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This collection of writings from Pierre Hadot (1992-2010) presents, for the first time, previously unreleased and in some cases untranslated materials from one of the world's most prominent classical philosophers and historians of thought. As a passionate proponent of philosophy as a 'way of life' (most powerfully communicated in the life of Socrates), Pierre Hadot rejuvenated interest in the ancient philosophers and developed a philosophy based on their work which is peculiarly contemporary. His radical recasting of philosophy in the West was both provocative and substantial. Indeed, Michel Foucault cites Pierre Hadot as a major influence on his work. This beautifully written, lucid collection of writings will not only be of interest to historians, classicists and philosophers but also those interested in nourishing, as Pierre Hadot himself might have put it, a 'spiritual life'.
Philosophy as a Way of Life This unique collection of essays on the late Pierre Hadot’s revolutionary methodological approach to studying and practicing philosophy explores Hadot’s primary conviction that philosophy itself goes beyond solving puzzles and analyzing abstract arguments. Hadot believed that philosophy is a key part of humanity’s search for happiness, that it can transform our perception of the world, and thus can alter our very mode of being. His argument that the goal of philosophy is to shift our focus away from our habitual obsession with individuality, and to embrace universality and objectivity, has resonated with thinkers across the Academy – and outside it. Offeri...
This book brings together contributions from leading scholars around the world on philosophy as a way of life (PWL), the research field opened up by the groundbreaking works of Pierre and Ilsetraut Hadot. The chapters examine how PWL opens up new perspectives on historical thinkers like Augustine, Alberti, and Mary Astell (part 1), examine the scope and dimensions of this growing research field, including in its comparative dimensions (part 2), and reflect upon PWL as a metaphilosophical paradigm (part 3). The collection as a whole, which closes with contributors reflecting on targeted questions, aims to chart the next research directions for PWL, 30 years after Pierre Hadot’s classic study was translated into English.
What, in Matthew’s view, should a human being become and how does one attain that ideal? In The Sermon on the Mount and Spiritual Exercises: The Making of the Matthean Self, George Branch-Trevathan presents a new account of Matthew’s ethics and argues that the evangelist presents the Sermon on the Mount as functioning like many other ancient sayings collections, that is, as facilitating transformative work on oneself, or “spiritual exercises,” that enable one to realize the evangelist’s ideals. The conclusion suggests some implications for our understanding of ethical formation in antiquity and the study of ethics more generally. This will be an essential volume for scholars studying the Gospel of Matthew, early Christian ethics, the relationships between early Christian and ancient philosophical writings, or ethical formation in antiquity.
"Without doubt this is the best introduction to the personal and spiritual side of Plotinian philosophy." —John Bussanich, International Journal of the Classical Tradition Since its original publication in France in 1963, Pierre Hadot's lively philosophical portrait of Plotinus remains the preeminent introduction to the man and his thought. Michael Chase's lucid translation—complete with a useful chronology and analytical bibliography—at last makes this book available to the English-speaking world. Hadot carefully examines Plotinus' views on the self, existence, love, virtue, gentleness, and solitude. He shows that Plotinus, like other philosophers of his day, believed that Plato and A...
For Michel Foucault, philosophy was a way of questioning the allegedly necessary truths that underpin the practices and institutions of modern society. He carried this out in a series of deeply original and strikingly controversial studies on the origins of modern medical and social scientific disciplines. These studies have raised fundamental questions about the nature of human knowledge and its relation to power structures, and have become major topics of discussion throughout the humanities and social sciences. The essays in this volume provide a comprehensive overview of Foucault's major themes and texts, from his early work on madness through his history of sexuality. Special attention is also paid to thinkers and movements, from Kant through current feminist theory, that are particularly important for understanding his work and its impact. This revised edition contains five new essays and revisions of many others, and the extensive bibliography has been updated.
A magisterial mappa mundi of the terrain that Pierre Hadot has so productively worked for decades, this ambitious work revises our view of ancient philosophy--and in doing so, proposes that we change the way we see philosophy itself. Hadot takes ancient philosophy out of its customary realm of names, dates, and arid abstractions and plants it squarely in the thick of life. Through a meticulous historical reading, he shows how the various schools, trends, and ideas of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy all tended toward one goal: to provide a means for achieving happiness in this life, by transforming the individual's mode of perceiving and being in the world. Most pressing for Hadot is the q...
Virtue in an Age of Identity Politics: A Stoic Approach to Social Justice proffers Stoicism as a more constructive approach to social justice activism than Critical Social Justice, the current core framework for social justice activism in the 21st-century. Critical Social Justice examines ideologies that underlie the stratification of society in ways that confer ongoing benefits to some groups at the expense of other groups and aims for a radical reshaping of prevailing institutions because they purportedly, and irredeemably, underlie a set of norms, beliefs, and attitudes which will continue to perpetuate social inequalities if we do not undertake efforts to rethink, disrupt, and restructur...
This edited collection is the second of two volumes offering critical philosophical and interdisciplinary perspectives on contemporary and historic accounts of living in accordance with the broad natural world as at the center of a good and wise life. It also explores the meaning and idea of nature in these different perspectives as it relates to and is distinguished from cultural life. It builds on the work of Pierre Hadot and others on the connection that philosophers, mystics, scholars, and others (ancient and modern) have seen between nature (as articulated in physics, metaphysics, ontologies, ecologies, biologies, and evolutionary theories) and forms of self-communal cultivation.
This book presents a history of spiritual exercises from Socrates to early Christianity, an account of their decline in modern philosophy, and a discussion of the different conceptions of philosophy that have accompanied the trajectory and fate of the theory and practice of spiritual exercises. Hadot's book demonstrates the extent to which philosophy has been, and still is, above all else a way of seeing and of being in the world.