What Is Ancient Philosophy?

Pierre Hadot’s What Is Ancient Philosophy? is a brilliant and thought-provoking exploration of philosophy as a way of life. Unlike modern academic philosophy, Hadot reveals how ancient philosophers—Socrates, Epicurus, the Stoics, and others—lived their teachings, using philosophy as a guide to self-improvement and wisdom. His writing is dense yet rewarding, offering fresh insights into the practical and spiritual dimensions of classical thought. If you’re interested in philosophy beyond theory—philosophy as a practice for living well—this book is an essential read. Highly recommended for scholars and seekers alike.

Written with forthright honesty, wisdom, elegance, and vast learning. We see Plato and Aristotle in a context that will not slight Seneca, Epicurus, and many other Greek and Roman philosophers who sought to relate cosmic awareness to exploratory thought about what a fully human life can be.

Hadot's What is Ancient Philosophy is the summation of a lifetime of research and practice in philosophy. His thesis is fairly simple. Ancient philosophy begins in an existential choice. That choice is based on a vision of the world and a way of life based on that vision. It results in both a philosophical practice and a philosophical discourse. The practice has become largely ignored in favor of focusing on the discourse and this has resulted in a fairly complete misunderstanding of ancient philosophy. I am not claiming that Hadot's presentation of ancient philosophy is completely correct. I think there are some problems with his formulation but before I get into that, I want to broadly outline his thesis. First, when Hadot say ancient philosophy he means Greek and Roman philosophy- in spite of some other reviewers he is very cautious about comparisons to other traditions, such as Buddhism, Judaism or Taoism. He sees that tradition of philosophy as largely composed of the Platonic Academy, Aristotle's school, Epicureanism and Stoicism. He also talks about the Cynics and the Pythagoreans although not in as much detail. At the end of the book (p.278) he suggest that these schools represent fundamental alternatives toward human existence. All cultures can probably be shown to exhibit some variant of these alternatives. Each of these schools posits an ethics, a physics and a theology. These three components were mutually supportive and served to explain the role of humanity in the cosmos and the role of the individual in the city, with their family and in the development of their own soul. The expression of these three components made up the philosophers discourse. But that discourse was just empty words without the philosophers practice. This practice took many forms some of which were specific to one school but many of which were common to all the schools. There was frequently a social component which might be the dedication to philosophical dialogue (as exemplified in Plato and some of the writings of Cicero), or to living together as a group following rules and regulations (which likely heavily influenced the monastic orders that Christianity developed). There were spiritual exercises that served to distance the individual philosopher from her everyday point of view. For example, she might be encouraged to develope the "view from above" which tried to see all of her life as if from a great almost cosmic distance. From this perspective, all her hopes, disappointments, stivings as well of those of others seemed equally petty and small. All events and all things seemed of equal value. She became detached from her everyday human ties to these things. Or she might be encouraged to be mindful of the omnipresence of the possibility of her death. From this perspective, each moment became incredibly precious, an unfolding experience that she must give herself over to with all her being. I want to throw in a personal aside here. I studied philosophy at Sir George Williams University in Montreal, Quebec in the '70s. I do not want to diminish in any way what I learned there. I took a year long seminar in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason from Prof. Vladimir Zeman that changed my life and taught me what little I know about being a scholar. But the sort of exercises that Hadot describes as being the core of the daily life of the ancient philosopher were completely unheard of in what I was taught. Or, I suspect, in what most of our universities teach. Hadot dissects the meaning of the word philosophy as the lover of wisdom- not she who is wise but she who persues wisdom. As Hadot points out, that lack of focus on philosophical practice distorts that history. By focusing on theoretical discourse and its most coherent expression, we lose sight of the possibility that these things were not what was most valued in ancient philosophy. Ancient philosophers were trying to work with their friends, their associates, their families and their communities to effect changes in their souls. Their written material was teaching material designed to be used by different types of students. Consistancy is not to be expected (p. 274) Aporiai happen. So what are the flaws in this account? Let me suggest two. First, Hadot like many others, sees the ancients as too much of a piece for my taste. Read Part Two of his book carefully. He had wonderful sections devoted to each school- to their fundamental outlook, their ethics, physics, theology and their spiritual exercises. Read the section on Aristotle and his school. They were a little different. They come across in Hadot's narrative almost like a research program a là Lakatos (I am showing my philosophical age). In other words, they do not come across as particularly spiritual. They read more like a bunch of secular humanist scientists out to destroy Christmas. More seriously, they don't sound interested in spiritual practices. Their practice was to accumulate knowledge. I think Hadot tries a little too hard to force them into his framework. Which segues into my second issue with Hadot. He sees philosophy as necessarily a rational enterprise. It seems to me in my investigations into spiritual practice that at some point one is brought face to face with the ineffable. Not the irrational but the ineffable. One is brought into contact with that which cannot be spoken, let alone put into a propositional logic. To the extent that ancient philosophy is grounded in rationality is the extent to which it cannot deal with this. But I think that some of the spiritual exercises Hadot discusses are designed to bring our friend the philsopher face to face with just that. If I am reading Hadot correctly, I believe that he gets this aspect of the history wrong. These are minor complaints about what is a magnificent work. I have been strongly influenced by my readings in Strauss of late. There are many similarities (the insistence on philosophy as a way of life) and many differences to explore between these two. More universally, Hadot is a challenge to almost everyone's approach to ancient philosophy. His work simply has to be faced and learned from. Anyone who reads the Greek and Roman philosophers and who tries to learn from them has much to gain from this book. It is one thing to read Cicero or Seneca or Plato. It is another to try to live one's life based on such reading. Hadot just might inspire you to try.

This book provides an excellent summary of the nature, purposes, and evolution of major Greek and Roman philosophical schools and their descendants through the medieval era. As such it is an excellent one-volume introduction to many of the traditions and personalities involved in those schools, and includes tidbits that you will not get from a typical university course. (Did you know that Plato's school included at least a couple of women, one of whom initially snuck in disguised as a man?) A major theme of the work is that the definition of philosophy has changed dramatically in recent centuries. Philosophy is usually now seen as an academic profession devoted to scholarly discussion of selected texts and concepts. In the classical and medieval eras, philosophy was primarily a way of life, which (at least for some schools) might be sought after by people in any walk of life. For those of us who still have an interest in the latter definition, this work is inspiring.

Fascinating book! Enjoyed reading it more than once!

I liked the timely shipping and the nice condition of the book. Very satisfied.

It is a fair length of time since I have read any philosophy, and am so glad I bought this book. I had not read, nor even heard of Pierre Hadot until now, am halfway through this book and have already ordered the one on Marcus Aurelius. Hadot writes very clearly, discusses and analyses the terrain seemingly easily, as does someone who knows their field and was obviously used to helping others traverse it with him. This has reignited my love for the ancient philosophers.

This is one of the most important books I've read, I'm glad it was recommended to me. Coming from John Vervaeke's - Awakening from the Meaning Crisis , YT Series this was one of the original inspirations for understanding Philosophy not as some dry academic exercise but something that was in many ways more fundamental and LIVED than most people even practice religion today. Highly recommend this book. Buy it for yourself and several other copies to give out to others.

What is Ancient Philosophy? The answer Hadot gives is the title of another of his books: Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault . Both books cover the same ground, but complement each other very well, so both are worth reading. "What is Ancient Philosophy?" is a broad overview of the area, while "Philosophy as a Way of Life" focuses on specific topics in greater depth. Hadot stresses the importance of philosophy ("the devoted pursuit of wisdom") as a way of life, not just as an abstract system of thought. His book starts with Plato's Symposium, with Socrates pursuing a discourse and way of life that tends towards wisdom without ever achieving it. For the ancients, the wise person was someone who knew how to live in happiness, and applied that knowledge. The author goes on to consider the schools that followed Socrates in viewing philosophy as a way of life. These include the schools of Antisthenes the Cynic, Epicurus, Plato, Aristotle and Zeno the Stoic. He considers in some depth the spiritual exercises that each school adopted to bring positive changes to the lives of their followers. The adoption, and perversion, of the practices of the Ancient schools by Christianity is briefly considered before Hadot takes on the more fruitful theme of seeing how these practices were taken up by modern philosophers like Montaigne, Descartes, Spinoza, Nietzsche, and Foucault. Finally, Hadot gives the reader some level-headed advice on how he or she can adopt and adapt the exercises to the conditions of modern life. The book is very well written, showing none of the opacity of writing encountered in writers like Derrida or Heidegger. Hadot has been widely acclaimed by leaders in the field, and most of his works can be recommended to the general reader as well as the student of philosophy. I've never read a better book on ancient philosophy, or on philosophy in general. Not only is it a great read, and a work of the highest scholarship, it's life changing.

...with the other assessments here. I had picked this up having previously read Hadot's The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius and also having seen this other work of his recommended. To be honest at first, on reading the first section, I thought that this was going to be fairly shallow and not offering much new (especially given my other previous reading on ancient philosophy), but it does begin to pick up. The main theme is about how the ancient schools' philosophies were to be lived out at all times and not merely theorised about or only spoken about in the lecture hall. Modern studies of these schools tend to rather forget this. Hadot writes in plain language and the result is very readable. It's the kind of book I wish I had read long ago, and it should be first item on the reading list for anyone embarking on a study of ancient philosophy or the history of philosophy.

Readable, sane, profound knowledge worn lightly by a master of his subject.