kind of identity between this aithēr-dwelling “nature of living beings,” the “intellectual power or faculty” (on which see Marcus Aurelius, Medit. 8.54), and the daimōn or daimones which seem to inhabit the aetherial realm? Could the idea be that we somehow “draw in” (spasai; cf. Marcus Aurelius, loc. cit.)—an idea that Sextus attributes to Heraclitus, cf. fr. 16, 19 DK = R59 Laks-Most—or absorb this demonic intellectuality at birth, and expel it once again into the All with our final breath? Meanwhile, during our life, Marcus (loc. cit.) instructs us to “think along with” (sumphronein) this cosmic intellectual power (dunamis), cf. Galen, De usu partium, vol. 4, pp. 359–60 Kühn. “Συζῆν θεοῖς.” συζῇ δὲ θεοῖς ὁ συνεχῶς δεικνὺς αὐτοῖς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ψυχὴν ἀρεσκομένην μὲν τοῖς ἀπονεμομένοις, ποιοῦσαν δὲ ὅσα βούλεται ὁ δαίμων, ὃν ἑκάστῳ προστάτην καὶ ἡγεμόνα ὁ Ζεὺς ἔδωκεν, ἀπόσπασμα ἑαυτοῦ. οὗτος δέ ἐστιν ὁ ἑκάστου νοῦς καὶ λόγος. Horn 2016, 260, citing Pindar, Pyth. 2.72: γένοι’, οἷος ἐσσὶ μαθών: “Become such as you are, having learned what that is” (translation Pindar, Olympian Odes. Pythian Odes. Edited and translated by William H. Race. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997). Cf. Horn, op. cit. 281, who speaks of the “normative naturalism” of ancient ethics as “stets objektiv und perfektionistisch verstanden, das heisst im Sinne eines ‘Werde-der-du-bist’ Modells des Essentialismus.” Pindar’s phrase was extremely important for Nietzsche, who subtitled his Ecce Homo “How one becomes what one is.” Compare Plotinus, Enn. 6.7.34.30–31,

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“all approaches of classical ancient ethics are perfectionist, in the sense of a species-based essentialism” (2016, 262). I take this to mean that ancient ethics (i) agree that the human species has a universal, unchanging essence, usually envisaged as identical to reason; and (ii) that the goal of this ethics is somehow to identify oneself with this rational essence.12 In Platonism, this takes place by what Horn calls “self-objectification”; that is, if I have understood the author correctly, the abandonment of one’s individual characteristics, one’s “de facto individuality,” in favor of a “normative personality,” usually conceived as “deindividualized” (ibid.). We will return to Horn’s views shortly. 6.4

The Critique by Pierre-Julien Harter

In a paper published in the fascinating collection edited by David Fiordalis and entitled Buddhist Spiritual Practices. Thinking with Pierre Hadot on Buddhism, Philosophy and the Path (Harter 2018), Pierre-Julien Harter discusses Hadot’s conception of spiritual exercises. Harter’s analyses are problematic and occasionally misleading, but he does, in my view, make at least two interesting points. One is to note that there seems to be a certain amount of looseness in Hadot’s notion of a spiritual exercise: what precisely qualifies an activity to be called a SE? Harter tries, and in my view fails, to make use of a distinction Hadot drew in a single late interview between “exercices de formation” and “exercices d’application” (Harter 2018, 154).13 These exercises of application, Harter claims, are “top-down exercises” which consist in applying rules or principles already accepted. Yet there are also “bottom-up exercises” that “accumulate experiences to effectuate a transformation,” which correspond to “exercises of training or formation,” that is, to “exercises that trigger a transformation of the personality so that she can face critical situations when they

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who speaks of the state in which the soul, at the end of her itinerary of spiritual ascent, has “become what she was long ago, when she was flourishing” (ἀλλὰ τοῦτο γενομένη, ὃ πάλαι, ὅτε εὐτύχει). In his translation, Armstrong has misunderstood the Greek here: he translates “when it has become that which it was before, when it is fortunate” (my emphasis). But the Greek verbal form eutukhei is not in the present tense (“is fortunate”), as this translation implies, but the imperfect (“was fortunate”), as Hadot rightly saw (1988, 172): “parce qu’elle est devenue ce qu’elle était autrefois quand elle était heureuse” (my emphasis). Cf. Seneca, QNat. 1, praef. 5: “How contemptible a thing is man, unless he rises above what is human!” (“O quam contempta res est homo, nisi supra humana surrexerit!”). Harter relies on a radio interview from 2003 (France Culture, available at https://www .youtube.com/watch?v=GtvqeTmruAo, consulted July 10, 2022).

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occur, at a later time.” The goal of these exercises “is trying to change in order to be ready to meet real, future challenges” (Harter 2018, 156). There is some truth to this last claim, in my view, but it is only partial. The goal of transformative SE s—or rather, of all spiritual exercises simpliciter, since all SE s are transformative—is not to transform the practitioner into a more efficient agent: it is, as we have seen, to transform the practitioner’s way of looking at and perceiving things and events of the world in such a way that she or he may be happier and exist in a manner that is more intense and more authentic. Such a transformation is not an instrument subordinate to some ulterior goal: it is, according to Hadot, the goal of all ancient philosophy, and, for that matter, of any philosophy worthy of the name. As far as the heterogeneity of Hadot’s enumerations of SE s are concerned: it is true that, remaining as close as possible to the ancient sources, Hadot does not carry out a systematic classification of them, any more than the ancients do.14 But perhaps they are so hard to classify because whether or not an activity qualifies as a SE depends not so much on the nature of the activity as on the way it is undertaken: with what attitude and method, and with a view to which goal. All SE s require complete attention to and focus upon an activity. They imply immersing oneself so completely in the matter at hand that one forgets oneself, and in that sense, they can be seen as equivalent to what the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990) calls a “flow experience.” But it is not, I think, just any kind of a flow experience. It is an activity in which one engages with the intent of carrying out some kind of transformative action upon oneself. 6.5

The Discussion by Christoph Horn

We have seen that Harter’s discussion of Pierre Hadot’s views on SE s is problematic, but that does not mean it is worthless. I believe Harter is on the right track when he distinguishes between top-down and bottom-up spiritual exercises. Yet the most relevant distinction here is not, I think, the one between exercises of application and exercises of formation, which Hadot mentioned in passing in a single interview late in his life. Instead, it is to be found in an important distinction made by Hadot which Harter has missed, but which has 14

Other scholars have done so, including Horn (1998, 34ff.), Richard Sorabji (2000, chap. 15, 211–28), and Wilhelm Schmidt (1995), who enumerates 11 aspects of SE s. Hadot himself speaks of a division between “intellectual” and “practical” exercises, but this distinction does not play an important role in his thought.

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been interestingly discussed by Professor Horn. As Horn explains, following Hadot (Hadot 2002b, 198–211), this distinction is between SE s intended for concentration and self-development, and those intended for “self-­renunciation.”15 This, I believe, is a more promising approach, although I will have to question whether the term “self-renunciation” adequately conveys what Hadot is getting at. According to Horn, the first branch of the division of SE s consists of exercises of concentration (konzentrierenden Übungen, Horn 1998, 40). It includes such exercises as self-control, curing souls of their passions, living in the present, overcoming the fear of death, indifference to indifferent things, and the achievement of an ongoing state of vigilance. These concentrative exercises can be further subdivided according to their goals, into (i) therapeutic, (ii) sensitizing, (iii) moral, (iv) intellectual, and (v) spiritual exercises properly so called. i. Therapeutic exercises are aimed at overcoming mistaken attitudes, foolish desires, and misdirected passions. Hellenistic schools believed that such misguided feelings and attitudes are like illnesses, but can be cured by rational considerations—that is, by the Logos—, based on a theory of passions and a doctrine of what is truly good. ii. Exercises of sensitization have the purpose of augmenting our capacity for enjoyment and feeling intense emotions,16 as well as of increasing our appreciation for the simple things in life. They include such exercises as living in the present and imagining that each day we live may be our last, as well as the examination of conscience. iii. Moral exercises include self-admonition, the examination of conscience,17 the open confession of one’s faults, and the friendly correction of others (these are the so-called parrhesiastic techniques, based on the principle that “knowledge of one’s fault is the beginning of salvation”). In Epicureanism, such precepts could assume forms that resemble what we might 15 16 17

The Italian translation of Horn’s work (2004, 49) speaks of “rinuncia di sé”; Horn himself (1998, 39) speaks of “die Preisgabe des eigenen Selbst.” It may be doubted that this formulation would be applicable to Stoicism, one main goal of which is the achievement of a state of apatheia, or the (more or less complete) absence of passions. Horn’s formulation would thus seem to be restricted to the Epicurean school. Note that, on Horn’s reading, it would thus be possible for the same SE to belong to two different sub-categories of the concentrative-developmental branch of SE s. This may present a problem for Horn’s analysis, as does the fact that “spiritual exercises” is used to designate both the genus of SE s and the fifth subdivision of one of the two main species of SE s. For Hadot, the examination of the conscience is part of the exercise of meditation (2002b, 202), which is itself a subdivision of intellectual exercises (1993a, 20ff.).

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identify today as the “cult of personality,” including the advice to think and act as though Epicurus himself were watching us, and the prominent use of images and portraits of Epicurus, intended to promote such continuous awareness. iv. Intellectual exercises are intended to increase the practitioner’s capacity for abstraction, consciousness, and attention. Here the best example is provided by the dialogues of Plato, where exercises of division (diairesis) often seem intended not so much to arrive at objective truths as to render the practitioner more skillful at dialectics. One can also class under this heading Marcus Aurelius’ exercises of physical definition and circumscription, intended to reduce passionate responses to things and events by breaking down the phenomenon in question into its constituent parts and analysing each one. Also included under this heading is the (neo-) Platonist idea of a cursus studiorum or reading order, in which the works of the founding masters of one’s philosophical school—Aristotle or Plato, for instance—are taught in an order that reflects the student’s gradually increasing intellectual and spiritual progress. v. Finally, spiritual exercises properly so called are aimed at a transformation of the entire personality in the form of a divinization, following Plato’s doctrine of the homiōsis theōi as set forth in the Theaetetus: this theme can also be found in Seneca and in Plotinus. Here the role of purification (katharsis), with its links to mystery religions, plays a key role. The Neoplatonic notion of spiritual ascent involves rising back up the first Principle of the All, and requires simplifying and unifying one’s own personality. Negative theology plays a key role here, by reducing thought first to its conceptual foundations, then to its pre-conceptual basis. Horn usefully compares Augustine’s Confessions (7.17.23) for a Christianized version of this idea. It is somewhat surprising, in contrast, that Horn’s discussion “exercises of self-renunciation,” of the second major subdivision of SE  s, seems perfunctory. He does not subdivide this group further, and, in a discussion that occupies less than half a page, limits himself to remarking that it includes such exercises as the View from Above and other similar exercises leading to “an identification of the self with the cosmos.”18 18

Hadot, for his part (1993b), speaks of an “exercise of the vision of totality and elevation of thought to the level of universal thought”; of “soul’s re-situation within the perspective of the All” and of “expansion of self into the totality of the Real,” and cites a large number of ancient texts as evidence: Metrodorus fr. 37 Körte = Epicurus, Sent. Vat. 10; Lucr. 2.16–30, 1044–1047; Pl., Resp. 486a; Phdr. 246b–c; Tht. 173e; Cic., Nat. D. 1.21, 1.54; Sen.,

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My main hesitation about this account, apart from its apparent imbalance, would be as follows: is it really adequate to describe such exercises, the entire second branch of Horn’s classification of SE s, as exercises of “self-­ renunciation”?19 Hadot himself, as far as I recall, never uses such terminology, but tends of speak of self-transcendence (dépassement in French). For Hadot, moreover, as we have already seen, it is not so much “the self” that one is supposed to renounce or, better, to transcend, but what we erroneously identify as our self.20 I understand Hadot’s views on this subject as follows. In our everyday, pre-philosophical life, if we ask ourselves what our “self” is, we will probably answer that it is what presents itself to our immediate introspection: the set of individual thoughts, emotions, memories, personal beliefs, tendencies, characteristics and so on which we identify as “ours.” In this sense, the “self” which we identify as ours has at least two main characteristics. First, it is deeply egocentric, tending to evaluate surrounding persons and events in terms of our own likes, dislikes, hopes, fears, and self-interests. Many of these emotional tendencies are, of course, of extraneous origin: they are imposed upon us— whether intentionally or not—by our parents, our education, our social class, and our circles of friends and relatives. Increasingly, they also derive from the media that constantly bombard us with propaganda and imagery. Many could be characterized as mere biases or prejudices. Second, this pre-philosophical self is characterized by its feeling of isolation. The self, on this pre-philosophical view, ends where the boundaries of our bodies end. We are each of us alone, within a society and a universe which are at best indifferent to our interests, and at worst actively hostile.

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Ep. 102.21; QNat. 1, Praef., 12; M. Aur., Med. 12.1.3; 7.47; 10.17; Philo, De specialibus legibus 2.45, etc. See also Hadot 1983; 1995b, 309ff. More recently, Horn has preferred to speak of self-objectification (“Selbstobjektivierung”) (2016, 261). In the same more recent work (2016), Horn distinguishes between our “faktische Individualität,” consisting of a set of five groups of factors (natural qualities, social roles, customs and traditions, life events, and personal values, wishes, interests, preferences and convictions), and “normative Persönlichkeit,” which may be conceived as de-individualized (“entindividualisiert”). This distinction may correspond roughly to Hadot’s distinction between our everyday, phenomenal, individualistic self and the universalized Self which corresponds to objectivity. Yet Hadot emphasizes, to a greater extent than Horn, that the former self is largely illusory, while the latter is more authentic. Cf. Hadot 1995a, 97: “All the philosopher’s speculative, contemplative work thus becomes a spiritual exercise, insofar as, by raising his thought as far as the perspective of the All, he frees it from the illusions of individuality” (my emphasis).

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Is this pre-philosophical, individual self identical with our self simpliciter? Is it the only self that we have or can conceive of?21 No, according to Hadot, and, as we have already glimpsed, many ancient Greek philosophers do not seem to have thought so, either. Plato and the Platonic tradition, in particular, took the Delphic precept “Know thyself” extremely seriously (Courcelle 1974– 75). They did not consider the identification of our true, authentic self to be easily or quickly achieved. Instead, the search for and discovery of one’s true self was, in a sense, the foundation stone of philosophical education. When, by the time of the post-Plotinian Neoplatonists, a curriculum of spiritual and intellectual education was designed based on a selection of Platonic dialogues, the first dialogue read by students of Platonic philosophy was the First Alcibiades, with its key distinction between what we have and what we are (Alc. I, 131a; cf. Renault and Tarrant 2015, 162). Hadot thus believes that the “standard” or default view of the self as isolated, individualistic, and egocentric is, quite simply, mistaken. It is one main source of the feelings of loneliness and despair that increasingly characterize the inhabitants of the planet earth today. If we fear death, failure, illness, rejection; being laughed at, not being sufficiently pretty, thin, handsome, or tough, or otherwise attractive enough: all these fears have their source in our individual, isolated self. But Hadot claims that this default self is not our real self. There is, as we have seen, a higher, less egocentric “self,” sometimes identified as the Platonic daimōn, which is aware of its intimate connection with other human beings, with nature, and with the entire cosmos. Its outlook is characterized by a global, universal perspective: it takes the forest, not the trees into consideration. It is intensely aware of its nature as an inseparable part of this cosmic ensemble, with which it identifies its own interests. And whereas the outlook of our default self is influenced, sometimes to the point of being blinded, by our individual passions, prejudices, biases and self-interest, the Self that has realized its unity with the cosmos can, at least according to Hadot, accede to a viewpoint that is universal and objective. It sees things the way they really are, and in this sense can be identified with Reason (logos in Greek). This is the mindset or character trait which the Greeks called megalopsukhia or magnitudo animi, greatness of soul (I. Hadot 2014, 210–27; P. Hadot 1995a, 97). 21

Cf. the physicist and collaborator of Werner Heisenberg, C.F. von Weizsäcker 1977, 166: “Must one speak as though there is only one self?” (“Muss man so reden, dass es nur ein selbst gibt?”). The author answers in the negative. What we usually consider as our self is in fact the organ or instrument of something greater. One can realize this “complete relativization of the ego” (ibid., 539–40) through meditation, which, in the West, is called mysticism. Its goal is ultimately the realization of the same truth aimed at by the so-called “hard” sciences (550). On meditation, cf. also Weizsäcker 1992, 499–502.

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In a philosophical school such as Stoicism, this “cosmic consciousness” goes so far as to consider that the ultimate Principle, whether designated as Zeus, Nature, Fate, or the Logos, which creates and maintains the universe in a rational, optimal way, is fundamentally identical with the deepest, most authentic part of ourselves: our reason or guiding faculty (hēgemonikon). This belief that the universe and all the events that occur within it are guided by a benevolent, providential Reason that is identical with our truest self is the basis for the Stoics’ joyful embrace and acceptance of everything that happens, no matter how contrary to our own interest such events may seem at first glance (Chase 2016). 6.6

An Inherent Tension in Hadot’s Conception of SE s?

Although I have so far been concerned to defend Hadot’s views against some of his critics, I don’t want to give the impression that I consider his presentation of SE s to be definitive and insusceptible of further improvement. There may be a tension22 inherent in the Hadotian approach as I have reconstructed it. On the one hand, it seems to recommend intense concentration on the self; this may be what Socrates is doing in the passages Hadot cites from the Phaedo (Hadot 1995a, 89–90; Chase 2019; 2022), and it explains why Hadot can speak, at least sometimes, of SE s as carrying out a “return to the self.”23 And yet, there is also what appears to be the opposite movement of “dissolution,” “renunciation” (Horn) or rather, transcendence of the self. This is the operation by which one leaves behind the focus on one’s own self, exclusive preoccupation with which may lead to mere navel-gazing or narcissism, and raises oneself to the level of cosmic consciousness. We have seen that this is the level at which one re-situates oneself as a part of the Whole constituted by the universe, thereby achieving a perspective from which, henceforth free of the distorting influence of the passions, one can see things more objectively, as they really are.

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A similar tension has been perceived in Buddhism, between “calm” (śamatha) and “insight” (vipaśyanā) meditation; cf. Gehin 1998, 174–75; Chase 2022 with reference to work by the French scholar of Tibetan Buddhism M.-H. Deroche. This is how Hadot has sometimes chosen to render the Greek term epistrophē, sometimes translated as “conversion”; cf. Hadot 2011, 185 with reference to his early article (1955) which impressed Foucault. Here, Hadot distinguishes between two forms of conversion: epistrophē as a return to the self, and metanoia as a transformation of the self. Of particular interest in the present context is the way in which Hadot, in this very early work (first presented at a conference in August 1953), links the notion of epistrophē with “more primitive intuitions about vital rhythm, especially breathing” (Hadot 2019, 46).

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I believe it is true that Hadot is not always as clear as one might have wished about the relations between these two forms of contemplation, and this is what may have led to a certain amount of confusion among his commentators and critics, some of whom, like Harter, have largely failed to understand what Hadot is talking about, while others, like Professor Horn, have proposed an elucidation which may fail to do full justice to Hadot’s views. However, I also think that Hadot might have come to a different, more clear understanding of this relation if he had had time to pursue the study of Eastern philosophies on which, after many years of reticence regarding comparative studies, he had begun to embark during the last years of his life (Hadot 2002b, 278–79; Hadot 2004). Indeed, I believe that both Harter and Professor Horn were, in a sense, on the right track: Harter by his distinction between top-down and bottom-up SE s, and Horn by his distinction between SE s intended for “concentration” and SE s intended for “renunciation,” although we have seen that this latter movement is not so much one of renunciation as of transcendence. There may be, in fact, not only an opposition, but also a complementarity and progression between these two aspects of concentration and transcendence, contraction and expansion, return to the self and transformation of the self (Hadot 2002b, 189, 207, 210). The aspiring philosopher might begin an itinerary of self-transformation by concentrating on the self: this exercise, which corresponds to a movement of stripping the self from all that is secondary, extraneous, and accidental to it,24 is destined to help us identify what we truly are, as opposed to the more pre-reflective opinions we have of our everyday selves, largely based on socially constructed notions of propriety, status, class, and prestige. Hadot’s critique of Foucault, on this interpretation, would thus amount to the claim that Foucault more or less stops at this initial level. In Hadot’s view, while extolling the virtues of autonomous self-fashioning, Foucault in fact remains within the realm of appearances. What Hadot refers to as Foucault’s “new dandyism” remains still focused on the impressions one makes on others. Foucault’s aesthetics of existence would thus be primarily about fashioning a way of life that will favorably impress one’s audience, playing a role and acting a part. One thinks,

24

Cf., for instance, Hadot 1995a, 99, citing Plotinus, Enn. 6.5.12.19: “You were already the All, but because something else besides the All came to be added on to you, you have become less than the All … you increase yourself when you reject everything other than the All” (καίτοι καὶ πρότερον ἦσθα πᾶς· ἀλλ’ ὅτι καὶ ἄλλο τι προσῆν σοι μετὰ τὸ “πᾶς”, ἐλάττων ἐγίνου τῇ προσθήκῃ … Αὔξεις τοίνυν σεαυτὸν ἀφεὶς τὰ ἄλλα). This passage, and others like it, cast serious doubt on Horn’s (2016, 278–80) contention that Plotinus provides a positive evaluation of human individuality.

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in this context, of a text from Seneca’s On Peace of Mind, 17, recently cited and discussed by Horn: (17.1) Another serious source of anxieties is if you present yourself anxiously and do not show your nature openly to others, as is the life of many, falsified and adjusted for display; for constant watching over ourselves torments us, fearing to be caught other than is usual. We are never free from care if we believe we are being evaluated as often as we are seen; for many things happen to strip men naked against their will, and even if such cautious concern over oneself succeeds, life is not pleasant or carefree for men living continually under a mask. (Horn 2016, 275–76) Those who are overly concerned with the impression they produce on others, claims Seneca, are like actors playing a part throughout their entire lives, and living in constant anxiety lest their audience see through their disguise and perceive them for what they really are. According to the interpretation I am proposing here, however, this initial observation of our phenomenal, everyday, surface self, such as it reveals itself to introspection, is only the first stage. Following such texts as Plato’s’ Alcibiades I, Hadot seems to believe that by dint of scrupulous observation, which distinguishes what we have from we what we (truly) are,25 we can catch a glimpse of the fact that there is kernel within us of something more basic and essential, something without which we would not be what we are. For Hadot, who here remains faithful to the rationalist Greco-Roman tradition, that something cannot be anything other than Reason, sometimes identified, as we have seen, with our inner daimōn.26 Once we have glimpsed this inner nucleus of rationality, then, as in Diotima’s speech in Plato’s Symposium (210a–212c), we can rise from this initial glimpse, through a series of intermediary steps, to an objective Reason that is no longer masked, tarnished, and distorted by our individual passions and egocentric interests. This is what Hadot means by identifying oneself with the Spirit or with Objective Reason: it means the realization of our fundamental identity with Reason, as the characteristic feature that is, at 25 26

Cf. Porphyry, Abst. 1.30.4: “Our ascent is toward nothing other than our genuine self … but our genuine self is the intellect” (οὐ γὰρ εἰς ἄλλο, ἀλλ’ εἰς τὸν ὄντως ἑαυτὸν ἡ ἀναδρομή … αὐτὸς δὲ ὄντως ὁ νοῦς). In the case of Seneca, it would probably be more accurate to say that what one must identify oneself with is mankind’s true nature. As Horn emphasizes, however, for the Stoics this human nature, the fulfillment of which is the necessary and sufficient condition for an individual to achieve happiness, just is rational (human) nature (Vernunftnatur); cf. Horn 2016, 272.

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least in the view of the ancient Greco-Roman Stoics, constitutive of the nature of human beings qua species. This reason is objective in at least two senses: first, insofar as it is maximally free from the distorting influences of subjectivity, which, in the form of our passions, always grant priority to what we perceive as our own, egocentric, short-term interests. But the objectivity to which one can accede by this outward, expansive movement of identification with the Whole, the Universe, and the rational Principle that animates it, is also objective in another sense: it enables us to see the world as it really is, in and for itself and no longer as a mere function of our individual needs and desires. This is what it means to achieve cosmic consciousness: to see the world, our place within it, and everything else it contains as they really are. 6.7

I s All This Just Pure Speculation, or Are There Scientific Findings to Back up Some of These Contentions?

It might be claimed that the interpretation I have just advanced is tendentious, and that Hadot does not really state his views in quite so systematic or explicit a way. Perhaps; but in conclusion I want to examine the issues from another perspective, and ask: are there any scientific findings that suggest that there is some truth to what Hadot is suggesting, and what I just stated more explicitly? I believe that there are striking points of convergence between, on the one hand, Hadot’s views on spiritual exercises and cosmic consciousness, and, on the other, the discoveries made by another trend of thought which has emerged over the last two generations or so, in complete independence from Hadot and his interpretations of ancient Greco-Roman thought. The trend I have in mind has been called “neural Buddhism,” and it consists in an attempt to explain certain Buddhist doctrines and experiential reports in terms of the structure and functioning of the brain. Needless to say, this subject is vast, and I cannot go into the matter in detail here (Chase 2022). Suffice it for now to note that some Buddhist schools recommend the practice of two different styles of meditation: concentrative and receptive,27 sometimes designated in recent literature as “convergent” and

27

On this distinction, cf. Austin 1998, 75–76; 2006, 29ff. and Table 2; 2009, 3ff. See now especially Austin 2016, 13 Table 1.1, for a synoptic presentation of the contrasting features of both concentrative and receptive meditation, with an exhaustive list of references to discussions of these topics in the author’s other works.

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“divergent.”28 In the former, one begins by focusing one’s attention on a single external spot, if meditating with one’s eyes open, or, if one’s eyes are closed, on one’s breath and the rhythmic motions of the abdomen that accompany it. The main goal of this focused, concentrated, top-down, egocentric attention, is to quiet the incessant chatter of thoughts that usually fill our minds and distract us. In some Buddhist traditions, however, this stage, which can lead to a temporary state of “internal absorption,”29 or lack of awareness of one’s surroundings, is only a preliminary. The second stage is, in a sense, the reverse of the first: it is a state of open receptivity, in which, rather that narrowing our attention, we expand it to take in the sights, sounds, and all other sensory perceptions that impinge upon us from the outside world. Open and all-inclusive, this mode is characterized by bottom-up processing and allocentric attitudes. Years of balanced training in both meditative techniques can, according to Zen adepts, lead to a diminution of the dominance of the egocentric system,30 and a reawakening of systems of allocentric processing. This, in turn may facilitate the experience designated by the Japanese word kensho: a brief experience of insight into the world as it really is in its objectivity, sometimes referred to in the literature as an experience of the world as “just this,” “thusness,” or “suchness.”31 What is meant by saying that of these two modes of meditation, the concentrated mode is top-down and egocentric, while the receptive mode is bottom-up and allocentric or other-related? Here I’m afraid we must embark upon a brief discussion of the neurophysiology of the brain. 28 29

30

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Austin 2016, 14, with reference to the review articles by L. Colzato et al. (2012) and D. Lippelt et al. (2014). These authors refer to the two approaches as FAM (Focused Attention Meditation) and OMM (Open Monitoring Meditation) respectively. On internal absorptions, cf. Austin 1998, 467–518, and 312 (Table 10), where they are labelled as stage VIb in a nine-level division of “Extraordinary Alternate States of Consciousness.” More advanced states include kensho or Insight-Wisdom (VII), Ultimate Being (VIII), and the State of Ongoing Enlightened Traits (IX). Or, as Austin puts it, the goal of Zen meditation is to free ourselves from what he calls the “I-Me-Mine triad,” a process which involves “giving up your arrogant, assertive I, dropping your belief that your Me is always a beleaguered victim, and abandoning the delusion that every possession of your Mine is yours in perpetuity” (Austin 2011, 38; cf. ibid., 237– 39; Austin 1998, 43–47, 50–51, 145, 569; 2006, 13–14; 67–8; 260–65; 2009, 53–83; 117, 192–93; 240; 2014, 23–24. Austin 2014, 21. The notion of “suchness” in the thought of the Zen master Dogen (c. 1200–1253) attracted the attention of Pierre Hadot, a few years before his death; cf. Hadot 2004 = Hadot 2019, 239–245. Here, Hadot shows he was well aware of the parallels between Greco-Roman thought and the thought of this medieval Japanese Zen master, in whom Hadot saw (2004, 242) “a tendency to transcend the viewpoint of the individual, egoistic, partial and partisan ego, in order to resituate oneself within the All and thus elevate oneself toward a cosmic perspective.”

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Experimental cognitive scientists have identified two main pathways of our visual and auditory attentional networks (Austin 2009, 29–30 with Table 4; 2011, 42–43 with Table 1). Both begin in the occipital lobe at the back of the brain; yet from here the two paths diverge. The dorsal pathway begins by transmitting information to the top portions of the parietal cortex, along what has been called “where pathway,” which serves to identify the position of objects in space as they are situated in relation to us, and in this sense can be called egocentric or self-referential. This attentional network is activated by voluntary, intentional efforts on the part of the subject, and can therefore be designated “top-down.” The ventral stream courses from the lower occipital region along the temporal lobe, and thence to the lower frontal lobe, following the so-called “what pathway,” the attentional stream that is concerned with answering questions concerning objects independently of their relation to us. This stream responds automatically and pre-consciously to external stimuli. It is interesting to compare the locations of dorsal and ventral attentional streams with that of the brain’s “default mode network” (DMN): those regions of the brain that always remain metabolically active, even when we’re at rest, and which neurologists tend to identify as the region responsible for our usual consciousness of our self (Austin 2009, 258, 266–67; Davey, Pujol, and Harrison 2016). The pathway of the dorsal attention network runs right through one of the two main regions of our self-awareness, which consists in the precuneus, the retrosplenial cortex, and the posterior cingulate cortex. The ventral attentional stream, in contrast, runs south of the DMN and avoids it altogether (Austin 2009, 61). The suggestion proposed by some neurologists who are also practicing meditators, such as James Austin, is that by gradually quieting the chattering, word-oriented, self-centered dorsal attention network and activating the pre-linguistic, bottom-up, allocentric ventral attention stream, we may facilitate access to a peak experience that is deeper and more transformative than the transitory “internal absorptions” that can be triggered by focused attention alone. In Austin’s words, such an experience “combines the total absence of the old psychic Self with … the stunning realization of coidentity with the world” (Austin 2016, 20, 195). I believe Pierre Hadot would have been in full agreement with such formulations. The “realization of coidentity with the world” is precisely what Hadot means by his expression “cosmic consciousness,” although commentators have misinterpreted this expression as Christian, Neoplatonic, or even Hegelian.32 32

The influence of Bergson on the development of this notion is probably more germane: cf. Comtois 2022. Nevertheless, the ultimate source of Hadot’s interest in cosmic consciousness was no doubt his own repeated experiences, since childhood, of what he, following

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The fact that an Anglo-Saxon Protestant neurologist, deeply imbued by the traditions of Zen Buddhism but completely unaware of Hadot’s work, could come up with a formulation so strikingly similar to those of Hadot suggests that far from anachronistically foisting his allegedly Catholic-Neoplatonist worldview upon Greco-Roman philosophers of Antiquity, Hadot is tapping into an experience that is universal and cross-cultural. Nor do the parallels stop there: if Hadot stresses the objective view of reality33 that can be provided by SE s and the cosmic consciousness to which they lead, in the context of Greco-Roman philosophy, so does Austin in describing the experience of kensho in Zen.34 As Austin remarks, when seeing one’s house, instead of as “my home,” with all the emotional and subjective connotations that image implies, we can learn to experience “this simple structure for what it was, objectively; just a house … not our home.” Similarly, Hadot speaks of the fact that the utilitarian perception we have of the world, in everyday life, in fact hides from us the world qua world. Aesthetic and philosophical perceptions of the world are only possible by means of a complete transformation of our relationship to the world: we have to perceive it for itself, and no longer for ourselves. (Hadot 1995a, 154) Thus, for both Austin and Hadot, some degree of objectivity can be achieved when we manage to set aside, albeit temporarily, the intrusive biases and prejudices of our everyday, individualistic, and egocentric “self.” Austin goes on to quote Carl Jung, who, after a near-death experience, depression, and an onslaught of disturbing visions, achieved what he described as a state of objectivity which he equated with individualization, which grew into “an affirmation of things as they are: an unconditional ‘yes’ to that which is, without subjective protests, acceptance of the conditions of existence as I see them and understand them.”35 Similarly, Hadot repeatedly emphasized the

33 34 35

Romain Rolland, called the “oceanic feeling,” in which “The individual has the impression of dissolving, of transcending her limits in the immensity and infinity of reality, becoming aware of her communion with that All of which she is a part” (Hadot 2011, 251). On objectivity in the thought of Pierre Hadot, cf. Hadot 1990/2019; 1995a (more than 25 uses of the term); 2002b (some 13 occurrences). On objectivity, cf. Austin 1998, 573: “which shorthand phrase might sum up the otherworldly taste of kensho? In my case, the word was objective.” Cf. ibid, 574–75; 641–42; Austin 2009 (approximately 27 references to the term). Austin 1998, 575, citing Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, New York, 1962, 297. Austin (loc. cit., 576) also cites the Zen master Dogen, who proclaimed that “to forget oneself is to experience the world as pure object.”

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importance of reaching a state in which one could give one’s unconditional “yes” to existence, devoting an entire chapter to the theme in the last work he published, which dealt with Goethe and the tradition of spiritual exercises (Hadot 2023, 126–142).36 Finally, as far as “cosmic consciousness” is concerned: in complete independence from Hadot, Austin likewise entitled a section of his 2006 book ZenBrain Reflections “Cosmic Consciousness” (Austin 2006, 393–94). He traces the first use of the term back to the author Edward Carpenter in 1892, who defined it as “the blissful deepest knowing of the all-pervading Reality” and a perspective “as from some more universal standpoint” (Austin 2006, 333–56). 6.8

Conclusion: Hadot and Austin

One could easily multiply the number of themes that are centrally important in the writings of both Hadot and Austin: the importance of attention, of looking at our surroundings as if for the first time, of appreciating the beauties of nature, and the crucial point of the limitations of language. Once again, these two authors seem never to have read each other’s works. At first glance, they did not have much in common. What they did share, however, was a gift for meticulous scholarship and a thorough familiarity with their respective fields: Buddhism and the physiology of the brain in the case of Austin, all aspects of Greek, Roman, and contemporary philosophy in the case of Hadot. Yet both also shared a love for broader fields of culture, such as art, poetry, great literature, and music. They also shared a receptivity toward and curiosity about peak experiences usually classified, and often dismissed, as “mysticism.” That two such meticulous scholars should have arrived, in complete independence, at convergent conclusions, to my mind supports the suggestion that they were on to something. In the case of cosmic consciousness, for instance, far from being an alien element which Hadot anachronistically projected upon early Greco-Roman philosophy because of his Catholic or Neoplatonic tendencies, this element did indeed play a key role in various ancient schools. The convergence with features of Zen Buddhism suggests, moreover, that the experience and/or methods of cosmic consciousness may be widespread, if not universal, across a wide variety of human cultures. This presumed universality may, moreover, be explained by the equally invariant structure of the human brain. 36

Hadot does not mention Jung but traces the attitude of the “Yes to life” back through Nietzsche to Goethe, and thence back to the Stoics. Cf. Hadot 2023, 25: “At each moment, at each instant, one must say yes to the universe, that is, to the will of universal Reason.”

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Cosmic consciousness and the methods used to achieve and maintain it may activate the ventral attention network which, as Austin repeatedly emphasizes, may enable us to see the “Big Picture” (Austin 2014, 78, 143–46, 194), rather than focusing on our own perceived individual, short-term interests. It is no accident if, in this context, both Austin and Hadot independently reproduce the same quote from Albert Einstein: A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness … . This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security. (Austin 2014, 143; Hadot 2011, 169)37 Both the similarities and the differences between the approaches of Hadot and of Austin are illustrated by their comments on these quotations from Einstein. For Hadot, Einstein’s words allow us to see “the intimate connection between, on the one hand, the passage from a partial vision to a universal vision, and, on the other hand, an awareness of the duty to put oneself in the service of the human community” (Hadot 2011, 169). Austin, for his part (Austin 2014, 234–35 n.2), cites scientific studies on Einstein’s brain, which “suggest that Einstein’s extraordinary cognitive skills could have represented contributions merging from both sides of his brain, especially posteriorly.” Taken separately, Austin’s approach may seem to be excessively reductionist, while Hadot’s may seem too speculative. Taken together, I suggest the two approaches can complement and reinforce one another, opening up the prospect of an exciting research program in which Hadot’s views on PWL in general, and spiritual exercises in particular, might be investigated from the viewpoint of the neurophysiological explanation of their efficacy.

37

The first part of this quotation comes from a letter from Einstein to Robert Marcus of February 12, 1950 (cf. Austin 2014, 234 n.1). The letter is accessible at http://www.lettersofnote .com/search?q=+einstein. The second part is attributed to Einstein by W. Sullivan in the New York Times, March 29, 1972, cf. Hadot 2011, 205 n.4.



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CHAPTER 7

Ancient Stoicism: Between Spiritual Exercises and Cognitive Therapy Konrad Banicki Any serious attempt at a revival—or even more modestly, at simply making proper sense—of ancient philosophical resources must give due attention to what Alasdair MacIntyre (2007, 1) calls a “disquieting suggestion.” Drawing inspiration from a postapocalyptic novel by Walter M. Miller (1959), MacIntyre describes an “imaginary possible world” in which natural sciences such as physics, chemistry, and biology “suffer the effects of a catastrophe … laboratories are burnt down, physicists are lynched, books and instruments are destroyed” (MacIntyre 2007, 1–2). What is more, scientific education is abolished, and the remaining scientists are imprisoned and executed. The most interesting development in this imaginary scenario, both for MacIntyre and for the present purposes, is the gallant endeavor made by some “enlightened people [who] seek to revive” (MacIntyre 2007, 1) the once highly developed body of scientific knowledge. Such an ambitious project, however, is not only very difficult but seems doomed to failure. This is because the noble spirits in question have largely forgotten what science was: “all they possess are fragments … experiments detached from any knowledge of the theoretical context which gave them significance; parts of theories unrelated either to the other bits … or to experiment; instruments whose use has been forgotten; half-chapters from books, single pages from articles, not always fully legible because torn and charred” (MacIntyre, 2007, 1). MacIntyre devotes so much attention to this disconcerting image because he wishes to argue that it depicts our own condition: “in the actual world which we inhabit the language of morality is in the same state of grave disorder as the language of natural science in the imaginary world” (MacIntyre 2007, 2). This is especially the case when it comes to ancient moral philosophy. Even if we possess a relatively rich repository of writings, including Plato’s dialogues and Aristotle’s treatises, what remains of other authors like Chrysippus is much closer to “half-chapters from books” or even “single pages from articles” (MacIntyre 2007, 1). Even more crucially, not only do we lack the necessary perspective from which to properly understand what has survived, but we are doomed to interpret it from within conceptual and theoretical frameworks © Konrad Banicki, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004693524_009

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that would have been alien to the Greeks and Romans, such as those characteristic of the academic discipline we call “philosophy.” The present chapter can be understood as a variation on the theme of MacIntyre’s “disquieting suggestion,” with a special focus on its consequences for the evaluation of Pierre Hadot’s idea of spiritual exercises.1 More specifically, I will concentrate on one particular current of ancient philosophy, Stoicism, and the question of the most promising way to approach the latter from the one and only perspective available to us, i.e. that of contemporary philosophy, science, and culture. Our central question will thus be: How can we understand ancient Stoicism? Stoicism, as a philosophical phenomenon proper to antiquity, will be treated as an explanandum, an object to be explained or understood. What we are looking for is an explanans, a philosophical perspective we can employ to explain (or understand) this explanandum. One advantage of framing the question this way is that it makes certain crucial features of the project more vivid. First, such an approach would seem to safeguard against the danger of ignotum per ignotius, an error which is much more likely when one attempts to decipher unknown ancient concepts and theses by applying other notions and principles of which one has no understanding (or even worse, only an illusory understanding). Such a danger would seem to be especially acute when one engages in highly hermetic readings of ancient philosophy with scarce (or no) external references. Importantly, attempting to find a contemporary explanans for an ancient explanandum does not entail the abandonment of truth-related notions such as historical accuracy and faithfulness to the sources. Quite the opposite. As in science, not all suggested explanations will turn out to have explanatory value, i.e. to be faithful to the causal structure of reality. Or, as when one translates a phrase from one language into another, there are a limited number of phrases in the latter that can accurately serve as translations of a given phrase in the former.2 A further important point concerns the relative character of this explanatory effort. The project in question is founded on the assumption that one and the same explanans can be understandable and hence useful to one person but incomprehensible and thus completely useless to another. Defining aspirin as acetylsalicylic acid, for instance, would be useful for a chemist but may not 1 For an analogous attempt directed at eudaimonistic positive psychology, see Banicki (2014a). 2 That the choice of an explanans from the repository of our currently available concepts is not arbitrary is only the most basic or “limiting” postulate of the approach in question. What the criteria for the “appropriateness” of the explanans would look like still remains open to discussion, and a quite vast landscape of hermeneutic ideas can be applied to what follows.

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be that helpful to a patient who lacks the relevant background in the natural sciences. By the same token, the very idea of a privileged explanation—“the one to rule them all”—appears questionable insofar as it presumes universal access to or acquaintance with a particular set of explanatory concepts. A more modest expectation would suppose that some explanations will fit certain target groups (e.g. philological explanations will be appropriate for scholars with expertise in ancient languages), while others will be optimal in different contexts (e.g. explanations offered in religious or spiritual terms will be appropriate for those investigating the history of monasticism). To summarize, the aim of the present chapter is to contribute to the search for an explanans that can help modern-day readers to understand what the Stoics—the explanandum in question—were after. (1) First, I will briefly introduce and critically examine Pierre Hadot’s well-established reading of Stoicism in terms of spiritual exercises. (2) I will then consider alternative accounts offered by recent writers such as Donald Robertson and Jules Evans, in which the concept of Stoicism as a kind of cognitive therapy emerges as a possible alternative to Hadot’s approach, or at least as a mirror in which the latter’s limitations are made more vivid. (3) Finally, I will attempt to find common conceptual ground on which these two proposals can be coherently and reliably depicted and compared with each other. As I will argue, potential ground of this sort is provided by Martha Nussbaum’s model of therapeutic argument and my own conceptual approach to philosophy as therapy. 7.1

Pierre Hadot: Stoicism as Spiritual Exercises

The first step is to investigate what is now a classic reading of Stoicism by Pierre Hadot (1995). This reading is conceptually founded on a conception of ancient philosophy as constituted by spiritual exercises. Even if this interpretation is itself positive and based on a substantial account of these exercises, it has a non-trivially negative character as an alternative to the mainstream or “default” approach that seeks to reduce ancient philosophy, or indeed all of philosophy, to discourse or logos: at base, a “repository” of theses, arguments and theoretical models.3 Hadot’s framework is intended to be applicable to the whole of antiquity (Hadot 2002) and beyond (see Domański 1996). At the same time, it is the philosophical project initiated by Zeno of Citium that seems to provide especially 3 It is this kind of approach that seems to be lurking behind Zeyl’s (2003) worries concerning Hadot’s reading of Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum.

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promising ground for exploring the hermeneutic potential of the framework in question. This can in part be explained by exploring the concept of askēsis and what John Sellars (2009) calls the technical conception of philosophy: the idea that philosophy is a kind of tekhnē (translated variously as art, craft, expertise or skill). This conception is far from obvious if we approach philosophy, as we usually do, as a scholarly activity or academic discipline: as constituted by theses, ideas, arguments and other conceptual “content” of this kind. Claiming that philosophy is a tekhnē, as Sellars explains, amounts to saying that it is “an activity guided by knowledge (epistēmē) of its subject matter … something that can be taught and learned, that an expert will be able to give an explanation or rational account (logos) of what he is doing, and that proficiency will require a certain amount of training and practice (askēsis)” (Sellars 2009, 38–39). While these references to epistēmē and logos belong to an easily recognizable (and more or less ongoing) tradition in Western philosophy, Sellars’s employment of the term askēsis is non-trivial and may be disconcerting to the contemporary reader, given its association with the idea of self-inflicted pain or the renunciation of the body and worldly matters. Even if one explains that askēsis in this context is to be understood very broadly as an exercise or practice of whatever kind, the idea of philosophy’s requiring “training or practice” nonetheless remains unclear. To clarify the matter, both tekhnē and askēsis must be further specified. As there are a variety of tekhnai, the kind of tekhnē that constitutes philosophy must be distinguished from other kinds, and this can be done by saying that philosophy is an art concerned with one’s life (tekhnē peri ton bion), or, as Foucault (1988) would have it, a reservoir of technologies of the self (techniques de soi). Askēsis, in this context, should be characterized as a particular kind of “training or practice,” and Hadot uses the adjective “spiritual” to do so. His decision to translate askēsis as “spiritual exercise” and, in effect, to place it on a par with such concepts as Ignatius of Loyola’s exercitia spiritualia is a crucial step in his metaphilosophical project and for this reason alone deserves special attention. Crucially, Hadot himself was fully aware of the non-trivial and non-self-­ evident character of his decision. Nevertheless, he insisted that reference to spiritual exercises is nothing less than “necessary” and that “none of the other adjectives we could use … covers all the aspects of the reality we want to describe” (Hadot 1995, 81–82).4 In other words, and to use the parlance proper

4 For an analysis of the respective passage in the context of a direct comparison of Hadot, Foucault, and Nussbaum, see Banicki (2015).

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to this chapter, the employment of spirituality is necessary if we are to do full justice to the explanandum at issue. The alternatives mentioned by Hadot include such adjectives as “psychic,” “moral,” “ethical,” “intellectual,” “of thought,” and “of the soul,” and his exploration of why they are not applicable is very revealing. As for the term “psychic,” Hadot was not explicit about why he found it inappropriate. We can imagine that this may be due to its association with unrelated matters including mediumship and so-called psychic phenomena like clairvoyance and telepathy. His reasons for rejecting “moral” and “ethical” are less obvious insofar as these terms specify the domain we most naturally and accurately identify with the philosophical projects embarked on by the Stoics, Epicureans, and Pyrrhonians. “Ethical exercises,” as Hadot has it, would indeed be “a rather tempting expression” due to its emphasis on “the conduct of life” and “the therapeutics of the passions.”5 Still, however, if made central, it would yield “too limited a view of things.” The same applies to “thought exercises” and “intellectual exercises,” the reasons for which will be explored below, when we consider the cognitive reading of Stoicism. What Hadot is after is the total or holistic character of the philosophical project, the fact that it is “the individual’s entire psychism” that is targeted by askēsis: a thorough “transformation of our vision of the world, and … a metamorphosis of our personality” (Hadot 1995, 82). Philosophical engagement aims at nothing less than conversion, and only the word “spiritual” can make this aspect sufficiently vivid. It is only the term “spiritual exercises” that does full justice to “the true dimensions of these exercises” and to the fact that through them “the individual raises himself up to the life of the objective Spirit” and “re-places himself up to the life of the Whole.”6 7.2

Ancient Philosophy and the Cognitive Account of the Emotions

The passage commented on above is essential not only for conveying the character of Hadot’s framework but also for making sense of the relationship between the latter and the approaches discussed in the following section, which conceive of Stoicism as a kind of cognitive psychotherapy.

5 For the latter, see especially Nussbaum (1996). 6 It is in the context of clearly neo-Platonic remarks of this kind that certain accusations brought against Hadot, such as that of reading “the mysticism of Plotinus back” (Zeyl 2003) into earlier proposals, can be understood.

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In order to fully appreciate the conceptual background—or, as it were, the condition of the possibility—of such ideas, we must emphasize the broadly cognitive viewpoint that was shared by all ancient philosophers. As Martha Nussbaum observes, this is most directly reflected in the common conception of the emotions that was “held by any major ancient Greek thinker” (Nussbaum 1996, 80). The idea in question can be understood as a rejection of the belief that emotions are essentially nothing more than appetites such as hunger or thirst, nothing more than “blind surges of affect” (Nussbaum 1996, 369). Hunger and thirst are in a sense self-contained. They can be more or less accurately and exhaustively characterized at the level of the body to which they “belong” (and their physiological description, for instance, is readily available). Emotions, by contrast, cannot be reduced to, say, particular patterns of brain activation. What is lacking is their “aboutness” or, as Brentano (2012) would have it, intentionality. Emotions can thus be understood as “forms of intentional awareness … directed at or about an object” (Nussbaum 1996, 80). As such they are identifiable, in most natural contexts at least, via questions concerning their intentional content—“What are you afraid of?,” “Why are you sad?,” “What is making you so happy?”—rather than inquiries about their internal characteristics (when one is reading a book, similarly, the most natural question is “What is it about?” rather than “What kind of font is being used?”). Intentionality of the kind described above is closely connected to a kind of perspectivism. An intentional object is not merely “seen” but seen from a particular point of view that is constitutive of the emotion in question and, more generally, of the emotional mindset of the person concerned. That an intentional object always “figures as it is seen from the creature’s point of view” (Nussbaum 1996, 80, my emphasis) becomes most clear when one recalls how a single external reality, such as a professional promotion, can be the object of different, even opposite, emotions (such as hope, anxiety, or excitement). The fact that even the most accurate and detailed description of one’s environment is insufficient to capture one’s emotional take on the latter can be reformulated as the thesis that emotions are “ways of interpreting the world.” As such, they are always “to some degree cognitive and based upon belief” (Nussbaum 1996, 369). This latter feature constitutes what is called descriptive rationality, i.e. the quality that makes a particular content susceptible to description and evaluation in terms of logos or rationality-related normative properties such as coherence, accuracy, and precision. The beliefs that lie behind our emotions can thus be approached with the question “Are they true/ rational or false/irrational?” in mind (and, depending on the answer, divided into normatively rational and normatively irrational ones).

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It is descriptive rationality that constitutes the very condition of the possibility not only of strictly therapeutic but also meaningfully cognitive accounts of the emotions. Cognitive rationality, which is crucial in the present context, makes emotions a potential “target of philosophical argument” (Nussbaum 1996, 40). The argumentative mode is not just one among many methods for modifying one’s emotions, but a primary method. Since “false belief is the root of the illness,” as Nussbaum has it, “the curative art must be an art that is equipped to challenge and conquer false belief. It must … be an art of reasoning” (Nussbaum 1996, 114). One of the most direct consequences of the abovegiven thesis is that any therapeutic approach to the emotions, if it aspires to more than symptomatic treatment, must involve a cognitive component. Indeed, nothing less than a cognitive account of the emotions or an explicit and systematic model of their cognitive character is required if the pathē are to be consistently approached as cognitive phenomena and modified accordingly. This was clearly recognized by the ancients, and it is no accident that the so-called therapeutic schools, the Pyrrhonians being an important but understandable exception, proposed highly sophisticated cognitive models of the emotions (see Annas 1992). The most vivid example is clearly the model developed by the Stoics, especially, it would seem, the account offered by Chrysippus, the thinker without whom, at least at the theoretical level, “there would have been no Stoa” (Diog. Laert. 7.183). The model of the emotions proposed by Chrysippus can be briefly introduced via its definition of emotion, structured along the classical lines of genus proximum and differentia specifica. Emotions, to begin with, are judgments or beliefs (kriseis). In case of Chrysippus, this was to be understood as a strict identity claim rather than a weaker kind of relationship, such as an external/causal connection between two independent entities or the idea of a belief’s being merely a part (even a constitutive part) of the emotions. By saying that emotions are judgments, the Stoics proposed “the most notorious and paradoxical theses in the history of philosophy” (Nussbaum 1996, 366). Whereas it is clear that Chrysippus identified emotions with beliefs, it is much more difficult to specify the particular kind of judgment that constitutes the pathē. In short, it is the differentia specifica of the sought-after definition that remains unclear. One proposal in this direction has been made by Richard Sorabji (2000, 29), who argues that an individual emotion actually consists of two distinctive judgments. The first is a judgment of value or a belief that “there is good or bad (benefit or harm) at hand.” The phrase “at hand” means that the thing that is perceived as good or bad is either present at the very moment of an emotion’s arousal or will be present in the future. The second krisis, in turn,

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is a judgment of appropriateness (of reaction) or a belief that “it is appropriate to react.” A similar analysis has been provided by Julia Annas (1992, 110–11), who claims that “the belief part of an emotion contains one part assenting to something being a good (or bad) thing and another to something like ‘I ought to rejoice (or cry) over it.’” The judgment of value and the judgment of appropriateness of reaction, importantly, are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for an emotion. What is valuable about the analysis of pathē in terms of two (rather than one) beliefs is that it conspicuously identifies two main strategies for modifying them. Emotions can be changed—or even eradicated, as the Stoics would have it—by (1) removing one’s belief that something of value (good or bad) is at stake and/or by (2) modifying the judgment that it is appropriate to react. Both approaches presume the very possibility of the respective beliefs’ modification/removal, which, in the present context at least, amounts to the idea that the emotions are dependent on the agent. This latter idea needs to be justified, and the Stoics do provide such a justification when they draw a distinction between impressions (phantasiai) and judgments/beliefs (kriseis). Impressions as such are passive, i.e. they are more or less automatic reflections of external stimuli (as well as those parts of our mental functioning that we cannot control). In propositional terms, they reflect “the way things look to the agent” (Inwood and Donini 1999, 700–701) or ideas like “It seems that something bad is going to happen” or “This person appears to be offending me.” Such uncontrollable impressions are not sufficient for the arising of an emotion, however, but merely necessary. In order to give rise to pathē, something more is required: an assent (sunkatatheseis) given by the agent, or, more specifically, by his or her ruling part (hēgemonikon). Only with assent does a given impression become a belief, and thus possibly (part of) an emotion.7 The importance of the notion of sunkatatheseis for Stoic theory and for the very idea of philosophical therapeia cannot be overstated. Not only is the former the locus of what later eras would call free will or agency, but it is the very point at which pathē are not only constituted but also, and by the same token, eradicated. In short, as a necessary condition of any belief, assent is a necessary condition for having an emotion.

7 For a detailed analysis of impression development and the process of its becoming a judgment, see Sellars (2009).

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Stoicism as Cognitive Therapy

The fact that emotions are not only cognitive in nature but also “disorders which can be cured” (Annas 1992, 107) is the cornerstone on which a therapeutic reading of Stoicism can be built. The same applies to recent attempts to conceive of Stoicism in terms proper to contemporary cognitive psychotherapy. A recent and widely received (even among non-philosophers)8 attempt along these lines has been made by Donald Robertson (2010) in his book Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT): Stoic Philosophy as Rational and Cognitive Psychotherapy. Another example (one that has likewise been successful in spreading its message to the general public)9 is Jules Evans’s (2012) Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations (in which Stoicism, even if crucial to Evans, is but one example of the philosophical current he finds useful “for life and other dangerous situations”).What is common to both of these authors is that they draw numerous parallels between Stoicism and both the rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT) developed by Albert Ellis (e.g. Ellis and MacLaren, 1998) and cognitive therapy (CT), as conceived by Aaron T. Beck (1975; cf. Judith Beck 2020). Although REBT and CT differ in some important respects, including philosophically relevant ones (e.g. Padesky and Beck, 2003), they are often applied in tandem and share the generally cognitive understanding of the emotions that lies at the heart of Stoicism. For present purposes, it is a common denominator of all cognitive, or cognitive-­behavioral, approaches that matter and it has been vividly identified by Dozois, Dobson, and Rnic (2019, 4).10 Among the fundamental propositions shared by all therapeutic models in question, the authors identify the thesis that cognitive activity (1) affects behavior, (2) may be monitored, and (3) when altered can bring about behavioral change. That being said, it is clearly emotional issues such as anxiety and depression, rather than behavior as such, that lead most people to psychotherapy and to cognitive therapy. As Judith Beck (2020, 4) observes, in “a nutshell, the cognitive model proposes that dysfunctional thinking (which influences the client’s mood and behavior) is common to all psychological disturbances”; when “people learn to evaluate their thinking in a more realistic and adaptive way, they experience a decrease in negative emotion and maladaptive behavior.” What matters most in this context is the idea of changing negative emotions via the 8 9 10

See Robertson’s graphic novel (Robertson 2022). See www.philosophyforlife.org. It is to an earlier version of the same chapter that Robertson (2010, 4) refers when he attempts to characterize “the ‘broad church’ of CBT.”

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modification of how people think. And despite their conceptual differences, the analyses offered by CT practitioners and researchers tend to focus on (1) the specification of the various levels at which such a modification can be instantiated,11 (2) the identification of the cognitive content and the structure of individual disorders, i.e. the development of these disorders’ cognitive models (for a classical exposition of the so-called “cognitive triad” characteristic of depression—i.e. a set of negative beliefs about the self, the world, and the future— see Beck, Rush, Shaw, and Emery 1979), and (3) technical and practical issues concerning how the sought-after change can be brought about (e.g. Beck 2020). Much less attention is usually paid to the conceptual and logical structure of the very idea that by changing how people think we can change how they feel. If anything, the ideas put forward are largely unsophisticated and conceptually crude (for exemplary critical approaches, see Gipps 2013; Ratnayake 2022); often, the entire issue is redirected towards the thesis that a causal connection is in place, which, in turn, is to be empirically verified within the paradigm of evidence-based practice (see Woolfolk 2015, Chapters 3 and 4). This lack of conceptual refinement is in direct opposition to Nussbaum’s (1996) careful analysis of the ways in which the ancients drew the connection between cognitive content or belief and the emotions. In The Therapy of Desire in particular, she identifies four main accounts of the relationship in question, including the idea that belief is (1) necessary for emotion (Plato and Epicurus), (2) a necessary constituent of emotion (Aristotle), (3) sufficient for emotion (Aristotle in the Rhetoric) and, finally, (4) the “notorious and paradoxical” thesis that emotion is a belief (Chrysippus). We can apply the very same classification to cognitive-behavioral approaches. Even if such an attempt is made, however, the lack of conceptual precision proper to most strictly clinical presentations does not allow for the easy identification of contemporary cognitive accounts with any one of Nussbaum’s positions. An apparently plausible idea would be to start from the oft repeated claim that changing one’s beliefs is a causally effective means of modifying affective phenomena: “the key issue,” as Robertson has it, “is that changes in cognition appear to reliably result in … emotions changing” (Robertson 2010, 99). This claim, which is supported by cognitive models of particular disorders (where the latter are conceptualized via enumeration of the beliefs that are specific to them), may suggest that contemporary cognitive accounts accept the first or the second of Nussbaum’s claims. Cognitive therapists, in short, seem to share the view that (1) no emotion would exist in 11

On Judith Beck’s approach to conceptualization this would include automatic thoughts, intermediate beliefs, and core beliefs; cf. Hackmann (1997) and Persons (1989).

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the absence of a belief and (2) particular emotions (which in the majority of cases means particular affective disorders) can be specified by indicating their constitutive cognitive content. With that said, it is unclear how proponents of cognitive-behavioral approaches would respond to the idea that (3) cognition is sufficient for emotion. The very strongest position, which (4) identifies emotion with belief, seems to lie beyond what is taken into account by cognitive therapists (beliefs and emotions, after all, are recognized and explored separately) and, for that matter, by the majority of contemporary psychologists and affective scientists.12 The parallels between Stoicism and cognitive therapy are usually drawn either at the most general level of the cognitive approach to the emotions or at the level of a relatively fine-grained comparison of particular therapeutic methods.13 In the present context, however, it is the close connection between the Stoic account of impression-creation and the models proposed by Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis that may be most illuminating. Clear evidence of how the Stoics understood the process of impression-creation can be found in the writings of Epictetus. What is crucial about his account, as reconstructed by Sellars (2009), is that impressions (phantasia) presented to the conscious and ruling part of the soul (hēgemonikon) are constituted not only by a passive perception of the external object’s factual reality but also by a judgment (dogma), especially an evaluative one, concerning it. In other words, what is to be given or denied assent (sunkatathesis) is already enriched, almost involuntarily and unconsciously, by the presuppositions of the individual concerned. It is this “distinction between what is given … and what is added” (Sellars 2009, 142), and whether the individual concerned is aware of it, that is of paramount importance. The “foolish individual” will remain unaware of the added element and “will assume that his impressions are an accurate reflection of external objects” (Sellars 2009, 157). The sage, on the other hand, “will subject his impressions to strict examination before giving or denying assent” (Sellars 2009, 157) and will follow Epictetus’ (Enchiridion 1.5) advice: “Work, therefore to be able to say to every harsh appearance, ‘You are but an appearance, and not absolutely the thing you appear to be.’ And then examine it by those rules which you have.”14 12 13 14

For an explicit discussion of the question “What are the minimal cognitive prerequisites for emotion?” and the variety of positions adopted, see Ekman and Davidson (1994, Chapter/Question 5). For a detailed reading of Stoic techniques along the lines of contemporary cognitive models, see “The Stoic Armamentarium” in Robertson (2010). For an analysis of the metaphors of the night watchman and the money charger verifying the authenticity of currency as depicting this kind of meta-cognitive stance, see Foucault (1988).

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It is this kind of examination, as well as the vigilance and mental tension (tonus) it embodies, that can be considered the deepest and most general content of Stoic therapeia, or of what cognitive therapists often (very loosely) call “Socratic questioning.” And indeed, both the psychological account at issue and its practical consequences are easily susceptible to redescription in terms proper to cognitive therapy. Even if the field of cognitive therapy has already developed several alternative models for thinking about the patient, what is common to all such frameworks is captured by Persons’s idea of conceptualizing “psychological problems as occurring at two levels: the overt difficulties and the underlying psychological mechanisms” (Persons 1989, 1). The overt difficulties include “depressed mood, panic attacks, procrastination, difficulty getting along with others, suicidal thoughts, shoplifting, or inability to drive on freeways and bridges” and can be organized along the lines of cognitions, behaviors, and moods. Both in the present context and for cognitive therapy in general, it is the first component (cognitions) that is of central significance. As far as the level of overt difficulties is concerned, it can be identified with Judith Beck’s (2020) automatic thoughts or with the first aspect of meaning distinguished by Hackmann, including “the conscious thoughts, visual images and images in other sensory modalities which an individual has at a particular moment” (Hackmann 1997, 126). It is this dimension that will always be most significant and most strongly experienced. Irrespective of whether one struggles with painful emotions, troublesome bodily sensations or unhelpful behaviors, “the cardinal question of cognitive therapy” will always be “What was just going through my mind?” (Beck 2020, 15). Beck’s automatic thoughts and Hackmann’s first aspect of meaning are those dimensions of overt difficulty that can easily be translated to Epictetus’ impressions presented to the hēgemonikon, or things as they appear to be. What is more, the idea of the judgment (dogma) that enriches the factual content provided by the senses can be recognized in the cognitive models investigated above. It is the underlying psychological mechanisms, or “the psychological deficits that underlie and cause the overt difficulties” (Persons 1989, 1, my emphasis), to which one must refer in order to find it. What underlies and causes overt difficulties is variously conceptualized in terms of ideas such as intermediate beliefs and, especially, Judith Beck’s (2020) “core beliefs” or so-called “schemas” (e.g. Young 1999). More generally, it can be identified with the second aspect of meaning distinguished by Hackmann, or with “a set of underlying beliefs and assumptions about the self, other people and the world, which vary from individual to individual, but which are relatively stable in each person” (Hackmann 1997, 126).

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The conclusion to be drawn from the above remarks is both relatively clear and difficult to overestimate. In particular, the crucial distinction between the passive and the objective content of one’s perception of external reality and the propositional (especially the evaluative) element added to it by the agent is explicitly present both in ancient Stoicism and in modern forms of cognitive therapy. It is no accident that Epictetus’ dictum that “[m]en are not moved by things but by the views they take of them” is so often quoted in cognitive therapy manuals (e.g. Beck 1975, 47). The insight that it is “not a situation in and of itself that determines what people feel and do but rather how individuals construe a situation” (Beck 2020, 28) is one of the first lessons in the patient’s “psycho-education.” Maxims such as “Thoughts are not facts” and “Don’t believe everything you think” likewise abound.15 Also worth emphasizing—and a notion that may not be self-evident once the question concerning automatic thoughts (or Epictetus’ impressions) has been identified as “cardinal” to cognitive therapy—is the idea that “both the surface “weeds” … and the deeper “roots” … of the meanings we give to events” (Hackmann 1997, 126) need to be therapeutically addressed. “Surface weeds” such as negative automatic thoughts clearly belong to first-line treatment and, even if they are not immediately explored, are always lurking “just around the corner” (otherwise, the entire therapeutic effort would be irrelevant). At the same time, however, “the deeper roots” will be approached sooner or later in the form of core beliefs or cognitive schemata that refer to oneself, other people, and the world. If not, any amount of engagement with automatic thoughts will remain superficial and, even if temporarily soothing, ultimately ineffective. In other words, ensuring an enduring outcome and relapse prevention must always be kept in mind. 7.4

Towards Conclusions

The analyses conducted above are arguably sufficient to show that Robertson (2010, xxvi) was indeed right when he introduced the reader to his volume with the promise that philosophers and psychotherapists “have a great deal to talk about.” At the same time, he was equally right to note, in the very same sentence, that “better common ground is required on which the two traditions can meet each other and exchange ideas.” This latter insight can hardly be overstated. As in any cross-cultural or interdisciplinary study, it is all too easy 15

Cf. Robertson (2005) on “pithy slogans.”

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to identify superficial similarities. It is much more difficult to achieve a level of conceptual and logical complexity at which very subtle differences (or even incommensurabilities) are not only recognized but also specified in an unbiased way. Comparing the conception of Stoicism as a set of spiritual exercises with the idea of reading it as a form of cognitive therapy would seem to be a striking example of this kind of challenge. Hadot’s attempt to interpret Stoicism as consisting of spiritual exercises is immensely rich in philosophical and meta-philosophical terms. What is more, it is heuristically powerful (with the variety of the contributions to the present volume being a prime example of this). A crucial issue that necessarily arises, however, concerns the limits of Hadot’s model. If the central notion of the entire framework is that of a spiritual exercise, how useful can it be for those who lack a clear understanding of the word “spiritual” or find the notion troubling? After all, Hadot himself was fully aware that the very concept he employed was “a bit disconcerting for the contemporary reader” and that “it is no longer quite fashionable these days to use the word ‘spiritual.’” Despite this insight, however, he still insisted that it “is nevertheless necessary to use this term” (Hadot 1995, 81). With this particular concern in mind, it becomes clear that both religion and spirituality can be, and regularly are, investigated both by agnostics and by atheists. Such a study, however, would seem to require a conceptual reformulation of its very subject matter—usually involving a naturalization of the latter of the kind proper to religious studies (e.g. Wulff 1991). It is at least far from clear whether Hadot, a former priest and lifelong scholar of neo-Platonism, would be ready to reframe the notion of spiritual exercises along such lines (and whether the outcome model could still be identified with the original proposal). The problem at hand seems to be even more acute, however. Not only is “spiritual” a term of which many lack a real understanding, but it is not a universally recognized, central philosophical notion, at least as far as the discipline is currently conceived. It is precisely here that both Hadot’s greatest strength and the most troublesome feature of his approach lie. That is, it is precisely his call to rethink philosophy along the lines of exercitia spiritualia that is so insightful and revealing, especially, it would seem, from the perspective of the Anglophone tradition. On the other hand, this very same message may be so revolutionary that it simply remains ignored or even explicitly rejected as referring to that part of what was once called “philosophy” that we no longer consider essential. Indeed, it would seem that this is precisely the fate Hadot has faced in contemporary academia.16 16

For a somewhat provocative countermeasure, see Hadot (2005).

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The somewhat anachronistic “flavor” of Hadot’s spiritual exercises can easily be contrasted with the strikingly contemporary character of the idea that Stoicism is a kind of cognitive therapy. What is more, the latter formula’s deep embeddedness in recent cognitive models has a direct bearing on its usefulness and its descriptive and explanatory power. Robertson’s (2010) book in particular bears witness to how useful Beck’s and Ellis’s very specific techniques can be in elucidating the ancient approaches of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. At many points, one has the impression that not much philosophy is actually needed to make sense of what the (mostly Roman) Stoics discussed by this author were after. When these philosophers are approached, more specifically, as developing a fundamentally therapeutic project and then explained as providing a particular, cognitive kind of therapy, not much, it would seem, remains to be explored. All of the (descriptive, explanatory or pragmatic) questions that must be answered if we are to make sense of therapy are sufficiently covered by what Beck, Ellis and the like provide. Other types of questions, such as those that are conceptual or normative in nature, do not usually arise, unless one abandons the therapeutic perspective altogether. The apparent redundancy of philosophy, however, can obscure those dimensions that make ancient Stoicism substantially stronger than cognitive therapy. And indeed, such issues as the identification of emotion with judgment or belief, the ideal of the complete eradication of the emotions (apatheia) (with Stoicism’s radical axiology lurking just below the surface), and the metaphysical picture that provides a framework for the entire project are rarely touched on by those contemporary Stoics who tend to redescribe the philosophy of Zeno in cognitive parlance. It is perhaps no accident that it is late Roman Stoics like Seneca and Epictetus, rather than theoretically and philosophically more sophisticated earlier authors like Chrysippus (not to mention Panaetius and Posidonius), who are usually referred to. Similar reasons may lie behind the fact that the very rich secondary academic literature, including works by Annas (1992), Nussbaum (1996), and Sorabji (2000), is also typically omitted. Ancient sources appear to be read directly “as they are” or even immediately thrown into an interpretive framework proper to contemporary cognitive models. Whether this amounts to forcing them into the Procrustean bed of the presumed approach remains an open question. What is crucial for the present argument is that it is not only the fact of our being inhabitants of the contemporary world that gives rise to such a danger. Rather, it is the very particular framework we have adopted—or the choice of modern cognitive therapy as an explanans—that has conceptual momentum that seems to drive us towards neglecting some of the most crucial facets of ancient Stoicism.

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Interestingly, Pierre Hadot seems to have been aware of this problem when exploring alternatives to the term “spiritual exercise.”17 Among the variety of options available were “exercises of thought” and “intellectual exercises.” Hadot was ready to explicitly recognize their merits when he admitted that “in these exercises, it is thought which, as it were, takes itself as its own subject matter, and seeks to modify itself” and that “such intellectual factors as definition, division, ratiocination, reading, investigation, and rhetorical amplification play a large role in them” (Hadot 1995, 81–82). Yet he simultaneously deemed both terms insufficient to capture the importance of “imagination and sensibility” or, more generally, to do justice to “all the aspects of the reality we want to describe” (Hadot 1995, 81–82). Both the idea of reading Stoicism as consisting of spiritual exercises and the attempt to reinterpret the former as a kind of cognitive therapy, as indicated above, come with non-trivial difficulties, to say the least. To further adjudicate between them, however, a more solid or formally stable background may be needed, in the form of a framework that is common to both approaches and is thus unbiased towards (or against) either of them. Even though the development of such a framework lies beyond the scope of the present chapter, two modest suggestions can arguably be made. The first potentially helpful model can be taken from Nussbaum’s (1996) idea of a therapeutic argument or, to be more specific, a therapeutic ethical argument. What is crucial for Nussbaum’s account is that she conceives of arguments very broadly, in a way that would allow for anything belonging to the discursive content of Hadot’s spiritual exercises18 and at least most of what is said during a session of classical, so-called “second-wave” (see Hayes 2004) cognitive therapy. The framework, in effect, is broad enough to cover both Hadot and authors like Robertson and Evans. In addition, and what is also relevant at least as far as Hadot is concerned, Nussbaum explicitly expresses her readiness to investigate the form of philosophical argument as something that cannot be neglected and isolated from philosophical content constituted by particular theses (just as we should not neglect the form in literature or rhetoric).19 When discussing therapeutic arguments, Nussbaum introduces two kinds of characteristics: essential ones that “can be expected to be present, in some 17 18 19

See above; his comments are obviously not directed at recent attempts to read Stoicism as cognitive therapy. For a more detailed comparison of Hadot and Nussbaum, see Banicki (2015). E.g. “understanding a therapeutic argument requires study of its rhetorical and literary form, the devices it uses to get in touch with the desires of the pupil or reader” (Nussbaum 1996, 43).

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form, in any ethical view that takes its lead from the medical analogy” and additional ones that are “more controversial” and only optionally present (Nussbaum 1996, 46). It is the former group that is applicable to Stoicism, both read along the lines of Hadot and conceived as cognitive therapy. Ethical therapeutic arguments in particular are always expected to exhibit the features of (1) being practically oriented or “directed at making the pupil better” and (2) value-relativeness, or responsiveness “to deep wishes or needs of the patient” (Nussbaum 1996, 46). How successful the arguments in question are “at making the pupil better” and addressing his/her wishes and needs becomes a natural criterion for their assessment. Moreover, therapeutic arguments (3) are “responsive to the particular case … to the pupil’s concrete situation and needs.” Importantly, all three characteristics can be employed to compare and contrast Hadot’s, Robertson’s, and Evans’s readings of Stoicism. Nussbaum’s framework is developed around the argumentative (even if broadly understood) features of the medical models. Another possibility is to approach them through their therapeutic dimension. This could be done by referring to the idea of philosophy as therapy, or, in particular, through the lens of what I have described as the therapeutic model of philosophy (Banicki 2014b). The latter model is built around a set of notions that are thought to be applicable to any phenomenon that can justifiably be called therapeutic, which includes but is not limited to therapeutic projects that are explicitly philosophical in character. The concepts in question are: (1) the disease to be treated and its symptoms; (2) the health ideal; (3) the process of treatment and its techniques; (4) therapeutic theory; (5) the physician; (6) the patient; and (7) the relation between the two (the physician-patient relationship). All of these notions can be employed both for the purposes of analyzing an individual therapeutic approach and for the sake of comparing two (or mo)e) such approaches. In the present context, the most straightforward idea would be to apply the concept of the treatment and its techniques and to contrast the spiritual exercises that Hadot identified in Stoicism with the cognitive techniques identified by contemporary authors in the very same (the very same?) philosophical movement. The accounts provided by Nussbaum and my own account are but two examples of a framework that can be applied to explore the questions that arise when the cognitive nature of the life transformation invited by Stoicism is emphasized and contrasted with the classical account provided by Pierre Hadot, with its central idea of (not necessarily cognitive) spiritual exercises. Not only might such an application be heuristically fruitful, but it would be conceptually coherent in a way that prevents any bias towards the models explored above, or at least any obvious or systematic bias. Further

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investigations along the lines suggested above may be precisely what is needed to “allow a commerce of ideas to flow between ancient and modern traditions” (Robertson 2010, xix). References Annas, Julia. 1992. Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind. Berkeley: University of California Press. Banicki, Konrad. 2014a. “Positive Psychology on Character Strengths and Virtues. A Disquieting Suggestion.” New Ideas in Psychology 33: 21–34. Banicki, Konrad. 2014b. “Philosophy as Therapy: Towards a Conceptual Model.” Philosophical Papers 43 (1): 7–31. Banicki, Konrad. 2015. “Therapeutic Arguments, Spiritual Exercises, or the Care of the Self. Martha Nussbaum, Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault on Ancient Philosophy.” Ethical Perspectives 22 (4): 601–34. Beck, Aaron Temkin. 1975. Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders. Madison, CT: International Universities Press. Beck, Aaron Temkin, John Rush, Brian Shaw, and Gary Emery. 1979. Cognitive Therapy of Depression. New York: Guilford Press. Beck, Judith. 2020. Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics and Beyond. New York: The Guilford Press. Brentano, Franz. 2012 [1874]. Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. London / New York: Routledge. Domański, Juliusz. 1996. La philosophie, théorie ou manière de vivre? Les controverses de l’Antiquité à la Renaissance. Luxembourg: Saint-Paul. Dozois, David J. A., Keith S. Dobson, and Katerina Rnic. 2019. “Historical and Philosophical Bases of the Cognitive-Behavioral Therapies.” In Handbook of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapies, edited by Keith S. Dobson and David J. A. Dozois, 3–31. New York: The Guilford Press. Ekman, Paul E., and Richard J. Davidson. 1994. The Nature of Emotion: Fundamental Questions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ellis, Albert, and Catherine MacLaren. 1998. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: A Therapist’s Guide. Oakland: Impact Publishers. Evans, Jules. 2013. Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations: Ancient Philosophy for Modern Problems. Novato, California: New World Library. Foucault, Michel. 1988. “Technologies of the Self.” In Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, edited by Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick H. Hutton, 16–49. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

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Gipps, Richard. 2013. “Cognitive Behavior Therapy: A Philosophical Appraisal.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry, edited by Kenneth W. M. Fulford, Martin Davies, Richard G. T. Gipps, George Graham, John Z. Sadler, Giovanni Stanghellini, and Tim Thornton, 1245–63. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hackmann, Ann. 1997. “The Transformation of Meaning in Cognitive Therapy.” In The Transformation of Meaning in Psychological Therapies: Integrating Theory and Practice, edited by Mick Power and Chris R. Brewin, 125–40. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Hadot, Pierre. 1995. Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Hadot, Pierre. 2002. What is Ancient Philosophy? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hadot, Pierre. 2005. “There are Nowadays Professors of Philosophy, but not Philosophers.” The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 19 (3): 229–37. Hayes, Steven C. 2004. “Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Relational Frame Theory, and the Third Wave of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies.” Behavior Therapy 35 (4): 639–65. Inwood, Brad and Pierluigi Donini. 1999. “Stoic Ethics.” In. The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, edited by Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfeld,and Malcolm Schofield, 675–738. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacIntyre, Alasdair. 2007 [1981]. After Virtue. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Miller Jr., Walter M. 1959. A Canticle for Leibowitz. New York: J. B. Lippincott & Co. Nussbaum, Martha. 1996. The Therapy of Desire. Theory and Praxis in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Padesky, Christine A. and Aaron T. Beck. 2003. “Science and Philosophy: Comparison of Cognitive Therapy and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.” Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy 17 (3): 211–24. Persons, Jacqueline B. 1989. Cognitive Therapy in Practice: A Case Formulation Approach. New York: W. W. Norton. Ratnayake, Sahanika. 2022. “It’s Been Utility All Along: An Alternate Understanding of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and the Depressive Realism Hypothesis.” Philosophy, Psychology, & Psychiatry 29 (2): 75–89. Robertson, Donald. 2005. “Stoicism—a Lurking Presence.” Counselling & Psychotherapy Journal 16: 35–40. Robertson, Donald. 2010. The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT): Stoic Philosophy as Rational and Cognitive Psychotherapy. London: Karnac Books. Robertson, Donald. 2022. Verissimus: The Stoic philosophy of Marcus Aurelius. St. Martin’s Press.

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Sellars, John. 2009. The Art of Living: The Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy. London: Bristol Classical Press. Sorabji, Richard. 2000. Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Woolfolk, Robert L. 2015. The Value of Psychotherapy: The Talking Cure in an Age of Clinical Science. New York: Guilford Publications. Wulff, David M. 1991. Psychology of Religion: Classic and Contemporary Views. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Young, Jeffrey E. 1999. Cognitive Therapy for Personality Disorders: A Schema-Focused Approach. Sarasota: Professional Resource Press / Professional Resource Exchange. Zeyl, Donald. 2003. “What is Ancient Philosophy?” Review of What is Ancient Philosophy?, by Pierre Hadot, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, June 9, 2003. http://ndpr .nd.edu/news/23663-what-is-ancient-philosophy.

CHAPTER 8

Towards a Comparative Archaeology of the Notion of “Spiritual”: Michel Foucault and “Ancient Philosophy” as “Spirituality” Pierre Vesperini Much too little is made of the fact that we count the words “soul” and “spirit” as part of our educated vocabulary. Compared with this, the fact that we do not believe that our soul eats and drinks is a trifling matter. An entire mythology is stored within our language. Wittgenstein, Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough

∵ This conference, dedicated to the interactions between Michel Foucault’s thought and the history of religions, gives me the opportunity to question the use that is made of the category of “spiritual” in the two fields of the history of ancient religions and the history of ancient philosophy.1 What modern scholarly thought calls the “spiritual” in fact defines a territory common to both disciplines. The use of the category of “spiritual” or “spirituality” in relation to ancient culture is problematic for at least two reasons: 1. its meaning in French (but this is also true for other languages) is notoriously vague and ambiguous; 2. this meaning, with all its vagueness and ambiguity, seems to me to derive from the scholarly culture of the nineteenth century, and to be consequently inadequate for describing ancient practices. 1 This text was originally published in French, with the title “Pour une archéologie comparatiste de la notion de ‘spirituel’. Michel Foucault et la ‘philosophie antique’ comme ‘spiritualité,’” in the volume Michel Foucault et les religions, dir. Jean-François Bert, Paris, Éditions Le Manuscrit, 2015, pp. 137–161. The translation of the text was funded by national funds through FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia under the project UIDB/00183/2020. © Pierre Vesperini, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004693524_010

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To demonstrate the latter point, we would only have to identify all the ancient categories that we translate as “spiritual”: they would immediately reveal their heterogeneity (for the Greek alone, see psukhikos, noētos, pneumatikos, logikos), and then interpret them not on the basis of our modern conceptions of the “spiritual,” which are themselves plural, but on the basis of ancient culture. The approach I propose is therefore both an anthropology of antiquity and an anthropology of modern scholarly representations. This anthropology can be defined as an archaeology, in the sense that Foucault understood the word. The notion of the “spiritual” is one of “those ready-made syntheses” that the first Foucault called to “question.” He added: “We must also question these divisions or groupings with which we have become so familiar” (Foucault 2002, 24). Now it seems to me that, in the academic discourse, the category of “spiritual” is one of those “great historical individualities” which, in relation to others, are at the root of a series of “distinctions” that organise a certain scholarly discourse, of which I propose here an empirical sketch, based on the reading of recent works on the history of ancient philosophy or ancient religions: Material, Concrete, Body Ritual (Holy Days, Ceremonies, Offerings, Sacrifices) “Religious” (In a Derogatory Sense) Technique (Magical, Superstitious Dimension) Acts, Orthopraxy “Interested,” Instrumental Exterior Collective, National, Political/Priestly Mediation Social Constraints: State, Neighbourhood, Profession, Family … , Automatisms Particular, Local Muddled Pluralism, Myths Polytheistic Ancient Anthropomorphic Iconic People

Spiritual, Intellectual, Soul Spiritual Spiritual Ethical, Philosophical, Religiosität (Schleiermacher) Doctrines, Orthodoxy “Disinterested,” Contemplative Interior Individual, Subjective, Personal Direct Relation of the Individual with the Divine Conversion, Choice, “Voluntary” Universal Search for Truth, Rationalisation Monotheistic Modern Abstract Aniconic Elites

Towards a Comparative Archaeology of the Notion of “Spiritual” 185 East Poliad Religions (Greece, Rome) Oriental Religions “Paganism” Judaism

Greece, West, Europe Oriental Religions Philosophy Judaism Christianity

This academic discourse—which amounts in fact to an academic imaginaire, or imaginary world—dates from the 19th century. Nevertheless, it still determines many interpretations of ancient religions. It frames history as an evolution, a slow process of “rationalisation,”2 “modernisation” (Scheid 2001, 135–38), “internalisation,”3 or “philosophisation” (Athanassiadi and Macris 2013, 41–84), which should lead from a ritual, technical, primitive, social, iconic, mythological religiosity to a spiritual, intellectual, modern, individual, aniconical, philosophical religiosity, etc, from a confused, concrete, self-­ interested (and therefore technical) religion to a purified, coherent, interior, contemplative religion. In this academic discourse, the positions of the various religions, with the possible exception of Christianity, are never definitively established, but always relative to each other. For some authors, the “Greek religion” will seem less “spiritual” than Christianity, but it will already be more so than the “­Eastern religions.” For others, the “Eastern religions” will bring to the “pagan religion” a dimension of spirituality that was missing. The “Roman religion,” which is “of no interest” (ohne Interesse) because it is “geistlos” (“without spirit”), will have the advantage over the “Greek religion” that it has a “tendency to internalise” and is capable of feeling “the thrill of the divine.”4 Judaism is an excellent example of this relativity of positions. It is sometimes placed on the left side of the table, as an orthopraxic religion, in relation to a Christianity which would be more “spiritual”; and sometimes it is placed on the right side, when compared to “paganism.” The same could be said of that tenacious fiction called “Gnosis.”5

2 Cf. e.g. Weber’s comparison between mystery cults and Christianism as a confessional religion (Weber 1996, 180). 3 Stroumsa 2005, 27: “If I had to specify in one word the nature of this change, I would accept the Hegelian analysis emphasizing the interiorization of religion, even if it means specifying and seriously qualifying the use of this term.” 4 Cf. the passages by Hegel noted in Scheid 1988, 443–44. 5 Another “great historic individuality,” masterfully deconstructed by M. A. Williams (1997).

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This scholarly language speaks in terms of great “historical individualities” and “ready-made syntheses,” as witnessed by the large number of Weberian “-isms” or Idealtypen (“the” philosopher, “the” Jew, “the” Gnostic, etc.) that we encounter.6 I do not claim that this scholarly discourse is universally shared today. I even think that few disciplines have reflected as much on the history of their categories and questions as the history of ancient religions, especially if we compare it to the history of ancient philosophy (cf. Borgeaud 2013a, 131–44, and Borgeaud 2013b, 175–99). But, unlike other categories in the history of religions—“myth,” “ritual,” “magic,” “sacrifice,” “monotheism,” “polytheism,” “rites of passage,” “religion” even—the category of “spiritual,” as far as I know, has not been the subject of any general historiographical critique. In addition, this academic imaginary is still very present in the historiography of ancient philosophies or religions, explicitly or not.7 This is shown by the persistence of the notion of the “axial era,”8 or the idea that the religion of late antiquity was “spiritualised” by philosophy (Athanassiadi and Macris 2013). Finally, it is often noted that scholars who want to question this hierarchy do so from within the hierarchy itself, for example, by defending the “spiritual” or “intellectual” value of “ritual religions.”9 An archaeology of the notion of “spiritual” and its uses in scholarly discourse therefore seems to me to be still relevant. I will take Michel Foucault’s interpretation of ancient philosophy as an example. It is extremely striking to note that in Foucault’s interpretation of ancient philosophy, the archaeological programme, which had been applied to so many objects (history of ideas, science, medicine, psychiatry, prison, literary history), has given way to a discourse in which we find the traditional divisions, with “great historical individualities” and “ready-made syntheses.” The 6 Cf. e.g. G. Stroumsa 2005, 49: “One finds, therefore, in the first centuries of the Empire, a series of Idealtypen: the sage, the gnostic and the saint.” 7 Hence the recent book by J. Scheid, Les Dieux, l’État et l’individu: Réflexions sur la religion civique à Rome (2013), against a “phenomenological” reading, stemming from Protestant theology, of ancient religions. Or, for example, the oscillation of historiography concerning Neoplatonic theurgy: sometimes theurgy is interpreted as a “paraphernalia of superstition” opposed to the rational theoretical practices of the Neoplatonists, sometimes it is rehabilitated as an “intellectual practice of spiritual elevation” (Koch-Piettre 2005, 199). 8 Apart from Karl Jaspers, the theory has been illustrated by S. N. Eisenstadt or by J. Assmann. For a recent example, cf. Armstrong 2006; Liverani 2010, 275–290; the studies gathered together by R. N. Bellah and H. Joas (2012). [Today (2022) I would add Jürgen Habermas’ latest book, Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie (2019), where the notion of Axial Age is central.] 9 Vernant 1990, 9: “The ancient religions are not less spiritually rich than those of today. They are different.” J. Scheid has renounced this “anachronistic” term (Scheid 2013, 215).

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aim is to make a “history of thought,” of “culture,” of “spirituality,” of “morality” (­Foucault 2005, 9–11; Foucault 2010, 2). “Philosophy” and “its permanent link to truth” (Foucault 2010, 352) is opposed to “rhetoric.”10 Notions such as “care of oneself,” “parrhēsia,” “truth,” “traverse”11 throughout a continuous and teleological history (ancient philosophy being conceived as an activity that the Church will take over), where texts corresponding to very different enunciations are summoned (tragedies, dialogues, letters, stories), without the specificity of their diverse enunciations being ever questioned. For Foucault, ancient philosophy is a “spirituality.” The notion appears in L’Herméneutique du sujet, and the definition Foucault gives is very strange: he proposes to call “spirituality” “the set [of] researches, practices, and experiences, which may be purifications, ascetic exercises, renunciations, conversions of looking, modifications of existence, etc., which are, not for knowledge but for the subject, for the subject’s very being, the price to be paid for access to the truth” (­Foucault 2005, 15, my italics). This definition is not self-evident, but Foucault does not comment on it. He installs it as a milestone at the beginning of his lecture. Even more astonishing is that while he bases his “spiritual” reading of ancient philosophy on Pierre Hadot and his article “Exercices spirituels” (1977), the definition he gives of the “spiritual” is very different from that given by Hadot. In his definition of the “spiritual,” Hadot mentions neither the subject nor the truth, and even less a transformation of the subject by “access to the truth”: the “spiritual” for him is played out in a relationship between the “self” and the “world”: The word “spiritual” is quite apt to make us understand that these exercises are the result, not merely of thought, but of the individual’s entire psychism. Above all, the word “spiritual” reveals the true dimensions of these exercises. By means of them, the individual raises himself up to the life of the objective Spirit; that is to say, he re-places himself within the perspective of the Whole. (Hadot 1995, 82) The last oddity is that Foucault, like Hadot,12 refuses to give the term any religious connotation; yet, in his texts on the student revolts in Tunis in 1968,13 10 11 12 13

Foucault 2005, 13–14, 135, 364–65, 368 (“enormous division”), 372, 386 (“great fundamental conflict”). Foucault 2005, 10, regarding “the care of oneself.” Cf. lastly Hadot 2008, 10: “The expression ‘spiritual exercise’ … does not have a religious connotation, whatever some critics think.” Foucault 2001b, 898: “the evidence of the necessity of myth, of a spirituality” which gives “the taste, the capacity and the possibility of an absolute sacrifice …”

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the Iranian revolution (Foucault 2001b, 694) or Zen Buddhism,14 he uses the notion in a religious sense.15 So how can we understand the use of this term? It seems to me that the key lies in the last sentence of the course: How can the world, which is given as the object of knowledge (connaissance) on the basis of the mastery of tekhnē, at the same time be the site where the “self” as ethical subject of truth appears and is experienced? If this really is the problem of Western philosophy—how can the world be the object of knowledge (connaissance) and at the same time the place of the subject’s test; how can there by a subject of knowledge (connaissance) which takes the world as object through a tekhnē, and a subject of self-experience which takes this same world, but in the radically different form of the place of its test?—if this really is the challenge of Western philosophy, you will see why The Phenomenology of Mind is the summit of this philosophy. (Foucault 2005, 487) The whole final part of the course echoes the Phenomenology of the Spirit, with this idea of the path to truth which is a “test” (Erfahrung), of knowledge as experience in the sense of self-transformation, and this final identity between subject and knowledge, consciousness and truth. Foucault had in fact sketched out this theme at the beginning of his lecture: Read again all of nineteenth century philosophy—well, almost all: Hegel anyway, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, the Husserl of the Krisis, and Heidegger as well—and you see precisely here also that knowledge (connaissance), the activity of knowing, … is nonetheless still linked to the requirements of spirituality. In all these philosophies, a certain structure of spirituality tries to link knowledge, the activity of knowing, and the conditions and effects of this activity, to a transformation in the subject’s being. The Phenomenology of Mind, after all, has no other meaning. (Foucault 2005, 28)

14 15

Foucault 2001b, 621: “‘Tell me who you are’ is the spirituality of Christianity. As for Zen, it seems that all the techniques linked to spirituality have, on the contrary, a tendency to attenuate the individual.” Cf. also Foucault 2001b, 1354: “I know that knowledge has the power to transform us, that truth is not only a way of deciphering the world … but that, if I know the truth, then I will be transformed. And perhaps saved. Or I will die, but I believe, in any case, that it is the same for me.”

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The great difference with Hegel is, on the one hand, the disappearance of absolute Knowledge: the Subject is not confused with absolute Knowledge, but with a Truth that “saves” it. And it is, on the other hand, the introduction of tekhnē, which of course reminds us of Marx’s critique of Hegel, except that it is no longer the world that needs to be transformed, through political and economic techniques, but the self, through spiritual techniques. So Foucault is not repeating Hegel. But by making the history of ancient thought the “test” path of a becoming-Subject, he inscribes his research in the line of the Phenomenology of Spirit. The last Foucault thus abandoned the archaeological history, which he had explicitly opposed to the Hegelian philosophy of history.16 Foucault had certainly said on several occasions how important Hegel had been for him,17 notably in his inaugural lesson at the Collège de France, where he succeeded his master Jean Hyppolite, the second great introducer of Hegel in France after Kojève—but always by marking the differences between the archaeology of knowledge and the philosophy of History (Foucault 1971, 74–82). This return to Hegel is further shown by a sort of confession made to his listeners at the very beginning of the following course, The Government of Self and Others: “This general project … goes under the sign, if not the title, of ‘the history of thought’” (Foucault 2010, 2).18 The title of Foucault’s chair was “history of systems of thought.” Here, Foucault abandoned the “archaeological” plurality of the title of his chair to return to the title of Jean Hyppolite’s chair (cf. n. 1 of the editors in Foucault 2010, 22). The circle was closed. Therefore, and in a word: if we do the archaeology of the Foucauldian discourse on ancient philosophy, we stumble upon Hegel. Hadot’s definition of the word “spiritual” also goes back to German idealism. The elevation of the individual to the life of the objective Spirit is a Hegelian theme, as well as the idea of a “totality of the psyche,” of which thought 16 17

18

Cf. his polemic in 1966 with Sartre, “the last Hegelian,” who had attacked Les Mots et les choses (Foucault 2001a, 570). In his obituary of Jean Hyppolite, he does not hesitate (already) to liken “Hegel’s voice” to “the voice of philosophy itself” (Foucault 2001a, 807). On the role of Jean Hyppolite, cf. Eribon 2011, 39–44. For a description of Hegelianism’s position in the philosophical field from the 1930s onwards, cf. Pinto 2009, 99–107. The expression “under the sign” already appears at the end of L’Ordre du discours to express Foucault’s relationship to Hyppolite. Similarly, in the article in the Dictionary of Philosophers, Foucault will define his entire work as a “critical history of thought” in 1984 (Foucault 2001b, 1451). Cf. also Foucault 2001b, 999, against the “sacralisation of the social”: “this essential thing in human life and human relations, I mean thought.” Cf. also Foucault 2001b, 1398–99, 1416–17.

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(understanding) would only be a punctual expression. But Hadot gives Hegel’s “Objective Spirit” a personal meaning. For Hegel, it is in political and legal institutions that the “Spirit” becomes objective. For Hadot, it is in the Whole, the cosmos. The authors who stand out behind Hadot’s definition of the “spiritual,” more than Hegel, are Goethe, Novalis, Schelling, but also Hölderlin, or Wilhelm von Humboldt.19 Thus, beyond these differences, if we make the archaeology of the discourse assimilating ancient philosophy into a “spirituality,” we come across a “soil” which is that of German idealism. The denial of the religious connotation of the term “spiritual” is also rooted in this soil. Hadot’s and Foucault’s distant respect for Christianity, with the idea that philosophical spirituality somehow fulfils it, comes directly from German idealism.20 Therefore, rooted as it is in German idealism, the category of “spiritual,” applied to ancient philosophy, presents an obvious risk: that of leading to a 19

20

It suffices to compare Hadot’s definition of “spiritual exercises” in his 1977 article with what he writes in his Veil of Isis about Novalis’s Disciples à Saïs: “This allusion to a spiritual exercise is not only a reference to a spiritual exercise, but also to the idea of a spiritual exercise. This allusion to immortality, that is to say ultimately to the power of the spirit, suggests that the theme of the veil of Isis is interpreted in the Romantic period from the perspective of an idealist philosophy. To unveil Isis is to recognise that Nature is nothing other than the Spirit unconscious of itself, that the Not-me that is Nature is ultimately identical to the Self, that Nature is the genesis of the Spirit. Despite the profound differences between the various Romantic philosophies, whether Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, or Novalis, the same fundamental tendency to identify Nature and Spirit from different perspectives remains constant.” (Hadot 2008, 273). Let us quote Hegel’s famous letter to Tholuck of July 3rd 1826: “Ich bin ein Lutheraner und durch Philosophie ebenso gantz im Luthertum befestigt” (quoted in Büttgen 2011, 7). One could cite many other documents of this relation to religion, like Schleiermacher’s letter to Jacobi of March 30th 1818 with E. Brito’s commentary (1994, 212–17), or also Goethe’s letter to Zelter of June 1st 1831, in which, after Hegel’s death, he goes back over the cross of the Lutheran faith which Hegel had received as a tribute and of which he had sent him a copy: “One does not know what that means. That as a man and a poet I knew how to render homage and confer beauty to the Cross, I have shown in my Stances; but it would not please me in any way that a philosopher … leads his disciples to this arid framework” (quoted in Lefebvre 2000, 213–14). The letter should be read with these observations by Jacob Taubes (2009, 66): “I consider him [sc. Goethe] as the catastrophe of the German spirit … . He is a seducer, he acts as a pagan … . My problem is not Goethe as a poet. What worries me is Goethe as a founder of a religion, the religion of culture (Bildungsreligion). It is in this perspective that I consider him as a catastrophe for the German spirit. A catastrophe that is being accomplished on a smaller scale in humanism and in German high schools, where ancient texts are being taught as if they were of our times.” After the war, the German historian Meinecke proposed, in the German Catastrophe (1946), that every Sunday afternoon young Germans should gather “if possible in a church” to listen to readings by Goethe, Schiller and Hölderlin (cf. Gay 1993, 92).

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historiographical Procrustean bed, that is to say, of eliminating philosophical practices that are “irrecoverable” for the “spiritualist” interpreter; and on the other hand, of interpreting “recoverable” testimonies by applying to them a framework that is foreign to them. In the space of this paper, I will take just one example. In his lecture, Foucault highlights a textual corpus that is as extraordinary as it is neglected. It is the correspondence between the rhetor Fronto and his young pupil, Prince Marcus Aurelius. But he will interpret this relationship as a “spiritual” one, in which the young Marcus Aurelius will become a “subject” by telling the truth about himself to Fronto, in whom Foucault sees a “spiritual director” of the young Marcus Aurelius. The latter expression is commonly used to speak of the ancient philosophers, even when scholars acknowledge that it dates back to the Council of Trent.21 Thus, in a letter to Fronto that Foucault analyses at length, Marcus Aurelius writes that before going to bed, he reports to his dear master (dulcissimo) on the day he has had. For Foucault, this letter is an “examination of conscience” (Foucault 2005, 163). Moreover, it is “the most characteristic letter on what spiritual direction may have been from the point of view of the person guided” (Foucault 2005, 158). Of course, Fronto is not a philosopher, but this simply proves that a friend could take his place (Foucault 2005, 158–59 and 163). It would therefore be a matter of “taking stock of the things we had to do, of those we did, and of the way we did them in relation to the way we should have done them” (Foucault 2005, 163, my italics), in front of a friend who plays the role of “judge,” “inspector” or “master” (Foucault 2005, 163). Let’s look at this letter, in the translation used by Foucault. It dates back to 1830 (even today, the letters of Marcus Aurelius have not been re-translated in French), i.e. to the time when the text had just been discovered and published. The translator was a young sous-préfet, Armand Cassan. I therefore transcribe the translation as well as the Latin text that followed, putting in italics the corrections I made to it, putting in bold the passages deleted by Foucault, and in square brackets the modifications he made to the translation he was using: Ego aliquantum prodormivi propter perfrictiunculam, quae videtur sedata esse. Ergo ab undecima noctis in tertiam diei partim legi ex agri cultura Catonis, partim scripsi; minus, misere, mehercule quam heri. Inde salutato patre meo, aqua mulsa sorbendo usque ad gulam et rejectanda fauces fovi potius quam dicerem gargarissabi: nam est ad Novium credo, et alibi. Sed faucibus curatis abii ad patrem meum et immolanti adstiti. Deinde 21

G. Stroumsa 2005, 191: “Although the concept of spiritual direction is post-Tridentine, it is used by right.”

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ad merendam itum. Quid me censes prandisse? panis tantulum; cum conchim, caepas et maenas bene praegnatis alios vorantis viderem. Deinde uvis metendis operam dedimus, et consudavimus et jubilavimus et aliquot, ut ait auctor, reliquimus altipendulos vindemiae superstites. Ab hora sexta domum redimus: paululum studui atque id ineptum. Deinde cum matercula mea supra torum sedente multum garrivi. Meus sermo hic erat: Quid existimas modo meum Frontonem facere? Tum illa: Quid autem tu meam Gratiam? Tum ego: Quid autem passerculam nostram Gratiam minusculam? Dum ea fabulamur atque altercamur, uter alterutrum vestrum magis amaret, discus crepuit, id est, pater meus in balneum transisse nuntiatus est. Loti igitur in torculari cenavimus; non loti in torculari, sed loti cenavi­ mus; et rusticos cavillantes audivimus libenter. Inde reversus, prius quam me in latus converto ut stertam, meum pensum explico, et diei rationem meo suavissimo magistro reddo, quem si possem magis desiderare, libenter plusculum macerarer. Valebis, mihi Fronto, ub iubi es, mellitissime, meus amor, mea voluptas. Quid mihi tecum est? amo absentem.22 I lingered in bed because of a bit of shivers that seem to have gone. I therefore passed the time from 5 o’clock to 9 o’clock partly reading Cato’s On Agriculture and partly writing, less badly than yesterday, fortunately. Then, after greeting my father, swallowing water mixed with honey as far as my throat and vomiting it out, I softened my throat rather than [MF: really] gargling, because I can say it, I think, according to [MF: the authority of] Novius and others. With my throat better, I went to my father and joined in his sacrifice. Then we went for lunch. What do you think I had to eat? A little bread, while I watched the others devouring some broad beans, onions and well-marinated mendole. Afterwards we set about harvesting the grapes; we sweated a lot, yelled a lot like savages [AC: shouted], and we left, as one author says, a few survivors of the harvesting hanging on the vines. At noon, we came back home. I studied a bit, but at random; after that, I chatted a lot with my dear mother, who was sat on her bed. This is what I said: What do you think my Fronto could be doing at this time? And she: What do you think my Gratia could be doing? And our pretty little warbler, the very little Gratia? While we were conversing like this, and arguing about which of us would love you more, the gong rang, that is to say that they announced that my father had got into the bath. Once we had bathed, therefore, we had dinner in the press-house; we didn’t 22

Marcus Aurelius to Fronto, 4.6, pp. 62–63 in the edition of the text by Van den Hout.

Towards a Comparative Archaeology of the Notion of “Spiritual” 193

bathe in the press-house, but once we had bathed, we had dinner, and listened with pleasure to the jokes of the country folks. When I got home, before turning onto my side to snore [AC: sleep], I carry out my duty, and make a report of my day to my excellent [MF: very sweet] master, whom I should like, at the cost of all my corpulence [MF: at the very cost of my health, of my physical well-being], to desire even more than I do [if it was possible to desire you more, I should willingly accept suffering a bit more]. I wish you good health, my Fronto; wherever you are, you are for me the sweetest thing [my fullness of honey, mellitissime], my love, my voluptuous pleasure. But what is there in common between us? I love one who is absent [MF: I love you].23 As we can see, there is here absolutely no question of duties or “things to be done,” nothing is “examined,” and no one “judges” anyone. Moreover, it is very difficult to consider that attending a sacrifice, reading Cato, studying, sweating and howling like a madman while picking grapes, joking with one’s mother, taking a bath, banqueting with the peasants and laughing with them at their 23

Original: “Moi je me suis attardé au lit à cause d’un petit frisson qui semble disparu. J’ai donc passé le temps de 5 heures à 9 heures, partie à lire l’Agriculture de Caton, partie à écrire, moins mal qu’hier, heureusement. Puis, après avoir salué mon père, avalant de l’eau miellée jusqu’au gosier et la rejetant, je me suis adouci la gorge plutôt que je ne l’ai [MF: réellement] gargarisée, car je puis le dire, je crois, d’après [MF: l’autorité de] Novius et d’autres. Ma gorge restaurée, je me suis rendu auprès de mon père, et j’ai assisté à son sacrifice. Ensuite on est allé déjeuner. Avec quoi penses-tu que j’aie mangé? Avec un peu de pain, pendant que je voyais les autres dévorer des fèves, des oignons et des mendoles bien marinées. Après nous nous sommes mis à moissonner les raisins; nous avons bien sué, bien hurlé comme des sauvages [AC: crié], et nous avons laissé, comme dit un auteur, pendre aux treilles quelques survivants de la vendange. À midi nous sommes revenus à la maison. J’ai un peu étudié, et cela sans fruit [mais n’importe comment]; ensuite j’ai beaucoup bavardé avec ma petite mère, qui était assise sur son lit. Voici ce que je disais: Que penses-tu que fasse mon Fronton, à cette heure? Et elle: Que penses-tu que fasse ma Gratia? Et notre fauvette mignonne, la toute petite Gratia? Pendant que nous devisions ainsi, et que nous nous disputions à qui des deux aimerait le plus l’un de vous, le disque retentit, c’est-à-dire qu’on annonça que mon père s’était mis dans le bain. Une fois baignés, donc, dans le pressoir nous avons dîné; on ne s’est pas baignés dans le pressoir, mais, une fois baignés, nous avons dîné, et entendu avec plaisir les plaisanteries des rustres. Rentré chez moi, avant de me tourner sur le côté pour ronfler [AC: dormir], je déroule ma tâche, et je rends compte de ma journée à mon excellent [MF: très doux] maître, que je voudrais, au prix de tout mon embonpoint [MF: au prix même de ma santé, de mon bien-être physique], désirer encore plus que je ne fais [s’il était possible de te désirer davantage, j’accepterais volontiers de souffrir un petit peu plus]. Porte-toi bien, mon Fronton, qui, en tout lieu, es pour moi ce qu’il y a de plus doux [mon tout plein de miel, mellitissime], mon amour, ma volupté. Mais qu’y a-t-il de commun entre nous? J’aime un absent [MF: Je t’aime].”

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jokes, constitute the spiritual exercises of a self in the process of becoming a subject. As always, it is only by immersing oneself in the whole of a corpus that one can understand a single element out of it. In another letter, Marcus Aurelius says to his master: “Today I have done nothing interesting to tell you.”24 In other words, if Marcus Aurelius recounts his day, it is not to make an examination of his conscience, but to tell his master about his day as he would do in a pleasant conversation—as it is for the pleasure of the recipient.25 The whole letter is full of winks, references and jokes that set the scene for a playful rusticity: it begins with the reading of Cato’s De agricultura, which should not be interpreted as the reading of an agricultural manual, but as the reading of an author we would call “literary” today, whose style was back in fashion in Marcus Aurelius’ time, and whose work was perfectly suited to a day’s leisure in the countryside. Next, Marcus Aurelius amuses himself by showing his master that he is using a chosen word from Novius, an author recommended to him by Fronto for his amusing words, and who is an author of atellan farces, i.e. rustic comedies.26 Marcus Aurelius goes on to tease his master, who is always worried about his pupil’s health: he has eaten little, while the others were stuffing themselves, thus showing his self-control. They did not gorge themselves on oysters, as Armand Cassan had understood, but on mendoles, a very cheap kind of fish. It is a gluttonous and rustic meal that is staged. The game of rusticity then continues with the phrase et consudavimus et jubilavimus. The verb jubilare should not simply be translated as “to shout.” It is again a chosen word, typical of the language of the rustici, typical of the language of the atellan farces, and commented on as such by Varro in his writings on the Latin language: jubilare is to shout “io” like rustici (cf. Bettini 2008, 96–100). Marcus Aurelius goes on to quote another Latin comic poet. Foucault cuts off this quotation, just as he cuts off Marcus Aurelius’ banter with his mother. This is followed by a new joke, in which Marcus Aurelius plays on the importance of word order in the sentence. I have not found any other example of a cena taking place in a press-house. I do not make any assertions from this silence of the sources, but I wonder whether the setting for this dinner, which takes place in the midst of “peasant jokes,” was not also a way of “playing the boor.” Foucault interprets the sleeping position as “the promise of a chaste sleep,” but the verb used by Marcus Aurelius, “to snore,” does not fit in with this seriousness. Similarly, he does not say that he is ready to desire Fronto even more if possible, “at the 24 25 26

2.8.1: nihil operae pretium quod ad te scriberetur. Cf. what Marcus Aurelius writes when he receives Fronto’s letter de feriis alsiensibus (“About the holidays in Alsium”), 4: modo recepi epistulam tuam, qua confestim fruar. 4.3.2. On the atellan farce, cf. Dupont and Letessier 2011, 131–135.

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cost of his physical well-being,” but “by suffering a little more,” plusculum, a diminutive that defuses any effect of pathos. Generally speaking, the playful diminutives that are scattered throughout this letter (matercula, plusculum, passercula, minuscula) are either glossed over by Foucault or belong to cut-off passages. The end of the letter is also given a gravity by Foucault that is neither that of the original nor that of the translation: he does not hesitate to replace the translation “What is the relationship between you and me? I love an absent person” with “I love you.” But this was a last joke. The brutal hiatus quid mihi tecum est? is a quotation from Plautus’ Menaechmi,27 just as amo absentem could be a quotation from his Amphitryon: Ut, quom absim, me ames, me tuam te absente tamen, says Alcmene to Jupiter when dawn breaks (Plaut., Amph. 541–43). But the motif of the love of the absent one was present elsewhere than in Plautus: we find it in Terence, Propertius and Ovid (Ter., Eun. 192–93; Prop. 2.33.43; Ov., Tr. 5.5.23). In short, Marcus Aurelius is having fun. This letter is therefore not an examination of conscience, but the account of an exemplary day of otium, such as one wrote to one’s friends. This is the kind of letter that Cicero wrote, full of witty remarks and quotations, and which Fronto gave as a model to his pupil: epistulis Ciceronis nihil est perfectius.28 But these quotations, whether explicit or not, these jokes, this banter, these ancient and poetic words, everything that makes the letter so funny for Fronto, are lost on the Hegelian hermeneutist. If we adopt an anthropological approach to ancient philosophy, as was done for ancient religions, we will see that the word philosophia corresponds to a multitude of practices that, if we had to use modern categories, we could describe as “religious,” “cultural,” “political,” “scientific.” The practices described as “ethical” by the Ancients are only a part of them. Secondly, ethical practices themselves are not “spiritual exercises,” neither in Hadot’s nor in Foucault’s sense. They are, for the most part, “orthopraxic” practices. The word, coined by Moses Mendelssohn to describe Judaism, was used by John Scheid to describe the Roman religion, but it is even more legitimately used to speak of ancient ethics, insofar as it is used in the sources themselves, both in the Socratic tradition, in Teles, and in the Epicurean tradition, in Philodemus of Gadara, two 27 28

Plaut., Men. 826: Quaeso, quid mihi tecum est? Ad Ant. imp. and inv., III, 8, p. 104 Van den Hout, in reply to Marcus Aurelius (III, 7, p. 103–4 Van den Hout): Ciceronis epistulas si forte electas totas vel dimidiatas habes, inperti aut mone, quas potissimum legendas mihi censeas ad facultatem sermonis fouendam. Foucault, on the contrary, insisted on distinguishing the two correspondences: “in these [sc. Cicero’s letters], it was a matter of recounting oneself as a subject of action (or of deliberation for a possible action) in relation to friends and enemies, happy and unhappy events. In … Marcus Aurelius … , the narrative of the self is the narrative of the relationship of the self to the self” (Foucault 2000, 217).

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authors whose value is all the greater to the historian in that they make no claim to originality (cf. Philodemus, Choices and Avoidances [PHerc. 1251], col. XII, 4; Teles, fr. 3, p. 22, 3 Hense). Ethics is used in order to behave well, that is to say, for ancient society, to behave well in society. To enter the school of Epictetus, to quote a fundamental author for Marcus Aurelius, is not to seek to deepen one’s “self,” but it is to learn to be upright (orthos), and being upright is behaving uprightly in social life. It is to learn, for example, the rules of dining, the rules of bathing, the rules concerning what one does in bed. The ideal of Marcus Aurelius is not to become a subject, to become “himself”;29 but it is to make his self correspond as much as possible to a social ideal, therefore to an ideal that is by definition shared by the community, and which is only realised by being seen, by being deployed in external life: And you have to get used to thinking only of such things that if you were asked: “What do you think now?”, you could immediately answer “this and that”, with frankness. So that it will be evident from your answers that everything ⟨in you⟩ is simple, benevolent, thought out by a sociable living person, who is not concerned with pleasures or, in a word, with all erotic images, nor with glory, nor with slander, nor with suspicions, nor with anything that would make you blush if you were to say that this is what you are thinking about. (Med., 3.4) It is not a question about the relationship between the self and the world, nor between the subject and the truth. It is a question of being exemplary, according to the role which has been assigned to us. That is, it is not one of the threads of the tunic, but the little band of purple that gives the senatorial toga its lustre and beauty.30 One could cite other passages from Marcus Aurelius31 and multiply the examples from other authors. 29 30

31

Foucault 2005, 201: “… for Marcus Aurelius, the primary objective, the very end of his existence, the target to which he must always strive, is not to be emperor, but to be himself.” Cf. Epictetus on the question of whether one should be prepared to die in order to avoid obeying an infamous order (Discourses, I, 2, 12–18). To measure the distance between this aesthetic ethic of the Ancients and our own, one can refer to the Journal de Paltinis by Gabriel Liiceanu, which is to the philosopher Constantine Noïca what Arrien’s Discourses were to Epictetus, for Noïca also shows himself to be a “trainer” of men (Liiceanu 1999, 178–181). In these talks, Noïca condemns the death in prison of the philosopher Mircea Vulcanescu, who gave his life to save that of a young man, in the name of an opposition between “beautiful gesture” and “ethics placed at the service of a cause.” This dichotomy would have been unthinkable for the Ancients (ibid., 214–215). 10.1: “Will you one day, O my soul, be good and simple and one and naked, more visible than the body that surrounds you?”

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After this all too brief example, I will end by expressing the wish that a group of scholars undertake what might be called a “comparative archaeology of the spiritual.” Using case studies from different cultural areas and different periods, from Antiquity to the present day, the aim would be to elucidate, without taking into account our preconceptions, the notions that we translate as “spiritual” or “spirit,” and to show that, even when the word “spiritual” is used, it does not necessarily carry the same meaning that we give it today. In these different fields of study, this programme could follow four lines of inquiry in particular: – It would question the opposition we commonly make between spiritual and material, or between material and physical;32 – It would question the association we commonly make between the spiritual and the “inner life,”33 “introspection,” the solitude of the individual alone with God, without ritual, without images, and without social relationships;34 32

33

34

The different realities described by the adjectives noētos, pneumatikos and psukhikos are very often material, physical and visible realities. Pneuma is almost always in Antiquity a physical reality. The same applies to anima, as demonstrated also by Tertullian’s de anima (cf. e. g. § 9, where the vision of a soul serves as proof of the bodily nature of the soul). In a recent paper about the opposition spiritus/caro as an “analogy matrix” of Medieval culture, A. Guerreau-Jalabert shows how this opposition is not to be confused with that which is familiar to us, between spiritual/material: “relics are spiritual objects, while the most serious sins, demonstrating the takeover by the flesh of the soul (and thus producing carnal souls), do not have a direct relationship with the body or the material.” See “Occident médiéval et pensée analogique: le sens de spiritus et caro,” which was a text presented at the symposium “Les vecteurs de l’idée lII. La légitimité implicite I,” French School, Rome (9th–11th December 2010). [See now Guerreau-Jalabert 2015.] Cf. Büttgen 2011, 247–283, who, through a study of Luther’s commentary on the First Letter of Saint Paul to the Ephesians, clearly shows the shift that takes place from the Spirit as the Spirit of God to the spirit as interiority. Cf. also, on the difficulty encountered by interpreters in taking into account the Paulian trichotomy between body, soul and spirit, Father de Lubac’s essay in Théologie dans l’histoire (1990, 115–27). The “spirit” discussed in Jewish or Christian texts is more often the spirit of God, or even the spirit of the devil, than that of the individual. He came to know the diversity of the spirits that were stirring within him, one of the devil, the other of God,” which his secretary Gonçalves da Camara comments as follows: “Este fue el primero discurso que hizo en las cosas de Dios; y después cuando hizo los ejercicios, de aquí comenzó a tomar lumbre para lo de la diversidad de espíritus.” Finally, see the work of Michel de Certeau on the “construction of an interior” (2005, 156) among the Jesuits or among the French spirituels, for example Saint-Cyran and his “inner library” (ibid., 219), which he contrasts with the practices of a Borromeo, devotee of the saints, pilgrim of the Holy Shroud, leading in person relic processions, etc. (129). Cf. e.g. a seventeenth-century bestseller, Spiritual Life, addressed to the wife of Chancellor Séguier: the practices which are recommended are as much interior as exterior, externalised in rites; and we can also see that they are as much individual practices as social practices, within groups of devotees (in the case of Mrs Séguier). I would like to thank Yannick Nexon, author of a forthcoming book on Chancellor Seguier, for sharing his manuscript with me. [See now Nexon 2015, 291–332.]

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– It would also focus on the persistence of the vocabulary of spirituality in unexpected contexts of modern societies: in the management techniques of large companies, or in Soviet discursive practices,35 still alive in present-day Russia;36 – Finally, it would study the problems of translation encountered, for example, by the missionaries37 or the translators of the Bible.38 Again, it is perhaps with German idealism that the meaning of the word “spiritual” is invented, whereby a division is made between an immaterial interiority, a “province of the soul” (as Schleiermacher puts it), destined to authenticity and abstract meditation, and the social exteriority, destined to inauthenticity, to ritual, to images, etc.

35

36

37

38

I am thinking of the importance of the notion of doukhovnost, literally “presence of mind” (doukh). In spite of the anti-religious struggle, in the USSR “doukhovnost” was evoked, especially in art and literature, as opposed to the down-to-earth, idealess (bezideïnyi) character of “petty-bourgeois” art and literature. A sign of this unexpected phenomenon is a whole recent trend in the historiography of the USSR, in line with Michel Foucault’s work on subjectivation, with the publication of Oleg Kharkhordin’s The Collective and the Individual in Russia: A Study of Practices (1999) and Jochen Hellbeck’s Revolution On My Mind: Writing a Diary under Stalin (2009), based on studies of diaries from the Stalinist era. I am grateful to Larissa Zakharova for providing me with these points and this information. In October 2013, the Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, quoted in Le Monde (4 June 2014), said that “the foundations of Russia’s cultural policy must include a large and healthy family, healthy leisure, free creative work, freedom of thought, self-learning and permanent spiritual work.” I am thinking here, for example, of the dictionary that the Franciscan Torribio de Benavente, known as Motolinia, wanted to make of the Nahuatl language. He translates the word teoyotica as “spiritual,” because it comes from teotl, which means “God,” but this word itself refers to the word Teopoa, which means “suffering, affliction, anguish.” This example is cited in Borgeaud 2013b, 31, in connection with the research of the Norwegian linguist L. K. Pharo (2007). Saki Kogure, during the conference, told me that the notion of “spiritual” or “spirituality” is untranslatable in Japanese, and that it was necessary to create a neologism based on the Latin root of the word. Cf. Luther’s hesitations about the translation of ruach at the beginning of Genesis: “spirit” (Geist) or “breath” (Braus)? In his time, the meaning of Geist was not completely devoid of concrete meaning: Master Eckhart could translate “the Spirit blows where it wills” as der Geist geistet wo er will. Cf. also the translation of the Bible by Rosenzweig and Buber (1925), who, in reaction against the “Spiritualisierung Gottes” implemented by the Protestant theology and denounced by Rosenzweig in the Star of Redemption, decided to translate ruach by Braus (cf. Askani 1997, 173–75).

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8.1

Post-Scriptum (2022)



The original version of this paper was published in 2015. It sprang out of a oneyear post-doctoral fellowship at the Laboratoire d’Excellence (LabEx) HASTEC (“Histoire et anthropologie des savoirs, des techniques et des croyances”) in 2013–2014. I have returned on correlated themes in a 2016 book, Droiture et mélancolie. Sur les écrits de Marc Aurèle (Lagrasse, Verdier); a 2016 unpublished lecture, “La catégorie de ‘spirituel’ est-elle pertinente pour les sciences sociales du religieux?” (available on my Academia.edu page); and a 2019 book, La Philosophie antique. Essai d’histoire (Paris, Fayard). The paper, as well as a brief report on my post-doctoral fellowship (“Retour sur l’éthique des Anciens: pour un examen critique des thèses de Pierre Hadot et de Michel Foucault,” available on my Academia.edu page), were the object of a refutation by Ilsetraut Hadot (2016) in the Revue des Études Grecques. At the time, the journal did not concede me a droit de réponse. Many years later, I think the best is to let the reader judge for themselves. I would only like to stress an important point: the fact that a historian is embedded in a dominant philosophy of his time does not amount to “perversion.” It simply means he is a human being, that is: entrenched in history. It requires a huge discipline to emancipate oneself from of the frame of one’s intellectual environment. Or maybe a simple desire von fremden Ländern und Menschen. References Armstrong, Karen. 2006. The Great Transformation: The World in the Time of Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Jeremiah. London: Atlantic Books. Askani, Hans-Christoph. 1997. Das Problem der Übersetzung—dargestellt an Franz Rosenzweig. Die Methoden und Prinzipien der Rosenzweigschen und Buber-­ Rosenzweigschen Übersetzungen. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Athanassiadi, Polymnia, and Constantinos Macris. 2013. “La philosophisation du religieux.” In Panthée: Religious Transformations in the Graeco-Roman Empire, edited by Laurent Bricault and Corinne Bonnet, 41–84. Leyden / Boston: Brill. Bellah, Robert N., and Hans Joas. 2012. The Axial Age and Its Consequences. Cambridge, Mass. / London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Bettini, Maurizio. 2008. Voci. Antropologia sonora del mondo antico. Turin: Einaudi. Borgeaud, Philippe. 2013a. “The Mysteries.” In Panthée: Religious Transformations in the Graeco-Roman Empire, edited by Laurent Bricault and Corinne Bonnet, 131–44. Leiden / Boston: Brill. Borgeaud, Philippe. 2013b. L’Histoire des religions. Gollion: Infolio.

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Brito, Emilio. 1994. “Foi et philosophie selon Scheleiermacher.” Revue Philosophique de Louvain, Quatrième série, 92, nos. 2–3: 211–25. Büttgen, Philippe. 2011. Luther et la philosophie. Études d’histoire. Paris: Vrin. de Certeau. Michel. 2005. Le Lieu de l’autre. Histoire religieuse et mystique. Edited by L. Giard. Paris: Gallimard / Seuil. de Lubac, Henri. 1990. Théologie dans l’histoire. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer. Dupont, Florence, and Pierre Letessier. 2011. Le Théâtre romain. Paris: Armand Colin. Eribon, Didier. 2011 [1989]. Michel Foucault. Paris: Flammarion. Foucault, Michel. 1971. L’Ordre du discours. Paris: Gallimard. Foucault, Michel. 2000. “Self Writing.” In Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984, Volume 1: Ethics, edited by Paul Rabinow, 207–22. London: Penguin Books. Foucault, Michel. 2001a. Dits et écrits I. 1954–1975. Edited by Daniel Defert and François Ewald. Paris: Gallimard. Foucault, Michel. 2001b. Dits et écrits II. 1976–1988. Edited by Daniel Defert and François Ewald. Paris: Gallimard. Foucault, Michel. 2002. The Archaeology of Knowledge. London / New York: Routledge. Foucault, Michel. 2005. The Hermeneutics of the Subject. Lectures at the Collège de France 1981–1982. Edited by Fréderic Gros. Translated by Graham Burchell. New York: Palgrave. Foucault, Michel. 2010. The Government of Self and Others. Lectures at the Collège de France 1982–1983. Edited by Fréderic Gros. Translated by Graham Burchell. New York: Palgrave. Gay, Peter. 1993 [1968]. Le Suicide d’une république. Weimar (1918–1933). Translated by Jean-François Sené. Paris: Calmann-Lévy. Guerreau-Jalabert, Anita. 2015. “Occident médiéval et pensée analogique. Le sens de spiritus et caro.” In La Légitimité implicite, edited by Jean-Philippe Genet, 457–76. Paris / Rome: Éditions de la Sorbonne. Habermas, Jürgen. 2019. Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Hadot, Ilsetraut. 2016. “L’idéalisme allemand a-t-il, chez Pierre Hadot, perverti la compréhension de la philosophie antique?” Revue des Études Grecques 129, no. 1: 195–210. Hadot, Pierre. 1995. Philosophy as a Way of Life. Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault. Malden / Oxford / Victoria: Blackwell. Hadot, Pierre. 2008. N’oublie pas de vivre. Goethe et la tradition antique des exercices spirituels. Paris: Albin Michel. Hellbeck, Jochen. 2009. Revolution on My Mind: Writing a Diary under Stalin. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press. Kharkhordin, Oleg. 1999. The Collective and the Individual in Russia: A Study of Practices. Berkeley: University of California Press. Koch-Piettre, Renée. 2005. Comment peut-on être dieu? La secte d’Épicure. Paris: Belin.

Towards a Comparative Archaeology of the Notion of “Spiritual” 201 Lefebvre, Jean-Pierre. 2000. Goethe, modes d’emploi. Paris: Belin. Liiceanu, Gabriel. 1999 [1991]. Journal de Paltinis. Translated by Marie-France Ionesco. Paris: La Découverte. Liverani, Mario. 2010. La Bible et l’invention de l’histoire. Translated by Viviane Dutaut. Paris: Gallimard. Nexon, Yannick. 2015. Le Chancelier Séguier (1588–1672). Ministre, dévot et mécène au grand siècle. Ceyzérieu: Champ Vallon. Pharo, L. K. 2007. “The Concept of ‘Religion’ in Mesoamerican Languages.” Numen 54, no. 1: 28–70. Pinto, Louis. 2009. La Théorie souveraine. Les philosophes français et la sociologie au XXe siècle. Paris: Cerf. Scheid, John. 1988. “L’impossible polythéisme: les raisons d’un vide dans l’histoire de la religion romaine.” In L’Impensable polythéisme. Études d’historiographie religieuse, edited by Francis Schmidt, 425–57. Paris: Éditions des archives contemporaines. Scheid, John. 2001. Religion et piété dans la Rome antique. Paris: Albin Michel. Scheid, John. 2013. Les Dieux, l’État et l’individu: Réflexions sur la religion civique à Rome. Paris: Seuil. Stroumsa, Guy. 2005. La fin du sacrifice: les mutations religieuses de l’Antiquité tardive. Paris: Odile Jacob. Taubes, Jacob. 2009. “Le temps presse.” Du culte à la culture. Translated by Mira Köller and Dominique Séglard. Paris: Seuil. Vernant, Jean-Pierre. 1990. Mythe et religion en Grèce ancienne. Paris: Seuil. Weber, Max. 1996. Sociologie des religions. Edited by J.-P. Grossein. Paris: Gallimard. Williams, Michael Allen. 1997. Rethinking Gnosticism. An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

PART 3 Logos and Truth

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CHAPTER 9

On the Role of Reason in Ancient Philosophical Practice: An Intellectualist Reframing of Hadot’s and Foucault’s Approach Hélder Telo The soul has a self-increasing λόγος. Heraclitus, DK B115

∵ 9.1 Introduction1 Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault both have the merit of meticulously identifying and discussing the emphasis ancient authors placed on the practical or performative dimension of philosophy. By stressing how philosophy aims at transforming one’s individual life via the practices that Hadot calls spiritual exercises and Foucault designates as care of the self, practices of the self or techniques of the self, they both avoid reducing philosophy to a merely theoretical or abstract activity that has no impact on one’s life. However, one of the main criticisms of both is directly connected with this strength. Other specialists in ancient philosophy such as Martha Nussbaum, John Sellars and John Cooper claim that this emphasis on the practical or performative dimension of philosophy involves a neglect of the role played by reason, rational understanding and rational argument and, to this extent, it presents a distorted picture of ancient philosophy. But is this correct? Do Hadot and Foucault leave the rational component of philosophy out of the picture or in the background? And if so, is this an accurate account of ancient philosophy? What exactly is the role of reason in ancient philosophy? Is it in the background, in the forefront or in

1 This chapter was funded by national funds through FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, under two projects (UIDB/00183/2020 and 2022.02833.PTDC) and the Institutional Scientific Employment program. © Hélder Telo, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004693524_011

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the centre? And if by chance it is in the centre, as Hadot’s and Foucault’s critics claim, what exactly does that mean? These questions have been much discussed and, for the most part, scholars admit that there is a clear conflict of views and generally take a side. Some have built on these criticisms.2 Others have defended Hadot and Foucault, arguing, on the one hand, that these criticisms do not take into account the role of discourse or truth in Hadot and Foucault, and, on the other hand, that the criticisms do not do justice to the way ancient philosophers use non-cognitive practices as a way of shaping one’s life and actions.3 In a few cases, attempts have been made to mediate between the two positions, although these were mostly attempts to clarify Hadot’s position.4 There are, however, two points in this debate that, in my view, should be further developed. The first concerns the terms of the problem, which tend to fluctuate, especially in the discussion of Hadot’s view on the matter. Whereas the objection talks about reason, rational understanding and rational argument, Hadot’s defenders often talk about discourse. Similarly, the defence of Foucault touches the notions of true discourse or truth-telling. In one way or the other, these are all possible translations of the Greek term λόγος. However, they capture different aspects of its meaning and are not equivalent. Hence, to properly discuss the objections to Hadot and Foucault, it is necessary to consider in more detail the different relevant senses of λόγος and the role they might play in a general characterization of ancient philosophy. The second point that I think should be developed concerns the possibility of a true mediation between the two sides. While one may be tempted either to 2 Braicovich, for instance, applies Cooper’s view to Stoicism (Braicovich 2011) and Miranda Vilchis develops it in connection with Socrates (Miranda Vilchis 2022). Fiona Jenkins, in turn, accepts Nussbaum’s criticism of Foucault and presents the neglect of reason as a strength (Jenkins 2001), whereas Stylianos Giamarelos accepts some aspects of Cooper’s criticism but adopts a neutral stance between him and Hadot (Giamarelos 2017). 3 Konrad Banicki argues against Nussbaum in showing Hadot’s and Foucault’s commitment to reason (Banicki 2015, 622–625), Matthew Denis argues that Foucault’s consideration of extraphilosophical techniques does not exclude strictly philosophical techniques (Denis 2017, 144–51) and several scholars stress how Hadot does not neglect rational argument insofar as he grants philosophical discourse an important role, although it is not sufficient to shape one’s way of being (cf. Sharpe 2011, 2016, 2021, Sharpe and Ure 2021, Ngo 2018, Grimm and Cohoe 2020 and the chapters by Marta Faustino and Gianfranco Ferraro in this volume). 4 Sharpe tries to defend Hadot by combining the latter’s ideas with Julia Annas’ understanding of virtues as skills and the type of intellectualism it involves (Sharpe 2021). Del Nido, in contrast, presents Hadot’s account of ancient philosophy in an unconventional way, insofar as he grants a special emphasis (which is not clearly found in Hadot) to the ideas of living rationally, having rational control or developing a rational self (del Nido 2018).

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reject Hadot’s and Foucault’s approach or to explain how the criticism does not apply, one can also explore the possibility that this criticism does not necessarily invalidate Hadot’s and Foucault’s main insights, but rather points to some fundamental aspects that could be incorporated in these insights and significantly transform them, thereby bringing them closer to the ideas found in ancient texts. In what follows, I will explore this possibility by combining what the critics, on the one hand, and Hadot and Foucault, on the other hand, say about ancient philosophy. I will argue that the criticism is partially valid since reason—and especially reason understood as a mental faculty or power— plays a secondary role in their accounts of ancient philosophy. However, I will at the same time claim that Hadot’s and Foucault’s discussions of ancient philosophy’s practical dimension can reveal one essential aspect of reason as it was understood by ancient philosophers that is not discussed or developed by Nussbaum, Sellars or Cooper—to wit, that reason as a mental power is not just a fixed instrument one can sometimes use to philosophize, but it is something that always pervades human life (even if mostly in a defective form, by being limited by non-rational components and producing unexamined beliefs) and in order to properly philosophise, one must not only employ it, but also train or strengthen it. This training or strengthening of reason is a central component of ancient philosophy and, if we take this into consideration, we can reconsider Hadot’s and Foucault’s accounts of philosophy’s practical or performative dimension. For ancient thinkers, philosophy involved a set of practices that aimed not primarily at self-transformation in general (as Hadot and Foucault formulate it), but rather at the transformation of reason, and it was precisely by transforming one’s reason (understood as a mental power) that it transformed one’s personality, one’s behaviour, one’s emotions and one’s whole life. This in no way means that philosophy involved only cognitive or intellectual exercises or practices. Rather, it means that all the other kinds of exercises or practices described by Hadot and Foucault were also an important part of this transformation of reason and, to this extent, they show how demanding this task is. By placing this particular concept of reason at the centre of Hadot’s and Foucault’s accounts, it will be possible to reconcile them with the broad type of intellectualism we find in ancient authors—i.e., an intellectualism that (contrary to the way the term is often used) does not necessarily involve the claim that reason is the sole source of motivation, but only the claim that non-rational types of motivation must somehow use reason (i.e., our way of seeing or understanding things) in order to be effective. Indeed, in contrast with medieval voluntarism or modern conceptions of irrational urges, ancient philosophers do not conceive of a pure will or blind urges that can motivate our actions separately from (or in spite of) our beliefs, and it is necessary

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to take this into serious account when discussing the practical or performative side of ancient philosophy. In my view, we can do so and integrate the account of ancient exercises or practices in the type of refined intellectualism just mentioned precisely by conceiving these exercises or practices as being primarily exercises or practices of reason, even if ancient authors normally do not expressly characterize them as such. To develop and defend this view, I will pursue the following itinerary. In section 9.2, I will focus on Nussbaum, Sellars and Cooper’s criticisms concerning the neglect of reason and consider how these thinkers interpret Foucault and Hadot, what they propose as an alternative and especially how they understand reason and its role. In section 9.3, I will discuss the extent to which these criticisms apply to Hadot and Foucault. To do so, I will consider their main accounts of ancient philosophy (where they rarely mention reason), their relatively sparse references to reason or rational argument, and the role discourse (as a term that partially corresponds to reason and rational argument, especially insofar as all these terms can translate λόγος) plays in their accounts. Then, in section 9.4, I will put aside all these contemporary authors and discuss the different senses of λόγος in ancient thought, in order to bring out the ancient sense of reason as a permanently active mental power and determine in very general terms the role it plays in ancient philosophies. In doing so, I will also characterize in more detail the type of broad or refined intellectualism just mentioned. Finally, in section 9.5, I will reconsider Hadot’s and Foucault’s claims about ancient philosophy’s practical dimension in light of this concept of reason as a mental power, thereby proposing a way of understanding the role of reason (and rational argument) that significantly differs from what we find in Nussbaum, Sellars or Cooper. 9.2 Nussbaum, Sellars and Cooper on Hadot and Foucault’s Supposed Neglect of Philosophy’s Rational Component The main discussions of Hadot and Foucault’s neglect of reason come from interpreters of ancient philosophy who developed their own model of how philosophy is supposed to transform one’s life. Nussbaum primarily criticizes Foucault, while Sellars and Cooper direct their criticism at Hadot, but only Sellars sees a significant difference between Hadot and Foucault in this regard. Martha Nussbaum’s criticism of Foucault appears in The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (1994) as a way of demarcating her approach from his. Nussbaum presents a medical model of philosophy which was, in her view, initially developed by Aristotle and further explored by the

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Hellenistic philosophers. According to this model, philosophy is supposed to be a therapy of desire (or a way of addressing human needs, perplexities, suffering and misery) and aims at bringing about a happy or flourishing life. While discussing this, Nussbaum often places emphasis on reason and rational argument (which she claims is like medical treatment for the illnesses of the soul—1994, 49), and this is where she differs from Foucault. Nussbaum recognizes some resemblance between both their approaches, insofar as Foucault defends that the Hellenistic thinkers are “not just teaching lessons, but also engaging in complex practices of self-shaping” (ibid., 5) and that they conceive of philosophy as an art of living. However, this is something philosophy has in common with religion (5, 353) and, according to her, What is distinctive about the contribution of the philosophers is that they assert that philosophy, and not anything else, is the art we require, an art that deals in valid and sound arguments, an art that is committed to the truth. These philosophers claim that the pursuit of logical validity, intellectual coherence, and truth delivers freedom from the tyranny of custom and convention, creating a community of beings who can take charge of their own life story and their own thought. (5) In Nussbaum’s view, Foucault thus failed to recognize precisely this fundamental commitment to reason in philosophical techniques du soi (5–6). It is reason—and very specifically rational argument—that changes our way of being and living or reshapes us. In fact, they are not just the main means of philosophical activity, but also its goal. Philosophy aims at bringing about a way of life ordered by reason or a life committed to argument (353). This is the type of transformation of desire and thought (11) that can heal our sufferings and make us truly free and truly flourishing (5). Nussbaum’s emphasis on reason and rational argument does not mean, however, that she reduces Aristotelian and Hellenistic philosophy to this component. She admits that there are also “complex strategies—interactive, rhetorical, literary—designed to enable them [the Hellenistic philosophical schools] to grapple effectively with what they had understood” (4), and she acknowledges the role of habits and routines, especially in Stoicism—even though she also claims that they are “useless if not rational” (353) and, at least in the case of Stoicism, the “active exercise of argument” (353) plays a central role. Moreover, the arguments used by the Hellenistic philosophers are far from being abstract or merely theoretical arguments. Nussbaum characterizes them as therapeutic arguments and says, among other things, that they must engage their audience, be well suited to the needs of their hearers and sensitive to the

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individual (14–15, 35). It is, therefore, clear that despite criticizing Foucault, Nussbaum is far from neglecting the practical relevance of philosophy. Philosophy must have a deep impact on our lives and to do so it needs arguments of a certain kind and other techniques. The latter, however, are described by her as means of creating involvement with arguments and they seem to play no role in the development of reason itself (thus differing from what I will argue below). As she claims, “arguments must dig deep in order … to ‘become powerful’ in the soul” (40) and at least part of Foucault’s practices of the self (and of Hadot’s spiritual exercises) could therefore be understood as helping them to attain this power, but Nussbaum says very little about the development of rationality itself. John Sellars, in his The Art of Living: The Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy (2009 [2003]), picks up Nussbaum’s criticism, but uses it to distinguish his approach from Hadot’s. Sellars presents a technical conception of philosophy which, according to him, is found in several ancient thinkers: Socrates, Plato, Epicurus and the Stoics. According to this conception, philosophy differs from religion insofar as it is “grounded upon, and expresses a desire for, rational understanding as opposed to, say, mystical insight or unquestioned faith in a system of beliefs” (2009, 6). Similarly to Nussbaum, Sellars argues that rational understanding, analysis or argument (λόγος) play an essential role in philosophy (ibid., 6). However, he adds that rational understanding is a necessary, but not constitutive condition of philosophy. The latter—what constitutes philosophy proper—is “the philosopher’s distinctively rational way of life (βίος) … , his actions and behaviour, which are of course an expression of his rational understanding” (7). The practical component or how one lives is thus at the centre, although the rational element is likewise indispensable.5 Sellars goes on to present the technical conception of philosophy and, based on the discussion of what constitutes an art or τέχνη in general, he argues that philosophy as an art of living involves, on the one hand, theories, doctrines or rational understanding (λόγος) and, on the other hand, training or practical exercises (ἄσκησις), which translate philosophical theories into philosophical actions (ἔργα) and transform one’s way of life (cf. 84). Based on this distinction, he takes issue with Hadot’s characterization of ancient philosophy as spiritual exercise. According to Sellars: 5 One could argue that this practical component is also important for Nussbaum, insofar as therapeutic arguments are supposed to produce an effect on how one lives, but by placing so much importance on this distinction between rational understanding and philosophical way of life, Sellars manages to conceive of philosophy’s practical dimension in a manner that is significantly different from Nussbaum’s.

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For the Stoics, at least, philosophy is an art in which such exercises form but one part. If philosophy were simply a series of exercises for the soul, then it would be nothing more than a process of habituation that would not involve the development of a rational understanding of what was being learned. In other words, it would not be based upon an understanding of the λόγοι underpinning philosophy conceived as a τέχνη. (116) Both stages are necessary and, before exercising, one must first learn doctrines and master theory. This is what Hadot allegedly forgot, at least when he presents the whole of philosophy as involving spiritual exercises. As Sellars says in his review of Hadot’s What is Ancient Philosophy?, Hadot “tends to underplay the rôle of argument, supposing that questions concerning way of life can be addressed separately” (Sellars 2004, 70), and he overlooks the interest ancient philosophers had in arguments (ibid., 70). This criticism is thus similar to the one found in Nussbaum—even though Sellars argues that it applies only to Hadot and not to Foucault, because the latter talks of techniques or technologies of the self and understands them, according to Sellars, in the etymological sense of τέχνη, thereby avoiding a devaluation of the role of rational argument (Sellars 2009, 116–17). In fact, a closer consideration of Hadot and Foucault shows that Sellars’ views are problematic both regarding Hadot (who is actually much closer to Sellars’ own views) and Foucault (who does not directly connect his characterization of the techniques or technologies of the self with the etymological sense of τέχνη or rational argument). Nevertheless, Sellars is an important mediator between Nussbaum and Cooper, on the one hand, and Hadot and Foucault, on the other, insofar as he stresses rational understanding and argument without neglecting the practical component—even if the way he presents the two components tends to be too rigid, especially insofar as he seems to understand them as two separate and successive stages in a process. Brad Inwood, in his review of Sellars’ book, criticizes him precisely for failing to explore the interaction or fusion between the two components (2004). In my view, the main problem is that by isolating rational understanding as a sort of first stage that can be reached before the training or practice stage, Sellars’ account easily suggests that ancient philosophers admitted the possibility of attaining rational understanding without ἄσκησις and without it necessarily having an impact on one’s life (hence the need for a subsequent stage of ἄσκησις). Below I will argue precisely against this possibility. The third and in many aspects more forceful criticism—once again centred on Hadot—is presented in the introduction of John Cooper’s 2012 book Pursuits of Wisdom: Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus. As a way of developing a history of ancient ethics (Cooper 2012, ix), Cooper

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uses Hadot’s notion of philosophy as a way of life, but opposes him on several crucial points and especially on the role of reason in ancient philosophy. Cooper claims that for ancient thinkers reason was the only “acceptable basis on which to live life” and that philosophy was “the art or discipline that develops and perfects the human capacity of reason” (ibid., 6). Focusing mostly on the first of these two claims, he argues that, since Socrates, the activities of philosophizing such as philosophic discussion, argument, basic principles, theories, analyses and refutations are regarded as central to the best life (6). Rational insight and reasoned argument are supposed to guide one’s life and this is what distinguishes philosophy from religion (cf. 17–18). Cooper likewise introduces the idea (based on Plato’s Protagoras and corresponding to a stricter form of intellectualism) that reason is authoritative, that it can become the sole motivation to act and that there is a “seamless connection between philosophical views and action” (15)—at least assuming that reason is perfected by philosophy, which according to Cooper requires “coming to possess a reasoned, articulated philosophical understanding” or an “argued through, rationally worked out, rationally grasped, and rationally defended, reasoned ideas about the world, and one’s own place within it” (17). This “broadly Socratic monistic psychology,” as Sellars puts it, according to which “there was no room for a gap between knowledge and action” (Sellars 2014, 1179) is characteristic of all ancient philosophies and it distinguishes them from later philosophies (Cooper 2012, 15). Based on this, Cooper rejects all elements in Hadot that seem to assume some independence of the will from the intellect. He argues that ancient philosophers did not embrace a particular school or doctrine as a result of some sort of existential choice (as Hadot claims). They were, instead, fundamentally committed to reason and the only existential option was to live “on the basis of philosophical reason” (ibid., 18–19). Likewise, there was no need for the spiritual exercises Hadot talks about (or for Foucault’s care of the self—see ibid., 20), at least not for those exercises that have a non-rational nature. According to Cooper, these practices of spiritual strengthening served a secondary and derivative function and can only be found in Epicureanism and in late Platonism (22). Apart from these exceptions, all exercises we find are, according to Cooper, no more than perfectly ordinary ways of getting oneself to understand the real meaning and implications of philosophical arguments and philosophical positions, to fix them in one’s mind and make oneself ready to apply them smoothly to situations of life as they may arise. These are parts of the intellectual training required to live philosophically. (402)

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Cooper thus recognizes that philosophy has a practical or performative dimension. However, this dimension is fully subordinated to arguments and hence his discussion of ancient philosophies focuses almost exclusively on the latter and the way of life outlined by them, paying little attention to how one opts for a commitment to reason, to the process of perfecting it or to the intellectual training just mentioned (cf. Sellars, 2014, 1180).6 After considering Nussbaum, Sellars and Cooper, we can see that their criticism does not aim at rejecting the practical or performative dimension of ancient philosophy, but rather at subordinating it (with more or less autonomy) to the rational dimension. As for the rational component, it is conceived by the three of them in similar terms: it is intrinsically connected with philosophy (indeed, it is a central part or the central part of philosophy) and corresponds primarily to a developed form of knowledge (rational argument, doctrines or understanding) and not so much to a mental power that is present in all human lives. Indeed, although they all point to the idea of developing or perfecting reason, they do not consider this process in detail, instead focussing on its result.7 9.3 The Role of the Rational Component in Hadot’s and Foucault’s Accounts of Ancient Philosophy Both Hadot and Foucault are accused of neglecting reason, rational understanding and rational argument (or what we could broadly refer to as λόγος), but do they really do so? And in what way? Do they completely disregard it, do they give it less importance than they should or do they understand the rational component and λόγος in general in a different way? To answer these questions, let us briefly consider what each of them says about ancient philosophy, reason, rational argument and λόγος in a broader sense. Hadot argues that ancient philosophers conceived of philosophy not as a simple theoretical activity or system, but rather as a way of life or “a mode of existing-in-the-world, which had to be practiced at each instant, and whose goal was to transform the whole of the individual’s life” (Hadot 1995, 265). 6 Cooper’s claims regarding spiritual exercises are discussed by Marta Faustino in a very critical light, focusing on the more problematic aspects of Cooper’s characterization (see her text in this volume), but I think that Cooper is fundamentally right in pointing to an essential connection between philosophical exercises and reason (even though this connection should be understood in a broader sense, as I argue below). 7 This is precisely what I will try to do in sections 9.3 and 9.4, using Hadot’s and Foucault’s discussions of philosophy’s practical dimension.

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The main goal of ancient philosophy was therefore to transform who one is and how one lives, and it did so via a set of practices or exercises (ἀσκήσεις) that Hadot calls “spiritual exercises.” This is an important (and problematic) term, and in discussing why he uses it, Hadot establishes different connections between these exercises and the rational dimension of ancient philosophy, arguing at the same time that the former and ancient philosophy in general can never be reduced to the latter. First, regarding the means used, he refers to a term not very different from reason and says that “in these exercises, it is thought which, as it were, takes itself as its own subject-matter, and seeks to modify itself.” He also acknowledges that “intellectual factors such as definition, division, ratiocination, reading, investigation, and rhetorical amplification play a large role” in these exercises. However, he rejects designations such as “thought exercises” or “intellectual exercises” because spiritual exercises also involve imagination and sensibility or “individuals’ entire psychism” (ibid., 82). Indeed, when listing the different exercises, he presents the intellectual exercises just mentioned as only a part of them, alongside the exercise of psychological abilities (such as attention, memory, meditation or imagination) and practical components (actions, the performance of duties, friendship, etc.—84ff.). Thus, philosophical exercises do not use only rational means. As for the purpose of these exercises, Hadot talks of a cognitive transformation or “a transformation of our vision of the world” and of attaining a universal perspective. In fact, the adjective “spiritual” is also meant to express the idea that by means of these exercises “the individual raises himself up to the life of objective Spirit.” This is a Hegelian term that expresses the movement of overcoming mere subjectivity (sensation, desire, etc.) and coming to objective or universal reality, which Hadot here describes as a replacing of oneself within the perspective of the whole (ibid., 82). This overcoming of the subjective (and especially of sensitivity) was attributed to reason and Hadot also refers to it in this context, especially when talking about Socrates and the submission to the rational demands of λόγος (e.g. 93) or about the universal reason of the Stoics (e.g. 208, 211). Moreover, it corresponds to wisdom, which involves the “perfect use of reason” (Hadot 2002, 225). The goal of philosophical spiritual exercises has therefore some relation to reason and Hadot even says, when talking about their origin, that they differ from shamanistic rituals insofar as they “respond to a rigorous need for rational control” (ibid., 182). However, this relation to reason and to a cognitive transformation does not fully express the goal of these exercises according to Hadot. He also associates them with a “therapeutics of the passions” and “a metamorphosis of our personality” (Hadot 1995, 82), he identifies the need to transform our will and produce

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habituation (cf. e.g. ibid., 86, 265), and stresses the importance of an existential option or choice (Hadot 2002, 3). One must live philosophically and this is not ensured by theory or rational activity. As Hadot points out, there is “an abyss between philosophical theory and philosophizing as living action,” insofar as discourse and living are two completely different orders of reality (Hadot 1995, 268). All these ideas show how far Hadot is from any type of intellectualism, being instead closer to the type of voluntarism that is traditionally regarded as an innovation of late medieval thought and which pervades much of the later thought (including existential philosophy, which was particularly important to Hadot).8 The type of transformation involved is not primarily conceived in its relation to reason, but rather as a transformation of one’s being and life that depends on several factors, including one’s will and one’s decisions.9 In any case, reason and rational argument are not absent from Hadot’s account, even if they play a secondary role. This can also be seen in Hadot’s frequent use of the term discourse as a translation of λόγος. Hadot says he employs it in the sense of “discursive thought” (Hadot 2002, 4) and sometimes he refers to inner discourse in the sense of one’s thought (thus coming close to reason as a mental power), but in general the term refers to the results of one’s rational activity—i.e., one’s arguments and theories. Much like in Sellars, this is an essential element of philosophy. Although Hadot claims that both components are incommensurable and heterogeneous, he points out that they are also inseparable in three fundamental ways: philosophical discourse justifies philosophical life; it is a means to perform actions on ourselves and others; and it is “one of the forms of exercise of philosophical life,” as in the case of Platonic dialogue (ibid., 174–79). The two components are thus connected, even though discourse is subordinated to the more important component, which is philosophical life. The connection between the discursive or theoretical and the practical components of philosophy is also emphasized in the interview titled “Philosophical Discourse as Spiritual Exercise,” where he claims that spiritual exercises are 8 According to late medieval voluntarism, our will is independent from the intellect and may directly determine our actions (which means that, in order to transform ourselves, we must transform not only our intellect, but also our will). For more on the voluntarist, decisionist or existentialist character of Hadot’s account of ancient philosophy, see Antonaccio 1998, 76–78, Flynn 2005 and del Nido 2018, 12–15. 9 For references to the will as a central element of ancient philosophy, see e.g. Hadot 1995, 102 (where he talks about “freedom of the will”), 128 (where spiritual exercises are described as “inner activities of the thought and the will”), 268 (“conformity of our individual will with reason” or the will of universal nature), 265 (philosophy “took on the form of an exercise of the thought, will, and the totality of one’s being).

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not just added to philosophical theory or discourse, but rather “all of philosophy is an exercise” and “the exercises take place primarily in and through inner discourse” (Hadot 2009, 88). The central importance of spiritual exercises and the practical component does not, therefore, mean that λόγος is irrelevant for Hadot. It just means that for him λόγος is not the only or even the most important aspect of ancient philosophical practice or philosophy in general. What about Foucault? If we consider his lecture course The Hermeneutics of the Subject (which elaborates on the analyses of the third volume of the History of Sexuality to which Nussbaum refers), we see that he places his approach to ancient philosophy in the context of a history of the relations between the subject and truth. Foucault is primarily concerned with the modes of subjectivation and with how the subject becomes the subject of truth (and especially of an ethical truth). This means that the main question is once again how subjects can transform themselves—i.e., their way of seeing things, acting and living. To discuss this, Foucault isolates the notion of care of the self (ἐπιμέλεια ἑαυτοῦ), which he takes to be the main precept of almost all ancient philosophy: in Socratic-Platonic thought and later in Neoplatonism it coexisted with the precept “know thyself,” whereas in Hellenistic thought it was to a large extent separated from it. But how does the care of the self relate to reason and rational argument? In one of the first characterizations of this precept in the lecture course, Foucault speaks of the care of the self as a principle of rational conduct or rational morality (Foucault 2005, 9). This picks up ideas he commented on in History of Sexuality III, such as Epictetus’s idea that human beings are endowed with reason and this is what allows them to care for themselves (Foucault 1986, 47) or Seneca’s claim that strengthening the rational equipment is what ensures a wise behaviour (ibid., 62). However, these references to reason tend not to be developed. In the Hermeneutics of the Subject, for instance, Foucault immediately abandons the notion of reason and defines care of the self rather as a general standpoint or attitude, a certain form of attention or looking, and, more importantly, “a number of actions exercised on the self by the self, actions by which one takes responsibility for oneself and by which one changes, purifies, transforms, and transfigures oneself” (Foucault 2005, 11). These actions correspond to a great extent to Hadot’s spiritual exercises and Foucault calls them practices of the self and techniques (or technologies) of the self. According to him, these actions permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to

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attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection or immortality. (Foucault 1988, 18) The technologies of the self are thus defined without special reference to reason or even knowledge. Thoughts and wisdom are mentioned here, but they seem to play no special role. Foucault rather emphasizes the idea of transformation, as when he presents ancient philosophy as an art of living or an “aesthetics of existence”—in the sense that ancient philosophers supposedly understood life as a sort of material one should fashion into a beautiful work (Foucault 2005, 424). This aesthetic conception of philosophy is often criticized (including by Hadot—see Hadot 1995, 207–8, 211–12) because it seems arbitrary, or at least it does not specify any cognitive requirements or any essential connection with any form of truth that transcends the subject’s own decisions. However, philosophical self-transformation is conceived by Foucault as being essentially connected with a particular conception of the subject’s relation to truth, which he calls spirituality. The latter, according to him, corresponds to the “necessary transformations” that the subject carries out in himself “in order to have access to the truth,” or: the set of these researches, practices, and experiences, which may be purifications, ascetic exercises, renunciations, conversions of looking, modifications of existence, etc., which are, not for knowledge but for the subject, for the subject’s very being, the price to be paid for access to the truth (Foucault 2005, 14). The access to truth thus requires much work and a deep transformation, and this truth will in turn have strong effects on our life: it will illuminate or save us. According to Foucault, this conception of truth is characteristic of most of ancient philosophy at least from Socrates onwards, and stands in clear contrast with the conception of the relation between subject and truth that characterizes what Foucault calls the Cartesian moment (though he also says it was already partly anticipated by Aristotle and Scholasticism). Foucault associates this modern development with the ancient precept of knowing oneself, which is reinterpreted by Descartes in order to constitute a different mode of relation of the subject to herself and to the truth—one that is constituted by knowledge and not by care and self-transformation. Indeed, knowledge and its internal and external conditions (especially the correct application of the philosophical method) are now the sole condition for having access to the truth. The subject in her own constitution is already capable of reaching the truth and

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no longer has to change her own being as a subject in order to do so. Likewise, truth no longer illuminates or saves. There can be much progress in knowledge and it can have effects on life, but it does not necessarily change the subject’s being (ibid., 17–19). It is significant that even in describing this other mode of conceiving of and relating to the truth (and of being a subject), Foucault rarely speaks of reason (and even less of rational argument), and when he does (for instance, in the context of Stoicism and in connection with the notion of universal reason—e.g. ibid., 279, 445), he does not elaborate on the rational nature of the cosmos or the rational prescriptions it involves. This is possibly because of the influence of Nietzsche and the idea that there is no universal (i.e., ahistorical) reason and knowledge. Indeed, Foucault generally speaks of forms of discourse and pays close attention to the kinds of contexts or practices in which they are developed and which they help to shape. This tendency to focus on discourse (which he shares with Hadot) can be clearly seen in many passages and especially in one where he mentions discourse and relates it to reason. While discussing the equipment of ancient ἄσκησις or self-transformation, he says that the equipment used is λόγοι, which he translates as discourses (322), and then he adds that discourses are: propositions justified by reason. Justified by reason means that they are rational, that they are true and constitute acceptable principles of behavior … . [T]hese really existing phrases, these materially existing logoi are then phrases, elements of discourse, of rationality: of a rationality that states the truth and prescribes what we must do at the same time (323). Foucault thus refers to rational arguments, but then he immediately turns his attention to another feature of these λόγοι, namely that they are persuasive, and that they should transform the subject, help it, be at hand—or, as Foucault says, that they should become ἦθος (327), thereby alluding to the contrast between what one says (λόγοι) and one’s deeds (ἔργα).10 This contrast is also the centre of his discussions of the specific form of discourse on which he focuses most of his attention: parrhesia or courageous truth-telling. This is a modality of λόγος marked by self-transformation (both of the subject of enunciation and their interlocutor) and, once again, Foucault discusses it without considering any rational process or rational criteria that could be involved in one’s experience of truth.11 10 11

Cf. Paulo Lima’s and Fábio Serranito’s contributions to this volume. For more on parrhesia, see Daniele Lorenzini’s and Paulo Lima’s chapters in this volume.

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It is therefore clear that reason and rational argument play at best a secondary and unemphatic role in Foucault’s account of ancient philosophy. Like Hadot, he does not fully neglect reason and λόγος in general, but he sees them as subordinated to the practical dimension of philosophy and to the philosophical life. Even though both authors refer to reason and rational argument several times, this is not the exclusive nor the central component. Their approaches are instead marked by a relative devaluation of knowledge in general and its ability to determine our being and our life. In fact, they both tend to refer to the idea (often mentioned in ancient texts, especially in the Roman period) that the fact that one knows a doctrine or a λόγος (by reading a book or being able to repeat it) does not ensure that one will act or live according to it. In this sense, they are far from the intellectualism that Cooper places at the centre of his account. But is this a proper understanding of what is involved in ancient conceptions of reason and λόγος? 9.4 Λόγος or Reason as a Cognitive Power and Intellectualism in Ancient Philosophy We saw that Nussbaum, Sellars and Cooper associate reason primarily with philosophical arguments and doctrines, whereas Hadot and Foucault usually designate the results of philosophical activity as discourse and sometimes refer to reason in a more practical sense (for instance, when they talk about rational control or rational conduct). However, despite the apparent diversity, all these ideas refer to (or at least can be expressed by) the Greek term λόγος and cognate terms such as λογισμός, συλλογισμός, τὸ λογιστικόν, etc. Indeed, the term λόγος was often translated to Latin as ratio and this covers part of its philosophical use. Although several ancient authors do not use the term in this sense and the idea of “reason” also comes close to terms such as νοῦς, διάνοια or even φρόνησις (often translated as intellect, thought, intelligence, etc.), it is the term λόγος that is more relevant for the contemporary discussion about the role of reason in ancient philosophy, as its broad semantic field and particularly the association with discourse make it possible to organize the ideas to which the different contemporary authors refer. The meaning of λόγος is, of course, extremely complex.12 The corresponding verb, λέγειν, expresses the general idea of putting in order, gathering or assembling—i.e., it implies discerning what is common and organizing 12

In what follows, I will consider only some of the main aspects of this term. For more exhaustive discussions, see e.g. Schrenk 1966, Verdenius 1966, Boeder 1994.

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something. This idea assumes the form of saying or telling something, but also the form of counting or calculating something. Λόγος can thus designate what is told—i.e., a speech or an utterance as an organized whole that displays or clarifies something and, as such, can be persuasive; it can also designate a calculation and, by extension, a deliberation about possibilities, an argumentation that identifies the grounds of something or rationally explains it and, more generally, a reflection or a rational discussion. All these senses have in common the fact that they refer to sporadic operations and these operations give access to something that is not immediately given. One must grasp the meaning of some situation. In addition to these senses, λόγος also came to denote what is understood by reflection—the proportion, structure, order or law of something—and, more importantly, it came to denote reason as one’s ability to think or reflect (coming thus close to νοῦς, διάνοια or φρόνησις—cf. Verdenius 1966, 81, 84). This use of λόγος to designate a cognitive power of the soul that gives access to something that is not immediately given (be it concepts and judgments that determine our sensations or some form of metaphysical reality) is found in Plato and it plays an important role in Aristotle (see in particular Eth. Nic. I, 1098a and 1102a–1103a) and the Stoics. As for other authors who do not do not seem to use the term λόγος (such as Epicurus), they nevertheless identify the human’s ability to think as such and, in virtue of this, they can also be included in the discussion regarding the ancient understanding of reason. Given this multiplicity of meanings, it is important to take into account that the philosophical use of the terms ratio and λόγος can both denote the means of philosophical activity (the discourse produced—which corresponds to a heightened form of discourse—the elaborate arguments used and in general all the rational process used to clarify or explain things) and the cognitive power that renders this activity possible. Furthermore, it is of the highest importance to note that human reason or λόγος (as the power of speech, calculation, argumentation or reflection in general) can be understood in two main senses: there is a normative sense of the term, corresponding to its most advanced or philosophical form, but the term also has a constitutive sense, insofar as reason is always a central component of human life. Indeed, according to ancient philosophers, we always have more than mere sensations and affections: we always judge things in a certain way or have beliefs and even broad views about reality in general. However, reason or λόγος as the ability to think in general is not a uniform or static entity. It is plastic and can also assume different forms. More specifically, it can be underdeveloped (which translates into incoherent, unjustified, defective or “irrational”—i.e., not properly rational—beliefs), but it can also be developed and become properly or fully rational (which for most

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ancient philosophers means that it will be able to attain a rational understanding of ourselves and reality in general). This is extremely important because if we reduce reason to its more developed or proper form, we lose sight of the type of intellectualism that characterizes ancient philosophy. As I mentioned above, I use this term in a broad sense. I am not referring to the idea, highly emphasized by Cooper, that for ancient philosophers reason in its more developed form is the only source of motivation and that, as such, it is always effective. Rather, I mean that for ancient philosophers reason in the constitutive sense of the term always determines the way one sees things, acts and even feels. Everything is mediated by beliefs or judgments, and in this sense one’s actions, emotions and whole life are in one way or other rational—what changes is the degree of development of one’s reason. This does not mean that we cannot be motivated by emotions, desires and even non-rational parts of the soul like those we find in Platonic and Aristotelian psychology. However, these apparently non-rational motivations are always partially determined by reason or shaped by it and, at the same time, they can motivate us only by acting upon our reason and beliefs. This can be clearly seen in Plato’s or Aristotle’s discussions of acrasy (see in particular Prt. 352a–358e and Eth. Nic. VII, 1–10). Actions that appear to result from loss of rational self-control are only possible when one’s reason is weak and it requires irrational desires to influence or deceive one’s reason, assuming therefore a rational form. It is never a matter of a brute force that irresistibly forces us to act against our best views. This generic sense of intellectualism is characteristic, in one way or other, of all ancient philosophers.13 They all conceive of human life as being rational, even when they regard reason as a natural process based on sensation (as Epicurus does), when they question its ability to find the truth (as in Scepticism) or when (as in the case of Neoplatonism) they regard overcoming reason as the ultimate goal of human life. This implies that in the context of ancient philosophy, one’s λόγος (here understood as one’s way of seeing things) always translates into deeds (ἔργα). Indeed, our beliefs shape our acts and if we reconfigure them and start seeing or understanding things differently, we will also act and live differently. 13

The importance of intellectualism was stressed by Giamarelos (2018) in his interpretation of Cooper, although I disagree with him insofar as he regards intellectualism as characteristic of Socrates, in contrast with Plato and Aristotle. Instead, I think that Cooper is right in presenting all the main philosophies of Antiquity in an intellectualistic light, though he tends to focus more exclusively on the idea that philosophical (i.e., developed) reason always translates into action and not so much on the fact that even non-philosophical life is in a sense rational.

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This does not exclude a sense in which λόγος and ἔργον are often dissociated in ancient philosophy—in a way that deeply influenced Hadot’s and Foucault’s discussions. We can come into contact with external forms of λόγος (philosophical utterances and discourse), we can learn them by heart and even talk about them and analyze them. This, of course, does not ensure that we will act and live according to these λόγοι, and ancient philosophers are very well-aware of this—especially in the Hellenistic period, with the multiplication of philosophical “dogmas.” However, these λόγοι do not translate into someone’s action because they do not truly become this person’s beliefs—and in the context of ancient philosophy this happens because the person in question did not truly understand them. If they had understood these λόγοι, they would have changed their way of seeing things and, consequently, their way of acting and living. Hence, all criticism of merely repeating doctrines is not a call to simply change one’s resolution, but it is rather a call to come to understand them and see the world and oneself according to them. In this sense, the main distinction in ancient philosophy is not between thinking or saying and doing, but rather between different ways of thinking, which are actually an expression of different forms of reason or different degrees of rational development. If one has developed one’s reason, one will have a deeper understanding of philosophical questions and views, and one will also automatically act on one’s understanding. 9.5 Exercises or Practices of Reason: Combining Hadot and Foucault with Ancient Intellectualism The ancient conception of reason as a constitutive or permanent feature of human life that can be more or less developed and the intellectualist conception of human life justify the emphasis Nussbaum, Sellars and Cooper place on reason—even though these scholars, in the discussions we considered above, tend to conceive of it more as an instrument one uses to philosophise and focus on the results of this philosophical use, such as rational understanding and rational arguments. This is also often the case in Hadot and Foucault, especially when they talk of philosophical discourse. However, they stress how ancient philosophical discourse must be understood in relation to praxis, and in a way this also applies to reason as a cognitive power, especially insofar as we must develop it through practice. But how exactly does reason relate to the practical or performative dimension of philosophy? And what is the role of spiritual exercises and technologies of the self in the development of reason and in allowing our life to be controlled by reason in its developed form?

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One can easily accept that philosophical practices are somehow influenced by rational understanding or arguments and that these practices allow this understanding or these arguments to become important in our life. My claim, however, is that we can find a deeper relation between cognition and practice if we consider the rational dimension as a whole and not only in its developed form, as philosophical arguments or doctrines. The opposition between discourse and practice (or knowledge and spirituality) does not coincide with the difference between reason and practice, and in the latter case the distinction between the two becomes highly problematic because, as I argued above, for ancient philosophers reason always permeates action and life in one way or other. Hence, the transformation of our acts, behaviour and life, as well as of our emotions and our way of seeing or understanding things, requires a transformation of reason. One must render one’s life more rational (more conscious, coherent, justified, etc.) and this involves rendering oneself more rational—i.e., one must develop or strengthen one’s rational capability and become more able to identify inconsistencies and justify one’s views. This is precisely the point where Hadot’s and Foucault’s reflections become especially relevant. Since reason is deeply influenced by what we do, since it can become stronger or weaker, and we can become more or less rational, then reason requires exercises or techniques that may develop or strengthen it and ancient spiritual exercises or ancient technologies of the self are the main means of doing so. In saying this, I am not just referring to the type of intellectual training identified by Cooper (2012, 402), or the thought or intellectual exercises Hadot identifies as a particular type of spiritual exercise. Intellectual exercises or intellectual training in a strict sense is not the only way of developing or strengthening reason. In fact, since our psychology is complex and reason is regarded by ancient authors as just one part of it (even if one that affects or pervades the others), the process of fully developing reason requires a much more complex strategy—more precisely, it involves transforming not only reason, but also other parts of us or our whole psychology. Hence, the transformation of reason involves all the strategies and devices identified by Hadot and Foucault as means to transform one’s self or one’s being. All the spiritual exercises or technologies of the self are required to transform reason—i.e., to transform one’s rational ability and the role it plays in life. Indeed, one’s understanding of rational arguments and one’s ability to implement them depend on one’s psychology—on how rational one is or how one’s reason is configured—and, for this reason, one needs powerful, diverse and complementary practices to ensure that one becomes rational and thus leads a properly philosophical life. In light of this, it is therefore necessary to rethink some central components of Hadot’s and Foucault’s discussions of ancient philosophers. Hadot’s

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spiritual exercises should be regarded as exercises of reason—not only in the sense that reason performs these exercises (even if accompanied by or subordinated to other mental powers such as sensibility or imagination), but also (and most importantly) in the sense that they are ways of exercising or training (i.e., developing) reason, whether directly or indirectly.14 There are, of course, strictly intellectual or cognitive exercises of reason—but also non-intellectual or non-cognitive exercises of reason. Indeed, it is necessary to distinguish between intellectual exercises and the intellectual effects of philosophical exercises in general. Just as intellectual exercises may affect other parts of our being other than reason, non-rational exercises may (and, in fact, do) affect reason. Thus, philosophy was not just an art of living or a way of life, but an art of living rationally or according to reason and a way of living rationally (understanding “rationally” and “reason” here in the normative sense of the terms, as corresponding to a form of developed reason). Likewise, Foucault’s technologies of the self should be understood as being primarily technologies of reason, because for ancient philosophers the self’s whole being is pervaded by reason and dependent on it, and the care of the self is to be understood as caring for one’s reason or the rational self through rational and irrational means—i.e., as a set of operations that reason in the broad sense performs on itself, as a way of transforming itself. Spirituality, then, as a conception of the subject’s access to the truth that involves the transformation of the subject’s being should be understood as a transformation of reason as the central component of the subject. Indeed, what one needs to change to have access to a particular ethical truth is not exactly one’s being, but one’s reason. It is not a matter of subjectivation, but of “rationalization”—i.e., of how reason shapes itself as reason. The aesthetics of existence is primarily an aesthetics of reason or of rational existence. One must reshape one’s reason and it is only in doing so that one reshapes one’s life. All the components related to sensibility, imagination and physical practice are preserved in these reformulations of Hadot’s and Foucault’s main concepts. The change concerns only the way we interpret what philosophical practices aim to transform or how they can perform the transformation described by Hadot and Foucault. I claim that they must do so by transforming reason as a central component of our psyche or that they aim primarily at transforming it (either directly or indirectly, via the transformation of other parts of our psychology and their interaction with reason) and it is only in doing so that they

14

This is something that Hadot partially acknowledges, when saying in the above quoted passage that in these exercises thought transforms itself.

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transform everything else—our vision of the world, our being and our life as a whole. In redefining the different practices identified by Hadot and Foucault as practices of reason (i.e., ways of training, strengthening and transforming reason), we also get a different understanding of their purposes. First, these practices render us more able to understand things (i.e., more able to develop theoretical systems, understand them and see how they can or must be applied to different situations) and they also give us more knowledge or more solid beliefs. Second, they weaken desires or affections that—even though being mediated by reason—could still weaken it or limit the chances of its self-development, and they do so both by revising our beliefs and by disciplining our practices (i.e., avoiding certain behaviours, implementing others and producing habituation). Third, they make us more able to follow reason (i.e., a developed form of reason or reason in its proper form) or have rational self-control. These three different sides of philosophy’s training of reason or reshaping of reason are precisely what the transformation of one’s self, one’s being or one’s life consists in. We do not need to distinguish between philosophical discourse and philosophical life, as Hadot does, or between discourse and its visible manifestation (λόγος and ἔργον), as is sometimes suggested by Foucault. Our access to theoretical principles and our implementation of them occur at the same time and they are part of the process of rational development. Hence, it is not necessary to conceive of philosophical practices (at least some of them) as a layer that is added to philosophical understanding of theories or principles and allows us to implement them. If one properly understands them, one will automatically follow them, since one always follows one’s understanding of things. Thus, what ancient philosophers are saying when they include non-rational (i.e., not strictly cognitive or theoretical) practices in philosophy should not be understood as an attempt to include a non-rational component at the centre of philosophy, but rather as the realization of how difficult it is to become fully rational (i.e., less passionate, incoherent, unjustified, superstitious and deluded). In order to become rational and think rationally, to understand and embody rational principles, one must develop not only one’s rational or intellectual abilities in a direct way, but one must also change one’s habits, reconfigure one’s desires and even one’s whole psychology. Understanding and habituation are intrinsically connected. This is implicitly present in the Socrates of Plato’s Socratic dialogues and is greatly developed in works such as the Republic and the Nicomachean Ethics. It is true that in the Hellenistic period— and particularly in Roman philosophy—habituation plays a more prominent role (the cynics being perhaps the best example), but this should still be understood as an indirect training of reason. The goal was to develop reason and this

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was the way one could attain purity, happiness, tranquillity, cosmic consciousness or any of the other goals Hadot and Foucault identify. All these goals (as well as human perfection) are concomitant effects of the perfect development of reason, which for ancient philosophers generally includes not only the perfect development of a mental power, but also the perfect access to objective reality or truth. One could, of course, object that there are different texts and, correspondingly, different kinds of goals in ancient philosophy. In some cases, the goal seems to be to allow someone to attain a perfect knowledge or wisdom. In other cases, having a correct opinion without full insight or understanding seems to be enough. This is often connected with the idea that there are different kinds of person and different stages in philosophy. In the case where correct opinion is enough, habituation could play a more important role. However, the habituation in question still aims at creating a more rational ordering of one’s soul and this would in fact be required for more advanced stages. Indeed, the idea that we must exercise reason and that this is a central goal of philosophical practice (the one on which all others depend) is, in one way or other, common to all ancient philosophers from Socrates onwards and this includes all schools in the Hellenistic period. This does not exclude important differences in the way each author or school conceived of reason, and perhaps the differences between authors and schools (as well as their respective doctrines and practices) could even be understood or interpreted as differences between how they conceive of reason. 9.6

Conclusion

As I have shown, Nussbaum’s, Sellars’ and Cooper’s defence of reason as a central component of ancient philosophy can be reconciled with Hadot and Foucault’s emphasis on the practical dimension of ancient philosophy if we focus primarily on reason as a cognitive power (and not on its objective content—i.e., rational truth and rational arguments) and if we consider ancient practices in the context of their elaborate psychologies (which recognized the central role of reason in human life, even when they did not consider reason as a sort of divine power). Hadot’s spiritual exercises and Foucault’s practices of the self or techniques of the self can be understood as exercises or practices that promote (either directly or indirectly) rational development—even if many of them are not directly connected with rational arguments or intellectual practices.

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Such a reinterpretation of Hadot’s and Foucault’s analyses allows us to better integrate them within the broad intellectualism we find in ancient thought— according to which our actions and emotions always depend on our beliefs or our way of seeing and understanding things (i.e., on reason in a broad sense), even if our beliefs and way of seeing are affected (or distorted) by irrational factors, as many ancient authors admit. Instead of thinking of will as something separate from thought (as Hadot seems to do) or of a generic self, this reinterpretation considers the role reason in a broad sense plays—according to ancient philosophers—in every moment of our life and how philosophy understands the need to change it (to train or strengthen it) in order to be able to see and think more properly, and thus better guide our life. At the same time, it becomes clear that the problem with the unphilosophical life is precisely a problem with reason (a sort of rational debility). As I argued, this can be more clearly seen in certain ancient authors and texts, but even when it is not entirely clear (as in the case of the Cynics or Sextus Empiricus, for instance), it can be used as a heuristic principle and help us better understand what these philosophies involved. This also helps us rethink the difference between ancient and later conceptions of philosophy. As Cooper claims, the fact that later philosophers developed theories of motivation that assume a significant gap between knowing and acting (as in medieval voluntarism and all the “irrationalist” developments after German idealism), makes them quite different from ancient philosophy (Cooper 2012, 11–15). Instead of locating the difference between ancient and modern philosophy in scholasticism (as Hadot does) or Descartes (like Foucault), we can locate it in different conceptions of reason and human psychology. This might also be a significant difference between ancient philosophy and non-western philosophies and forms of wisdom. In any case, it draws clear boundaries between philosophy and religion and art (insofar as the latter are not related to such a concept of reason and the type of broad intellectualism I described above). This approach might have the disadvantage of making it harder to bring ancient philosophy into dialogue with other philosophies and other practices and, by granting reason a central role, it might become unpalatable not only to Hadot and Foucault scholars, but also to the contemporary mindset in general, insofar as we tend to assume that there is a gap between reason or thought and action and that our actions stem from our will (its strength or weakness) and not from what we think. Indeed, even though there are also attempts in contemporary philosophy to understand action and emotions in a more intellectualist or cognitivist light, these are far from unanimous. However, we are not considering whether or not we agree with ancient thinkers or how popular

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they can be nowadays, but rather how close Hadot’s and Foucault’s accounts of ancient philosophy are to what we find in ancient texts—and, using the criticisms discussed above and acknowledging their limited validity, I tried to show an aspect in which they could be closer.

References

Antonaccio, Maria. 1998. “Contemporary Forms of Askesis and the Return of Spiritual Exercises.” The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics 18: 69–92. Banicki, Konrad. 2015. “Therapeutic Arguments, Spiritual Exercises, or the Care of the Self: Martha Nussbaum, Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault on Ancient Philosophy.” Ethical Perspectives 22, no. 4: 601–34. Boeder, Heribert. 1994. “Der frügriechische Wortgebrauch von Logos und Aletheia.” In Das Bauzeug der Geschichte: Aufsätze und Vorträge zur griechischen und mittelalterlichen Philosophie, 1–30. Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann. Braicovich, Rodrigo. 2011. “Ejercicios espirituales e intelectualismo en Epicteto.” Classica (Brasil) 23, nos. 1–2: 35–56. Cooper, John. 2012. Pursuits of Wisdom: Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus, Princeton: Princeton University Press. del Nido, Daniel. 2018. “Pierre Hadot on Habit, Reason, and Spiritual Exercises.” Journal of Religious Ethics 46, no. 1: 7–36. Denis, Matthew. 2017. “On the Role of Philosophy in Self-Cultivation: Reassessing Nussbaum’s Critique of Foucault.” Parrhesia 28: 136–55. Flynn, Thomas. 2005. “Philosophy as a Way of Life: Foucault and Hadot.” Philosophy & Social Criticism 31, nos. 5–6: 609–22. Foucault, Michel. 1986. The Care of the Self: Volume 3 of the History of Sexuality. Translated by R. Hurley. New York: Pantheon Books. Foucault, Michel. 1988. “Technologies of the Self.” In Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, edited by L. Martin, H. Gutman and P. Hutton, 16–49. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press. Foucault, Michel. 2005. The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1981–1982. Translated by Graham Burchell. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Giamarelos, Stylianos. 2018. “Contemporary Pursuits of Philosophy as a Way of Life: Cooper, Hadot, Nehamas.” Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy 12: 131–36. Grimm, Stephen, and Caleb Cohoe. 2021. “What is Philosophy as a Way of Life? Why Philosophy as a Way of Life?” European Journal of Philosophy 29: 236–51. Hadot, Pierre. 1995. Philosophy as a Way of Life. Translated by M. Chase. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Hadot, Pierre. 2002. What is Ancient Philosophy? Translated by M. Chase. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press. Hadot, Pierre. 2009. The Present Alone is Our Happiness: Conversations with Jeannie Carlier and Arnold I. Davidson. Translated by Marc Djaballah. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Inwood, Brad. 2004. Review of The Art of Living: the Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy, by John Sellars. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. https://ndpr.nd.edu /reviews/the-art-of-living-the-stoics-on-the-nature-and-function-of-philosophy/. Jenkins, Fiona. 2001. “Therapies of Desire and Aesthetics of Existence: On Foucault’s Relevance for Philosophical Counselling.” Practical Philosophy 4, no. 3: 15–23. Miranda Vilchis, Rogelio. 2022. “The Place of Discourse in Philosophy as a Way of Life.” Metaphilosophy 53: 418–430. Ngo, Trung. 2018. “Cooper vs. Hadot: On the Nature of Hellenistic Therapeutic Philosophy.” Noēsis: Undergraduate Journal of Philosophy 19, no. 1: 24–32. Nussbaum, Martha. 1994. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Schrenk, G. 1966. “Λέγω, λόγος, ῥῆµα, λαλέω, λόγιος, λόγιον, ἄλογος, λογικός, λογοµαχέω, λογοµαχία, ἐκλέγοµαι, ἐκλογή, ἐκλεκτός.” In Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, edited by G. Kittel and G. Friedrich, vol. 4, sub voce. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Sellars, John. 2004. Review of Qu’est-ce que la Philosophie Antique?, by Pierre Hadot. The Classical Review 54, no. 1: 69–70. Sellars, John. 2009 [2003]. Art of Living: The Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy. London: Bristol Classical Press. Sellars, John. 2014. Review of Pursuits of Wisdom: Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus, by John M. Cooper. Mind 123: 1177–80. Sharpe, Matthew. 2014. “How It’s Not the Chrisippus You Read: On Cooper, Hadot, Epictetus, and Stoicism as a Way of Life.” Philosophy Today 58, no. 3: 367–92. Sharpe, Matthew. 2016. “What Place Discourse, What Role Rigorous Argumentation? Against the Standard Image of Hadot’s Conception of Ancient Philosophy as a Way of Life.” Pli: 25–54. Sharpe, Matthew. 2021. “Between too Intellectualist and not Intellectualist Enough: Hadot’s Spiritual Exercises and Annas’ Virtues as Skills.” The Journal of Value Inquiry 55, no. 2: 269–87. Sharpe, Matthew, and Michael Ure. 2021. Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions. London / New York: Bloomsbury. Verdenius, W. J. 1966. “Der Logosbegriff bei Heraklit und Parmenides.” Phronesis 11, no. 2: 81–98.

CHAPTER 10

Foucault on Parrhēsia and Rhetoric: A Reassessment



Daniele Lorenzini 10.1 In his recent book, Foucault’s Seminars on Antiquity, Paul Allen Miller characterizes Foucault’s position in the vexed debate about the relations between parrhēsia and rhetoric, “philosophy’s traditional adversary,” as one that traces a clear distinction between the two (Miller 2021, 95). While “rhetoric is concerned with the manner of speaking” and with persuasion, parrhēsia—Miller argues—is “fundamentally concerned with speaking the truth” (Miller 2021, 96). However, Miller is well aware that things are more complicated than they appear, since “clearly these are not mutually exclusive concerns,” and what seems to really characterize parrhēsia “as a philosophical exercise,” in Foucault’s eyes, is rather the fact that the speaker is completely engaged in her speech (Miller 2021, 96). In this chapter, my aim is to address Foucault’s analysis of the relations between parrhēsia and rhetoric in more detail in order, first, to show that Foucault does not always neatly distinguish the two, and, second, to defend his conclusions from some of the main criticisms he has received on that score. My claim is that Foucault’s views on this topic evolve and get progressively more convincing, and that it is only in 1984, when taking up what I will describe, using J. L. Austin’s terminology, as the perspective of the perlocutionary effect, that Foucault is finally able to clearly distinguish parrhēsia from rhetoric. In On the Government of Self and Others, Foucault defines parrhēsia as a non-artificial way of speaking: parrhēsia is direct, clear, and transparent—in short, Foucault claims, parrhēsia is rhetoric “degree zero” (Foucault 2010, 53). In his Letter 75 to Lucilius (a text that Foucault refers to several times), Seneca emphasizes this crucial feature of parrhēsia: just like an “unaffected and easygoing” conversation, he writes, there is “nothing mannered or artificial” about my letters because, “if it were possible, I would like to let you see my thoughts rather than translate them into language” (Seneca 1989, 137). Thus, parrhēsia can be characterized as a way to let one’s interlocutor(s) see one’s thoughts, without embellishing them through an elegant rhetorical style or altering them using oratorical tricks: parrhēsia aims to convey “the thought purely and © Daniele Lorenzini, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004693524_012

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simply, with the minimum embellishment compatible with this transparency,” Foucault explains in The Hermeneutics of the Subject (Foucault 2005, 405). These claims, however, have encountered several objections. On the one hand, Geoffrey Bennington has suggested that Foucault is unable to coherently distinguish parrhēsia from rhetoric, and that he ultimately limits himself to reiterating Plato’s views on the subject (Bennington 2016). On the other hand, Arthur Walzer has polemically argued that Foucault favors unartful and bold forms of parrhēsia, and that he consequently tends to reduce rhetoric to mere flattery in order to exclude the rhetorical aspects of parrhēsia from his analysis. According to Walzer, this is a historically and philologically illegitimate move: rhetoric and parrhēsia cannot and should not be entirely pulled apart, because throughout history the latter has more often than not taken on a rhetorical character (Walzer 2013). In this chapter, I will not directly respond to the latter claim, since Pat Gehrke has already convincingly argued that, at least within the context of Athenian democracy, “when speaking as parrhesiastes [one] does not speak as rhetor or via the tekhnē of rhetoric,” and that more generally the ancient Greeks understood and used the two terms—parrhēsia and rhetoric—as denoting two different verbal activities (Gehrke et al. 2013, 357). Focusing my attention on Foucault, what I would like to show is rather that his analyses are subtler and far more complex than Bennington and Walzer suggest when criticizing them. In Sections 10.2, 10.3, and 10.4, I will thus address Foucault’s evolving characterization of the relations between parrhēsia and rhetoric in The Hermeneutics of the Subject (1982), The Government of Self and Others (1983), and The Courage of Truth (1984), respectively. This topic, albeit quite specific, will also provide a helpful window on Foucault’s analysis of ancient philosophy more broadly, since parrhēsia constitutes the main lens through which he explores antiquity—from fifth-century Athens to early Christianity—during the last two years of his life. 10.2 In 1982, Foucault addresses the issue of parrhēsia’s alleged “transparency” within the context of the traditional polemic opposing philosophy and rhetoric in antiquity. In The Hermeneutics of the Subject, he argues that, while rhetoric is “the inventory and analysis of the means by which one can act on others by means of discourse,” philosophy can be defined as “the set of principles and practices available to one, or which one makes available to others, for taking proper care of oneself or of others” (Foucault 2005, 135–36). Even though there

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appears to be an overlap here, for it seems necessary that, in order to realize its objective (that is, taking proper care of oneself and/or of others), philosophy as a discourse makes use of rhetoric, Foucault immediately points out that philosophical discourse always strives to tell the truth, whereas rhetoric is indifferent to the truth—its essential goal being persuasion instead: Rhetoric is first of all defined as a technique whose methods obviously do not aim to establish a truth; rhetoric is defined as an art of persuading those to whom one is speaking, whether one wishes to convince them of a truth or a lie, a nontruth. Aristotle’s definition in the Rhetoric is clear: it is the ability to find that which is capable of persuading. The question of the content and the question of the truth of the discourse delivered do not arise. (Foucault 2005, 381) Yet Foucault is aware that the relations between philosophy and rhetoric are much more complex and nuanced than the relations between philosophy and flattery or sophistry. Indeed, he argues that philosophical discourse clearly has its own “materiality,” its own “plasticity,” and thus also its own “rhetoric” on which its effects depend, at least in part (Foucault 2005, 348). To deny this would mean for Foucault to contradict his own remarks, a few years earlier, about the concepts of game and regime of truth, and treat philosophy as a “pure” game of truth existing outside of all regimes.1 Thus, in The Hermeneutics of the Subject, Foucault defines parrhēsia— within the context of the philosophical practice of spiritual direction in the first two centuries of the Roman empire—as “that kind of appropriate rhetoric, or nonrhetorical rhetoric, which philosophical discourse must employ”: Parrhesia is the necessary form of philosophical discourse, since … when we employ the logos, there is necessarily a lexis (a way of saying things) and the choice of particular words rather than others. Therefore, there can be no philosophical logos without this kind of body of language with its own qualities, its own figures, and its own necessary effects at the 1 Foucault defines a “game of truth” as “a set of rules by which truth is produced” (Foucault 1997, 297), and a “regime of truth” as “that which determines the obligations of individuals with regard to the procedures of manifestation of truth” (Foucault 2014, 93). However, although Foucault does trace a conceptual distinction between game and regime of truth, he also maintains that there can be no game of truth without or outside of a regime of truth: no game of truth can ever be “pure,” every game of truth is necessarily linked to a regime of truth (Lorenzini 2015a, 5).

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level of pathos. But if you are a philosopher, it is not the art or tekhnē of rhetoric that is needed to control these elements (verbal elements, elements whose function is to act directly on the soul). It must be this other thing, which is both a technique and an ethics, an art and a morality, and which is called parrhesia. (Foucault 2005, 368) In other words, at first Foucault suggests that—at least in the context of the practice of spiritual direction in Roman philosophy—parrhēsia is different from rhetoric because it is not merely a technique or an art of discourse (aiming at persuasion), but also an ethics: the spiritual director makes use of parrhēsia in order to take proper care of his directee(s), that is, to help them acquire autonomy and self-mastery. This is why “the master’s discourse must not be an artificial, sham discourse subservient to the rules of rhetoric, seeking only to produce effects of pathos in the disciple’s soul,” but should be such that the disciple(s) can autonomously “subjectify” it (Foucault 2005, 368). Parrhēsia, as a tekhnē employed by philosophical discourse in the context of the ancient practice of spiritual direction, aims to define a set of rules—rules of prudence, rules of skill, kairos (Foucault 2005, 384)—which do not pertain to “the truth of the [master’s] discourse,” but to “the way in which this discourse of truth is formulated” (Foucault 2005, 368). Yet parrhēsia cannot simply be equated to rhetoric because it is not indifferent to the truth and it does not aim to persuade, but rather to give form to a true discourse that is supposed to help the disciple to autonomously take care of herself. This characterization of parrhēsia as both a technique and an ethics marks a significant shift from what Foucault had argued two years before, in his 1980 lectures at UC Berkeley and Dartmouth College. There, Foucault had claimed that the spiritual director’s discourse possesses a rhetorical quality in that it conveys the truth by a “rhetorical explanation of what is good for anyone who wants to approach the life of a sage.” In other words, Foucault had initially argued that, in antiquity, the master’s discourse is characterized by a “persuasive rhetoric,” and he had gone so far as to claim that all the ancient technologies of the self are closely connected, not only with the art of memory, but also with the art of persuasion (Foucault 2015, 36–38). By contrast, in 1982, Foucault pulls parrhēsia and rhetoric more clearly apart, while still refraining from radically opposing them. Foucault’s argument in The Hermeneutics of the Subject can perhaps be read along the lines of Plato’s distinction, in the Phaedrus (261a–266b), between two kinds of rhetoric: sophistic rhetoric, which values persuasion over truth and which Socrates, in the dialogue, criticizes; and a reformed rhetoric which Socrates praises, a philosophical rhetoric that aims to direct the soul of the listener(s), while being solidly grounded in a concern for

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the truth (Murray 1988).2 This philosophical rhetoric seems to correspond to what Foucault, in 1982, calls parrhēsia. Indeed, rather than parrhēsia’s “mortal enemy” (which is flattery), Foucault describes rhetoric as both its “technical adversary” and its “technical partner”: parrhēsia must detach itself from rhetoric not in order to get rid of it once and for all, but to be able to make use of it “within strict, always tactically defined limits, where it is really necessary”— since, ultimately, parrhēsia is what allows the transmission of true discourse, “in all its naked force,” from master to disciple (Foucault 2005, 382). In other words, parrhēsia is one of the main instruments through which, in antiquity, (philosophical) truth was expressed and given force. In The Hermeneutics of the Subject, the relationship between parrhēsia and rhetoric is thus portrayed by Foucault as a complex, nuanced, ambiguous, and ultimately strategic one:



In its structure, in its game, the discourse of parrhesia is completely different from rhetoric. This does not mean that, in the tactic of parrhesia itself, in order to obtain one’s intended outcome, it may not be necessary from time to time to call upon some elements and procedures belonging to rhetoric. Let’s say that parrhesia is fundamentally freed from the rules of rhetoric, that it takes rhetoric up obliquely and only uses it if it needs to. (Foucault 2005, 385–86) 10.3 In the following two years, however, Foucault’s analysis of parrhēsia significantly broadens out and no longer focuses exclusively on the practice of spiritual direction in Roman philosophy. As a consequence, his account of the relations between parrhēsia and rhetoric also undergoes some important changes.3 While maintaining that parrhēsia “as a technique, a process, and a way of saying things can and frequently must make an effective use of the 2 I am grateful to Paulo Lima for this suggestion. 3 Even though Foucault tends to speak of “rhetoric” without further qualifications, it is clear that working with texts from different historical periods also entails working with different conceptions of rhetoric. The same can be said when it comes to Foucault’s analyses of parrhēsia, whose meaning significantly varies (as Foucault himself explicitly acknowledges) throughout antiquity, depending on the authors, texts, and contexts one chooses to focus on. When characterizing the relations between parrhēsia and rhetoric, however, Foucault tends to bracket these historical considerations, which is of course potentially quite problematic. Thanks to Fábio Serranito and Hélder Telo for the pointer.

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resources of rhetoric,” Foucault is now increasingly interested in emphasizing what radically differentiates parrhēsia from rhetoric—and in making clear that parrhēsia has no specific rhetorical form and “cannot just be defined as an element falling within the province of rhetoric” (Foucault 2010, 53). The crucial difference between the two still seems to lie in the fact that, while rhetoric aims to persuade and is indifferent to the truth, “it is not so much or not necessarily a matter of persuasion in parrhesia” (Foucault 2010, 53). Yet, this is not an unproblematic claim, because Foucault immediately adds that, “when Plato gives Dionysius a lecture, he is trying to persuade him,” and that it is precisely in this kind of situation, that is, when parrhēsia’s goal is also persuasion, that it can and must “call upon methods of rhetoric” (Foucault 2010, 54, my emphasis). This goal and methods, however, do not define the true “nature” of parrhēsia: they are not necessary conditions of parrhesiastic utterance, but additional elements that may or may not characterize specific instances of it. Similarly, it is clear that sometimes parrhēsia takes the form of defiance, of insult, of psychagogy, but that none of these forms is necessarily tied to it. By contrast, what does constitute a necessary condition of parrhesiastic utterance is what I called transparency: parrhēsia always conveys the speaker’s thoughts as clearly and openly as possible, and exactly as they are. Consequently, in order to depict Socrates as a paradigmatic parrhesiastic figure, Foucault ends up downplaying the importance of what probably constitutes the most famous form that his discourse takes: irony. In his 1982 Grenoble lecture, for instance, Foucault still does not present Socrates as a parrhesiast because he thinks that “there is a structural opposition between parrhesia and irony” (Foucault 2019, 34). It will not take him long to change his mind. In The Government of Self and Others, Foucault portrays Socrates as a parrhesiast, yet he still emphasizes that “nothing is more distant than parrhesia from the wellknown Socratic, or Platonic-Socratic irony”: in other words, for Foucault, parrhēsia remains “a veritable anti-irony” (Foucault 2010, 54).4 Socrates’ discourse is not always parrhesiastic: it is parrhesiastic only when it is “without embellishment,” thus directly conveying his thoughts, and only insofar as it “employs the words, expressions, and phrases which come to mind”—a discourse that “the person who utters it believes to be true” (Foucault 2010, 314). In short, when using irony, Socrates does not speak as a parrhesiast.5 4 It is worth noting that, in 1984, Foucault does refer to Socratic irony as one of the forms taken by the “courage of truth,” even though he carefully avoids using the word parrhēsia (Foucault 2011, 233–34). 5 For a detailed account of Foucault’s analysis of Socratic parrhēsia, and a discussion of its problematic aspects, see Paulo Lima’s chapter in this volume.

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Foucault further elaborates on these ideas when addressing the Greek notion of logos etumos, that is, of discourse “in the naked state,” devoid of any “embellishment, apparatus, construction, or reconstruction,” and therefore genuine and “closest to the truth” (Foucault 2010, 314). According to the ancient Greeks, Foucault explains, “language, words, and phrases in their very reality have an original relationship with truth,” since they “bring with them what is essential (ousia), the truth of the reality to which they refer” (Foucault 2010, 314). Consequently, any “addition, transformation, trick, or shift in relation to the distinctive, original form of language” inevitably distances it from the truth—and parrhesiastic discourse, as opposed to rhetoric, is etumos because it is not “chosen, fashioned, and constructed in such a way as to produce its effect on the other person,” but “so bare and simple, so in keeping with the very movement of thought that, just as it is without embellishment, in its truth, it will be appropriate to what it refers to” (Foucault 2010, 314–15). In short, its transparency ensures that it is capable both of telling the truth about reality and of expressing “the soul of the person who utters it” (Foucault 2010, 315). Yet, in 1983, Foucault also argues—as I mentioned above—that parrhēsia is rhetoric “degree zero,” and thus his position remains somewhat ambiguous: is parrhēsia a specific (philosophical) kind or “limit case” of rhetoric, or are parrhēsia and rhetoric radically opposed to one another? 10.4 It is only the following year, in The Courage of Truth, that Foucault’s account finally overcomes these ambiguities, thus also clearly detaching itself from Plato’s distinction, in the Phaedrus, between a sophistic and a philosophical rhetoric. In 1984, Foucault unequivocally contrasts parrhēsia and rhetoric: parrhēsia, he claims, “is opposed to the art of rhetoric in every respect” (­Foucault 2011, 13). His way of characterizing this opposition is also importantly different from what we have seen so far: rhetoric is no longer said to be indifferent to the truth, but is rather portrayed as indifferent to the relationship between the speaker and what she says, for it “does not involve any bond of belief between the person speaking and what she [states]”; its aim is rather to produce effects—in the form of beliefs, convictions, and conducts—in the audience, so as to establish “a constraining bond between what is said and the person or persons to whom it is said” (Foucault 2011, 13). By assuming this original perspective, which corresponds to what J. L. Austin calls the perlocutionary effect—that is, what is done not in but by saying something (Austin 1975, 121)—it becomes easier for Foucault to explain why parrhēsia is the opposite of rhetoric: on the one hand, parrhēsia entails a strong, manifest, and constitutive

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bond between the speaker and what she says; on the other, by openly expressing her thoughts, the parrhesiast also exposes herself and her bond with her interlocutor(s) to an indefinite risk (Foucault 2011, 13–14). In short, rhetoric does not entail any bond between the person speaking and what is said, but aims to establish a constraining bond, a bond of power between what is said and the person to whom it is said. Parrhesia, on the other hand, involves a strong and constitutive bond between the person speaking and what she says, and, through the effect of the truth, of the injuries of truth, it opens up the possibility of the bond between the person speaking and the person to whom she has spoken being broken. Let’s say, very schematically, that the rhetorician is, or at any rate may well be an effective liar who constrains others. The parrhesiast, on the contrary, is the courageous teller of a truth by which she puts herself and her relationship with the other at risk. (Foucault 2011, 14) The standpoint of the perlocutionary, that is, the fact that parrhēsia opens up a space of indefinite risk for the speaker, thus allows Foucault to find a clearer way of neatly distinguishing parrhēsia from rhetoric: while the latter does not rely on any bond of belief between the speaker and what she says, and aims to establish a bond of power between what is said and the person(s) to whom it is said, the former relies on a constitutive bond between the speaker and what she says, and exposes the speaker as well as the bond between her and her interlocutor(s) to an unspecified risk in order to (try to) open the latter’s eyes about aspects of their beliefs or conduct that need to be changed—albeit not in the mode of persuasion. In other words, the parrhesiast can still—and in fact most of the time does—hope to induce a change in the beliefs and/or conduct of her interlocutor(s), but refuses to achieve this aim by establishing a bond of power between her words and the person(s) to whom they are addressed. Instead, she leaves her interlocutor(s) entirely free to respond as they want to her speech, including by breaking their bond with her. This is a far subtler and more convincing argument than the ones that are usually attributed to Foucault when it comes to describing his views on the relations between parrhēsia and rhetoric. One could still object that, by emphasizing the opposition between parrhēsia and rhetoric, Foucault runs the risk of overlooking the multiplicity of styles and genres that characterize ancient philosophy (Hadot 2020, 133–62).6 Foucault, however, is clearly aware of this multiplicity, and he never characterizes 6 I am grateful to Marta Faustino for raising this important objection.

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parrhēsia as a philosophical genre in and of itself. On the contrary, parrhēsia is for him a way of speaking that one can use in many different contexts, and in connection with many different literary genres—letters, dialogues, diatribes, and so on. Yet Foucault’s focus on parrhēsia, at the end of his life, does indicate that he came to consider it as the paradigmatic form of philosophical discourse, and of critique (Foucault 2019, 43–44), as he himself wanted to practice them—much like Hadot’s focus on (Socratic) dialogue as the archetypal form of philosophical discourse is a direct consequence of his idea that spiritual exercises have a dialogical structure, and that philosophy essentially consists in the practice of spiritual exercises (Lorenzini forth.).7 10.5 In this chapter, I hope to have shown that both Geoffrey Bennington’s claim that Foucault is unable to convincingly distinguish parrhēsia from rhetoric, and that he ends up uncritically endorsing Plato’s views about the relations between philosophy, politics, and rhetoric (Bennington 2016), and Arthur Walzer’s claim that Foucault unduly reduces rhetoric to flattery in order to downplay the rhetorical aspects of parrhēsia (Walzer 2013), are to be rejected. Actually, Foucault’s analyses of ancient parrhēsia and its relations with rhetoric are far subtler and more complex than what his critics have generally argued. The evolution of Foucault’s views on this topic, and the pain he takes to distinguish parrhēsia from rhetoric, in addition to his explicit valorization of the former as both a paradigmatic form of the philosophical discourse and a genealogical ancestor of the modern critical attitude (Foucault 2019, 68), should also give pause to all the scholars who have criticized Foucault for his alleged reduction of truth claims to the power effects they have on their audience, or who have characterized his own (critical) approach as rhetorical or fictional (Habermas 1990, 279; Biebricher 2005, 18). Moreover, Foucault’s analyses of ancient parrhēsia also clearly suggest that we should resist any simplistic reduction of the perlocutionary to rhetoric, acknowledging instead—with Stanley Cavell (2005)—the rich and multifaceted nature of the perlocutionary domain (Lorenzini 2015b). But this is another story.

7 Indeed, according to Hadot, Socratic dialogue consists in a “living man-to-man conversation” where the most important issue “is not what one talks about, but who is talking”; the aim of this “spiritual exercise practiced in common” is the transformation of the interlocutor(s)’s way of thinking and living (Hadot 2002, 364, 39, 41).



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References Austin, J. L. 1975. How to Do Things with Words. Edited by J.O. Urmson and M. Sbisà. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bennington, Geoffrey. 2016. “The Truth about Parrēsia: Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Politics in Late Foucault.” In Foucault/Derrida Fifty Years Later: The Futures of Genealogy, Deconstruction, and Politics, edited by O. Custer, P. Deutscher, and S. Haddad, 205–220. New York: Columbia University Press. Biebricher, Thomas. 2005. “Habermas, Foucault, and Nietzsche: A Double Misunderstanding.” Foucault Studies 3: 1–26. Cavell, Stanley. 2005. Philosophy the Day after Tomorrow. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Foucault, Michel. 1997. “The Ethics of the Concern for Self as a Practice of Freedom.” In Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth: Essential Works of Foucault (1954–84), Volume 1, edited by P. Rabinow, translated by R. Hurley and others, 281–301. New York: New Press. Foucault, Michel. 2005. The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1981–82. Edited by F. Gros. Translated by G. Burchell. Series edited by A.I. Davidson. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Foucault, Michel. 2010. The Government of Self and Others: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1982–83. Edited by F. Gros. Translated by G. Burchell. Series edited by A.I. Davidson. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Foucault, Michel. 2011. The Courage of Truth: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1983–84. Edited by F. Gros. Translated by G. Burchell. Series edited by A.I. Davidson. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Foucault, Michel. 2014. On the Government of the Living: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1979–80. Edited by M. Senellart. Translated by G. Burchell. Series edited by A.I. Davidson. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Foucault, Michel. 2015. About the Beginning of the Hermeneutics of the Self: Lectures at Dartmouth College, 1980. Edited by H.-P. Fruchaud and D. Lorenzini. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Foucault, Michel. 2019. “Discourse and Truth” and “Parrhesia.” Edited by H.-P. Fruchaud and D. Lorenzini. English edition by N. Luxon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gehrke, Pat J., Susan C. Jarratt, Bradford Vivian, and Arthur E. Walze. “Forum on Arthur Walzer’s ‘Parrhesia, Foucault, and the Classical Rhetorical Tradition.’” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 43 (4): 355–81. Habermas, Jürgen. 1990. The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures. Translated by F. Lawrence. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hadot, Pierre. 2002. Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique. Paris: Albin Michel. Hadot, Pierre. 2020. The Selected Writings of Pierre Hadot: Philosophy as Practice. Translated by M. Sharpe and F. Testa. New York: Bloomsbury.

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Lorenzini, Daniele. 2015a. “What Is a ‘Regime of Truth?’” Le Foucaldien 1 (1): 1–5. Lorenzini, Daniele. 2015b. “Performative, Passionate, and Parrhesiastic Utterance: On Cavell, Foucault, and Truth as an Ethical Force.” Critical Inquiry 41 (2): 254–68. Lorenzini, Daniele. forth. “Living Philosophically: Stanly Cavell, Moral Perfectionism and Spiritual Exercises.” In Stanley Cavell and Value Theory: Aesthetics, Moral Perfectionism, and the Human Condition, edited by D. LaRocca and P. Marrati. New York: Bloomsbury. Miller, Paul Allen. 2021. Foucault’s Seminars on Antiquity: Learning to Speak the Truth. New York: Bloomsbury. Murray, James S. 1988. “Disputation, Deception, and Dialectic: Plato on the True Rhetoric (Phaedrus 261–266).” Philosophy & Rhetoric 21 (4): 279–89. Seneca. 1989. Epistles: Volume 2. Translated by R.M. Gummere. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Walzer, Arthur E. 2013. “Parrhesia, Foucault, and the Classical Rhetorical Tradition.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 43 (1): 1–21.

CHAPTER 11

From Speech to Pure Visibility: A Problem in Foucault’s Conception of Socratic Parrhesia Paulo Alexandre Lima 11.1

Introduction1

Foucault’s interpretations of ancient thinkers reawakened an authentically philosophical interest in ancient philosophy. Scholars of ancient thought should not be afraid to admit this publicly (parrhesiastically), but they should neither be shy about denouncing the inaccuracies of Foucault’s readings of ancient philosophical texts. The genius of a reinterpretation of philosophemes from the past and the absence of what is called philological rigor sometimes go hand in hand—and Foucault, as is well known, is not the only case in which these two elements come together (think, e.g., of Heidegger and Derrida). In the context of this ambivalent character of Foucault’s interpretation of the Ancients, I would like to carry out a reconsideration of his conception of parrhesia—in particular, of his conception of Socratic parrhesia. In this respect too, the dual presence of genius and philological inaccuracy is felt; in other words, the originality and philosophical interest of Foucault’s conception are, as it were, proportionate to the philologically problematic nature of that conception and the resulting historical imprecision. Much has been said of the transformation that the consideration of Cynic parrhesia brought about in the thought of the so-called late Foucault, as well as of the non-discursive dimension of political resistance and ethical life that Foucault brought to light from the ancient Cynics.2 However, he also maintains, albeit less strongly, that this non-discursive dimension is already present in the Socratic practice of parrhesia; this is an aspect less noted by interpreters, 1 This work is funded by national funds through the FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the Concurso de Estímulo ao Emprego Científico Individual – CEECIND/02734/2018. I am indebted to Marta Faustino and Hélder Telo for their invaluable comments and suggestions, which have greatly contributed to improving this chapter. A word of thanks is also due to one of the anonymous reviewers for a few, important corrections. The remaining faults are of course mine. 2 See, e.g., Gros 2002, 162–66; 2007, 121–22; 2008, 225; 2009, 323–24; and, very recently, Miller 2022, 180–81. © Paulo Alexandre Lima, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004693524_013

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which I intend to analyze from an angle that is also less explored.3 Indeed, despite some well-known initiatives on the part of specialists in ancient philosophy (e.g., Nussbaum 1994, Hadot 2002), the “negative” side of the ambivalence that characterizes Foucault’s interpretation of ancient thought deserves further discussion. Without intending to deny the originality and philosophical interest of such an interpretation, nor being able to demonstrate how the “negative” side of its ambivalence turns out to have a positive character in heuristic terms, I would like to draw attention to a particular manifestation of this “negative” side, namely, the philological and interpretive imprecision concerning Socratic parrhesia and the way of life it embodies. In the following discussion, I will try to indicate that Foucault’s reading of Socratic parrhesia has as a key element the idea of pure visibility (section 11.3). The idea of visibility, even if understood as appearing before others to tell them the truth, does not correspond to the primary aspect of ancient parrhesia, but to a secondary aspect of this notion, which has as its fundamental element the telling of the truth to others. If he based his reading of Socratic parrhesia on this idea of visibility, Foucault would be placing at the centre of the notion of parrhesia an aspect that is only secondary—because the parrhesiastic appearance in front of others only represents a risk and requires courage because it involves telling the truth to others—and pushing back into the background what is the central aspect of the notion. But nonetheless, he would be operating with an idea of visibility that is importantly related to the notion of parrhesia.4 However, as I shall demonstrate, Foucault’s reading of Socratic parrhesia is problematic in the sense that it makes use of an idea of visibility that is not this one; instead, Foucault operates with an idea of visibility—namely, that of pure visibility: the appearing to others of the visible figure of life, which he ultimately conceives as being devoid of any relation to discourse and, a fortiori, to speech—which is inadequate to account for Socratic parrhesia as a courageous telling of the truth in front of others.

3 Gros (2007, 121) states that, for Foucault, Cynic parrhesia represents an extension of Socratic parrhesia, but he does not identify this line of continuity with the idea of non-discursivity. 4 According to Saxenhouse (2006, 55–82), parrhesia, understood as refusal to hide what one thinks, is diametrically opposed to αἰδώς (“shame”): the feeling of being exposed to the judgmental gaze of the other and the consequent search for invisibility to the other’s gaze. There is, however, another aspect of parrhesia that has to do with the idea of visibility and that Saxenhouse does not highlight in her book: the courage to tell the truth in front of others. Although Foucault spoke of the element of courage that is at the heart of the notion of parrhesia, he did not expressly relate it to visibility.

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Now, the idea of pure visibility is also inadequate to account for the extra-parrhesiastic aspects of the Socratic way of life. If, within the framework of the extra-parrhesiastic dimension of the Socratic way of life, the idea of visibility—i.e., the appearing to others of the visible figure of life (which, even when it involves risk and courage, does not involve parrhesiastic risk and courage, because, as such, it does not tell the truth)—plays an important role, this visibility is not pure, but rather a visibility that, on the one hand, presupposes an inner discourse and, on the other, is appropriable a posteriori by a discourse that is either interior or externalized. The omnipresence, in the Socratic way of life, of the shadow of λόγος, which is the unifying element of these two forms of discourse, makes pure visibility a philologically and philosophically inadequate idea for understanding this way of life. Furthermore, because the Socratic way of life also involves λόγος in an extra-parrhesiastic sense, the very notion of parrhesia proves to be insufficient to encompass all the components of such a way of life. Insofar as Foucault’s exposition of Socratic parrhesia introduces a certain twist in his interpretation of ancient parrhesia (namely, the shift from a political parrhesia to a philosophical one, in whose context a non-discursive parrhesia associated with the pure visibility of life arises), I will begin by depicting the path taken by Foucault from the consideration of ancient parrhesia to the consideration of the Socratic one (section 11.2). In this depiction, I will try to indicate, on the one hand, the way in which Socratic parrhesia fits into Foucault’s project of a genealogy of modernity and, on the other, the way in which the uncertainties and incongruities in the definition of his project obscure its meaning and therefore also the place that parrhesia in general and Socratic parrhesia in particular occupy in it. 11.2

Foucault’s Path to Socratic Parrhesia

In this section, I will confine myself to a brief situating of the analysis of parrhesia, in particular of Socratic parrhesia, in the research program of the late Foucault, as well as to a summary consideration of the main articulations in the history of ancient parrhesia outlined by him. I will focus, above all, on a limited set of his pronouncements on parrhesia. Despite the fact that he already realized the importance of parrhesia for his research program in The Hermeneutics of the Subject and despite the multiplicity and variety of his pronouncements on the topic on occasions other than the lectures at the Collège de France, the last two lecture series—The Government of Self and Others and The Courage of the Truth (The Government of Self and Others 2)—deserve special attention here because they deal exclusively and in detail with the topic of ancient

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parrhesia.5 Unlike what happens on the other occasions when Foucault talks about parrhesia, the last two lecture series at the Collège de France—due to this institution’s dual vocation of research and pedagogy—not only offer us a more extensive and thoughtful consideration of the topic, proportionate to its duration over a few months, but they are also concerned with clarifying the links between the different stages of such a consideration and with reformulating the terms in which it is carried out. More than a Foucauldian fetish, Kant’s opusculum on the Enlightenment is, as stated in a part of the manuscript for the 1982–83 lecture series that was not delivered, “a foundation stone” (point d’enracinement; Foucault 2008, 22) of the way of thinking which the analyses carried out throughout these and the following lecture series manifest.6 Kant’s text allows Foucault to raise the most fundamental question not only of the final phase of his work but also of his entire genealogical project. For him, in line with what Kant maintains in What is Enlightenment?, the central question is that of the present (Foucault 2010, 11). It is a matter of carrying out the genealogy of modernity (Foucault 2010, 13–14), of the “‘now’ within which we all live and which is the site, the point [from which] I am writing” (Foucault 2010, 11); i.e., it is a matter of understanding modernity as an expression of a process in which the philosopher plays a dual role: as a result and as an actor (Foucault 2010, 11–12). Since this process collectively determines our being as moderns and, a fortiori, the being of the modern philosopher, Foucault designates his genealogical enterprise as an “ontology of the present, of present reality, an ontology of modernity, an ontology of ourselves” (Foucault 2010, 21). Foucault is thus adopting—from Kant, but also from Hegel, Nietzsche, Weber, the Frankfurt School and so forth—that which is one of the two critical orientations on which the philosophical choice must fall and rejecting the project of an “analytic of truth,” which—inspired above all by Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason—considers “the question of the conditions of possibility of a true knowledge” (Foucault 2010, 20). Instead of carrying out a history of mentalities or a history of representations, in its twofold aspect as an analysis of ideologies and “analysis of the representational values of a system of representations” (Foucault 2010, 2), Foucault undertakes a history of thought, i.e., a history of the “focal points of experience” (foyers d’éxperience), constituted by the articulations between three axes: “forms of a possible knowledge; … normative frameworks of behaviour for individuals; … and … potential modes of existence for possible subjects” (Foucault 2010, 3). In the study of each of these axes, Foucault 5 See, e.g., Foucault 2001, 2016 and 2017 for other important pronouncements on parrhesia. 6 The English translations are mainly those in Foucault 2010 and 2011 (with modifications).

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proceeds with thematic and methodological shifts: first, “[f]rom the contents of knowledge [connaissance] to forms of knowledge [savoir], and from forms of knowledge to discursive practices and rules of veridiction”; second, “from analysis of the norm to analysis of the exercise of power … and from analysis of the exercise of power to the procedures … of governmentality”; third, “from the question of the subject to the analysis of forms of subjectivation” in order to “analyze these forms of subjectivation through the techniques/technologies of the relation to self or … through what could be called the pragmatics of self” (Foucault 2010, 4–5). It was as focal points of experience, composed of these three axes in their articulation with one another, that Foucault investigated central phenomena in the determining of modern subjectivity: e.g., madness, criminality and sexuality (Foucault 2010, 5). This recapitulation that Foucault makes of his own trajectory emphasizes its coherence and continuity; but, at other times, he accentuates the internal changes in this trajectory, e.g., when he presents it with the name of a study of “the relations between subject and truth” (Foucault 2011, 3). If, up to a certain point, he formulates the question “in classical, usual and traditional terms … : on the basis of what practices and through what types of discourse have we tried to tell the truth about the subject?,” he later came to consider it “in another form: … that of the discourse of truth which a subject is likely and able to speak about himself” (Foucault 2011, 3). This change in Foucault’s path corresponds to a thematic shift towards a new focal point of experience and, more precisely, a shift from an analysis of the constitution of the mad subject, the criminal subject, the speaking subject, the working subject, the living subject, to an analysis of practices such as the examination of conscience, moral letters, notebooks, among others, which are equivalent to manifestations of “telling the truth about oneself” or the discourse of veridiction (Foucault 2011, 3–4). Investigating the composition of this focal point of experience is equivalent to what Foucault calls “the study of ‘alethurgic’ forms”; alethurgy is, according to him, “the production of truth, the act by which truth is manifested” (Foucault 2011, 3), more precisely, “the type of act by which the subject manifests himself when speaking the truth, … thinks of himself and is recognized by others as speaking the truth” (Foucault 2011, 2–3). Because such a focal point of experience determines the way of being of the elements that constitute its axes, Foucault refers to his undertaking as a “history of the ontologies of true discourse” or a “history of the ontologies of veridiction” (Foucault 2010, 309). In the framework of his research on this focal point of experience, Foucault finds that in ancient morality or, more generally, in Greco-Roman culture the principle “one should tell the truth about oneself” assumes an enormous importance; different specific practices such as the examination of conscience,

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the writing of moral letters and notebooks are expressions of this principle (Foucault 2011, 3–4). For Foucault, the novelty in his understanding of these practices resides in the reversal of a generalized tendency to anchor them in the principle of “know yourself.” Foucault believes that he has found a more general principle which the aforementioned practices and even “know yourself” itself are exemplifications of, namely, the principle “take care of yourself” (Foucault 2011, 4). Based on the many and various manifestations of this principle in Antiquity, especially in Hellenistic and Roman times, he speaks of the existence of an authentic “culture of self,” in the context of which the veridiction about oneself relies upon the figure of the other and is carried out as a practice “for two” (Foucault 2011, 5). In the context of the late Foucault’s undertaking and its unstable conceptual system, ancient parrhesia enjoys a particular status, which is not easy to identify: it does not seem to be a focal point of experience, since it consists of one of the modalities of “telling the truth about oneself,” nor a mere example among the practices of veridiction, as many of these practices are based on parrhesia. In any case, Foucault seeks to insert ancient parrhesia, with this intermediate and somewhat undefined status, within the care of self, namely, as one of the conditions for its execution, i.e., for the constitution of an adequate relation of the subject to himself through the figure of the other (Foucault 2010, 43). As Foucault relates, “with parrhesia we have … a notion which is situated at the meeting point of the obligation to speak the truth, procedures and techniques of governmentality and the constitution of the relation to self” (Foucault 2010, 45). This means not that parrhesia represents the more general concept, with each of these three elements and their articulation as its specifications, but that parrhesia is constituted as a particular modality of the intertwining of such elements; in other words, parrhesia is the modality of the care of self in which “the telling of the truth about oneself” is established through a certain way of approaching the other and being in his presence—namely, that of courage—with regard to the question of how to conduct one’s life. Basically, it is another, more complex and elaborate way of indicating that parrhesia corresponds to a modality of veridiction about oneself or, as Foucault indicates, to “one of the aspects and one of the forms of the dramatics of true discourse” (Foucault 2010, 68), in which “both the statement and the act of enunciation affect the subject’s mode of being and … quite simply mean that the person who said something has actually said it and … binds himself to the fact that he said it” (Foucault 2010, 68).7 Foucault’s mention of the fact that the act of enunciation affects the subject’s way of being directly links this passage to 7 Prophecy, divination and science are other forms of the pragmatics of true discourse (Foucault 2010, 68–69).

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what we have already seen about the designation of his project as a history of the ontologies of veridiction and about the three axes that make up the focal point of experience corresponding to veridiction. As a modality of this focal point of experience, parrhesia could be understood, although Foucault does not use this term, as its sub-“focal point,” composed of the same three axes, but specified in accordance with the subordination of parrhesia to veridiction. In his preliminary exposition of the notion of parrhesia, in both his penultimate and last lecture series, Foucault considers its etymology and translation. He draws attention to three linguistic elements related to parrhesia: παρρησία is the activity of saying everything; παρρησιάζεσθαι means “telling all”; παρρησιαστής indicates the person who says everything—parrhesia (the whole of its activity) is based on the idea of non-dissimulation (Foucault 2011, 9). It is a notion which is very often translated as “free-spokenness” (franc-parler) or “free speech” (Foucault 2010, 43) and which, during the Roman period, was translated by e.g. licentia, libertas, oratio libera, among others (Foucault 2010, 46). But, in addition to these basic linguistic data, Foucault dedicates himself to presenting the key determinations of his own understanding of parrhesia. “The analysis of parrhêsia is,” according to him, “the analysis of that dramatics of true discourse which brings to light the contract of the speaking subject with himself in the act of truth-telling” (Foucault 2010, 68–69). This contract or “parrhesiastic pact of the subject with himself” involves a “doubling,” an “intensification” or an “affirmation of the affirmation,” in the sense that parrhesia represents “a formulation of truth at two levels”: first, “that of the statement of the truth itself”; second, the “affirmation that in fact one genuinely thinks … the truth one is saying to be genuinely true” (Foucault 2010, 64). However, parrhesia also involves the figure of the other as parrhesiast, especially when considering the domains of direction of conscience, spiritual guidance, counselling on the soul, among others. As Foucault indicates, parrhesia is an “element which qualifies the other person who is necessary in the game and obligation of speaking the truth about self” (Foucault 2011, 7), “a virtue, duty and technique which should be found in the person who spiritually directs others and helps them to constitute their relation to self” (Foucault 2010, 43). In the parrhesiastic situation or scene, the other, the parrhesiast, is constituted through the above-mentioned doubling, in such a way that, by telling the truth and binding himself to this act of telling, he runs risks, including that of death. Foucault argues, therefore, that “[w]e should look for parrhêsia in the effect that its specific truth-telling may have on the speaker, in the possible backlash on the speaker from the effect it has on the interlocutor” (Foucault 2010, 56).8 8 Foucault’s exposition of the fundamental features of parrhesia offers, however, some difficulties. The introduction of the figure of the other as parrhesiast obscures the identification of

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In accordance with the historical nature of his project and the idea of carrying out a genealogy of modernity, Foucault considers ancient parrhesia in its contexts and transformations, highlighting two key moments: first, “the Periclean moment,” in which parrhesia assumes a political character and is carried out within the institutional framework of democracy and the parrhesiast is someone—e.g., Pericles—who is distinguishable from others; second, “the Platonic moment,” in which parrhesia is philosophical and takes place in the context of a tyrannical regime and the parrhesiast is someone—above all, Socrates—“like the others, speaking the same language as everyone else, but aside from the others” (Foucault 2010, 340–41). In this latter moment, of enormous importance in the development of Foucault’s investigations, the philosophical life is based on parrhesia—it is the “daughter of parrhêsia” (Foucault 2010, 342)—understood as a “manifestation of the truth,” which is made visible in “the things one renounces and those one accepts, how one dresses … and speaks, etcetera” (Foucault 2010, 343). The transition between the two moments takes place in the context of a crisis of democratic parrhesia, due to the impossibility that a freedom of speech granted to all citizens—therefore, also to the morally inferior—generates the ethical differentiation of those citizens who demarcate themselves from the majority by looking out for the general interest of the state and not their private interest. Indiscriminately in the hands of all, meaning the possibility of saying everything, freedom of speech becomes a danger to the common good (Foucault 2011, 49–50). Foucault calls this transition “the Platonic reversal,” as it takes place through Plato, and summarizes it in the alternative that he judges implicit in the Platonic position: “[e]ither democracy or truth-telling” (Foucault 2011, 45). In other words, if democracy is not capable of producing the ethical differentiation indispensable for the proper execution of parrhesia, if it cannot connect with truth-telling as a principle in the city, it will have to make room for another regime. With Plato, the disqualification of democracy as the place for parrhesia leads to the identification of the prince’s court as the place for this form of veridiction (Foucault 2011, 57): parrhesia can transform the soul or character of the prince in such a way as to make him “capable of grasping the truth and of conducting himself in conformity with this truth” (Foucault 2011, 61). the parrhesiastic self: if parrhesia represents a modality of the veridiction about oneself, the parrhesiast should be equivalent to the self and not to the other; if the parrhesiast consists of the other, parrhesia will not seem to correspond to a modality of veridiction about oneself, but merely to a modality of veridiction in general, since the other tells the truth about someone who is not himself. With this lack of clarity about the parrhesiastic self, there is also a certain obscuration of parrhesia as such, since it is not possible to perceive what veridiction it is a modality of nor about whom it tells the truth.

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In the Platonic moment, Socrates—the main character of most of Plato’s dialogues—is the parrhesiast par excellence. Foucault concentrates one of the decisive parts of his analysis of Socratic parrhesia on Plato’s Laches, opposing it to another dialogue, Alcibiades 1. Socrates’ parrhesia must be understood from the point of view of his demand to his interlocutor to “give an account of himself” (διδόναι περὶ αὑτοῦ λόγον), which refers to the question of the connection between “discourse” (λόγος) and self (Foucault 2011, 143–44). According to Laches, the field of application of this parrhesia, the self that λόγος must justify, is not, as in Alcibiades 1, the soul, in view of the metaphysical determination of the latter’s being, but the way of living, the form that one gives to “life” (βίος; Foucault 2011, 144). The Socratic demand to διδόναι περὶ αὑτοῦ λόγον is equivalent to the exhortation to care for self (Foucault 2011, 158–59) in the form of a self-knowledge that takes place through the effect that true discourse has on the form of life, on “the visible figure” (la figure visible) of life (Foucault 2011, 161). Foucault seeks to identify in Socrates “the moment when the requirement of truth-telling and the principle of the beauty of existence came together in the care of self” (Foucault 2011, 163). The demand to give an account of oneself aims at ascertaining the existence of a relation between λόγος and βίος, a harmony (or lack thereof) between the two; Socrates’ authority as a parrhesiast is based on the harmony or symphony existing between λόγος and his βίος (Foucault 2011, 148), in such a way that in Socrates parrhesia is twofold, since it has to do simultaneously with the demand for harmony between λόγος and βίος which is addressed to others and with the one which is addressed to himself. “[T]his theme of bios as an object of care” represents, for Foucault, “the starting point for a whole philosophical practice and activity, of which Cynicism is … the first example” (Foucault 2011, 128). On the basis of the common theme of “giving an account of oneself,” Alcibiades 1 and Laches show the “fundamental ambiguity” of Socratic veridiction, which takes two orientations: that of a “metaphysics of the soul” (Foucault 2011, 161), “ontology of self” (Foucault 2011, 127) or “cathartics of truth” (Foucault 2011, 125); and that of a “stylistics of existence,” “aesthetics of existence” (Foucault 2011, 161) or “the courage of the truth” (Foucault 2011, 125). Such an ambiguity is also noteworthy as it corresponds to the opening of two fields of historical investigation: that of a “history of the metaphysics of the soul” and that of a “history of the aesthetics of existence” (Foucault 2011, 161–62), which are, in Foucault’s perspective, the “two great lines of development of philosophical reflection and practice” in the West (Foucault 2011, 127). From this description, it is clear, once again, that parrhesia is a modality of veridiction about oneself, that not all veridiction about oneself is parrhesia, since, among other things, it may not be about βίος (but rather about the soul

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or ψυχή) and may not involve courage (but rather purification as a necessary requirement for the ψυχή to be able to access the truth). In this sense, only one of the components of what Foucault calls the ambiguity of Socratic veridiction, that of the stylistics of existence, represents a parrhesiastic component and, accordingly, only one of the lines of development of Western philosophy—that of the history of such a stylistics—is marked by parrhesia. However, this understanding of the history of philosophy seems to be contradicted by Foucault’s other pronouncements, according to which not only all ancient philosophy (Foucault 2010, 343, 346) but all modern philosophy (Foucault 2010, 349–50) corresponds to manifestations of parrhesia, in such a way that the history of philosophy as a whole consists in “a history of practices of veridiction, … a history of practices of parrhêsia” (Foucault 2010, 349). In other words, one can “do the history of philosophy … as a series of episodes and forms … of veridiction. The history of philosophy, in short, as movement of parrhêsia, as redistribution of parrhêsia, as … philosophy envisaged … in what could be called its allocutionary force” (Foucault 2010, 350). There is an evident conflict between the two sets of pronouncements, which does not contribute to the clarification of Foucault’s interpretation of parrhesia. In the first, parrhesia is one of the lines of development in the history of philosophy, ancient and modern; in the second, it characterizes the whole of Western philosophy, its two lines of development. In one case, it represents a modality of veridiction about oneself; in the other, it is equated with such a veridiction. Foucault seems thus to be using two incompatible concepts of parrhesia for the same function of historiographical category.9 11.3 Pure Visibility as a Key Element of Foucault’s Interpretation of Socratic Parrhesia The foregoing considerations prepare the way for the investigation of a specific difficulty concerning Foucault’s research on Socratic parrhesia, namely, that of the preponderance of the idea of visibility: they do so, above all, by pointing to the presence of this idea in the general conception of parrhesia (an idea which begins to be emphasized in the exposition of Socratic parrhesia) and also by referring to a certain fluctuation in the definition of parrhesia (one it is important to continue to explore in the discussion that follows). 9 In his contribution to this volume, Daniele Lorenzini draws attention to the ambiguous nature of some of Foucault’s pronouncements on the relation between parrhesia and rhetoric.

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Foucault recognizes that parrhesia is a notion that is “difficult … to recapture” (Foucault 2011, 6) and “rich, ambiguous” (Foucault 2010, 43). It is a notion that, in its “very long life” (Foucault 2010, 46) in antiquity, is characterized by a “change, slippage, … reversal” in meaning (Foucault 2010, 47), by the “number of different levels” (Foucault 2010, 46–47) on which it can be found. When considering this difficulty in grasping the notion of parrhesia, Foucault is taking into account the presence of the notion in ancient texts. As he himself relates, his analysis resorts to “occurrences of the word,” to “references to the notion” and to “texts which are … devoted to the notion of parrhêsia” (Foucault 2011, 7). Consequently, when it comes to approaching the various meanings of ancient parrhesia, its changes, slippages and reversals in meaning (in a word, when it comes to a genealogy of ancient parrhesia), Foucault is trying to carry out a philologically grounded genealogy. However, the fluctuations in the meaning of parrhesia referred to above are of a different order, going beyond what Foucault presents as the richness of the notion. On the one hand, if the elevation of parrhesia to a historiographical category is theoretically and methodologically acceptable, it cannot be equated with a historically and philologically grounded category. For, as we shall see better, the ancient texts on parrhesia understand it in its connection with externalized speech (ῥῆσις), while the historiographical notion of parrhesia elaborated by Foucault includes fundamental elements related to an idea of visibility that is disconnected from externalized speech and even from discourse in general (λόγος). On the other hand, a formal core of meaning for parrhesia—allowing it to be used as a notion that crosses time and, in this way, becomes the possible subject for a genealogy—is not able to resist such fluctuations. Without being textually grounded or operating with a notion that preserves over time a formal core of meaning, the project of a genealogy of parrhesia as a genealogy of modernity, in which the analysis of Socratic parrhesia plays a central role, seems to be conceptually problematic. The fluctuation in the meaning of parrhesia occurs in the very indication of visibility as a key element of that notion. The idea of visibility is implicit in the definition of alethurgy as an act through which the truth is manifested, but where it is more present is in the context of the stylistics or aesthetics of existence. According to Foucault, “[t]he philosophical life,” as a stylization of existence, “is a manifestation of the truth” (Foucault 2010, 343); “[t]o live philosophically is to show the truth” (Foucault 2010, 344). Although the term “visibility” and the like do not occur in this definition, such an idea is presupposed, since a significant part of what is understood there by “manifestation” or “showing” has a visible nature.

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The fluctuation in meaning involves the idea of visibility on two related planes. First, visibility is metonymically transferred to parrhesia by the connection it has with veridiction about oneself, since visibility (like parrhesia in one of the concepts of parrhesia used by Foucault) represents a modality of veridiction about oneself, when the visible aspect of human life bears witness to its truth. Since parrhesia (in another concept of parrhesia used by Foucault) is synonymous with veridiction, visibility, insofar as it is equivalent to a component of veridiction about oneself, becomes a decisive component of parrhesia. Secondly, visibility, thus associated with parrhesia, takes part in the process of generalization of the notion and ends up playing a key role in parrhesia as a historiographical category. The latter will be progressively identified with visibility, until it has at its core pure visibility, conceived as disconnected from speech and any other form of discourse. While describing Socrates’ attitude in Apology, Foucault presents the philosopher as someone who “is in fact, in one’s life, an agent of the truth … even in the philosopher’s style of dress” (Foucault 2010, 320). Through the figure of Socrates, parrhesia is defined as something that “does not necessarily or exclusively go through logos, through the great ritual of language in which one addresses the group or even an individual” (Foucault 2010, 320).10 There are two aspects in this regard that are important to consider as they highlight the difficulties in sustaining Foucault’s thesis. One of them has to do with his use of the 10

Marta Faustino draws my attention to the fact that the emphasis placed by Foucault on visibility and the non-discursive component of parrhesia does not exclude the possibility of the existence of a λόγος that justifies or is presupposed by a factually adopted life conduct. The question, however, is not whether a factually adopted life conduct may presuppose or be justified by a λόγος, but rather whether it needs a λόγος in order to be what it is. By saying that parrhesia “as way of behaving” (Foucault 2010, 320) “does not necessarily or exclusively go through logos,” Foucault is arguing that a factually adopted life conduct may—but need not—involve a λόγος. In other terms, what makes it a factually adopted life conduct is not λόγος but something whose mode of being is fundamentally different from it. For him, this mode of being constitutes itself by expressing itself through a non-discursive or purely visible truth. As he refers to λόγος as “the great ritual of language” (Foucault 2010, 320), it could still be objected that he is speaking of λόγος conceived as externalized discourse and is therefore admitting the possibility that a factually adopted life conduct involves λόγος in the sense of a non-externalized λόγος that would be inherent to human life. However, Foucault makes no distinction between these two meanings of λόγος. In fact, he is silent on the question of the possible existence of a λόγος inherent to human life. What stands out in his approach to parrhesia is a language that is closely associated with the domain of non-discursivity, especially one of its modalities, namely visibility. See, e.g., Foucault 2010, 320: “After all, parrêsia may appear in the things themselves, it may appear in ways of doing things, it may appear in ways of being” (my emphasis). I thank Marta for giving me the opportunity to clarify this point.

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ἔργῳ/λόγῳ (“deed”/“word”) opposition to emphasize the factual component of Socratic parrhesia to the detriment of its discursive component (Foucault 2010, 319–20). By emphasizing the former, he does not give due importance to a fundamental point, namely that λόγος, when it is opposed to ἔργον to refer to a discourse not put into practice, has a restricted meaning. This indicates that ἔργον is not opposed to all λόγος and may, as is the case with the opposition ἔργῳ/λόγῳ in Apology, presuppose an inherent λόγος and be justifiable by a λόγος that makes explicit the inherent λόγος that the ἔργον as such already presupposes.11 The other aspect is related to the fact that Socrates, in the two examples of his behaviour that he evokes to defend himself before the Athenians (when he did not vote with the majority in favour of the collective condemnation of the generals of the battle of Arginusae and disobeyed the orders of the Thirty Tyrants to capture Leon of Salamis), acted according to a “discreet … parrhesia,” because “he has not spoken … . He confined himself to showing it” with the deeds themselves (Foucault 2010, 319). However, this is not parrhesia in the strict (etymological and philological) sense, for, according to a definition presented by Foucault himself, parrhesia refers to ῥῆσις, delivered speech.12 In short, in the consideration of Socrates as a parrhesiast in Apology, Foucault seeks to draw attention to the key role played by the visibility of Socrates’ 11

12

See Pl. Ap. 32a4–5, 32d1. The λόγος that justifies Socrates’ factual conduct is, in his own words, “the just” (τὸ δίκαιον: 32a1, 32c1, 33a3). The very fact that Socrates includes the ἔργῳ/ λόγῳ opposition in his apo-logy makes it clear that there is a sense of λόγος that encompasses this opposition. On this opposition in ancient Greek culture (with its variants μῦθος/ἔργον, ἔπος/ἔργον, λέγειν/πράττειν), see Hom. Il. 1.395; 9.442–43; 15.234; Od. 2.272; Solon fr. 8.7–8; Anaxagoras DK 59 B7; Pl. Lach. 188e5–6, Phdr. 231c2–3; Xen. Mem. 4.2.1; Isoc. Antid. 266; and also Guthrie 1962, 420; Barck 1976; Parry 1981; Rocha Pereira 1998, 259. According to Verdenius (1966, 97), Heraclitus modifies the usual meaning of the opposition, as defined in Solon, to the point that the relation between λόγος and ἔργον is no longer a relation between opposites. On the one hand, ἔργον comes to designate the whole of reality and not just human action; on the other, λόγος ceases to designate the word or the name in contrast to the essence of the real, for it is the λόγος that structures the real. See Pl. Ap. 32a9–c3 (on the vote to condemn the generals), 32c3–e1 (on the capture of Leo of Salamis). Scholars of ancient parrhesia carry out their analysis within the strict limits of the semantics and pragmatics of speech: see, e.g., Momigliano 1973, 252–63; Sluiter and Rosen 2004, 1–19, especially 4–8, where it is shown that the phenomenon of parrhesia is expressed in connection with the verbs ἐρῶ and λέγω (“to speak”); Saxenhouse 2006; Konstan 2012, 1–13, especially 11, where it is indicated that the root of παρρησία is the verb ἐρῶ. Some words from the semantic sphere of παρρησία, such as ἰσηγορία (“equal right to speak”) and ἐλευθεροστομία (“freedom of speech”), point to the intrinsic relation between παρρησία and speech. The verb ὑποστέλλομαι, whose meaning is opposed to that of παρρησία, means “to refrain from speaking.” As for the relation between παρρησία and speech, see also, e.g., Eur. Phoen. 391; Dem. Orations 4.51; 10.76; 11.17; Pl. Ap. 20d5–6; Phdr. 240e6.

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factual conduct, but he runs either into the presence of a λόγος that prevents the existence of a pure ἔργον or into the requirement for the presence of a ῥῆσις—i.e., of a specific form of λόγος—as a condition of parrhesia. Something similar happens when Foucault considers Socratic parrhesia from the point of view of Laches. In his analysis of this dialogue, there is an express reference to visibility, to the idea that true discourse defines “the visible figure” of human life (Foucault 2011, 161). But the reference to visibility— more precisely, to a pure visibility—appears with great clarity when Foucault approaches Stesilaus’ exhibition, arguing that this “spectacle” belongs to “a dimension which is not one of verbal presentation, of the ability to present verbally what one is supposed to be able to do; we are in the domain of the test, but of the direct, visual test [de l’épreuve visuelle],” of which there are “eye-witnesses” (Foucault 2011, 130).13 Later in this lecture series, Foucault highlights the aporetic character of the dialogue, as no true definition of courage is found. Since no perfect definition of courage is found, it follows that it is important to continue to resort to the true teacher, namely, discourse (λόγος): “This teacher, to whom everyone must listen … is of course logos itself, the discourse which will give access to the truth … . [W]hile putting himself in the hands of the missing teacher (logos), [Socrates] is the one who guides others on the way of logos” (Foucault 2011, 152).14 This recognition by Foucault of the role of λόγος seems to contradict the emphasis that, in the context of Stesilaus’ exhibition, 13

14

Pl. Lach. 178a1–4. As the continuation of the dialogue indicates, Stesilaus’ exhibition cannot be reduced to its pure visibility. In fact, it represents the catalyst for all subsequent discussion. From the outset, τὸ ὁπλιτικόν (“the technique of fighting with weapons”; 178a1) is framed by Lysimachus within the question of an education dominated by values such as ἀρετή (“excellence”; 179b2), κλέος (“renown”; 179d4) and τὸ καλόν (“the beautiful”; 179e1). Then, it becomes the object of evaluation both of Nicias’ speech, who manifests himself in favour of ὁπλομαχία (“fighting with weapons”; 181d8–5), and of Laches’ speech, who pronounces himself against this educational practice (182d6–4c8). Finally, it is the fact that, in the common language of the Athens of the 5th century BC, ἀρετή is almost a synonym for ἀνδρεία (“courage”) that allows the discussion to move from Lysimachus’ educational concerns—which return at the end of the dialogue (200c7)—to the attempts to define what courage is. On all these aspects, see Emlyn-Jones 1996, 2, 7–8, 9, 20; 1999, 124, 125–26, 127–28, 134. Foucault uses both the term “visual” (visuel; Foucault 2011, 130) and the term “visible” (visible; Foucault 2011, 161) without intending to introduce any terminological distinction between them. Pl. Lach. 201a2–6. Although it is a defensible interpretation of the end of the dialogue, Foucault is claiming something that Socrates does not say: that the teacher whom is important to find is λόγος. Socrates only maintains that, since no adequate definition of courage has been reached, it is necessary to look for a διδάσκαλος (“teacher”) who guides all interlocutors in the dialogue in their attempts to know what courage is; but Socrates does not spell out which teacher he has in mind.

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he places on the purely visible figure of life (βίος). However, if we look at what follows this admission of the importance of λόγος, we can see that he does not derive any significant consequence from it for his reading of the dialogue. These two positions point to a common tendency, although, strictly speaking, they indicate different things. In fact, if, on the one hand, the interpretation of Stesilaus’ exhibition refers to pure visibility, on the other, Foucault does not fail to admit that λόγος is the true teacher when it comes to defining courage, namely, a courage that manifests itself factually. But, in both positions, what he tries to emphasize is the decisive character of visibility as regards the constitution of Socratic parrhesia: whether it presupposes λόγος as a determining factor of its visible figure or not, a way of life (βίος), once constituted in its visibility, enjoys self-sufficiency in terms of the disclosure of its truth. There is one other topic in Foucault’s reading of Laches that makes clear this emphasis on the self-sufficient character of βίος, namely, the Socratic requirement for his interlocutor to “give an account of himself” (διδόναι περὶ αὑτοῦ λόγον), which leads to the question, analogous to that of the ἔργῳ/λόγῳ opposition in Apology, of the harmony between discourse (λόγος) and life (βίος).15 What this requirement tries to verify is “the relation between [oneself] and λόγος” (Foucault 2011, 144), “whether or not there is harmony between what is said (the discourse itself) and the person who is saying it” (Foucault 2011, 148). In drawing attention to this question, Foucault shifts the centre of gravity of his understanding of Socratic parrhesia from speech to the harmony between speech and life, which he designates by reference to the plane of the sensible: “Socratic parrhêsia as the freedom to say what he likes is marked, authenticated by the sound of Socrates’ life” (Foucault 2011, 148). Consequently, such a harmony (συμφωνία), which sustains Socrates’ parrhesia, does not reside in λόγος, but on a plane independent of it, that of sound (φωνή), which, like the sphere of the visible, is self-sufficient in terms of the manifestation of its truth. 15

Pl. Lach. 187d6–8a3 (διδόναι περὶ αὑτοῦ λόγον), 188c6–d8 (συμφωνία between λόγος and βίος). As Boeder (1994, 4) indicates, the λόγον διδόναι presupposes a λόγον ἔχειν (“having a ground”). For the meaning of λόγον διδόναι and other related phrases (such as λόγον ἀπαιτεῖν, λόγον δέχεσθαι, λόγον ὑπέχειν, λόγον ὑπολαμβάνειν), see Vancamp 2005; Weiner 2012; Telo 2018, 136–37. On how the failure in defining courage calls into question the effective existence of a harmony between the discourses and the lives of all the interlocutors of Laches, including Socrates, see the latter’s words in 193d11–e4; and also Emlyn-Jones 1999, 126, 133. According to Emlyn-Jones (1996, 102), Socrates is inverting the meaning of Lysias’ words in 188d4–6: Lysias speaks of a harmony between discourse and life, while Socrates, as a result of the aporetic character of the dialogue, refers to the absence of harmony between life and discourse, thus suggesting that there cannot be an effectively courageous βίος without an effective λόγος in defining the essence of courage.

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In a context where the notion of συμφωνία is at stake, Foucault replaces the idea of visibility with that of sonority, which, in essence, is equivalent to the former as a plane outside λόγος and self-sufficient in alethurgic terms.16 On Foucault’s interpretations of Apology and Laches, I have made some critical observations, which it is important to codify and complete. Contrary to what Foucault ultimately maintains, in both dialogues there is a prevalence of λόγος over βίος, not only because it is λόγος that determines the character of βίος, but also because βίος cannot be defined as something separate from λόγος, as pure visibility or pure sound. In ancient thought, especially Plato’s, βίος and λόγος are intertwined in different ways. On the one hand, it is not possible to expressly look at a βίος without immediately seeing it through a λόγος that indicates which way of life is being conducted. On the other hand, any βίος has at its root an internal λόγος that gives it meaning and allows it to be articulated over time according to that meaning. This λόγος may be expressly held in view by the subject of a way of life as the principle that guides his conduct. Whether it is an explicit or an inexplicit λόγος, the λόγος that is always associated with βίος corresponds to a form of discourse, above all because it involves a “judgment” (δόξα) on what is “the best” (τὸ ἄριστον) for human life.17 In short, there 16 17

For a more detailed analysis of Foucault’s reading of Laches, see Fábio Serranito’s chapter in this volume. In the framework of the question concerning the choice of the way of life, the intrinsic relation between βίος and λόγος, taking into account the various meanings of the latter term in ancient Greek, presents itself in several forms. In the pre-Platonic tradition, this question, mainly through the rhetorical resource of the Priamel (“preamble”), is associated with the preference for a certain way of life, chosen from a variety of different and even incompatible ways of life, because it is identified with “the best” (τὸ ἄριστον) due to the nature of its “end” (τέλος). In this respect, see Terzaghi 1920, 364–400; Joly 1956; Festugière 1971, 117–56. The idea of specific ends belonging to each way of life, as well as the choice of a way of life based on a judgment about which way of life is the best, point to meanings closely related to the semantics of λέγειν and λόγος: the cause or reason for carrying out a particular course of action; the choice, from among a widespread and heterogeneous variety of things, of some of them based on a guiding principle, which is considered better than the others available, inherent to each one of those things and serving as the basis for their unification. On the multiple meanings of λέγειν/λόγος, see Guthrie 1962, 420–24; Verdenius 1966, 81–98; Boeder 1994, 1–30. The logical activity of selection and unification according to a common principle, in the context of the identification and classification of the different ways of life, reaches its maximum potential with Plato, especially in Resp. IX. It is he who reduces the wide variety of individual lives to a very limited number of defining principles: those of the “love of learning or knowledge” (φιλομαθὲς καὶ φιλόσοφος; 581b9), the “love of victory or honour” (φιλόνικον καὶ φιλότιμον; 581b1) and the “love of wealth or gain” (φιλοχρήματον καὶ φιλοκερδές; 581a7–8). He thereby determines what, with some variations, will be the canon of the later philosophical tradition. In addition to identifying the character of the philosophical way of life, Plato also identifies the characters

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is no βίος without a λόγος, there is no βίος purely or directly, visually or sonorously, verifiable in its truth, since this verification, like that of the harmony between λόγος and βίος, is only possible on the basis of a λόγος: a discourse that reveals the inherent meaning of a certain factual way of life and indicates that it is based on the truth or, in the case of the harmony between λόγος and βίος, a meta-discourse that highlights that such a harmony exists.18 Through the criticism of Foucault’s interpretation of Apology and Laches, the general idea is clear that βίος, disconnected from λόγος, is not conceivable as such nor, a fortiori, does it have a parrhesiastic nature. However, this criticism still leaves untouched the idea that, although βίος does not have a parrhesiastic character as such, it will necessarily have it if it is associated with a λόγος that gives it meaning. Now, neither βίος alone nor all λόγος, due to the polysemy of the latter term, corresponds to manifestations of parrhesia. As I mentioned, βίος always involves a λόγος, in such a way that as an instance that provides a direct proof of its truth it is a philologically and historically ungrounded notion; and even if we accept that this is a philosophically defensible notion, it does not combine with a philologically and historically grounded notion of parrhesia, as this refers to ῥῆσις or speech. Furthermore, if, in accordance with the historically and philologically grounded notion of βίος, the latter is

18

of the non-philosophical ways of life, which, from his perspective as a philosopher, are the characters of other people’s ways of life. These are the ways of life of οἱ πολλοί (“the many”), which are not the result of a thoughtful choice (see Leg. 661a4–7, where allusion is made to the Attic skolion cited in Grg. 451e1–5). This means that the logical activity concerning the determination of the fundamental characters of the different ways of life also encompasses the characters that inexplicitly (see Resp. 514b3: ὄπισθεν αὐτῶν) define the non-philosophical ways of life. For the use of ὄπισθεν αὐτῶν (“behind them”) in Plato to indicate the inexplicit nature of the perspectives or judgments that determine one’s way of understanding the world and living in it, see Constâncio 2000, 58–61. On the fact that “many” (πολλοί) human beings live “according to λόγος” (κατὰ λόγον) even without having learned it, see Democr. DK 68 B53. In Letter VII (328a5), Plato uses the phrase λόγον καὶ βίον, which points to the intrinsic relation between βίος and λόγος. According to Joly (1956, 95), this is the passage where Plato most clearly maintains that βίος is not equivalent to λόγος, but this means that, although there are λόγοι that do not materialize on the factual plane of βίος, λόγοι are inherent to the latter: as the principles or perspectives guiding the ways of life and as the essences that define them. For λόγος as definition and essence, see Guthrie 1962, 424; Verdenius 1966, 83–84. My account of λόγος and its role in human life owes much to conversations with Hélder Telo. His chapter in this volume makes further contributions in this respect. In archaic epic, ἀλήθεια (“truth”) is restricted to the sphere of λόγος conceived as “speech.” Afterwards, it loses the necessary link to speech, but remains understood as the object of a possible λόγος, a term that, in one of its meanings during this period, is equivalent to φρονεῖν (“thinking”). In this regard, see Boeder 1994, 10, 13, 15, 17, 27, 29.

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understood as something that presupposes a λόγος, it is not always equivalent to a parrhesiastic activity, since the λόγος that is presupposed in it is not always a ῥῆσις or a speech, or more precisely speech in the presence of another in a situation of risk demanding the courage of the truth: λόγος, the discourse that justifies βίος, may also be an explicit λόγος in a safe situation or an implicit λόγος in which the conception behind a particular way of life is present but not externalized.19 The aspects of Socratic parrhesia presented so far—above all, the idea of pure visibility and the difficulties of intelligibility resulting from the insertion of Socratic parrhesia in a genealogical project that indiscriminately uses different concepts of parrhesia—are also present in Foucault’s interpretation of Cynic parrhesia. As indicated in the previous section, Foucault maintains that the Cynics are “the first example” (Foucault 2011, 128) of a philosophical practice whose object is βίος as the visible figure of life; while referring to the Cynics, he speaks of “a sort of boundary to the great history of ancient philosophy as parrhêsia” (Foucault 2010, 346), i.e., of the moment when ancient philosophy as parrhesia reached its maximum expression. Foucault’s interpretation of Cynic parrhesia, like his reading of Socratic parrhesia, emphasizes the idea of pure visibility, of direct proof of the truth: “[i]n his life [the Cynic] is the manifest truth,” “someone … who presents himself naked”; he lives by a principle of “transparency”; he “lives in the open” (Foucault 2010, 347). Although Cynic parrhesia is usually considered innovative in the context of ancient parrhesia, including in relation to Socratic parrhesia, it seems to me that the fundamental characteristic of Cynic parrhesia according to Foucault—namely, the idea of pure visibility—appears in advance in his reading of Socratic parrhesia. Furthermore, just as in the description of Socratic parrhesia and in the definition of philosophy as an aesthetics or stylistics of existence, so too, when exposing Cynic parrhesia, Foucault intersperses the statements about the philosophical way of life as a manifestation of the truth with others about speech, assuming that it is the same thing; along with the formulations cited just now, he indicates, e.g., “that to tell the truth [the Cynic] is ready to address even the powerful, … those to be feared, without thinking of the danger of losing his life if his truth-telling were to irritate them” (Foucault 2010, 347). The transition from one type of statement to the other reveals, including in this context 19

On λόγος/μῦθος as non-externalized or non-delivered speech, see Hom. Il. 1.545; Hdt. 8.6.2; Eur. Med. 872; Tro. 916; Pl. Tht. 190a4–6; Soph. 263e3–5; and also Guthrie 1962, 421; Boeder 1994, 25–26, 27.

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of exploration of Cynic parrhesia, the very dynamic of Foucault’s use of the notion of parrhesia: a fluctuating dynamic of generalization from a philologically grounded notion of parrhesia, that of truth-telling in risk situations according to a principle of courage, to another of a historiographical nature, largely based on the idea of truth as visibility. This “free pass” allows Foucault to resort to both notions interchangeably as if this did not raise problems as to the viability of such a procedure, as if the historiographical notion were the same as the philological one. 11.4

Conclusion

In the foregoing considerations, I have tried to show that Foucault’s conception of ancient parrhesia, in particular Socratic parrhesia, is characterized by a dynamic that goes from speech, the key element of the philologically grounded notion of parrhesia, to pure visibility, the aspect that Foucault places at the centre of his historical analyses of parrhesia and promotes to a fundamental component of the historiographical category of parrhesia. This dynamic expresses, on the one hand, the distance that separates the etymologically, philologically and historically grounded notion of parrhesia, centred on speech, from another notion of parrhesia, based on pure visibility, that Foucault illegitimately constructs as valid from a historical point of view and to which he confers the status of a historiographical category founded on the facts of history; and it expresses, on the other hand, the fluctuation in meaning in the historical and historiographical notions of parrhesia proposed by Foucault, who oscillates between the importance given to speech—significantly present in the initial purpose of grounding his research in etymology and in the occurrences in ancient texts of the term παρρησία and the phenomenon of parrhesia—and the disconnection from all discourse (therefore also from speech), which is where the excessive concentration on the pure visibility of the way of life as a manifestation of its truth ultimately leads to. The inclusion of the idea of visibility in the characterization of ancient parrhesia and, in particular, of Socratic parrhesia is not necessarily a problem. There is, in fact, a certain idea of visibility which, although not representing the primary element of the philologically grounded notion of parrhesia, is equivalent to an important element of this notion, namely, the appearing in the presence of others to tell them the truth that puts the speaker in a risk situation and requires courage; what we are dealing with here is an idea of visibility that may be called parrhesiastic. However, it does not correspond to the primary element of the notion of parrhesia because what makes the appearing

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in the presence of others a risky and courageous situation is the telling of the truth. Now, in his analysis of parrhesia Foucault does not resort to this idea of visibility; it is true that he speaks of the risk and courage involved in being in the presence of others to tell them the truth but, in doing so, he does not conceptualize this being in the presence of others as visibility. A problem arises because another idea of visibility is at stake in Foucault’s definition of parrhesia. Such an idea, that of the appearing to others of the way of life, does not have a parrhesiastic nature: although it involves an intrinsic relation to discourse, it does not involve an intrinsic relation to speech. In other words, Foucault puts at the centre of the notion of parrhesia an idea of extra-parrhesiastic visibility. The problem is, strictly speaking, twofold: on the one hand, Foucault uses an idea of extra-parrhesiastic visibility as if it were parrhesiastic, i.e., as if it involved an intrinsic relation to speech; on the other, he entirely disconnects this visibility from discourse, granting it the status of pure visibility, while continuing to maintain that it has an intrinsic relation to speech, i.e., to a modality of discourse. It must be stressed that this idea of extra-parrhesiastic visibility, if its intrinsic relation to discourse is preserved, is decisive for understanding the notion of way of life and, in particular, that of a philosophical way of life, for a way of life is conducted before others, but presupposes discourse and is appropriable by it. However, this means—contrary to what Foucault maintains when presenting the notion of way of life as centred on parrhesia and when trying to characterize the history of Western philosophy on the basis of parrhesia—that the latter does not exhaust everything that is implied in the notion of way of life, nor does it correspond to the key determination that defines it: namely, the adoption of a life conducted in the presence of others, justified in its truth through discourse. Because a way of life in its visibility (even if it presupposes discourse and is appropriable by it) does not speak, parrhesia, when having to do with the truth of a way of life, is a speech about a way of life and not a speech by a way of life. In addition to being affected by the inconsistencies and obscurities of his project of elaborating a genealogy of modernity based on the notion of parrhesia, Foucault’s analysis of Socratic parrhesia reflects all these aspects concerning the idea of visibility. First of all, he does not put the idea of parrhesiastic visibility at the centre of his understanding of Socratic parrhesia; despite stressing the importance of risk and courage in the framework of the execution of Socratic parrhesia, he does not associate them with the idea of visibility. Secondly, although he refers at certain moments to the importance of λόγος, the main idea in his interpretation of Socratic parrhesia is the pure visibility of βίος. This emphasis on pure visibility is present in decisive moments of Foucault’s reading of both Apology and Laches. In the case of Apology, it is particularly

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evident in the presentation of the ἔργῳ/λόγῳ opposition and in what Foucault calls Socrates’ discreet parrhesia. In the case of Laches, it becomes evident in the analysis of Stesilaus’ exhibition, as well as in the explanation of the notions of διδόναι περὶ αὑτοῦ λόγον and συμφωνία. However, Foucault’s reading of these dialogues and of all these notions suffers from a significant imprecision. In general, in all these examples what is at stake is the idea of a visibility of βίος that is not pure but always involves λόγος. But although it involves λόγος, it is not parrhesiastic, since it does not involve a ῥῆσις. This understanding of Socratic parrhesia anticipates key characteristics of Foucault’s conceptualization of Cynic parrhesia, such as the idea of pure visibility, with all the problems it entails, as well as the dynamic of fluctuation in the use of the notion of parrhesia, which goes from speech to pure visibility. References Barck, Cristophorus. 1976. Wort und Tat bei Homer. Hildesheim: Olms. Boeder, Heribert. 1994. “Der frühgriechische Wortgebrauch von Logos und Aletheia.” In Das Bauzeug der Geschichte. Aufsätze und Vorträge zur griechischen und mittelalterlichen Philosophie, edited by Gerald Meier, 1–30. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Constâncio, João. 2000. “Notas sobre a noção de experiência na República de Platão.” Quid 1: 9–67. Emlyn-Jones, Chris, ed. 1996. Plato: Laches. London: Bristol Classical Press. Emlyn-Jones, Chris. 1999. “Dramatic Structure and Cultural Context in Plato’s Laches.” Classical Quarterly 49: 123–38. Festugière, André-Jean. 1971. “Les trois vies.” In Études de philosophie grecque, 117–56. Paris: Vrin. Foucault, Michel. 2001. Fearless Speech. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e). Foucault, Michel. 2008. Le gouvernement de soi et des autres. Cours au Collège de France, 1982–1983. Paris: Gallimard / Seuil. Foucault, Michel. 2010. The Government of Self and Others. Lectures at the Collège de France, 1982–1983. Translated by G. Burchell. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Foucault, Michel. 2011. The Courage of the Truth: The Government of Self and Others 2. Lectures at the Collège de France, 1983–1984. Translated by G. Burchell. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Foucault, Michel. 2016. Discours et vérité précédé de La parrêsia. Paris: Vrin. Foucault, Michel. 2017. Dire vrai sur soi-même. Conférences prononcées à l’Université Victoria de Toronto, 1982. Paris: Vrin. Gros, Frédéric. 2002. “La parrhêsia chez Foucault (1982–1984).” In Foucault. Le courage de la vérité, edited by Frédéric Gros, 155–66. Paris: PUF.

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Gros, Frédéric. 2007. Michel Foucault. Paris: PUF. Gros, Frédéric. 2008. “Vie philosophique et oeuvre d’art.” In Michel Foucault. Savoirs, domination et sujet, edited by Jean-Claude Bourdin, Frédéric Chavaud, Vincent Estellon, Bertrand Geay and Jean-Michel Passerault, 219–25. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Gros, Frédéric. 2009. “Situation du cours.” In Michel Foucault, Le courage de la vérité. Le gouvernement de soi et des autres 2. Cours au Collège de France, 1983–1984, 313–28. Paris: Gallimard / Seuil. Guthrie, William Keith Chambers. 1962. A History of Greek Philosophy 1: The Earlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hadot, Pierre. 2002. Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique. Paris: Albin Michel. Joly, Robert. 1956. Le thème philosophique des genres de vie dans l’antiquité classique. Bruxelles: Académie Royale de Belgique. Konstan, David. 2012. “The Two Faces of Parrhêsia: Free Speech and Self-Expression in Ancient Greece.” Antichthon 46: 1–13. Miller, Paul Allen. 2022. Foucault’s Seminars on Antiquity: Learning to Speak the Truth. London: Bloomsbury. Momigliano, Arnaldo. 1973. “Freedom of Speech in Antiquity.” In Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas 2, edited by Philip Wiener, 255–63. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Nussbaum, Martha. 1994. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Parry, Adam. 1981. Logos and Ergon in Thucydides. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Rocha Pereira, Maria Helena. 1998. Estudos de história da cultura clássica 1: Cultura grega. Lisboa: Gulbenkian. Saxenhouse, Arlene. 2006. Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sluiter, Ineke, and Ralph Rosen. 2004. “General Introduction.” In Free Speech in Classical Antiquity, edited by Ineke Sluiter and Ralph Rosen, 1–19. Leiden: Brill. Telo, Hélder. 2018. “The Unexamined Life on Trial: A Crucial Problem in Plato’s Writings.” PhD diss., NOVA University of Lisbon. Terzaghi, Nicola. 1920. “La scelta della vita.” Studi italiani di filologia classica 1: 364–400. Vancamp, Bruno. 2005. “À propos de λόγον διδόναι, formule-clé de la dialectique platonicienne.” Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire 83: 55–62. Verdenius, Willem Jacob. 1966. “Der Logosbegriff bei Heraklit und Parmenides.” Phronesis 11: 81–98. Weiner, Sebastian. 2012. “Platons logon didonai.” Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 54: 7–20.

CHAPTER 12

Between Care of the Other and Truth-Telling: The Place of Epicureanism in the Interrupted Dialogue between Michel Foucault and Pierre Hadot Federico Testa 12.1

Introduction1

The convergence of Pierre Hadot’s and Michel Foucault’s reading of ancient philosophy as the key for articulating a different image of philosophy is a trope in scholarship.2 Indeed, both authors, focusing on what they consider to be the pragmatic and performative aspects of ancient philosophy, have proposed new tools and perspectives for writing the history of philosophy. For different reasons and with different aims, both suggested that, in addition to a history of ideas and doctrines, this should also be a history of practices, attitudes, and modes of being, as well as ways of establishing and cultivating relations to self, others, and the world. The so-called “interrupted dialogue” between the two authors has generated abundant scholarship, initiated by Hadot himself through a series of essays written after Foucault’s death in 1984, where he emphasises both their differences and convergences. In an interview with Arnold Davidson and Jeannie Carlier, Hadot synthesises his main criticisms of Foucault, highlighting at least four important points of divergence. The first is methodological: whereas Hadot cultivated philological methods, Foucault “had not practiced philology,” and did not pay particular attention to the “problems tied to the translation of ancient texts: the deciphering of manuscripts, the problem of critical editions and choices of textual variants.” Foucault would have used “old, unreliable translations,” and thus proposed problematic interpretations of ancient philosophical texts (Hadot 2001, 136). This leads Hadot to a second divergence, which results from this methodological difference and concerns Foucault’s interpretation of the texts, his 1 I am grateful to Dimitris Vardoulakis, Paul Allen Miller, Jenny Messenger, as well as the editors of this volume, for their comments and suggestions. 2 See, for example, Flynn 2005, Wimberly 2009, Montanari 2009, Irrera 2010, and Lorenzini 2017. © Federico Testa, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004693524_014

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conceptual and hermeneutic choices, which were supposedly partial or misleading. One of Foucault’s most striking mistakes, according to Hadot, was his emphasis on pleasure as a unifying category for framing ancient spiritual practices. Foucault’s choice of pleasure as an organising concept led him to propose an excessively individualistic model, based on the “pleasure one takes in oneself.” As Hadot explains, “this could be true for the Epicureans, of whom Foucault ultimately speaks rather little” (Hadot 2001, 216). Thus, Foucault paradoxically over-emphasised the category of pleasure while at the same time neglecting the school that built its ethos around it. The third point, which derives from this emphasis on pleasure and its excessively individualistic construal, and therefore from this incomplete picture of ancient philosophy, is Foucault’s insufficient attention to the different modalities of belonging and relations of alterity thematised by the ancients, including both the cosmos and the human community (or rather, processes by means of which the individual relates to something other than herself, in order to transform or transcend herself).3 Moreover, the emphasis on pleasure and the individualistic focus presupposed by the notion of technologies of the self led Foucault to conceive of his positive ethics as an “aesthetics of existence,” an ethical model insufficient for the present.4 As Keith Ansell-Pearson (n.d.) points out, scholarly debates seem to have emphasised Stoicism, especially Foucault’s use and extension of the notion of pleasure to Seneca, and his alleged misunderstanding of the differences between gaudium and voluptas.5 Additionally, the issue of the cosmos and the place of what Hadot calls the “cosmic consciousness” in ancient philosophy have come to occupy an important place in these debates.6 Less attention, however, has been given to the place of Epicureanism in the controversy and Hadot’s counterpositions to Foucault. As we have seen, one of Hadot’s central criticisms refers precisely to the silence surrounding and alleged absence of Epicureanism in Foucault’s studies of antiquity: Curiously enough, Foucault does not speak much about the Epicureans. This is all the more surprising in that Epicurean ethics is, in a sense, an ethics without norms. It is an autonomous ethics that cannot be founded upon Nature, which according to its views is the product of chance. It 3 On this process of transcendence of self, see Hadot 2014b, 112. 4 For a more detailed explanation of these criticisms, see Irrera 2010. I previously explored the alleged absence of the “cosmic perspective” from Foucault’s analysis in Testa 2020. 5 Cf. Irrera 2020; Sharpe 2018. See also Paul Allen Miller’s “The Problem of the Dandy in the Aesthetics of Existence: Foucault’s Dialogue with Hadot, Kant, and Baudelaire” in this volume. 6 Cf. Davidson 2008, Chase 2013, Sellars 2020, Testa 2020.

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would seem, therefore, to be an ethics perfectly suited to the modern mentality. (Hadot 1995b, 208, translation modified; 2002, 326) Let us bracket Hadot’s claim that Epicurean ethics is an autonomous ethics with regard to nature and not founded upon its norms—an affirmation that would itself demand critical analysis. What I would like to highlight here—in addition to the clear indication of Foucault’s neglect of Epicurus—is Hadot’s remark that Foucault could have found in Epicureanism an ethics capable of speaking to the present. In this statement we find a key aspect of Hadot’s construal of Foucault’s project. As he explains, neither Foucault’s nor his own approach to antiquity were merely antiquarian: “His description of the practices of the self—like … my description of spiritual exercises—is not merely a historical, but rather a tacit attempt to offer contemporary humankind a model of life” (Hadot 1995b, 208; 2002, 325). It seems that for Hadot, Foucault could have found in Epicureanism the elements for proposing a positive morality in the present. The critique, therefore, is twofold: (i) Foucault’s work on antiquity failed to consider Epicureanism, even though (ii) it is in that school that one could potentially find an ethics capable of addressing our concerns in the present. In any case, Hadot argues, Foucault has neglected the fact that spiritual practices, such as the examination of conscience, can also be found in Epicureanism (Hadot 2002, 326). Moreover, from Hadot’s perspective, these practices cannot be reduced to the care of the self: [T]his spiritual exercise cannot be defined simply as culture of the self, a relationship of self to self, or a pleasure that can be found in one’s own self. The Epicurean … needed other things to satisfy his desires and to experience pleasure. He needed bodily nourishment and the pleasures of love, but he also required a physical theory of the universe, in order to eliminate the fear of the gods and of death. He needed the company of the other members of the Epicurean school, so that he could find happiness in mutual affection. (Hadot 1995b, 208 [2002, 326]) Hadot continues, situating the importance of the knowledge and contemplation of nature in Epicureanism, highlighting the “contemplation of the infinity of universes in infinite void, in order to experience what Lucretius called divina voluptas et horror” (Hadot 2002, 327). Quoting a passage from Epicurus’ disciple Metrodorus, Hadot emphasises the importance of immersion in the cosmos for the Epicurean sage (ibid.).7 7 See also “Ancient Man and Nature” (Hadot 2020).

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To sum up, we could say that Hadot’s specific critique of Foucault’s “silence” regarding Epicureanism is articulated along the following axes. The first concerns the contemporary relevance of Epicureanism: Foucault has not considered a morality that could effectively provide ethical tools to modern human beings and suit their mentality. Second, he has neglected the spiritual practices of the Epicurean school. Third, Foucault’s model failed to consider what is not the self, such as the importance of others and the mutual affection and support that took place in the school—or, to use Cicero’s expression, the conspiratio amoris that bound self and other in Epicurean friendship. Finally, Foucault did not sufficiently consider the importance of Epicurean physics, which was capital for the achievement of happiness, since the contemplation of nature would dispel fear and superstition, and the awareness of the singular chance events that constitute our world would lead the Epicurean to admire life as a “gratuitous gift” and to conceive of “existence as a marvellous celebration” (Hadot 2002, 327).8 However, one might ask, why is neglecting Epicureanism such a serious problem? After all, Hadot also makes choices in terms of emphasis when writing the history of philosophy, and every narrative presupposes selection and omissions.9 On the one hand, Hadot could be criticising the incompleteness of Foucault’s inventory, in the sense that it did not do justice to ancient philosophy, providing only a partial image of its concerns and practices. On the other, one could read Hadot’s critique as the expression of a deeper, more serious philosophical problem, which I will analyse in what follows. In order to understand the grounds of Hadot’s critique, one must begin by considering the philosophical import of the ancient schools in his thinking. After analysing Hadot’s philosophical presuppositions, I engage with his criticisms, revisiting Foucault’s readings of the Epicureans, showing how it is through an analysis of this school that he situates the place of the other in practices of the care of the self. I then analyse the emergence of parrhēsia—one of the key notions of Foucault’s exploration of Antiquity—in the context of the Epicurean school. Hadot formulated his criticisms before the publication of Foucault’s courses at the Collège de France, thus proposing a limited image of Foucault’s construal of ancient philosophy, especially in what concerns the importance of alterity in the practice of the care of the self. Nevertheless, I seek 8 It is difficult to make sense of this critique once we consider Hadot’s claim—highlighted above—according to which Epicurean ethics is autonomous in relation to the norms of nature. Unfortunately, I cannot develop the argument here due to space constraints. 9 One could think of the relatively secondary place that Cynics and Sceptics occupy in Hadot’s analyses.

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to show how their underlying philosophical presuppositions differ, leading them to make divergent uses of Antiquity. 12.2 Hadot on the Ancient Philosophical Schools and their Anthropological Import For Hadot, the philosophical schools play a central role in the paradigm of spiritual exercises. The former constitute the living context in which ancient philosophical discourse emerges. Drawing on Wittgenstein, Hadot argues that it is impossible to understand the ancient philosophers’ theses without situating them within their own language games (Hadot 2014a, 98–99). He argues that in antiquity the school constitutes the “language game” in which philosophical language acquires its meaning (Hadot 2020, 33; 2014a, 98–99). He then proposes to place philosophical discourse within the forms of life organised by the schools. The ancient school appears as the shared lived experience of a philosophy, the institution of teaching and learning organised around that philosophy, and the place where the principles of that philosophical choice were applied to the lives of individuals. Yet one should not think that the school emerges from a corpus of doctrines. On the contrary, the origin of a philosophical school is to be found in a particular hairesis, a “general attitude of thought and life”—a fundamental existential choice, which the school as an institution or a corpus of doctrines instantiates historically, but which cannot be reduced to these instantiations (Hadot 1995a, 161). Philosophical discourse and the practice of spiritual exercises aim at converting individuals to this choice of life, placing them within a mode of life. The choice of a way of life is not to be found at the end of the process of philosophical activity, “but at its very origin, in a complex interaction between the critical reaction to other existential attitudes, the global vision of a certain way of living and seeing the world, and the voluntary decision” (Hadot 1995a, 18). Thus, it is philosophical discourse that originates from an existential option, and not the contrary. For this reason, one might even think that there could be a diversity of possible philosophical reasons and concepts—different discursive constructions—mobilised to justify the same fundamental existential attitude, which remains relatively independent from the discourse that supports it (Hadot 2002, 376; 2020, 42). The ancient schools both embody and are made possible by “universal and fundamental attitudes of the human being, when he searches for wisdom.” From this viewpoint, “there is a universal Stoicism, Epicureanism, Socratism, Pyrrhonism and Platonism, which are independent of the philosophical or mythical discourses that have claimed to definitively justify them” (Hadot

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2002, 376; 2020, 41; my emphasis). Hadot notes that in addition to historical teaching institutions and concrete social organisations, the ancient schools are also “fundamental forms in accordance with which reason may be applied to human existence, and archetypes of the quest of wisdom” (Hadot 2002, 300; 1995b, 273).10 This archetypical structure of the schools is expressed in the fact that each fundamental existential choice is presented as corresponding to an “innate human tendency” (Hadot 1995a, 161). In Hadot’s description of the schools we find fundamental human traits at work, which I think allows us to speak of an implicit philosophical anthropology, concerned with mapping the spiritual and existential possibilities of the human being.11 When seen from this perspective, the ancient schools appear to have managed to seize something essential about our spiritual life, each of them embodying a fundamental coordinate of experience, an innate tendency, or a particular archetype of wisdom. Thus, describing the ancient schools and their spiritual exercises in their diversity would be a way of offering—from an empirical and pragmatic perspective—a topology of the human spirit, revealing the poles that delimit a terrain of ethical and spiritual experience and orient philosophical choices. Studying the ancient schools means not only considering the historical phenomenon of the organisation of Epicurean or Stoic groups, but understanding how they have managed to capture, within history, something that exceeds it, namely, essential tendencies of the human mind and archetypical forms of relating to life. In a word, studying the ancient schools means gaining access to the depths of the human being.12 For these reasons, Hadot values the plurality of the ancient schools. Perhaps it is only when they are taken together that they can provide insight into human experience. In this sense, as Davidson points out, each of the philosophical schools corresponds to a “permanent possibility of the human spirit” (Hadot 1995b, 34). Thus, considering the different schools together would be a way to understand these permanent possibilities, their unique importance, and the relations between them. Furthermore, this plurality “allows us to compare 10

11 12

My emphasis. It is interesting to note that in the 2002 edition of Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique Hadot uses the French term type for what one reads as “archetypes” in the 1995 English translation that appears in Philosophy as a Way of Life. Moreover, in the 2002 edition, Hadot credits Karl Jaspers for the thesis regarding Epicureanism and Stoicism as permanent poles of our inner life. I have explored this theme in Testa 2016 and 2020. Additionally, deciphering these fundamental coordinates could provide insight into the conditions of possibility of the history of philosophy, revealing the relationship between historical philosophies and the structure of human reason (Testa 2016). Paul Allen Miller rightly pointed out the Eurocentric nature of this characterisation.

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the consequences of all the various possible attitudes of reason, and offers a privileged field for experimentation” (Hadot 1995b, 273). For this reason, if one wants to form a more complete picture of the human being and discover the relevance of the ancient schools for the present, one must consider them as an ensemble. It is thus not a matter here of choosing one or another of these traditions to the exclusion of the others. As Karl Jaspers remarks …13 Epicureanism and Stoicism … correspond to two opposite but inseparable poles of our inner life: the exigence of moral conscience and flourishing in the joy of existing. (Hadot 2002, 301; 1995b, 273, translation modified) Hadot’s robust claims regarding what could be called the anthropological import of the ancient schools acquire full meaning once we connect them to his statement according to which his reading of ancient philosophy is not merely historical, but an “attempt to offer contemporary humankind a model of life” (Hadot 2002, 325; 1995b, 208). It is precisely because of this anthropological aspect captured by the ancient schools—“universal and fundamental attitudes”—that the “model of ancient philosophy still remains alive [actuel]” today (Hadot 2020, 41). When, in a 1993 talk, Hadot claims that the ancient “quest for wisdom is always still contemporary and possible,” he asks the audience not to expect him to develop such a difficult and complex theme (Hadot 2020, 41). However, if it is true that the fundamental attitudes of each school are ultimately independent of the doctrines and discourses that justify them, one could say that the attitude and the option that each school emphasised and developed still has a relation to the structure of our being and the possibilities of applying reason to life. This presupposes, however, that we “reduce these philosophies to their spirit and essence, detaching them from their outmoded cosmological or mythical elements, and disengaging from them the fundamental propositions that they themselves considered essential” (Hadot 1995b, 273). This is how the value and exemplarity of the ancient schools transcend the historical temporality in which they appear. If there is indeed a constitutive analogy between the defining choices of the ancient schools and a universal structure of the human spirit in terms of its existential attitudes, it is then legitimate to conclude that their spiritual practices—more than their doctrines and discourses—remain available as possibilities for us today. If the historical, 13

This reference only appears in the 2002 edition (as K. Jaspers, “Epikur,” Mélanges E. Beutler, 1960, p. 132).

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cultural, and social phenomenon of the schools disappeared, its foundation within our own spirit and reason persists. It is ultimately because of this persistence that it is always possible for us to revive the practices and exercises discovered by the schools. After this incursion into the philosophical grounds of Hadot’s conception of the schools, the reason for his critique of the absence of Epicureanism in Foucault’s work becomes clearer. It is not merely the historical incompleteness of Foucault’s inventory of ancient philosophical practices that Hadot stresses. The implicit reason for his critique seems to be that Foucault’s approach would give us an incomplete picture of the human being and of the different forces and tendencies that configure our ethical experience. The fundamental pole of experience expressed by Epicureanism would be absent from Foucault’s picture. However, is it really the case that Foucault neglects Epicureanism in his analyses of the ancient technologies of the self? And if he does discuss Epicurean practices, what role do they play in his analyses? 12.3

Foucault on Epicureanism and the Care of Self and Others

Hadot’s critique of Foucault draws mainly on the second volume of the History of Sexuality.14 Indeed, in the Use of Pleasure, Epicurus is only briefly mentioned in a discussion on the “model of abstention,” showing how in ancient morality the “demands of austerity” did not take the form of a universal law, but rather varied according to different groups, which adopted “different styles of moderation and strictness” (Foucault 1992, 21). Similarly, in The Care of the Self, the references to Epicurus are sparse, and again relate to a discussion of ancient “exercises in abstinence”—a certain form of cultivating an austere relation to pleasure—and to a definition of philosophy as the “permanent exercise of care of the self” (Foucault 1990, 59, 46). Indeed, by looking solely at the books Foucault published during his lifetime, we seem to find a relatively clear choice not to privilege Epicureanism in the analysis of the techniques of the self. The situation, however, changes if one considers the set of studies that preceded and originated these works, especially Foucault’s lecture courses of the 1980s, and particularly the Hermeneutics of the Subject. By looking at Foucault’s reading of Epicureanism, we can find sufficient evidence to reassess Hadot’s criticisms.15 14 15

He also mentions the third volume and other texts, such as “Self-Writing.” It is important to note that Hadot’s critique is based on limited access to Foucault’s work. He formulated his critique before the publication of Foucault’s courses at the Collège de France.

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Although Foucault extensively discusses Epicurean phusiologia, I would like to focus on two other main aspects of his reading: (1) the recourse to Epicureanism as a way to discuss the centrality of the other in the practices of the care of the self, especially clear in Foucault’s analysis of the Epicurean school, and (2) the key role played by the notion of parrhēsia, which finds its point of emergence in Foucault’s work precisely in his analysis of the Epicureans. To conclude, I will revisit Hadot’s construal of Foucault’s project, stressing some of the key differences between the two authors in their position on the relevance of the study of ancient practices for the present. In the 1981–1982 lecture course, one finds multiple references to Epicureanism—this time playing a significant role in the definition of the principle of epimeleia heautou. In Epicurus, Foucault finds a clear formulation of the principle of the care of the self in which he identifies the use of the Greek word therapeuein, denoting a therapeutic, medical form of care of the soul (Foucault 2005, 8). In this sense, the Epicureans make explicit the “privileged relationship” that exists between ancient philosophy and medicine: “the ontōs philosophein of Epicurus is the kat’ alētheian hugiainein (that is treating, curing according to the truth)” (Foucault 2005, 8). Moreover, Foucault’s analysis of the care of the self finds in Epicurus an exemplary expression of its extension and generalisation in the post-Platonic context. In Plato’s Alcibiades—one of the texts in which, according to Foucault the epimeleia heautou emerges as a philosophical precept16—the care of the self is reserved to a group of individuals of privileged social status (aristocrats whose social “destiny” is to take up political roles in the polis and accede to the task of governing others) at a particularly critical age (the threshold of adulthood, when one has to address one’s pedagogical deficit and at the same time begin to fully deploy one’s rights and duties as a citizen). Epicureanism, by contrast, departs from these two parameters in the sense of generalising the care of the self: if in Plato the principle was restricted to a group of individuals of a particular age, in Epicurus it appears as a guiding imperative coextensive with the

16

“First, if it is true that the care of the self emerges in philosophical reflection with Socrates, and in the Alcibiades in particular, even so we should not forget that from its origin and throughout Greek culture the principle of “taking care of oneself” … was not an instruction for philosophers, a philosopher’s interpellation of young people passing in the street” (Foucault 2005, 31). Foucault accepts the authenticity of the dialogue, acknowledging however that questions about its dating remain (72). If one refers the emergence of the notion to the Alcibiades, this would assume that it predates the Apology, where the terms also appear. Foucault, however, says that he has “neither the competence nor the intention” to date the dialogue (74).

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individual’s existence.17 If the Alcibiades depicted a particular status group as the target of care of the self, Epicureanism extends it to all individuals, encompassing different classes and social groups. Thus, through the example of Epicureanism, Foucault characterises the generalisation of the care of the self from both an individual perspective (becoming an art of living, comprising the whole of one’s life) and a social one (becoming a widespread imperative across social groups). However, he notes, this generalisation should not be understood as the proposition of the care of the self as a universal law (Foucault 2005, 112). Even though its appeal was general and all-encompassing, its actualisations were always particular, based on specific social networks and phenomena of “sectarian groups or practices” (Foucault 2005, 113). In contrast with Hadot, belonging to the human community is not enough for the care of the self to take place. As Foucault shows, in the Hellenistic period, the care of the self can only be practised within a group (Foucault 2005, 117). In this sense, “the care of the self took shape within quite distinct practices, institutions, and groups that were often closed to each other, and which usually involved exclusion from all the others,” being marked by organisations of “fraternity, brotherhood, school or sect” (Foucault 2005, 113). Moreover, one should avoid thinking that given the importance it attributed to the principle of otium or scholē—a life of cultivated free time—the care of the self would be restricted to elite groups. Neither would it be right to think that there was a necessary, clear-cut class division in the practices of the care of the self, as if we could always situate them within the distinction between popular, unpolished religious cults, on the one hand, and learned, cultivated, and friendly aristocratic circles, on the other: We could take the example of the Epicurean groups, which were philosophical rather than religious, but which in Greece … were for the most part popular communities, filled with artisans, small shopkeepers, and poor farmers, and which represented a democratic political choice, as opposed to the aristocratic choice of the Platonists or Aristotelians, and which of course, completely working class as they were, also involved … 17

“Every man should take care of his soul day and night and throughout his life” (Foucault 2005, 8). The reference here is Epicurus’ Letter to Menoeceus: “Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more” (Diogenes Laertius 1925, 649 [X, 122]).

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theoretical and philosophical reflection, or anyway a doctrinal apprenticeship. This did not prevent the same Epicureanism from giving rise to extraordinarily sophisticated and learned circles in Italy … . (Foucault 2005, 114) Foucault shows how “most of these groups refused to endorse and perpetuate … the status differences which existed in the city-state and society” (Foucault 2005, 118). In this sense, in the example of Epicureanism in particular, the collective mode of life organised by the groups in which the care of the self was practised emerged from what Hadot called the radical existential choice—a communal life of simplicity—which took priority over broader societal divisions. This discussion of the social and existential generalisation of the care of the self, and its “sociological” definition as a group phenomenon, prepares the ground for the question Foucault asks in the 17 January 1982 lecture: what is the place of the other in the practices of the care of the self? Foucault goes on to describe how the presence of the other is an “indispensable condition” for attaining the self (Foucault 2005, 127). Thus, in the practice of the care of the self, the “individual should strive for a status as subject that he has never known at any moment of his life. He has to replace the non-subject with the status of subject defined by the fullness of the self’s relation to the self”; he has to “constitute himself as a subject and that is where the other comes in” (Foucault 2005, 129).18 In this context, Foucault explains, the other appears as a facilitator of a process of subjectivation that takes the form of a gradual self-mastery. In other words, to take care of ourselves we need a facilitator, an opérateur, whose agency will help us transition from a state of heteronomy to a state of autonomy (Foucault 2005, 130). Thus, neither is the individual seeking autonomy left to her own devices, nor does she opt for isolation and self-absorption: what Foucault seeks to show is that one can only become autonomous with others. The other will then be this “mediator in the individual’s relationship to his constitution as a subject” (Foucault 2005, 130). She will provide help in the process by which the individual reaches a “state of alert … resistance and of mastery and sovereignty over the self” (Foucault 2005, 184).19 The goal is, 18 19

My emphasis. Foucault generalises this idea from his reading of Seneca’s letter 52 to Lucilius. Foucault characterises this process as “salvation” (sōtēria): “escaping domination and enslavement; escaping a constraint that threatens you and being restored to your rights, finding your freedom and independence again.” Unlike the dramatic event it will appear as in Christianity, salvation of self “takes place throughout life” (Foucault 2005, 184). If in the Platonic model one seeks to save others and by doing so consequently saves oneself,

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therefore, to constitute a relationship of government of self. Philosophers will present themselves as those capable of “constituting a general practice of government at every possible level: government of self … [and] others,” and thus as the effective agency capable of functioning as the mediator (opérateur) in the passage to autonomy and self-government (Foucault 2005, 135).20 In this joint quest for autonomy, we find a very different picture from the one presented by Hadot in his criticism. The care of the self is intertwined with the care for others. In Foucault’s analysis of Epicureanism, we find at least two key figures of alterity that are constitutive of the care of the self, two images that the philosopher assumes in the Epicurean school: the master and the friend. Let us focus on Foucault’s description of the Epicurean school, and then analyse how these figures appear as constitutive of the care of the self. In the 27 January 1982 lecture, one reads: [C]ommentators—DeWitt in particular … —claim that the Epicurean school was organised according to a very complex and rigid hierarchy and that there was a whole series of individuals at the head of which was, of course, the sage, the only sage who never needed a guide: Epicurus himself. Epicurus is the divine man … whose singularity—a singularity without exception—consisted in the fact that only he was able to extricate himself from non-wisdom and attain wisdom on his own. (Foucault 2005, 135) The “divinity” and singularity of Epicurus consist in the fact that he was able to pass from non-self to self by himself, he was the opérateur of his own emancipation. It is Epicurus’ exemplary founding gesture that underlies the importance and authority of the “guide” in the Epicurean school. In the figure of the guide or the master (hēgemōn) the Epicureans find the “transmission of a living example” through “a direct succession from man to man … which goes back to Epicurus himself” (Foucault 2005, 389).21 But if Epicurus was his own emancipator, “all others needed guides” (Foucault 2005, 136). This is where Foucault engages with DeWitt’s description of the hierarchy of the Epicurean school in “Organisation and Procedure in Epicurean Groups” (1936; see also DeWitt

20 21

in the Hellenistic-Roman model, the salvation of others follows as a necessary but correlative effect of “your will and application to achieve your own salvation” (192). For a discussion on the care of the self as an aspect of a broader reflection on government see Testa 2016. Similarly, for DeWitt (1936, 206) “Epicureanism was primarily a cult of the founder and his way of life and only secondarily a system of thought.”

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1954), questioning his construal of the “strict hierarchy” existing in Epicurean groups and their practice of spiritual direction.22 It is in this context that he proposes to examine Philodemus’ Peri parrhēsias.23 12.4

Epicurean Parrhēsia

According to Foucault, Philodemus shows that “in the Epicurean school it was absolutely necessary for every individual to have a hēgemōn, a guide, a director, who ensured his individual guidance” (Foucault 2005, 137). Second, he shows that, according to Philodemus, guidance was organised around two principles: 1. It presupposed an “intense affective relationship of friendship between the two partners, the guide and the person being guided”; 2. It implied “a certain ‘way of speaking’, a certain ‘ethics of speech’ … which was called, precisely, parrhēsia” (Foucault 2005, 137). Parrhēsia implies, then, “opening the heart, the need for two partners to conceal nothing of what they think from each other and to speak to each other frankly” (Foucault 2005, 137). Spiritual guidance appears, thus, within the context of a certain governmental concern, of the spiritual director conducting the disciple, leading him out of a state of bondage and heteronomy, through frankness and truth-telling, towards the development of an independent and full relationship to self, allowing the disciple to form an honest and accurate picture of herself. In this context, the parresiast takes up the task of governing himself and choosing the opportune and correct moment to address the other, but also of governing others so that they become able to govern themselves.24 Let us now look at Foucault’s analysis of Epicurean parrhēsia and the ways in which it takes place according to the two figures of alterity mentioned 22

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It must be said that DeWitt’s approach seems more nuanced than Foucault renders it. He claims, for example, that the “word ‘master’ does not occur. The basis of the system is good will, voluntary co-operation, and friendship,” stressing that “the leader is to be regarded as the best of all friends” (DeWitt 1936, 206). Moreover, “the leaders were themselves followers, and their adherents were followers of followers” who were “different from one another only in the degree of their advancement toward wisdom” (205). In any case, Foucault seems to be referring to the hierarchy between “sophos, philosophoi, philologoi, kathēgētai, sunētheis and kataskeuazomenoi”: “each looked to those above him as his leaders, and all looked beyond their immediate leaders to Epicurus as their model” (211). When mentioning the inexistence of a French translation of Philodemus’ treatise, Foucault says: “I think that Monsieur Hadot intends to publish it with a commentary.” Regarding his analysis of the text, he notes he has followed Marcello Gigante’s translation (Foucault 2005, 387; cf. Association Guillaume Budé 1969). On care as a political activity see Foucault 2005, 229, 259; Testa 2020, 59.

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earlier, the master and the friend—and how it challenges DeWitt’s view on Epicurean hierarchy. In the 10 March 1982 lecture, Foucault explains that parrhēsia refers both to the “moral quality, the moral attitude or the ēthos … and to the technical procedure, or technē, which are necessary … for conveying true discourse to the person who needs it to constitute himself as a subject of sovereignty over himself and as a subject of veridiction on his own account” (Foucault 2005, 372). There is however a parresiastic pact that must take place: on the one hand, the master must utter his discourse in the form of parrhēsia, frankly, open-heartedly, plainly—in a way that opposes flattery, for the “flatterer is the person who prevents you from knowing yourself as you are” (Foucault 2005, 376). By countering flattery, parrhēsia does not aim at making the “person to whom one speaks dependent upon the person who speaks,” on the contrary, it seeks to “guarantee the other’s autonomy” (Foucault 2005, 379). The other, the listener, will then become able to form an autonomous and satisfying relation to himself” (Foucault 2005, 379). Moreover, even if parrhēsia may call upon rhetoric when necessary, it cannot be mistaken for it.25 Like rhetoric, it involves acting upon others and their conducts. However, parrhēsia does not seek to “incline them to do something or other” aside from converting to self (Foucault 2005, 385). The two are also distinguished in terms of their aims. If rhetoric fundamentally aims at achieving glory and advantage for the person speaking, parrhēsia seeks to act on others so that “they come to build up a relation of sovereignty … with regard to themselves” (Foucault 2005, 385). The parresiastic pact thus presupposes an ethics of speech on the part of the master. On the part of the disciple, it presupposes silence and listening (Foucault 2005, 366). Furthermore, parrhēsia does not necessarily presuppose a verbal response from the disciple—although that is possible, as we will see—but rather an ascetic one (Lorenzini 2017, 167). In the Epicurean context, then, parrhēsia takes place in a relationship of guidance, where there is “a transfer of parrhēsia from master to student” (Foucault 2005, 389). As we have seen, in addition to a certain ethics of speech and the parresiastic pact, the master derives his authority from indirect personal contact with the “living example passed down” from Epicurus himself, in such a way that, when he speaks, he utters the truth of the school’s 25

The relations between parrhēsia and rhetoric are complex and cannot be analysed here. An analysis of this relationship would also presuppose looking at Foucault’s ambiguous position regarding the status of parrhēsia in 1982, defined both art and non-art. On this topic, see Lorenzini, “Foucault on Parrhēsia and Rhetoric: A Reassessment,” in this volume.

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founder—that is, he “puts the student in the presence of the discourse of the first master” (Foucault 2005, 390). This form of parresiastic spiritual guidance appears, then, as a vertical form of the relation to others, an intervention that originates in the parrhēsia of Epicurus and is passed down hierarchically in the context of the school. Parrhēsia appears thus as the critical intervention of the master upon the student’s relation to self, and it must meet the student’s willingness to listen, his courage to hear the truth about himself, his spiritual condition, his state of bondage to the passions and vain desires. However, Foucault points out, in the Epicurean school there is another form of circulation of parrhēsia, marked by a “series of intense, compact, and strong horizontal relationships with the group, which are relations of friendship that will be of use in reciprocal salvation” (Foucault 2005, 390, my emphasis). On this reciprocal relationship of care that takes place among the disciples— linked by a strong bond of friendship—Foucault refers to Philodemus’ claim that “the disciples must save each other and be saved through each other (to di’ allēlōn sōzesthai)” (Foucault 2005, 389).26 In this sense, then, Foucault presents a more nuanced picture of the organisation of the Epicurean school than the one put forward by DeWitt, claiming that parrhēsia circulates in a double, “vertical and horizontal organisation,” it is “turned around, reversed, and becomes the practice and mode of relation between the students themselves” (Foucault 2005, 390). In the context of this relationship of friendship and mutual care that takes place between disciples, each friend seeks to be a facilitator for the emancipation of the other, encouraging those around her to speak frankly about her own condition. By speaking frankly about herself, the friend seeks her salvation, while at the same time inviting others to expose their own limitations and act upon them, thus encouraging “the group to undertake their own salvation” (Foucault 2005, 390). This parresiastic modality of friendship mediated by truth-telling and an art of listening to the friend’s frank speech appears, then, as one of the forms of the care of the self (Foucault 2005, 195). Thus, our “awareness of friendship, our knowledge that we are surrounded by friends who will reciprocate our attitude of friendship towards them … constitutes one of the guarantees of our happiness” and sōtēria (Foucault 2005, 194).27 26 27

This is fragment 36 (Philodemus, 2007, 50). It is important to stress that friendship is also present in relation to the guide (DeWitt 1936, 206; Foucault 2005, 137). The horizontal relationship refers to the way students interact among themselves, with a “mutual concern for the good of one another,” in such a way that everyone is “imbued with a feeling of responsibility (kēdemonia) for the good of all” (DeWitt 1936, 207).

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One can see that, contrary to Hadot’s claim of a neglect of Epicureanism, the point of emergence of the pivotal notion of parrhēsia in Foucault’s work is an analysis of the Epicurean school that takes its main parameters from a reading of Philodemus. In this context, parrhēsia appears as a modality of care that clearly takes place in relation to the master and the friend, assuming the form of a care of others within the context of the group. As Foucault was to explain in 1983, parrhēsia is situated at “the meeting point of the obligation to speak the truth, … techniques of governmentality, and the constitution of the relationship to self” (Foucault 2010, 45). According to Frédéric Gros, if in the subsequent Collège de France courses, Foucault will emphasise the public, political, and scandalous address of truth to power, in 1982, parrhēsia is described as “the master of existence’s frankness, his willingness to shake up his disciple … by bluntly”—but generously—“exposing his faults, vices and bad passions,” as well as the framework of “the direction of existence, which involved a community of friends freely confiding in each other in order to mutually correct each other, rather than [solely] the face to face relationship of director to disciple” (Foucault 2010, 378). It is by studying Philodemus’ Peri parrhēsias, “practically the only treatise” devoted to the theme in antiquity (Foucault 2010, 45), that Foucault will constitute a paradigm to describe a whole series of practices and counter-conducts in the later courses, such as the conduct of Plato as reported in the Seventh Letter (Foucault 2010) or the counter-conduct of the Cynics (Foucault 2011), who not only speak truthfully but try to embody the scandal of the truth in their own concrete image and bodily conduct. The fact that the practice of parrhēsia, which emerges in the Epicurean context, is used by Foucault as a framework for reading other moments of ancient philosophy reveals the constitutive centrality of Epicureanism in his approach. However, although it may be easy to find in Foucault’s analysis of ancient parrhēsia a model of counter-conduct and a critical attitude relevant for the present, we must not neglect the genealogical aspect of Foucault’s enterprise: if, especially in 1984, when Foucault speaks of a trans-historical Cynicism (Foucault 2011, 174), the practice of parrhēsia seems to offer a relevant technique for the present in its rebellious and scandalous address of truth to power, in 1982, it is also part of a long history that will culminate in Christian confessional practices. In its ambiguous character it reveals the place of the other in the practices of the care of the self, while at the same time pointing to a parallel history of a confessional relationship to self and veridiction that will be the correlate of the Christian pastoral—which, in turn, could be linked to the problematisation of obedience in the 1980 lectures (Cf. Foucault 2014). Surprisingly, in Epicurean parrhēsia Foucault situates the beginnings of a practice of confession (aveu), “of reciprocal confidence, of the detailed account of the

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faults one has committed which one recounts either to one’s director or even to others, in order to get advice” (Foucault 2010, 345–46). In his analysis, Foucault notes an obligation for the students to assemble before the kathēgoumenos and then to speak: “to say what they are thinking, what is in their hearts, to tell of the faults they have committed and the weaknesses for which they still feel responsible or to which they feel exposed” (Foucault 2005, 391).28 If, earlier in the lecture Foucault stresses the silent ascetic response of the disciple to the parrhēsia of the master, here he notes a “verbal practice” that emerges as a response to the master’s truth with a certain parrhēsia, “which is the opening of his soul that he puts in contact with the souls of others” so as to achieve salvation (Foucault 2005, 391). In this Epicurean practice, Foucault finds the foundation of a confessional practice that will be appropriated and transformed by Christianity: It seems to me it is the first time that we find this obligation that we will meet again in Christianity … : I must respond … to the words of truth that teach me the truth and consequently help me in my own salvation, with a discourse of truth by which I open the truth of my own soul to the other, to others. That is Epicurean parrhēsia. (Foucault 2005, 391) Nevertheless, rather than subsuming Epicurean parrhēsia within a history of Christian confession, it is important to stress its ambiguous role and singularity. After all, Epicurean parrhēsia is neither a form of self-exegesis and decipherment nor a form of self-renunciation, characteristics that in 1982 appear as defining traits of Christianity (Foucault 2005, 13). On the contrary, for the Epicureans, this form of truth-telling was a manner of converting to oneself, in order to become the agent of one’s own life, by surveying one’s limits, passions, and faults, and by speaking and hearing about them so as not to suffer them passively, but rather to turn them into the material for active ascetic work and elaboration. In my view, truth-telling appears, in this context, as an ascetic and therapeutic work: the articulation in speech of passions and desires that oppress us is seen as a way to weaken their grip over us. Speech makes visible that which invisibly enslaves us. This process does not happen in solitude, but in the presence of the other: be it the guide who speaks frankly, helping me identify my flaws and allowing me to see myself as I really am, that is to say in the state of spiritual development and heteronomy I actually find myself in; 28

This element is also present in DeWitt, when he writes that the head of the school “was to be regarded as a father-confessor; mistakes and shortcomings were to be frankly disclosed to him in confidence” (De Witt 1936, 206).

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be it the co-disciple, the friend, who listens to my opening of heart, through which I take up an active position in relation to the state I am in, and to whom I can listen, not only to mirror the image of himself he will be able to reveal through truth-telling—and which he will see more clearly through my mediation—but also to silently implicate myself in his own speech, sharing his flaws and finding in the ascetic tasks that emerge from his act of truth-telling a shared endeavour. It is in the context of the group that this form of aveu takes place. The listening and speaking the truth about oneself is a group undertaking, aiming at the emancipation of all. In this analysis of Epicurean parrhēsia we note that in the presence of the other I can become the agent of my own conduct—the other being the mediator allowing me to reclaim myself. The other is a partner in this adventure, this “Odyssey” that leads to the self—to a flourishing and autonomous relation to self (Foucault 2005, 248). 12.5

Concluding Remarks: Divergent Uses of Antiquity

I have shown the importance of Epicureanism—and its attention to the other in the care of the self—in Foucault’s reading of ancient philosophy. By looking at Foucault’s reading of Epicurean parrhēsia, we can revisit Hadot’s criticisms regarding both the alleged neglect of Epicureanism and the absence of an attention to alterity and belonging in Foucault’s analysis. By way of conclusion, I would now like to turn to some of the key aspects of Hadot’s critique and point to a few fundamental differences between the two authors. First, when studying Hadot’s critique, we have seen that he seems to look at forms of belonging (to the cosmos and to the human community) as a transversal feature of the different philosophical schools and a characteristic of ancient philosophy as a whole, which responds to a need or trait in the human being to surpass or transcend herself.29 These two modalities of relation to otherness seem, for Hadot, to be at the bottom of the different historical spiritual practices developed by the schools (see Testa 2020), revealing what Irrera called Hadot’s underlying “theory of transcendence” (Irrera 2010, 1008). In Foucault’s analyses in 1982, by contrast, we also find a problematisation of these forms of belonging and relation to otherness. However, they do not appear as universal traits of the human spirit, or as historical attempts to respond to a fundamental human tendency. Rather, they are studied in their variety and historical 29

In the experience of the cosmos one attests “the human need for transcendence and infinity” (Hadot 2014b, 112) and has the impression that the essence of the human being consists in being beyond himself (183).

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contingency, and seem to be fully resolved in their historical and sociological configurations. In this sense, Foucault goes as far as saying that being part of the human community is not a sufficient condition for the practice of the care of the self. Rather, it is only within the network of groups or sects, with its specific practices and procedures, that the care of the self becomes possible (Foucault 2005, 117). In Foucault, rather than philosophical actualisations of defining possibilities of the mind, or ways of shaping permanent aspirations of the human being, the forms of belonging and association seem to be the object of what we could call a historical sociology of the schools, which supports the analyses of the practices of care of self and others. This leads us to a second point worth noting. In contrast with Hadot, Foucault’s description of the schools is not a tacit way to gain insight into the fundamental poles of human experience—as if, by analysing their historical practices and the concrete organisation of their existential choices, we could reach the coordinates of that experience, which exceed the history in which they emerge. There seems to be a radical divergence in terms of Foucault’s and Hadot’s philosophical presuppositions regarding the possibility of a philosophical anthropology. Here it is helpful to remember Foucault’s sceptic and anti-anthropological stance.30 If Hadot’s implicit philosophy of the ancient schools seems to establish a relation of continuity between present and past by the mediation of a fundamental structure of the human spirit, in Foucault we find an emphasis on discontinuity, which is consistent with the absence of an anthropological foundation. Finally, we can now reassess Hadot’s claim that assimilates Foucault’s project to his own, where he argues that the latter’s goal in reading the ancients would be to offer an ethical model in the present (Hadot 1995b, 208). As we have seen, Hadot thinks ancient spiritual exercises can still be practised in the present, both because of the special relation of the ancient schools to the configuration of our inner life, and because they constitute pragmatic “laboratories 30

What I refer to as Foucault’s anti-anthropological stance is linked to his historicist refusal of universals—a recurring and constitutive theme in Foucault’s work. Perhaps the most striking critique of the notion of man and the undermining of philosophical anthropology is to be found in Foucault (1994), where he writes that “[t]aking a relatively short chronological sample within a restricted geographical area … one can be certain that man is a recent invention within it” (386)—an invention that can also disappear: “one can certainly wager that man would be erased, like a face drawn in sand at the edge of the sea” (387). The critique of man reappears—although modified—in genealogical works such as Discipline and Punish, where it is the correlate of a certain regime of power-knowledge. On Foucault’s nominalism and scepticism, see Veyne (2008). On Foucault’s anti-anthropological position, see Testa (2022) and Han (2002).

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of experimentation of which we can benefit” (Hadot 2001, 232). Additionally, Hadot speaks of the letters he received from readers around the world, saying that they found “spiritual help” in his books (Hadot 2001, 232). Thus, not only does Hadot’s inventory of the ancient spiritual exercises aim at offering a more complete picture and historical understanding of ancient philosophy; it also seeks to recover exercises to be used in the present, since these can be practised today without the necessity of subscribing to the theoretical content ascribed to them by the ancients (Hadot 2001, 282). The result is that even at a different historical moment, with different characteristics, we can still turn to the ancient modes of seeking wisdom. Another, less ontologically robust hypothesis, also present in Hadot’s work, is that the spiritual exercises make it possible for us to practise philosophy differently, understanding the latter as a form of transforming one’s perception of the world, ridding oneself of habits and prejudices, and achieving a new form of experiencing reality. In both cases, Hadot maintains that the practices of the ancients are tools that can be used to confront what troubles us in the present, as well as to transform or educate ourselves. Foucault, on the other hand, stresses the fact that one cannot “find the solution of a problem in the solution of another problem raised at another moment by other people” (Foucault 1991, 343). He stresses the unbreachable historical gap that separates us from the ancients and their conception of philosophy. Although there have been multiple attempts at recreating “spirituality,” Foucault claims, the historical event that he calls the “Cartesian moment” marks the difference between the ancient, ascetic conception of philosophy, and a modern, theoretical, and abstract one. With no underlying anthropological foundation which could—a-historically—link the practices of the ancients to our own present configuration of subjectivity, we are presented with a “treasury of devices, techniques, ideas, [and] procedures,” which nevertheless cannot be reactivated (Foucault 1991, 350). However, if Foucault’s inventory of ancient practices cannot offer us an ethical model, learning about them remains important in the sense that they can “help to constitute a certain point of view which can be a very useful tool for analysing what is going on now—and for changing it” (Foucault 1991, 350; modified). Furthermore, the plurality of solutions, devices, and modalities of being a subject, for example, can reveal the contingent and non-necessary aspect of what we are in the present, showing how these things were made, so that they can be unmade (Foucault 2000, 450). Perhaps this is why—contra Hadot— Foucault does not seem to look to antiquity for something that can suit a modern mentality, but rather for practices that help us break with the apparent necessity of our “mentality,” and thus promote estrangement with regard to our own history, opening ways of possible transformation.

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Finally, as we have seen in the case of Epicurean aveu, Foucault’s work also seeks to trace the emergence of practices, showing how they were transformed and appropriated in history. Thus, the care of the self is the basis for “the most austere, strict, and restrictive moralities known in the West, moralities which … should not be attributed to Christianity … , but rather to the morality of the first centuries B.C. and the first centuries A.D. (Stoic, Cynic and … Epicurean)” (Foucault 2005, 13). Like Epicurean parrhēsia, these practices will be taken from their original context of conversion to self and “reacclimatised” in a “general ethic of non-egoism” taking the form of “Christian self-renunciation” (Foucault 2005, 13). One notes that this sort of genealogical history is far from providing us with ethical models. Nevertheless, the reasons for and role of Foucault’s “Greco-Roman trip” remain an open question, to which I would like to return on a different occasion. References Ansell-Pearson, Keith. n.d. “Self-Cultivation and the Pleasures of the Self: On Pierre Hadot’s Critique of Foucault.” Unpublished manuscript. Association Guillaume Budé. 1969. Actes du VIIIe Congrès. Paris, 5–10 avril 1968. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Chase, Michael. 2013. “Observations on Pierre Hadot’s Conception of Philosophy as a Way of Life.” In Philosophy as a Way of Life, Ancients and Moderns: Essays in Honor of Pierre Hadot, edited by Michael Chase, Michael Clark, and Michael McGhee, 262–86, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Davidson, Arnold I. 2008. “Michel Foucault e la tradizione degli esercizi spirituali.” In Foucault, oggi, edited by Mario Galzigna and Elisabetta Basso, 163–79, Milano: Feltrinelli. DeWitt, Norman. 1936. “Organisation and Procedure in Epicurean Groups.” Classical Philology 21: 205–11. DeWitt, Norman. 1954. Epicurus and his Philosophy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Diogenes Laertius. 1925. Lives of Eminent Philosophers II. Translated by R. D. Hicks. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Flynn, Thomas. 2005. “Philosophy as a Way of Life: Foucault and Hadot.” Philosophy & Social Criticism, 31, nos. 5–6: 609–22. Foucault, Michel. 1990. The Care of the Self: History of Sexuality 3. Translated by Robert Hurley. London: Penguin. Foucault, Michel. 1991. The Foucault Reader. Edited by Paul Rabinow. London and New York: Penguin.

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Foucault, Michel. 1992. The Use of Pleasure: History of Sexuality 2. Translated by Robert Hurley. London: Penguin. Foucault, Michel. 1994. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage Books. Foucault, Michel. 2000. Aesthetics, Methos and Epistemology. Essential Works, volume 2. Translated by Robert Hurley and others. London: Penguin. Foucault, Michel. 2005. The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France 1981–1982. Translated by Graham Burchell. New York: Picador. Foucault, Michel. 2010. The Government of Self and Others: Lectures at the Collège de France 1982–1983. Translated by Graham Burchell. Basingstoke / New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Foucault, Michel. 2011. The Courage of Truth: Lectures at the Collège de France 1983–1984. Translated by Graham Burchell. Basingstoke / New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Foucault, Michel. 2014. On the Government of the Living: Lectures at the College de France 1979–1980. Translated by Graham Burchell. Basingstoke / New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hadot, Pierre. 1995a. Qu’est-ce que la philosophie antique? Paris: Gallimard. Hadot, Pierre. 1995b. Philosophy as a Way of Life. Translated by Michael Chase. Malden, MA / Oxford: Blackwell. Hadot, Pierre. 2001. La Philosophie comme manière de vivre. Entretiens avec Jeannie Carlier et Arnold I. Davidson. Paris: Albin Michel. Hadot, Pierre. 2002. Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique. Paris: Albin Michel. Hadot, Pierre. 2014a. Wittgenstein et les limites du langage. Paris: Vrin. Hadot, Pierre. 2014b. Discours et mode de vie philosophique. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Hadot, Pierre. 2020. Selected Writings: Philosophy as Practice. Edited and translated by Matthew Sharpe and Federico Testa. London / New York: Bloomsbury. Han, Béatrice. 2002. Foucault’s Critical Project: Between the Transcendental and the Historical. Translated by Edward Pile. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Irrera, Orazio. 2010. “Pleasure and Transcendence of the Self: Notes on a ‘Dialogue too soon Interrupted’ between Michel Foucault and Pierre Hadot.” Philosophy & Social Criticism 36 (9): 995–1017. Lorenzini, Daniele. 2017. Étique et politique de soi: Foucault, Hadot, Cavell et les techniques de l’ordinaire. Paris: Vrin. Montanari, Moreno. 2009. Hadot e Foucault nello specchio dei greci: La filosofia antica come esercizio di trasformazione. Milano: Mimesis. Philodemus of Gadara. 2007. On Frank Criticism. Edited and translated by David Konstan, Diskin Clay, Clarence E. Glad, Johan C. Thorn, and James Ware. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Sellars, John. 2020. “Self and Cosmos: Foucault versus Hadot.” In The Late Foucault, edited by Marta Faustino and Gianfranco Ferraro, 37–52. London / New York: Bloomsbury.

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Sharpe, Matthew. 2018. “Towards a Phenomenology of Sagesse.” Angelaki, 23 (2): 125–38. Testa, Federico. 2016. “Towards a History of Philosophical Practices in Michel Foucault and Pierre Hadot.” Pli: The Warwick Journal of Philosophy, Special Volume. Self-­Cultivation: Ancient and Modern, 168–190. Testa, Federico. 2020. “The Great Cycle of the World: Foucault and Hadot on the Cosmic Perspective and the Care of the Self.” In The Late Foucault, edited by Marta Faustino and Gianfranco Ferraro, 53–70, London / New York: Bloomsbury. Testa, Federico. 2022. “Michel Foucault.” in Bloomsbury History: Theory and Method. https://www.bloomsburyhistorytheorymethod.com/. Veyne, Paul. 2008. Foucault: sa pensée, sa personne. Paris: Albin Michel. Wimberly, Cory. 2009. “The Joy of Difference: Foucault and Hadot on the Aesthetic and the Universal.” Philosophy Today, 53 (2): 191–202.

PART 4 Hermeneutical Questions

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CHAPTER 13

Physics, Periodization & Platonism: Inflecting the Foucault-Hadot Dialogue in Light of L’Herméneutique du sujet Matthew Sharpe 13.1 Reframing the Foucault-Hadot Dialogue after L’Herméneutique du sujet1 Pierre Hadot described his relationship to Michel Foucault as a dialogue which was interrupted too soon by his friend’s death. Foucault refers to Hadot in the second and third volumes of History of Sexuality (HS II, 8; III, 43). We can now see that he is also an important presence in Foucault’s extraordinary 1981–82 lecture series, L’Herméneutique du sujet. Hadot wrote two articles in 1987 and 1989 on his friend’s work, in which he identified both similarities and differences between his own post-1970 studies on philosophy as a way of life and Foucault’s later work on the ancient Greeks’s “use of pleasure,” as well as the “culture of the self” of the Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods. It is the divergences that have most occupied scholars.2 In his 1987 “An Interrupted Dialogue with Michel Foucault: Convergences and Divergences” (2020), Hadot challenged the notion of an “aesthetics of existence” central to Foucault’s conception of the ancients in volumes II and III of The History of Sexuality. Stressing the place of “the good” (agathon) as well as “the beautiful” (kalon) in classical philosophical ethics, he articulates his central criticism. “Instead of a culture of the self,” Hadot writes: It would be better to speak of the “transformation”, “transfiguration” or “surpassing” (dépassement) of the self. In order to describe this state, one cannot avoid the term “wisdom” which, it seems to me, appears very rarely, if ever, in Foucault. Wisdom … is a mode of existence which is 1 This work was produced in the context of the Exploratory Project “Mapping Philosophy as a Way of Life: An Ancient Model, A Contemporary Approach” (2022.02833.PTDC), funded by the FCT (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology). 2 See Vegetti 1986; Pradeau 2002; O’Leary 2003, 70–78; McGushin 2007, 103–4; Lorenzini 2015; Sellars 2020. © Matthew Sharpe, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004693524_015

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characterized by three essential aspects: peace of mind (ataraxia), inner freedom (autarkeia) and, except in the sceptics, cosmic consciousness: that is to say, the process of becoming aware of belonging to the human and cosmic Whole, a sort of dilation or transfiguration of the self which realizes greatness of soul (megalopsychia). (Hadot 2020, 230) We cannot even understand ancient philosophical therapeutics, amply recognized by Foucault, in the absence of seeing how overcoming anxiety and achieving happiness involved for the ancient philosophers: developing the awareness that one is a “natural” being, which is to say that one is, in some way, a part of the cosmos, and that one participates in the event of universal existence. It is a matter of seeing things from the viewpoint of universal nature, of putting human affairs in their true perspective. (Hadot 2020, 231) Hadot’s 1989 “Reflections on the Idea of the ‘Cultivation of the Self’” (1995) introduces further criticisms, notably challenging Foucault concerning the distinction between pleasure (voluptas) and joy (gaudium) in Seneca.3 Nevertheless, Hadot’s reflections again rest upon this key claim that Foucault misreads how: It is not the case that the Stoic finds his joy in his “self”; rather, as Seneca says, “in the best portion of the self”, in the “true good” … . Joy can be found in what Seneca calls “perfect reason” (that is to say, in divine reason) since for him, human reason is nothing other than reason capable of being made perfect. The “best portion of himself”, then, is in the last analysis, a transcendent self. Seneca does not find his joy in “Seneca” but by transcending “Seneca”; by discovering that there is within him—within all human beings, that is, and within the cosmos itself—a reason which is part of universal reason. (Hadot 1995, 207; cf. HS III, 66–67)4

3 He also criticizes the putative absence of much engagement with Epicureanism in Foucault’s vision. Hadot in addition challenges Foucault’s representation of self-writing or écriture de soi. For Hadot, the temporal orientation of this practice took aim at cultivating a transformed sense of the present in practitioners, as against a recollection aimed at the past, a position he assigns to Foucault (Hadot 1995, 209–10). 4 Hadot is citing here Sen., Ep. 23.6, 23.7, 124.23, and 92.27. Elsewhere, he will adduce the toti se inserens mundo of Ep. 66.6, as below.

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Hadot’s criticisms of Foucault then concern what he terms the “historical point of view” (Hadot 1995, 208). Their convergence is around Foucault’s intention to “offer contemporary mankind a model of life” (Hadot 1995, 208); an intention which Hadot’s own work on ancient philosophy shares. Hadot’s claim is nevertheless that Foucault’s presentist concerns, and his instantiation of “a more or less universal tendency of modern thought,” for which “the ideas of ‘universal reason’ and ‘universal nature’ do not have meaning any more,” have led him to read the ancients selectively and inaccurately (Hadot 1995, 208). As Hadot writes, in a famous passage: What I am afraid of is that, by focusing his interpretation too exclusively on the culture of the self, the care of the self, and conversion toward the self—more generally, by defining his ethical model as an aesthetics of existence—M. Foucault is propounding a culture of the self which is too aesthetic. In other words, this may be a new form of Dandyism, late twentieth-century style. (Hadot 1995, 211) Hadot is not alone amongst scholars of ancient philosophy, or even amongst Foucault scholars, in making this kind of critique of the later Foucault’s “retour aux Grecs.”5 Even Arnold I. Davidson in “Ethics as Ascetics: Foucault, the History of Ethics, and Ancient Thought” as well as his “Introduction” to Hadot’s Philosophy as a Way of Life, concurs that: Foucault not only gave a too narrow construal of ancient ethics, but that he limited the “care of the self” [i.e. the sphere of spirituality] to ethics alone. Foucault made no place for that cosmic consciousness, for physics as spiritual exercise, that was so important to the way in which the ancient philosopher viewed his relation to the world. By not attending to that aspect of the care of the self that places the self within a cosmic dimension, whereby the self, in becoming aware of its belonging to the cosmic Whole, thus transform itself, Foucault was not able to see the full scope of spiritual exercises, that physics (and logic), as much as ethics, aimed at self-transformation. (Davidson 1995, 24–25; cf. 2006, 120–22)6 5 Indeed, his own articles directly influence Pradeau’s criticisms in Pradeau 2002, as well as in Vegetti 1986. Within Foucault scholarship, cf. O’Leary 2003. 6 To substantiate his position, Davidson cites testimony by Paul Veyne, whom Hadot (2020, 229) also recurs to in his first piece on his dialogue with Foucault’s work on the ancients: “One day,” Paul Veyne reported on one revealing occasion, “I asked Foucault: ‘The care of the self, that is very nice, but what do you do with logic, what do you do with physics?’, he responded: ‘Oh, these are enormous excrescences [ce sont d’énormes excroissances]!”

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One might then hold that the Foucault-Hadot debate concerning how to read ancient philosophy was now “open and shut,” the recent attempt by Giorgio Agamben to enter the lists on Foucault’s side notwithstanding (Agamben 2016; cf. Sharpe and Stettler 2021). Nevertheless, each of these critical assessments of Foucault, and most notably that of Hadot, significantly predated the publication in 2001 in France, and then in 2005 in English, of Foucault’s Herméneutique du sujet (English translation, Hermeneutics of the Subject¸ hereafter HS).7 As the editor of Hermeneutics of the Subject, Frédéric Gros, however comments in a note to the manuscript, “the difference in the interpretations and uses of this tradition [the ancients’] made by Foucault and Hadot have to be reexamined in the light of the Hermeneutics of the Subject” (HS, xxix, n.21). It is just such a reexamination that I want to proffer here. For reading Foucault’s extraordinary 1981–82 lecture series presents us with a good deal of content which not only challenges several of Hadot’s minor claims contra Foucault,8 but calls for significant revision of Hadot’s central criticism of Foucault’s putative failure to account for anything like the “cosmic dimension” in ancient thought, involving the study of, and identification with, the larger Whole of nature in ancient philosophy (Sellars 2020; Testa 2020, 64–67). In the lectures of Hermeneutics of the Subject, in fact, Foucault devotes considerable time to analyzing both Epicurean phusiologia, as well as Stoic physics and how it shapes the concern for existential self-transformation in Seneca the Younger’s Natural Questions and Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. In the latter case, Foucault is so far from neglecting Hadot’s position that physics was a spiritual exercise for the Stoics as to directly cite the latter’s ground-breaking 1973 article on “Physics as Spiritual Exercise: Optimism and Pessimism in Marcus Aurelius” (Hadot 2020, 207–26; HS, 292). Reading Hermeneutics of the Subject makes clear that the goalposts need to shift, in terms of how we understand the relationship between Hadot’s and Foucault’s work, and how we critically understand the latter’s perspective on the ancients (cf. Sellars 2020). Our contention here, stated schematically, is that what reading Foucault’s treatment of Stoicism particularly within Hermeneutics of the Subject makes clear, contra Hadot, is that the line dividing his and Foucault’s assessments of 7 Hadot notes in “Interrupted dialogue” in 1987 that he had access only to the summary of Foucault’s 1981–82 lecture course that was published early on the Annuaire du Collège de France, from which he was able to glean the full extent of the comparison between this work and his own. 8 For instance, Hadot claims that Foucault strangely omits consideration of the Epicureans, which is a shortcoming amply redressed in the Hermeneutics of the Self. Cf. HS, 136–38 on Epicurean school, 193–95 on Epicurean friendship, 137–38 on parrēsia in Epicureanism, and 238–43 on Epicurean physics; as well as below.

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the Hellenistic-Roman philosophies should not be drawn where Hadot drew it: namely, around Foucault’s alleged failure to consider the cosmic dimension within the ancients. The Foucault of Hermeneutics of the Subject encounters this dimension of the toti se inserens mundo in Seneca and Marcus Aurelius (Hadot 1995, 208, 252, 273; 2020, 230), as well as within the Platonists, albeit in a way which we will contend is riven with tensions and characterized by contestable textual selections and omissions. The Foucault-Hadot difference concerning the ancients needs instead to be recast, considering these tensions within Foucault’s engagement with Hellenistic-Roman physics, as looking back to two interlinking distinctions operative in Foucault’s work on the ancient philosophies, both of which Hadot’s work contests. The first of these is Foucault’s strong periodizing distinction between the classical-Platonic, and Hellenistic-Roman “golden age” of philosophical “care of the self” or “culture of the self” (HS, 81; HS III, 45). The second is the contrast Foucault sets up between Platonism (and Neoplatonism) and the Hellenistic and Roman philosophical models of care of the self in Stoicism and Epicureanism, which we will argue decisively shapes his interpretations of the latter philosophies. To make this case, in Section 13.2, I will examine in close detail Foucault’s treatments of Epicurean and Stoic physics in Hermeneutics of the Subject. This examination will show how Foucault at once grants, contra Hadot’s criticisms, and then draws back from unequivocally granting, the presence of a cosmic dimension within Stoicism. Section 13.3 contends that this symptomatic tension in Foucault’s text is the effect of Foucault’s periodization of the ancient philosophies, and his desire, foreign to Hadot, to effectively quarantine the Hellenistic-Roman care of the self from what he calls “the Platonic model,” which would bind self-care to knowing the divine within oneself and in the world (cf. McGushin 2007, 105–106). 13.2 Conversio Ad Se and the Cosmic Dimension in Hermeneutics of the Subject It is important to credit that Hadot does not wholly deny the validity and significance of Michel Foucault’s identification of a movement of conversio ad se, conversion to oneself, in the Hellenistic and Roman philosophies (HS, 210–18). As he writes, summarizing a good deal of the itinerary which Foucault will cover in the lectures of Hermeneutics of the Subject: what Foucault calls “practices of the self” do indeed correspond, for the Platonists as well as for the Stoics, to a movement of conversion toward

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the self. One frees oneself from exteriority, from personal attachment to exterior objects, and from the pleasures they may provide. One observes oneself, to determine whether one has made progress in this exercise. One seeks to be one’s own master, to possess oneself, and find one’s happiness in freedom and inner independence. (Hadot 1995, 211) It is a second movement, whereby this epistrophē involves a transcendence or overcoming of the egoistic self of intramundane life, which Hadot charges that his friend in the History of Sexuality texts falsely excludes from his consideration of the ancients: I do think, however, that this movement of interiorization is inseparably linked to another movement, whereby one rises to a higher psychic level, at which one encounters another kind of exteriorization, another relationship with “the exterior”. This is a new way of being-in-the-world, which consists in becoming aware of oneself as a part of nature, and a portion of universal reason. At this point, one no longer lives in the usual, conventional human world, but in the world of nature. As we have seen above, one is then practicing “physics” as a spiritual exercise. (Hadot 1995, 211) Given certain formulations within Hermeneutics of the Subject wherein Foucault characterizes the care for the self in Hellenistic-Roman philosophy as one in which the self is “no longer one element among others,” but “the definitive and sole aim of care of the self” (HS, 177), one could be forgiven for hearing this Hadotian criticism echo in the back of the mind. Consider, for example: The self is [now] the definitive and sole aim of the care of the self … . It is an activity focused solely on the self and whose outcome, realization and satisfaction, in the strong sense of the word, is found only in the self, that is to say in the activity itself that is exercised on the self. One takes care of the self for oneself, and this care finds its own reward in the care of the self. In the care of the self, one is one’s own object and end. There is, so to speak, both an absolutization (please forgive the word) of the self as object of care, and a self-finalization of the self by the self in the practice we call the care of the self. (HS, 177) Nevertheless, when we look at the lectures from 10 February 1982 (HS, chap. eleven) to 24 February 1982 (HS, chap. sixteen), one might equally be struck

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by the impression that Foucault is tracking, in advance, the course Hadot recommends, outwards from considering care of the self, towards this “exteriorization” of the egoistic self in philosophical physics (Hadot 1995, 211). In the Hellenistic and Roman philosophies, it is a question of conversion to, liberation or even salvation of, the self (HS, 179–83). But we must be careful to identify which “self” is at issue here, and what the imperative to gnōthi seauton, “know yourself,” means in this context. Even when we look at a Cynic like Demetrius, Foucault contends (HS, 231–37), we see that what is decisive is not a turn away from natural phenomena per se in order to focus introspectively on who one is, let alone the Ideas one might recall or the sins one might exegetically discern (HS, 254–57). One instead needs to focus on one’s goals and aims in the world, rather than being caught up in polupragmosunē, a restless concern for others’ business (HS, 221–23; HS III, 64). Such a focus does not exclude; indeed, it requires, a considered comportment towards natural things, and oneself as a natural being for instance subject to death. What is at issue in no way implies an exclusion of physical knowledges, that is to say, but a focus on what Plutarch calls (HS, 237–38) etho-poetic, character-shaping knowledges (cf. Sellars 2020, 146–47): another modality of knowing (savoir) … a relational mode of knowledge, because when we now consider the gods, other men, the kosmos, the world, etcetera, this involves taking into account the relation between the gods, men, the world and things of the world on the one hand, and ourselves on the other. (HS, 235) We then turn directly to Epicurean phusiologia, which Foucault has no issue with recognizing within the framework of what he is calling “care of the self” (HS, 238–43). As he writes, having cited various of Epicurus’ explanations of the therapeutic need to study nature, to quell fears of death, natural disasters, the gods, and the underworld: What is required … is not a knowledge that would focus on themselves, not a knowledge that would take the soul or the self as the real object of knowledge (connaissance). It is … knowledge (savoir) concerning things, the world, the gods and men, but whose effect and function are to change the subject’s being. This truth must affect the subject. (HS, 243) In the Stoics as in the Epicurean and Cynic traditions, Foucault notes that there are comparable traditions of criticizing the pursuit of “useless” knowledge

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(HS, 260–61).9 But again, as in Epicureanism, this criticism, and the Stoics’ cognate stress on the etho-poetic value of the knowledges the philosopher should pursue, did not prevent physics from being one part of Stoic philosophy, alongside logic and ethics. Indeed, as Foucault notes, Stoicism continued to be associated with “scientific” pursuits throughout antiquity (HS, 260): one could think in this connection of the polymathic Middle Stoic Posidonius. But Seneca, too, addresses physical questions in his later letters to Lucilius, and we know that he also authored a work of natural philosophy, the Natural Questions, that he sent to his pupil. So, Foucault asks, why should Seneca, precisely as an old man preparing for death—and who we might then suppose to be most “self”-focused—think to write a major treatise, encompassing seven books on the sky, air, rivers and seas, wind, earth, and meteors? (HS, 261) Why this attempt in his final years, as Seneca puts it, to mundum circuire (encompass the whole world) and investigate causas secretaque (causes and secrets), when time is fleeing him, so that it is more needed than ever that he should “ad contemplationem sui saltem in ipso fugae impetus respiciat,” “turn around to contemplate the self, in the very movement of flight”? (HS, 262) As Seneca writes, and as Foucault notes, what is at issue is in fact nothing else than the search for megalopsukhia, greatness of soul, an important term for Hadot in his account of ancient philosophy’s aim (cf. Hadot 2020, 230): Those who have made themselves masters of towns and entire nations are countless; but how few have been masters of themselves! What is great down here? It is raising one’s soul above the threats and promises of fortune … . What is great is a steadfast soul, serene in adversity, a soul that accepts every event as if it were desired … . What is great is to see the features of fate fall at one’s feet; it is to remember that one is a man; it is, when one is happy, saying to oneself that one will not be happy for long. What is great is having one’s soul at one’s lips, ready to depart; then one is free not by the laws of the city but by the law of nature. (HS, 265) The problem is that, when we are caught up in our usual lives, we find ourselves absorbed in the pursuits of lucre, status, power, and the pleasures: what Foucault labels “this system of obligation-reward, of indebtedness-­activitypleasure” (HS, 273). Studying the things of nature, far outside of the circle of our ordinary concerns, is a means to liberate ourselves from this “system,” 9 We see this at work, for instance, in Seneca’s criticisms of the liberal arts in Letter 88 to Lucilius, in his opening recommendations to Lucilius about what and how to read, as well as in remarks about the library of Alexandria in De Tranquillitate.

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Seneca proposes (cf. McGushin 2007, 138–40). Firstly, as Hadot explores in “The View from Above” (1995, 238–50) and other texts, examining natural phenomena allows us to fly, flee, or “tear” ourselves away from our flaws and vices by detaching us from the objects of our mundane preoccupations (HS, 275). This therapeutic dimension of Stoic physics is evidently that closest in function to Epicurean phusiologia. But then, things become very interesting in Hermeneutics of the Subject, from the perspective the Foucault-Hadot relation. For, secondly, Foucault continues to echo Hadot’s larger claim that the examination of natural things has a specifically elevating dimension, whereby: it leads us to the source of light, leads us to God, … in the form that allows us to find ourselves again, the text says, “in consortium Dei” [fellowship with God]: in a sort of co-naturalness or co-functionality with God. That is to say, human reason is of the same nature as divine reason. It has the same properties and the same role and function. What divine reason is to the world, human reason must be to man. (HS, 275) A third function comes from how, through this movement of elevation, we can come to occupy exactly that point of orientation that Hadot described as the view from above, which allows us to look down upon, and revalue, affairs, and attain new insight into the secrets of nature (HS, 275–76; cf. Hadot 2020, 231). So, it seems, everything is indeed here for a refutatio in textu. If Hadot’s claim, without access to Hermeneutics of the Subject, was that Foucault’s approach prevented him from accounting for what Hadot terms the cosmic dimension of ancient philosophical reflection, our access to this text puts matters to rights. Foucault will develop and repeat the decisive idea that physics, for Seneca, involves elevating oneself beyond one’s ordinary perspective, to occupy a perspective in fellowship with God: This liberation enables us to reach the highest regions of the world without, as it were, ever losing ourselves from sight and without the world to which we belong ever being out of our sight. We reach the point from which God himself sees the world and, without our ever actually turning away from this world, we see the world to which we belong and consequently can see ourselves within this world. (HS, 276) Echoing Hadot’s position, Foucault will maintain that for Seneca, so far is the conversio ad se from pointing towards an egoic aesthetic, that “we can only know ourselves properly if we have a point of view on nature, a knowledge

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(connaissance), a broad and detailed knowledge (savoir) that allows us to know not only its overall organization, but its details” (HS, 278). Beyond the Epicurean phusiologia, above all: this form of knowledge involves grasping ourselves again here where we are, at the point where we exist, that is to say of placing ourselves within a wholly rational and reassuring world, which is the world of a divine Providence; a divine Providence that has placed us here where we are and which has therefore situated us within a sequence of specific, necessary, and rational causes and effects that must be accepted if we really want to free ourselves … . (HS, 278) So, we note, even the defining Stoic dimension of the rationality (Logos) of the world, which Hadot insists upon (cf. Pradeau 2002, 142–43, 145–46), is present here: by doing Stoic physics, we would “link” ourselves “to a set of determinations and necessities whose rationality we understand,” Foucault repeats (HS, 279). As ever, contrasting this form of self-knowledge with a “withdrawing and questioning itself” which takes different forms (he argues) within Platonism and Christianity, Foucault will underscore the Zenonian homologoumenos of individual and cosmic Logoi: What is actually involved in this real investigation is understanding the rationality of the world in order to recognize, at that point, that the reason that presided over the organization of the world, and which is God’s reason itself, is of the same kind as the reason we possess that enables us to know it. To reiterate, the discovery that human and divine reason share a common nature and function together is not brought about in the form of the recollection of the soul looking at itself, but rather through the movement of the mind’s curiosity exploring the order of the world … . (HS, 281–82) But, at exactly this pinnacular point, Foucault makes two comments which reintroduce tensions into his apparent rapprochement with Hadot’s conception of Hellenistic-Roman care, or transformation, of the self. The first comes when Foucault pauses to draw out what he calls two “effects” of the Stoic natural knowledge as we find it in Seneca’s Natural Questions. The first of these effects, as Foucault writes, is: to obtain a sort of maximum tension between the self as reason—and consequently, as such, as universal reason, having the same nature as

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divine reason—and the self as individual component, placed here and there in the world, in an absolutely restricted and delimited spot. So, the first effect of this knowledge of nature is to establish the maximum tension between the self as reason and the self as point. (HS, 279–80) One would certainly like to hear more about this “maximum tension” between the individual and reasoned self, whereas Foucault’s text does not elaborate. For such a language seems foreign to the Stoic texts. At best, we can suggest that Foucault means here to describe the effect of identifying with the divine or cosmic reason, which necessarily establishes a liberating distance from one’s daily intramundane or egoistic self: this is its therapeutic dimension. One might then suggest a “tension” between these two existential poles. Yet, one struggles to reconcile this new language of “maximum tension” as an effect of the physio-epistemic exercise, with the language of “liberation” from this ordinary self, and its worries and vices, which Foucault has cited in Seneca (HS, 276). Either one would liberate oneself or not, from this mundane self to identify with divine reason. This reason of Logos is less Seneca as individual than what is best “in” Seneca, which is also not simply his own: being a portion of the universal reason, toti se inserens mundo (Sen., Ep. 23.6, 66.6). To establish a “tension” with the ordinary self seems itself in tension with the Stoic concerns for tranquility, serenity, apatheia, ataraxia, euthumia and cognate terms describing the inner life of the sage. This formulation seems more Foucauldian, perhaps more Nietzschean, than Hellenistic or Roman. The second strikingly contra-Hadotian Foucauldian claim in his account of Stoic physics arises from his subsequent examination of the place and function of physics in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. In a condensed lecture which directly refers to Hadot’s 1973 text on physics as spiritual exercise in Marcus (HS, 292), Foucault examines the series of spiritual exercises in the Meditations wherein the emperor-philosopher enjoins himself to cast an analytic, disenchanted gaze on the things he encounters: analyzing them into their material constituents, as well as “decomposing” their temporality (that of a melody, into discrete notes, for instance [HS, 301–2]), or, in the case of other human beings, visualizing them in the most mundane nakedness (HS, 305–6; cf. Hadot 2020, 212–17). The point of these exercises, Foucault agrees with Hadot (2020, 216–219), is to reduce the power of external things over us—or of externals as we ordinarily interpret them in light of our fears and desires (Hadot 2020, 216–17, 219–20). Foucault moreover notes, with reference to Meditations III, 11, that these exercises’s intention is thereby to enable a form of greatness of soul, megalophrosunē, which can, as it were, “look down” on things others strive and angst over (HS, 305, 306; Hadot 2020, 212, 216–20).

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Nevertheless, Foucault notes that in these exercises, the point of view Marcus enjoins himself to adopt is not a view from above, so much as a view which breaks the things he encounters here below down into their almost “infinitesimal” parts or “singular elements” (HS, 306). On this basis, indeed—and, it must be said, strikingly omitting the multiple figurings of the view from above exercise we can nevertheless find in the Meditations, as Hadot has alerted us (Hadot 1995, 244–45; 1998: 174–178, 254, 256)10—Foucault would discern in Marcus what he calls “a figure of spiritual knowledge” which is “opposite, or symmetrically opposite” to Seneca’s position in Natural Questions: Rather, the figure in Marcus Aurelius defines a movement of the subject who, starting from the point he occupies in the world, plunges into this world, or at any rate studies this world, down to its smallest details, as if to focus the gaze of a near-sighted person onto the finest grain of things. (HS, 290) Elsewhere, he will assign to Marcus the dubious role of “undoubtedly introducing [sic] a distinction, an inflection in Stoicism”: a claim which certainly has no Hadotian analogue (HS, 306). When Foucault explains this striking claim, it is by arguing that Marcus’ dissolution of material reality into “singular, distinct elements” is so radical as to threaten the unity of the ordinary self: The only unity of which we are capable and which can provide us with a foundation in what we are, in this identity as subject that we can and must be in relation to ourselves, is our unity insofar as we are rational subjects, that is to say as no more than part of the reason that presides over the world. (HS, 307) At this point, that is, we seem exactly to have rejoined the identity of individual and divine reason which Foucault, echoing Hadot, sees as the high point of Seneca’s spiritualization of physical knowledge. Nevertheless, strikingly, Foucault now enacts a seeming volte face. Now, he presents exactly this feature of Marcus’ Meditations as the mark of his putative “inflection” of Senecan Stoicism: if we look at ourselves below us, … we are nothing but a series of separate, distinct elements: material elements and discontinuous moments. 10

See M. Aur., Med., 4.3; 4.32; 7.35; 7.47 and 48; 9.30; 12.24; 12.27; cf. also 4.50; 6.24; 7.19.2; 8.25; 8.37; 12.27.

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But if we try to grasp ourselves as reasonable and rational principle, we will then realize that we are no more than part of the reason presiding over the entire world. So, the spiritual exercise of Marcus Aurelius tends towards a sort of dissolution of individuality, whereas the function of Seneca’s spiritual exercise—with the subject’s move to the world’s summit from where he can grasp himself in his singularity—was, rather, to found and establish the subject’s identity, its singularity and the stable being of the self it constitutes. (HS, 307) Later, hence, Foucault will make an even stronger claim which positions Marcus as an inflection not simply within Stoicism, but within the entire orbit of ancient philosophical culture: I just remind you of the very strange and interesting inflection found in Marcus Aurelius, in which ascesis … leads to a questioning of the identity of the self by virtue of the discontinuity of the elements of which we are composed, or by virtue of the universality of reason of which we are a part. However, it seems to me that this is much more an inflection than a fully general feature of ancient ascesis. (HS, 320) We are at this moment in Hermeneutics of the Subject faced with an opposition, not simply between Seneca and Marcus, but between a Stoic spiritual exercise (the view from above) which would establish the subject’s identity as a “singularity,” and spiritual exercises (of analysis, decomposition) which would “dissolve” the individual’s identity, leading to its transformative identification with cosmic reason (HS, 307).11 The principal issue for us here is that, in 11

It is telling that Foucault stresses, in his account of the view from above in Seneca, that the “fellowship with God” operates “not in the form of losing oneself in God or of a movement which plunges deep into God” (HS 306). This formulation sits alongside the claim that one nevertheless discovers a “connaturality” and “cofunctionality” with God; of seeing the world “from the point which God himself” occupies; or that the reason of God is “the same kind” as human reason; “human and divine reason share a common nature and function together.” One can certainly grant that a “fellowship” with someone does not amount to a “losing oneself” in the other. But the idea of “losing oneself” in God is arguably not at stake in the Stoic texts and seems a misrepresentation of the identification with the divine perspective. As for “connaturality” with God or the divine reason, this is arguably exactly what Hadot sees at stake in the Stoic texts. Hadot in the quotes we have seen above hence talks in ways implying a close identity, of “becoming aware of belonging” to a cosmic or divine reason, a “participation” in the same, a “seeing things from the viewpoint of universal nature” (an idea which, we have seen Foucault accepts as Seneca’s) and the awareness that there is within oneself a reason which “is a part of universal

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the account of Seneca’s “move to the world’s summit,” this exercise had been described exactly as enabling the recognition of consortium Dei, “that the reason that presided over the organization of the world, and which is God’s reason itself, is of the same kind as the reason we possess” (HS, 281). The language of “singularity” to qualify the “stable being of the self” is by contrast again seemingly very distant from Stoic formulations, in Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, or other figures (HS, 307; cf. Hadot 2014, 62–70). What Foucault’s analysis has granted to a proto-Hadotian account of spiritualized knowledge in physics in his account of Seneca, it has taken away in his analysis of Marcus.12 Such a contradiction suggests the force of competing directions operating in his thought, which I want to try to interpret in what follows. 13.3

Platonism as the Key to the Hadot-Foucault Difference

Given Hermeneutics of the Subject, as John Sellars (2020, esp. 46–48) has contended, it is clear that the line opposing Hadot’s reading of the ancients from Foucault’s cannot be drawn, as Hadot suggests, around the role of physics in philosophical self-formation or transformation. Instead, precisely within Foucault’s treatment of physics in the Stoics, we have located a hesitation about the cosmic dimension, that of consortium Dei or harmonization of the individual’s reason with that of the larger Logos. Foucault is committed on the one hand, through his engagement with Seneca’s Natural Questions, to recognizing the view from above exercise central to Hadot’s account of the conscience cosmique. On the other hand, he seems clearly to want to maintain that the aim of this exercise is to either maximize a “tension” between individual and cosmic Logoi, or to shore up that “stable being” of a self which would be “singular,” rather than “part of the reason presiding over the entire world” (HS, 307). The price of this oscillation is relegating Marcus Aurelius to a questionably marginal position within Stoicism and ancient philosophical asceticism, and flirting with exegetical self-contradiction. What then can explain Foucault’s oscillation here, and this continuing distance from Hadot, within the realm of physics which seemed to secure their rapprochement in Hermeneutics of the Subject?

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reason.” None of these imply a dissolution of identity, or a “deep plunge” into something wholly other: to be a part of a larger reason, or to recognize this, is not conceptually to lose oneself or one’s individual identity as a part of this wider whole. It is disappointing that, at exactly this moment, Foucault cuts off the analysis in a somewhat curt fashion. “There is a lot more I would like to say. I would like merely, quickly, to finish this, by saying … oh dear! … I’m not sure if I will … Would you like to go on? No, perhaps we have had enough of Marcus Aurelius.” (HS, 207)

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It is striking that in Hadot’s own responses to Foucault, and in subsequent literature, more has not been made of two interlinked, very evident differences between their assessments of the ancients. The first concerns periodization. Hadot does not strongly distinguish between the conception of philosophy he finds in Plato and even Aristotle, the “classical Greek” philosophers, and that operative in the Hellenistic and Roman Schools. In “Ancient Philosophy, an Ethics or a Practice?,” Hadot challenges the prevalent 19th century “prejudice” as he calls it, which: consists in believing that the life of the Greek cities suffered decline in the Hellenistic period, and that this decadence led philosophers to renounce the pure and disinterested speculation that had been the essential dimension of philosophy in Plato and Aristotle. This decadence led philosophers to content themselves, instead, with putting forward an art of living for individuals who were, in this period, prey to anguish and isolation. (Hadot 2020, 70) Recurring to Louis Robert’s work, Hadot disputes whether the Greek cities went into the decline imagined for them, as well as contesting—arguably with some justice—that the idea that a supposedly purely theoretical or speculative approach to philosophy would be “more in harmony with the life of the democratic cities than the pedagogical care which would allegedly have been distinctive of the Hellenistic age” (Hadot 2020, 70). More than this, Hadot contends that Plato’s philosophy was from the start pedagogical in its orientation, no less than that of the Stoics or Epicureans. As he reads Plato, the dialogues, and the place of philosophical eros within them, took aim at the ethical as well as intellectual reform of practitioners. The Phaedo, meanwhile, enunciated the longstanding ancient idea of philosophy as a preparation for death which would take different forms in later philosophical schools (Hadot 1995, 93–99, 131, 137–38; 2020, 70–73). By contrast, when we turn to Foucault, whether in the History of Sexuality volumes or the Hermeneutics of the Subject, there is this strong distinction Foucault draws between classical philosophy’s conception of care of the self and the “golden age” of care of the self in the Hellenistic and Roman periods (HS, 81). Like Hadot, Foucault has hesitations concerning the broadly post-­Hegelian position which ties Hellenistic and Roman philosophy to the decline of the city state, and positions Cynicism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism as wholly defensive philosophies of anomie and alienation. In History of Sexuality III, The Care of the Self (hereafter HS III), he contests whether the growing interest of cultural elites in “personal ethics” can be assigned to “decadence, frustration, and

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sullen retreat” (HS III, 84). Nevertheless, the new prominence of the Stoic and Epicurean choices of life reflects what he terms “an accentuation of everything that allows the individual to define his identity in accordance with his status and with the elements that manifest it in the most visible way” (HS III, 85). Whereas in the classical period, Foucault tells us: ethics implied a close connection between power over oneself and power over others, and therefore had to refer to an aesthetics of life that accorded with one’s status, the new rules of the political game [in later antiquity] made it more difficult to define the relations between what one was, what one could do, and what one was expected to accomplish … . (HS III, 84) We are then not wholly distant from the Hegelian schema tying care of the self to sociopolitical withdrawal which Hadot more decisively rejects: It is then a matter of forming and recognizing oneself as the subject of one’s own actions, not through a system of signs denoting power over others, but through a relation that depends as little as possible on status and its external forms, for this relation is fulfilled in the sovereignty that one exercises over oneself. (HS III, 85) These observations concerning the divergence between Hadot’s and Foucault’s periodizations of ancient thought lead to the second great difference in Hadot’s and Foucault’s approaches to the ancients, which concerns the central, but almost opposing places of Platonism and Neoplatonism. Hadot worked on Neoplatonism and Patristic thought in his earliest years as a scholar. In 1963 [1994], he produced Plotinus, or the Simplicity of Vision, a text in which many of the subsequent directions of his research are laid down concerning philosophy as a way of life involving a transformed way of experiencing the world. As we mentioned, Hadot positions Socratic and Platonic philosophy as metaphilosophically continuous with the great philosophies of the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Throughout his career, he would continue to lecture on and translate Plotinus, even as his focus increasingly turned towards the Stoic and Epicurean conceptions of philosophy and spiritual exercises. Hadot’s original focus on Plotinus has led to recurrent charges that his wider vision of ancient philosophy is overdetermined by his interest in Neoplatonism, as in John M. Cooper (2012) and more recently John Sellars (2020, 44–45).13 13

When Hadot looks at Christianity, relatedly, whilst he acknowledges its break with ancient pagan philosophies, his stress is more upon the continuities between pagan-philosophical and early Christian formulations of the goal of life, and spiritual exercises, than on this

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With Foucault, the case is quite different. When in Hermeneutics of the Subject, he wishes to establish the parameters of the classical care of the self, to which he will oppose that of the Hellenistic-Roman golden age, he chooses Plato’s Alcibiades Major. At several points in the lecture series, indeed, he recurs to what he terms a “Platonic model” of epimeleia heautou which he draws from this text (HS, 217, 254–57).14 The Platonic model of care of the self, based upon this single text, the Alcibiades Major, hence bears a great structural weight in Foucault’s reading of the ancient philosophies. But that role is more or less completely opposed to that assigned to Plato’s dialogues en large in Hadot. Let me try to draw the features of this “Platonic model” together, from the at least six overlapping but different enumerations Foucault gives at different moments in the lecture series (HS, 36ff., 76ff., 173ff., 190ff., 218ff., 256ff.). Firstly and decisively, care of the self, as proffered by Socrates to the young Alcibiades, is “tied to the exercise of power” (HS, 36) or “the government of others” (HS, 39, 135; HS III, 84).15 For it is exactly at the moment when the philosopher sees the young aristocrat preparing to enter political life that Socrates offers him spiritual direction (HS, 32–34). This care of the self is therefore restricted to a small elite capable of bidding for or exercising political power. When Alcibiades is convinced by Socrates at the end of the dialogue that he should take greater care of himself, he agrees at that moment to learn about dikaiosunē (justice) (cf. HS, 174–5). Secondly, Platonic care of the self is principally addressed to the young, or early adult men, at the point of embarking on their political or public lives (HS, 37). Thirdly, the philosophical care of the self, with a view to governing others, is necessitated due to the failures of existing Greek or Athenian education (HS, 36–37). Alcibiades needs Socrates’ guidance

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rupture. Foucault places more stress on the decisive break between pagan philosophy and Christianity. See Hadot 1995, 125ff. Within which, en passant, we note that Foucault also finds delineated the ancient conception of the titular “subject” or, more ambiguously, “the soul-subject” of his lectures: namely: “the self insofar as it is the ‘subject of’ a certain number of things: the subject of instrumental action, of relationships with other people, of behavior and attitudes in general, and the subject also of relationships to oneself. It is insofar as one is this subject who uses, who has certain attitudes, and who has certain relationships etcetera, that one must take care of oneself” (HS, 32). The term “subject” however, Foucault notes, has no direct ancient equivalent, certainly in Alcibiades Major (one might propose hupokeimenon), and the idea is not subjected to its own thematization as such in the ancient texts. Cf HS, 38, 55–57. Foucault’s claims to a difference between Platonic-classical and Hellenistic-Roman understandings of the relationships between care of the self and care of the others (at HS, 190–206) would demand a separate consideration which we can only flag here. The question to ask would be whether his commitment to distinguishing the Hellenistic-Roman from a Platonic model of care for the self does not also lead to arguable claims concerning care for others, particularly in the Stoics.

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in learning how to take care of himself, since traditional paideia is deficient. As a result of this, Alcibiades is ignorant of how to properly govern himself, let alone govern others (HS 37–38). The first task of Socratic care of the self then becomes a becoming aware of one’s ignorance, to mobilize an erōs to learn (HS, 254–55; cf. Hadot 1995, 129–30). Fourthly, and moving away from the ethico-political towards the more metaphysical dimensions, in Platonic care of the self, there is a primacy of the imperative to “know yourself”: the Delphic-Socratic gnōthi seauton (HS, 76–77, 214–15, 257). More than this, fifthly, this self-knowledge is also deemed necessary to gain access to the wider truth (HS, 76–77) and, although the term is almost wholly absent in Foucault, as critics have pointed out (Vegetti 1986, 930; Pradeau 2002, 142–43), the Ideas seem to beckon here. In one articulation, sixthly—and in the important context of distinguishing the Platonic model of self-care from both the Hellenistic-Roman and Christian models (HS, 256)— Foucault stresses the distinguishing role of recollection (anamnēsis) of what he once calls, using a Stoic term, the “seeds” of truth within oneself in Platonism (HS, 218, 254–57). Lastly and decisively, on the Platonic model access to the truth, through self-knowledge, is also held to grant access to what is divine within the self. So, in an important passage, Foucault says: access to the truth enables one to see at the same time what is divine in the self is also typical of the Platonic and Neo-Platonist form of the care of the self. Knowing oneself, knowing the divine, and seeing the divine in oneself are, I think, fundamental in the Platonic and Neo-Platonist form of the care of the self. (HS, 76; 76–78; cf. 171–73; 19116) What becomes decisive is that, when it comes to delineating the features of Hellenistic-Roman care of the self in the Epicureans, Cynics, Stoics and— more ambiguously—the Middle and Neoplatonists, Foucault becomes committed to seeing in this “culture of the self” a kind of photographic negative of the Platonic model. Indeed, when he reflects in the heart of his lecture series upon his aims, he will tell us that it is to “free” this Hellenistic-­Roman model of care of the self from the oblivion in which it has been largely 16

Viz. at 191: “For, here again, very roughly speaking, to have access to the truth is to have access to being itself, access which is such that the being to which one has access will, at the same time, and as an aftereffect, be the agent of transformation of the one who has access to it. And this is the Platonic circle, or anyway the Neo-Platonist circle: by knowing myself I accede to a being that is the truth, and the truth of which transforms the being that I am and places me on the same level as God. The homoiōsis tōi theōi is here.”

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enfolded by the predominance of the Platonic and Christian conceptions (HS, 254–57). Just so, where (firstly) the Foucauldian-Platonic care of self was restricted to those with sufficient power or status to govern a city, in the Hellenistic-Roman model, in principle, the appeal to care for yourself is universal—although, in fact, access to the leisure and texts required to practice this care remains restricted (HS, 112–114). Secondly, the focus on youth and early adulthood is no longer abiding; it is never too early or too late to begin to philosophize, as Epicurus enjoins Menoeceus (HS, 87–89). Thirdly, the failure of the existing Greek education system, with the resulting ignorance of how to take care of oneself which Foucault identifies with Platonism, recedes as the proximal cause for the urgency of epimeleia heautou: or at least, now philosophical self-care will involve a much more far-­reaching “stripping away of previous education, established habits, and the environment”; of nearly everything one has learned and practiced from earliest childhood (HS, 93–97). Fourthly, in a comparable manner, the stress on self-knowledge in care of the self will not be cast aside, but take on a more mitigated, less unquestionably primary role. In its place, conceptions of philosophical self-care drawn from what Foucault calls four “families” of ideas (HS, 85) will assume greater importance than in the Platonic model: first, a vocabulary around conversion, turning around upon, and paying attention to oneself; second, terms pointing to a gathering or concentrating, even a withdrawal into, the self; third, a medical vocabulary wherein philosophical activity is depicted as therapeutic (cf. HS, 97ff.); and fourth, tropes which: designate a certain kind of constant relationship to the self, whether a relationship of mastery and sovereignty (being master of the self), or a relationship of sensations (having pleasure in oneself, experiencing delight with oneself, being happy to be with oneself, being content with oneself, etcetera). (HS, 85–86; cf. 214 and above) But with the decline in importance of the “know thyself” in the self-care of the Hellenistic and Roman philosophies, as you can see, Foucault will contend that the Platonic links between an interiorizing modality of self-knowledge and access to the truth, and access to the truth and the recollection of the divine within the self, are both severed. This is one point of emphasis in his accounts of Epicurean and Stoic physics as part of the conversio ad se; this is a se which can only be discovered by looking outwards, or monitoring one’s representations of the outside, rather than withdrawing into the self, let alone discovering Ideas which will only be fully available to one’s soul after the death

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of the body. So, Foucault tells us exactly, having extrapolated the Platonic links between care of the self, knowledge of the self, and the divine: These elements—or at least this organization and distribution of these elements—are not found in the other Epicurean, Stoic, and even Pythagorean forms [of the care of the self], notwithstanding any later interactions which take place between the Neo-Pythagorean and Neo-Platonist movements. (HS, 76–77) And at exactly this “divine” point, once more, we rejoin the Hadot-Foucault debate or question. We are armed now with an hypothesis, set deep in Foucault’s conceptual architectonics, for those striking slippages we documented above in Foucault’s account of Stoic physics. Whereas Hadot feels no such compunction, Foucault is operating under an imperative to separate out, almost point for point, the Hellenistic-Roman conception of care of the self from its Platonic forebear. Any language of the divine, or of cosmic reason (or, as Foucault finds himself repeating in his account of Seneca, consortio Dei), here stands under suspicion of suggesting an implication of Stoic or Epicurean ideas in the Platonic model. Hence, Foucault’s attempt to distinguish Seneca’s Stoicism from Marcus Aurelius’s, even after having granted that, for all that, Seneca does use tropes which, as Hadot stresses, point to the telos of an elevated identification of the philosopher’s perspective with that of the divine, or even an identification of the self of the philosopher with the transpersonal, divine Logos. In short, contra Hadot, it is less that Foucault is wholly closed to “the process of becoming aware of belonging to the human and cosmic Whole, a sort of dilation or transfiguration of the self which realizes greatness of soul (megalopsychia)” in the ancients (Hadot 2020, 230). It is that he aligns this movement of “exteriorization” (to evoke Hadot’s term (1995, 211) decisively with a Platonism which he wishes to quarantine from the supposedly self-­ finalizing Hellenistic-Roman care of the self. Confirmation of this revised assessment of the Hadot-Foucault difference— that is, one which suggests it is the competing stances on Platonism which is finally decisive, even in Hermeneutics of the Subject—comes when we consider Foucault’s treatment of, exactly, Seneca’s often-noted propensity for Platonizing expressions (Wildberger, 2010; Reydams-Schils, 2010). In Letter 65, for example, we can read: What is our body? A weight upon the soul for its torment. It oppresses the soul and keeps it in chains, but philosophy has appeared, and at last invites the soul to breathe in the presence of nature; it has made it abandon the earth for divine realities. This is how the soul becomes free, this

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is how it can take flight. Occasionally it breaks out from its dungeon and is recreated in heaven. (Sen., Ep. 65, cit. in HS, 281) Such a formulation, Foucault notes, is definitively Platonic: “so clearly Platonic, in Seneca’s own eyes, that he gives a kind of little mythology of the cave” (HS, 281). Foucault’s response to this and like Platonizing passages—he mentions one such in De Brevitate Vitae—is to hasten to stress that “we should not be deceived by the undeniable existence of these references” (HS, 282). Their undeniable existence, and Seneca’s evident comfort in using their language, nevertheless presents him with a problem. Foucault clarifies that Seneca’s true position holds to the parameters we now know from his assessment of Seneca’s iterations of the view from above in Natural Questions. What is at issue in the dilation of mind associated with the Consortium Dei is in no way Platonizing, but: is a journey over the world, an investigation into the things of the world and their causes, rather than a rediscovery of the soul’s essence. There is no question of the soul withdrawing into itself and questioning itself in order to discover within itself the memory of the pure forms it had once seen. (HS, 282) However, as a further proof text underscoring this distinction between Stoicism and anything like Platonism, Foucault turns next to the exercise of the view from above in Seneca’s Consolatio ad Marciam. In this text, he tells us, there is a sequence in §17–18 which at once looks Platonizing, and is indeed evocative of Republic X, but which allows us to see the decisive difference in proximity that demarcates the Stoic’s fundamentally opposed orientation. “Listen, imagine you could see what is going to happen before you enter life, before your soul is sent into this world,” Foucault ventriloquizes Seneca (HS, 283). Evoking the Republic, Marcia is being asked by the Stoic to “imagine herself before life, in the same position as he wishes and prescribes for the sage at the end of his life” (HS, 283). Here, that is, “it is the threshold of entrance rather than departure,” as in the mise en scène of Republic X. Secondly, what she is asked to see is not the Ideas in a supratemporal, supra-material reality (cf. Sellars 2020, 46–47). Instead, she is asked to look down upon the world, like Seneca in Natural Questions, as if it were below her. Marcia should then note both natural wonders and the wonders of human audacity, as well as how in the world, there will always be: a thousand plagues of the body and the soul, wars and robberies, poisonings and shipwrecks, bad weather and illness, and the premature loss

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of those close to us, and death, maybe gentle or maybe full of pain and torture. (Sen., ad Marciam §18, at HS, 283–4) For Foucault, what is at stake here is “a completely different kind of experience” or “myth” than anything in Plato: one in which Marcia is not being asked to choose among possible lives after dying (as in the Republic), but to accept that, there being no choice, once one enters this material-natural world, they will necessarily be subject to all the ills of fortune, like the death of Marcia’s son. Now, all this may be so, the critical reader can respond. But here, there seems to be the same issue as when Foucault assesses Marcus Aurelius’s practice of physics, opposing it to that in Seneca, whilst ignoring the multiple voicings of the view from above exercise in the Meditations. Here too, Foucault can only make his case for Seneca’s distance from Platonism in the Consolatio ad Marciam by neglecting the second development of the very exercise of the view from above in the text which is his subject: a development whose importance is moreover underscored by it occupying the final two sections, §§25–27, of the text. Foucault’s neglect cannot be idle, even if it is unintentional, since Seneca begins here by consoling Marcia in strikingly Platonic language, which once more confutes Foucault’s position and would at least therefore require his close consideration, to sustain his case. “You need not, therefore, hasten to the burial-place of your son,” Seneca writes Marcia: that which lies there is but the worst part of him and that which gave him most trouble, only bones and ashes, which are no more parts of him than clothes or other coverings of his body. He is complete, and without leaving any part of himself behind on earth has taken wing and gone away altogether: he has tarried a brief space above us while his soul was being cleansed and purified from the vices and rust which all mortal lives must contract, and from thence he will rise to the high heavens and join the souls of the blessed: a saintly company will welcome him thither … . (ad Martiam §25) Seneca, our point is, was clearly operating under no such stricture concerning the need not to blend Stoic and Platonic conceptualizing as Foucault,17 and as that which Foucault asks us to adopt when we read the Hellenistic-­Roman texts. Foucault’s positing of this stricture commits him to questionable hesitations about, denigrations or even exclusions of those passages in Seneca 17

Indeed, in §26, the putatively immortal soul of Marcia’s father (a Platonizing, non-Stoic trope) is depicted looking down on the whole course of the natural world, leading to its conflagration (a Stoic teaching), at which time he will be reborn.

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and Marcus which challenge his position, suggesting instead proximities to a post-Platonic, if Stoic, link between truth and the divine. Hadot by contrast sees in these passages the confirmations of his metaphilosophical perspective. 13.4

Conclusion

In this paper, we have sought to intervene in the ongoing scholarly work of understanding the dialogue and differences between Pierre Hadot’s reading of the ancients, and that of the later Foucault. With Agamben (2016), Sellars (2020) and Testa (2020), we have underscored that the appearance of Foucault’s lectures on the ancient practices of the self in L’herméneutique du sujet (2001) make Hadot’s claim that Foucault excluded the dimension of physics and metaphysics in ancient philosophy unsustainable. With that said, and in opposition to the readings of the aforementioned figures, we have proposed that there remains decisive differences in Hadot’s and Foucault’s readings of practiced physics in the Stoics. Our argument has been that Foucault’s far more critical orientation towards Platonism, and his desire to distinguish the Hellenistic philosophies’ from the Platonist conception of care of the self underlies his attempt to downplay the place of identification of the I with the cosmic Whole or Logos in Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. Foucault, we saw, asserts that the clear centrality of this motif in the latter represents an inflection in Stoicism, rather than an essential component of its conceptions of philosophy, and of cultura animi. Hadot, by contrast, stresses this same centrality, in which he has no trouble in seeing a continuity between the Stoic and earlier, Platonist ideas of care of the soul.

References

Agamben, Giorgio. 2016. The Use of Bodies: Homo Sacer IV. Translated by Adam Kotsko. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Cooper, John M. 2012. Pursuits of Wisdom: Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Davidson, Arnold I. 1995. “Introduction: Pierre Hadot and the Spiritual Phenomenon of Ancient Philosophy.” In Philosophy as a Way of Life, translated by Michael Chase, 1–45. Oxford: Blackwell. Davidson, Arnold I. 2005. “Ethics as Ascetics: Foucault, the History of Ethics, and Ancient Thought.” In The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, edited by Gary Gutting, 123–48. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Foucault, Michel. 1986. The Use of Pleasure: Volume 2 of The History of Sexuality. Translated by Robert Hurley. London: Viking. [HS II].

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Foucault, Michel. 1988. The Care of the Self: Volume 3 The History of Sexuality. Translated by Robert Hurley. London: Penguin. [HS III]. Foucault, Michel. 2001. L’herméneutique du sujet: Cours au Collège de France (1981–1982). Paris: Gallimard / Seuil. Foucault, Michel. 2005. The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1981–82. Edited by Frédéric Gros. Translated by Graham Burchell. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. [HS]. Hadot, Ilsetraut. 2014. Sénèque: Direction spirituelle et pratique de la philosophie. Paris: Vrin. Hadot, Pierre. 1994. Plotinus, or the Simplicity of Vision. Translated by Michael Chase. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Hadot, Pierre. 1995. Philosophy as a Way of Life. Translated by Michael Chase. London: Wiley-Blackwell. Hadot, Pierre. 1998. The Inner Citadel. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Translated by Michael Chase. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Hadot, Pierre. 2020. The Selected Writings of Pierre Hadot: Philosophy as Practice. Translated by Matthew Sharpe and Federico Testa. London: Bloomsbury. Lorenzini, Daniele. 2015. Éthique et politique de soi: Foucault, Hadot, Cavell et les techniques de l’ordinaire. Paris: Vrin. McGushin, Edward. 2007. Foucault’s Askesis: An Introduction to the Philosophical Life. Evanston, Il.: Northwestern University Press. O’Leary, Timothy. 2003. Foucault and the Art of Living. London: Continuum. Pradeau, Jean-François. 2002. “Le sujet ancien d’une éthique modern. À propos des exercises spirituels anciens dans l’Histoire de la sexualité de Michel Foucault.” In Foucault: le courage de la vérité, edited by Frédéric Gros, 131–54. Paris: PUF. Reydams-Schils, Gretchen. 2010. “Seneca’s Platonism: The Soul and its Divine Origin.” In Ancient Models of Mind: Studies in Human and Divine Rationality, edited by A. Nightingale and D. Sedley, 196–215. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sellars, John. 2020. “Self or Cosmos: Foucault versus Foucault.” In The Late Foucault: Ethical and Political Questions, edited by Marta Faustino and Gianfranco Ferraro, 37–51. London: Bloomsbury. Sharpe, Matthew, and Matteo Stettler. 2021. “Pushing Against an Open Door: Agamben on Hadot on Foucault.” Classical Receptions Journal 14, no. 1: 120–39. Testa, Federico. 2020. “The Great Cycle of the World: Foucault and Hadot on the Cosmic Perspective and the Care of the Self.” In The Late Foucault: Ethical and Political Questions, edited by Marta Faustino and Gianfranco Ferraro, 53–71, London: Bloomsbury. Vegetti, Mario. 1986. “Foucault et les anciens.” Critique: Revue générale des publications françaises et étrangères 42: 925–32. Wildberger, Jula. 2010. “Praebebam enim me facilem opinionibus magnorum virorum: The Reception of Plato in Seneca, Epistulae Morales 102.” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Supplement No. 107: 205–32.

CHAPTER 14

Foucault, Reader of Plato: The Problem of ἐπιμέλεια τοῦ βίου Fábio Serranito 14.1

Introduction

Months before his death, in his final set of lectures at the Collège de France, Foucault revisited his 1982 reading of the notion of care of the self (ἐπιμέλεια ἑαυτοῦ) in Plato’s First Alcibiades. In the 1982 lectures, he found in the First Alcibiades a fertile ground for his examination of the care of the self (souci de soi).1 In this dialogue, Socrates shows that Alcibiades lacks the knowledge and ability to execute his life-project of becoming superlatively powerful and prestigious. Socrates points out the need for a care of the self: Alcibiades needs to take care of himself as a preliminary stage to his entry into public life (Alc. I 124b–c; 127e–128a). According to Foucault’s reading of the First Alcibiades, the care of the self proposed in this dialogue is a care of the soul (ἐπιμέλεια τῆς ψυχῆς) (Foucault 2001, 53). Moreover, in the First Alcibiades the Delphic gnomic principle of know thyself (γνῶθι σαυτόν) is tied together with the care of the self. To care for oneself, one has to understand what oneself really is—and that is, in fact, the soul (ψυχή). The care of the self is a care of the soul—associated with a knowledge of the self. Foucault’s conclusion is that the care of the self is understood in purely cognitive terms.2 I would say, rather, that Platonism was the constant climate in which a movement of knowledge (connaissance) developed, a movement of pure knowledge without any condition of spirituality, precisely because the distinctive feature of Platonism is to show how the work of the self on itself, the care one must have for oneself if one wants access to the truth,

1 On the First Alcibiades as a key text in Foucault’s discussion of souci de soi and his examination of subjectivity, see Gill 2007, 100–01, Kelly 2013, 331–37, Joosse 2015, 161–62. 2 Joosse goes beyond Foucault in identifying the multiple dimensions of self-knowledge as care of the self present in the First Alcibiades. See Joosse 2015, 166–67 for a detailed analysis. © Fábio Serranito, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004693524_016

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consists in knowing oneself, that is to say in knowing the truth. (Foucault 2005, 77) In the 1984 series of lectures, Foucault revisits the question regarding ἐπιμέλεια ἑαυτοῦ from a different angle. As a result of his reading of the Laches, Foucault introduces a different kind of care, one whose object is βίος, the way of living, and which I designate, in analogy with ἐπιμέλεια τῆς ψυχῆς, as ἐπιμέλεια τοῦ βίου (although Foucault himself never uses the term). As the dialogue progresses, what is designated as the object one must take care of is not the soul, it is life (bios), that is to say the way of living. What constitutes the fundamental object of epimeleia is this modality, this practice of existence. (Foucault 2011, 126–27) This is a modality of care of the self that has as its object the way of living, not the soul; and whereas the care of the soul consists in self-knowledge, the care of βίος consists in what Foucault designates as “test of life” (épreuve de vie) or “test of existence” (épreuve de l’existence). When we compare the Laches and the Alcibiades, we have the starting point for two great lines of development of philosophical reflection and practice: on the one hand, philosophy as that which, by prompting and encouraging men to take care of themselves, leads them to the metaphysical reality of the soul, and, on the other, philosophy as a test of life, a test of existence, and the elaboration of a particular kind of form and modality of life. (Foucault 2011, 127) As the final words suggest, the focus on the way of living as opposed to soul results in a philosophical activity with more of a practical bend than the purely cognitive concerns of the care of the soul. In fact, Foucault insists at different points in the 1984 lectures on how this other modality of care focuses on the way life is lived, and on the possibility of life being changed and moulded like a work of art (Foucault 2009, 148–52).3 The object of this modality of care is not this being that we are—the soul—but rather the way in which we are. Of course, there is no incompatibility between these two themes of philosophy as test of life and philosophy as knowledge of the soul. However,

3 This constitutes what Foucault calls the “aesthetics of existence.” See Davidson 2005, 113–40; McGushin 2007, 300–301; Kelly 2003, 336; Miller 2021, 174–76.

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although there is no incompatibility, and although in Plato, in particular, the two things are profoundly linked, I think nevertheless that we have here the starting point of two aspects, two profiles, as it were, of philosophical activity, of philosophical practice in the West. On the one hand, a philosophy whose dominant theme is knowledge of the soul and which from this knowledge produces an ontology of the self. And then, on the other hand, a philosophy as test of life, of bios, which is the ethical material and object of an art of oneself. (Foucault 2011, 127) While Foucault recognises that these two modalities are not incompatible— and are indeed linked, especially in Plato—he nonetheless emphasises their distinctiveness. He does so to draw attention to this second and often overlooked strand of the philosophical tradition, in which truth is not something to be accessed as an object of cognition, but rather something to be lived, embodied, and enacted in the way one lives.4 In this chapter I am going to look at Plato’s Laches and see how the two types of ἐπιμέλεια Foucault identifies are connected with each other. I will use Foucault’s 1984 lessons as a guide: I will pay close attention to the key moments within the Laches that Foucault identifies throughout his lectures.5 These key moments are: first, Lysimachus’ speech, in which the initial situation is set out; second, Socrates’ initial intervention, which changes the direction of the dialogue, and third, Nicias’ and Laches’ speeches, in which they expound on βίος as they accept to be examined by Socrates. My goal is to read the Laches in dialogue with Foucault—as though we were discussing the dialogue in a seminar.6 My work is made easier by the very nature of Foucault’s lectures: these were provisional and preliminary snapshots of Foucault’s ongoing investigations, sadly cut short by his untimely death. I will look at what Foucault looked at, but with a greater focus on the profound link Foucault admits exist between the two types of ἐπιμέλεια he identified. There is much in which I am in broad agreement with Foucault, but there are also some significant points of divergence. The main one is that my 4 Foucault explores this second strand throughout the 1984 lectures, identifying the Laches as its point of origin. Foucault 2011, 246: “On the other hand, still on the basis of the care of self, but starting now from the Laches rather than the Alcibiades, taking the Laches as the point of departure, the care of self does not lead to the question of what this being I must care for is in its reality and truth, but to the question of what this care must be and what a life must be which claims to care about self.” 5 I will focus particularly on the lessons of 22 and 29 February 1984. 6 In this I am inspired by Michel Foucault’s frustrated desire to engage in group research within a closed seminar setting, which was disallowed by the rules of the Collège de France. See Foucault 2011, 31, 163.

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reading does not focus on care as a component of the parrhesiastic game, but rather on the kind of care that underpins the discussions within the dialogue and how this relates to different perspectives on what life ought to be about— in other words, the existential project the care at stake is supposed to further. Another important point of divergence is methodological: my reading emphasizes the polyphony of the Platonic dialogue. These are characters expressing different and sometimes conflicting views, based on different assumptions and cognitive attitudes. My own methodological approach starts from this diversity to understand its integration into an overarching set of philosophical arguments. Plato does not simply express views through his characters. He makes his characters embody and enact them. Therefore, I look beyond explicit statements, while looking at whatever explicit statements there are within their dramatic context. This lends a different significance to the fathers’ recognition of failure (section 14.2), and a different meaning to the task of putting life to the test (section 14.4). It also allows me to zoom in on something Foucault overlooks entirely: how care for the soul is still the decisive kind of care at stake even in the Laches (section 14.3). 14.2

The Failed Fathers

The first key moment is the speech that sets out the dramatic context of the dialogue. Lysimachus, speaking also on behalf of his friend Melesias, asks Nicias and Laches, the two famous generals, for advice about the education of their sons.7 Foucault sees in this speech a clear example of the theme that will

7 Nicias and Laches were prominent Athenian generals and statesmen (στρατηγοί, annually elected military leaders), active during the Peloponnesian War. Nicias is famous due to his pivotal role in achieving an armistice lasting 421–416 (the “Peace of Nicias”), and his involvement in the disastrous Sicilian expedition. Melesias and Lysimachus, although the sons of prominent fathers, were more obscure. Melesias was the son of the statesmen Thucydides, an opponent of Pericles ostracised c. 443. This Thucydides (of Alopece, son of Melesias) should not be confused with the historian. Lysimachus was the son of the famous Aristides, the rival of Themistocles. This marks them out as the sons of politicians who were opposed to the radical democracy that was in power at the time of the dramatic setting of the dialogue, c. 424. This might explain Melesias and Lysimachus’ non-involvement in the affairs of the city at this point, although Melesias will become one of the Four Hundred, the Spartan-sponsored regime that briefly replaced the democracy in 411. See Nails 2002, 47–49, 180–1, 212–15 290–2; Schmid 1992, 3–15. On the interaction between the characters within the dramatic structure of the dialogue, see Emlyn-Jones 1999, 123–138; Michelini 2000b, 60–75; Stefou 2018, 4.

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be at the centre of his analysis throughout the 1984 lectures—παρρησία.8 He does so because Lysimachus admits frankly to their own shameful situation: Lysimachus and Melesias are failed old men, without any accomplishments and merits. They blame their own fathers, prominent statesmen who, having focused all their care on the matters of the city, neglected their sons and let them do as they wished, without any direction. Now, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, we are going to speak quite freely [παρρησιασόμεθα] to you. Each of us has many noble deeds of his own father to relate to these young fellows—their numerous achievements both in war and in peace, when they were managing the affairs either of the allies or of this city; but neither of us has any deeds of his own to tell. (Laches, 179c)9 Foucault makes much of Lysimachus’ παρρησία in admitting to his and Melesias’ failures, which are a result of lack of care on the part of their famous fathers (Foucault 2009, 120–21). According to Foucault, the discussion is based on a parrhesiastic pact where the fathers admit to their shameful shortcomings and ask for help in caring for their sons. But I want to refocus the reading of this key passage, putting aside the question of παρρησία and concentrating on the nature of the care at stake. This is a conception of care with which and against which the Socratic examination is going to take place—a care that aims to achieve certain ends defined by an understanding of what life ought to be about, without, however, interrogating those same ends. My contention is that the speech is not just the trigger of the discussion, but rather the moment that defines the terms and assumptions against which the Socratic examination will take place.

8 See Foucault 2011, 13: “So, in two words, parrhesia is the courage of the truth in the person who speaks and who, regardless of everything, takes the risk of telling the whole truth that he thinks, but it is also the interlocutor’s courage in agreeing to accept the hurtful truth that he hears.” The exploration of this practice is a crucial strand that connects the 1982–83 and the 1984 lectures. Cf. Miller 2021, 169–74. On the problems of applying Foucault’s notion of παρρησία back to Plato, see Atack 2019, 23–48 and Lima’s chapter in this volume. To a certain extent, my argument on the opposition between the two forms of care of the self Foucault identifies in Plato’s thought mirrors Atack’s suggestion regarding Foucault’s παρρησία: while Plato’s thought is fertile ground for Foucault’s own philosophical thought, Foucault’s model cannot be applied back to Plato unproblematically. 9 All translations from the Laches are based on Lamb’s translation, with some modifications by me.

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What goal have the fathers failed to achieve? Borrowing Platonic terminology, we could designate this as a philotimic goal.10 For those who aim at this goal, life’s ultimate objective is to obtain and enjoy power, prestige and the admiration of others. The means to obtain this admiration depend on the values of the community. In this case, the community values the ability to persuade others, to give good advice in matters pertaining to the governance of the city as well as competence in defending it militarily. These are the fields of action in which the grandfathers became prominent, and for which the grandsons must be prepared. This is the good at which the care at stake here should aim.11 Since the pursuit of the philotimic good is the guiding principle of life’s actions and choices, at stake in the question of whether the boys should learn how to fight in armour are the lives of those young men in their totality—their value, their significance, whether they will fail at life or else succeed. Since Lysimachus and Melesias do not wish to condemn their sons to a life without accomplishments, they are now asking the advice of prominent, successful men about how they should educate their sons—specifically whether they should hire the services of the master-at-arms Stesilaus to tutor their sons.12 Foucault very aptly observes that at this point Stesilaus is being put to the test. Is he worth hiring? Is what he is trying to sell worth buying? Is the activity he has dedicated himself to, and become a master of, worth learning (Foucault 2011, 129–31)?13 What is at stake in Stesilaus’ test is more than competence: it is suitability of this skill to achieve the philotimic ideal. 10

11

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13

Φιλοτιμία and φιλότιμος are recurring terms in Plato, often paired with φιλονικία (love of victory) to designate the desire for and attachment to honour and the admiration of other people. See, e.g., Resp. 1.347b; 5.475a; 8.553c, 555a; 9.581b, 586c; 10.620c; Symp. 178d, 208c; Phd. 68c, 82c. Cf. Stefou 2018, 6: “Therefore, future power will be the result of possessing a body of knowledge, leading directly to care of oneself (epimeleia heautou), and from such selfcare onwards to the acquisition of virtue to the greatest degree through the performance and display of deeds in honor of one’s ancestors’ glory.” See also Schmid 1992, 56–59. Stesilaus is an expert in the art of fighting in armour—ὁπλομαχία. We know nothing about him apart from what we learn in Laches. He is a silent figure throughout the dialogue— talked about and discussed, but never heard—but is nonetheless described in terms analogous to a sophist: he is a paid teacher who advertises by an exhibition of skill—ἐπίδειξις. See Nails 2002, 273; Schmid 1992, 20–21. “Anyway, here we have someone who presents himself as a teacher, as a sort of Sophist more specialized in arms drill, and he demonstrates what in fact he can do. He puts himself to the test. And it is this test that Lysimachus and Melesias, Laches and Nicias watch; they witness it … . You can see that already we are in a dimension which is not one of verbal presentation, of the ability to present verbally what one is supposed to be able to do; we are in the domain of the test, but of the direct, visual test.” This becomes clearer when read against Nicias’ (181d–182d) and Laches’ (182d–184c) assessments—especially

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But Foucault overlooks that Stesilaus’ test is preceded and motivated by another test—the test the fathers themselves have failed. Highlighting the fathers’ failure according to their own standards and in view of their accepted goals opens up the question about the validity of those standards and goals. Ultimately, what starts as a question about the care that fathers should bestow on their sons opens up questions about what kind of care is best for anyone. So, we can see how into this very specific and pragmatic question—should our sons learn the skill this man proposes to teach?—are folded some very serious and very difficult problems. Τhe cause of the existential failure of Lysimachus and Melesias is lack of care, i.e., neglect (ἀμέλεια). But what is the meaning of ἐπιμέλεια in this context? Well, we have resolved to give them our most constant care [ἐπιμεληθῆναι], and not—as most fathers do when their boys begin to be young men— let them run loose to do as they want [ἀνεῖναι αὐτοὺς ὅτι βούλονται ποιεῖν], but begin at once taking every possible care of them [ἐπιμελεῖσθαι]. Now, knowing that you too have sons, we thought that you above all men must have concerned [μεμεληκέναι] yourselves with the question of the kind of upbringing [πῶς ἂν θεραπευθέντες] that would make the best of them; and if by any chance you have not given your attention to the subject, we would remind you that it ought not to be neglected [οὐ χρὴ αὐτοῦ ἀμελεῖν], and we invite you to join us in arranging some way of taking care [ἐπιμέλειάν τινα] of our sons. (Lach. 179a–b) Firstly, the point of application of this care at the beginning of the dialogue is the sons of Lysimachus and Melesias. But also at stake is the failed care that should have been applied to Lysimachus and Melesias themselves. By extension, Lysimachus’ address to Nicias and Laches points out that this also applies in the present time to their own sons. But it is also clear from Lysimachus’ speech that this care of the fathers towards the sons is associated with the care that the young men need to have towards themselves. The fathers’ care is a kind of care by proxy, or, considering the inexperience and the lack of judgment that is supposedly characteristic of youth, a kind of supervised care of oneself. However—and this aspect will play a decisive role—any form of ἐπιμέλεια entails cognitive assumptions. Taking care of something or someone always the latter. Laches’ assessment of Stesilaus, as with his assessment of Socrates, depends on how he conducts himself outside the confines of the exhibition and contains a condemnation of his character. Cf. Schmid 1992, 63–72; Hobbs 2000, 82–84; Stefou 2018, 20–21.

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presupposes that the carer knows what they are doing, regarding both the ends and the means. To take care of something implies an intervention aimed at improving the condition of what is being taken care of, which in turn implies a conception of the good that is being aimed at and of the means suitable for achieving it. But while knowledge is crucial, ἐπιμέλεια is not a cognitive phenomenon at its core. Rather, as Foucault stresses as early as in the History of Sexuality, what is at stake in ἐπιμέλεια is not a feeling or attitude (although that is also part of the phenomenon). It is a whole set of actions and behaviours. The term epimeleia designates not just a preoccupation but a whole set of occupations; it is epimeleia that is employed in speaking of the activities of the master of a household, the tasks of the ruler who looks after his subjects, the care that must be given to a sick or wounded patient, or the honors that must be paid to the gods or to the dead. With regard to oneself as well, epimeleia implies a labor. (Foucault 1986, 50)14 But what occupations are included in this care? We can get some hints from looking at the opposite of ἐπιμέλεια, ἀμέλεια. The alpha privative could suggest that ἀμέλεια is simply the absence of ἐπιμέλεια. However, Lysimachus’ speech introduces elements that add detail to what ἀμέλεια and, by contrast, ἐπιμέλεια, may mean. The ἐπιμέλεια of Lysimachus and Melesias towards their sons is contrasted with the practices of most parents, who, when their sons reach the age, when they become μειράκια (which is a rather vague term used to designate immature young men), “let them run loose to do what they want [ἀνεῖναι αὐτοὺς ὅ τι βούλονται ποιεῖν]” (Lach. 179a). My rough translation of ἀνεῖναι for “let loose” is not innocent. After the control applied during childhood, once children reach an age approaching adulthood, parents relax the reins, let them off the leash, to go wherever they want and do whatever they wish. The result of this “letting loose” is a lack of direction and control. It is assumed in this passage that young men cannot define the course of their life to make it meaningful or orderly. This creates a kind of chaos defined solely by immediate whims. Continuous supervision of the fathers over their sons is necessary to avoid this. Therefore, parental care must be extended beyond childhood and exercised differently. The point is to give the young men the necessary skills to accomplish the philotimic good. In this speech, there is no third option besides this parental care aimed at the philotimic good and the 14

See also Foucault 1994, 355, 622–23; 2001, 81ff.; 2011, 110.

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laissez-faire approach that leads to a wasted life. Either one, due to successful ἐπιμέλεια, applies oneself and acts in an orderly way in pursuit of the good (here identified with prestige), or else one lives chaotically, without any specific final good in mind, with eyes only for what one fancies at each moment. The latter alternative becomes clearer when Lysimachus mentions the mistakes made by his and Melesias’ fathers when they were in a similar situation. When Lysimachus and Melesias were μειράκια, their fathers “εἴων τρυφᾶν.” We cannot help feeling ashamed that our boys should observe this, and we blame our fathers for leaving us to indulge ourselves [εἴων τρυφᾶν] when we began to be young men, while they looked after other people’s affairs; and we point the moral of it all to these young people, telling them that if they are careless of themselves [ἀμελήσουσιν ἑαυτῶν] and will not take our advice they will win no reputation [ἀκλεεῖς γενήσονται], but if they take care [ἐπιμελήσονται] they may very likely come to be worthy of the names they bear. (Lach. 179d) The Greek for “to indulge,” τρυφᾶν, has a pejorative connotation: it invokes a life of decadent and idle luxury, dedicated to the enjoyment of pleasures, and, by extension, an idea of softness and fragility. The simple fact that this care is necessary in the first place suggests that the tendency towards indulgence is an intrinsic tendency, a kind of existential inertia. The pursuit of the philotimic good requires effort, attention and a set of activities that must be forced. They do not originate from a spontaneous impulse; rather, they are in conflict with the spontaneous impulses aimed at pleasure and idleness. But a life lived according to these spontaneous impulses becomes shapeless and unsubstantial. Lysimachus and Melesias’ present condition is the result of a life lived under the twin stars of indulgence (τρυφᾶν) and doing what they want (ὅ τι βούλονται ποιεῖν). Their self-diagnosis implies the recognition that the object of care, if left alone, can be ruined. This shows that care is always intended as a positive contribution: it makes its object better. It also implies a diagnosis of the condition, situation and potential of its object. And it also implies the representation of a project, an objective and an end—that which one intends to produce through care. The cases of ἀμέλεια just shown are examples of this. It is because they have no prestige that Lysimachus and Melesias can tell that they failed due to their ἀμέλεια. This shows them that a mix of benevolent attention and decisive intervention is required to help a young man’s life develop in a way that he may become excellent (ἄριστος).

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As illustrated by the lives of Lysimachus and Melesias, young men need someone to guide, encourage and correct them. Left to their own devices, they will go astray and neglect what they should care for. In this sense, the fathers of Lysimachus and Melesias failed as fathers and are to blame for the mediocrity of these men. They were careless towards their sons.15 In contrast, Lysimachus and Melesias have no intention of failing as fathers. They will apply their care where their own fathers were negligent and focus on the education of their sons. Therefore, instead of letting their sons do what they want, they will equip them with whatever they need to accomplish the philotomic project. As measured against the philotimic ideal, at stake is the life of the boys in its totality: whether it will be a failure or a success. And so even in a non-­ philosophical perspective like the one represented by Lysimachus and Melesias, we can already find something suggestive of a care for the unfolding of a life in its totality. At this point in the dialogue, this care is primarily directed at the lives of the sons, but it nonetheless entails a diagnosis of the lives of the old men, and of the meaning and value of life in general. On the other hand, it is recognised that this cannot happen by inertia. It requires effort, dedication, attention and the acquisition of new skills and knowledge. Without an effective beneficial intervention, life (βίος) will not advance towards the end identified as the good, but will rather proceed chaotically, determined by immediate impulses. In other words, there is an alternative between a βίος that, as the result of an effective care, is a success, and a life that, as the result of ἀμέλεια (neglect), is a failure. The fathers’ admission of failure is significant beyond being the opening gambit in a parrhesiastic game, as Foucault seems to suggest. It defines the conceptual landscape against which the remainder of the dialogue will unfold. While Lysimachus’ speech does introduce the notion of something akin to a care that has βίος as its object, this is based on a very specific diagnosis of what is at stake in these people’s lives and what life in general ought to be about for people like them. It is this diagnosis that will trigger the Socratic examination that will occupy most of the dialogue. 15

This is another example of a test preceding the dialogue: by testing their own lives, they are also testing the lives of their own fathers. And while their fathers may not be deemed failures according to the standards of the philotimic ideal, they are nonetheless failures as fathers. See Stefou 2018, 3–4. This is a failure Lysimachus and Melesias are trying to avoid—in a way redeeming their own lives through their sons. But it is also a risk successful men like Nicias and Laches are urged to avoid. The successful father or father-figure who fails to make the next generation better is a recurring theme in Plato: Meno 94c–e, Prt. 319d6–20b5.

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Caring for the Soul

The second key moment coincides with the first significant intervention of Socrates. The discussion at first is set to include only the fathers and the generals, but Socrates is unexpectedly pulled into it by Laches, as an expert consultant who spends his time discussing the best pursuits for young men. Socrates soon changes the whole direction of the discussion. [Socrates] What, Lysimachus? Are you going to join the side which gets the approval of the majority of us? [Lysimachus] Why, what can one do, Socrates? [Socrates] And you too, Melesias, would do the same? Suppose you had a consultation as to what your son’s exercise should be for a coming contest, would you be guided by the majority of us, or by the one who happened to have trained and exercised under a good master? [Melesias] By the latter, naturally, Socrates. [Socrates] Would you be guided by him alone rather than the four of us? [Melesias] Very likely. [Socrates] Yes, for a question must be decided by knowledge [ἐπιστήμῃ], and not by numbers, if it is to have a right decision. [Melesias] To be sure. (Lach. 184d-e) This is the moment, as Foucault observes when the political model is replaced by a technical model (Foucault 2011, 134). The matter is not whether all or a majority agrees, but rather what is the opinion of those who possess the requisite knowledge to decide. Before, the question was about the proper course for the care of the young men—and this question was tied to the suitability of a specific skill and the competence of the one who was proposing to teach it. But with Socrates’ intervention, the question shifts: it is now a matter of assessing whether those who are to pass judgement on these topics possess the knowledge and competence required to do so. So, we go from an examination

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of Stesilaus and his skill to an examination of those who were called upon to make the first examination. But what need Nicias and Laches to be competent in to properly judge this matter? [Socrates] And in a word, when one considers a thing for any purpose, the consulting is in fact about the end [οὗ ἕνεκα] one had in view to start with, and not about the means to be used for such end. [Nicias] Necessarily. [Socrates] So we must consider our adviser too, and ask ourselves whether he is a skilled expert in the treatment required for the end [οὗ ἕνεκα] which is the subject of our consideration. [Nicias] Certainly. [Socrates] And we say that our present subject is an accomplishment studied for the sake of young men’s souls [τῆς ψυχῆς ἕνεκα τῆς τῶν νεανίσκων]? [Nicias] Yes. [Socrates] So what we have to consider is whether one of us is skilled in treatment of the soul [τεχνικὸς περὶ ψυχῆς θεραπείαν], and is able to treat it rightly, and which of us has had good teachers. (Lach. 185d-e) Socrates pinpoints the subject of the required competence by identifying the “end” (οὗ ἕνεκα)—that for the sake of which—of the deliberation: the souls of the young men (τῆς ψυχῆς ἕνεκα τῆς τῶν νεανίσκων). Therefore, the competence required regards the soul—one needs to be skilled in treatment of the soul (τεχνικὸς περὶ ψυχῆς θεραπείαν). While Foucault does not overlook that the subject of this skill is the soul, he does overlook, however, the implications of this for his distinction between the care of the soul and the care of βίος. It is a question—and he employs the word—of tekhne? It is a question of tekhne, and consequently what should prevail is not the greatest number, [but] technique. What kind of technique? Well, precisely what we are

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looking for is, he says—and we should absolutely hold on to the word—a tekhnikos peri psukhes therapeian (a technician of the care, of the “therapy,” of the soul). (Foucault 2011, 134) They will be questioned on what qualifies them to speak on this technical question of the art of psukhes therapeia (the care of the soul). (Foucault 2011, 136–37) Foucault overlooks that this τέχνη is about a form of care—one that takes soul as its object. Foucault’s oversight could perhaps be explained by the fact that the term is θεραπεία and not ἐπιμέλεια. However, as far as I can tell, there is barely any distinction between the two concepts in this context.16 One could argue that ἐπιμέλεια has a more generic flavour, whereas θεραπεία is associated with the possession of a technical skill or competence. But even if we were to ascertain this distinction, the fact remains that θεραπεία is a kind of ἐπιμέλεια. The care of the young men is the subject of the discussion from the beginning, and Socrates is not turning away from it now. In fact, Socrates is developing the same theme, while introducing some additional determinations. The first is that the care at stake is rooted on expert knowledge. The second is a more precise delineation of what is at stake: the young men’s souls. The parallel with the First Alcibiades, which Foucault examined in detail in the 1982 lectures, is easy to draw. In that dialogue, Socrates identifies the soul as the proper object of the care of the self. The soul of Alcibiades is identified as Alcibiades himself—it is the “self” of Alcibiades. This identification is done by isolating the soul from what pertains to the soul—the body—and what pertains to that—all those entities that the body interacts with and possesses—through a complex dialectical discussion (Alc. I 130a–c; Foucault 2005, 54–58). But while Socrates does not go through a similar dialectical discussion in the Laches, the result is the same: an identification of the soul as the object of care—identified in the Laches in its more “technical” flavour: θεραπεία. But whereas a great deal of fuss is made in the First Alcibiades about 16

See also Lach. 179b, where the notion of θεραπεία is applied as means to the end of making the boys the best—ἄριστοι. Cf. Foucault 2005, 8–9, 98, where Foucault treats both Greek terms as equivalent. The change in terminology signals a change in the understanding of the true object of care as well as a focus on its cognitive requirements. Cf. Stefou 2018, 33: “Nowhere, however, do they make any reference to psuchēs epimeleia, but only to the epimeleia of young men. This observation becomes even more surprising when we take into consideration the fact that they previously identified the aristocratic self’s epimeleia with the epimeleia of young men. Socrates aims to gradually establish the true meaning of epimeleia, which, of course, can only refer to the individual human soul.”

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this identification, in the Laches this passes almost unnoticed.17 The interlocutors simply accept it without discussion. But neither do they make anything of it—they will, in fact, go on to discuss the notion of βίος in some detail, paying no mind to ψυχη18.́ One could object that the reason nobody bats an eyelid when Socrates introduces the notion of ψυχή is because it makes no difference. However, while the notion of ψυχή itself is never discussed, its introduction plays a structural role within the dialogue. This needs to be understood in stages. The first has to do with the introduction of the two criteria for finding out whether one is τεχνικὸς περὶ ψυχῆς θεραπείαν. [Socrates] We also, therefore, Laches and Nicias—since Lysimachus and Melesias have invited us to a consultation on their sons, whose souls they are anxious to have as good as possible [ὅτι ἀρίστας γενέσθαι τὰς ψυχάς]—should bring to their notice what teachers we have had, if we say that we have any to mention, who being themselves good to begin with, and having treated the souls of many young people [πολλῶν νέων τεθεραπευκότες ψυχὰς], taught us also in due course and are known to have done so. Or if any of ourselves says he has had no teacher, but has however some works of his own to speak of, and can point out to us what Athenians or strangers, either slaves or freemen, are acknowledged to owe their goodness to him, let him do so. (Lach. 186a-b) The two criteria are: what teachers did you have? Who have you made better through your care? In fact, one could reduce the first criterion to the second, since the competence of the teacher is measured by the results of their teaching. The teacher needs to be himself good—since it would be absurd to know how to make others good while neglecting oneself—and have treated the souls of many young men. The proof is in pudding, in the concrete positive effects

17

18

Emlyn-Jones observes that this transition “receives immediate and unquestioning assent from [Nicias]” (Emlyn-Jones 1996, 77), but I disagree as to its significance. Rather than suggesting that “Plato does not believe that [Socrates] is introducing a controversial or difficult idea,” I read this as signalling the interlocutors’ lack of awareness of the significance of the change. With the sole exception of one of Laches’ definitions of courage, in 192b. The generals are unlikely to read into the term the metaphysical implications developed throughout the Platonic corpus and hinted at here.

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of the θεραπεία.19 In a typically Platonic sleight of hand, how to understand “goodness” in this context is never explained, allowing the interlocutors to understand it according to their own preconceptions.20 It is likely that the philotimic ideal is still in operation here: “goodness” here is equivalent to the presence and exercise of those virtues that are conducive to the realisation of the philotimic ideal. However, the reference to ψυχή introduces an element of awkwardness to this equivalence, suggesting that something different might be at stake: an ideal that is less focused on performance and results. What this might be, however, remains undefined. But the structural importance of the introduction of the notion of soul as the object of care becomes clearer once the two generals accept being examined by Socrates—more on this later—and Socrates changes his approach. [Socrates] … If we happen to know that sight joined to eyes makes those eyes the better for it, and further if we are able to get it joined to eyes, we obviously know what this faculty of sight is, on which we might be consulting as to how it might be best and most easily acquired. For if we did not know first of all what sight or hearing is, we should hardly prove ourselves consultants or physicians of credit in the matter of eyes or ears, and the best way of acquiring sight or hearing. [Laches] Truly spoken, Socrates. [Socrates] And you know, Laches, at this moment our two friends are inviting us to a consultation as to the way in which virtue may be joined to their sons’ souls, and so make them better? [Laches] Yes, indeed.

19

20

See Stefou 2018, 32: “after being initially introduced, the concept of epistēmē is now being consolidated through the craft analogy, which centres on the results of a craft process, namely the visible/tangible products of a craftsman’s art.” Cf. Balaban 2007, who draws a sharp distinction between a sophistic conception of τέχνη as “expert knowledge of means” and a Platonic conception focused on “knowledge of the ends” (p. 6). On the “craft analogy” see also Irwin 1977, 71–77. See also Roochnik 1996; Balansard 2001. Cf. Schmid 1992, 80–81, on the tension between Socrates’ new focus on this τέχνη of the soul and the need to understand what virtue is.

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[Socrates] Then our first requisite is to know what virtue is? For surely, if we had no idea at all what virtue actually is, we could not possibly consult with anyone as to how he might best acquire it? [Laches] I certainly think not, Socrates. (Lach. 190a-c) At this point, instead of asking for concrete evidence of people who have been made better by one’s care to prove oneself as τεχνικὸς περὶ ψυχῆς θεραπείαν, Socrates asks for what makes the soul better—virtue (ἀρετή). He is not asking for the results—whether this or that person is a success or a failure and how they achieved or failed to achieve their philotimic goals. Rather, he focuses squarely on the soul and on what makes the soul better. From this point, the discussion regarding virtue, and the specific virtue that is courage (ἀνδρεία) will dominate the dialogue.21 But we must not lose sight of the fact that the discussion about virtue in general, and courage in particular, comes about as part of an inquiry that is all about care, and a care of the soul to boot. The question about what constitutes the best care for the sons of Lysimachus and Melesias and about the competence of all those involved in the discussion to adjudicate the matter is never put aside and continues to determine the course of the dialogue till the very end. Structurally, the importance of the introduction of the τεχνικὸς περὶ ψυχῆς θεραπείαν does not simply lie on the fact that the discussion is now being conducted under a technical model, as Foucault suggests. Rather, it refocuses the discussion on soul as the object of care—something that was absent from the dialogue until this point. 14.4

Putting Life to the Test

According to the terms of the discussion, you cannot be competent to judge what may or may not improve the souls of the young men if you cannot even account for that thing which, when joined to the soul, makes the soul better—virtue (ἀρετή). This reframes the discussion about courage as a test of 21

See Lach. 190c–e. While, strictly speaking, the programme of inquiry would require the identification of ἀρετή as a whole, Socrates restricts the scope to one singular ἀρετή, ἀνδρεία—courage. This suits the interlocutors, whose life is dedicated to military matters, and the initial question regarding the education of the boys. Cf. Schmid 1992, 98–100; Hobbs 2000, 84–86; Stefou 2018, 47–53.

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the generals’ competence. The question is not simply what courage is; but rather whether the generals (and Socrates) know or can find out what courage is. I would therefore agree with Foucault’s observation that Socrates shifts the focus of examination to the generals themselves—to what they claim to know and be able to do (Foucault 2011, 137–38). Foucault, however, does not acknowledge that the question about the competence of the generals is tied to the fact that the soul is the object of the specific kind of care they are talking about. But this is very easy to miss. After all, ψυχή as object of care is introduced without any kind of fanfare and its structural importance is only evident in retrospect. Between these two moments, Plato inserted the third key moment Foucault identifies: Nicias’ and Laches’ speeches on Socrates himself. For Foucault, this moment is crucial, since it defines the terms of what Foucault designates as “the game of parrhesia” (Foucault 2011, 137–38). These are the terms by which Socrates is going to put the generals to the test. This is a key point where the idea of putting life to the test, which Foucault connects with the kind of care that takes βίος as its object—is brought to the foreground. Nicias’ speech stresses that, whatever the original subject of conversation, Socrates always leads the discussion towards the same matter: the βίος of the interlocutor. You strike me as not being aware that, whoever comes into close contact with Socrates and has any talk with him face to face, is bound to be drawn round and round by him in the course of the argument—though it may have started at first on a quite different theme—and cannot stop until he is led into giving an account of himself [εἰς τὸ διδόναι περὶ αὑτοῦ λόγον], of the manner in which he now spends his days, and of the kind of life he has lived hitherto [ὅντινα τρόπον νῦν τε ζῇ καὶ ὅντινα τὸν παρεληλυθότα βίον βεβίωκεν]; and when once he has been led into that, Socrates will never let him go until he has thoroughly and properly put all his ways to the test [ἂν βασανίσῃ]. (Lach. 187e–188a) The phrase Nicias uses is the familiar λόγον διδόναι—to render account.22 However, the Platonic λόγον διδόναι is usually applied to the notions 22

On this notion in Platonic thought and its antecedents, see Vancamp 2005, 55–62; Weiner 2012, 7–20. Nicias’ use feels closer to the political or forensic aspect of the notion, in particular the process of δοκιμασία, used to ascertain whether a citizen had the capacity to exercise certain public rights and duties. According to some scholars, δοκιμασία entailed the whole of the candidate’s life to probe their suitability for office. See MacDowell 1978, 167–69; Adeleye 1983, 295–306. Nicias’ formulation closely parallels Lys., For Mantitheus

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themselves—the interlocutor renders an account of the notion under discussion, or, more precisely, the interlocutor justifies his adoption of a given thesis regarding a given notion. But Nicias is talking about something different. Socrates makes the interlocutor render an account of himself (περὶ αὑτοῦ): how he lives in the present, and how he has lived up until now (Laches, 188a). The interlocutor himself is implicated in the discussion not simply in an indirect way, insofar as the notions in discussion are part of his conduct and worldview, but directly: the life of the interlocutor itself is being examined. This is described as being put to the test (βασανίζεσθαι). For I delight, Lysimachus, in conversing with the man, and see no harm in our being reminded of any past or present misdoing: nay, one must needs take more careful thought for the rest of one’s life, if one does not fly from his words but is willing, as Solon said, “I grow old learning ever more and more;” and zealous to learn as long as one lives, and does not expect to get good sense by the mere arrival of old age. So to me there is nothing unusual, or unpleasant either, in being put to the test [βασανίζεσθαι] by Socrates; in fact, I knew pretty well all the time that our argument would not be about the boys if Socrates were present, but about ourselves. (Lach. 188a–b) Nicias’ enjoyment is unexpected, as the term usually describes a painful process. A βάσανος is a touchstone, used to ascertain a metal as genuine. But figuratively it is used to designate a test—and more specifically a test or examination by the means of torture. However, while Foucault is quick to recognise the importance of the touchstone as a means of testing, he overlooks the judicial connotation of the image and its association with torture. He therefore overlooks the oddity of Nicias’ attitude, and the suggestion that Nicias’ ready acquiescence to being examined may in fact be based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what is at stake in Socratic examination.23 Nicias is stating that he enjoys, as we would say in English, being put on the rack by Socrates. And he enjoys it because the process leads to an improvement of βίος. But Nicias also emphasizes the fact that this testing does not pertain exclusively or primarily to young men. This process is universally beneficial

23

9: “it is right to give an account of one’s whole life [παντὸς τοῦ βίου λόγον διδόναι] in δοκιμασίαι.” See Foucault 2011, 145. Cf. Foucault 2010, 370–1. The metaphoric association with torture is suggested by the physical act of rubbing the metal—a partly destructive method. See Moline 1981, 130; DuBois 1991, 107–14; Mirhady 1996, 119–31.

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and is available to anyone whomsoever. Moreover, it is suggested that everyone, regardless of status, age or any other factor, is, on the one hand, in want of this putting to the test, and, on the other hand, is capable of improving their βίος as a whole.24 Without naming it, Nicias is talking about ἐπιμέλεια. Being put to the test by Socrates is, according to Nicias, a form of care that takes life as a whole as its object and results in its improvement. In contrast, Laches has no experience of Socrates as a tester of βίοι. Rather than by his words (λόγοι), Laches knows Socrates by his deeds and actions (ἔργα). Now of Socrates’ words [λόγων] I have no experience, but formerly, I fancy, I have made trial of his deeds [ἔργων]; and there I found him living up to any fine words however freely spoken. So if he has that gift as well, his wish is mine, and I should be very glad to be cross-examined by such a man, and should not chafe at learning; but I too agree with Solon, while adding just one word to his saying: I should like, as I grow old, to learn more and more, but only from honest folk … . I therefore invite you, Socrates, both to teach and to refute me as much as you please, and to learn too what I on my part know; such is the position you hold in my eyes since that day on which you came through the same danger with me, and gave a proof of your own valour which is to be expected of anyone who hopes to justify his good name. (Lach. 188e–189a) By invoking the proverbial distinction between λόγος and ἔργον, Laches suggests that what Nicias identifies as a fundamental characteristic of Socrates’ philosophical practice can be reduced to mere words.25 for when I hear a man discussing virtue or any kind of wisdom, one who is truly a man and worthy of his argument [ὄντος ἀνδρὸς καὶ ἀξίου τῶν λόγων], I am exceedingly delighted; I take the speaker and his speech together, and observe how they sort and harmonize with each other … . Such a man makes me rejoice with his utterance, and anyone would judge me then a lover of discussion, so eagerly do I take in what he says: but a man who shows the opposite character gives me pain, and the better he seems to 24 25

This is a serious use of an idea that appears ironically in Euthydemus: old men going to school. See Michelini 2000a: 519–520; Sermamoglou-Soulmaidi 2014: 131–32. See Parry 1981, 15–21. Parry identifies three main strands of the λόγος-ἔργον distinction: literary, popular and philosophical. Laches’ use belongs to the popular strand, emphasizing the “realness” of ἔργα as opposed to the deceptiveness of λόγοι.

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speak, the more I am pained, with the result, in this case, that I am judged a hater of discussion. (Lach. 188c–e) According to Laches, the competence of someone who claims to teach and assess others does not depend on what they say, but rather on what they do. But for Laches the two elements are not worth the same. Deeds are far more important. Without these, λόγοι are reduced to mere words without substance and without authority.26 In Laches’ understanding, the function of λόγοι is communicative and didactic. Through λόγοι, the person who is prominent on account of their ἔργα is capable of teaching others. Therefore, it is not just a matter of a coincidence between the meaning of words and the meaning of deeds, but rather a matter of noble and admirable deeds becoming the foundation of the words that are in harmony with them. The criterion by which correct and appropriate words can be judged is their harmony with correct and appropriate deeds. Socrates has passed the test with flying colours, and therefore is deemed competent to teach Laches and to put him to the test. In these speeches, Foucault finds an expression of how Socratic παρρησία puts the interlocutors’ way of life to the test and constitutes a form of care. [Second], what will Socratic parrhesia speak about? It will not speak of competence; it will not speak of tekhne. It will speak of something else: of the mode of existence, the mode of life. The mode of life appears as the essential, fundamental correlative of the practice of truth-telling. Telling the truth in the realm of the care of men is to question their mode of life, to put this mode of life to the test and define what there is in it that may be ratified and recognized as good and what on the other hand must be rejected and condemned. (Foucault 2011, 149) Socratic παρρησία is a mode of discourse that incites men to take care of themselves by putting their way of life to the test. As such, the mode of discourse that constitutes Socrates’ examination of his interlocutors is a form of ἐπιμέλεια that takes the interlocutor’s way of life as its object and point of application. This is done by putting their lives to the test, a test that, according to Nicias, leads to the course correction of one’s life. 26

Or, to use the far more Foucauldian formulation in Lima’s chapter in this volume: “such a harmony (συμφωνία), which sustains Socrates’ parrhesia, does not reside in λόγος, but on a plane independent of it, that of sound (φωνή), which … is self-sufficient in terms of the manifestation of its truth.” I agree with Lima’s criticism of Foucault that harmony between λόγος and βίος “is only possible on the basis of a λόγος.”

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But Laches and Nicias differ significantly in how they approach the prospect of being put to the test by Socrates. Whereas Nicias speaks of Socrates from the point of view of someone who has already been subjected to such a test and knows its benefits, Laches starts out by setting himself as a tester. He only accepts being put to the test because Socrates has passed the test Laches has set up himself: to live in such a way that words match deeds. However, Laches’ focus on deeds over words and Nicias’ focus on βίος as the object of a process of βασανίζειν and λόγον διδόναι suggest something quite distinct from what Socrates does. Socrates’ search for who is τεχνικὸς περὶ ψυχῆς θεραπείαν is not based on an assessment of the generals’ deeds or of how they have conducted their lives. This is something that Foucault overlooks in his analysis of this key passage. Rather, Socrates is going to ask what virtue—and specifically the virtue that pertains most particularly to military matters, courage—is. The question is not whether Nicias and Laches are themselves virtuous and brave and capable of making others be like them, but whether they know what virtue and courage are in the first place. While virtue and courage have an undeniable existential importance (not least within the parameters of the philotimic ideal), within the discussion priority is given to what one knows as that which determines what one does. The practical dimension is assessed under the light of the cognitive conditions in which it takes place. The fact that the discussion turns out to be aporetic shows that none of the interlocutors (including Socrates) is τεχνικὸς περὶ ψυχῆς θεραπείαν. This failure is significant. To improve the soul, the person exercising care needs to have a clear-sighted perspective on what virtue is, and of the means necessary to achieve that goal. None of those involved in the discussion possess such knowledge. They all fail. Now, the simple fact that the generals accepted to be examined at all is remarkable. These men are, after all, the very models of the ideal that Lysimachus and Melesias failed to achieve. But the failure to achieve any conclusion in this discussion has consequences for the way of life of the generals. How can these men be considered masters in military matters (with all the power and prestige associated with that status) when they cannot even give an account of the most crucial virtue for their field of expertise?27 Their inability to give an account of their λόγοι makes any claims regarding the value of their ἔργα unsustainable. If this is, as Foucault suggests, an “épreuve de vie,” then it is a

27

The parallel with Alcibiades is easy to spot: Alcibiades was shown to be a failure because he could not give an account of the crucial virtue in the governance of the city—justice. See Alc. Maior 134d–135b.

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test they fail. But, crucially, they fail it upon direct examination not of their βίοι (as Foucault’s reading would suggest), but rather of their λόγοι. This represents a crucial inflexion of the theme of testing, which has been present throughout the whole dialogue from the very start. Lysimachus’ speech entails a test of his and Melesias’ life, as well as of their fathers’ paternal competence. The initial question of the dialogue hinges on a test of Stesilaus’ competence and of the value of his skill. Socrates’ intervention changes the subjects of the test to the generals—and to himself too. But most crucial of all, the introduction of what Foucault aptly designates as technical model changes the nature of the test as well: from a test of deeds to a test of words, beliefs and knowledge claims. 14.5

Conclusion

All those involved—and not only the boys—are shown to need ἐπιμέλεια. In this I believe Foucault is entirely correct. He is also correct in identifying the importance of the Socratic practices of putting to the test for that care (Foucault 2011, 152–53). But we should not lose sight of the fact that, whereas the generals’ speeches focused on putting βίος to the test and the relative value of λόγοι and ἔργα, Socrates’ dialogical practice focused on the putting the λόγοι to the test with his sights clearly set on finding who is τεχνικὸς περὶ ψυχῆς θεραπείαν. The failure of all those involved in the discussion to arrive at a definition of courage means that none of them is τεχνικὸς περὶ ψυχῆς θεραπείαν. The consequence of this is that the care, not only of the boys, but of the adults as well, will have to be outsourced. I tell you, gentlemen—and this is confidential—that we ought all alike to seek out the best teacher we can find [διδάσκαλον ὡς ἄριστον], first for ourselves—for we need one—and then for our boys, sparing neither expense nor anything else we can do: but to leave ourselves as we now are, this I do not advise. (Lach. 201a) In the terms of this dialogue, the best possible teacher (διδάσκαλον ὡς ἄριστον) has to be τεχνικὸς περὶ ψυχῆς θεραπείαν. What is at stake in the kind of care the boys and the adults are shown to be in need of is their souls. The generals’ failure to give an account of their λόγοι regarding the most crucial virtue for how their lives are lived has an impact on the validity and value of their way of life, but the problem lies in their souls, as the seat of their cognitive abilities, as the place in which the λόγοι are held, produced and acquired. The failure

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of the generals does not consist in having done something wrong—as Nicias would suggest—or in one’s words not being in harmony with one’s deeds—as Laches states. Not that these two aspects are irrelevant—but they are relevant in a secondary way, as symptoms of a failure regarding the λόγοι.28 In the form practiced by Socrates in this dialogue, the care that consists in putting one’s way of life to the test—the ἐπιμέλεια τοῦ βίου—is still an examination of λόγοι, which is to say an examination of the soul, even if these λόγοι are brought into this process due to their existential importance. Foucault fails to notice the consequences of Socrates’ reformulation of the terms of the debate to refocus the discussion on the care of the soul. Foucault’s blind spot regarding this can be explained by the interlocutors’ reaction to Socrates’ reformulation: they do not notice it at all. They misunderstand the care Socrates can provide, even if they realise its importance. In his analysis, Foucault does not consider the limited points of view being portrayed. So, he overlooks how the fathers and the generals embody and enact perspectives that are not faithful representations of what is at stake in the practice of Socratic examination. In overlooking this, Foucault replicates the same mistake. But does this mean that there is no such thing as an ἐπιμέλεια τοῦ βίου? If putting to the test is a form of care, then we could join Foucault in identifying two forms of care, with two different but related objects: ψυχή and βίος. But the way the discussion is framed in Laches suggests otherwise. If putting to the test is a form of care that takes βίος as its object, the improvement of the ψυχή remains its aim.29 Nevertheless, I believe that Foucault’s intuition that the two kinds of ἐπιμέλεια are profoundly tied together, especially in Plato, is more significant than he lets on in the 1984 lectures. But since his programmatic aim is to identify and explore a neglected strand of the philosophical tradition, he does not explore this link as it deserves. However, the aspects Foucault found in the Laches and that led him to modulate his thinking on ἐπιμέλεια can be pursued further—potentially even to a revision of the very notion of ἐπιμέλεια τῆς ψυχῆς he sketches out in the 1982 lectures. But that is a matter for another time.

28

29

See Stefou 2018, 96: “The closing aporia teaches that it is absurd to search for the appropriate teacher for the young, while, at the same time, being in a state of need due to an individual lack of necessary knowledge. To this end, Socrates invites his interlocutors—and the human race in general—to examine the logical foundations of their beliefs, so that they can closer approach individual knowledge of the good.” The problem, of course, is that whatever connection there may be between βίος and ψυχή is not explicitly examined as such in the Laches—although I suspect that the key to this is ἀρετή. Developing this point, however, would take me far off the scope of this chapter.



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References Adeleye, Gabriel. 1983. “The Purpose of Dokimasia.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 24 (4): 295–306. Atack, Carol. 2019. “Plato, Foucault and the Conceptualization of Parrhēsia.” History of Political Thought 40 (1): 23–48. Balaban, Oded. 2007. “The Meaning of ‘Craft’ (τέχνη) in Plato’s Early Philosophy.” Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 49: 7–30. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24360851. Balansard, Anne. 2001. Technè dans les dialogues de Platon: l’empreinte de la sophistique. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag. Davidson, Arnold. 2005. “Ethics as Ascetics: Foucault, the History of Ethics and Ancient Thought.” In The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, edited by Gary Gutting, 113–40. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dubois, Page. 1991. Torture and Truth. Oxford / New York: Routledge. Emlyn-Jones, Chris, ed. 1996. Plato: Laches. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press. Emlyn-Jones. Chris. 1999. “Dramatic Structure and Cultural Context in Plato’s Laches.” The Classical Quarterly 49 (1): 123–138. https://www.jstor.org/stable/639492. Foucault, Michel. 1986. The Care of the Self: Volume 3 of the History of Sexuality. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Pantheon Books. Foucault, Michel. 1994. Dits et écrits IV. Paris: Gallimard. Foucault, Michel. 2005. The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France. 1981–1982. Translated by Graham Burchell. New York: Palgrave / Macmillan. Foucault, Michel. 2010. The Government of Self and Others: Lectures at the Collège de France. 1982–1983. Translated by Graham Burchell. New York: Palgrave / Macmillan. Foucault, Michel. 2011. The Courage of the Truth (The Government of Self and Others II): Lectures at the Collège de France. 1984. Translated by Graham Burchell. New York: Palgrave / Macmillan. Gill, Christopher. 2007. “Self-knowledge in Plato’s Alcibiades.” In Reading Ancient Texts: Essays in Honour of Denis O’Brien, vol. 1, edited by Suzanne Stern-Gillet and Kevin Corrigan, 97–112. Leiden: Brill. Hobbs, Angela. 2000. Plato and the Hero: Courage, Manliness and the Impersonal Good. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Irwin, Terence. 1977. Plato’s Moral Theory: The Early and Middle Dialogues. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Joosse, Albert. 2015. “Foucault’s Subject and Plato’s Mind: A Dialectical Model of Self-Constitution in the Alcibiades.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 41 (2): 159–77. https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453714552212. Kelly, Mark G.E. 2013. “Foucault, Subjectivity, and Technologies of the Self.” In A Companion to Foucault, edited by Christopher Falzon, O’Leary Timothy, and Jane Sawicki, 330–39. Chichester: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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MacDowell, Douglas. 1978. The Law in Classical Athens. London / Ithaca, NY: Thames and Hudson / Cornell University Press. McGushin, Edward. 2007. Foucault’s Askēsis: An Introduction to the Philosophical Life. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press. Michelini, Ann. 2000a. “Socrates Plays the Buffoon: Cautionary Protreptic in Euthydemus.” The American Journal of Philology 121 (4): 509–35. https://doi.org /10.1353/ajp.2000.0055. Michelini, Ann. 2000b. “Plato’s Laches: An Introduction to Socrates.” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 143 (1): 60–75. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41234443. Miller, Paul Allen. 2021. Foucault’s Seminars on Antiquity: Learning to Speak the Truth. London: Bloomsbury. Mirhady, David. 1996. “Torture and Rhetoric in Athens.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 116: 119–131. https://www.jstor.org/stable/631959. Moline, Jon. 1981. Plato’s Theory of Understanding. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Nails, Debra. 2002. The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics. Indianapolis / Cambridge: Hackett. Parry, Adam. 1981. Logos and Ergon in Thucydides. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Plato. 1924. Laches, Protagoras, Meno, Euthydemus. Translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Roochnik, David. 1996. Of Art and Wisdom: Plato’s Understanding of Techne. University Park, Penn.: The University of Pennsylvania University Press. Schmid, Walter. 1992. On Manly Courage: A Study of Plato’s Laches. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press. Sermamoglou-Soulmaidi, Georgia. 2014. Playful Philosophy and Serious Sophistry. A Reading of Plato’s Euthydemus. Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter. Stefou, Konstantinos. 2018. Socrates on the Life of Philosophical Inquiry: A Companion to the Laches. Cham: Springer. Vancamp, Bruno. 2005. “À propos de λόγον διδόναι, formule-clé de la dialectique platonicienne.” Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire 83 (1): 55–62. Weiner, Sebastian. 2012. “Platons logon didonai.” Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 54: 7–20.

CHAPTER 15

Aristotle and Philosophy as a Way of Life John Sellars 15.1

Introduction1

One potentially challenging case for Pierre Hadot’s claim that all of ancient philosophy was ultimately a way of life is Aristotle. It is not uncommon for Aristotle to be seen as perhaps the master theoretician, developing complex systematic accounts across a wide range of topics, from metaphysics and ethics, through to the natural and social sciences. In this sense, Aristotle might be seen to share much in common with a modern academic philosopher, developing theories in both practical and theoretical philosophy, examining the foundations of the sciences, and insisting on the importance of the study of logic. Much of his time, we sense, was spent gathering information, whether that be studying the ideas of his predecessors, examining and dissecting animals, or collecting information about ancient constitutions.2 All this feels a world away from the convention-flouting lifestyle of someone like Diogenes the Cynic or Epicurus’ claim that philosophy is first and foremost a remedy for human suffering.3 Indeed, it is interesting to note that a recent synoptic study of philosophy as a way of life includes chapters on Socrates, Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Platonism, while Aristotle is passed over in silence.4

1 An earlier version of this paper—in some ways quite different—was presented at the British School in Athens in April 2022 and I am very grateful to the audience for their comments. A later version was presented in April 2023 to the online seminar arising from the Exploratory Project “Mapping Philosophy as a Way of Life: An Ancient Model, A Contemporary Approach” (2022.02833.PTDC), funded by the FCT (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology). I am also grateful to the editors of this volume for their feedback. It was originally intended to build on and fully justify claims that I had previously made in passing in Sellars 2009, 35–36, and 2017, 42–44. However, in the process of revising and developing it my view has changed quite a bit, not least in the final conclusion. 2 On these activities and others, see the biography of Aristotle in Natali 2013. 3 Diogenes’ life is recounted in Diog. Laert. 6.20–81, who at 6.103 comments on whether Cynicism ought to be seen as a serious philosophy or merely a lifestyle. For Epicurus’ statement see Porph., Ad Marcellam 31. 4 See Sharpe and Ure 2021. They may, in part, be following my own previous statement (Sellars 2017, 42–44), cited at 20, that Aristotle had a primarily theoretical understanding of © John Sellars, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004693524_017

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Hadot’s claim that in antiquity philosophy was understood as first and foremost a way of life might seem uncontroversial when thinking about some ancient philosophical texts, such as Seneca’s letters or the notebook reflections of Marcus Aurelius. In some places in his many essays, Hadot seemed to limit his claim by saying that it was primarily in the Hellenistic and Roman periods that philosophy was seen as a way of life.5 However, elsewhere Hadot was quite clear that he did not want his claim to be limited merely to these later periods (1995b, 269). He explicitly wanted to challenge the old narrative that presents Plato and Aristotle as the great masters of pure speculation, followed by a period of decline and fall in which the dogmatic Hellenistic schools offered mere practical ethical advice.6 Central to Hadot’s account of ancient philosophy, then, is the explicit claim that Aristotle too was committed to this idea of philosophy as a way of life. The problem, though, is that Aristotle looks like the archetypal theoretical philosopher, devoted to the pursuit of knowledge above all else. As it happens, Hadot was well aware of the potential challenge that Aristotle might be seen to be to his general thesis. In the opening paragraph of the chapter devoted to Aristotle in his book What is Ancient Philosophy? Hadot wrote: The usual idea of Aristotle’s philosophy seems a complete contradiction of the fundamental thesis we wish to defend—namely, that the ancients conceived of philosophy as a way of life. Certainly, Aristotle strongly asserts that the highest knowledge is knowledge which is chosen for itself and which therefore seems to bear no relation to the knower’s way of life. (Hadot 1995a, 123; trans. 2002, 77) As an example of Aristotle’s commitment to this pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, Hadot referred to the first book of the Metaphysics where Aristotle comments that knowledge (ἐπιστήμη) that is desirable in itself is closest to wisdom (σοφία) and certainly closer to wisdom than knowledge that is

philosophy. By contrast, Cooper 2012 includes Aristotle in his account of philosophy as a way of life in antiquity. 5 See e.g. Hadot 1995b, 265; also 56–59. This restricted claim may seem less controversial, although it too has been challenged. As just one example, when reviewing Martha Nussbaum’s The Therapy of Desire, a book focused on the practical and therapeutic aspects of Hellenistic and Roman thought, Bernard Williams commented by asking what possible therapeutic benefit could come from reading the logical works of Chrysippus. See Williams 1994, reviewing Nussbaum 1994. 6 This view goes back to Hegel, on whom see Sellars 2009, 1–2, and Sharpe and Ure 2021, 230–33.

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desirable for any results that might come from it.7 Thus, philosophy—the pursuit of wisdom—ought to focus its attention on the pursuit of knowledge that is desirable in itself and not for some further practical goal, such as living a certain way of life. In what follows, this is the issue that I want to explore further. Can Aristotle be accommodated within Hadot’s model of philosophy as a way of life? If he cannot, that would seem to be fatal blow for Hadot’s account of ancient philosophy. Any attempt to offer a general characterization of ancient philosophy that struggles to include Aristotle can hardly be taken seriously, for the obvious reason that Aristotle is by no means a marginal figure in ancient philosophy; on the contrary, some may judge him to be the greatest ancient philosopher of all. Of course, Hadot himself made a case for why he thought Aristotle could be accommodated within his model, despite first appearances to the contrary. Before turning to examine his case, first we shall consider what Aristotle himself had to say about what he thought philosophy was. Then we shall look at Hadot’s interpretation, before returning to some further evidence from Aristotle. 15.2

Aristotle on Philosophy

There are a number of places where we might look for an account of what Aristotle thought philosophy was. Perhaps the most obvious is the Metaphysics. In the opening chapter of Book 1, Aristotle gives an account of what he takes wisdom (σοφία) to be, wisdom being the thing that philosophers are try­ ing to secure.8 Famously, he opens with the statement that all human beings by nature desire to know.9 He goes on to suggest that our principal source of knowledge is our senses, especially sight. So, our pursuit of knowledge begins with sensation (αἴσθησις). When we add to that the ability to remember, we are able to move on from bare sensation to what Aristotle calls experience (ἐμπειρία). Someone who has seen the same thing happen multiple times will implicitly draw inductive conclusions about what might happen in the future. While such experience is valuable, better still is skill (τέχνη), which moves from a basic ability to do things to a proper understanding of how to do them. Someone who is a real expert will have a complete understanding 7 See Hadot 1995a, 123, citing Arist., Metaph. 1.2.982a15 (i.e. 14–17). 8 For a detailed commentary on Metaph. 1.1, see Cambiano 2012. 9 Arist., Metaph. 1.1.980a21: πάντες ἄνθρωποι τοῦ εἰδέναι ὀρέγονται φύσει.

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of how and why things happen as they do—they will “possess a theory and know the causes.”10 This sort of skill, however, is usually directed at some useful or practical outcome, responding to a human need. Higher still is scientific knowledge (ἐπιστήμη) of the way the world works. This knowledge serves no practical purpose and simply fills our desire to understand the world around us. It is this knowledge, which is knowledge of first causes (πρῶτα αἴτια), that Aristotle identifies with wisdom (Metaph. 981b28–9). This is what philosophy pursues. The philosopher—the lover of wisdom—is someone who does not yet have this knowledge but is trying to attain it. This, Aristotle says, is a leisure activity, to be pursued after the practical essentials of life have been secured (982b22–4). It is pointless, we might say, but certainly not in a negative sense; it is pointless in the same way that art, music, and literature are all pointless, done for its own sake because it is intrinsically valuable rather than as a means to some other end. This is what we find in the Metaphysics. Another place where we might expect to find some comment on the nature of philosophy is Aristotle’s dialogue On Philosophy (Περὶ φιλοσοφίας), which—given its title—presumably addressed this issue directly.11 Unfortunately this work is lost but the fragments and testimonia that survive suggest that this was a substantial work in ten books that in fact touched on a wide range of topics, many of which overlapped with the contents of the Metaphysics.12 There is one piece of evidence for On Philosophy that seems especially relevant in the present context. The Aristotelian commentator John Philoponus reports that in this work Aristotle considered the different ways in which people used the words “wisdom” (σοφία) and “wise” (σοφός).13 According to Philoponus, Aristotle mentioned five different ways in which one might understand these terms. Someone might be described wise if i) they develop practically useful means to aid survival; ii) they engage in artistic production; iii) they offer good political leadership; iv) they engage in the study of nature; and v) they study unchanging divine things. This list is presented as a hierarchy: in the most primitive societies the man who makes advances in farming or irrigation is called wise, while in a cultured polis those capable in artistic creation and political leadership are valued more highly. Unsurprisingly, Aristotle places the study of the natural 10 11 12 13

Arist., Metaph. 1.1.981b6: κατὰ τὸ λόγον ἔχειν αὐτοὺς καὶ τὰς αἰτίας γνωρίζειν. The fragments of On Philosophy are gathered together in Rose 1886, 24–40, Walzer 1934, 66–98, and Ross 1955, 73–96. They are translated in Ross 1952, 78–99. See fr. 8 Ross for the claim that On Philosophy was in 10 books. See also fr. 11, which suggests that, like the Metaphysics, it spent a good deal of time discussing Plato’s theory of forms, and fr. 26, which suggests that it addressed topics in theology. See Philop., in Nicom. Isag. 1.1 (Ross 1955, 76–77; trans. Ross 1952, 80–82).

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world and divine things—physics and metaphysics—higher still, and the passage ends by saying that knowledge of unchanging divine things is “the highest wisdom” (κυριωτάτη σοφία).14 If philosophy is to be understood as the pursuit of wisdom, and this is the highest wisdom, then presumably philosophy in its highest form is the pursuit of this kind of knowledge. The hierarchy outlined in this report of On Philosophy clearly echoes the account in the Metaphysics, with both placing purely theoretical understanding above practically oriented knowledge or skill. For Aristotle, it seems, philosophy in its highest form aims at theoretical knowledge pursued without any regard for practical benefit. But before taking this as Aristotle’s final word on the subject, we might want to attend to how he uses the word φιλοσοφία and its cognates throughout his works. That is potentially a large task to undertake but fortunately Christopher Moore has done it for us, in a survey and analysis of how Aristotle uses these terms.15 Moore concludes that there is no one single way in which Aristotle understands φιλοσοφία, “philosophy”; instead, there are a cluster of related meanings. These include clever thinking, an intellectual pursuit, a way of doing other activities, a problem-solving activity, the pursuit of knowledge, the study of first principles, a worthwhile leisure activity, and using logical argument in debate. This range of uses, Moore comments, broadly reflects the wider usage of these terms in the fourth century BC, with one or two that might be Aristotle’s own additions, such as the image of philosophy as a leisure activity.16 In other words, for the most part Aristotle was not being especially innovative but simply following common usage. Moore thus argues that we ought not to take the account of “first philosophy” in the Metaphysics as 14 15 16

Philop., in Nicom. Isag. 1.1 (Ross 1955, 77; trans. Ross 1952, 82). See Moore 2019. For a full list of instances, see Bonitz 1955, 820–21. Moore 2019, 346–47. A similar view can also be found in Natali 2013, who argues that Aristotle did not turn to philosophy in search of a way of life or as a means to earn a living. He was not looking for guidance to help him in a career in politics, in part because as an outsider he was excluded from political life in Athens (cf. Cic., Off. 2.2–6 where Cicero reports turning to philosophy as a past time only when he was unable to take part in politics). Instead, as a relatively wealthy man he simply faced the question of what to do with all his free time. What would be the most appropriate leisure activity for someone in his situation? It was in response to this question, Natali argues, that Aristotle settled on intellectual activity as the best way to spend his time (2013, 67). He did this for his own personal satisfaction, not in order to earn a living or to contribute to public life. In the process, Natali argues, Aristotle created a new image of a philosophical life, unlike any of those that existed beforehand (2013, 71). This new image of the philosophical life has sometimes been called “aristocratic” (e.g. Walker 2018, 9). However, as Hélder Telo reminds me, an image of philosophy as a leisure activity can already be found in Plato’s Theaetetus, at 172d–176a. There, Plato’s Socrates argues that only a free man with leisure has the opportunity to pursue knowledge independent of practical considerations.

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Aristotle’s authoritative or final statement on the subject. Nor should we assign priority to any of these meanings over any of the others. As Moore comments, in Aristotle’s works “philosophia is said in many ways” (2019, 340). Moore is surely right to caution us before coming to any kind of firm conclusion about how Aristotle understands the term φιλοσοφία. As he notes, many of Aristotle’s uses simply reflect the common meanings associated with the term in his day. Even so, and with that warning duly noted, the account that Aristotle gives us in the Metaphysics (along with the parallel one in On Philosophy) looks to be something of a different order, namely a carefully thought out attempt to define what he means by philosophy and, in particular, what he took to be the highest or most important form that philosophy could take. For Aristotle, philosophy is an activity aimed at the acquisition of knowledge that is valuable for its own sake. It is about understanding the world in which we live, prompted by our natural desire to know. There is a sense in which this is something that all human beings do, in so far as he suggests that all humans desire to know. This is both a descriptive and a normative claim. People naturally desire to know but it is also by using our rationality in this manner that we become good human beings, fulfilling our function as rational animals. 15.3

Hadot on Aristotle

Having set out in a very preliminary way what Aristotle thinks about philosophy, let us now turn to Pierre Hadot. There are a number of places where Hadot mentions Aristotle in the context of his reflections on the idea that in antiquity philosophy was a way of life. The first can be found in a piece entitled “Philosophy as a Way of Life,” published in 1985.17 This begins by highlighting the very practical approach to philosophy that we find in authors of the Hellenistic and Roman periods, drawing on examples from Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Sextus Empiricus, and others. However, Hadot notes that this was nothing new and that this model of philosophy can be traced back at least to Socrates who, in turn, inspired Plato, the Cynics, and other Socratic schools. He then makes the following remark: It is sometimes claimed that Aristotle was a pure theoretician, but for him, too, philosophy was incapable of being reduced to philosophical discourse, or to a body of knowledge. Rather, philosophy for Aristotle was 17

See Hadot 1984–85, reprinted in 1987, 217–27, and translated in 1995b, 264–76.

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a quality of the mind, the result of an inner transformation. The form of life preached by Aristotle was the life according to the mind. (Hadot 1987, 221; trans. 1995b, 269) Thus, he concludes, the idea of philosophy as a way of life was not an innovation of the Hellenistic period; it was already embraced by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Hadot also mentions Aristotle in an essay entitled “The Figure of the Sage in Greek and Roman Antiquity.”18 There he tackles head on the account of philosophy in the opening book of the Metaphysics. In particular he comments that Aristotle’s point of departure there is the image of the sage—a person living a certain way of life.19 Aristotle’s focus, Hadot argues, is not wisdom in some abstract, disembodied sense, but instead the living example of the wise person. The sage who lives a life of contemplation aspires to a divine mode of life, in brief moments transcending the human condition (1998, 238–39; trans. 2020, 189–90). The goal, then, Hadot implies, is not abstract theoretical knowledge but to become a sage, which means to try to become like God. In a third essay, entitled “Ancient Philosophy: An Ethics or a Practice?,”20 we get some slightly longer remarks. As before, he begins by commenting that there is no doubt that philosophers in the Hellenistic and Roman periods engaged in a variety of practical philosophical exercises and saw philosophy as a way of life. But what about Plato and Aristotle? Weren’t they the giants of pure speculation? With regard to Aristotle, Hadot writes: One tends to think that Aristotle’s philosophy is essentially “theoretic,” for it truly aims at knowledge for the love of knowledge itself. There is, in this conception, a confusion between “theoretic” (théorique) and “theoretical” (théorétique). The “theoretic” is opposed to “practice”. The “theoretic” discourse is opposed to a philosophy which is practiced, lived and, therefore, “practical”. But the adjective “theoretical” designates the activity of contemplation, which for Aristotle is the highest human activity. (Hadot 1998, 225; trans. 2020, 71–72)

18 19 20

See Hadot 1991a, reprinted in 1998, 233–57, and translated in 2020, 185–206. See Arist., Metaph. 1.2.982a4–8. In fact, Aristotle here begins with an investigation into wisdom (σοφία), adding that it might be easier to get clear about wisdom by turning to consider the sage (σοφός). See Hadot 1993, reprinted in 1998, 207–32, and translated in 2020, 55–79.

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The distinction that Hadot wants to draw here does not easily translate into English.21 We might try to gloss it as a distinction between pure theory and the practice of theoretical reflection. By making this distinction Hadot thinks he can reconcile the claims that i) Aristotle is most concerned with theoretical knowledge and ii) he sees philosophy as a lived practice. Aristotle’s ultimate goal is not knowledge, on this view, but a life of theoretical contemplation. The remarks in the three essays that we have just considered are all very brief, not much more than a paragraph or so each. Hadot’s only extended discussion of Aristotle comes in his book What is Ancient Philosophy? (1995a; trans. 2002). As we have already seen, the discussion of Aristotle in this book opens by fully acknowledging the problem that I outlined at the outset, namely that a fairly common view of Aristotle’s philosophy sees it as something in “complete contradiction” to the claim that all ancient philosophers “conceived philosophy as a way of life” (1995a, 123; trans. 2002, 77). Hadot also acknowledges that “Aristotle strongly asserts that the highest knowledge is knowledge which is chosen for itself” (ibid.). In this discussion, then, Hadot is well aware of the issues we have considered so far. In order to set out his account of Aristotle’s philosophy understood as a way of life, Hadot turns to consider the Lyceum. He argues that Aristotle’s school was set up as a space in which to live a philosophical life and as a place to train others to do the same (1995a, 124; trans. 2002, 78). It was, then, an institution devoted not to the acquisition of knowledge but to living the contemplative life. Just as Aristotle claimed that knowledge is pursued for its own sake, Hadot comments that: Life in accordance with the mind does not seek any result other than itself, and is therefore loved for itself. It is its own goal and its own reward. (Hadot 1995a, 126; trans. 2002, 79) This life in accordance with the mind is what might be called a theoretical way of life and in this context Hadot returns to his distinction between “theoretical” and “theoretic.” As he notes, this division is never made by Aristotle himself, who only uses one term, θεωρητικός. Hadot says that Aristotle uses this term to refer both to i) knowledge that is pursued for its own sake, and ii) a way of life devoted to the pursuit of such knowledge (1995a, 128–9; trans. 2002,

21

See the helpful extended translator’s note in Hadot 2020, 72, which explains the background to this distinction. Note also the discussion by Davidson in the Introduction in Hadot 1995b, 29.

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80–1). In this second sense we can talk about something being “theoretical” even though it is also entirely practical. Hadot goes on to set out what such a life might look like. To put it somewhat anachronistically, we might say that it will be the life of a scholar, built around the activities of research, observation, and analysis of information. But for Aristotle this is not dispassionate study, for it is grounded in an intense sense of wonder about the natural world.22 It involves, Hadot says, “an almost religious passion” (1995a, 131; trans. 2002, 82). This also comes through, he argues, in the final chapters of the Nicomachean Ethics where the ideal of the contemplative life is described as perhaps “too high” a life for human beings, in so far as it is an attempt to partake in a divine activity (1177b26–8). This idea of aspiring to divine contemplation takes us well beyond the mundane activities of the modern scholar and suggests something quite different. It also takes us beyond the acquisition of mere theoretical knowledge. The goal is nothing less than to experience—albeit in fleeting moments—what goes on in the divine mind.23 Hadot concludes his discussion by commenting that for Aristotle, “the philosopher, for his part, should choose a life devoted to disinterested research, study, and contemplation” (1995a, 144; trans. 2002, 90). It is clear, then, that Hadot thinks that Aristotle outlines an image of an ideal way of life for a philosopher.24 Aristotle tried to live that life himself and founded the Lyceum in order to create a context in which both he and others could do so. In this sense, Hadot thinks he can show that Aristotle is no exception to his claim that in antiquity philosophy was widely understood as a way of life. 15.4

A Contemplative Life

As we have seen, one central element in Hadot’s account is his appeal to the idea of a contemplative life that Aristotle outlined in the final book of the 22 23

24

On wonder (θαυμάζειν), see Arist., Metaph. 1.2.982b12–13. See Hadot 1995a, 136–37; trans. 2002, 86. Note also Hadot 1983, 25; trans. 1995b, 60. On this topic, cf. Burnyeat 2008, esp. 43: “What is special about the exercise of nous, the highest form of cognition that humans can attain, is that it is no longer a more or less distant imitation of the divine life. It is a limited span of the very same activity as God enjoys for all time.” Another comment worth noting refers to Aristotelians rather than Aristotle himself: “As among the Aristotelians, one is more attached to theoretical activity considered as a way of life that brings almost divine pleasures and happiness than to the theories themselves” (Hadot 1983, 25; trans. 1995b, 60). This is presented as one of a series of examples to justify Hadot’s claim that “theory is never considered an end in itself; it is clearly and decidedly put in the service of practice” (ibid.).

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Nicomachean Ethics. Earlier, in the first book, Aristotle famously considered three ways of life as potential candidates for a good human life.25 Seemingly dismissing a life devoted to pleasure out of hand, he focused attention on the other two, the political (πολιτικός) and the contemplative (θεωρητικός).26 Introducing both of these, Aristotle deferred discussion of the contemplative life until later.27 When he did return to it in the final book, he did so within the context of a discussion of happiness (εὐδαιμονία). Happiness, he says there, is an activity, something intrinsically good and so not for the sake of anything else (1176b1–6). It is also an activity that is in accord with virtue or excellence (ἀρετή), he says, adding that it makes sense to identify it with the highest human excellence. That will be the activity of the best thing in us. The best or highest thing in us, as human beings, is our intellect (νοῦς), and so the highest human excellence will be intellectual activity, i.e. contemplation.28 Aristotle goes on to give a number of reasons why this is the best sort of activity. Not only is it the activity of the best part of us—the activity that results from us fulfilling our function as rational animals—but the objects of contemplation, being “objects of reason” (γνωστά), are, he says, “the best of knowable objects” (1177a20–1). It is also the most pleasant and most self-­sufficient of activities, one that is “loved for its own sake” (1177b1–2). It is after this account of contemplative activity that Aristotle raises the objection that perhaps a life devoted to this sort of activity would be “too high” for humans.29 A life devoted solely to this sort of activity would be almost inhuman, potentially neglecting our physical and social needs in favour of trying to live a life more suitable for a purely rational being, namely God. Indeed, according to Aristotle when the intellect (νοῦς) thinks about divine things, it

25 26

27 28 29

See Arist., Eth. Nic. 1.5.1095b17–19; also Eth. Eud. 1.4.1215a34–5; 1.5.1216a27–9. For the former, I generally quote from the translation in Ross 1925. Thus Cooper 2012, 70–143, argues that Aristotle presents philosophy as two ways of life. In the later tradition these became known as the vita activa and vita contemplativa. For an early discussion of these two, although with reference to Plato rather than Aristotle, see Augustine, De civ. D. 8.4. Note also Lockwood 2014, 352, who challenges the claim that Aristotle completely dismissed the life of pleasure from consideration. See Arist., Eth. Nic. 1.5.1096a4–5. Walker 2018, 15–16, notes that while this is usually taken to be a reference to the later discussion in Book 10, it could equally be taken to refer to everything that is about to follow. See Arist., Eth. Nic. 10.7.1177a12–18. Aristotle hesitates about whether νοῦς is the highest thing in us, but no other plausible candidates emerge. Arist., Eth. Nic. 10.7.1177b26–7: ὁ δὲ τοιοῦτος ἂν εἴη βίος κρείττων ἢ κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον. I borrow Ross’s translation “too high” for κρείττων.

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becomes divine, just as the eye, when it sees red things, becomes red.30 To engage in contemplative activity, then, is to transcend everyday human life and to become divine, at least for a moment. In response to the worry that this is an inappropriate goal for an embodied human being, Aristotle is fairly emphatic: “we must not follow those who advise us, being men, to think of human things, and, being mortal, of mortal things, but must, so far as we can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best in us” (1177b31–4). The highest form of activity, then, identified with perfect happiness (τελεία εὐδαιμονία), is contemplative activity (1178b7–8). This explains why God lives the most perfect life. As Aristotle puts it, “happiness extends, then, just so far as contemplation does” (1178b28–9). In the light of all this, it seems fairly clear that Aristotle sees contemplation (θεωρία) as the highest human activity and identifies it with happiness. A life devoted to contemplative activity will thus be the happiest life available to a human being. This, of course, will be the life of a philosopher. To be more precise, we might say that it will be the life of a metaphysician, who is concerned with understanding “objects of reason”.31 But, as he has noted, it is also in a sense an inhuman life, one that aspires to divinity. No human being could live a purely contemplative life. In this sense, contemplative activity is something that humans can engage in from time to time, but not permanently. With that thought in mind, we might draw a distinction between, on the one hand, a life of pure contemplative activity, which is reserved for God, and, on the other hand, a properly human life that nevertheless tries to devote as much time as possible to contemplation. Aristotle founded the Lyceum, Hadot suggested, in order to create a suitable environment for the latter. This human life primarily devoted to theoretical pursuits is contrasted with the political life of someone who prioritizes the affairs of the wider community. A number of commentators have challenged the idea that there is a sharp division between the contemplative and political lives.32 A long time ago, 30

31 32

For the claim that the eye (more correctly, the eye jelly) takes on the colours it perceives, see e.g. De an. 425b22–5 with Sorabji 1974, 72. This issue has generated significant discussion which is helpfully summarized in Caston 2005, 245–7. For the parallel between this and the activity of the intellect, see Burnyeat 2008, 20–22. Some commentators have challenged the claim that the subject matter might be this narrow; see e.g. Roochnik 2009, 81 and Cooper 2012, 138. There has been an ongoing debate in the scholarly literature between what are usually referred to as “dominant” and “inclusive” interpretations, prompted by Hardie 1965. The former sees Aristotle’s ideal life as predominantly a life of contemplation, while the latter sees it as one in which some contemplative activity is just one part (alongside, for example, active political participation). For a defence of the “dominant” interpretation,

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J. A. Stewart commented that “the θεωρητικὸς βίος is not a separate life coordinate with the πολιτικὸς βίος, but a spirit which penetrates and ennobles the latter” (1892, 443–44). He continued by adding that the image of Aristotle’s contemplative life as a complete withdrawal from everyday social activity was how the Neoplatonists read Aristotle, but “nothing could be more opposed than this to Aristotle’s view of life as social from beginning to end” (ibid., 444). With this thought in mind, one could imagine someone accusing Hadot—the great scholar of Neoplatonism—of giving an overly Neoplatonic reading of Aristotle when he describes this contemplative activity as an almost religious experience. However, Hadot is by no means alone in stressing this religious dimension of Aristotle’s account.33 More recently, Walker and Reeve have both defended a view similar to Stewart’s. Walker has argued that we ought to see contemplation not as some separate, almost superhuman, way of life but rather as a thoroughly human activity that can guide all human action (2018, 1–4). By contemplating the divine, Walker argues, humans gain valuable insights into their own limitations, finitude, and mortality that can inform how best to live (ibid., 181). The activity of νοῦς, then, is but one of a series of natural biological functions and as such a vital part of any good human life (88–90). Similarly, Reeve has argued that “the best political and contemplative lives are not so much two separate lives as distinct phases of the same life” (2012, 270). However, Aristotle himself seems fairly emphatic in the Politics that he is operating with such a distinction, explicitly mentioning “two lives” (δύο βίοι): Even those who agree in thinking that the life of excellence is the most desirable raise a question, whether the life of business and politics is or is not more desirable than one which is wholly independent of external goods, I mean than a contemplative life, which by some is maintained to be the only one worthy of a philosopher. For these two lives—the life of the philosopher and the life of the statesman—appear to have been preferred by those who have been most keen in the pursuit of excellence, both in our own and in other ages. Which is the better is a question of no small moment. (Pol. 7.2.1324a25–33, trans. Jowett, in Barnes 1984)

33

maintaining the distinction between the contemplative and political lives, see e.g. Lear 2004, 177–88. For a defence of the “inclusive” interpretation, see e.g. Ackrill 1980, along with Reeve 2012 and Walker 2018 noted below. For further reading on this topic see the essays in Destrée and Zingano 2014. See, for instance, Defourny 1977; Burnyeat 2008. For a more recent discussion, see Walker 2018, 177–82.

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It seems fairly clear here that Aristotle is indeed thinking about two ways of life and he explicitly refers to a contemplative life (βίος θεωρητικός) and identifies it with the life of the philosopher (βίος τοῦ φιλοσόφου).34 A separate but highly relevant question concerns the motivation for wanting to live such a life. Why, according to Aristotle, might one want to do so? In particular, does one engage in the activity of contemplation for its own sake or for the sake of something else, such as happiness? In short, why would one want to live the life of a philosopher? Aristotle addressed this very question directly in his Protrepticus, which gave a whole series of arguments for why one ought to do philosophy. Although lost, a number of fragments survive, the most important of which are preserved in a work of the same name by Iamblichus.35 In these fragments what we find are multiple arguments designed to persuade people that they ought to do philosophy. Some of these arguments might be described as dialectical, in so far as they seem to presuppose different assumptions about what matters most, yet they all lead to the same conclusion, namely that one ought to do philosophy. The aim here was no doubt to try to convince as many people as possible, no matter what their underlying views might be. The first type of argument that Aristotle uses states that philosophy delivers external benefits. It is useful, for instance, for law making and it will also lead to good ethical action. Thus he comments that “we should do philosophy if we are going to engage in politics correctly and conduct our own way of life in a beneficial way.”36 The second type of argument that he uses also suggests a benefit derived from the activity of philosophy, namely happiness. Philosophy, he argues, is the only activity that makes life worth living. He says that “only 34

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One interesting reponse to this question of whether Aristotle proposed two distinct ways of life, or just one, can be found in Lawrence 1993, who argues that instead of thinking in terms of a choice between two alternatives, we ought to think of two responses to different sets of circumstances. In ideal circumstances one will always choose the activity of contemplation, but when circumstances are not ideal—which, for an embodied and social animal, is often—then activities guided by practical virtue will be next best thing. The first person to identify fragments of Aristotle’s Protrepticus in Iamblichus was Bywater (1869). The relevant material can be found in Rose 1886, 56–73, Walzer 1934, 21–65, and Ross 1955, 26–56. Note also Düring 1961. For a detailed and persuasive defence of the identification, see Hutchinson and Johnson 2005. Note also the earlier discussion in Jaeger 1948, 54–101. In what follows I quote from the translations contained in Hutchinson and Johnson 2005; the material is also translated in Ross 1952, along with evidence for the Protrepticus from other sources. For the text of Iamblichus’ Protrepticus, see the Budé edition in Des Places 1989. Arist., Protr. fr. 4 Ross (Iambl., Protr. chap. 6), trans. Hutchinson and Johnson 2005, 269.

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philosophers will have a happy life” and that philosophy is “living perfectly well” or at least “the greatest cause of it.”37 The third type of argument insists on the value of doing philosophy for its own sake, regardless of any further benefit that one might gain. It is an activity valuable in itself and it is the highest activity that humans can undertake. It enables us to fulfil our function as rational beings and so there is a sense in which we only fully exist and are most completely alive when we do philosophy. As we have already seen, the highest form of philosophy is contemplation of the divine. In the Protrepticus, however, Aristotle explicitly says that the philosopher will spend their lives “looking at nature and the divine” (my emphasis).38 This looks as if it potentially broadens out the focus of philosophical activity; we shall come back to this issue later. The different types of argument in the Protrepticus are clearly aimed at different audiences. If someone thinks that the only reason to engage in an activity is for the further benefits they can gain, then Aristotle can offer them arguments as to why they ought to do philosophy. But taking the material as a whole, it is fairly clear that he does not share this view. Elsewhere he is critical of the idea that one ought to look for benefit in everything; some things are intrinsically valuable and done for their own sake.39 Doing philosophy will indeed benefit its practitioner in a variety of ways—including enabling them to enjoy a happy life—but that is not the primary reason to do it. The principal reason is, one might say, more fundamental than that. To use a common Aristotelian example, eyes are for sake of seeing; that is their function. If someone had eyes but never opened them, the capacity of sight would never be used— the potentiality would never be actualized. In so far as their very existence as eyes is defined in terms of their function, there is a sense in which eyes that never get the opportunity to see fail to be eyes in the fullest sense.40 The same

37 38 39 40

Arist., Protr. fr. 15 Ross (Iambl., Protr. chap. 12), trans. Hutchinson and Johnson 2005, 278 (amended). Arist., Protr. fr. 13 Ross (Iambl., Protr. chap. 10), trans. Hutchinson and Johnson 2005, 263: πρὸς τὴν φύσιν βλέπων ζῇ καὶ πρὸς τὸ θεῖον. See Arist., Protr. fr. 12 Ross (Iambl., Protr. chap. 9): “we don’t claim it is beneficial but that it is itself good, and it makes sense to choose it not for the sake of something else but for itself” (trans. Hutchinson and Johnson 2005, 261). This is, in effect, the claim that being is closely tied to actuality (ἐνέργεια), which Kosman 2013 has argued ought to be understood as activity. The being of anything is thus understood in terms of its defining activity (the exercise of a capacity): for eyes, this is seeing; for humans, it is thinking.

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applies to a human being who fails to use their capacity for reason. In order fully to be a human at all, one must do philosophy, Aristotle argues: The function of the soul, either alone or most of all, is thinking and reasoning. Therefore it is now simple and easy for anyone to reach the conclusion that he who thinks correctly is more alive, and he who most attains truth lives most, and this is the one who is wise … . Thus we attribute living more to the one who is awake rather than to the one who is asleep, to the one who is wise more than to the one who is foolish.41 In the case of sight, being able to see obviously brings with it a wide range of practical benefits; it enables us to do many things. Aristotle comments that the same applies to philosophical contemplation—it can be practically beneficial in a variety of ways—but in both cases the benefits are merely welcome by-products.42 Even if someone gained no practical benefit from seeing, they would still prefer to be able to see than not, and the same applies to contemplation. Despite this focus on the intrinsic importance—indeed necessity—of philosophy as an activity, Aristotle also stresses that it is only through philosophy that it will be possible to live a happy life. At one point he comments that “living pleasantly and feeling true enjoyment belong only to philosophers, or to them most of all.”43 So, the activity of philosophy is the key to living a good life and the philosopher’s way of life is the best there is: “only philosophers will have a successful life.”44 Yet, as we have seen, this benefit is not the principal reason to do it. Elsewhere, in one of the common books shared by the Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics (see Arist., Eth. Nic. 6.12, which is also Eth. Eud. 5.12), Aristotle expresses this view with two seemingly contradictory statements. First he says that philosophical wisdom (σοφία) does not contemplate any of the things that make humans happy (1143b19–20), while later adding that such wisdom does produce happiness (1144a4–5). Yet we can now see how these two statements can be reconciled: philosophy is not primarily concerned with issues relating to how to live a happy life, but nevertheless the activity of

41 42 43 44

Arist., Protr. fr. 14 Ross (Iambl., Protr. chap. 11), trans. Hutchinson and Johnson 2005, 266–67. See Arist., Protr. fr. 13 Ross (Iambl., Protr. chap. 10), Hutchinson and Johnson 2005, 263–64. Arist., Protr. fr. 14 Ross (Iambl., Protr. chap. 11), Hutchinson and Johnson 2005, 267. Arist., Protr. fr. 15 Ross (Iambl., Protr. chap. 12), Hutchinson and Johnson 2005, 278.

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philosophy will generate happiness or, to put it another way, the activity of philosophy ought simply to be identified with happiness.45 So, what is philosophy concerned with most of all? As we saw earlier, Aristotle presented contemplative activity in the Nicomachean Ethics as being concerned with divine things and “objects of reason,” these being the highest things we can think about.46 In Metaphysics 6.1 he suggested both first principles and divine things as the highest objects of study. In the Protrepticus fragments, though, he seemed to put the study of nature on a par with the contemplation of divine things. Perhaps one way to reconcile these statements is to stress that the study of physics, in so far as it tries to understand the forms of changing particulars, is also primarily concerned with things grasped by the intellect.47 Aristotle himself gives us a fuller explanation of the relative standing of these two areas of study in Parts of Animals (1.5.644b22–645a23) and in the process addresses our other question regarding how this activity relates to happiness. There he says that natural things fall into two kinds, i) ungenerated and eternal, and ii) those subject to generation and decay. While the former are superior, they are harder for us to know. By contrast, things in the changing natural world, such as plants and animals, are close to hand and readily accessible to our senses. Thus Aristotle concludes that the study and contemplation of both types of entity are equally valuable. The pleasure we gain from contemplating divine things is greater, but limited in quantity; what we gain from the study of the natural world may be slightly lesser in some ways, but we can engage in this more often and in far greater depth. So, formally, metaphysics is superior to physics but, practically, physics offers greater opportunities for philosophical contemplation. For different reasons, then, the two are equally valuable areas of study. Aristotle goes on to stress the immense pleasure that can come from the study of nature, especially the study of animals (645a7–10). This pleasure comes from gaining an understanding of the causes of things. All natural things, even the superficially ugly, are marvellous, he says (645a16–17). Here we perhaps get a glimpse into Aristotle’s own psychology and the pleasure that

45 46 47

On this see Güremen 2020, 588: “happiness should not be viewed as the product of philosophy as active wisdom. Philosophy in this sense is happiness.” See Arist., Eth. Nic. 10.7; note also Eth. Eud. 8.3.1249b16–21. So Ross 1923, 234: “physics is the study of the non-contingent element in contingent events”; Rorty 1980, 379: “it is also possible to contemplate the unchanging form of what does change.”

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he derived from studying animals. Yet it is equally clear that this pleasure was not the prime motivation; he was motivated simply by a desire to understand. At the same time, however, Aristotle has argued elsewhere that the highest good at which all human activity ultimately aims is happiness (1095a14– 20). In a discussion of different types of persuasive writing in the Rhetoric he comments that “all advice to do things or not to do them is concerned with happiness and with the things that make for or against it; whatever creates or increases happiness or some part of happiness, we ought to do; whatever destroys or hampers happiness, or gives rise to its opposite, we ought not to do” (1360b9–14). With this in mind, we should expect the Protrepticus—a piece of persuasive writing urging people to do philosophy—to be in some way concerned with happiness. As we have seen, it certainly is. That it will make one happy is one of the reasons that Aristotle gives as to why one ought to do philosophy. To someone looking for happiness—someone looking for guidance in how to live well—his response is unambiguously that philosophy is the answer. One could construct an argument along the following lines: all humans desire happiness; only the activity of philosophy delivers happiness; therefore, all humans should pursue philosophy. But this does not involve the claim that philosophy is directed towards happiness, only that it delivers it. It is directed towards understanding the natural world, broadly conceived. In an appropriately Aristotelian way, the issue is ultimately one of determining the τέλος of philosophy, its goal or purpose. On this point, Hadot was himself quite clear, commenting that Aristotle’s image of a life of intellectual inquiry “does not seek any result other than itself, and is therefore loved for itself. It is its own goal and its own reward” (1995a 126; trans. 2002, 79). 15.5

Conclusions

It is now time to come back to assess Hadot’s claim that Aristotle understood philosophy as a way of life. It is certainly clear that Aristotle understood philosophy as an activity, something that one does. It is also clear that Aristotle sees this activity as a vital part of any human life. Indeed, at one point in the Protrepticus fragments he argues that, given that much of human life can be difficult and miserable, philosophy is the only thing that can make it bearable. We ought, he concludes, “either to do philosophy or say goodbye to life and depart from this world, since all of the other things anyway seem to be a lot of nonsense and foolishness.”48 However, there is little to suggest that Aristotle ever 48

Arist., Protr. fr. 10c Ross (Iambl., Protr. chap. 8), trans. Hutchinson and Johnson 2005, 256.

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presented philosophy as such as a practical guide to how to live well or that his principal motivation in doing this activity was in order to transform his life for the better. So, whether Aristotle fits within Hadot’s framework all depends on precisely how Hadot understood the phrase “philosophy as a way of life.” The most common way in which Hadot tries to explain it is by drawing a contrast between philosophical discourse, on the one hand, and a way of life, on the other.49 Philosophy, he argues, ought to be identified with the latter, a way of living, rather than a body of theoretical writing. Echoing remarks by Socrates, Seneca, and Nietzsche, Hadot insists that philosophy ought not to be reduced to the mere critique of words by other words.50 What matters is not what one says but what one does. This idea was forcefully expressed by the Stoic Epictetus when he challenged his students for not acting in accordance with their professed doctrines, merely mouthing the words of the Stoics but not acting in agreement with them (Epict. diss. 2.19.20–25). As it happens, Aristotle had already expressed a very similar view. It is, he commented, only by performing virtuous acts that someone can become virtuous. However, Most people do not do these, but take refuge in theory (λόγος) and think they are being philosophers and will become good in this way, behaving somewhat like patients who listen attentively to their doctors, but do none of the things they are ordered to do. As the latter will not be made well in body by such a course of treatment, the former will not be made well in soul by such a course of philosophy. (Eth. Nic. 2.4.1105b12–18) This looks to be a clear affirmation of precisely the distinction that Hadot draws between philosophical discourse and philosophy as a way of life. It also makes use of the medical analogy common in ancient accounts of philosophy as a transformative practice from Socrates onwards.51 It appears in the context of a discussion of the importance of habituation in ethical development and Aristotle’s attention to habituation might be taken to share something in common with Hadot’s interest in what he called “spiritual exercises.”52 While 49 50 51 52

See e.g. Hadot 1995b, 266–8, taking inspiration from the Stoics (Diog. Laert. 7.39) and discussed at greater length in Hadot 1991b; also Hadot 2020, 75. For Socrates, see Xen., Mem. 4.4.10; for Seneca, Ep. 20.2; for Nietzsche, Schopenhauer as Educator 3 (cited in Sellars 2009, 3). Compare with Cic., Tusc. 3.6. It is worth noting that here Cicero refers to his (lost) Hortensius for a fuller discussion, a work that a number of ancient sources tell us was based on Aristotle’s Protrepticus (see the testimonia in Ross 1955, 26). See esp. Arist., Eth. Nic. 2.1. On Hadot’s account of “spiritual exercises,” see 1995b, 81–125. For some reservations about the use of the term “spiritual,” see Cooper 2012, 402. Aristotle does not mention any specific practices or training techniques, instead simply stressing

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this remark is concerned with ethical development, rather than philosophy as such, we have already seen that Aristotle presents all philosophy as an activity, a practice, something that one does rather than merely talk about. Indeed, another key feature in Hadot’s account of ancient philosophy is the claim that it was first and foremost a practice. He is quite insistent in a number of places that “theory is never considered an end in itself; it is clearly and decidedly put in the service of practice” (1983, 25; trans. 1995b, 60). At first glance this might seem to be in conflict with Aristotle’s claim that theoretical knowledge is an end in itself, not pursued for the sake of anything else, but it all depends on how one understands “practice”. Aristotle would surely deny that theoretical knowledge ought to be pursued for the sake of some further practical end, but, as we have seen, he also understands philosophy itself as an activity, the actualizing of our potential as rational beings. In this sense, philosophy is always a practice. Indeed, in the Politics Aristotle is insistent that even a quiet life devoted to contemplation ought to be seen as an active one, commenting that “nor are those ideas only to be regarded as practical which are pursued for the sake of practical results, but much more the thoughts and contemplations which are independent and complete in themselves” (1325b17–21). This is contemplation as practice. When understood in this way, it looks as if Aristotle in fact fits surprisingly well into Hadot’s account of ancient philosophy as a way of life. In order for this to be the case, though, one must understand the idea of philosophy as a way of life as something broader than just guidance for how to live well. References Ackrill, J. L. 1980. “Aristotle on Eudaimonia.” In Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, edited by A. O. Rorty, 15–33. Berkeley: University of California Press. Barnes, Jonathan. 1984. The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation. 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bonitz, Hermann. 1955. Index Aristotelicus. Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt. Burnyeat, Myles F. 2008. Aristotle’s Divine Intellect. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press. Bywater, Ingram. 1869. “On a Lost Dialogue of Aristotle.” The Journal of Philology 2: 55–69. Cambiano, Giuseppe. 2012. “The Desire to Know.” In Aristotle’s Metaphysics Alpha: Symposium Aristotelicum, edited by Carlos Steel, 1–42. Oxford: Oxford University Press. the importance of learning by doing: “men become builders by building … ; so too we become just by doing just acts” (1103a33–b1).

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Caston, Victor. 2005. “The Spirit and The Letter: Aristotle on Perception.” In Metaphysics, Soul, and Ethics in Ancient Thought: Themes from the Work of Richard Sorabji, edited by Ricardo Salles, 245–320. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Cooper, John M. 2012. Pursuits of Wisdom: Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Defourny, Pierre. 1977. “Contemplation in Aristotle’s Ethics.” In Articles on Aristotle 2: Ethics and Politics, edited by Jonathan Barnes, Malcolm Schofield, and Richard Sorabji, 104–12. London: Duckworth. Des Places, Édouard. 1989. Jamblique, Protreptique. Collection des Universités de France. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Destrée, Pierre, and Marco Zingano, eds. 2014. Theoria: Studies on the Status and Meaning of Contemplation in Aristotle’s Ethics. Louvain-La-Neuve: Peeters. Düring, Ingemar. 1961. Aristotle’s Protrepticus: An Attempt at Reconstruction. Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Güremen, Refik. 2020. “Philosophy as Art in Aristotle’s Protrepticus.” Metaphilosophy 51: 571–92. Hadot, Pierre. 1983. Leçon inaugurale, Chaire d’histoire de la pensée hellénistique et romaine, Paris: Collège de France. Hadot, Pierre. 1984–85. “La philosophie comme manière de vivre.” Annuaire du Collège de France, 477–87. Hadot, Pierre. 1987. Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique. Deuxième édition revue et augmentée. Paris: Études Augustiniennes. Hadot. Pierre. 1991a. “La figure du sage dans l’Antiquité gréco-latine.” In Les sagesses du monde, edited by G. Gadoffre, 9–26. Paris: Éditions Universitaires. Hadot, Pierre. 1991b. “Philosophie, Discours Philosophique, et Divisions de la Philosophie chez les Stoïciens.” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 45: 205–19. Hadot, Pierre. 1993. “La philosophie antique: une éthique ou une pratique?” In Problèmes de morale antique, edited by P. Demont, 7–37. Amiens: Université d’Amiens. Hadot, Pierre. 1995a. Qu’est-ce que la philosophie antique? Folio Essais. Paris: Gallimard. Hadot, Pierre. 1995b. Philosophy as a Way of Life. Edited by Arnold I. Davidson. Translated by Michael Chase. Oxford: Blackwell. Hadot, Pierre. 1998. Études de philosophie ancienne. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Hadot, Pierre. 2002. What is Ancient Philosophy? Translated by Michael Chase. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Hadot, Pierre. 2020. The Selected Writings of Pierre Hadot. Translated by Matthew Sharpe and Federico Testa. London: Bloomsbury. Hardie, W. F. R. 1965. “The Final Good in Aristotle’s Ethics.” Philosophy 40: 277–95. Hutchinson, D. S., and Monte Ransome Johnson. 2005. “Authenticating Aristotle’s Protrepticus.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 29: 193–294. Jaeger, Werner. 1948. Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of his Development. Translated by Richard Robinson. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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Kosman, Aryeh. 2013. The Activity of Being: An Essay on Aristotle’s Ontology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lawrence, Gavin. 1993. “Aristotle and the Ideal Life.” The Philosophical Review 102: 1–34. Lear, Gabriel Richardson. 2004. Happy Lives and the Highest Good. An Essay on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lockwood, Thornton. 2014. “Competing Ways of Life and Ring Composition (NE x 6–8).” In The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, edited by Ronald Polansky, 350–69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moore, Christopher. 2019. “Aristotle on Philosophia.” Metaphilosophy 50: 339–60. Natali, Carlo. 2013. Aristotle: His Life and School. Edited and translated by D. S. Hutchinson. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Nussbaum, Martha C. 1994. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Richardson Lear, Gabriel. 2004. Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Roochnik, David. 2009. “What is Theoria? Nicomachean Ethics 10.7–8.” Classical Philology 104: 69–82. Rorty, Amélie Oksenberg. 1980. “The Place of Contemplation in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.” In Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, edited by Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, 377–94. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rose, Valentin. 1886. Aristotelis qui ferebantur librorum Fragmenta. Leipzig: Teubner. Ross, W. D. 1923. Aristotle. London: Methuen & Co. Ross, W. D. 1925. Ethica Nicomachea. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ross, W. D. 1952. The Works of Aristotle Translated into English, Volume XII: Select Fragments. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ross, W. D. 1955. Aristotelis Fragmenta Selecta. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sellars, John. 2009. The Art of Living: The Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy. Second Edition. London: Duckworth. Sellars, John. 2017. “What is Philosophy as a Way of Life?” Parrhesia 28: 40–56. Sharpe, Matthew, and Michael Ure. 2021. Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions. London: Bloomsbury. Sorabji, Richard. 1974. “Body and Soul in Aristotle.” Philosophy 49: 63–89. Stewart, J. A. 1892. Notes on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Walker, Matthew D. 2018. Aristotle on the Uses of Contemplation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walzer, Richard. 1934. Aristotelis Dialogorum Fragmenta. Firenze: G. C. Sansoni. Williams, Bernard. 1994. “Do Not Disturb.” London Review of Books 16, no. 20: 25–26.

CHAPTER 16

Creative Error Genealogy: Toward a Method in the History of Philosophy Eli Kramer and Gary Herstein The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. Whitehead 1978, 39

∵ 16.1

Introduction1

This essay seeks to critically assess the strengths and weaknesses of a unique methodological approach Hadot created for studying ancient philosophy and its legacy for today: He created a form of inquiry that traces in the history of philosophy (especially ancient) a series of exegetically creative errors that over time transform the meaning of certain central commonplaces of philosophical thought. As he demonstrates, even when commentators intend to keep fidelity with a philosopher’s authorial intent, there is inevitable changes and slippages of meaning. At other times, there is very explicit reinterpretation for new narratives and accounts of the history of philosophy. Hadot includes a variety of more or less intentional interpretation in his account of creative error. This indeed is a distinctive and non-traditional way to think about “error”. While this approach is highly creative and productive in not only tracing the evolution of philosophical discourse for certain purposes, but in gesturing toward a hermeneutic of authorial interpretative potentials and their legacies, he does not in our view offer an adequate account of the nature of the transformation of meaning, and intended and unattended changes to meaning, in the history of philosophy. With the help of Alfred North Whitehead, we seek to critique 1 This work was produced in the context of the Exploratory Project “Mapping Philosophy as a Way of Life: An Ancient Model, A Contemporary Approach” (2022.02833.PTDC), funded by the FCT (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology). © Eli Kramer and Gary Herstein, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004693524_018

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and build upon Hadot toward this end. This essay then has a peculiar role in this volume by criticizing and building upon one of Hadot’s methods in the history of philosophy, rather than focusing on his content claims about ancient philosophy as a way of life. We see this work as complementary, providing a better understanding of the way Hadot accounted for the interpretative uses and abuses of the history of ancient philosophy (and really all history of philosophy) for particular purposes: e.g., defending one’s way of life, addressing new counter arguments to one’s school or leading figure, integrating previous thought into new religions, or to illuminate different implicit threads in the trajectory of the history of philosophy. We begin our efforts with the famous quote from Whitehead that began this essay. As Pierre Hadot noted, it is something that “everyone is familiar with” (Hadot 1995, 71). Most, however, are less familiar with Whitehead’s explanation for this grand assertion: I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them. His personal endowments, his wide opportunities for experience at a great period of civilization, his inheritance of an intellectual tradition not yet stiffened by excessive systematization, have made his writings an inexhaustible mine of suggestion. (Whitehead 1978, 39) In Plato, Whitehead finds constellations of possibility and clusters of potential to enrich cultural life, ones that were not yet exhausted by being over examined or systematized. In Plato there seems to be an inexhaustible insight to be drawn out. As Whitehead demonstrates in his Adventures of Ideas one can trace the transformations of seven of these ideas as they have shaped not only Western thought, but Western civilization itself. If Whitehead is right, how then do such ideas transform and develop across the millennia? Pierre Hadot, as a careful and creative philologist of ancient philosophy, suggests in his essay “Philosophy, Exegesis, and Creative Mistakes” (Hadot 1995, 71–78) that, despite Whitehead’s dismissal of them, those narrow-minded systemizing scholars that doubtfully created an edifice of thought from Plato’s writings are in part the innovators and culprits for his legacy for human civilization. In fact, from this essay, Hadot has developed an innovative and underexplored methodological approach to the history of philosophy, the history of ideas, and the history of social thought and practice. This method is especially relevant for exploring the philosophical works of the ancients. However, as we shall see, we need to modify Whitehead’s famous statement in a very small but crucial way to

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be able to fully develop this method. If we critically synthesize Hadot’s and Whitehead’s insight on the legacy of ancient philosophy, we should rather say that “the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of creative errors in the footnotes to Plato.” For Hadot, the history of philosophy, especially in its Pre-Modern Period, can from one perspective be understood as a series of more or less intentional and unintentional creative errors on the authoritative texts of the Western Philosophical tradition, all in one way or another rooted in Plato’s dialogues. He goes even further by suggesting that one can follow the commentarial tradition of the classic texts of philosophy and see how even particular words such as ousia transform from infinitives to gerunds, and to other kinds of words, and with such slippage slowly transform the meanings of philosophical concepts and ideas as they spread and disseminate. Hadot first laid out this methodological approach explicitly in “Philosophy, Exegesis, and Creative Mistakes,” which had its origins in his earlier research such as in Porphyre et Victorinus. He then used it as a method in his full monograph work The Veil of Isis: An Essay on the History of the Idea of Nature, where he traced the transformation of Heraclitus’ famous aphorism phusis kruptesthai philei (φύσις κρύπτεσθαι φιλεῖ). Today, this phrase has transformed to “nature loves to hide,” a personification of phusis that has surely slipped well beyond the cluster of meanings Heraclitus had in mind. Heidegger himself gave yet another variation, “Hiding-itself belongs to the predilection of Being” (as quoted in Hadot 2006, 304). Hadot shows the minutiae of such transformations and slippages of this phrase at several critical historical points, and their legacy for our conception and engagement with nature today. While this method has proved immensely useful, Hadot never fully developed it nor gave its parameters. By not doing so we find that his terminology is sometimes overly general and that he missed some crucial features of its fundamental character, especially the (at least speculatively for the sake of inquiry) presuppositions it suggests about the nature of meaning in process itself. Whitehead on the other hand has perhaps the most important philosophical account of error (albeit non-traditional) and creativity as two sides of the same coin, in relation to the possible, potential, actual, and almost actual experiences that we engage with in our creaturely existence. He explores in Process and Reality how meaning transforms in our processual condition, but does not (even in works on human culture such as Adventures of Ideas) provide an adequate close study of the particular transformation of ideas from one generation of humanity to the next by the minutest shifting of a word or concept or integration of them into other systems. It is for that reason that historians of philosophy and of ideas can grumble about his overly generalized account of Western civilization.

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For this reason, in this essay we seek to critique and further develop Hadot’s method of historical hermeneutics drawn from his work in ancient philosophy, or what we call “creative error genealogy”. We do so by further critiquing, blending, and building upon the work of Hadot and Whitehead (in our own act of creative error genealogy). We provide 7 initial topoi from which this evolution in philosophical ideas and concepts may be traced: 1. Creative Mistakes; 2. Creative Anachronism; 3. Creative Interpretation; 4. Creative Systematization; 5. Creative Synthetization; 6. Creative Slippage; and 7. Creative Abuse. #1, #4, #5, and #6 (implicitly) have been articulated by Hadot himself, #3 is Michael Chase’s clarification of Hadot’s own ideas,2 and #2, #7, and explicating #6 are our own contributions. We will use Whitehead to help further develop these topoi. The topoi are preliminary, and we hope they can be further developed and expanded upon. We begin in the first section by laying out Hadot’s own approach and utilization of this method of understanding the history of philosophy as the tracing of what we call “creative error,” especially of certain powerful conceptual metaphors. We then critically assess its merits and weaknesses for reflecting upon the legacy of ancient philosophy. Next, we turn to Whitehead’s approach in Process and Reality to further flesh out the potential method within Hadot’s work. We will have to spend some time explicating Whitehead’s unique vernacular and some of the background of his speculative cosmology. While at times this work will seem very foreign from the work in the first section, the reader will see that it comes full circle in the end. We will pay keen attention to differentiating rhythms in the history of philosophy from assumptions of “exact” repetition, metaphysically speaking. After some serious work navigating Whitehead, we lay out our synthesized approach which includes a fuller explication of our seven topoi (i.e., guidelines) to analyze texts in the history of philosophy (especially ancient ones) at the level of authorial intent and purposes, the tradition of the philosophical schools they were a part of and affected, and the society/culture they were a part of and affected. We conclude by suggesting further avenues for developing this method and its implications for assessing Hadot’s methodological approach to studying ancient philosophy. 16.2

Hadot on Creative Misuse in the History of Philosophy

As noted, there are two central pieces necessary to understand the underpinnings of creative error genealogy in Hadot’s scholarship, the essay “Philosophy, 2 Although Chase has not yet published on this subject, he has kindly contributed thoughtful feedback to our ideas here. We thank him for this insight.

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Exegesis, and Creative Mistakes” and the book The Veil of Isis.3 While many of his other works draw upon this methodological approach (for example his critical study of Porphyry’s systematic philosophy in Porphyre et Victorinus), the aforementioned pieces most clearly articulate creative error genealogy’s methodological structure. We begin with these two works before giving an overall assessment of the potential of this methodological approach, and where more work is needed to have a fully fleshed out method in the history of philosophy and the legacy of ancient thought. As noted, Hadot most clearly articulates what we want to call creative error genealogy in his short essay “Creativity, Exegesis, and Creative Mistakes,” the second chapter in the 1995 compilation and translation of his major essays into English, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault. In this invaluable piece of only seven pages, he demonstrates the meticulous insight of a philologist carefully parsing the transformation of ideas and concepts in the history of philosophy. He begins the essay by, in an act of creative error genealogy itself (albeit perhaps unintentionally), paraphrasing Whitehead that, “Western philosophy is nothing but a series of footnotes to Plato’s dialogues” (Hadot 1995, 71). He creatively rereads Whitehead’s broad strokes assessment of the influence of Plato’s ideas with the exactitude of a close reader of the textual heritage of the ancients. As we noted, such an interpretation runs contrary to Whitehead’s own approach, for he was more interested in the broad influence of Plato on civilizational imaginary and its aspirations, rather than the meticulous systematic study of Plato passed down from one generation of scholars to the next. As we shall see however, creative error genealogy needs to integrate both of these perspectives. With this act of creative error genealogy, Hadot then articulates the historically focused senses in which this statement is true: First, that Plato’s problematics have largely framed the paradigm and trajectories of Western philosophy; secondly, that Western philosophy can be understood as a series of commentarial exegeses on previous philosophers, rooted in Plato, but branching out to other major founders of the main philosophical schools (Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, Cynicism, and Skepticism, and perhaps Epicureanism, at least via its critiques of the Platonic School). These latter sorts of “footnotes to Plato” lasted for well over 2,000 years from the Hellenistic Period

3 There are also some other works, such as the interview turned book The Present Alone is Our Happiness, where he discussed this method. For more, see Hadot, Carlier, and Davidson, 2011, 71–73.

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through the early Modern Period (with resistance and counter currents, such as from the Renaissance Humanists).4 This commentarial tradition emerged in Hellenism, where the purpose of a philosophical schooling was not to incite creativity (a largely disparaging term until the Modern Period) per se, but to reflectively defend one’s particular philosophical school and its way of life, including its foundational texts.5 Hadot points out in “Philosophy, Exegesis, and Creative Mistakes” that Medieval Scholasticism largely continued this tradition, and according to some definitions of Western scholasticism, might even be defined by the commitment to close commentarial reading of the synthesized Neoplatonic/Aristotelian tradition alongside Christianity (Hadot 1995, 73). Hadot shows that far from being mere pedantic scholarship, this kind of dogmatic commentarial interpretation of other interpretations was at the heart of the most important debates in pre-modern Western philosophy: The famous battle over universals, which divided the Middle Ages, was based on the exegesis of a single phrase from Porphyry’s Isagoge. It would be possible to make a list of all the texts which, upon being discussed, formed the basis of all ancient and medieval problematics. The list would not be long: it might contain a few passages from Plato (especially the Timaeus), Aristotle, Boethius, the first chapter of Genesis, and the prologue to the Gospel of John. (Hadot 1995, 73) Whitehead’s quip then is perhaps not hyperbolic after all. The stakes of (re) interpretation were one of the most critical subjects of pre-modern philosophy, from universals and the nature of God to prospects for a good life, and were based in a few essential texts, especially Plato’s dialogues and the Bible. While Hadot rejected the tendency of historians to reduce all earlier approaches to modern understandings of historical interpretation, and therefore criticize earlier histories for “sloppy readings” of the past, he did align with them in seeing several dominant ways in which such creative error in the history of philosophy and ideas tends to manifest: firstly, there are those who creatively systematize the dense philosophical-literary works of founding philosophers, drawing discourses hodgepodge from their contextual sources (one can think here of the particular Neoplatonic systematization of the Forms, the Good, and the One from Plato’s dialogues); secondly, there are those who 4 For more, see Domański 1996. 5 For more, see Hadot 1995, chapt. 1: Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse in Ancient Philosophy.

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creatively synthesize different philosophers and texts into one complex system (here we again can think of the synthesizing of Aristotle and Plato carried out by later Neoplatonists, where Aristotle’s works are read as preparation for the deeper truths in Plato);6 thirdly, there are edifices of interpretation based on more or less intentional or unintentional readings of words, phrases, and ideas. Hadot uses “creative mistakes” both for largely intentional creative (re)interpretations and for largely unintentional creative mistakes of the authorial intent of the philosophical text being interpreted. Fourthly, although these interpretations and mistakes can seem innocuous and pedantic, over the generations, especially through accruing slippages of meaning, they have had important ramifications for the trajectory of the history of Western philosophy. “The whole of Neoplatonic exegesis of the Parmenides seems to be an example of such a phenomenon” (Hadot 1995, 75). Hadot explores the root of this shift in the trajectory of ancient history of philosophy to demonstrate how deeply these little but critical “errors,” intended or otherwise, run: The most interesting example of this seems to me to be the appearance of the distinction between “being” as an infinitive and “being” as a participle, which, as I have shown elsewhere, was thought up by Porphyry in order to solve a problem posed by a passage in Plato. In the Parmenides, Plato had asked: “If the One is, is it possible that it should not participate in being [ousia]?” For the Neoplatonist Porphyry, the One in question here is the second One. If this second One participates in ousia, he reasons, we must assume that ousia is prior to the second One. Now, the only thing prior to the second One is the first One, and this latter is not in any sense ousia. Thus, Porphyry concludes that, in this passage, the word ousia designates the first One in an enigmatic, symbolical way. The first One is not ousia in the sense of “substance”; rather, it’s being (être) in the sense of a pure, transcendent act, prior to being as a substantial object (étant). L’etant, then, is the first substance and the first determination of l’être. (Hadot 1995, 75) For generations afterwards ousia would be separated out in myriad ways into being as substance and being as the activating ground of being, which shaped visions of an omnipotent non-predicatable God for generations to come. For our purposes, it is particularly important to note that certain terms such as ousia or being today are especially prone to creative error due to their difficulty, 6 For more, see [Ilsetraut] Hadot, 2015, 41–53.

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complexity, and importance. More than that, they have metaphorical efficacy in our lives, as we shall soon see. They are liable for both largely unintended and intended transformations. In Porphyry’s case, as a dutiful student to his master, we can confidently speculate that his reinterpretation was a tactical defense of his school, albeit through smuggling in innovation claiming the authority of Plotinus and Plato. We will have more to say on this subject later in the essay. After the arrival of Modernity Hadot sees a transformation begin, where dogmatic loyalty to a school is no longer the center of debate and reinterpretation. Rather reason itself is what the philosopher serves in the form of discourse. After Descartes the task becomes to criticize previous philosophers (putatively at least) on the merits of their reasoning, not on the clarity in which they live, defend, and articulate their school and way of life. Ostensibly at least, novelty and precision of reasoning is now valuable, and dogmatic loyalty to one’s school is not. Yet, interestingly, this position too in its own way leads us to the path of scholasticism: This was a legitimate reaction, but it could be that its result has been that philosophers have let themselves be hypnotized by philosophical discourse taken in and for itself. In the last analysis, philosophical discourse now tends to have as its object nothing but more philosophical discourse. In a sense, contemporary philosophical discourse has once again become exegetical, and, sad to say, it often interprets its texts with the same violence used by ancient practitioners of allegory. (Hadot 1995, 76) This new scholasticism perhaps reached its height in the Logical Positivist School of the mid-twentieth century, which both thought that it could clarify these ambiguities and supposed abuses to concepts and terms in the history of philosophy, while it vulgarly created its own extremely poor misreadings of the history of philosophy. A question remains then about whether any interpretation of a previous philosopher’s argument can be “completely accurate” and to what degree creative rhythmic variation is inevitable. We will return to this theme soon through the lens of Whitehead. In the Veil of Isis Hadot draws out two further important dimensions of creative error genealogy. As previously mentioned, one of the central threads of the work is tracing the creative evolution of phusis kruptesthai philei to its modern form as “nature loves to hide.” Hadot begins Veil of Isis by unpacking why certain ideas transform so regularly. In particular, he suspects that certain metaphors/ images/symbols, rooted in a penchant for allegorical interpretation in the history of Western philosophy, have had an enduring force on our imagination and culture, and it is these “commonplaces” that continue to evolve. Drawing from Hans Blumenberg’s Paradigms for Metaphorology, he sought to show how:

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certain metaphors, many of which cannot be adequately translated into propositions and concepts—for instance, the nakedness of truth, nature as writing and as a book, or the world as a clock—enable us to glimpse the evolution of spiritual attitudes and visions of the world throughout the ages. These traditional metaphors are linked intimately with what are called commonplaces in rhetoric. These are formulas, images, and metaphors adopted by philosophers and writers like prefabricated models, which they think they use freely, but which nevertheless have an influence on their thought. They hold sway for centuries over successive generations like a kind of program to be realized, a task to be accomplished, or an attitude to be assumed, even if, throughout the ages, the meaning given to these sentences, images, and metaphors can be profoundly modified. These ideas, images, and symbols can inspire works of art, poems, philosophical discourse, or the practice of life itself. The present study takes its place within the history of these metaphors and commonplaces, whether in the guise of the formula “Nature loves to hide,” of the notions of veiling and unveiling, or of the figure of Isis. These metaphors and images have both expressed and influenced mankind’s attitude toward nature. (Hadot 2006, xi, our emphasis) The topoi7 Hadot pays special attention to are these generative metaphors/ images/symbols that shape our ways of living, and whose transformations over the centuries often go by unnoticed. Ousia itself is of course another prime example of this phenomenon. The second important dimension that emerges in this work has to do with the potential meanings that such metaphors have as part of their connotative-interpretative field. For example, for the aforementioned Heraclitean phrase, he breaks downs several plausible definitions of each term: 1. Philein (to love) a. A feeling b. A natural or habitual tendency, or a process that occurs necessarily or frequently. 2. Phusis (nature, actualization) a. The constitution or proper nature of each thing. b. A thing’s process of realization, genesis, appearance, or growth.

7 We are aware that topoi is also a technical term in “category theory,” which some Whiteheadian thinkers know about and draw upon. In this context we do not draw upon that usage, but rather the usage from the tradition of ars topica (art of topics) explicated by Aristotle and as interpretated through a Hadotian/Blumenbergian lens.

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3. Kruptesthai (to hide) a. To bury b. To veil c. Disappearance or death. He concludes that with these different possibilities within the original Ancient Greek, there are at least five responsible potential interpretations we can give to this Heraclitean phrase: 1. The constitution of each thing tends to hide (i.e., is hard to know). 2. The constitution of each thing wants to be hidden (i.e., does not want to be revealed). 3. The origin tends to hide itself (i.e., the origin of things is hard to know). 4. What causes things to appear tends to make them disappear (i.e., what causes birth tends to cause death). 5. Form (or appearance) tends to disappear (i.e., what is born wants to die). (Hadot 2006, 7–14) Hadot instead chose “what is born tends to disappear,” relying on the scant materials we have about Heraclitus’ writing, time, and context. While a strong advocate of entering the lifeworld of authors to approximate authorial intent, through understanding the material culture of their texts, the institutional (school) context they were written in, the societal/city landscape they were written for,8 Hadot did acknowledge a delicate ambiguity within the texts which one ought to give one’s utmost attention. While he was no deconstructionist, he did recognize a certain kind of connotative tension available for interpretation in philosophical discourse, especially through commonplaces at the heart of philosophy, such as “being.” Even in the origins of this metaphorical commonplace there are ambiguities that make space for creative error. He thus ended the section by noting, “to write the history of thought is sometimes to write the history of a series of misinterpretations” (Hadot 2006, 15).9 We would go farther: the best we can do to be sensitive to the way an interpretation of an idea slips away from authorial intent is to trace its transformations in the history of philosophy. Further, that process in turn will be revealing of the creative potential in certain commonplaces intended or otherwise. While other authors have tried to trace the transformation of certain philosophical conceptions, for example Rorty in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, perhaps only Hadot has considered how carefully and textually this 8 For more, see Hadot 2020, chapt. 2: The Ancient Philosophers, 43–54. 9 Hélder Telo pointed out to us that Jorge Luis Borges shared an analogous methodological insight, “perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of a few metaphors” (Borges 1993, 205). That quote is drawn from a brief, speculative sketch of a creative error genealogy Borges wrote on the ancient philosophical common place of the celestial sphere.

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might be completed to give a truly responsible account of the transformations of philosophical commonplaces. We are now in a position to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of Hadot’s approach to tracing the legacy of ancient philosophical commonplaces. In terms of strengths, he has offered a unique way to understand and trace the ambiguities of certain philosophical commonplaces that are the legacy of ancient philosophy, as they evolve over time. He however uses terms like “misinterpret,” for both largely intended creative interpretations (such as Porphyry on Plato and Plotinus) and unintended misinterpretations (like many of the reinterpretations of the Heraclitean aphorism on phusis). While this issue can easily be rectified by further elucidation of the creative evolutions of commonplaces in the history of philosophy, what is less clear is how to separate authorial intent from the ambiguity of language itself, the potential within language for different meanings, and the uncertainty as to whether all interpretative acts in some sense transform the commonplace under investigation. It is here where Whitehead can help us. 16.3

Rhythm, Repetition, Creativity, and Error

It is challenging to build a common language between two such seemingly disparate thinkers as Pierre Hadot and Alfred North Whitehead. But the commonalities are real, while many of the disparities are an artifact of the language(s) in which they expressed their shared concepts and ideas. “Languages” here refers to the differences between the “languages” of poetry and literature, on the one hand, and mathematics and science on the other. So we begin here with some preliminary remarks that will hopefully establish a context in which we can approach the larger project of creativity and the role of error in Whitehead’s Process and Reality that will be useful for our investigation. Let us begin with a quote from Whitehead: “Philosophy is akin to poetry, and both of them seek to express that ultimate good sense which we term civilization. In each case there is reference to form beyond the direct meanings of words. Poetry allies itself to metre, philosophy to mathematic pattern” (Whitehead 1968, 237–38). There is much here to unpack, though first we must examine that part which Hadot scholars may most likely object to first: the separation of poetry and meter10 from philosophy. A measure of patience for Whitehead’s position must be begged here. As a mathematician Whitehead’s thought was everywhere informed by that mathematical background, even 10

We will use standard American spellings except when we are quoting.

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when he left (Trinity) Fellow’s like Bertrand Russell dumbfounded by his change from mathematics to philosophy and, worse, metaphysics. Note that Whitehead makes poetry coeval with philosophy, establishing it as a fellow traveler that simply tracks the path being followed with a somewhat different set of clues. Whitehead’s aesthetic leanings and appreciations are an ever-present aspect of his thought. Very much an English gentleman of the Victorian age, Whitehead enjoyed and turned to the fullness of the liberal education that helped produce him. As such, his philosophical writings are generously sprinkled with citations of poetry. This “aesthetic turn” is not something that stands in contrast to Whitehead’s position as a professional mathematician. The sense of beauty is an integral part of a mathematician’s working world. Consider these words from Whitehead’s fellow mathematician G.H. Hardy: “The mathematician’s patterns, like the painter’s or the poet’s must be beautiful; the ideas like the colours or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics” (Hardy 1940, 14). Examples could be freely multiplied. We need not dwell on this connection between mathematics and beauty at any length.11 But it is this context that helps us to understand both that and how Whitehead’s thought was always informed by his background as a mathematician. We have the above lesson from a fellow mathematician that independently draws our attention to connections with pattern and poetry.12 And from these connections we can begin to stretch ourselves to the next steps, illuminating the very real differences between rhythm—so vital to poetry (and music)—versus mere repetition, differences that a mathematician is well situated to observe and characterize. And from that difference we will finally be in a position to appreciate how rhythm differs from repetition by a kind of “error” that opens the door to genuinely aesthetic creativity. Conversely, a hermeneutic reading that did not introduce any creative errors into the text could only be, in effect, a repetition of that text. Our ultimate goal is to illuminate the creative force behind certain kinds of error. Among the steps in that direction is the need to illustrate the failure of creative and aesthetic advance demonstrated by error free, “perfect” repetition. A mathematically minded philosopher such as Alfred North Whitehead is arguably better situated than Pierre Hadot to discuss the difference between rhythm (which Hadot often mentions, but seldom fully analyzes) and mere 11 12

Additional discussion may be found in Davis and Hersh 1998. While not strictly the same as poetry, we can still make the connection closer by observing the analogies between mathematics and music. See, for example Rothstein 2006.

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repetition. For it is in the difference between the two that this “error” we speak of often most clearly emerges as a source of innovation and creativity. Hadot was not unaware of this “frontier,”13 at least in some senses. But his contrasts tend to be between two different sources of rhythm, rather than that between rhythm and mere repetition, so that the distinction does not stand out as starkly as it might to allow one to fully appreciate the creative power of an “error” that deviates from the (repetitive) norm. Two of Hadot’s contrasting forms of rhythm come to us in the shape of a “first contact” situation between two different “cultures.” In the essay “Only the Present is Our Happiness,” Hadot devotes a number of pages to examining the encounter between two different poetic (rhythmic) forms in Goethe’s Faust, specifically the conversation between Faust and Helen in the third act, as a way to “to represent both the dialogue of the two lovers and the encounter between two historical epochs.” Hadot continues: Helen had been speaking in the manner of ancient tragedy, and her words were set to the rhythm of iambic trimeters, while the chorus of captive Trojan women responded to her in strophe and antistrophe. Now, however, at the moment when Helen meets Faust and hears the watchman Lynceus speak in rhymed distichs, she is astonished and charmed by this unknown poetic form. (Hadot 1995, 218) Here we have an illustration of a generative and creative moment in the encounter between different rhythmic types. In the story, Helen is “charmed” by this difference. But taking an additional step or two back from this example, we can easily imagine that Helen’s culturally assumed form of poetic expression is being taken as “authoritative”—i.e., repetitive—which in turn means that the new forms that Faust is introducing can only be viewed, from the static pedestal of orthodoxy, as errors. Delightful, even charming errors, to be sure. But their status as deviations from “the norm” makes them errors. Elsewhere, Hadot makes the comparison between the poetic intentions of “Prometheus” and “Orpheus,” both of whom, for the purposes of Hadot’s argument, are poetically interpreted to stand for more generalized commonplaces than just and only themselves. Hadot compares these two attitudes, saying: Orpheus thus penetrates the secrets of nature not through violence but through melody, rhythm, and harmony. Whereas the Promethean 13

In the older sense of a “no one’s land” between two established territories.

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attitude is inspired by audacity, boundless curiosity, the will to power, and the search for utility, the Orphic attitude, by contrast, is inspired by respect in the face of mystery and disinterestedness. (Hadot 2006, 101) To the non-mathematician, a mathematician’s approach might well seem to be that of an over-muscled Prometheus: heroic but unmerciful, with no music or beauty to guide the inquirer, only determination; a vintner’s fist to squeeze the last drop of juice from the grape, rather than a lover’s touch to tease out secrets to be quietly shared. The previous quotes from Hardy are intended to suggest that such a Promethean view of the mathematician is wrong-headed. The poetry of the lyricist may not be the same as the mathematician, but that does not mean the latter is no manner of poet. The poet speaks to life, but so (in their own way) do mathematicians. We need to recognize that Whitehead’s professional focus upon mathematical physics (while he was still employed as a mathematical physicist, that is) never clouded his recognition of the need to take life into account on its own terms, which is to say, rhythmically and poetically. Thus, for example, he states that, “we have therefore to ask, what sort of events have life in their relations to objects situated in them, and what sort of objects have life in their relations to their situations? A life-bearing object is not an ‘uniform’ object” (Whitehead 1919, 196, original spelling). He goes on to argue that: Life (as known to us) involves the completion of rhythmic parts within the life-bearing event which exhibits that object. We can diminish the time-parts, and, if the rhythms be unbroken, still discover the same object of life in the curtailed event. But if the diminution of the duration be carried to the extent of breaking the rhythm, the life-bearing object is no longer to be found as a quality of the slice of the original event cut off within that duration. (Whitehead 1919, 196) It should be noted that this discussion is taking place in the “dramatic conclusion” of his first major work in the triptych of books where he aimed to redefine the scientific “concept of nature” (the title of his second book in this collection.) So it is notable that this is not a mere afterthought, but in reality the “pride of place” in his discussion. Whitehead adds to the above that “this is no special peculiarity of life. It is equally true of a molecule of iron or of a musical phrase” (Whitehead 1919, 196). The reference to a “musical phrase” should be given special attention here. Whitehead was not one for making accidental associations, and once again we are invited to see an analogy with music.

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But there is one essential respect in which the molecule of iron differs fundamentally from life, or even the musical phrase. This is because: in the physical object we have in a sense lost the rhythms in the macroscopic aggregate which is the final causal character. But life preserves its expression of rhythm and its sensitiveness to rhythm. Life is the rhythm as such, whereas a physical object is an average of rhythms which build no rhythm in their aggregation; and thus matter is in itself lifeless. (Whitehead 1919, 197, our emphasis) The idea of “an average of rhythms which build no rhythm in their aggregation” in sound is what we would recognize as mere noise, a patternless repetition that no longer qualifies as a rhythm. But Whitehead does not stop here. In one of the most telling (and, frankly, exciting) passages of this chapter, Whitehead goes on to observe that: The essence of rhythm is the fusion of sameness and novelty; so that the whole never loses the essential unity of the pattern, while the parts exhibit the contrast arising from the novelty of their detail. A mere recurrence kills rhythm as surely as does a mere confusion of differences. A crystal lacks rhythm from excess of pattern, while a fog is unrhythmic in that it exhibits a patternless confusion of detail. (Whitehead 1919, 198, our emphasis). Rhythm is life. And as Whitehead explicitly points out here (and any musician or poet will instantly acknowledge) rhythm is not, and cannot be, mere repetition. “A rhythm is too concrete to be truly an object. It refuses to be disengaged from the event in the form of a true object which would be mere pattern” (Whitehead 1919, 198). It should be noted that, for Whitehead, an “object” is a form of abstraction, a functional unity distilled from the totality of genuinely concrete reality for purposes of human use and analysis. This brings us to our next section. 16.4

Whitehead and the Metaphysics of Rhythm

The deviation from mere pattern receives much greater attention in Whitehead’s monumental metaphysical work, Process and Reality. In that work, such deviation is what Whitehead characterizes as “error,” because it is a failure to

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transmit the pattern faithfully. It is a breakdown of the (mere) pattern, the simple repetition, and as such an “error” that in turn becomes a possibility of creativity. But this is also a work that is unforgiving in its complexity. So rather than go into an exegesis that, even in its most painfully truncated form would run longer than our available space, we will just bluntly state some of the key aspects of Whitehead’s metaphysics and their relevance to our topic here.14 Whitehead’s process metaphysics might be characterized as “pulses of the actual in a continuum of the possible.”15 The “pulses” of actuality are what Whitehead called “actual occasions.”16 It is necessary to scare quote the word “pulses” in the preceding because these are purely logical units, and not ontological realizations in space and time. We know this because, Whitehead argues, space and time are emergent characters of the world, not metaphysical primitives. Actual occasions are relational entities in the continuum of possibility, and not any kind of ontological “stuff.”17 The most relevant part of Whitehead’s metaphysics to our project here is his theory of propositions. For Whitehead, a proposition is no mere verbal statement; moreover, it is only ever “local” in its scope and meaning (Whitehead 1979, 11–13). A proposition is no mere verbal presentation because a “subject” and “predicate” are highly complex relational structures—relational complexes comprised of varying sorts of actual occasions—while the merely verbal characterization ignores these complexities and treats the subject and predicate as basic, univocal entities. In turn, propositions are “local” in the sense that they only relate to a small part of reality and not to the universe as a whole. It is on account of the latter that propositions are far more important than their merely formal/verbal characteristics might suggest. Logically—as in formal logic—a proposition is only either true or false. Metaphysically, however, a proposition can be conformal or non-conformal (Whitehead 1979, 186). Whitehead points out that, in their purely logical aspect, “non-conformal propositions are merely wrong, and therefore worse than useless” (Whitehead 1979, 187). But the logical character of a proposition is not its most important aspect. Rather, what is important about a proposition is whether or not it is interesting: “in the real world it is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. The importance of truth is, that it adds to interest” (Whitehead 14 15 16 17

Readers interested in a more complete treatment of these ideas should contact the authors directly. This is our terminology, not Whitehead’s. Or “actual entities.” There is a very small difference between the two which will not concern us here, and so the terms will be used interchangeably. For details, we refer the reader to Auxier and Herstein 2017.

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1979, 259). An interesting proposition that is “not true” in the trivially logical sense is one that introduces a creative “error.” Goethe’s entire presentation of the conflicting poetic styles, that Hadot analyzes and which we highlighted above, is an “error.” But the logical falsity of the propositions is a matter of no importance because the propositions themselves are interesting: they introduce a novelty, an imaginative contrast that serves to highlight real contrasts in the actual world. This is the functional distinction between rhythm and mere repetition. Rhythm is an “error” because it fails to conform to the strict, repetitive pattern(s) that preceded it. But viewed propositionally (in the Whiteheadian sense), rhythm is a living, interesting error, that creatively adds to the universe what a strictly conformal, “truthful” repetition could never do. Here we are now finally in a position to see an essential insight so carefully articulated in Whitehead’s technical language, yet so clear and fundamental to our experience: that all acts of interpretation deal with non-conformal propositions; that the act of interpretation inherently and creatively utilizes the predicatable potentials of propositions (in Whitehead’s much broader, non-­ linguistic sense) for particular progressive or destabilizing ends.18 This is no putative postmodern claim that there is no original authenticity, and one must give up aspirations for authorial intent. Rather, creative error genealogy recognizes that commentarial philosophy deals with continued rhythmic, creative reinterpretation; to justify Plato against other schools, to defend one’s mentor, to console oneself through a spiritual director, to try and enter the lifeworld of an author (building upon other scholars), all play with error in the sense that they create something new, that is new insight. New insight is itself an “error” from our previous perspective. All philosophical scholarship then in a sense is struggling or utilizing creative error genealogy, for it necessarily reconstructs previous scholarship for some end-in-view, whether to find new insight into a historical figure, to address a problem of contemporary society, or help us transform ourselves in light of the problems of life, within the context of those never-ending footnotes to Plato (or Confucius, Nagarjuna, etc.). It is here now where we can finally turn to our topoi with proper insight. We can see each as 18

While the actual process of a human interpretative judgment of a philosophical text would work at levels of complexity in the scheme given in Process and Reality that cannot be even approximated here (Whitehead after all sees human experience in that cosmology as only a tiny crest of the wave of process he is interested in exploring. We might not even be that important in the grand scheme of things, or worse we might be a pathology of that scheme), we can take some general insights and concepts from him for our own context (using creative error for our purposes). More work will need to be done to fully develop a common language between Whitehead and Hadot on the act of interpretation.

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pointing to a cluster of certain kinds of productive creative errors (in Whitehead’s sense of the term) in the history of philosophy. Our task is not to avoid “error” but to trace the kinds of error or rhythmic play and discord we find in the history of philosophy. 16.5

The Seven Topoi of Creative Error Genealogy

Now that we can see error as an emergent rhythmic process of interpretation in the history of philosophy, most often rooted in ancient philosophical sources, through non-conformal propositions, we can better fully explicate the seven topoi of creative error genealogy. By topoi we mean the commonplace structures for certain kinds of non-conformal creative error in interpretation in the history of philosophy. These are not exclusive categories, but rather guides to trace the different movements in our genealogies. The list below is preliminary and should be further developed and expanded upon. Instead of the aforementioned commonplaces of metaphors that transform across time, these are commonplaces of interpretation. They are patterns which we find repeated as we seek to interpret the meaning of texts in the history of philosophy. We will also expand and develop upon Hadot’s preliminary list of Creative Mistakes, Creative Systemization, Creative Synthetization, and Creative Slippage (as we explicate the latter). They will be placed in the larger constellation of topoi. They are also non-exhaustive; we hope others will develop and refine the constellation. All we hope to do here is sketch them out for the purposes of future inquiry. 16.5.1 Creative Mistakes This kind of evolution in the history of philosophical interpretation is the most straightforward to understand, for it is what we most often associate with “errors” in exegesis. This topos is a largely unintended divergence of a text in the history of philosophy from its original author’s intent and purpose, which has productive results. In our Whiteheadian terms it is a progressive (rather than destructive) non-conformal proposition that ingresses a more novel constellation of interpretive possibilities than the mentality of creatures such as us (at the higher phases of the higher thresholds of experience) assessed as part of our judgment. Our Whiteheadian perspective illuminates that this process is creative and was chosen in a sense with a broader rhythmic trajectory than may have been anticipated intellectually. In other words, interpretative choices are a matter of degree not kind, with less cognitively intended

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decisions drawing upon useful potentials for interpretation swimming in the background of the works we study. Even if an interpreter did not mean to misread their author’s intent, their larger aims and purposes may push them toward more non-conformal interpretations. As previously noted, Hadot found an illustrative example of this topos in Edmund Husserl’s reading of Augustine’s Confessions. In the case of Husserl, there certainly seems to have been a cognized choice to “properly” interpret Augustine’s own historical intent. Husserl’s “mistake” was rather unintentional, but served his broader purposes: An extremely significant example of this conferring of a new meaning can be seen in the final lines of Edmund Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations. Summing up his own theory, Husserl writes, “The Delphic oracle γνῶθι σεαυτόν [know thyself] has acquired a new meaning … . One must first lose the world by the ἐποχή [for Husserl, the ‘phenomenological bracketing’ of the world], in order to regain it in a universal self-consciousness. Noli foras ire, says St Augustine, in te redi, in interiore homine habitat veritas.” This sentence of Augustine’s, “Do not lose your way from without, return to yourself, it is in the inner man that truth dwells,” offers Husserl a convenient formula for expressing and summarizing his own conception of consciousness. It is true that Husserl gives this sentence a new meaning. Augustine’s “innerman” becomes the “transcendental ego” for Husserl, a knowing subject who regains the world in “a universal self­consciousness.” Augustine never could have conceived of his “inner man” in these terms. And nonetheless one understands why Husserl was tempted to use this formula. For Augustine’s sentence admirably summarizes the whole spirit of Greco-Roman philosophy that prepares the way for both Descartes’ Meditations and Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations. (Hadot 1995, 65) 16.5.2 Creative Anachronism Creative anachronism is the mirror of creative mistakes, these are largely intentional (re)interpretations of texts within the history of philosophy from later historical periods. They aim not for historical fidelity (though they often come from a loving place for those periods) but to tell a new tale that will progress new ways of thinking and living. To use Richard Rorty’s language, they provide “new vocabularies.”19 Rorty was a master “creative anachronizer,” frustrating 19

For an example of his usage of this specialized term, see Rorty 2007, 125.

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his critics with his indifference to historical fidelity and his commitment to transformational narratives that might shift the trajectory of professional philosophy.20 The most prominent example we have already discussed, his infamous Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, where he gave a new footnote to Plato, as the history of philosophy steadily getting rid of the Platonic conception of the “really real.”21 Through Rorty, we can now better (though not in detail) understand Whitehead’s famous statement that “in the real world it is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. The importance of truth is that it adds to interest” (Whitehead 1978, 259). Since we have already briefly traversed Whitehead’s account of propositions, we are better situated to see the significance of this claim. When a proposition can break away from the universe as it was previously, it provides zest to the universe. The interpretative proposition that has explanatory veracity to the conditions it illuminates are all that more interesting. While creative anachronism may not provide careful accounts of the history of philosophy (which could perhaps add more interest to our propositions, as in the case of the topos of creative interpretation that comes next in our list) it can provide interest and truthful illumination of our present condition. Rorty’s Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature may give an anachronistic read to the history of Modern Philosophy, but it was ingeniously crafted to reveal something fundamental about the empty obsessions of the professional philosophers of his day, in their quest for ultimacy. The anachronistic lens provided the tools for that constructive, evolutionary illumination. 16.5.3 Creative Interpretation Here we find a category close to creative anachronism. The difference lies in that it finds new interpretive potential in a careful engagement with a philosophical text or the way of life tradition, for the purposes of defending its enduring value. Here we may think of Porphyry’s aforementioned reinterpretation of ousia. Porphyry (so far as we can tell) did not make an unintended reinterpretation of his mentor and of Plato, nor did he intend to create an anachronistic lens for his own interpretive purposes. Rather he was seeking in the propositional potential of his master’s work and in Plato further ways to defend his school’s value from attack and criticism. This well fits into a dogmatic paradigm of philosophical work and schooling that (as previously discussed) Hadot noted became increasingly dominant in the Hellenistic period: 20 21

For more, see Kramer 2020. For an example of his usage of this specialized term, see Rorty 2007, 75. For his account of getting rid of the platonic conception of ultimacy, see Rorty 1980.

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The dogmas and methodological principles of each school are not open to discussion. In this period, to philosophize is to choose a school, convert to its way of life, and accept its dogmas. This is why the core of the fundamental dogmas and rules of life for Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and Epicureanism remained unchanged throughout antiquity. Even the scientists of antiquity always were affiliated with a philosophical school: the development of their mathematical and astronomical theorems changed nothing of the fundamental principles of the school to which they claimed allegiance. (Hadot 1995, 60) In such a paradigm one is never innovating in the intentional sense, but rather reaffirming something’s essential value. This topos also relies on non-conformal propositions, but ones made to stabilize a larger system of interpretation trying to live and survive. It thus has non-conformal innovation to stabilize a tradition as a living and relevant one. 16.5.4 Creative Systematization As we discussed in Hadot’s own discussion of this topos, there is a certain kind of creative error that emerges from the attempt to organize philosophical systems from works that belong to “thickly descriptive” philosophical-literary genres such as dialogues, narrative essays, and fiction. Again, to use our new Whiteheadian vocabulary, even conformal propositions themselves, as they are systematically drawn into larger propositions, become non-conformal, with new progressive insight and value. As previously noted, the Neoplatonists famously made a system out of Plato’s dialogues, which itself created a new orientation to Plato’s works. Despite Straussian sympathies otherwise, there is good reason to doubt that the dialogues themselves held any systematic inner teaching tied to works of Plato unavailable to us (Cherniss 1962). Even if that were verified, our own systems still inevitably transform engagement with the texts in new creative wholes. 16.5.5 Creative Synthetization Creative synthetization as we mentioned brings together philosophical works and authors into one centralizing narrative. We have already discussed such a synthetization of Aristotle’s natural philosophy as propaedeutic training for comprehending Plato’s dialogues in Alexandrian and Athenian Neoplatonist communities. There are however many other examples of such attempts. Perhaps of special note is the classic Han Dynasty (202 BCE – 220 AD) philosophical text the Huainanzi, created sometime in the second century BCE, which sought to integrate Daoist, Confucian, and Legalist philosophies into a greater

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system. The work seeks to show how they can be utilized as part of one greater synthetic system needed to rule one’s land wisely and judiciously. Such works are part of a greater movement in the Han Dynasty toward “intense integration, one in which many writers attempted to synthesize previously separate points of view using an encyclopedic format” (Csikszentmihalyi 2006, Forward, ix). The urge to treat philosophy as a sort of greater hermetic encyclopedia can also be found in the penchant of philosophical doxographies across cultures to ahistorically integrate figures into a complete image of “philosophy.” This is certainly true in the South Asian context, where it leads to a sort of ahistoricism for the sake of narrative consistency in a spiritual exercise of reaffirming one’s values and commitments to a particular scholastic PWL tradition.22 In this light, one can speculate that creative synthesizing is most often done to structure a curriculum for self-transformation, moving through the texts of a variety of traditions to affirm one’s philosophical way of life. In this case non-conformal propositions are used to lure one to integrate into what Whitehead would call a society of “actual occasions,” that is a complex that itself can foment a certain kind of intensity of experience. 16.5.6 Creative Slippage We now get to one of the perhaps most interesting and illuminating sorts of transformations in creative error genealogy, the slippage of meaning that happens because of the potential for a philosophical text over time to drift in potential meaning through rhythmic variation. Like genetic drift (the accrual of existing gene variants, not directly tied to successful engagement with the environment, but dragged on by more relevant adaptive genotypes or phenotypes) in the biological domain, the meaning of a text drifts into a new constellation of meaning and purpose quite beyond authorial intent in the history of philosophy. For example, as Peter Gay has thoughtfully suggested in his introduction to the English translation of Cassirer’s The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the myriad potentials for different PWL practices and social movements in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s works (in particular his Treatises and Emile) were drawn out by later communalist French revolutionaries, individualistic romantics, and classical conservatives alike (Gay 1989, 3–30). They all draw on real insight from Rousseau but for different purposes and intents, far beyond Rousseau’s own idiosyncratic and novel orientation. This kind of slippage both shows why philosophers must be forgiven for interpretations only imminent in their texts, and at the same time why they must be careful of not only what 22

For more, see Bouthillette 2020, Introduction, 1–24.

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they advocate but the potential for creative error they make available. While some might not think Nietzsche himself was a radical nationalist (though there is certainly a case there), certain tropes and imagery in his text perhaps lend too readily to such horizons of meaning. This again shows us that propositions in text are not merely statements of fact but bring with them clusters of meaning in greater constellations of possibility across generations, often quite foreign to original authorial intent. 16.5.7 Creative Abuse Our final topos is one that defines what we consider warrantable and unwarrantable transformations in creative error genealogy. While it is important to demarcate anachronism from creative misreading for scholarly purposes, the primary abuse of creative error genealogy as we see it is a moral issue. Creative abuse may draw on structures in the other 6 topoi but have this immoral structure. It is the willful misreading of texts within the history of philosophy to present them as reductionist caricatures which can foreclose further progressive use of the texts, or worse, to erase or dismiss the dignity of others’ philosophical thoughts and traditions to heroize one’s own views or traditions. These are the immoral acts that one finds at the center of this topos. Such readings are effectively meant to kill works for posterity and to legitimate the dismissal and oppression of others. In the former category, we might mention the example of Bertrand Russel’s history of philosophy, and especially his attacks on Jamesian pragmatism and Bergsonian vitalism. One can also suspect Heidegger’s reading of Humanism had a similar coercive goal (for more, see Sharpe 2022). Of the latter and more nefarious sort we might think of Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History, which dismisses the life and thought of the African continent as irrelevant to the history of Geist, and as in fact in need of subjugation and “civilizing.” South and East Asia fair little better as they are but steps in the rise of the height of Geist in the West (Hegel 2001). The legacy of such thinking in liberal “civilizing” colonialism or communist dialectical advancement toward the inventible and necessary final social order show the terrible ramifications for creative abuse out of control. It is often at the heart of genocidal and supremacist thinking and action. Here our Whiteheadian system has something simple and clear to suggest, that such propositions are destructive, they destroy texts, traditions, and our recognition of others for no progressive end. They seek the foreclosure of meaning and to abuse and degrade persons. They are “evil” by the standards of process philosophy. They obstruct possibilities for creative advance. As Whitehead argued, “the nature of evil is that the characters of things are mutually obstructive … . [T]he struggle with evil is a process of building up a mode of

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utilization by the provision of intermediate elements introducing a complex structure of harmony” (Whitehead 1979, 340). Creative error advances harmony even as it introduces novel elements. 16.5.8 Levels of Generality These seven topoi can be read at three different levels of generality. Drawing on Hadot’s own advocacy for the study of PWL texts in the history of philosophy at the level of school, city/society, and authorial purposes, we distinguish three analogous levels of generality here. For a responsible interpretation that avoids creative abuse, one should contextualize the work in its genres and purposes as part of a philosophical tradition (school), in its larger context and role in greater society, and from there attempt to approximate authorial purposes and intent (with biographical primary sources, secondary sources, and other materials) (Hadot 2020, 43–54). We suggest treating each topos as a point of reference not to escape our duties to asymptotically approximate authorial intent, but to better address it and its legacy, including for our purposes. In other words, we see (as we suspect Hadot did) creative error genealogy as complementing careful philological work seeking to place texts in the language-games they were a part of and serving, and the ones they were lured into over time. The contrast itself should provide further insight into authorial intent, the potential for (re) interpretation within their text, and wilful abuse of their thought. We want to trace the trajectory of interpretation of philosophical works for other individual interpreters, for its school and later schools, and for its societies and later societies. Such philological creative error genealogy explores the progressive evolution and destruction of meaning across cultural life. 16.6

Conclusion

Although we have traversed a great deal of ground, we have only taken one tiny step toward developing creative error genealogy as a method in the history of philosophy. What we have offered is a constellation of topoi that can be drawn on at different levels of generality to trace the transformation of meaning in the history of philosophy. We hope others may develop, refine, and reshape these topoi or find new ones. This system was developed out of a critical assessment and expansion of Hadot’s understanding of the legacy of ancient philosophy as its commonplaces have been transformed over the millennia. We found that while Hadot had laid the groundwork for a methodological approach in the study of ancient philosophy, he did not provide enough clarity on the nature of the transformation of meaning both for author and for audience to complete it. We sought to

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remedy this by a creative synthesis, bringing in Whitehead’s account of repetition, rhythm, and error. Hadot in turn provides a way to develop the Whiteheadian understanding of the legacy of thought at the level of textual analysis, which Whitehead too readily dismissed. That said Hadot or Whitehead should not be criticized for leaving certain novel systems and methods underdeveloped, we all should be lucky if even our underdeveloped discourses prove so useful. For Hadotian scholarship especially, it does suggest that bringing Hadot into dialogue with complimentary partners can help flesh out certain aspects of his novel thought and interests. For the study of ancient philosophy this analysis suggests that there is a new frontier to be made in developing creative error genealogy as a method and putting it into practice to trace the legacy of our philosophical commonplaces. Hadot’s The Veil of Isis should be the beginning, not the end of such inquiries. Perhaps most importantly, despite our criticisms and development, Hadot and Whitehead both highlight something essential to PWL practice, that the adventure of ideas is playful, with tremendous creative capacity to address our circumstances, to incite us in the ways needed to illuminate to us aspects of the past and present we have missed, to see others we too readily have ignored. It is of course all the more dangerous for its ability to guide the trajectory of thought toward ends that serve some and can destroy others. If done with moral care, it is an invitation to thoughtfully participate in that adventure of ideas for the enrichment and development of good living. Of course, our text too will hopefully join the adventure of ideas as they transform, grow, and die for others. This work is too part of a living rhythmic story of philosophy, one that will evolve, slip, and slide in ways beyond our envisioning. We could not hope for any more from our work. References Auxier, Randall and Gary Herstein. 2017. The Quantum of Explanation: Whitehead’s Radical Empiricism. New York: Routledge. Borges, Jorge Luis. 1993. “Pascal’s Sphere.” In Other Inquisitions, 1937–1952, translated by Ruth L.C. Simms, 205. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Bouthillette, Karl-Stéphan. 2020. Dialogue and Doxography in Indian Philosophy: Points of View in Buddhist, Jaina, and Advaita Vedānta Traditions. Abingdon, UK / New York: Routledge. Cherniss, Harold. 1962. The Riddle of the Early Academy. New York: Russel and Russel. Csikszentmihalyi, Mark. 2006. “Forward.” In Readings in Han Chinese Thought, edited by Mark Csikszentmihalyi, viii–xiii. Indianapolis / Cambridge: Hackett Publishing.

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Davis, Phillip J. and Reuben Hersh. 1998. The Mathematical Experience. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. Domański, Juilusz. 1996. La philosophie, théorie ou manière de vivre? Les controverses de l’Antiquité à la Renaissance, avec une Préface de P. Hadot. Paris: Editions du Cerf. Gay, Peter. “Introduction.” In Ernst Cassirer, The Question of Jean Jacques-Rousseau, edited and translated by Peter Gay. New Haven / London: Yale University Press. Hadot, Ilsetraut. 2015. Athenian and Alexandrian Neoplatonism and the Harmonization of Aristotle and Plato. Translated by Michael Chase. Leiden: Brill. Hadot, Pierre. 1995. Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault. Edited by Arnold I. Davidson. Translated by Michael Chase. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Hadot, Pierre. 2006. The Veil of Isis: An Essay on the History of the Idea of Nature. Translated by Michael Chase. Cambridge, UK: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Hadot, Pierre. 2020. Selected Writings of Pierre Hadot: Philosophy as Practice. Translated by Matthew Sharpe and Federico Testa. London / New York: Bloomsbury. Hadot, Pierre, Jeannie Carlier and Arnold Davidson. 2011. The Present Alone is Our Happiness: Conversations with Jeannie Carlier and Arnold I. Davidson. Translated by Marc Djaballah and Michael Chase. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Hardy, G.H. 1940. A Mathematician’s Apology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 2001 [1902]. The Philosophy of History. Prefaces by Charles Hegel. Translated by J. Sibree. Kitchener, Canada: Batoche Books. Kramer, Eli. 2020. “Introduction: Richard Rorty as a Transitional Genre.” In Rorty and Beyond, edited by Randall Auxier, Eli Kramer, Chris Skowronski, 1–16. Landham, MD: Lexington Books. Kraus, Elizabeth. 1998. The Metaphysics of Experience: A Companion to Whitehead’s Process and Reality. New York: Fordham University Press. Rorty, Richard. 1980. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rorty, Richard. 2007. Philosophy as Cultural Politics: Philosophical Papers Volume 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rothstein, Edward. 2006. Emblems of Mind: The Inner Life of Music and Mathematics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sharpe, Matthew. 2022. “Humanism as a Way of Life.” In Philosophy of Culture as Theory, Method, and Way of Life: Contemporary Reflections and Applications, edited by Przemysław Bursztyka, Marcin Rychter, and Randall Auxier, 173–94. Leiden / Boston: Brill. Whitehead, Alfred North. 1919. An Enquiry Concerning The Principles of Natural Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whitehead, Alfred North. 1968 [1938]. Modes of Thought. New York: The Free Press. Whitehead, Alfred North. 1978. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology. Edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. New York: Free Press.

Index abstraction 147, 373 academia/academic 1, 8, 45–46, 65, 76, 116, 164, 166, 177, 184–86, 338 action 7, 31–32, 36–37, 50, 52, 54, 58–59, 79, 90, 96, 102–3, 118–20, 133, 145, 195, 206– 7, 210, 212, 214–16, 221–24, 227, 253, 256, 304–5, 318, 320, 331, 349–50, 381 aesthetic/aesthetics 4, 13, 28, 70–1, 73–5, 77, 79, 81–2, 108, 112, 140, 156, 196, 217, 224, 291, 297, 304, 370 of existence  4, 5, 7, 12–13, 69–73, 79, 94, 151, 217, 224, 249, 251, 258, 264, 290–91, 314 Agamben, Giorgio 73, 292, 311 alethurgy 245, 251 Ambrose 3, 41 antiquity 2, 3, 6, 10, 12, 15, 17, 25, 27, 29, 50, 52, 64–65, 82, 92, 94–96, 115–19, 121–22, 124, 128, 130–32, 156, 164–65, 184, 197, 221, 231, 233–34, 246, 251, 264–67, 278, 280, 282, 296, 304, 339, 343, 346, 379 Greek 28 Greco-Roman 139, 344 late 8, 25, 28, 38, 43, 121, 126, 186 pagan 28 Roman 28 Antisthenes 63 anachronism 362, 377–78, 381 apophthegmata  38 archaeology/archaeological 183–84, 186, 189–90, 197 argumentation/argument 9, 13–14, 26, 29, 40, 90–91, 102, 118–19, 122, 129–34, 165–6, 169, 178–79, 205–6, 208–13, 215–16, 218–220, 222–23, 226, 316, 329–31, 342, 350–51, 354, 360, 366 Aristophanes 31 Aristotle 9–10, 12, 15–16, 25, 28–29, 32, 35–37, 43, 48, 55–57, 62–65, 95, 99, 103–4, 107, 123, 131, 133, 141–43, 147, 163, 165, 172, 208, 217, 220–21, 232, 303, 338–56, 364–65, 367, 379 Aristotelianism 118, 363, 379 art of living (tekhnē peri ton bion, τέχνη περὶ τὸν βίον) 5–7, 12–13, 25–31, 33–36,

39–41, 43, 58–61, 63, 66–7, 73, 81–82, 92, 115–16, 128, 166, 209–10, 217, 224, 272, 303 asceticism 9, 35, 39, 41, 78, 94, 302 ascesis (askēsis, ἄσκησις)/ascetic 4, 6–7, 9, 26, 33, 41, 72–73, 81, 93–95, 97–98, 105, 107, 116–7, 126, 128–30, 132, 134, 166–67, 187, 210–11, 214, 217–18, 276, 279–80, 282, 301 assent 130–31, 170, 173, 326 attention (prosochē, προσοχή) 26, 39–40, 78–80, 129, 145, 147, 154–55, 157–58, 214, 216, 307, 319, 321–22, 340 attitude 8, 26–27, 29, 34, 38, 40, 47, 51, 77, 92, 96, 101, 103, 106–8, 110, 119, 125, 127, 145–46, 154, 157, 216, 238, 252, 263, 267, 269, 276–8, 305, 316, 320, 330, 367, 371–72 Augustine 41–43, 147, 377 Aurelius, Marcus 3, 39, 58–60, 142, 147, 177, 191, 194–96, 292–93, 299–302, 308, 310–11, 339, 343 Austin, James 14, 139, 141, 155 authentic/authenticity 45, 93, 100, 123, 141, 145, 148–50, 173, 198, 246, 271, 375 Basil of Caesarea 41 Baudelaire, Charles 13, 69–71, 77–83 beautiful (to kalon, τὸ καλόν) 4, 13, 36, 39, 71, 77, 81–82, 109, 196, 217, 254, 289, 370 beauty 54–55, 70, 78–9, 81–83, 158, 190, 196, 249, 370, 372 Beck, Aaron 171–73, 177 Beck, Judith 171–72, 174 Bergson, Henri 116, 155, 381 bios (βίος) 33, 37, 46–48, 53–61, 63–67, 107, 109, 210, 249, 255–58, 260–61, 314–15, 322, 324, 326, 329–335, 347, 349–50 Boethius 39, 364 body 27, 31, 35–36, 41–42, 55, 70, 128–29, 140–41, 164, 166, 168, 184, 196–97, 232, 308–10, 318, 325, 343, 355 brain 153–55, 157–58, 168 Buddhism, Buddhist 14, 51–52, 97, 139, 141, 144, 150, 153–54, 156–57, 188

386 care (epimeleia, ἐπιμέλεια) 40–42, 54–55, 64–65, 91, 104, 142, 152, 217, 233, 249, 275, 277–78, 294, 298, 303, 314–316, 318–22, 325–29, 331–35, 383 of others 231–32, 263, 270, 274, 278, 281, 305 of the self/of oneself 4, 7, 15–16, 45, 72–74, 76–77, 80, 89, 93–94, 96, 187, 205, 212, 216, 224, 231–33, 246, 249, 265–66, 270–74, 277, 280–81, 283, 29, 293–95, 303–8, 311, 313–15, 317–19, 325 of the soul 16, 26, 33–34, 45, 271, 311, 313–14, 316, 324–25, 328, 335 self- 28, 33, 40, 43, 293, 306–7 Cavell, Stanley 238 Chase, Michael 8, 11, 13–14, 73, 75, 90, 116, 129, 138, 140, 150, 153, 264, 362 Christian/Christianity 2, 3, 9, 12, 25, 28, 38, 40–43, 47, 49, 52, 71–72, 89, 93–94, 98, 117–18, 121, 123, 126, 147, 155, 185, 188, 190, 197, 231, 273, 278–79, 283, 298, 304–7, 364 choice 30, 48–49, 51, 54, 57, 60–61, 118–9, 124, 128, 184, 232, 244, 256–57, 266–69, 272, 304, 310, 318, 350, 376–77 existential 9, 134, 212, 215, 267–68, 273, 281 Chrysippus 38, 60, 142, 163, 169, 172, 177, 339 Cicero, Marcus Tullius 27, 32, 38, 42, 195, 266, 342, 355 Clement of Alexandria 41 Colli, Giorgio 102, 105–7 concentration 139, 146, 150–51, 259 conduct 32–33, 42–43, 46, 52, 108, 127, 167, 216, 219, 236–37, 246, 252–54, 256, 276, 278, 280, 319, 330, 350 confession 146–7, 185, 189, 278–79, 377 contemplation 37, 59, 63, 101, 108, 111, 115, 132, 141, 151, 265–66, 296, 344–53, 356 contraction 139, 151 contradiction 125, 302, 339, 345 control 42, 58, 97, 129, 146, 170, 194, 206, 214, 219, 221, 225, 233, 320, 381 convention/conventional 29, 35, 48–49, 57, 61, 66, 123, 128, 134, 209, 294, 338 conversion 5, 34, 41, 57, 74, 89, 92, 95, 97, 104, 111, 115, 124, 130, 134, 150, 167, 184, 187, 217, 283, 291, 293, 295, 307

Index Cooper, John 7, 9, 13–14, 46, 57, 60, 62, 89, 91–2, 105, 111, 117–24, 126, 128–34, 205–8, 211–3, 219, 221–23, 226–27, 304, 339, 347–48, 355 conscience 194, 269 direction of 247 examination of 121, 129, 146, 191, 195, 245, 265 consciousness 26, 70, 75, 77, 93, 108, 122–3, 137, 140, 147, 154–55, 158, 188, 377 cosmic 6, 13–14, 75–76, 90, 138–41, 150, 153, 155–58, 226, 264, 290–91, 302 consolation 40 courage 77, 235, 242–43, 246, 249–50, 254–55, 258–60, 277, 317, 326, 328–29, 333–34 Crates 62 creation 101, 105, 173, 341 creativity 12, 361, 363–64, 369–71, 374 critique 80, 238 culture 2, 10, 49, 79, 103, 105, 110, 116, 157, 164, 183–84, 187, 190, 197–98, 245, 253, 271, 301, 361–62, 366, 368, 371, 380 of the self 73, 94, 246, 265, 289, 291, 293, 306 Cynics 15, 34, 50, 62–66, 95, 225, 227, 241, 258, 266, 278, 306, 343 Cynicism 7, 35, 62–63, 249, 278, 303, 338, 363 daimōn (δαίμων) 129, 104, 139–43, 149, 152 dandy/dandysm 13, 69–71, 73, 76–78, 80–82, 151, 264, 291, Davidson, Arnold 124, 126, 173, 263, 268, 291, 345 death 4–5, 28, 34, 38, 42, 47, 63, 65, 72–73, 77, 107, 129, 131, 142, 146, 149, 154, 156, 190, 196, 247, 263, 265, 289, 295–96, 303, 307, 310, 313, 315, 368 Delphic 33, 149, 306, 314, 377 democracy 32, 231, 248, 316 Democritus 30–31 Derrida, Jacques 241 Descartes, René 5, 70, 89, 96, 116, 125, 217, 227, 366, 377 desire 26, 31, 39, 42, 70, 74, 129, 146, 153, 158, 178, 193–94, 209–10, 214, 221, 225, 265, 277, 279, 296, 299, 318, 340–41, 343, 354 destiny 29, 104–5, 271

Index dialectic/dialectical 63, 99, 110, 129, 132, 147, 325, 350, 381 diatribe 238 Diogenes Laertius 34, 61, 107, 272 Diogenes of Sinope 34, 42, 62–63, 131, 338 discipline 6, 27, 36, 39, 49, 51, 53, 90, 119, 122, 129, 164, 166, 176, 184, 186, 199, 212 discourse 6, 9, 14–15, 25, 70, 72, 79–81, 90–91, 96, 98, 101–3, 109–11, 115–16, 122, 125, 129–30, 132–33, 165, 184–86, 189–90, 206, 208, 215–16, 218–20, 222–23, 225, 231–36, 238, 242–43, 245–47, 249, 251–60, 267, 269, 276–77, 279, 332, 343–44, 355, 359, 364, 366–68, 383 doctrine 8–9, 40, 57, 59–60, 62, 99–101, 103, 105–6, 109, 125, 133, 138, 146–47, 153, 184, 210–13, 219, 222–23, 226, 263, 267, 269, 355 dreams 38, 156 duties 59, 129, 193, 214, 271, 329, 382 education 8, 31–33, 41, 43, 53, 148–49, 163, 175, 254, 305, 307, 316, 322, 328, 370 Einstein, Albert 158 Ellis, Albert 171, 173, 177 emotion 14, 38, 146, 148, 167–74, 177, 207, 221, 223, 227 Empedocles 30, 91, 98, 104–111 Epictetus 39, 57–59, 131, 142, 173–75, 177, 196, 216, 343, 355 Epicureanism 2, 7, 9, 12, 15, 35, 46, 56, 60, 67, 118, 121, 146, 212, 263–74, 278, 280, 290, 292–93, 296, 303, 338, 363, 379 Epicurus 37–38, 60–61, 110, 121, 131, 147, 172, 210, 220–21, 265, 270–72, 274–77, 295, 307, 338 ergon (ἔργον) 54, 210, 218, 221–22, 225, 253–55, 261, 331–34 error 75–76, 164, 359, 361–66, 368–71, 373–76, 379–83 eros (erōs, ἔρως) 95, 104, 303, 306 ethics 4–5, 7, 13, 27, 29–31, 36–37, 71, 79, 81, 129, 143–44, 195–96, 211, 233, 264–66, 275–76, 289, 291, 296, 303–4, 338 ethos (ēthos, ἦθος) 2, 29, 72, 78, 218, 264, 276 examination 29, 33, 173–4, 297, 299, 317, 322, 324, 329–30, 332, 334–35 of conscience 121, 129, 146, 191, 194–5, 245, 265

387 exercise 26–27, 32, 34–35, 37–38, 41, 62, 76, 78, 98, 101–2, 128, 131, 144–48, 151, 166, 207–9, 214–16, 222–24, 226, 245, 270, 300–301, 305, 309–10, 323, 327, 346, 351 ascetic 116, 187, 217 bottom-up 144–45 ethical 127, 167 imaginative 38 intellectual 127, 129–30, 132, 146–47, 167, 178, 207, 211–12, 214, 223–24 meditational 129 mind 132 moral 127, 146 of concentration 146 of formation 145 of reason 121, 222, 224 of self-renunciation 147–48 of the self 7, 14 oral 99 philosophical 37, 126, 130, 213–14, 230, 344 physical 27, 128 physio-epistemic 299 practical 210 spiritual 3, 5–6, 9, 13–14, 26, 43, 45–46, 58–59, 72, 89, 92–93, 96–97, 99, 115–34, 137–38, 140–41, 144–48, 153, 157–58, 163–67, 176–79, 190, 194–95, 205, 210–13, 214–16, 222–24, 226, 238, 265, 267–68, 281–82, 291–92, 294, 299–301, 304, 355, 380 therapeutic 146 thought 127, 167, 178, 214 top-down 144 excellence 131, 254, 347, 349 experience 6, 29, 35, 51, 64–65, 72, 76, 80, 90, 93, 95, 97, 106–7, 111, 123, 137–40, 144–45, 154–58, 171, 174, 187–88, 217–18, 244–47, 265, 267–68, 270, 280–81, 310, 331, 340, 346, 349, 360, 375–76, 380 experiment 26, 163 experimentation 269, 282 flattery 231–2, 234, 238, 276 formation 3, 72, 124, 132, 144–45 freedom 4, 6, 9, 32, 35, 62, 64, 71, 76–80, 198, 209, 215, 248, 253, 255, 273, 290, 294 friendship 129, 214, 266, 275, 277, 292

388 Friedmann, Georges 93 Fronto 191–95 Galen 28, 141, 143 genealogy 74, 80, 89, 91–92, 94, 96–97, 111–12, 243–44, 248, 251, 260, 359, 362–63, 366, 368, 375–76, 380–83 God 34, 37, 42, 65, 75–76, 101, 104–5, 109, 123, 134, 141–43, 197–98, 297, 301, 306, 344, 346–48, 364–65 gods 30, 37, 64, 101, 103, 105–7, 109, 123, 142–43, 265, 295, 320 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 157, 190, 371, 375 good (to agathon, τὸ ἀγαθόν) 29, 36, 38, 71, 81, 83, 102–3, 140, 277, 289, 320–22, 335, 364 government 79–80, 274, 305 governmentality 245–46, 278 gratitude 129

Index joy 73–75, 108, 269, 290 judgment 36, 42–43, 61, 77, 169–70, 173–74, 177, 220–21, 256–57, 319, 375–76 Julian 141 kairos (καιρός) 233 Kant, Immanuel 13, 70–71, 77–80, 82, 116, 244, 264 Kierkegaard, Søren 2, 116 knowledge 4, 6, 16, 27–30, 32–37, 54–55, 61, 72, 80, 93–94, 97, 102–3, 106–9, 111, 119–21, 128, 131–33, 146, 163, 166, 187–89, 212–13, 217–19, 223, 225–26, 244–45, 256, 265, 277, 295, 298–300, 302, 308, 313–15, 318, 320, 322–25, 327, 333–35, 339–46, 356

Habermas, Jürgen 186, 238 habit 9, 37, 50, 129, 131, 209, 225, 282, 307 habituation 48, 131, 211, 215, 225–26, 355 Hadot, Ilsetraut 3, 126, 199 Harter, Pierre-Julien 13, 144–45, 151 happiness 34, 37, 42–43, 61–62, 74, 132–33, 141, 152, 217, 226, 265–66, 272, 277, 290, 294, 346–48, 350, 352–54 Hegel, G. W. Friedrich 2, 14, 94, 125, 188–190, 195, 244, 339, 381 Heidegger, Martin 2, 123, 188, 241, 361, 381 Hellenism 38, 364 Heraclitus 29, 42, 143, 206, 253, 361, 368 Hippocrates 41 Hölderlin, Friedrich 190 Homer 53, 106 Horn, Christoph 2, 10, 12–13, 28, 129, 143–48, 150–52 Husserl, Edmund 188, 377

language 29, 48, 58, 66, 73, 78, 103, 110, 125, 134, 157, 163–64, 183, 186, 194, 198, 230, 232, 236, 248, 252, 254, 267, 299, 302, 308–10, 369, 375 games 3, 125–26, 267, 382 life contemplative 345–50 flourishing 120, 209 good 8, 26–27, 36, 54, 63, 65, 119–20, 352, 364 happy 36, 351–2 philosophical 7, 41–42, 105, 115, 119–22, 131–32, 148, 215, 219, 221, 223, 225, 248, 251, 342, 345 religious 122–23 unexamined 33 unphilosophical 227 way of 1, 4, 6–7, 12, 15–16, 26, 31, 37, 43, 46–53, 55–67, 89–91, 97, 105, 111, 116–122, 124, 130, 132–34, 137, 151, 209– 13, 224, 242–43, 255–60, 267, 274, 289, 304, 332–35, 338–40, 342–46, 349–50, 352, 354–56, 360, 364, 366, 378–80

Ignatius of Loyola 121, 124, 126, 166 infinity 139, 156, 265, 280 intellect 130, 132, 141–43, 152, 212, 215, 219, 347–48, 353 intellectualism 206–8, 212, 215, 219, 221–22, 227 irony 9, 235

listening 129, 276–77, 280 literature 3–4, 157, 178, 198, 341, 369 literary genres 125, 132, 238, 379 logic 101–3, 129, 291, 296, 338, 374 logos (λόγος) 14–5, 33, 41–42, 89–91, 96–98, 102–3, 105, 107, 109–12, 134, 140, 143, 146, 149–50, 165–6, 168, 205–6, 208,

389

Index 210–11, 213–16, 218–22, 225, 232, 236, 243, 249, 251–58, 260–61, 298–99, 302, 308, 311, 329–35, 341, 355 Lorenzini, Daniele 11, 15, 250, 276 love 52, 82, 99, 109, 134, 157, 192–93, 195, 256, 265, 318, 344, 367 Lucretius 107, 110–11, 265 Marx, Karl 189 meditation (meletē, μελέτη) 26, 34, 37–38, 115, 122, 129, 139, 146, 149–50, 153–54, 198, 214 praemeditatio malorum 129 praemeditatio mortis 38 memorization (mnēmē, μνήμη) 37, 122, 129 metaphysics 29, 36, 90, 138, 249, 311, 338, 342, 353, 370, 373–74 Metrodorus 147, 265 mind 109–10, 131, 142, 174, 212, 235, 268, 281, 309, 344–46 exercises 129, 132 life of the 63, 141 presence of 198 peace of 6, 290 state of 31, 140 training of the 35, 128 monasticism 41, 72, 165 monotheism 186 Montaigne, Michel de 116, 125 music 39, 112, 157, 341, 370, 372 nature (phusis, φύσις) 29, 32–33, 35, 59–62, 76, 80, 90–92, 97, 104–12, 128–29, 131–32, 134, 138–39, 149–50, 157–58, 190, 215, 264–66, 290–92, 294–99, 301, 308, 341, 351, 353, 361, 366–67, 369, 371–72 Neoplatonism 39, 90, 95, 99, 118, 128, 139, 216, 221, 293, 304, 349 Newman, John Henry 130 Nietzsche, Friedrich 2, 53, 112, 116, 125, 143, 157, 188, 218, 244, 299, 355, 381 norm 50–51, 80, 140, 143, 245, 264–66, 371 Nussbaum, Martha 2, 7, 9, 14, 60, 116, 165, 168–69, 172, 177–79, 205–11, 213, 216, 219, 222, 226, 242, 339 obedience 80, 123, 134, 278 ontology 32

critical 70 of self 249, 315 of the present 79–80, 83, 244 of the subject 73 oral 98–104, 125 orality 98–100, 125 Origen 41 Ovid 195 pagan 25, 28, 38, 40–41, 94, 121, 126, 185, 190, 304–5 paideia (παιδεία) 128, 306 pain 62, 166, 193, 238, 310, 331 parrhesia (parrhēsia, παρρησία) 7, 9, 14–15, 80, 187, 218, 230–38, 241–44, 246–55, 257–61, 266, 271, 275–80, 283, 317, 329, 332 Parmenides 30 passions 26, 31, 41, 92, 127, 129, 140, 146, 149–50, 152–53, 167, 214, 277–79 perception 6, 75, 116, 123, 132, 137, 140, 156, 173, 175, 282 perlocutionary 15, 230, 236–38 persuasion 9, 13, 231–3, 235, 237 Philo of Alexandria 40 Philodemus 195–6, 275, 277–78 philosophy Greco-Roman 156–7, 377 Greek 12, 25, 31, 51, 66, 103, 122, 126, Hellenistic 26, 37–38, 56, 66, 76, 116, 122, 132, 209, 303 Roman 8, 51, 66, 225, 233–34, 294, 303 physics 15–16, 101, 129, 137, 142, 163, 266, 289, 291–99, 302, 307–8, 310–11, 342, 353, 372 Pindar 143 Plato 7, 9, 12, 15–16, 25, 28, 30, 32–34, 36, 43, 48, 52, 56, 58, 62–67, 90, 92, 95, 97–101, 103–5, 107, 109–11, 125, 131–32, 141–42, 147, 149, 152, 163, 165, 172, 210, 212, 220–21, 225, 231, 233, 235–36, 238, 248–49, 256–57, 271, 278, 303, 305, 310, 313, 315–18, 322, 326, 329, 335, 339, 341–44, 347, 359–61, 363–66, 369, 375, 378–79 Platonism 42, 95–96, 98, 105, 144, 212, 267, 289, 293, 298, 302, 304, 306–11, 313, 338, 363, 379

390 pleasure 5, 30–31, 35, 42, 56, 64–65, 71, 73– 78, 193–94, 196, 264–65, 270, 289–90, 294, 296, 307, 321, 346–47, 353–54 Plotinus 3, 39, 117, 125, 143, 147, 151, 167, 304, 366, 369 Plutarch 28, 61, 295 poetry 53, 92, 98, 110, 126, 157, 369–70. 372 politics 64–65, 79, 81–83, 94, 110, 238, 342, 349–50, 356 Porphyry 3, 39–40, 132, 363–66, 369, 378 power 4, 27, 39, 41–42, 55–56, 64, 70, 74, 76, 79, 82, 90, 102, 107–9, 120, 122, 129, 143, 188, 190, 207–8, 210, 213, 215, 219–220, 222, 224, 226, 237–38, 245, 278, 281, 296, 299, 304–5, 307, 316, 318, 333, 371–72 cognitive 219–20, 222, 226 disciplinary 4 divine 226 intellectual 143 mental 207–8, 213, 215, 226 political 55, 305 Presocratics 25, 28, 30–31, 43, 62, 90, 99, 104 Proclus 39 psyche (psukhē, ψυχή) 16, 26, 33, 45, 54, 92–93, 96–98, 105, 109–12, 141, 143, 189, 224, 250, 313–14, 324–29, 333–35 psychology 4, 25, 164, 212, 221, 223–25, 227, 353 purification 39, 63, 91, 105, 111, 120, 129, 147, 187, 217, 250 Pythagoras 30–31, 53, 56, 107 Pythagoreanism 91, 97–98, 103–5, 107 Pyrrho 61 Pyrrhonism 267 Rabbow, Paul 3, 28, 93, 126 rationality 28, 96, 152, 168–69, 210, 218, 298, 343 reason 9, 14, 39–40, 75–76, 80–81, 90–91, 119–23, 128–30, 134, 137, 139–41, 143–44, 149–50, 152–53, 157, 205–10, 212–27, 268–70, 290–91, 294, 297–302, 308, 326, 347–48, 351–53, 366 relaxation 26 religion 9, 13, 25, 30, 40, 47, 52, 57, 59, 61, 91–92, 94, 97, 104, 106, 110, 112, 115, 117, 120–23, 127, 134, 137, 147, 176, 183–86, 190, 195, 209–10, 212, 227, 360 resistance 70, 241, 273, 364

Index rhetoric 15, 31–32, 178, 187, 230–38, 250, 276, 367 Robertson, Donald 165, 171–73, 175, 177–78, 179–80 Rolland, Romain 75, 156 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 380 Russel, Bertrand 370, 381 sage 27, 30, 57, 60, 99, 139, 173, 186, 233, 265, 274, 299, 309, 344, salvation 40–51, 43, 49, 104, 146, 273–74, 277, 279, 295 Scholastics 96 Scholasticism 217, 227, 364, 366 Schopenhauer, Arthur 2, 116, 125, 188 science 2, 36, 43, 75, 106, 138, 149, 163–65, 186, 199, 246, 338, 369 self authentic 141, 149 practices of the 7, 14, 205, 210, 216, 226, 265, 294, 311 techniques of the 205, 226, 270 technologies of the 4, 6, 83, 166, 211, 216–17, 222–23, 264, 270 -control 42, 146, 194, 221, 225 -criticism 37 -cultivation 4 -discipline 128 -examination 37, 129 -formation 71–72, 78, 80, 128, 302 -knowledge 33–34, 249, 298, 306–7, 313–14 -mastery 27, 129, 233, 273 -sufficiency 56, 255 -transformation 14, 26, 28, 55, 79, 115, 124, 128, 133–34, 137–38, 151, 188, 207, 217–18, 291–92, 380 -writing 290 Sellars, John 2, 5, 7, 9–10, 14, 16, 26, 28, 33, 47, 53–55 58–59, 73, 75–76, 89, 93, 117, 128, 131, 137, 166, 170, 173, 205, 207–8, 210–3, 215, 219, 222, 226, 264, 289, 292, 295, 302, 304, 309, 311, 338–39 Seneca 28, 39, 57–60, 70, 73–76, 121, 142, 144, 147, 152, 177, 216, 230, 264, 273, 290, 292–93, 296–302, 308–11, 339, 355 Sextus Empiricus 107, 142, 227, 343

391

Index Sharpe, Matthew 1, 5, 7–8, 10–11, 15–16, 46, 73, 76, 117, 129, 140, 206, 264, 292, 338–39, 381 silence 39, 67, 276 Skepticism 56, 61, 118, 363 society 10, 47–50, 52, 56, 61, 66, 79, 148, 196, 198, 273, 341, 362, 368, 375, 380, 382 Socrates 7, 12, 15, 25, 31–33, 42–43, 53–56, 58, 63–64, 67, 90–91, 95, 97–98, 102–4, 115, 118, 141–42, 150, 206, 210, 212, 214, 217, 221, 225–26, 233, 235, 248–49, 252–55, 261, 271, 305, 313, 315, 319, 323–35, 338, 342–44, 355 Socratism 118, 267 Sophists 31–32, 43 Sophistry 232 soul 16, 26–27, 31–35, 39–41, 45, 54–56, 61, 63, 93, 95, 100, 102–5, 107, 125, 127–30, 141, 143–44, 149, 167, 173, 183–84, 196–98, 205, 209–11, 220–21, 226, 233, 236, 247–49, 271–72, 279, 290, 295–96, 298–99, 305, 307–11, 313–16, 323–25, 327–29, 333, 335, 352, 355 Spinoza, Baruch 2, 119 spirituality 3, 6, 9, 13–4, 52, 72, 81–82, 89, 91–101, 105, 111–12, 123, 128, 167, 176, 183, 185, 187–88, 190, 198, 217, 223–24, 282, 291, 313 Stoicism 2, 7–9, 12, 14, 35, 46, 56–60, 67, 75, 81, 90, 118, 128, 142, 146, 150, 163–65, 167, 171, 173, 175–79, 206, 209, 218, 264, 267–69, 292–93, 296, 300–303, 308–9, 311, 338, 363, 379 subjectivity 2, 94, 153, 214, 245, 282, 313

of the soul 325 philosophy as 14, 26, 43, 45, 124, 165, 179, 209 Thoreau, Henry David 116 Thucydides 32, 48, 316 training 26, 31, 35, 62, 128, 131–32, 134, 144, 154, 166, 207, 210–11, 224, 355, 379 intellectual 131, 212–13, 223 of reason 225 of the mind 35, 128 of the soul 32 for death 129 philosophical 27, 40 truth 6, 9, 14, 29, 35, 72, 78, 80, 90–91, 94–96, 103, 106–7, 109–11, 120, 130, 149, 184, 187–89, 191, 196, 206, 209, 216–18, 221, 224, 226, 230, 232–38, 242–52, 254–55, 257, 260, 271, 276–80, 295, 306–7, 311, 313–15, 317, 332, 352, 367, 374, 377–78 act of 81 discourse of 233, 245, 279 -telling 9, 15, 206, 218, 247–49, 258–59, 263, 275, 277, 279–80, 332

tekhnē (τέχνη) 63, 72, 166, 188–89, 210–11, 231, 233, 324–25, 327, 332, 340 peri ton bion (περὶ τὸν βίον) 45, 128, 166 theology 105, 147, 186, 198, 341 theory 4, 6, 9, 29–30, 37, 53, 59, 103, 105, 115, 122, 130, 132–33, 146, 170, 179, 186, 211, 215–16, 265, 280, 341, 345–46, 355–56, 367, 374, 377 theōria (θεωρία) 37, 56, 59–60, 62–65, 142, 348 therapy cognitive 14, 163, 165, 171, 173–79 of the passions 129

Whitehead, Alfred North 16, 359–63, 366, 369–70, 372–75, 378, 380–83 wisdom (sophia, σοφία) 25, 29–31, 33, 40, 42, 63, 81, 97, 99, 119–20, 134, 142, 154, 211, 214, 217, 226–27, 267–69, 272, 274–75, 282, 289, 331, 339–42, 344, 352–53 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 3, 115, 125–26, 183, 267 writing 98–100, 102, 106–7, 246, 354–55, 367 worldview 111, 128–29, 156, 330

veridiction 94, 245–50, 252, 276, 278 Vesperini, Pierre 2, 9, 10–11, 14, 137 Veyne, Paul 73, 281, 291, Victorinus, Marius 3, 41 view from above 90, 129, 147, 297, 300–302, 309–10 virtue 34–35, 37, 42, 48, 54–55, 62–63, 74, 105, 151, 206, 220, 247, 301, 318, 327–28, 331, 333–34, 347, 350 visibility 15, 58, 242–43, 250–56, 258–61

Xenophon 28, 32, 142 Zeno 165, 177

31 mm

PWL 5

the ��rst extensive critical assessment of these interpretations. It brings together specialists in ancient philosophy, as well as Hadot and Foucault scholars, in order both to explore criticisms and clarify Hadot’s and Foucault’s accounts. In doing so, it not only o�fers an overview of the main trends in Philosophy as a Way of Life, but also recasts the debate and opens new paths of inquiry in the ��eld. MARTA FAUSTINO, Ph.D. (2013), is an Appointed Research Fellow at the NOVA Institute of Philosophy (IFILNOVA/NOVA-FCSH). She has published several articles and chapters on Nietzsche, Hadot and Foucault and co-edited ��ve books, including The Late Foucault: Ethical and Political Questions (Bloomsbury, 2020). HÉLDER TELO, Ph.D. (2018), is an Appointed Research Fellow at Praxis: Centre for Philosophy, Politics and Culture (University of Beira Interior, Portugal). He has published articles and chapters on Plato, Aristotle, Stoicism and Heidegger, among others, and co-edited two books, including In the Mirror of the Phaedrus (Academia, 2013).

PHILOSOPHY AS A WAY OF LIFE Texts and Studies, 5 9 789004 693517

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Hadot and Foucault on Ancient Philosophy

interpretations have been criticized in several crucial points. This book provides

Critical Assessments

ancient philosophy, as well as their impact, are well-known. However, these

Marta Faustino and Hélder Telo (eds.)

The a���nities between Pierre Hadot’s and Michel Foucault’s interpretations of

P H I L O S O P H Y A S A WAY O F L I F E T E X T S A N D S T U D I E S

Hadot and Foucault on Ancient Philosophy C R I TI C A L A S S E S S M E N TS

Edited by M A RTA FAU STI N O A N D H É L DE R TE LO