What Is Ancient Philosophy?

378 Pages·2004·4.36 MB·English

by  Pierre Hadot

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WHAT IS ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY?

I I I I I I I I I
WHAT IS
ANCIENT
PH I LOSO PHY?
I I I I I I I I I
Pl ERRE HA DOT
Translated by Michael Chase
THE BELKNAP PRESS OF
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
Copyright© 2002 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First Harvard University Press paperback edition, 2004
This book was originally published as Qu'est-ce que la
philosophie antique? by Editions Gallimard, copyright© 1995
by Editions Gallimard.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hadot, Pierre.
[Qu'est-ce que la philosophie antique? English]
What is ancient philosophy? I Pierre Hadot; translated by Michael Chase.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-674-00733-6 (cloth)
ISBN 0-674-01373-5 (pbk.)
I. Philosophy, Ancient. I. Title.
Bl72.H33513 2002
180-dc21 2002017193
Designed by Gwen Nefsky Frankfeldt
TO THE MEMORY OF A.-J. VOELKE

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Translator's Note xi
Introduction 1
P A R T 0 N E
The Platonic Definition of "Philosopher" and Its Antecedents
1 Philosophy before Philosophy 9
2 The Inception of the Idea of "Doing Philosophy" 15
3 The Figure of Socrates 22
4 The Definition of "Philosopher" in Plato's Symposium 39
P A R T T W O
Philosophy as a Way of Life
5 Plato and the Academy 55
6 Aristotle and His School 77
CONTENTS viii
7 The Hellenistic Schools 91
8 Philosophical Schools in the Imperial Period 146
9 Philosophy and Philosophical Discourse 172
P A R T T H R E E
Interruption and Continuity: The Middle Ages and Modern Times
10 Christianity as a Revealed Philosophy 237
11 Eclipses and Recurrences of the Ancient Concept of
Philosophy 253
12 Questions and Perspectives 271
Notes 283
Quotations of Ancient Texts 324
Selected Bibliography 329
Chronology 331
Index 343
Acknowledgments
The considerations I offer to the reader are the fruit of lengthy la­
bors devoted to ancient philosophers and philosophy. In the
course of this research, two books particularly influenced me. The
first was P. Rabbow's Seelenfuhrung: Methodik der Exerzitien in der
Antike (Spiritual Guidance: Methods of Spiritual Exercise in An­
tiquity), published in Munich in 1954, which set forth the various
forms which these practices could assume among the Epicureans
and the Stoics. This work had the merit of pointing out the conti­
nuity which exists between ancient and Christian spirituality, but
it may have limited itself too exclusively to the rhetorical aspects
of these spiritual exercises. The other work was written by my
wife, Ilsetraut Hadot, before we met. Entitled Seneca und die
griechisch-romische Tradition der Seelenleitung (Seneca and the
Greco-Roman Tradition of Spiritual Guidance; Berlin, 1969), it
resituated the Stoic philosopher's work within the global perspec­
tive of ancient philosophy.
I also had the pleasure of meeting two philosophers who, inde­
pendently from me, were likewise interested in these problems.
One was the late Andre-Jean Voelke, whose studies on philosophy
as therapy of the soul have recently been published (La philosophie