Philosophy as a Way of Life

Philosophy as a Way of Life

Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault

Pierre Hadot

Edited with an introduction by

Arnold I. Davidson

Translated by

Michael Chase

BLACl<WELL

Od�tJ UIC I\ f�"'�''"'' USA

Copyright 0 Pierre Hadot, 1995

English translation C Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1995

The right of Pierre Hadot to be Identified as author of this work has been asserted In accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Parts of this work first published as Exerclcu 1plrltuel1 et philo1ophle antique by Etudes Augustiniennes, Paris 1987 (2nd edition) English edition first published 1995

Reprinted 1996 (twice), 1997, 1998, 1999

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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes or criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a rcb'ieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission or the publisher.

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise; be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that In which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being Imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Brltlah Library Cataloguing In Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congru1 Cataloging In Publication Data

Hadot, Pierre.

[Exercices spirituels et philosophic antique. English]

Philosophy as a way of life: spiritual exercises from Socrates to Foucault/Pierre Hadot; edited by Arnold Davidson; translated by Michael Chase.

p.cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-631-18032-X (alk. paper) - ISBN 0-631-18033-8 O>bk.:alk. paper) 1. Philosophy. 2. Spiritual exercises - History. I. Davidson, Arnold Ira.

II. Title

Bl05.S66H3313

1995

100-dc20

94-28788

CIP

Typeset in 10.5 on 12 pt Ehrhardt

by Pure Tech Corporation, Pondicherry, India

Printed in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd., Padstow, Cornwall This book is printed on acid-free paper

Contents

Translator's Nott

v1

list of Abbreviations

ix

Introduction: Pie"e Hadol and the Spiritual Phenomenon of Ancient Philosophy Arnold I. Davidson

Part I Method

47

l Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse in Ancient Philosophy 49

2 Philosophy, Exegesis, and Creative Mistakes

7 1

Part II Spiritual Exercises

79

3 Spiritual Exercises

8 1

4 Ancient Spiritual Exercises and "Christian Philosophy"

1 26

Part Ill Figures

145

5 The Figure of Socrates

147

6 Marcus Aurelius

179

7 Reflections on the Idea of the "Cultivation of the Selr'

206

Part IV Themes

215

8 "Only the Present is our Happiness": The Value of the Present Instant in Goethe and in Ancient Philosophy

2 1 7

9 The View from Above

238

10 The Sage and the World

25 1

11 Philosophy as a Way of Life

264

/111stsrrip1: An 1'1terviem with Pierre Hadot

277

Srlrl'I Ri/Jli11grt1pliy

287

l"'lr.t�

301

Translator's Note

The thought of Pierre Hadot is based on a lifetime's study of, and meditation upon, ancient Greek and Latin philosophical texts. In the course of this long period, he has, of course, developed his own methodology for the study of such texts. Based as it is on the methods of his own teachers, such as Paul Henry and Pierre Courcelle, 1 this method is distinctly his own, and he has transmitted it to a whole generation of French scholars in the field of late antique thought.

The first stage of Hadot's method is a scrupulous, textually critical reading of the original texts, followed by an equally exacting translation of these texts into French. 2 Only on the foundation of the intense, detailed confrontation with the text which real translation demands, Hadot feels, can one begin the processes of exegesis, interpretation, and, perhaps, criticism. Thus, Hadot's thought is, at least to a large extent, based on his methods of translation. This being the case, it is impossible to understand the former without understanding the latter.

Such a situation presents obvious difficulties for Hadot's translators. Given the importance he accords to the study of ancient texts, Hadot tends to quote them frequently and extensively, in his own translations from the Greek, the Latin, and the German. Now, a translator's normal procedure would be to dig up the already existing English translations of the respective texts, and insert them where Hadot's own translations had stood in the original. After much consultation, we have found this method inadequate, for the following reasons: Many existing English translations are themselves inadequate; some are old and outdated; others based on different textual readings from those adopted by Hadot. In the case of still others, finally, no English translation exists at all.

2 There is no such thing as an "objective translation." All ttanslators base their work on their own conception of what their author was trying to say.

Naturally, Hadot has often arrived at views of what his authors meant which differ from those of the various other ttanslators; his own translations consequently differ, sometimes fundamentally, from the existing J<:nglish versions.3

Translator's Note

vii

3 The use of existing English translations would often make Hadot's thought impossible to understand. If we were to insert, for example, a 60-year-old English translation of, say, Marcus Aurelius into the text, and then follow it with Hadot's explanation of the passage, the result would be ludicrously incoherent. Most importantly, it would make it impossible for the reader to gain any notion of the genesis and development of Hadot's thought -

which is, after all, the goal of this publication. As I have said, the origin of Hadot's thought is to be sought in his interpretation of ancient texts, and his translations of these texts are both the result and an integral part of his hermeneutical method. Deprived of his translations, we could simply not see how Hadot had arrived at his particular interpretations of particular ancient texts, and consequently we would be at a loss to understand the conclusions he has based on these interpretations.

This being the case, the method I have chosen to follow in the translation of Spiritual Exercises is the following: in the case of each of Hadot's quotations of passages in Greek, Latin, or German, I have begun by a simple English translation of Hadot's French version. I have then checked the result against the original Greek, Latin, or German. If the English translation of Hadot's version, read on its own, then seemed to me to be a good translation of the original text, I let it stand; if not, I modified it slightly, with two goals in mind: first, to bring it into accord with modern English usage; secondly, to make sure the English transmitted, as far as possible, all the nuances of the original languages. In cases of particular difficulty, I have benefited from Hadot's thoughtful advice and comments, partly by correspondence, and partly during the course of a memorable stay at the Hadot's home in the summer of 1991.4

The resulting translations therefore often bear little resemblance to existing English translation; this is especially so in the case of authors like Plato, Marcus Aurelius, and Plotinus, to whom M. Hadot has devoted a lifetime of study. Nevertheless, we have decided to include references to the most accessible - not necessarily the best - extant English translations, in case the interested reader should care to consult the ancient authors cited in this hook.

Such a method is, obviously, more time-consuming than the usual slapdash method of translation. My hope is that the result justifies the delays incurred: I would like to think the result is a scholarly and above all faithful version of 1-lndot's thought.

NOTES

I ( :r. 11b11vc

l funnnl( the 1�c1111ll11 of hi11 work 1111 thi11 Ktllgc of hiN method nrc Hndot's projcc11;

viii

Translator's Note

for completely new translations of those thinkers who have particularly occupied his attention: Plotinus, Marcus Aurelius, Marius Victorinus, etc.

3 This is so even in the case of so eminent a student of Plotinus, and so conscientious a translator, as A.H. Armstrong. Although he, too, has devoted a lifetime of careful study to Plotinus, he often reaches conclusions in the interpretation of particular Plotinian passages which differ from those of Hadot.

The reason for this is not hard to seek: Plotinus is an extremely difficult author, and his writings are susceptible of many different interpretations.

4 Here I should like to express, on behalf of my wife Isabel and myself, our deep gratitude for the Hadots' wonderful hospitality.

Abbreviations

ACW: Ancient Christian Writers, The Works of the Fathers in Translation, eds Johannes Q�asten and Joseph C. Plumpe, Westminster MD/London.

ANF: The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325, eds Rev. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, American Reprint of the Edinburgh Edition, revised and chronologically arranged, with brief prefaces and occasional notes, by A. Cleveland Coxe, Buffalo.

FC: The Fathers of the Chu1�ch. A NeJP Translation, Washington DC.

GCS: Die Griechischen Christ/ichen Scriftsteller der Ersten Jahrhunderte, ed.

Kommission filr Splitantike Religionsgeschichte der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin.

GW: Gesammelte Werke, S0ren Kierkegaard, Diisseldorf/Cologne 1961.

! CL: Loeb Classical Library, London/Cambridge MA.

..

PG: Patrologia Graeca, ed. J.P. Migne, Paris 18#-55.

PL: Patrologia Latina, ed. J.P. Migne, Paris 1857-66.

SC: Sources chretiennes, Paris 1940ff.

SVF: Stoicorum Vetenum Fragmenta, ed. H. Von Arnim, 4 vols, Leipzig 1903.

Introduction: Pie"e Hadot and the Spiritual

Phenomenon of Ancient Philosophy

I believe it was in 1982 that Michel Foucault first mentioned Pierre Hadot to me. Struck by Foucault's enthusiasm, I photocopied a number of Hadot's articles, but, to my regret, never got around to reading them until several years after Foucault's death. I immediately understood, and shared, Foucault's excitement, for Hadot's work exhibits that rare combination of prodigious historical scholarship and rigorous philosophical argumentation that upsets any preconceived distinction between -the h1story--of phDosophy and philosqphy proper. Expressed in a lucid prose whose clarity and precision urc remarkable, Hadot's work stands as a model for how to write the history of philosophy. This collection of essays will, I hope, help to make his work better known in the English-speaking world; the depth and richness of his writing contain lessons not only for specialists in ancient philosophy, but for nil of us interested in the history of philosophical thought.

Pierre Hadot has spent most of his academic career at the Ecole pratique dL�s Hautes Etudcs and at the College de France. Appointed a directeur d'etudes of the fifth section of the Ecole in 1964, Hadot occupied a chair in Latin Pntristics, where he gave extraordinary lectures, many of which remain unpublished, on, among other topics, the works of Ambrose and Augustine.

In 1972, in response to Hadot's interest in and work on non-Christian I houl{ht, the title of his chair was changed to "Theologies and Mysticisms of I lcllcnistic Greece and the End of Antiquity." Hadot gave courses on Plotinus 111111 M11rcus Aurelius, but also began to devote increased attention to more Ml'ncrnl themes in the history of ancient philosophical and theological thought.

In Fdnunry 1983 he assumed the chair of the History of Hellenistic and Runum Thought at the College de France. He has published translations of 1111d ,�onu11cn111rics on Marius Victorinus, Porphyry, Ambrose, Plotinus, and M111'l"llN AurdiuN. I liM CNNllYN on 11ncicnl philosophy rungc over virtually every

2

Introduction

topic of major significance, and constitute nothing less than a general perspective, both methodologically and substantively, on how to approach and understand the development of the entire history of ancient thought. A reading of Hadot's complete corpus of writings reveals, as one might expect, important essays on the history of medieval philosophy, but also, perhaps more surprisingly, brilliant" contributions to our understanding of Goethe, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein. Hadot has also been increasingly preoccupied with the pertinence of ancient thought for philosophy today, recogmzing that ancient experience raises questions that we cannot and should not overlook or ignore.

This collection of essays is based on the second edition of Exercfres spiritue/s el philosophic antique, originally published in 1987 and now out of print.1 But it also includes a number of essays that were written subsequent to the book, essays that take up, develop, and extend the themes of E:rercices spiritttels.

Moreover, Hadot has made revisions in some of the chapters for their inclusion in this volume, and he has rewritten his discussion of Marcus Aurelius in light of his commentary on the Meditations. 2 Thus this collection represents an expanded discussion of the topics of spiritual exercises and ancient philosophy.

In my introduction, I shall not summarize the individual essays. Rather, I shall try to indicate the general orientation of Hadot's thought, as well as relate these essays to other questions and problems - methodological, historical, and philosophical - treated elsewhere by Hadot. Instead of concentrating on questions of detail, I shall try to highlight some of the philosophical lessons and insights offered to us by Hadot's work.

1 Method and Practices of Interpretation in the History of Ancient Philosophy and Theology

In the summary of his work prepared for his candidacy at the College de France, Hadot wrote:

The problems, the themes, the symbols from which Western thought has developed were not all born, quite obviously, in the period that we have studied. But the West has received them for the most part in the form that was given to them either by Hellenistic thought, or by the adaptation of this thought to the Roman world, or by the encounter between Hellenism and Christianity.J

The historical period he has studied has led Hadot to be especially sensitive to the ways in which different systems of thought Jewish, Greek, Roman, and Christian

-

-

have interacted with one another. At the end of antiquity, one is foccll with n

lnlroduction

3

vast phenomenon of transposition, a gigantic mela-phora in which all the forms of structures, political, juridical, literary, philosophical, artistic, have crossed over into new environments, have contaminated themselves with other forms or structures, thus modifying, more or less profoundly, their original meaning, or losing their meaning, or receiving a new meaning (which sometimes is a "mistranslation") [contresens]}

For example, the development of a Latin philosophical language required the adaptation of Greek models, so that to each term of this technical Latin language corresponded a quite specific Greek term; but "on the occasion of this translation many slippages of meaning, if not misinterpretations," were produced.5 Furthermore, when it was a question of the philosophical and theological exegesis by Latin Christian writers of biblical texts, additional problems were posed by the presence of Latin versions of Greek versions of the original Hebrew. Along with the misinterpretations brought about by these translations, Christian writers added their own lack of understanding of Hebraic ideas. Hadot gives the wonderful example of Augustine, who read in the Latin version of Psalm IV: 9 the expression ;,, idipsum. Although the Hebrew text contains wording that simply means "at this very moment" or

"immediately," Augustine, prompted by Neoplatonist metaphysics, discovers in this in idipsum a name of God, "the selfsame." He thus discovers here a metaphysics of identity and divine immutability, interpreting the expression as meaning "in him who is identical with himself." 6 Both a Latin translation and a Neoplatonist metaphysics come between his reading and the text.

To take another example, in Ambrose's sermon De Isaac vel anima, we find undeniable borrowings, indeed literal translations, from Plotinus; more specific11lly, the use of texts from Plotinus that relate to the detachment from the body 11nd to the withdrawal from the sensible as a condition of contemplation. These texts of Plotinian mysticism are joined to texts of Origenean mysticism that derive from Origcn 's commentary on the Song of So11gs. But in this encounter between Plotinian and Origenean mysticism, Plotinian mysticism loses its specificity. One dues not find in Ambrose any important trace of what is essential to Plotinus'

thought, namely the surpassing of the intelligible in order to attain the One in (.'CKtruly. Such texts concerning the mysticism of the One are translated by Ambrose in such a way that they lose this meaning and arc related to the union of lhe soul with the Logos. So Hadot speaks of "a Plotinian ascesis put in the KC:f\' ice of an Origenean mysticism that is a mysticism of Jesus." 7 Thus Ambrose nm identify the Good and Christ, since with respect to the Good he brings in 1'1aul'11 Colossians I: 20, which does indeed concern Christ. Yet, as Hadot remarks,

"thi11 idcntifiuation is absolutely foreign to the whole economy of the Plotinian 11yNtc:m." � Borrowings, ro1111�esms, the introduction of a logic into texts that had a tlilfort<nl logic''

1hi11 whole phenomenon is central to the development of 1111dm1 1huul(lll, 1md, 1111 I l11dot m11kc11 clear, not to ancient thought alone.

4

lntroduclion

In his essay "La fin du paganisme" Hadot examines the struggles, contaminations, and symbioses between paganism and Christianity at the end of antiquity. We can relatively straightforwardly reconstruct the philosophical struggles and divergences; for instance, the claim on the part of pagan polemicists that at the time of his trial and death Jesus did not behave like a sage, the pagan philosophy of history that charged Christians with lacking historical roots and that denied them the right to claim that their tradition was the sole possessor of the truth, the pagan argument that the Christians imagined God as a tyrant with unforeseeable whims who carries out completely arbitrary and irrational actions, such as the creation of the world at a specific moment of time, the election and then rejection of the Jewish people, the incarnation, the resurrection, and, finally, the destruction of the world.1�

We can also discover in the pagan world certain attempts to assimilate Christian elements, and even, in certain epochs, the phenomenon of symbiosis between pagan and Christian thought. Thus, for example, the emperor Alexander Severus used to render honor to certain portraits (effigies) of men who, thanks to their exceptional virtue, had entered the sphere of divinity.

Among these men were Orpheus, Appollonius of Tyana, Abraham, and Christ, and so the emperor made a place for Christ in his pantheon.11 In the case of some individuals one could legitimately wonder whether they were pagans or Christians. The Hymns of Synesius could be considered as having been inspired by the Christian trinitarian doctrine or, on the contrary, as a representative of a pagan theology that one could link to the tradition of Porphyry .12

More historically subtle is the process that Hadot has labeled "contamination," that is, "the process according to which paganism or Christianity were lead to adopt the ideas or the behaviors characteristic of their adversary." 11

Such contamination, which could operate with different degrees of awareness, extended from specific doctrines and behaviors to very general ideas and institutions. Eusebius of Caesarea could bring together the doctrines of Plotinus and Numenius on the First and Second God with the Christian doctrine of the Father and the Son and their relations. 14 And the emperor Julian could wish to impose the organization of the Christian church on paganism, wanting the pagan church to imitate the Christian church's activities.15

Most important from a

point of view, Christianity borrowed

the very idea of theology, its methods and principles, from paganism. As Hadot has shown, both pagans and Christians had an analogous conception of truth; truth was an historical reality of divine origin, a revelation given by God to humanity at a particular time. As a consequence, their conceptions of philosophy and theology were identical - "human thought could only be exegetical, that is, it must try to interpret an initial datum: the revelation contained in myths, traditions, the most ancient laws." 11' Not only wns

Introduction

5

Christianity contaminated by the pagan idea of theology, but the ancient Christian idea of hierarchical monotheism, so central to early Christianity, could be found within the evolution of paganism itself, especially under the influence of the imperial ideology. The conceptions of monotheism and hierarchy that served to define the Byzantine Christian world were thus also contaminations from the pagan world; indeed, these ideas could be said to sum up the entire essence of late paganism. 17 These contaminations inevitably led to distortions, deformations, misunderstandings of all kinds, but the overlap and intersections brought about by these contaminations also led to the evolution of thought, the development of fresh ideas, the creation, by way of creative misinterpretations, of new concepts, categories, arguments, and conclusions.

In the first century BC, as a consequence of the destruction of most of the permanent philosophical institutions in Athens (which had existed from the fourth to the first century BC), the four great philosophical schools - Platonism, Aristotelianism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism - could no longer be supported by the Athenian institutions created by their founders.

In order to affirm their fidelity to the founder, the four philosophical schools, scattered in different cities of the Orient and Occident, can no longer depend on the institution that he had created, nor on the oral tradition internal to the school, but solely on the texts of the founder.

The classes of philosophy will therefore consist above all in commentaries on the text. '8

The exegetical phase of the history of ancient philosophy was characterized hy the ract that the principal scholarly exercise was the explication of a text.

Exeietical philosophy conceived of the philosopher not as a "solitary thinker who would invent and construct his system and his truth in an autonomous way. The philosopher thinks in a tradition." 19 For the philosopher during this period, truth is founded on the authority of this tradition, and it is given in fhc texts of the founders of the tradition.

Perhaps the most extraordinary instance of the weight and pressures of nc:gctical thought is to be found in the example, extensively discussed by I l1ulot, of the appearance of the distinction between "being" as an infinitive (111 1�11mi) and "being" as a participle (to on). In a series of articles Hadot has

"lu1wn thnt this distinction arose as a result of the need to give a coherent L'Xcgc:11i11 of Plato's second hypothesis in the Parmenides, "If the one is, how is II 1m1111iblc that it should not participate in being [ 011sia ]?" 20 The Neoplatonist exegesis of the Parmtnitles required that each of Plato's hypotheses correspond to 11 diflcrcnt hypo11ta11ili; thui;, thi11 S'-'C<>nd hypothesis corresponded to the llL'L'otul ( >nc:. Since thi11 11ccond One mui;t 1>articipate in 011sia, and since by

6

Introduction

"participation'' the Neoplatonists meant "receiving a form from a superior and transcendent Form," the second One's participation in ousia is understood to be participation in an ousia in itself which transcends the participating subject. However, according to good Neoplatonist doctrine, above the second One there is only the first One, and this first One, absolutely simple, cannot be an ousia. The first ousia must be the second One. So how could Plato have spoken of an ousia that precedes the second One? An anonymous Neoplatonist commentator on the Parmenides, whom Hadot has identified as Porphyry, squarely confronted these difficulties: "influenced by the exegetical tradition characteristic of his school, the words of Plato evoked for him the entities of a rigid system, and the literal text became reconcilable only with difficulty with what he believed to be Plato's meaning."21 Porphyry's solution to this difficulty would consist in presenting an exegesis according �to which Plato had employed the word ousia in an enigmatic way, instead of another word whose meaning is close to the word ousia, namely the word einai. If Plato speaks of an ousia in which the second One participates, he wants it to be understood that the second One receives the property of being a "being"

(to on} and of being "ousia" from the first One, because the first One is itself

"being" (to einai} "not in the sense of a subject but in the sense of an activity of being, considered as pure and without subject. "22 Thus, as Hadot shows, we can see appear for the first time in the history of onto-theology a remarkable distinction between being as an infinitive and being as a participle.

Being as an infinitive characterizes the first One, pure absolutely indeterminate activity, while being as a participle is a property of the second One, the first substance and first determination that participates in this pure activity.

This distinction arises from the formulation used by Plato at the beginning of the second hypothesis of the Parmenides, joined to the Neoplatonist exegesis of the Parmenides and the need for Porphyry to try to explain, from within this system of exegesis, why Plato said what he did. 21 The result, according to Hadot, was "certainly a misinterpretation, but a creative misinterpretation, sprung from the very difficulties of the exegetical method."24 This creative misunderstanding was to have a profound influence on the development of a negative theology of being, and, by way of Boethius'

distinction between esse and id quod est, was decisively to affect the history of Western philosophical thought.25

As early as 1959, Hadot described a phenomenon, constant in the history of philosophy,

that stems from the evolution of the philosophical consciousness: it is impossible to remain faithful to a tradition without taking up again the formulas of the creator of this tradition; but it is also impossible to use these formulas without giving them a meaning that the previous philosopher could not even have suspected. One then sincerely bclicvt'!I

Introduction

7

that this new meaning corresponds to the deep intention of this philosopher. In fact, this new meaning corresponds1 to a kind of possibility of evolution of the original doctrine.26

Not all such bestowals of new meaning are creative misunderstandings, as Hadot well realizes. But some of them have led to new ideas of great philosophical significance. We must study the history of these exegeses, discover how these misunderstandings have been used, what philosophical consequences and what paths of evolution have resulted from them, in order to determine whether they have indeed been creative. In the most interesting of cases, we may find that a history of misinterpretation and a history of philosophical creativity are intimately linked.27

In his inaugural lecture to the College de France, Hadot writes: It seems to me, indeed, that in order to understand the works of the philosophers of antiquity we must take account of all the concrete conditions in which they wrote, all the constraints that weighed upon them: the framework of the school, the very nature of phi/osophia, literary genres, rhetorical rules, dogmatic imperatives, and traditional modes of reasoning. One cannot read an ancient author the way one does a contemporary author (which does not mean that contemporary authors are easier to understand than those of antiquity). In fact, the works of antiquity are produced under entirely different conditions than those of their modern counterparts.2JI

Hadot's studies of the history of ancient philosophy and theology have always included the analysis of "the rules, the forms, the models of discourse," the framework of the literary genre whose rules are often rigorously codified, in which the thoughts of the ancient author are expressed.29 Such analysis is necessary in order to understand both the details of the work, the exact import of particular statements, as well as the general meaning of the work as a whole.

Literary structure and conceptual structure must never be separated. 30

Describing his method of study for Latin Patristics, Hadot has invoked an exceptionally illuminating analogy, comparing what happens in these studies lo what takes place in those curious paintings where one secs at first sight a landscape that seems to be composed normally.

One thinks that if there is, in such and such a place in the picture, a house or a tree it depends solely on the imagination of the artist. But if nnc looks at 1he whole painting from a certain angle the landscape 1r111111form11 it11clf into 11 hidden figure, a face or a human body, and one 11mlcr11t11nll11 then th11t the hou11t� or the tree wa11 not there out of pure

8

fancy, but was necessary because it made up part of the hidden figure.

When one discovers the structure or the fundamental form of a text, one has an analogous experience: certain details that seemed to be there only in an arbitrary way become necessary, because they make up an integral part of the traditional figure used. And just as one can contrast or compare the sense of the face and the sense of the countryside, one can compare the meaning of the traditional form or structure, considered in themselves, and that of the text which has borrowed them . . . We often have the impression when we read ancient authors that they write badly, that the sequence of ideas lacks coherence and connection. But it is precisely because the true figure escapes us that we do not perceive the form that renders all the details necessary . .. once discovered, the hidden form will make necessary all of the details that one often believed arbitrary or without importance.31

This description brilliantly captures the significance of placing the work studied in the framework of its literary genre, the transformation in understanding brought about when one moves from the insignificant and arbitrary to the meaningful and necessary. Hadot's methodological prescriptions can be fruitfully applied at virtually every level in the analysis of ancient thought.

I want to consider briefly a series of examples not taken up �by Hadot in order to emphasize the depth and accuracy of his analogy. I have in mind the extraordinary work on mystical cryptography undertaken by Margherita Guarducci. By carefully delineating the historical and geographical context and by discovering "a coherent and rational system," 32 Guarducci was able to show that certain ancient graffiti, both pagan and Christian, contained hidden and almost dissimulated thoughts of a philosophical and religious character.33

The situation that results is precisely one in which phenomena that were neglected or unacknowledged now assume a profound significance. So, for example, she has demonstrated that the letters PE, the two initial letters of the name Petrus, sometimes take on the form of the characteristic monogram t or l that this monogram represents the keys of the first vicar of Christ, and that the monogram sometimes even visually resembles, with the three teeth of the E adjoined to the P, a key t.34 Peter's monogram can also be

-

adjoined to a monogram for Christ Cf>. so that we find on wall g of the Vatican this kind of graffiti, fl, expressing the indissoluble union of Peter and Christ.35 By unraveling the rational and coherent system formed by this mystical cryptography she can show that an inscription that previously found no plausible explanation can be clearly and convincingly explained. Thus the inscription found on a tomb (and shown in plate 1.1) wishes life in Christ and Peter to the deceased. The bi valence of the Greek rho and the Latin pi is used to superpose the monogram of Christ <�) with the letters PE thus forming,

Introduction

9

f which is inserted within the preposition in.36 Just as Hadot has described it, these are cases where "once discovered, the hidden form will make necessary all of the details that one often believed arbitrary or without sigrtificance." 37

This mystical cryptography can also be found in the pagan world, where a form that can seem to be intrinsically insignificant is transformed, once the hidden figure is discovered, into the expression of a philosophical doctrine.

Thus not only did the Pythagoreans recognize in the letter Y the initial letter of the word vriera and therefore the concept of "salvation"; they also used this letter to represent graphically the ancient concept of the divergent paths of virtue and vice, the doctrine that life presented a forking path and that one must choose between the path of virtue on the right, which will lead to peace, and the path of vice on the left, where one will fall into misery.38 A funereal stcle, datable f�om the first century AD, of a deceased man named "Pythagoras" exhibits a large Y that divides the stone into five sections (shown in plate 1.2). Each section contains various scenes inspired by Pythagorean doctrine.

In the center is an image of the deceased (or perhaps of his homonym, Pythagoras of Samo); to the right arc scenes personifying virtue, to the left arc scenes personifying dissoluteness. Guarducci concludes that it is "easy to recognize in the succession of these scenes that which the literary sources have handed down to us ... : the Pythagorean Y, symbol of the divergent paths of virtue and of vice, one of which brings ... eternal pleasure, the other ...

definitive ruin." �19 Ir is indeed easy to come to this recognition, once one has uncovered and deciphered the genre of mystical cryptography. But if one fails to perceive the rigorously codified rules, one will see nothing of importance, one will be forced to resort to lapidary error and accident to explain away various features, one will find no coherence in many of the inscriptions."� The diff crence between recognizing profound significance and trivial error or arbitrariness will depend on whether the true form has escaped us or has transformed our understanding.41

One might well imagine that the endeavor to hide religious and philosophical thoughts within inscriptions and graffiti would require that we discover the hidden form necessary to give coherence and sense to these graffiti. But one might also assume that when we are confronted with extended philosophical writing, andcnt texts, like many modem ones, will exhibit their structure more or less on the surface. And then when we fail to discern this we

conclude, as Hadot remarks, that ancient authors "write badly, that the sequence of ideas lacks coherence and conncction."42 That the assumption on which this conclusion is based is false, that the structure of even extended ancient rhilosophical texts may not lie easily open to view, is clearly shown by Harlot's own discuvcry of the underlying structure or fundamental form of Marcus Aurelius' Mt'tlitfltim1s. Indeed, Hadot's description of the experience of seeing a IC'<I 1nmNfonn it11clf once one has dist."Ovcrcd iL'> hidden form very compellingly n�prl'Nl'nlN, yc11111 hcfol'l� thl' foci, hiN own dist.'O\�cry uhout Marcus Aurelius' text.

10

Introduction

., .

'i!:�,(:

.. -.: .

The first printed edition of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations appeared in 1559, accompanied by a Latin translation. The editor, "Xylander" (Wilhelm Holzmann), faced with what he saw as the total disorder of the text, conjectured that the Meditations, as presented in the manuscript he edited, were only disconnected extracts from the work of Marcus Aurelius, that Marcus' book had reached us in a mutilated, incomplete, disordered state.43

This conjecture was taken up again in 1624 by Caspar Barth, who, recognizing that one could detect traces of organization and sometimes lengthy reasoning in the Meditations, claimed that the text that had reached us consisted only of extracts from a vast, systematic treatise of ethics that the emperor had written."" Such conjectures, and their variations, have accompanied the Medi1atio11s throughout its history, always trying to account for the disorder and haphazardousness of this work.45 The contemporary reader may find individual aphorisms that seem to speak for themselves, but will be left with the basic impression that, as Hadot puts it, "these sentences seem to follow one another without order, with the randomness of the impressions and states of soul of the emperor-philosopher."46

Hadot has recognized that Marcus Aurelius' Meditations belong to the type of writing known as h_ypomnemata, personal notes and reflections written day to day. This kind of writing existed throughout antiquity, and at least two of Marcus' seventeenth-century editors and translators also recognized his work

Introduction

11

as consisting of personal notes.47 Marcus wrote day to day without trying to compose a work intended for the public; his Meditations arc for the most part exhortations to himself, a dialogue with himself. 4H Moreover, his thoughts and reflections were written down according to "a very refined literary form, hccause it was precisely the perfection of the formulas that could assure them their psychological efficacy, their power of persuasion." 49 Thus, although Marcus' work belongs to the literary genre of personal notes written day to dny (�l'Pomne111att1), they are also quite distinct from other examples of such notes. As Hadot concludes, "it appears indeed that unlike other /1ypomnemt1lt1, the Metlilt1lions of Marcus Aurelius are 'spiritual exercises,' practiced accordinl( to a certain method." 50

Spiritual exercises arc practiced in the Meditations according to a method, I ludot has written, "as rigorous, as codified, as systematic as the famous Spirit11t1/ E.l'ercises of Saint Ignatius." 51 And the key to this method, and thus 111 the Metlitt1tio11s, is to be found in the three philosophical topoi distinguished hy Epictetus. Epictetus distinguished three acts or functions of the soul -

iudl(tnent, desire, and inclination or impulsion. Since each of these activities 11f' 1hc soul depends on us, we can discipline them, we can choose to judge or 11111 111 judl(c ;1nd to judge in a particular way, we can choose to desire or not lo llcHirc, to will en� not to will. And so to each of these activities corresponds 11 r.pirit 11111 exercise, n discipline of representation and judgment, a discipline 111 1h�Nil'l'i nnd 11 lliNciplinc of inclin111ions or impulses to action.12 Moreover,

12

Introduction

Hadot has shown that Epictetus identified the three disciplines with the three parts of philosophy - the discipline of assent with logic, the discipline of desire with physics, and the discipline of inclinations with ethics.53 And he used the word topos "to designate the three lived exercises that ... are in a certain way the putting into practice of the three parts of philosophical discourse."54 Thus Epictetus' three topoi are three lived spiritual exercises.

Marcus Aurelius took up these three topoi and employed them as the underlying structure of his Meditations. They are the key to the interpretation of virtually the entire work, and our recognition of their role allows the surface disorder of the Meditations to transform itself, so that we see beneath this apparent lack of order a rigorous underlying form or structure: beneath this apparent disorder hides a rigorous law that explains the content of the Meditations. This law is, moreover, expressed clearly in a ternary schema that reappears often in certain maxims. But this schema was not invented by Marcus Aurelius: in fact it corresponds exactly to the three philosophical topoi that Epictetus distinguishes in his Discourses. It is this ternary schema that inspires the whole composition of the Meditations of the emperor. Each maxim develops either one of these very characteristics topoi, or two of them, or three of them.5s These three disciplines of life are truly the key to the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. It is in fact around each of them that the different dogmas ... are organized, are crystallized. To the discipline of judgment are linked the dogmas that affirm the freedom of judgment, the possibility that man has to criticize and modify his own thought; around the discipline that directs our attitude with regard to external events are gathered all the theorems on the causality of universal Nature; lastly, the discipline of action is nourished by all the theoretical propositions relative to the mutual attraction that unites reasonable beings.

Finally, one discovers that behind an apparent disorder, one can uncover, in the Meditations, an extremely rigorous conceptual system.56

Each maxim, aphorism, sentence of the Meditations is an exercise of actualization and assimilation of one or more of the three disciplines of life. 57 Thus Hadot, discovering the form "that renders all the details necessary," allows us to read the Meditations coherently, transforms our experience from that of reading a disconnected journal to one of reading a rigorously structured philosophical work.sx

Hadot's discovery of the ternary schema underlying the Meditations not only allows us to give structure to its merely apparent disorder. It also allows us to keep from falling into misplaced psychological judgments about the author of these spiritual exercises. Precisely because the Meditatitms arc

Introduction

13

traditional Stoic spiritual exercises, we must be very prudent about drawing conclusions concerning the personal psychological states of iyiarcus. As Hadot has said, we are all too ready to project our own attitudes and intentions on ancient works, to see the Meditations as the spontaneous effusion of Marcus'

everyday feelings, to see Lucretius' On the Nature of Things as the work of an anxious man attempting to combat his anxiety, or to understand Augustine's Confessions as the expression of his desire to confess and so to give us an autobiographical account of his life.59 But in antiquity, the rules of discourse were rigorously codified: in order to say what one wanted to say, an author had to say it in a certain way, according to traditional models, according to rules prescribed by rhetoric and philosophy . . . [the Meditations] are an exercise realized according to .definite rules; they imply . . . a pre-existent outline which the emperorphilosopher can only amplify. Often, he only says certain things because he must say them in virtue of the models and precepts that impose themselves on him. One will therefore only be able to understand the sense of this work when one has discovered, among other things, the prefabricated schemata that were imposed on it.60

Hadot has charted all of the supposed psychological portraits of Marcus drawn from the Meditations, which see him as suffering from gloomy resignation, extreme skepticism, despair. Some modern authors have claimed to find in the Meditations evidence of a gastric ulcer and its psychological consequences, or of the psychological effects of Marcus' abuse of opium.61 But all of these attempts at historical psychology ignore the mechanisms of literary composition in antiquity, and fail to take into account Marcus' modes of thought, the fact that he was practicing spiritual exercises, derived from Stoicism, more particularly from Epictetus, whose essential goal is to influence himself, to produce an effect in himself.62

Take, for example, the repeated claims that the Meditations show us that Marcus was a pessimist. After all, he does write things such as the following:

Just like your bath-water appears to you - oil, sweat, filth, dirty water, all kinds of loathsome stuff - such is each portion of life, and every substance.6.1

These foods and disht>s . . . arc only dead fish, birds and pigs; this Falcrnian wine is a bit of grape-juice; this purple-edged toga is some sheep's luiirs dipped in the blood of shellfish; as for sex, it is the rubbing to[(cthcr of pieces of gut, followed by the spasmodic secretion of a little bit of slime. 111

14

Introduction

What are these remarks, if not the expression of Marcus' characteristic pessimism? In each of these cases of supposed pessimism, Hadot has been able to show specifically that Marcus was not giving us his personal impressions, that he was not expressing a negative experience that he had lived, but was rather "exercising himself, spiritually and literarily." 65 Marcus is, first of all, practicing the Stoic discipline of giving physical definitions which, adhering to the objective representation of the phenomenon, are employed "to dispel the false conventional judgements of value that people express concerning objects." 66 Marcus writes:

always make a definition or description of the object that occurs in your representation, so as to be able to see it as it is in its essence, both as a whole and as divided into its constituent parts, and say to yourself its proper name and the names of those things out of which it is composed, and into which it will be dissolved.67

This kind of definition is intended to strip representations of "all subjective and anthropomorphic considerations, from all relations to the human point of view," thus defining objects, in a certain way, scientifically and physically.68

Such definitions belong both to the discipline of judgment, or logic, and to the discipline of desire, or physics. The critique of representations and the pursuit of the objective representation are, obviously enough, part of the domain of logic; but these definitions can only be realized if one places oneself in "the point of view of physics, by situating events and objects in the perspective of universal Nature." h9

Marcus is not giving us his personal perception of reality, from which we may then deduce conclusions about his sensibility or characteristic dispositions. He is rather employing various means to transform himself, to acquire a certain inner state of freedom and peace. To do so he must overcome

"solidly rooted prejudices, irrational terrors," employing all the means available to him.m Here is how Hadot describes the ultimate goal of these physical definitions:

This spiritual exercise of "physical" definition has exactly the effect of rendering us indifferent before indifferent things, that is, of making us renounce making differences among things that do not depend on us, but which depend on the will of universal Nature. No longer to make differences is therefore, first of all, to renounce attributing to certain things a false value, measured only according to human scale. This is the meaning of the apparently pessimistic declarations. But to no longer make differences is to discover that all things, even those which seem disgusting to us, have an equal value if one measures them according to the scale of universal Nature, that is, looks at things with the same vision

Introduction

1 5

that Nature looks at them . . . . This inner attitude by which the soul does not make differences, but remains indifferent �efore things, corresponds to magnanimity of the soul [grandeur J'time).11

Thus with respect to the issue of Marcus' pessimism, we see the importance of placing the Meditations in its literary and philosophical context. Abstracting from this context leads to an improper psychology, and to an uncreative misreading of the force of the Meditations, ignoring its basic philosophical aims and procedures. Hadot diagnoses, with great insight, the dangers of historical psychology:

We have here a fine example of the dangers of historical psychology applied to ancient texts. Before presenting the interpretation of a text, one should first begin by trying to distinguish between, on the one hand, the traditional elements, one could say prefabricated, that the author employs and, on the other hand, what he wants to do with them. Failing to make this distinction, one will consider as symptomatic formulas or attitudes which are not at all such, because they do not emanate from the personality of the author, but are imposed on him by tradition. One must search for what the author wishes to say, but also for what he can or cannot say, what he must or must not say, as a function of the traditions and the circumstances that are imposed on him.72

That the temptation to read ancient texts as expressions of their author's psychological states and character is extremely difficult to overcome is shown by the development of Hadot's own interpretation of Augustine's Confessions. In a widely cited paper, originally delivered in 1960, Hadot concludes his discussion of the development of the notion of the person with the claim that in Augustine's Co11fossions, "the modem self rises into view in history." 73 Citing various passages from Augustine on the mystery of the self, and following Groethuysen's interpretation, Hadot is led to conclude, on the basis of these passages, that "With Augustine the 'I' makes its entry into philosophical reasoning in a way that implies a radical change of inner perspective. " 7� Hadot came little by little to realize, however, that one must not be misled by Augustine's use of "I," that "the autobiographical part of the Confessions is not as important as one might believe." 75 The "I" of Augustine's Confessions continues the "I" of Job, David, or Paul, that is, Augustine "identifies himself with the self who speaks in the Scriptures. Ultimately the human sell who speaks in the Bible is Adam, a sinner without doubt, but converted by God and renewed in Christ." 76 Thus, following Pierre Courcelle, Hadot recognizes that the Confessions is essentially a theological work, in which each scene may assume a symbolic meaning. So "in this literary genre . . . il is extremely d ifficult to distinguish between a symbolic enactment nml 1111 11ccoun1 of 11 hiKloricnl event." 77

1 6

Introduction

Hadot therefore insists on the theological significance, in the first part of Book II of the Confessions, of the images used by Augustine in order to describe his inner state.78 And in the second part of Book II, when Augustine recounts at length his adolescent theft of pears, we are in fact confronted with a theological account concerning original sin. The "psychology of Augustine the sinner is reconstructed from the ideal psychology of Adam, disobedient to God in order to imitate, in a perverse way, the divine freedom . " 7'l Rather than using this scene to draw a psychological portrait of Augustine the individual, Hadot understands it as part of an anti-Manichean theological polemic. Here is his interpretation, which is a model of how to avoid the excesses of historical psychology when reading ancient texts: the psychological and theological problem of original sin is posed on the occasion of Augustine's theft, and we find ourselves once again in an anti-Manichean problematic: in stealing the pears, as Adam stealing the forbidden fruit, Augustine did not desire the fruit itself, that is, an existing reality; rather he desired evil itself, that is, something that doesn't have any substance. How is this possible? After having posed the problem at length (4, 9-6, 1 3), Augustine responds by showing that he had loved something "positive" in the evil: to imitate the freedom of God, but in a perverse way. Every sin appt."llrs thus as an upside-down imitation of the divine reality.1111

Instead of engaging in a psychological interpretation of Augustine's adolescence, Hadot's reading allows us to sec that we arc in the presence of a theological discussion of the nature of sin, and that Augustine's lengthy recounting of his theft is not autobiographically motivated, but is necessary in order for us to see the way in which sin is a perverse imitation of divine reality.

Moreover, by placing the Confessions within the Christian exegetical tradition, Hadot is able to show that the last three books of the Confessions, in which Augustine seems to abandon autobiography to devote himself to exegesis, far from being foreign to the rest of the work, do not ultimately have

"a different object from the account that is narrated in the biographical part." 81 Hadot demonstrates that Augustine very often brings together the two states of his soul - obscurity, then light - with the two states of the earth at the beginning of the account of Genesis. In its first state the earth was invisibilis and incomposita, and in its second state it received the illumination of the Fiat lux.82 In Book II, Augustine presents his adolescence as a state of obscurity and bubbling fluidity, and Hadot has shown that in this description one can recognize "the vocabulary employed in Book XIII of the Crmfessions to describe the chaos of Gen 1 , 2."83 Furthermore, in Book XIII the images of darkness and fluctuation serve precisely to describe "the state of the soul

Introduction

1 7

still 'formless,' before its conversion to God." M Thus Hadot can claim that

"the idea of the passage of the creature from a formless to a state of

formation and of conversion dominates the whole work." 85

Book XIII the

biblical account of creation becomes the description of the phases and stages of the salvation of humanity.86 Putting together Augustine's autobiographical and exegetical descriptions, Hadot can demonstrate the inner unity of the work, the fact that for Augustine "Genesis is . . . the account produced by the Holy Spirit of the conversion of the soul, as the Confessions is the account that he himself produces of his own conversion." 117 Hadot therefore warns us that we must interpret this text in light of the literary genre to which it belongs, the tradition of exegesis of Ambrose and Origen, and that we will commit a misunderstanding if we believe we have discovered the self "already" in the Crmfessions.Hll We find in Hadot's own interpretation of Augustine the initial outline of a kind of historical psychology, one that discovers in the Confessions the beginnings of the modern self. However, this is followed by a more detailed attention to the mechanisms of literary composition and to the theological genre of the Confessions, an attention that both prevents the apparent autobiography from becoming the philosophical center of the work and permits us to see the unity between the first ten books and the last three.

There is, of course, a self to be found in the Confessions, but "it must not be understood as the incommunicable singularity of the man Augustine, but, on the contrary, as universal humanity of which the events of the life of Augustine are only the symbols. " 89

Hadot's insistence on not separating conceptual structure from literary structure also played a significant role in his interpretation of Wittgenstein's work. As far as I have been able to determine, Hadot presented the first detailed discussions in French of Wittgenstein's books, reviewing everything from the Tractalus Logico-Philosophicus to the Philosophical Investigations and Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics.'m In his 1959 discussion of the later Wittgenstein, Hadot argues, quite remarkably, that the goal of Philosophical Investigations requires a certain literary genre, that one cannot dissociate the form of the Investigations from Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy.

It is a therapeutics that is offered to us. Philosophy is an illness of language . . . The true philosophy will therefore consist in curing itself of philosophy, in making every philosophical problem completely and definitively disappear . . . Wittgenstei n continues [from the Tractatus to the Investigations] . . . to devote himself to the same mission: to bring a radical ;�nd definitive peace to metaphysical worry. Such a purpose imposes a certain literary genre: the work cannot be the exposition of a system , a doctrine, a philosophy in the traditional sense . . . [Philos11pl1in1/ hn�rstiRt1l1tms l wi11hcs to Rel liulc by little on our spirit, like a

1 8

Introduclion

cure, like a medical treatment. The work therefore does not have a systematic structure, strictly speaking [pas de plan, a proprement parler].91

At the time Hadot was writing about Wittgenstein, and even today, so many philosophers ignored the way Philosophical Jnvesligalions is written that it is astonishing, at first sight, to see an historian of ancient philosophy clearly understanding the import of this aspect of Wittgenstein's work. But Hadot has long emphasized that ancient philosophy presented itself as a therapeutics and that this goal profoundly affected the philosophical writing of antiquity.92

As early as 1 960 Hadot wrote that in ancient philosophy "more than theses, one teaches ways, methods, spiritual exercises," that "dogmas" have only a secondary aspect.93 No doubt it was precisely Hadot's understanding of the history of ancient philosophy that made it possible for him to see central, but still neglected, characteristics of Wittgenstein's work.

In "Jeux de langage et philosophic," Hadot was to employ Wittgenstein's notion of a language game in an historical perspective that, as he recognized, went well beyond anything with which Wittgenstein was preoccupied. Hadot argued that we must "break with the idea that philosophical language functions in a uniform way" and that ''it is impossible to give a meaning to the positions of philosophers without situating them in their language game." 'H Aware of the different philosophical language games of antiquity, Hadot could well insist that an ancient formula be placed in the concrete context of its determinate language game, that its meaning could change as a function of a change in language game.95 Thus Hadot could draw the general historiographical conclusion that we must "consider as very different language games those literary genres, so profoundly diverse, represented by the dialogue, the exhortation or protreptic, the hymn or prayer . . . the manual, the dogmatic treatise, the meditation . " 96 And we must also distinguish between the attitudes represented by dialectic, rhetorical argumentation, logical reasoning, and didactic exposition, since we will often be able to establish that "the very fact of sitt1ating oneself in one of these traditions predetermines the very content of the doctrine that is expressed in this language game." 97 By overcoming the temptation to see philosophical language as always functioning in the same way, Hadot could take account of the conceptual and literary specificity of different philosophical attitudes.

Whether reading Plotinus, Marcus Aurelius, or Augustine, Hadot has made detailed use of his methodological prescriptions, not allowing the surface pronouncements of the texts to obscure the underlying structure, the literary genre and modes of thought that confer a determinate meaning on these pronouncements. Employing all of their resources, Hadot has used these practices of interpretation to try to reconstruct the fundamental meaning (sens de base), the meaning "intended" by the author (le sens "t,tm/11 " p11r l't111/e11r), of these ancient tcxts.'18 More often than not , as is c\�idcnt from the cxnmplci;

Introduction

19

I have given, this meaning will not be apparent. And if Hadot's practices of interpretation are most often employed with respect to ancient p�ilosophical and theological writing, his discussion of Wittgenstein makes clear the need, throughout the history of philosophy, for such practices. To restrict the importance of Hadot's lessons to one period in the history of thought would be radically to misunderstand the techniques and procedures of human thought.

2 Spiritual Exercises

Hadot has written that he was led to become aware of the importance of what he has called "spiritual exercises" by his work of interpretation of ancient philosophical texts.99 On the one hand, like his predecessors and contemporaries, Hadot encountered the well-known phenomenon of the incoherences, even contradictions, in the works of ancient philosophical authors. On the other hand, many modern historians of ancient philosophy have begun from the assumption that ancient philosophers were attempting, in the same way as modern philosophers, to construct systems, that ancient philosophy was essentially a philosophical discourse consisting of a "certain type of organization of language, comprised of propositions having as their object the universe, human society, and language itself." 100 Thus the essential task of the historian of philosophy was thought to consist in "the analysis of the genesis and the structures of the literary works that were written by the philosophers, especially in the study of the rational connection and the internal coherence of these systematic expositions." 101 Under these interpretive constraints, modern historians of ancient philosophy could not but deplore the awkward expositions, defects of composition, and outright incoherences in the ancient authors they studied. 1112

Hadot, however, rather than deploring these ancient authors' failures to measure up to the modern standard of the systematic philosophical treatise, realized that in order to understand and explain these apparent defects, one must not only analyze the structure of these ancient philosophical texts, but one must also situate them in the "living praxis from which they emanated." 103

An essential aspect of this living praxis was the oral dimension of ancient philosophy, and the written philosophical works of Greco-Roman antiquity were "never completely free of the constraints imposed by oral transmission." uu Hadot has described this written work as only a material support for a spoken word intended to become spoken word again, "like a modern record or cassette which are only an intermediary between two events: the recording and the rehearing. " 105 All of ancient philosophy believed in what 1-ladot once called, thinking of Plato's Phaedrus, the "ontological value of the spoken word"; 1 his living and animated discourse was not principally intended to 1 r1111Nmi1 inform11 1 ion, hu1 "10 tlrod ucc a certain psychic effect in the reader

20

Introduction

or listener." 106 Thus the "propositional element" was not the most important element of ancient philosophical teaching, and Hadot has frequently cited Victor Goldschmitt's formula, originally applied to the Platonic dialogues but used by Hadot to characterize ancient philosophy more generally, that ancient philosophical discourse intended "to form more than to inform." 107

Hadot claims that it is probably a mistake about the nature of ancient philosophy to consider abstraction, made possible by writing, its most important characteristic:

For ancient philosophy, at least beginning from the sophists and Socrates, intended, in the first instance, to form people and to transform souls. That is why, in Antiquity, philosophical teaching is given above all in oral form, because only the living word, in dialogues, in conversations pursued for a long time, can accomplish such an action.

The written work, considerable as it is, is therefore most of the time only an echo or a complement of this oral teaching. 108

This is one reason why, for Hadot, to philosophize is to learn how to dialogue.109 A Socratic dialogue is a spiritual exercise practiced in common, and it incites one to give attention to oneself, to take care of oneself, to know oneself. The Socratic maxim "know thyself" requires a relation of the self to itself that "constitutes the basis of all spiritual exercises. " i m Every spiritual exercise is dialogical insofar as it is an "exercise of authentic presence" of the self to itself, and of the self to others. 1 1 1 The Socratic and Platonic dialogues exhibit this authentic presence in the way that they show that what is most important is not the solution to a particular problem, but the path traversed together in arriving at this solution. Hence, we can understand the critical significance of the dimension of the interlocutor, with all of its starts and stops, hesitations, detours, and digressions. This essential dimension prevents the dialogue from being a theoretical and dogmatic account and forces it to be a concrete and practical exercise, because, to be precise, it is not concerned with the exposition of a doctrine, but with guiding an interlocutor to a certain settled mental attitude: it is a combat, amicable but real. We should note that this is what takes place in every spiritual exercise; it is necessary to make oneself change one's point of view, attitude, set of convictions, therefore to dialogue with oneself, therefore to struggle with oneself.1 IZ

Although Hadot recognizes that some ancient philosophical works are so to speak "more written" than others, he insists that even these works "are closely linked to the activity of teaching" and must "be understood from the perspective of dialectical and exegetical scholarly exercises." 1 1 �1 The tnsk of I he

Introduction

21

philosopher was not primarily one of communicating "an encyclopedic knowledge in the form of a system of propositions and of concepts that would reflect, more or less well, the system of the world." 1 14 Therefore, even definitions were nothing by themselves, independently of the road traveled to reach them. The philosophers of antiquity were concerned not with readymade knowledge, but with imparting that training and education that would allow their disciples to "orient themselves in thought, in the life of the city, or in the world." 1 15 If this is most obviously true of the Platonic dialogues, Hadot has reminded us that it is also true of the methods of Aristotle and the treatises of Plotinus: "the written philosophical work, precisely because it is a direct or indirect echo of oral teaching, now appears to us as a set of exercises, intended to make one practice a method, rather than as a doctrinal exposition." 1 16

Moreover, these exercises were not conceived of as purely intellectual, as merely theoretical and formal exercises of discourse totally separated from life.

Throughout the history of ancient philosophy, we can find criticisms of those philosophers who went no further than to develop a beautiful style of discourse or dialectical subtlety, who wished to stand out by making an ostentatious display of their philosophical discourse, but did not exercise themselves in the things of life. 1 17 Rather than aiming at the acquisition of a purely abstract knowledge, these exercises aimed at realizing a transformation of one's vision of the world and a metamorphosis of one's personality. The philosopher needed to be trained not only to know how to speak and debate, but also to know how to live. The exercise of philosophy "was therefore not only intellectual, but could also be spiritual. " 1 18 Hence, the teaching and training of philosophy were intended not simply to develop the intelligence of the disciple, but to transform all aspects of his being - intellect, imagination, sensibility, and will. Its goal was nothing less than an art of living, and so spiritual exercises were exercises in learning to live the philosophical life. 1 19 Spiritual exercises were e.wrcises because they were practical, required effort and training, and were lived; they were spiritual because they involved the entire spirit, one's whole way of being. 120 The art of living demanded by philosophy was a lived exercise exhibited in every aspect of one's existence.

Since the ultimate goal of the theoretical discourse of philosophy was to produce an effect in the soul of the listener or reader, this discourse had to bear in mind not only pedagogical constraints, but "the needs of psychagogy, of the direction of souls." 121 Rhetorical resources were abundantly made use of by the philosopher, and in attempting to influence himself and others all means were good. 122 In order "to rectify distorted opinions, tenacious prejudices, irrational terrors," the philosopher might have "to twist them in the other direction, to exaggerate in order to compensate." 123 In ancient texts, we dii;cover thiu "one slides rapidly from theoretical exposition to

22

Introduction

exhortation," as often happens in Plotinus' treatises;1H we even find at the end of the Nicomachean Ethics an accentuated protreptic and exhortative character, as Aristotle is recommending to others a certain kind of life, a spetific conception of the good life. 125 The "presentation, literary form and content"

of philosophical discourse were modified by "the intention to influence the disciples." 126 It is from this perspective that Hadot believes we must understand "the effort of systematization of the Stoics and Epicureans." 127 He has argued that the systematic discourse of these schools did not have for its chief goal

to procure a total and exhaustive explanation of all reality, but to link, in an unshakable way, a small group of principles, vigorously articulated together, which, on the one hand, on the basis of this systematization, possess a greater persuasive force, a better psychological efficacy and which, on the other hand, enable the philosopher to orient himself in the world.128

This systematization thus allows the philosopher to bring together and focus the fundamental rules of life so that he can "keep them ready to hand at each instant of his life." 129 As Hadot says, "their systematic presentation produces assurance [la certitude] in the soul, therefore peace and serenity." 130

In studying the literary genre of the ancient consolation, llsetraut Hadot has clearly demonstrated the intimate connection between the practice of spiritual exercises, the use of rhetoric and psychagogy, and literary form and content. Since, beginning with Plato, ancient philosophy represented itself as an exercise and training for death, the consolation is an ideal genre in which to observe the ancient practice of philosophy. 1.11 Noting that in all the written consolations of antiquity, we encounter nearly always the same arguments, she remarks that new and original arguments were not what the ancients sought after; in the best instances, the consolations had as their goal "to recall well-known things, to reactivate them in the soul." 1.12 These consolations were one important place where ancient philosophers tried to provide their followers with the spiritual means to maintain their psychic equilibrium, a goal that was especially acute and difficult in situations that were precarious and painful.

In order to obtain this result, they had, on the one hand, to develop and teach their philosophical doctrines, but, on the other hand, they were perfectly conscious of the fact that the simple knowledge of a doctrine, beneficial as it was, did not guarantee its being put into practice. To have learned theoretically that death is not an evil does not suffice to no longer fear it. In order for this truth to be able to penetrate to the depths of one's being, so that it is not believed only for a brief moment, but

Introduction

23

becomes an unshakable conviction, so that it is always "ready," "at hand," "present to mind," so that it is a "habitus of the ,soul" as the Ancients said, one must exercise oneself constantly and without respite

- "night and day," as Cicero said. To this is joined a simple mode of life, in order not to be accustomed to what is superfluous the day it will be necessary to separate oneself from it.

These exercises are certainly exercises of meditation, but they do not only concern reason; in order to be efficacious, they must link the imagination and affectivity to the work of reason, and therefore all the psychagogical means of rhetoric . . . 1.13

Hence we also find recommended, especially by the Stoics, the practice of premeditation on future evils that may occur, and the need to keep present and available in one's memory "all the edifying examples that history, epic poetry and tragedy" entrust to us. �.M

The central place accorded to spiritual exercises in ancient philosophy determines how we should situate and understand the writings of ancient philosophers, their philosophical discourse. The significance and aims of this discourse were conditioned by the ultimate goal of transforming the lives of individuals, of providing them with a philosophical art of living that required nothing less than spiritual metamorphosis. We must not forget that in the philosophy of this period, "theory is never considered an end in itself, it is clearly and decidedly put in the service of practice," a practice so radical and all-encompassing as to make the philosopher atopos, unclassifiable, since he is in love with wisdom, which makes him strange, and foreign to the world of most mortals. us Hadot pointedly captures the relation between philosophical writing, the oral tradition, and an art of living when he writes that ancient philosophy "always endeavored to be more a living voice than writing and still more a life than a voice.'' llh The animated words of the philosopher are at the service of the philosopher's way of life, and his writing is an echo of these words. We might think here of Socrates, of his constant dialogue with himself and others. This dialogue is never closed in on itself, separate and isolated, but is part of, and in service to, Socrates' way of living and way of dying.

According to Xenophon, when Hippias demanded the definition of justice from Socrates, he finally responded with these words: "Instead of speaking of it, I make it understood by my acts." 137 If spiritual exercises were the core of ancient philosophy, that is because philosophy was essentially a way of life.

In order to understand the centrality of spiritual exercises to ancient philosophy, it is crucial not to limit or reduce them to ethical exercises. As I hove said, spiritual exercises involved all aspects of one's existence; they did not nl lcmpt only lo immrc behavior in 11ccord11ncc with a code of good

24

Introduction

conduct; they had, as Hadot says, not only a moral value, but an existential value. ll8 More specifically, if we recall the traditional distinction between the three parts of philosophy - dialectic or logic, physics, and ethics - we must not place the practice of spiritual exercises simply in the ethical part of philosophy.139 We must not represent logic and physics as being those parts of philosophy where theoretical discourse is located, presenting ethics as the practical part where spiritual exercises are enacted. As Hadot has argued at length, the distinction between theory and practice is located within each of the parts of philosophy; there is a theoretical discourse concerning logic, physics and ethics, but there is also a practical or lived logic, a lived physics, and a lived ethics. Ho

Ethics itself contains a theoretical discourse that sets forth principles, definitions, distinctions, and analyses of the virtues and vices. But, more importantly for the philosopher, there is also a lived ethics that puts into practice the fundamental rules of life. 141 Similarly, there is a theory of logic, which includes a conception of the proposition, and explains different forms of syllogisms, and different ways of refuting sophisms; in addition, the theory of logic was comprised of scholarly exercises in which one learned to apply the abstract rules. These rules of logic were also employed in the theoretical discourses of physics and ethics, the two other parts of philosophy. Yet, again, there was also an everyday practice of logic that had to be carried out in the domain of judgment and assent. This lived logic consisted in "not giving one's consent to what is false or doubtful." 142 Finally, the discipline of physics included not only a theory, but a lived physics, a true spiritual exercise, which involved a way of seeing the world, a cosmic consciousness, and procured pleasure and joy for the soul. Ml The spiritual exercises of ethics, logic, and physics meant that the practice of philosophy did not ultimately consist in

"producing the theory of logic, that is the theory of speaking well and thinking well, nor in producing the theory of physics, that is of the cosmos, nor in producing the theory of acting well, but it concerned actually speaking well, thinking well, acting well, being truly conscious of one's place in the cosmos." 141

The significance of locating spiritual exercises within each of the parts of philosophy can be seen clearly in Hadot's criticisms of Michel Foucault. One way of describing Hadot's misgivings about Foucault's interpretation of ancient spiritual exercises is to say that Foucault not only gave a too narrow construal of ancient ethics, but that he limited the "care of the self" to ethics alone. 145 Foucault made no place for that cosmic consciousness, for physics as a 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 transforms itself, Foucault was not able to sec the full scope of spirir unl

Introduction

25

exercises, that physics (and logic), as much as ethics, aimed at selftransformation. Indeed, in a very different context, Paul Vey,ne has reported the following exchange with Foucault: "One day when 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!' " 146

Nothing could be further from Hadot's own attitude, since for him logic and physics, as lived spiritual exercises, are as central to the nature of philosophy as is ethics. Far from being excrescences, disfiguring and superfluous, the practices of logic and physics were a necessary part of the ancient philosopher's way of life, were crucial to his experience of himself as a philosopher, a lover of wisdom.

In recent writings, Hadot has focused on the Stoic doctrine that logic, physics, and ethics are not parts of philosophy itself, but are parts of philosophical discourse (logos kata philosophian), of the discourse relating to philosophy. 147 The Stoics held that "these parts could only appear distinct and separate in the discourse of teaching and of exposition of the philosophical dogmas," and that philosophy, strictly speaking, was not divided into parts. 148 Although expository, didactic, and pedagogical requirements made it necessary "to cut up" philosophy into parts, philosophy proper, as an exercise of wisdom, was considered a "single act, renewed at every instant, that one can describe, without breaking its unity, as being the exercise of logic as well as of physics or of ethics, according to the directions in which it is exercised." 149 That is to say, in the lived singular act of philosophy, logic, physics, and ethics are but "aspects of the very same virtue and very same

\l;sdom"; they are not really distinguished with respect to one another, but only by "the different relations that relate them to different objects, the world, people, thought itself." 150 As Hadot summarizes this view, "logic, physics and ethics distinguish themselvt..'S from one another when one speaks of philosophy, but not when one lives it." 151

For the Stoics the dynamic unity of reality, the coherence of reason with itself, meant that

It is the same Logos that produces the world, enlightens the human being in his faculty of reasoning and expresses itself in human discourse, while remaining completely identical with itself at all stages of reality.

Therefore, physics has for its object the Logos of universal nature, ethics the Logos of reasonable human nature, logic this same Logos expressing itself in human discourse. From start to finish, it is therefore the same force and the same reality that is at the same time creative Nature, Norm of conduct and Rule of discourse.152

This func.lnmental intuit ion of the Stoics, according to which the Logos is the common object of logic, llhysics, and ethics, is continued by those early

26

Introduction

Christian thinkers who present God as the common object of the three parts of philosophy.m So, according to Augustine, the object of physics is God as cause of being, the object of logic is God as norm of thought and the object of ethics is God as rule of life. Moreover, this order - physics, logic, ethics -

corresponds to the order of the divine persons in the Trinity: the Father is the Principle of being, the Son is Intellect and the Holy Spirit is Love. Thus, as Hadot writes, "the systematic unity of the parts of philosophy reflects here the reciprocal intcriority of the divine Persons." 154

When the Stoic philosopher, such as Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius, acts according to the Logos, he puts into practice spiritual exercises, that is, he disciplines his judgments, his desire, his inclinations, he enacts a lived logic, a lived physics, a lived ethics. These three acts of the soul exhibit the coherence and harmony of reason with itself, and from this perspective

"the three parts of philosophy are no longer anything but three aspects of the fundamental spiritual attitude of the Stoic. " 155 Although emphasizing that the parts of philosophy arc required by and located within philosophical discourse and that philosophy itself is the site of spiritual exercises, Hadot also insists on the central role that discourse plays in the philosophical life. The philosopher can "only act on himself and others through discourse," and philosophy is thus "a mode of life that includes as an integral part a certain mode of discourse." 156 The theoreti<.-al discourse of the school to which he belongs is inwardly repeated and assimilated by the philosopher so that he can master his own inner discourse, so that his discourse will be ordered according to the fundamental choices and principles that were the starting point and basis for the theoretical discourse of his school. 157

Recently, Hadot has distinguished between two senses of the word "discourse" in ancient philosophy.

On the one hand, discourse insofar as it is addressed to a disciple or to oneself, that is to say, the discourse linked to an existential context, to a concrete praxis, discourse that is actually spiritual exercise; on the other hand, discourse considered abstractly in its formal structure, in its intelligible content. It is the latter that the Stoics would consider different from philosophy, but which is precisely what is usually made the object of most of the modern studies of the history of philosophy.

But in the eyes of the ancient philosophers, if one contents oneself with this discourse, one docs not do philosophy. 158

Although discourse, both inner and outer, is essential to the philosopher, and although it can even take on the dimensions of a spiritual exercise, it is not the unique component of the philosophical life, and this life must not be reduced to discourse.

Introduction

27

The essential element [of philosophical life] is in fact, one could say, non-discursive, insofar as it represents a choice of life, a wi'h to live in such and such a way, with all the concrete consequences that that implies in everyday life.159

In Antiquity the philosopher regards himself as a philosopher, not because he develops a philosophical discourse, but because he lives philosophically .160

We find this essential clement, this orientation and point of view, in the remark of Epicurus' that "Our only occupation should be the cure of ourselves," or in the sentence attributed to him, "Empty is the discourse of that philosopher by which no human passion is attended to." 161 Or we find Epictetus saying,

A carpenter does not come up to you and say "Listen to me discourse about the art of carpentry," but he makes a contract for a house and builds it . . . Do the same thing yourself. Eat like a man, drink like a man . . . get married, have children, take part in civic life, learn how to put up with insults, and tolerate other people . . . 1 62

Epictetus elsewhere rebukes the person who, in the discipline of judgment, is presented with representations some of which are adequate and others not, yet who refuses to differentiate between them, but "would prefer to read theoretical treatises on the understanding." 163 And in commenting on Epictetus' Manut1l, Simplicius writes, One must produce the actions that arc taught by discourses. The goal of discourse is actually actions. It is for the sake of them that the discourses were uttered (or written) . . . In fact, Chrysippus did not write on this subject [the nature of man] with the goal of being interpreted and understood, but so that one makes use of his writings in life. If therefore I make use of his writings in life, at that very moment I participate in the good they contain. But if I admire the:: exegete because he provides good explanations, and if I can understand and myself interpret the text and if, quite frankly, everything falls to my lot except the fact of making use of these writings in life, would I have become anything other than a grammarian instead of a philosopher? . . .

the fact of just simply reading the writings of Chrysippus or of explaining them on the request of somebody else, and of not making use of them in life, is reprehensible. In fact, he should rightly be ashamed who, being ill, would find some writings containing cures for his illness, would rc:1ul 1 hcm with insiicht and, distinguishing clearly (the different

28

Introduction

parts), would explain them if need be to others, but would not make use of these cures for his illness.164

Philosophy is an art of living that cures us of our illnesses by teaching us a radically new way of life.

Hadot recognizes that it is only in Hellenistic philosophy that one finds a distinction between philosophy and philosophical discourse explicitly formulated. But he has also argued that "this distinction was clearly implicit in the previous period in Plato and Aristotle." 165 Indeed, recalling the importance of the mysteries of Eleusis in the history of ancient thought, Hadot reminds us of the famous sentence attributed to Aristotle that the initiates of Eleusis do not learn anything, but they experience a certain impression or emotion.166 The initiate did not learn his other-worldly fate at Eleusis, but lived this supra-individual life of the other world. 167 The "true secret of Eleusis is therefore this very e:rperience, this moment when one plunges into the completely other, this discovery of an unknown dimension of existence." 168

Hadot also finds an implicit distinction between philosophy and philosophical discourse in Plato's definition of philosophy (Phaedo, 67 <..--d) as a tr.iining for death. The purification of the soul, its separation as far as possible from the body and its gathering itself together within itself, is the true practice of philosophy. Hence philosophy consists of a lived concrete exercise and not of a theory or a conceptual edifice: "The theoretical philosophical discourse is completely different from the lived exercises by which the soul purifies itself of its passions and spiritually separates itself from the body. " 169

Plotinus continues this tradition when in Ennead, IV, 7, 10, he argues that the soul cannot become aware of its own immateriality if it docs not perform a moral purification that liberates it from its passions, that strips away everything that is not truly itsclf. '711 It is this purification that allows us to gain knowledge of the immateriality of our soul. More generally, in Ennead, VI, 7, 36, Plotinus distinguishes carefully between the methods of rational theology that teach us about the Good, and the spiritual exercises that lead us to the Good. The four methods of rational theology, the method of analogy, the negative method, the affirmative method drawn from the knowledge of the things that come from the Good, and the method of stages or degrees (anabasmoi; Symposium, 21 lc) all give us knowledge about the Good.

However, only the spiritual exercises of purification, of the practice of the virtues, of putting ourselves in order, allow us to touch the Good, to experience it. 171 Plotinus' philosophy does not wish only

to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good . . . Reason, by theolop;ical methods, can raise itself tu the

Introduction

29

notion of the Good but only life according to Intellect can lead to the reality of the Good.112

Furthermore, as Hadot writes, "it is mystical experience that founds negative theology, and not the reverse." 173 This mystical experience, like the mysteries of Eleusis, does not consist in learning something, but in "living another life"

where the self "becomes the absolutely Other." 174

It is perhaps Aristotle whom we are most tempted to think of as a pure theoretician. Although it is true that Aristotle's philosophy is a philosophy of theoria, "this Aristotelian theoria is nevertheless not purely theoretical in the modern sense of the word." 175 For Aristotle, to dedicate oneself to philosophy is to chose a bios, a way of life, that is the best realization of those capacities that are essential to being human. The bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation, is a way of life that is also the realization of our supreme happiness, an activity that contains the purest pleasures. 176 Even scientific research on the entities of nature is not proposed by Aristotle as an end in itself, but as "a particular way of carrying out 'the philosophical life', one of the possible practical realizations of the aristotelian prescription for happiness, the life devoted to the activity of the intellect." 177 Moreover, the life of the intellect is a participation in the divine way of life, it is the actualization of the divine in the human, and it requires inner transformation and personal askesis. 118 And it is a way of life that is, in one sense of the term, practical, since Aristotle says that those thoughts arc practical not only that calculate the results of action, but which are "contemplation and reasoning, that have their end in themselves and take themselves as object." 179 This life of theoria is thus not opposed to the practical, since it is a life of philosophy lived and practiced; it 180

is precisely the "exercise of a life."

Hadot has distinguished two senses of the tenn "theoretical,'' for which he has employed the tcnns theorique and theoretique. The first meaning of "theoretical" is opposed to "practical," since it designates theoretical discourse as opposed to lived philosophy. But the adjective theorhique which characterizes the life of contemplation, the life according to the intellect, is not opposed by Aristotle to philosophy as practiced and lived. In Aristotle this "theoretical life

[vie theoretique] is not a pure abstraction, but a life of the intellect, which, no doubt, can use a theoretical discourse [discours theorique], but nonetheless remains a life and a praxis, and which can even make room for a nondiscursivc activity of thought, when it is a question of perceiving indivisible obj<..'Cts and God himself by noetic intuition."181 Thus to think of Aristotle as a pure theoretician is to focus exclusively on his theoretical discourse without hearing in mind that it is a way of life, however intellectualized, that he is recommending, and which is the ultimate basis of his philosophy.

The idc11 of philosophy as 11 way of life, and not just as philosophical lliscourHe, WilH also exhihiled in nntiquity by the designation of individuals as

30

Introduction

philosophers who were neither scholars, professors, nor authors, but who were honored as philosophers because of their way of life. As Hadot says, the extension of the concept of philosopher was quite different from that of our modern concept. In antiquity, the philosopher was not necessarily "a professor or a writer. He was first of all a person having a certain style of life, which he willingly chose, even if he had neither taught nor written." 182 Thus we find philosophical figures not only such as Diogenes the Cynic and Pyrrho, but also women who did not write, and celebrated statesmen who were considered true philosophers by their contemporaries.18l It was not only Chrysippus or Epicurus who were considered philosophers, because they had developed a philosophical discourse, but also every person who lived according to the precepts of Chrysippus or Epicurus. 131

True philosophers lived in society with their fellow citizens, and yet they lived in a different way from other people. They distinguished themselves from others by "their moral conduct, by speaking their mind [leur franc par/er], by their way of nourishing themselves or dressing themselves, by their attitude with respect to wealth and to conventional values." 185 Although they did not live a cloistered life, as in Christian monasticism, philosophy was nevertheless analogous to the monastic movement in requiring that one convert oneself so as to fervently adhere to a philosophical school: the philosopher had to "make a choice that obliged him to transform his whole way of living in the world." "'"

Hence the felt rupture of the philosophical life with the conduct and perceptions of everyday life.187 The significance of philosophy as a way of life can also be seen in the importance given to biographies in ancient philosophical work. As Giuseppe Cambiano has emphasized, a philosophical biography was not predominantly a narrative intended to allow one to understand an author and his doctrines; it was not just a report of what the author said and believed.

Rather, "it was, in the first place, a tool of philosophical battle," since one could defend or condemn a philosophy by way of the characteristics of the mode of life of those who supported it.11'8

The philosopher was a philosopher because of his existential atlitude, an attitude that was the foundation of his philosophy and that required that he undergo a real conversion, in the strongest sense of the word, that he radically change the direction of his lifc.189 All six schools of philosophy in the Hellenistic period present themselves

as choices of life, they demand an existential choice, and whoever adheres to one of these schools must accept this choice and this option.

One too often represents Stoicism or Epicureanism as a set of abstract theories about the world invented by Zeno or Chrysippus or Epicurus.

From these theories would spring, as if by accident one could say, a morality. But it is the reverse that is true. It is the abstract theories th111

arc intended to justify the existential nttitudc. One could 1my, tu cxpn�N11

Introduction

3 1

it otherwise, that every existential attitude implies a representation of the world that must necessarily be expressed in a discour,e. But this discourse alone is not the philosophy, it is only an element of it, for the philosophy is first of all the existential attitude itself, accompanied by inner and outer discourses: the latter have as their role to express the representation of the world that is implied in such and such an existential attitude, and these discourses allow one at the same time to rationally justify the attitude and to communicate it to others.190

Hence we begin with a fundamental existential choice on behalf of a style of life that consists of certain practices, activities, and conduct that are precisely what Hadot calls "spiritual exercises." This style of life is given concrete form either in the order of inner discourse and of spiritual activity: meditation, dialogue with oneself, examination of conscience, exercises of the imagination, such as the view from above on the cosmos or the earth, or in the order of action and of daily behavior, like the mastery of oneself, indifference towards ill.different things, the fulfilment of the duties of social life in Stoicism, the discipline of desires in Epicurcanism.191

Philosophical discourse, of oneself with oneself and of oneself with others, will, of course, be needed to justify and communicate these spiritual exercises, to represent the fundamental existential attitude, but philosophy itself consists primarily in choosing and living the attitude.

Hadot recognizes that this ancient understanding of philosophy can appear very far removed from the way in which we now understand the nature of philosophy. He has pointed to three aspects of the evolution of the representation of philosophy that have contributed to our current understanding of it as a purely theoretical, abstract activity, and to our identific.ation of it with philosophical discourse alone. The first aspect, which Hadot has called "a natural inclination of the philosophical mind" and "connatural to the philosopher," is the "constant tendency that the philosopher always has, even in Antiquity, to satisfy himself with discourse, with the conceptual architecture that he has constructed, without putting into question his own life." 192

This tendency, which was already criticized in antiquity, has been said by Hadot to be "the perpetual danger of philosophy" - the philosopher is always tempted to take refuge in, to shut himself up in, the "reassuring universe of concepts and of discourse instead of going beyond discourse in order to take upon himself the risk of the radical transformation of himself." 193 To this tendency is opposed the equally natural inclination of the philosophical mind to Wllnl lo examine itself, tu w11111 to learn how to live the philosophical life.

32

Introduction

Faced with the overwhelming reality of life, with worries, anxiety, suffering, death, philosophical discourse can appear to be nothing but "empty chattering and a derisive luxury," mere words when what is needed is a new attitude towards life, one which will produce inner freedom, tranquillity, happiness. 194

It is at these moments that our contrary natural inclinations will be felt to be most acutely opposed to one another. We will then be forced to ask, "What is finally most beneficial to the human being as a human being? Is it to discourse on language, or on being and non-being? Or is it not rather to learn how to live a human life?" 195 Yet despite our "elementary need" for this philosophical consciousness and way of life, the history of philosophy also testifies unambiguously to the powerful tendency of our "self-satisfaction with theoretical discourse. " 196

A second aspect that helps to account for the changed understanding and representation of philosophy in the modern world has to do with the historical evolution of philosophy, especially with the relation between philosophy and Christianity. Although in early Christianity, especially the monastic movements, Christianity itself was presented as a philosophia, a way of life in conformity with the divine Logos, as the Middle Ages developed, one witnessed a "total separation" of ancient spiritual exercises, which were no longer considered a part of philosophy but were integrated into Christian spirituality, and philosophy itself, which became a "simple theoretical tool" at the service of theology, an ancilla tl1eo/ogiae.191 Philosophy's role was now to provide theology with the "conceptual, logical, physical and metaphysical materials it needed," and the "Faculty of Arts became no more than a preparation for the Faculty of Theology." 198 Philosophical speculation thus became a purely abstract and theoretical activity, which was set strictly apart from theological thought and religious practice and spirituality. l'l'J

No longer a way of life, philosophy became a conceptual construction, a servant of theology, and the idea of philosophy as a system began to appear.200

A third aspect underlying our modem representation of philosophy is of a sociological nature, and can be traced back to the functioning of the university, as it was created by the medieval church. One central feature of the university is that it is an institution made up of professors who train other professors, of specialists who learn how to train other specialists. Unlike in antiquity, when philosophical teaching was directed towards the human being so as to form him as a human being, the modern university forms professionals who teach future professionals, and thus philosophy, rather than proposing an art of living, is presented above all as a "technical language reserved for specialists." 201 As Hadot says, in "modern university philosophy, philosophy is obviously no longer a way of life, a kind of life, unless it is the kind of life of the professor of philosophy." 2112 This sociological requirement of profossionalism, this situation of scholasticism, fncilitnl'cs nnd rcinforccN the wnd�

Introduction

33

ency to take refuge in the "comfortable universe of concepts and of discourses"; 203 it gives this natural tendency a social basis J and impetus, encouraging the display of a specialized technical language, as if philosophical depth were exhausted by one's ability to make use of conceptual abstractions and by one's skill at demonstrating the truth and falsity of various propositions.

Thus Hadot has provided three reasons, which one could think of as, respectively, philosophical, historical, and sociological, that help to account for the representation of philosophy as a purely theoretical activity, and for the reduction of philosophy to philosophical discourse. But he has not overlooked the fact that one can find elements of the ancient representation of philosophy throughout the history of philosophy, that certain of the

"existential aspects of ancient philosophy" have been constantly rediscovered.:!GI Among the philosophers he has named as exhibiting this ancient representation are Abelard and the Renaissance humanists, such as Petrarch and Erasmus. We might think here of the latter's remark with respect to his Enchiridion Mi/itis Christiani: "Let this book lead to a theological life rather than theological disputation." 205 Hadot has repeatedly pointed to Montaigne's Essays, especially "That to Philosophise is to Learn How to Die," as embodying the ancient exercise of philosophy, referring to the Essays as "the breviary of ancient philosophy, the manual of the art of living." � Among modern philosophers, Hadot has singled out certain aspects of Descartes'

Meditations, particularly D<..-scartes' advice that one invest some months or at least weeks meditating on his first and second Meditations, which Hadot says ultimately shows that for Descartes "evidence can only be perceived thanks to a spiritual exercise." 207 Hadot also mentions Spinoza's Ethics, and its emphasis on teaching us how to radically transform ourselves, to accede to beatitude, to approach the ideal of the sage, as well as Shaftesbury's remarkable Exercises, inspired by the spiritual exercises of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. 268 He has indicated, too, the continuation of the ancient idea of philosophy in the French philosophes of the eighteenth century, and in Kant's ideas of the interest of reason and the primacy of the practical. 209 In more recent times, we can find the spirit of the ancient philosopher's demand that we radically change our way of living and of seeing the world in Goethe, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard, and, in different ways, in the young Hegelians and Marx.210 In the twentieth century, Hadot points to Bergson, to Wittgenstein, to Foucault, and to certain aspects of phenomenology and existentialism as embodying the ancient attitude, practices, and sense of what philosophy means.21 1 And recently, Hadot has taken up Thoreau's Walden, finding in his decision to live in the woods Thoreau's undertaking of a philosophical act. 212 This constant reoccurrence of the ancient experience of phih111ophy, side by side with the tendency to understand philosophy as a cnnccptunl Hlrucr urc, :in 11hHl rnc1 discourse, shows how complex and even

34

Introduction

contradictory philosophy's own self-understanding has been. Hadot's work calls for a detailed historical account of philosophy's representations of itself, of the various ways in which philosophy imagines itself and exercises its ideals, and of the factors that contribute to its changing evaluations of itself, to how it views and reviews its own purposes and ultimate goals.

The permanence of the existential aspects of ancient philosophy has been highlighted by Hadot in his most recent discussions of what he has called "the fundamental and universal attitudes of the human being when he searches for wisdom." 213 From this point of view, Hadot has discerned a universal Stoicism, Epicureanism, Platonism, Aristotelianism, Cynicism, and Pyrrhonism, each of which corresponds to a permanent possibility of the human spirit, and which arc independent of the particular "philosophical or mythical discourses that have claimed or claim to justify them definitively." m Hadot, obviously enough, does not believe that we can adopt any of these attitudes wholly and unmodified, as if we could totally convert to the dogmas and practices of these schools of ancient philosophy.215 But he does believe that detached from their outmoded elements and reduced to their essence, to the extent that "we try to give a meaning to our life, they call upon us to discover the transformation that could be brought about in our life, if we realized (in the strongest sense of the term) certain values" that constitute the spirit of each of these attitudes.21r.

With respect to Stoicism, Hadot has described four features that constitute the universal Stoic attitude. They arc, first, the Stoic consciousness of "the fact that no being is alone, but that we make up part of a Whole, constituted by the totality of human beings as well as by the totality of the cosmos"; second, the Stoic "feels absolutely serene, free, and invulnerable to the extent that he has become aware that there is no other evil but moral evil and that the only thing that counts is the purity of moral consciousness"; third, the Stoic

"believes in the absolute value of the human person," a belief that is "at the origin of the modern notion of the 'rights of man' "; finally, the Stoic exercises his concentration "on the present instant, which consists, on the one hand, in living as if we were seeing the world for the first and for the last time, and, on the other hand, in being conscious that, in this lived presence of the instant, we have access to the totality of time and of the world." 217

Thus, for Hadot, cosmic consciousness, the purity of moral consciousness, the recognition of the equality and absolute value of human beings, and the concentration on the present instant represent the universal Stoic attitude.

The universal Epicurean attitude essentially consists, by way of "a certain discipline and reduction of desires, in returning from pleasures mixed with pain and suffering to the simple and pure pleasure of existing. " 218 Platonism, Aristotelianism, Cynicism, and Pyrrhonism also each have 11 univcr11nl chnrncter, and one of the historical and philosophical t11Hks cnllcd for1 h h�� I IMl111 'N

Introduction

35

work is precisely to provide a description of each of ttiese universal existential attitudes, each of the styles of life that they propose.

/

Moreover, Hadot has insisted that we do not have to choose between these different universal attitudes, opting for one to the exclusion of all of the others. The plurality of ancient schools allows us to compare the consequences of the different possible fundamental attitudes of reason, thus offering us "a privileged field of experimentation." 219 And we should not be surprised to find, for example, that there are certain people who are half Stoic and half Epicurean, who accept and combine "Epicurean sensualism" and

"Stoic communion with nature," who practice both Stoic spiritual exercises of vigilance and Epicurean spiritual exercises aimed at the true pleasure of existing.220 That is precisely how Hadot characterizes Goethe, Rousseau, and Thoreau.221 Indeed, Hadot has said that Stoicism and Epicureanism seem to correspond to "two opposite but inseparable poles of our inner life: tension and relaxation, duty and serenity, moral consciousness and the joy of existing." 222 To these poles of our inner life, we must add the experiences of Platonic love and the ascent of the soul as well as of Plotinian unity, Aristotelian contemplation, Cynic criticism of conventional values and the effort to endure every test and ordeal we face, Pyrrhonic suspension of judgment and absolute indifference.223 It is these experiences and ideals, more than any concepts, that arc the legacy of ancient philosophy to Western civilization.224 The study of ancient philosophy has taught Hadot that "human reality is so complex that one can only live it by using simultaneously or successively the most different methods: tension and relaxation, engagement and detachment, enthusiasm and reserve, certainty and criticism, passion and indifference." 225 Lessons in how to live human reality, with all that that implies - those are the enduring lessons of ancient philosophy.

In his preface to the monumental Dictionnaire des p/1ilosophes antif/ues, Hadot surveys all of the insufficiently exploited resources that arc available to the historian of ancient philosophy. He shows how the lists of titles of philosophical works as well as iconography, papyruses, and inscriptions can all be used to characterize more fully and accurately the phenomena of philosophy. But even this vast historical undertaking would not fulfill Hadot's own ultimate aims:

for the historian of philosophy the task will not be finished for all that: or more exactly, it should cede place to the philosopher, to the philosopher who should always remain alive in the historian of philosophy. This final task will consist in asking oneself, with an increased lucidity, the decisive question: "What is it to philosophize?"226

Pierre Hndot's own work itself prnvokes us to rcask the question of what it me11ns to philnKophiil', 11nll he provides 11 response as relevant, profound, and

36

Introduction

unsettling today as it was centuries ago. In the last analysis, that is what makes Pierre Hadot not just a consummate historian of philosophy, but also a philosopher for our own times.

Arnold I. Davidson

NOTES

Pierre Hadot, Exercices spin"tuels et philosophie antique, 2nd edn, Paris 1987.

2 Pierre Hadot, La Citadel/e interieure. Introduction aux Pensees de Marc Aurele, Paris 1 992.

3 Pierre Hadot, Titres et travau.t de Pierre Hadot, privately printed for the College de France, p. 9.

4 Pierre Hadot, "Patristiquc Latinc," Prob/emes el melhodes d 'hisloire des religions, Melanges publies par la Section des Sciences re/igieuses a /'occasion du centenaire de

/'Ecole pratique des Hau/es Etudes, Paris 1968, pp. 21 1-13. Contresens is a central concept in Hadot's interpretation of the history of exegetical thought. It covers strict cases of mistranslation as well as more general phenomena of misunderstanding and misinterpretation. I return to this aspect of Hadot's thought in what follows.

5 Hadot, 1i'tres el lravaw:, p. 8.

6 Hadot, "Patristique Latine," p. 2 1 2, and Pierre Hadot, "Patristique," in Encyclopedia U11iversalis, vol. 1 2, p. 608, Paris, 1972. Among other texts of Augustine, see Confessions, IX, 4, 1 1 .

7 Pierre Hadot, Comples rend11s des conferences donnees a /'Ecole pratique des Haules Etudes de 1964 a 1980, privately printed. I have paraphrased the compte rendu from 1 964- 1 965. The quotation is from pp. 2-3.

8 Pierre Hadot, "Platon et Plotin dans trois sermons de saint Ambrose,'' Revue des eludes la1ines XXXIV ( 1 956), p. 209, n. 5 .

9 Hadot, "Patristique,'' p. 608.

IO Pierre Hadot, "La fin du paganisme," in H.-Ch. Peuch, ed., Histoire des religi01n, vol. II, pp. IOl-7, Paris 1 972.

1 1 Ibid, p. 109. See also Margherita Guarducci, II primato de/la Chiesa di Roma.

Docmnenti, rijlessioni confenne, Milan

,

1 99 1 , pp. 85-7.

12 Hadot, "La fin du paganisme," p. I JO.

1 3 Ibid, pp. 1 07-8.

14 Ibid, p. 1 08. See also Edouard des Places, "Numenius et Eusebe de Cesaree,'' in Etudes platonicie1111es 1929-1979, Leiden 1981, esp. pp 322

.

-5 .

1 5 Hadot, "La fin du paganisme,'' p. 1 1 1 .

1 6 Ibid, pp. JOB and 105. Also, Pierre Hadot, "Theologie, exegese, revelation, ecriture, dans la philosophic grecque," in Michel Tardieu, ed., Les reg/es de

/'interpretation, Paris 1 987.

17 Hadot, "La fin du paganisme," pp. 83-4, 1 09.

18 Hadot, "Theologie, exegcse, revelation," p. 14.

1 9 Ibid, p. 22.

Introduction

37

20 In trying to summarize Hadot's very complex discussion, without distorting it, I have mainly followed "L'etre et l'etant dans le neoplatonisme,'' in Etudts ntoplatonidtnnts, Neuchitel 1973; ''Theologie, exegese, reJetation," esp.

pp. 19 2

-

0; and "Philosophy, Exegesis, and Creative Mistakes," this volume. See also Pierre Hadot, Porphyrt ti Victorinus, 2 vols, Paris 1 968.

21 Hadot, "Theologie, exegese, revelation," p. 20.

22 Ibid.

23 Hadot, "L'etre et l'etant dans le neoplatonisme," pp. 34-5.

24 Hadot, ''Theologie, exegese, revelation, .. p. 20.

25 Hadot, "L'etre et l'etant dans le neoplatonisme," pp. 34-5; Pierre Hadot, "La distinction de l'etre et de l'etant dans le 'De Hebdomadibus' de Boece,'' in Miscellanea Mtdiaevalia, vol. 2, Berlin 1 963; and Pierre Hadot, "Fom1a essendi.

Interpretation philologique et interpretation philosophique d'une formule de Boece,'' Les Etudts dassiques XXXVII ( 1 970), PP� 143-56. Hadot also explicitly relates this distinction to Heidegger's writings; see Hadot, "L'etre et l'etant dans le neoplatonisme, .. p. 27.

26 Pierre Hadot, "Heidegger et Plotin," Critiqut 145 ( 1 959), p. 542.

27 Sec Hadot's discussion in "Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse in Ancient Philosophy," this volume, especially pp. 65-6.

28 Ibid, pp. 61-2.

29 For the quoted phrase, see Hadot, Titres ti lravaux, p. 23.

30 Hadot, "Patristique Latine," p. 2 1 8.

3 1 Ibid, pp. 2 1 6- 1 7.

32 Margherita Guarducci, "La Crittografia mistica e i graffiti vaticani," Archeologia Classica XIII ( 1 961), p. 236, my emphasis.

33 Margherita Guarducci, "Dal Gioco letterale alla crittografia mistica," in Serini see/ti sulla religio11e grtca t romana e sul cristianesimo, Leiden 1983, pp. 42 1 -2.

34 Ibid, p. 441 . On the relationship between the three teeth of the E and the symbol of the key see also Margherita Guarducci, "Ancora sul misterioso E di Delfi," in Scrilli see/ti.

35 Margherita Guarducci, "La Criuografia mistica," p. 2 1 9.

36 Guarducci, // primato de/la Chiesa di Roma, pp. 126-7.

37 Quoted above, p. 8.

38 Guarducci, "Dal Gioco letterale alla crittografia mistica," p. 427.

39 Ibid, p. 428.

40 On the resort to lapidary error and accident, see Guarducci, "La Crittografia mistica," pp. 203-10.

41 For a superb example, see ibid, p. 206.

42 Q�oted above, p. 8.

43 Hadot, La Citadelk interieure, pp. 39-40. Sec also Pierre Hadot, "Les Pe11sees de Marc Aurele," Bulletin dt /'Association Gui/lame Bude (June 198 1 ), pp. 1 83--4.

44 1-ladot, La Citadcl/e i"1erie11re, p. 41 .

45 Ibid, pp. 311- �2.

4t1 Pierre I lild111 1 "Unc de tics l'emrc�s de Marc Aurclc: les rrois Topoi philosophiques

38

Introduction

scion Epictete," in Exmices spirituels, p. 13S. This essay was originally published in 1 978.

47 Hadot, La Citadelle interiture, pp. 40- 1 , 46-7. See also Hadot, "Les Pensees de Marc Aurcle,'' pp. 1 83-4.

48 Hadot, La Citadelle interieure, pp. 47, 49.

49 Ibid, p. 49.

SO Ibid.

S t Hadot, "Les Pensees de Marc Aurcle," p. 1 8S. See also Hadot, Titres et travaur, p. 29.

S2 Hadot, La Citadelle interieure, pp. 8S-6, 98-106. Sec also "Marcus Aurelius," this volume. Hadot has argued that, before Marcus, Epictetus was the only Stoic to have distinguished between three activities or functions of the soul. See Hadot, La Citadel/e i11terieure, pp. 8S, 99, 14S.

S3 Ibid, pp. 1 06-lS. See also Pierre Hadot, "Philosophic, discours philosophique, et divisions de la philosophic chez les stoiciens," Revue internationale de la philosophie 178 ( 1 99 1 ), pp. 20S-19.

S 4 Hadot, La Citadelle interieure, p. 1 06. I will return to Hadot's discussion of the distinction between philosophical discourse and philosophy.

SS Hadot, "Une de des Pensees de Marc Aurclc," p. l JS.

S6 Hadot, la Citadelle interieure, p. 62.

S7 Hadot, "Les Pensees de Marc Aurele," p. 1 87. See also Hadot, "Une de des Pensees de Marc Aurele," p. I SO.

S8 The words quoted are from the quotation above, p. 8.

S9 Hadot, Titres et travau.\', p. 1 2. See also "Marcus Aurelius," this volume, p. 1 86.

60 Hadot, La Citadelle interieure, p. 10. Hadot has applied these remarks to other ancient works. See Hadot, Titres el trava11l�, p. 1 3; and "Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse in Ancient Philosophy," this volume, pp. 6S-6.

61 Hadot, la Citadelle i11terieure, pp. 262-7S. See also Pierre Hadot, "Marc Aurele etait-il opiomane?," in E. Lucchesi and H.D. SatTrey, eds, Memorial Andre-Jean Festugiere, Geneva 1 984.

62 Hadot, la Citadelle interieure, pp. 261-2, 274.

63 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, VIII, 24. Cited in "Marcus Aurelius," this volume, p. 1 84.

64 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, VI, 1 3. Cited in "Marcus Aurelius," this volume, p. 1 8S.

6S Hadot, la Citadelle i11terie11re, p. 1 94.

66 Ibid, p. 1 8 1 . On physical definitions, see also pp. 122-3; and Hadot, "Les Pensees de Marc Aurcle," pp. 1 88-9.

67 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Ill, 1 1 . Cited in "Marcus Aurelius," this volume, p. 1 87.

68 Hadot, La Citadelle interieure, p. 1 23.

69 Ibid.

70 Hadot, "Les Pensees de Marc Aurele," p. 1 89.

7 1 Pierre Hadot, "La Physique commc exercice spirituel ou pcss1mu;mc ct optimismc chcz Marc Aurclc," in E.\�crrim spirit11els, pp. 1 32 .l Thi11

�

nrtich: wns

Introduction

39

originally published in 1972. For Hadot's argument that this inner attitude is not one of fatalist resignation, see Hadot, La Citadelle intirieure, pp. 224-6.

72 Hadot, La Citadelle intirieure, p. 268. See also Hadot, Titres et tra�aw:, p. 1 2. For other methodological limitations of this kind of psychological interpretation, see Hadot's remarkable discussion of the Passio Perpetuae in his rompte rendu from 1 967-8, in Hadot, Comptes rendus des ronflrenm, pp. 1 9-23. Of course, Hadot does not believe that Marcus is totally absent from the Meditations. See Hadot, La Citadelle intiriture, pp. 26 1-2, 275-3 14. See also "Marcus Aurelius," this volume, pp. 196-9.

73 Pierre Hadot, "De Tertullien a Boece. Le developpement de la notion de personne dans les controverses theologiques," in I. Myerson, ed., Probltmes de la pmonnt, Colloque du Centre de rerherrhes tk Psychologie comparative, Paris/La Haye 1 973, p. 1 32.

74 Ibid, p. 133. These claims of Hadot continue to be cited with approval. See, for example, Jean-Pierre Vemant, "L'individu dans la cite," in Sur l 'individu, Paris 1 987, p. 37. For another expression of this early view of Hadot, see Hadot,

"L'image de la Trinite dans l'ame chez Victorious et chez saint Augustin," in Studia Patristica, vol. VI, part IV, Berlin 1 962. See esp. p. 440 where Hadot writes, "From Victorious to Augustine, there is all of the distance that separates the ancient soul from the modem self."

75 Hadot, "Patristique Latine," p. 2 1 5.

76 Ibid.

77 Hadot, "Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse in Ancient Philosophy," this volume, p. 52. For Pierre Courcelle, see Recherrhes sur /es "Co1tfessions " tk saint Augustin (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1 950).

78 Hadot, Comptes rendus des confirenm, p. 8. This is the compte rendu from 1 965-6.

79 Hadot, "Patristique Latine," p. 2 1 5.

80 Hadot, Comptes rendus des ronflrences, p. 9. For a good discussion of the literature on Book II of the Confessions, see Franco De Capitani, "II libro II dclle Confessim1i di sant'Agostino," in "Le Confessioni" di Agostino d l Libri l-ll,

' ppona,

Palermo

1 984.

81 Hadot, "Patristique Latine," pp. 21 5-1 6, together with Hadot, Comp/es rendus des corifirences, p. 9.

82 Hadot, "Patristique Latine," p. 2 1 5 .

8 3 Hadot, Comples rendus des confirenres, p . 8.

84 Ibid.

85 Ibid, p. 9.

86 Comple rendu from 1970-7 1 , in ibid, pp. 45-8.

87 Hadot, "Patristique Larine," p. 2 1 5.

88 Ibid, p. 2 1 6, together with "Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse in Ancient Philosophy," this volume, p. 52. I have quoted extensively from Hadot's various discussions of Augustine, since many of them are not easily available. Hadot had once intended to publish a translation and commentary on the Confessions, a project he never completed.

89 Had111 , "Pa1ri111ique Larine.'' p. 2 1 5.

40

Introduction

90 See, among other essays, Pierre Hadot, "Wittgenstein, philosophe du langage (I)," Critique 1 49 (October 1 959), pp. 866-81 ; and "Wittgenstein, philosophe du langage (II)," Critique 1 50 (November 1959), pp. 972-83.

9 1 Hadot, "Wittgenstein, philosophe du langage (II)," p. 973. The importance of the connection between Wittgenstein's literary style and his thought has been a constant theme of Stanley Cavell's writing. For an early statement, see Cavell,

"The availability of Wittgenstein's later philosophy," in Must We Mean What We Say?, New York 1 969, pp. 70-3. I bring together Hadot and Cavell's work in

"La decouverte de Thoreau et d'Emerson par Stanley Cavell ou les exercices spirtuels de la philosophic" (forthcoming in Sandra Laugier, ed., Lire Cavel/ ).

92 Hadot has highlighted these claims in the overview of his work that he presented to the College International de Philosophic in May, 1 993. I will refer to the unpublished typescript of his presentation as "Presentation au College International de Philosophic." Sec, for example, pp. 2-3.

93 Pierre Hadot, "Jcux de langagc et philosophic," Revue de Metaplrysique et de Morale LXIV ( 1 960), p. 34 1 .

94 Ibid, p . 340.

95 Ibid, pp. 339--43.

96 Ibid, pp. 342-3 .

97 Ibid, p. 343.

98 Hadot, La Citadelle interieure, p. 9. See also Hadot, Titres et travaux, p. 1 2.

99 Pierre Hadot, "La philosophic antique: unc ethique ou unc pratiquc?," in Paul Demont, ed., Prob/emes de la morale antique, Amiens 1993, pp. 7-8. See also the section "Learning How to Read" in "Spiritual Exercises," this volume, pp. 1 01-9.

1 00 Hadot, "Philosophic, discours philosophique, ct divisions de la philosophic chcz lcs stoiciens," p. 205 .

1 0 1 Pierre Hadot, "Preface," in Richard Goulet, ed., Dictionnaire des philosoplies tmtiques, Paris 1 989, p. 1 2.

1 02 Hadot, "La philosophic antique: unc ethiquc ou une pratique?," p. 8. See also Hadot, "Presentation au College International de Philosophie," pp. 1 -2.

1 03 Hadot, "La philosophie antique: une ethique ou une pratique?," p. 1 0.

104 "Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse in Ancient Philosophy," this volume, p. 62.

1 05 Hadot, "La philosophic antique: une ethique ou une pratique?," p. 9. Sec also Pierre Hadot, "Preface," in M.D. Richard, L 'Enseignement oral de Platon, Paris 1 986, pp. 9-1 0.

1 06 Reading together Hadot, "Jcux de langage et philosophic," p. 341 , and Hadot,

"Presentation au College International de Philosophic," p. 2.

107 Hadot, "Presentation au College International de Philosophic," p. 2. To the best of my knowledge, Hadot first invoked this formula of Goldschmitt in "Jcux de langage et philosophic," p. 341 .

1 08 Hadot, "Preface," i n L 'Enseignement oral de Pla1011, p . 1 1 .

1 09 See the section "Learning to Dialogue" in "Spiritual Exercises," this volume, pp. 89-93 .

1 1 0 "Spiritual Exercises," this volume, pp. 1 9 20.

Introduction

41

1 1 1 Ibid, p. 2 1 .

1 1 2 Ibid, pp. 2 1 -2. ( I have modified the translation.) 1

1 1 3 "Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse in Ancient Philosophy," this volume, pp. 63-4.

1 14 Hadot, "La philosophic antique: une ethique ou une pratique?," p. 1 1 .

1 1 5 Ibid.

1 1 6 Ibid, my emphasis.

1 1 7 Ibid, pp. 1 1-12.

1 1 8 Ibid, p. 1 2. Sec also "Spiritual Exercises," this volume.

1 1 9 See the section "Learning to Live" in "Spiritual Exercises," this volume, pp. 82-9. Also see Hadot, "La philosophic antique: une ethique ou une pratique?," pp. 1 2-14.

1 20 Sec esp. the opening pages of "Ancient Spiritual Exercises and 'Christian Philosophy'," this volume.

1 2 1 Hadot, "La philosophic antique: une ethique ou une pratique?," p. 1 3 . On the direction of souls in Seneca, see Ilsetraut Hadot, Seneca und die griechisch-riimische Tradition der Seelenleitung, Berlin, 1 969. In antiquity, the philosopher was not the only kind of spiritual guide; for other figures of spiritual guidance, sec Ilsetraut Hadot, "The spiritual guide," in A.H. Armstrong, ed., Classical Mediterranean Spirituality, New York 1 986.

1 22 Hadot, "La philosophic antique: une ethique ou une pratique?," pp. 1 7-18.

1 23 Ibid, p. 1 1 8, speaking of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations.

1 24 Ibid, p. 1 7.

1 25 Carlo Natali, Rios Theoretikos. La vita d 'Aristotele e l'orga11iuazione de/la sua scuola, Bologna 1 99 1 , p. 98.

1 26 Hadot, "La philosophic antique: une cthique ou une pratiquc?,'' pp. 1 6- 1 7 .

1 27 Ibid, p . 1 5 .

1 28 Hadot, "Philosophic, discours philosophique, e t divisions d e l a philosophic chez les stoiciens," p. 2 1 6, and Hadot, "La philosophic antique: une cthique ou une pratique?," p. 1 6.

1 29 Hadot, "La philosophic antique: une cthique ou une pratique?," p. 1 6.

1 30 Ibid.

1 3 1 See the section "Learning to Die" in "Spiritual Exercises," this volume, pp. 93-1 0 1 .

1 32 Ilsetraut Hadot, "Preface," i n Seneca, Consolations, Paris 1 992, p. 1 7.

1 33 Ibid, pp. 1 8-19.

1 34 Ibid, p. 19.

135 "Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse in Ancient Philosophy,'' this volume, pp. 58-60. On the unclassifiability of the philosopher, see pp. 55-60.

1 36 1-Iadot, "Preface,'' in Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, p. 12.

1 37 Xenophon, Memorabilia, IV, 4, 10. Hadot offers two slightly different translations of this remark. One can be found in the essay "The Figure of Socrates,'' this volume. I have cited the one from "La philosophic antique: une ethique ou une pratiquc?," p. 36.

1 38 See the opening pages of both "Spiritual Exercises" and "Ancient Spiritual l�:xerciNc11 and 'ChriHliim PhiloNophy'," this volume.

42

Introduction

1 39 On the ancient doctrine of the division of the parts of philosophy, see Pierre Hadot, "Les divisions des parties de la philosophic," Museum Helveticum 36

( 1 979), pp. 201 -23.

1 40 Hadot, "La philosophic antique: une ethique ou unc pratique?," pp. 1 8-29; Hadot, "Philosophic, discours philosophique, et divisions de la philosophic chez Jes stoiciens"; and Hadot, la Citatklk interiturt, ch. S.

1 4 1 Hadot, "La philosophic antique: une ethique ou une pratique?," pp. 1 9-20.

1 42 Ibid, pp. 20-- 1 .

1 43 Ibid, pp. 2 1 -4.

1 44 Hadot, "Philosophic, discours philosophique, et divisions de la philosophic chez Jes stoiciens," p. 212. See also Hadot, la Citarltllt interiturt, p. 98, and

"Philosophy as a Way of Life," this volume.

1 4S See ch. 7, this volume. I have discussed Hadot's criticisms of Foucault at length in "Ethics as ascetics: Foucauh, the history of ethics and ancient thought,"

in Jan Goldstein, ed., Foucault a11rl tht Writing of History, Oxford 1994.

1 46 See Veyne's remarks in lts Crees, Its Romai11s ti nous. l 'Antiquite est-tile modtrnt?, ed. Roger Pol-Droit, Paris 199 1 , pp. S7 8.

-

1 47 Sec Hadot, "Philosophic, discours philosophiquc, ct divisions de la philosophic chez Jes stoiciens"; Hadot, "La philosophic antique: une ethique ou une pratique?," pp. 25-6; and Hadot, la Citadellt irllerit11rt, pp. 94-8. Zeno of Tarsus was an exception to this doctrine; see Diogenes Laertius, lives of Eminml Philosophers, VII, 39 and 4 1 .

1 48 Hadot, "Philosophic, discours philosophique, et divisions d e l a philosophic chez les stoiciens," p. 21 1 .

1 49 Reading together Hadot, "La philosophic antique: une ethique ou une pratique?,"

p. 26, and Hadot, "Philosophic, discours philosophique, ct divisions de la philosophic chcz les stoicicns," p. 2 1 2.

I SO Reading together Hadot, "Philosophic, discours philosophiquc, et divisions de la philosophic chez lcs stoiciens," p. 212, and Hadot, "La philosophic antique: une ethique OU unc pratique? ,'' p. 26.

I S l Hadot, la Citadtllt interiturt, p. 98. Sec also Hadot, "Philosophic, discours philosophique, et divisions de la philosophic chez Jes stoiciens," p. 2 1 2.

I S2 Hadot, "Les divisions des parties de la philosophic," p. 2 1 1 .

1 S3 Ibid, p. 2 1 2.

1 54 Ibid. For Augustine, see Tht Cio1 of God, book 8, ch. 4, and book 2, ch. 2S.

l SS Hadot, "Les divisions des parties de la philosophic," p. 2 1 1 . See also Hadot,

"Philosophic, discours philosophique, et divisions de la philosophic chez Jes stoiciens," pp. 218-19, and Hadot, la Citatkllt interiturt, pp. 99-1 1 5. I have not presented here Hadot's discussion of those classifications of the parts of philosophy based essentially on the notion of spiritual progress. See Hadot, "Les divisions des parties de la philosophic," pp. 218-2 1 .

1 S6 Hadot, "La philosophic antique: une cthique ou une pratiquc?," p . 27.

1 S7 Ibid, p. 28.

1 58 Hadot, "Presentation au College International de Philosophic," p. 4.

1 59 Hadot, "La philosophic antique: unc ethi,1ue ou unc pratiquc?,'' p. ZH.

1 <10 Had111, "Presentation au Collc!(c International de Philosophic," p. <f. Sec

Introduction

43

also "Philosophy as a Way of Life," this volume. Hadot also develops this theme at the conclusion of his unpublished paper on Thoreau's Walden,/'Reflexions sur Walden," delivered at the Ecole Nonnale Superieure, June 1993.

161 Cited by Hadot in "La philosophic antique: une ethique ou une pratique?,"

pp. 1 3-14.

1 62 Cited in "Philosophy as a Way of Life," this volume, p. 267.

1 63 Epictetus, Discourses, IV, 4, 1 3 . Cited in Hadot, "La philosophic antique: une Cthique OU une pratique?," p. 2 1 .

1 64 Cited by Ilsetraut Hadot, "Aristote dans l'enseignement philosophique neoplatonicien. Les prefaces des commentaires sur Jes Categories," Revue de thtologie et de phi/osophie 1 24 ( 1 992), p. 4 1 9, n. 38.

1 65 Hadot, "La philosophic antique: une ethique ou une pratique?," pp. 28-9.

1 66 Pierre Hadot, "Le Genie du lieu dans la Grece antique,'' in Michel Crepu, Richard Figuier, and Rene Louis, eds, Hauls lieux, Paris 1 990, p. 1 50. For a discussion of the role of this fragment, especially in the mysticism of Pseudo

Dionysius, see Ysabel de Andia, "na9ci>u ta �eta", in Stephen Gersh and Charles Kannengiesser, eds, Platonism in late Antiqui(y, Notre Dame 1 992.

1 67 Hadot, "Le Genie du lieu dans la Grece antique,'' p. 1 50. Hadot is following the interpretation of D. Sabbatucci, Essai sur le mysticisme gru, Paris 1 982.

1 68 1-ladot, "Le Genie du lieu dans la Grece antique,'' p. 1 50, my emphasis.

1 69 Hadot, "La philosophic antique: une ethique ou une pratique?," p. 34.

1 70 Ibid.

1 7 1 Ibid. p. 35. For extensive discussion, see Pierre Hadot, Plotin. Traite 38, Paris 1 988, pp. 44-52 and 347-5 1 .

1 72 Hadot, Plotin. Traite 38, reading together p. 45 and p . 349.

1 73 Pierre Hadot, "Apophatisme et theologie negative,'' in Exercices spirituels, p. 193.

1 74 Hadot, "Le Genie du lieu dans la Grece antique,'' p. 1 52, my emphasis. For a discussion of Hadot's interpretation of Plotinus' mysticism, see my "Reading Hadot reading Plotinus," intro. in Pierre Hadot, Plotinus or the Simplicity of Vision, Chicago 1993 .

1 75 Pierre Hadot, "Postface a la seconde edition," in Exercices spirituels, p. 236.

1 76 Ibid .

1 77 Natali, Bios Theoretikos, pp. 1 37-8. Natali's remark is made with particular reference to On the Parts of Ani,,1als, 645a 7-1 0. For the dangers of viewing Aristotle as if he were a modern university professor, and as if the life of theoria were purely abstract, or the career of a modern scientist, see Natali, Bios Theoretikos, pp. 67-74 and 1 29-38.

1 78 Pierre Hadot, "Les modeles de bonheur proposes par les philosophes antiques,''

la Vie spirituelle ( Jan.-Feb. 1 992), pp. 34-6. See also Hadot, "Postface a la seconde edition,'' p. 236. Hadot has in mind primarily Nicomachean Ethics, X, 7, and Metaphysics, I 072b 28.

1 79 Aristotle, Politics, VII, 3, 8, 1 325b. Cited by Hadot in "La philosophic antique: unc i:thiquc ou une pratique?," pp. 3 1 -2.

1 80 lladot, "La philosophic antique: une i:thique ou une pratique?," p. 3 1 , my emphasis.

I H I Ibid, ,, . .

12.

44

Introduction

1 82 Hadot, "Preface,'' in Dictionnaire des ph1Josophes antiques, pp. 1 1-12.

1 83 Ibid.

1 84 "Philosophy as a Way of Life,'' this volume, pp. 272-3.

1 85 Hadot, "Preface,'' in Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, p. 13.

1 86 Ibid.

1 87 Ibid. See also "Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse in Ancient Philosophy,''

this volume, pp. 55-8.

1 88 Giuseppe Cambiano, "La figura del filosofo e le altre forme del sapere," Quaderni di Storia XIX, 37 (Jan.-June 1993), p. 8 1 .

1 89 On the importance o f the act o f conversion, see Pierre Hadot, "Epistrophe et metanoia dans l'histoire de la philosophic,'' in Actes du Xl'"" congres international de philosophie, XII, Amsterdam 1953, and Pierre Hadot, "Conversion," in Exercices spirituels.

190 Pierre Hadot, "La philosophic hellenistique,'' in Histoire de la philosophie. I. Les pensees fondatrices, Paris 1 993, pp. 69-70. See also Hadot, "Presentation au College International de Philosophic,'' pp. H.

1 9 1 Hadot, "Presentation au College International de Philosophic," p. 3 .

1 92 Ibid, reading together p. 7 and p. 6.

1 93 Ibid, p. 5.

1 94 Pierre Hadot, "La philosophic est-elle un luxe?," Le Monde de / 'education (Mar. 1992), p. 9 1 .

1 95 Jhid.

1 96 Reading together ibid p. 92, and Hadot, "Presentation au College International de Philosophic,'' p. 9.

1 97 On early Christianity as a philosophy, see "Ancient Spiritual Exercises and

'Christian Philosophy"' and "Philosophy as a Way of Life," this volume. The quoted words come from Hadot, "Presentation au College International de Philosophic," p. 7.

198 "Philosophy as a Way of Life,'' this volume, p. 270.

1 99 Hadot, "Presentation au College International de Philosophic,'' p. 7.

200 Hadot says that it is with Suarez that the idea of systematic philosophy would appear for the first time. See ibid.

201 "Philosophy as a Way of Life,'' this volume, pp. 270 and 272-3. (I have slightly modified the translation.) See also Hadot, "Presentation au College International de Philosophic,'' p. 7.

202 "Philosophy as a Way of Life," this volume, p. 27 1 . (I have slightly modified the translation.)

203 Hadot, "Presentation au College International de Philosophic," p. 7.

204 "Philosophy as a Way of Life," this volume, pp. 27 1-2.

205 Hadot, "Presentation au College International de Philosophic," pp. 7-8.

The quotation from Erasmus is taken from a letter he wrote to Abbot Voltz in 1 5 1 8. See The Essential Erasmus, ed. John P. Dolan, New York 1 964, p. 28.

206 Pierre Harlot, "Emerveillements,'' in La Bibliotheque imaginaire t/11 CrilltRr dr France, Paris 1 990, p. 1 22.

207 Pierre Hadot, "Un di11loguc intcrrnmpu nvcc Michel Foul�nuh . C111l\'l1r1&ttlll'CN cH

Introduction

45

divergences," in E:rerdces spirituels, p. 232. See also "Philosophy as a Way of Life,'' this volume, pp. 27 1-2.

208 "Philosophy as a Way of Life," this volume, pp. 27 1-2, and Hadbt, "Presentation au College International de Philosophic,'' p. 8.

209 Hadot, "Presentation au College International de Philosophic," pp. 8-9 .

2 1 0 On Schopenhauer, the young Hegelians and Marx, see "Philosophy as a Way of Life,'' this volume, pp. 271-2. On Goethe's relation to ancient philosophy, see especially '"Only the Present is our Happiness': The Value of the Present Instant in Goethe and in Ancient Philosophy," this volume. On Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, see especially ''The Figure of Socrates," this volume.

2 1 1 On twentieth-century philosophy, see, among other essays, "Philosophy as a Way of Life," "The Sage and the World,'' and "Reflections on the Idea of the

'Cultivation of the Self ','' all in this volume.

2 1 2 Hadot, "Reflexions sur Walden."

213 Hadot, "Presentation au College International de Philosophic," p. 9. Sec also Hadot, La Citadelle lnterieure, p. 330.

2 14 Hadot, "Presentation au College International de Philosophic," p. 9.

2 1 5 Hadot, La Citade//e interieure, p. 329.

2 1 6 Reading together ibid, pp. 329-30, and "Philosophy as a Way of Life,'' this volume, pp. 272-3. The quoted words arc used with respect to Stoicism, but it is clear that Hadot would apply them to the other universal attitudes as well.

2 1 7 Hadot, La Citade//e interieure, pp. 33 1 -2.

2 1 8 Hadot, "Reflexions sur Walden," p. 6.

2 1 9 "Philosophy as a Way of Life," this volume, pp. 272-3.

220 Hadot, "Reflexions sur Walden,'' pp. 7-8.

221 Ibid.

222 "Spiritual Exercises,'' this volume, p. 108 (translation slightly modified). See also

"Philosophy as a Way of Life," this volume, pp. 272-3.

223 On Cynicism and Pyrrhonism, see Hadot, "La philosophic hellenistiquc,"

pp. 70, 77-8.

224 Ibid, p. 79.

225 Hadot, "Emerveillements,'' p. 1 22.

226 Hadot, "Preface,'' in Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, p. 16.

Part I

M ethod

1

Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse

in Ancient Philosophy

Mr Administrator,

Dear colleagues,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

"Each one of you expects two things from me on the occasion of this inaugural lecture: first of all, that I express my thanks to those who made my presence here possible and second, that I present the method that I will use to carry out the task entrusted to me." 1 Petrus Ramus, who held the chair in rhetoric and philosophy at the College Royal, opened his inaugural lecture, delivered in Latin, with words to this effect on August 24, 1 55 1 , only twenty years after the founding of this institution. We sec that the practice of giving this lecture dates back more than four hundred years and that even at that time its major themes were already set. And I in turn will remain faithful to this venerable tradition today.

More than a year has gone by already, dear colleagues, since you decided to create a chair in the History of Hellenistic and Roman Thought. Shortly thereafter you honored me by entrusting it to me. How, without being awkward or superficial, can I express the extent of my gratitude and my joy at the confidence you have shown toward me?

I am able to see in your decision a reflection of that freedom and independence of mind that have traditionally characterized the great institution into which you have welcomed me. For, despite my election, I possess few of the qualities that would usually attract notice, and the discipline I represent is not among those in fashion today. In a way I am what the Romans called a lwmo t1ouus, as I do not belong to that intellectual nobility one of whose principal titles is traditionally that of "former student of the Ecole Normalc Supcricure." Moreover, you certainly noticed during my visits to you that l hick that tmnquil authority conferred by the use and mastery of

50

Method

the idioms currently spoken in the Republic of Letters. My language, as you will again ascertain today, is not graced with those mannerisms that now seem to be required when one ventures to speak of the human sciences. However, several of you encouraged me to present my candidacy, and during the traditional visits, which so enriched me, I was extremely touched to find so much sympathy and interest, particularly among those of you who are specialists in the exact sciences, for the field of research I have come before you to defend. In other words, I believe I did not have to convince you - you were persuaded already - of the need for the College to ensure a way to maintain the close bonds between areas of teaching and research that are too often artificially separated: Latin and Greek, philology and philosophy, Hellenism and Christianity. I thus marveled to discover that at the end of the twentieth century, when many of you on a daily basis employ technical procedures, modes of reasoning, and representations of the universe of almost superhuman complexity that open a future to humanity w,e could not even conceive of earlier, the ideal of humanism, which inspired the foundation of the College de France, continues to retain for you, undoubtedly in a more conscious and critical but also more vast, intense, and profound form, all of its value and significance.

I spoke of a close connection between Greek and Latin, philology and philosophy, Hellenism and Christianity. I believe that this formulation corresponds exactly to the inspiration found in the teaching of Pierre Courcelle, who was my colleague at the Fifth Section of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and to whom I wish to render homage today, indeed, whom I succeed, if I may say so, in an indirect line, via the appointment of Rolf Stein. I believe that Pierre Courcelle, who was so brutally taken from us, is intensely present in the hearts of many of us tonight. For me he was a teacher who taught me much, but he was also a friend who showed great concern for me. I will speak now only of the scholar, to recall his immense output of truly great books, innumc:rable articles, and hundreds of reviews. I do not know if the scope of this gigantic labor has been sufficiently measured.

The first lines of his great work Lettres grecques en Occident de Macrobe ti Ctissiodore give a clear idea of the revolutionary direction his work had for his time. "A substantial book on Hellenistic literature in the West from the death of Theodosius up to the time of the Justinian reconquest may seem surprising," wrote Courcelle. First of all, it was surprising for a Latinist to be interested in Greek literature. However, as Courcelle noted, this Greek literature made possible the flowering of Latin literature and produced Cicero, who represented the most complete development of Greco-Roman culture at its apex, and it was this literature that nearly became a substitute for Latin when during the second century AD Latin was overshadowed by Greek as a literary language. However, it still must be stated and dl�plorcd that, despite Courcelle's initiative and example and owing to 11 prd111lii't� 1 h111

Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse

5 1

has not been totally overcome and that maintains the disastrous break made in French scholarship between Greek and Latin, what he had to say in 1 943, forty years ago, is unfortunately still true today: "I know of no synthetic work that examines the Greek influence on the thought and culture of the Roman Empire." Once again it was surprising to see a Latinist devote such an important study to a later period and show that in the fifth and sixth centuries, a time of so-called decadence, Greek literature had undergone a remarkable renaissance, which, thanks to Augustine, Macrobius, Boethius, Martianus Capella, and Cassiodorus, was to make it possible for the European Middle Ages to maintain contact with Greek thought until the Arab translations made possible its rediscovery in richer sources. Again, it was surprising to see a philologist attack problems in the history of philosophy, showing the key influence exercised on Latin Christian thought by Greek and p11gan Neoplatonism, not only by Plotinus but - this was an important detail

- by his disciple Porphyry as well. Even more surprising, this philologist based his conclusions on a rigorously philological method. I mean that he was not content merely to reveal vague analogies between Neoplatonic and Christian doctrines or to evaluate influences and originalities in a purely subjective way - in a word, to rely on rhetoric and inspiration to establish his conclusions. No, following the example of Paul Henry, the learned editor of Plotinus who has also been a model of scientific method for me, Courcelle compared the texts. He discovered what anyone could have seen but no one had seen before him, that a certain text of Ambrose had been literally translated from Plotinus, that one of Boethius had been literally translated from a Greek Neoplatonic commentator on Aristotle. This method made it possible to establish indisputable facts, to bring the history of thought out of the vagueness and artistic indistinctness into which certain historians, even contemporaries of Courcelle, tended to relegate it.

If Les Lettres grecques en Occident provoked surprise, the Recherches sur /es

"Confessions " de saint Augustin, the first edition of which appeared in 1 950, almost caused a scandal, particularly because of the interpretation Courcelle proposed for Augustine's account of his own conversion. Augustine recounts that as he was weeping beneath a fig tree, overcome with pressing questions and heaping bitter reproaches upon himself for his indecision, he heard a child's voice repeating, "Take it ip and read." He then opened Paul's Epistles at random, as if he were drawing a lot, and read the passage that converted him. Alerted by his profound knowledge of Augustine's literary procedures and the traditions of Christian allegory, Courcelle dared to write that the fig tree could well have a purely symbolic value, representing the "mortal shadow of sin," and that the child's voice could also have been introduced in a purely l iterary way to indicate allegorically the divine response to Augustine's quest ioning. Courcelle did not suspect the uproar his interpretation would unkn11h. II l11i;1 ed nlmmil l wcnty ye1m;, The greatest names in international

52

Method

patristics entered the fray. Obviously I do not wish to rekindle the flames here. But I would like to stress how interesting his position was from a methodological point of view. Indeed it began with the very simple principle that a text should be interpreted in light of the literary genre to which it belongs. Most of Courcelle's opponents were victims of the modern, anachronistic prejudice that consists in believing that Augustine's Confessions is primarily an autobiographical account. Courcelle on the contrary had understood that the Confessions is essentially a theological work, in which each scene may take on a symbolic meaning. One is always surprised, for example, by the length of Augustine's account of his stealing pears while he was an adolescent. But this is explained by the fact that these fruits stolen from a garden become symbolically, for Augustine, the forbidden fruit stolen from the Garden of Eden, and the episode gives him the opportunity to develop a theological reflection on the nature of sin. In this literary genre, then, it is extremely difficult to distinguish between a symbolic enactment and an account of a historical event.

A very large part of Courcellc's work was devoted to tracing the fortunes of great themes such as "Know thyself" or great works such as Augustine's Confessions or Boethius' Ctm$o/ation of Phi/O$t>Pkl' in the history of Western thought. Not the least original of his contributions, appearing in several of the major works he wrote from this perspective, was his association of literary study and iconographical inquiry, pertaining, for example, to illustrations produced throughout the ages for the Confessions or the Consolation. These iconographical studies, which are fundamental in reconstructing the history of religious mentalities and imagination, were all undertaken in collaboration with Mrs Jeanne Courcelle, whose great knowledge of the techniques of art history and iconographic description greatly enriched her husband's work.

This all-too-brief recollection permits a glimpse, I hope, of the general development, the itinerary, of Courcelle's research. Starting from late antiquity, he was led to go back in time, especially in his book on , the theme of

"Know thyself," toward the philosoP.hY of the imperial and Hellenistic period, and, on the other hand, to follow, across the years, ancient works, themes, and images as they evolved in the Western tradition. Finally, it is my hope that this history of Hellenistic and Roman thought I am now going to present to you reflects the spirit and the profound orientation of Courcelle's teaching and work.

According to the scheme given by Petrus Ramus, I have just spoken of what he himself called the ratio muneris officiique 11ostri: the object and method of the teaching entrusted to me. In the title of my chair, the word tliought can seem very vague; indeed it can be applied to an immense and undefined domain ranging from politics to art, from poetry to science and 11hi ln11011hy, or religion and magic. In any event, the term invites one to 11111kl1 hr1,111h1 11king

Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse

53

excursions into the vast world of wondrous and fascinating works produced during the great period of the history o( humanity that I propose to study.

Perhaps we will accept this invitation from time to time, but our intention is to turn to the essential, to recognize the typical or the significant, to attempt to grasp the Urphiinomene, as Goethe would say. And specifically, philosophia, the way the term was understood then, is one of the typical and significant phenomena of the Greco-Roman world. It is this above all which engages our attention. Nevertheless, we have preferred to speak of "Heilenistic and Roman thought" to reserve the right to follow this philosophia in its most varied manifestations and above all to eliminate the preconceptions the word philosophy may evoke in the modem mind.

"Hellenistic and Roman": these words themselves open an immense period before us. Our history begins with the highly symbolic event represented by Alexander's fantastic expedition and with the emergence of the world called Hellenistic, that is, with the emergence of this new form of Greek civilization beginning from the moment when Alexander's conquests and, in their wake, the rise of kingdoms extended this civilization into the barbarian world from Egypt to the borders of India, and then brought it into contact with the most diverse nations and civilizations. The result is a kind of distance, a historical distance, between Hellenistic thought and the Greek tradition preceding it.

Our history then covers the rise of Rome, which will lead to the destruction of the Hellenistic kingdoms, brought to completion in 30 BC with Cleopatra's death. After that will come the expansion of the Roman empire, the rise and triumph of Christianity, the barbarian invasions, and the end of the Western empire.

We have just traversed a millennium. But from the standpoint of the history of thought, this long period must be treated as a whole. Indeed it is impossible to know Hellenistic thought without recourse to later documents, those of the imperial era and late antiquity, which reveal it to us; and it is equally impossible to understand Roman thought without taking its Greek background into account.

We need to recognize from the outset that almost all of Hellenistic literature, principally its philosophical productions, has disappeared. The Stoic philosopher Chrysippus, to cite only one example, among many, wrote seven hundred works, all of which are lost; only a few fragments have come down to us. We would undoubtedly have a very different idea of Hellenistic philosophy if this gigantic catastrophe had not occurred. How can we hope to compensate in some way for this irreparable loss? Obviously, there is the chance that discoveries might sometimes bring unknown texts to light. For example, in the mid-eighteenth century, an Epicurean library was found at Herculaneum. It contained texts of remarkable interest, not only for the knowledge it provided of that school but also regarding Stoicism and Plntuni111n. l�:ven todoy the Institute of Papyrology in Naples continues to

54

Me1hod

mine, in an exemplary manner, these precious documents, endlessly improving both the texts and the commentaries. Another example: during the excavations, led for fifteen years by our colleague Paul Bernard in A"i Khanoun, near the border between Afghanistan and the USSR, to find the remains of a Hellenistic town of the kingdom of Bactrian, a philosophical text, unfortunately terribly mutilated, was discovered. The presence of such a document in such a place suffices, furthermore, to make one recognize the extraordinary expansion of Hellenism brought on by the Alexandrian conquests. Most likely it dates from the third or second century BC and represents a fragment, unfortunately very difficult to read, of a dialogue in which it is possible to recognize a passage i nspired by the Aristotelian tradition.2

Except for finds of this type, which are extremely rare, one is obliged to exploit existing texts to their fullest, which often are of a much later date, in order to find information about the Hellenistic period. Obviously, it is necessary to begin with the Greek texts. Despite many excellent studies, much remains to be done in this area. For example, the collections of philosophical fragments that have come down to us need to be completed or updated . Hans von Arnim's collection of fragments from the earliest Stoics is exactly eighty years old and requires serious revision. Moreover, there exists no collection of fragments for the Academicians from the period that runs from Arccsilas to Philo of Larissa. On the other hand, mines of information, such as the works of Philo of Alexandria, Galen, Athenaeus, and Lucian, or the commentaries on Plato and Aristotle written at the end of antiquity, have never been systematically made use of. But the Latin writers are also indispensable to this line of inquiry. For although the Latinists do not always agree, one has to admit that Latin literature, except for the historians (and even there!), is comprised largely of either translations, paraphrases, or imitations of Greek texts. Sometimes this is completely evident, for one can compare line by line and word for word the Greek originals that were translated or paraphrased by the Latin writers; sometimes the Latin writers themselves also quote their Greek sources; sometimes, finally, one can legitimately speculate about these influences with the help of reliable evidence. Thanks to the Latin writers, a large part of Hellenistic thought was preserved . Without Cicero, Lu<..Tetius, Seneca, or Aulus Gellius, many aspects of the philosophy of the Epicureans, Stoics, and Academicians would be irretrievably lost. The Latins of the Christian period are moreover just as precious: without Marius Victorious, Augustine, Ambrose of Milan, Macrobius, Boethius, or Martianus Capella, how many Greek sources would be completely unknown to us! Two projects are thus inseparable: on the one hand, to explain Latin thought in light of its Greek background, and, on the other hand, to rediscover Greek thought, which has been lost to us, in the works of Latin writers. If both these tnsk11 11rc 111 he <.'Rrricd out, any separation of Gr<.'Ck and Latin scholarship is totnllr impc11111ihlr.

Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse 5 5

Here we are witness to the great cultural event of the West, the emergence of a Latin philosophical language translated from the Greek. Once again, it would be necessary to make a systematic study of the formation of this technical vocabulary that, thanks to Cicero, Seneca, Tertullian, Victorinus, Calcidius, Augustine, and Boethius, would leave its mark, by way of the Middle Ages, on the birth of modern thought. Can it be hoped that one day, with current technical means, it will be possible to compile a complete lexicon of the correspondences of philosophical terminology in Greek and Latin?

Furthermore, lengthy commentaries would be needed, for the most interesting task would be to analyze the shifts in meaning that take place in the movement from one language to another. In the case of the ontological vocabulary the translation of ousia by subs1an1ia, for example, is justly famous and has again recently inspired some remarkable studies. This brings us once more to a phenomenon we discretely alluded to earlier with the word phi/osophia, and which we will encounter throughout the present discussion: the misunderstandings, shifts or losses in meaning, the reinterpretations, sometimes even to the point of misreadings, that arise once tradition, translation, and exegesis coexist. So our history of Hellenistic and Roman thought will consist above all in recognizing and analyzing the evolution of meanings and significance.

It is precisely the need to explain this evolution that justifies our intention to study this period as a whole. Translations from the Greek into Latin are indeed only a particular aspect of this vast process of unification, that is, of Hellenization, of the different cultures of the Mediterranean world, Europe, and Asia Minor that took place progressively from the fourth century BC up until the end of the ancient world. Hellenic thought had the strange capacity to absorb the most diverse mythical and conceptual themes. All the cultures of the Mediterranean world thus eventually expressed themselves in the categories of Hellenic thought, but at the price of important shifts in meaning that distorted the content of the myths, the values, and .the wisdom of each culture, as well as the content of the Hellenic tradition itself. First the Romans, who were able to retain their language, then the Jews, and then the Christians fell into this sort of trap. Such was the price for the creation of the remarkable linguistic and cultural community that characterizes the Greco-Roman world. This process of unification also ensured a surprising continuity at the heart of philosophical and religious literary traditions.

This evolutionary continuity and progressive unification can be seen most remarkably in the area of philosophy. At the beginning of the Hellenistic period an extraordinary proliferation of schools emerged in the wake of the Sophist movement and the Socratic experience. But beginning with the third ccntui�y BC a kind of sorting out occurred. In Athens the only schools 10 Kurvivc were 1 h0Kc whoKc founders h11d thought to establish them as

56

Method

well-organized institutions: the school of Plato, the school of Aristotle and Theophrastus, the school of Epicurus, and that of Zeno and Chrysippus. In addition to these four schools there were two movements that are primarily spiritual traditions: Skepticism and Cynicism. After the institutional foundations of the schools in Athens collapsed at the end of the Hellenistic period, private schools and even officially subsidized teaching posts continued to be established throughout the empire, and here the spiritual traditions of their founders were their reference points. Thus, for six centuries, from the third century BC until the third century AD, we witness a surprising stability among the six traditions we have just mentioned. However, beginning with the third century AD, Platonism, in the culmination of a movement underway since the first century, yet again at the price of subtle shifts in meaning and numerous reinterpretations, came to absorb both Stoicism and Aristotelianism in an original synthesis, while all the other traditions were to become marginal. This unifying phenomenon is of major historical importance.

Thanks to the writers of lesser antiquity but also to the Arab translations and the Byzantine tradition, this Neoplatonist synthesis was to dominate all the thought of the Middle Ages and Renaissance and was to provide, in some fashion, the common denominator among Jewish, Christian, and Moslem theologies and mysticisms.

We have just given a very brief outline of the main paths of the history of the philosophical schools of antiquity. But as a history of ancient phi/osophia, our history of Hellenistic and Roman thought is less focused on studying the doctrinal diversities and particularities of these different schools than it is on attempting to describe the very essence of the phenomenon of philosophia and finding the traits shared by the "philosopher" or by "philosophizing" in antiquity. We must try to recognize in some way the strangeness of this phenomenon, in order then to try to understand better the strangeness of its permanence throughout the whole history of Western thought. Why, you may ask, speak of strangeness when philosop/1ia is a very general and common thing? Doesn't a philosophical quality color all of Hellenistic and Roman thought? Weren't the generalization and popularization of philosophy characteristics of the time? Philosophy is found everywhere - in speeches, novels, poetry, science, art. However, we must not be deceived. These general ideas, these commonplaces that may adorn a literary work, and true "philosophizing" are separated by an abyss. Indeed, to be a philosopher implies a rupture with what the skeptics called bios, that is, daily life, when they criticized other philosophers for not observing the common conduct of life, the usual manner of seeing and acting, which for the Skeptics consisted in respecting customs and laws, practicing a craft or plying a trade, satisfying bodily needs, and having the faith in appearances indispensable to action . It iH true: that even while the Skeptics chose to conform to the: common cundm�1 of life, they remained philosophers, since they pract iced an clCcrciNC' dt�11111111l ln11 1111mc1 hi111<

Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse 57

rather strange, the suspension of judgment, and aiming at a goal, uninterrupted tranquillity and serenity of the soul, that the commo1.1 conduct of life hardly knew.

This very rupture between the philosopher and the conduct of everyday life is strongly felt by non-philosophers. In the works of comic and satiric authors, philosophers were portrayed as bizarre, if not dangerous characters. It is true, moreover, that throughout all of antiquity the number of charlatans who passed themselves off as philosophers must have been considerable, and Lucian, for example, freely exercised his wit at their expense. Jurists too considered philosophers a race apart. According to Ulpian, in the litigation between professors and their debtors the authorities did not need to concern themselves with philosophers, for these people professed to despise money. A regulation made by the emperor Antoninus Pious on salaries and compensations notes that if a philosopher haggles over his possessions, he shows he is no philosopher. Thus philosophers are strange, a race apart. Strange indeed are those Epicureans, who lead a frugal life, practicing a total equality between the men and women inside their philosophical circle - and even between married women and courtesans; strange, too, those Roman Stoics who disinterestedly administer the provinces of the empire entrusted to them and are the only ones to take seriously the laws promulgated against excess; strange as well this Roman Platonist, the Senator Rogatianus, a disciple of Plotinus, who on the very day he is to assume his functions as praetor gives up his responsibilities, abandons all his possessions, frees his slaves, and cats only every other day. Strange indeed all those philosophers whose behavior, without being inspired by religion, nonetheless completely breaks with the customs and habits of most mortals.

By the time of the Platonic dialogues Socrates was called atopos, that is,

"unclassifiable." What makes him atopos is precisely the fact that he is a

"philo-sopher" in the etymological sense of the word; that is, he is in love with wisdom. For wisdom, says Diotima in Plato's Symposium, is not a human state, it is a state of perfection of being and knowledge that can only be divine.

It is the love of this wisdom, which is foreign to the world, that makes the philosopher a stranger in it.

So each school will elaborate its rational depiction of this state of perfection in the person of the sage, and each will make an effort to portray him. It is true that this transcendent ideal will be deemed almost inaccessible; according to some schools there never was a wise man, while others say that perhaps there were one or two of them, such as Epicurus, this god among men, and still others maintain that man can only attain this state during rare, fleeting moments. In this transcendent norm established by reason, each school will cxprci;s its own vision of the world, its own style of life, and its idea of the perfect man. ThiN is why in every school the description of this transcendent norm ultim1uclv coindth.'11 with the rational idea of God. Michelet remarked

58

Method

very profoundly, "Greek religion culminated with its true god, the sage." We can interpret this remark, which Michelet does not develop, by noting that the moment philosophers achieve a rational conception of God based on the model of the sage, Greece surpasses its mythical representation of its gods. Of course, classical descriptions of the sage depict the circumstances of human life and take pleasure in describing how the sage would respond to this or that situation, but the beatitude the wise man resolutely maintains throughout his difficulties is that of God himself. Seneca asks what the sage's life would be in solitude, if he were in prison or exile, or cast upon the shores of a desert island. And he answers that it would be the life of Zeus (that is, for the Stoics, the life of universal Reason), when, at the end of each cosmic period, after the activity of nature has ceased, he devotes himself freely to his thoughts; like Zeus the sage would enjoy the happiness of being self-sufficient. Thus the thoughts and will of the Stoic wise man completely coincide with the thoughts, will, and development of Reason immanent to the evolution of the Cosmos. As for the Epicurean sage, he, like the gods, watches the infinity of worlds arising out of atoms in the infinite void; nature is sufficient for his needs, and nothing ever disturbs the peace of his soul. For their part, the Platonic and Aristotelian sages raise themselves in subtly different ways, by their life of the mind, to the realm of the divine Mind itself.

Now we have a better understanding of atopia, the strangeness of the philosopher in the human world. One does not know how to classify him, for he is neither a sage nor a man like other men. He knows that the normal, natural state of men should be wisdom, for wisdom is nothing more than the vision of things as they are, the vision of the cosmos as it is in the light of reason, and wisdom is also nothing more than the mode of being and living that should correspond to this vision. But the philosopher also knows that this wisdom is an ideal state, almost inaccessible. For such a man, daily life, as it is organized and lived by other men, must necessarily appear abnormal, like a state of madness, unconsciousness, and ignorance of reality. And nonetheless he must live this life every day, in this world in which he feels himself a stranger and in which others perceive him to be one as well. And it is precisely in this daily life that he must seek to attain that way of life which is utterly foreign to the everyday world . The result is a perpetual conflict between the philosopher's effort to see things as they are from the standpoint of universal nature and the conventional vision of things underlying human society, a conflict between the life one should live and the customs and conventions of daily life. This conflict can never be totally resolved. The Cynics, in their refusal of the world of social convention, opt for a total break.

On the contrary, others, such as the Skeptics, fully accept socinl convention, while keeping their inner peace. Others, the Epicure11ni;, for c111ur1plc, 11ttempt to recreate among themselves a daily life th11t conforn111 to 1 lw itlt�11 I of wiKdom .

Ot�hcrs still such

,

1111 t he Plat:on ists nnd t he StoicN, Nl l'h�1� , 111 1 111' 1 w11 of t ill�

Fonns of Life and Fonns of Discourse 59

greatest difficulties, to live their everyday and even their public lives in a

"philosophical" manner. In any event, for all of them, the philosophical life will be an effort to live and think according to the norm of wisdom, it will be a movement, a progression, though a never-ending one, toward this transcendent state.

Each school, then, represents a form of life defined by an ideal of wisdom.

The result is that each one has its corresponding fundamental inner attitude

- for example, tension for the Stoics or relaxation for the Epicureans - and its own manner of speaking, such as the Stoic use of percussive dialectic or the abundant rhetoric of the Academicians. But above all every school practices exercises designed to ensure spiritual progress toward the ideal state of wisdom, exercises of reason that will be, for the soul, analagous to the athlete's training or to the application of a medical cure. Generally, they consist, above all, of self-control and meditation . Self-control is fundamentally being attentive to oneself: an unrelaxing vigilance for the Stoics, the renunciation of unnecessary desires for the Epicureans. It always involves an effort of will, thus faith in moral freedom and the possibility of self-improvement; an acute moral consciousness honed by spiritual direction and the practice of examining one's conscience; and lastly, the kind of practical exercises described with such remarkable precision particularly by Plutarch: controlling one's anger, curiosity, speech, or love of riches, beginning by working on what is easiest in order gradually to acquire a firm and stable character.

Of first importance is "meditation," which is the "exercise" of reason; moreover, the two words are synonymous from an etymological point of view.

Unlike the Buddhist meditation practices of the Far East, Greco-Roman philosophical meditation is not linked to a corporeal attitude but is a purely rational, imaginative, or intuitive exercise that can take extremely varied forms. First of all it is the memorization and assimilation of the fundamental dogmas and rules of life of the school. Thanks to this exercise, the vision of the world of the person who strives for spiritual progress will be completely transformed. In particular, philosophical meditation on the essential dogmas of physics, for example the Epicurean contemplation of the genesis of worlds in the infinite void or the Stoic contemplation of the rational and necessary unfolding of cosmic events, can lead to an exercise of the imagination in which human things appear of little importance in the immensity of space and time. It is necessary to try to have these dogmas and rules for living "ready to hand" if one is to be able to conduct oneself like a philosopher under all of life's circumstances. Moreover, one has to be able to imagine these circumstances in advance in order to be ready for the shock of events. In all t he schools, for various reasons, philosophy will be especially a meditation u1mn death and an attentive concentration on the present moment in order to t�njoy it or live it in full consciousncs11. In all these exercises, all the means oh1 11hu1hle hv dialect ic 1111J rhet oric will he util i:1.cd to obtain the maximum

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Method

effect. In particular, this consciously willed application of rhetoric explains the impression of pessimism that some readers believe they discern in the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. All images are suitable for him if they strike the imagination and make the reader conscious of the illusions and conventions of mankind.

The relationship between theory and practice in the philosophy of this period must be understood from the perspective of these exercises of meditation. Theory is never considered an end in itself; it is clearly and decidedly put in the service of practice. Epicurus is explicit on this point: the goal of the science of nature is to obtain the soul's serenity. Or else, as among the Aristotelians, one is more attached to theoretical activity considered as a way of life that brings an almost divine pleasure and happiness than to the theories themselves. Or, as in the Academicians' school or for the skeptics, theoretical activity is a critical activity. Or, as among the Platonists, abstract theory is not considered to be true knowledge: as Porphyry says, "Beatific contemplation does not consist of the accumulation of arguments or a storehouse of learned knowledge, but in us theory must become nature and life itself." And, according to Plotinus, one cannot know the soul if one does not purify oneself of one's passions in order to experience in oneself the transcendence of the soul with respect to the body, and one cannot know the principle of all things if one has not had the experience of union with it.

To make possible these exercises in meditation, beginners are exposed to maxims or summaries of the principal dogmas of the school. Epicurus' Letters, which Diogenes Laertius preserved for us, are intended to play this role. To ensure that these dogmas have a great spiritual effectiveness, they must be presented in the form of short, striking formulae, as in Epicurus' Principal Doctrines, or in a rigorously systematic form, such as the Letter to Herodotus by the same author, which permitted the disciple to grasp in a kind of single intuition the essentials of the doctrine in order to have it more easily at hand.

In this case the concern for systematic coherence was subordinated to spiritual effectiveness.

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.

This does not mean that theoretical reflection and elaboration arc absent from the philosophical life. However, this activity ncVl'r l'ncndcd to the dogmas themselves or the methodological principlcN but r111 hvr In t he wayH of demonstrating nnd 11yHtcm1nizing thcHc JugmnN iUUI 111 1111rnml11r v , duct rinnl

Forms of Life and Fom1s of Discourse

6 1

points issuing from them on which there was not unanimity i n the school.

This type of investigation is always reserved for the more advanced students, for whom it is an exercise of reason that strengthens them in their philosophical life. Chrysippus, for example, felt himself capable of finding the arguments justifying the Stoic dogmas established by Zeno and Cleanthes, which led him, moreover, to disagree with them not concerning these dogmas but on the way of establishing them. Epicurus, too, leaves the discussion and study of points of detail to the more advanced students, and much later the same attitude will be found in Origen, who assigns the "spiritual ones" the task of seeking, as he himself says, by way of exercise, the "hows" and "whys"

and of discussing these obscure and secondary q uestions. This effort of theoretical reflection can result in the composition of enormous works.

Obviously, these systematic treaties and scholarly commentaries, such as Origen's treatise on Principles or Proclus' Elements of Theology, very legitimately attract the attention of the historian of philosophy. The study of the progress of thought in these great texts must be one of the principal tasks in a reflection on the phenomenon of philosophy. However, it must be recognized that generally speaking the philosophical works of Greco-Roman antiquity almost always perplex the contemporary reader. I do not refer only to the general public, but even to specialists in the field. One could compile a whole anthology of complaints made against ancient authors by modern commentators, who reproach them for their bad writing, contradictions, and lack of rigor and coherence. Indeed, it is my astonishment both at these critics and at the universality and persistence of the phenomenon they condemn that inspires the reflections I have just presented, as well as those I wish to turn to now.

It seems to me, indeed, that in order to understand the works of the philosophers of antiquity we must take account of all the concrete conditions in which they wrote, all the constraints that weighed upon them : the framework of the school, the very nature of philosopl1ia, literary genres, rhetorical rules, dogmatic imperatives, and traditional modes of reasoning.

One cannot read an ancient author the way one does a contemporary author (which does not mean that contemporary authors are easier to understand than those of antiquity). In fact, the works of antiquity are produced under entirely different conditions than those of their modern counterparts. I will not discuss the problem of material support: the volumen or codex, each of which has its own constraints. But I do want to stress the fact that written works in the period we study arc never completely free of the constraints imposed by oral transmission. In fact, it is an exaggeration to assert, as has still been done recent ly, that Greco-Roman civilization early on became a civililnt ion of writing and that one can thus treat, methodologically, the philmmphknl workN of nnt iquit y like nny othc:r written work.

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Method

For the written works of this period remain closely tied to oral conduct.

Often they were dictated to a scribe. And they were intended to be read aloud, either by a slave reading to his master or by the reader himself, since in antiquity reading customarily meant reading aloud, emphasizing the rhythm of the phrase and the sounds of the words, which the author himself had already experienced when he dictated his work. The ancients were extremely sensitive to these effects of sound. Few philosophers of the period we study resisted this magic of the spoken word, not even the Stoics, not even Plotinus.

So if oral literature before the practice of writing imposed rigorous constraints on expression and obliged one to use certain rhythmic, stereotypic, and traditional formulae conveying images and thoughts independent, if one may say so, of the author's will, this phenomenon is not foreign to written literature to the degree that it too must concern itself with rhythm .md sound.

To take an extreme but very revealing example, the use of poetic meter in De rerum nalura dictates the recourse to certain somewhat stereotypical formulae and keeps Lucretius from freely using the technical vocabulary of Epicureanism that he should have employed.

This relationship between the written and the spoken word thus explains certain aspects of the works of antiquity. Quite often the work proceeds by the associations of ideas, without systematic rigor. The work retains the starts and stops, the hesitations, and the repetitions of spoken discourse. Or else, after re-reading what he has written, the author introduces a somewhat forced systematization by adding transitions, introductions, or conclusions to different parts of the work.

More than other literature, philosophical works arc linked to oral transmission because ancient philosophy itself is above all oral in character.

Doubtless there are occasions when someone was converted by reading a book, but one would then hasten to the philosopher to hear him speak, question him, and carry on discussions with him and other disciples in a community that always serves as a place of discussion. In matters of philosophical teaching, writing is only an aid to memory, a last resort that will never replace the living word.

True education is always oral because only the spoken word makes dialogue possible, that is, it makes it possible for the disciple to discover the truth himself amid the interplay of questions and answers and also for the master to adapt his teaching to the needs of the disciple. A number of philosophers, and not the least among them, did not wish to write, thinking, as did Plato and without doubt correctly, that what is inscribed in the soul by the spoken word is more real and lasting than letters drawn on papyrus or parchment.

Thus for the most part the literary productions of the phi loNophc:rN arc 11

preparation, extension , or echo of their spoken lessons nnd arl' n111rked hy the limitations and constraints imposed by such n situnt ion.

Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse 63

Some of these works, moreover, are directly related to the activity of teaching. They may be either a summary the teacher drafted. in preparing his course or notes taken by students during the course, or else they may be texts written with care but intended to be read during the course by the professor or a student. In all these cases, the general movement of thought, its unfolding, what could be called its own temporality, is regulated by the temporality of speech. It is a very heavy constraint, whose full rigor I am experiencing today.

Even texts that were written in and for themselves are closely linked to the activity of teaching, and their literary genre reflects the methods of the schools. One of the exercises esteemed in the schools consists of discussing, either dialectically, that is, in the form of questions and answers, or rhetorically, that is, in a continuous discourse, what were called "theses," that is, theoretical positions presented in the form of questions: Is death an evil? Is the wise man ever angry? This provides both training in the mastery of the spoken word and a properly philosophical exercise. The largest portion of the philosophical works of antiquity, for example those of Cicero, Plutarch, Seneca, Plotinus, and more generally those classified by the moderns as belonging to what they called the genre of diatribe, correspond to this exercise. They discuss a specific question, which is posed at the outset of the work and which normally requires a yes or no answer. In these works, the course of thought consists in going back to general principles that have been accepted in the school and arc capable of resolving the problem in question.

This search to find principles to solve a given problem thus encloses thought within narrowly defined limits. Different works written by the same author and guided according to this "zetctic" method, "one that seeks," will not necessarily be coherent on all points because the details of the argument in each work will be a function of the question asked .

Another school exercise is the reading and exegesis of the authoritative texts of each school. Many literary works, particularly the long commentaries from the end of antiquity, are the result of this exercise. More generally, a large number of the philosophical works from that time utilize a mode of exegetical thinking. Most of the time, discussing a "thesis" consists in discussing not the problem in itself but the meaning that one should give to Plato's or Aristotle's statements concerning this problem. Once this convention has been taken into account, one docs in fact discuss the question in some depth, but this is done by skillfully giving Platonic or Aristotelian statements the meanings that support the very solution one wishes to give to the problem under consideration. Any possible meaning is true provided it coheres with the t ruth one believes one has discovered in the text. In this way there slowly emcqccs, in the spiritual tradition of each school, but in Platonism above all, it 11chola!itici1m1 which , relying on argument from authority, builds up gigantic doctrinal cdific�cK by mcanK of an extraordinary rational reflection on the

64

Method

fundamental dogmas. It is precisely the third philosophical literary genre, the systematic treatise, that proposes a rational ordering of the whole of doctrine, which sometimes is presented, as in the case of Proclus, as a more geometrico, that is, according to the model of Euclid's Elements. In this case one no longer returns to the principles necessary to resolve a specific question but sets down the principles directly and deduces their consequences. These works are, so to speak, "more written" than the others. They often comprise a long sequence of books and are marked by a vast, overarching design. But, like the Summae theologicae of the Middle-Ages that they prefigure, these works must themselves also be understood from the perspective of dialectical and exegetical scholarly exercises.

Unlike their modem counterparts, none of these philosophical productions, even the systematic works, is addressed to everyone, to a general audience, but they are intended first of all for the group formed by the members of the school; often they echo problems raised by the oral teaching. Only works of propaganda are addressed to a wider audience.

Moreover, while he writes the philosopher often extends his activity as spiritual director that he exercises in his school. In such cases the work may be addressed to a particular disciple who needs encouragement or who finds himself in a special difficulty. Or else the work may be adapted to the spiritual level of the addressees. Not all the details of the system can be explained to beginners; many details can be revealed only to those further along the path.

Above all, the work, even if it is apparently theoretical and systematic, is written not so much to inform the reader of a doctrinal content but to form him, to make him traverse a certain itinerary in the course of which he will make spiritual progress. This procedure is clear in the works of Plotinus and Augustine, in which all the detours, starts and stops, and digressions of the work are formative elements. One must always approach a philosophical work of antiquity with this idea of spiritual progress in mind. For the Platonists, for example, even mathematics is used to train the soul to raise itself from the sensible to the intelligible. The overall organization of a work and its mode of exposition may always answer to such preoccupations.

Such then are the many constraints that are exercised on the ancient author and that often perplex the modem reader with respect to both what is said and the way in which it is said. Understanding a work of antiquity requires placing it in the group from which it emanates, in the tradition of its dogmas, its literary genre, and requires understanding its goals. One must attempt to distinguish what the author was required to say, what he could or could not say, and, above all, what he meant to say. For the ancient author's art consists in his skillfully using, in order to arrive at his goals, all of the constraints that weigh upon him as well as the models furnished by the i-rnllition. MoHt of the time, furthermore, he uses not only ideas, images, nml p111 1�rn� of nrl(mncnt in 1hi11 way hm also tcx1�11 or at lca111 inc-existing form11l111� l�'rnm 11l11icii1riNm

Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse 65

pure and simple to quotation or paraphrase, this practice includes - and this is the most characteristic example - the literal use of foi;mulae or words employed by the earlier tradition to which the author often gives a new meaning adapted to what he wants to say. This is the way that Philo, a Jew, uses Platonic formulae to comment on the Bible, or Ambrose, a Christian, translates Philo's text to present Christian doctrines, the way that Plotinus uses words and whole sentences from Plato to convey his experience. What matters first of all is the prestige of the ancient and traditional formula, and not the exact meaning it originally had. The idea itself holds less interest than the prefabricated elements in which the writer believes he recognizes his own thought, elements that take on an unexpected meaning and purpose when they are integrated into a literary whole. This sometimes brilliant reuse of prefabricated elements gives an impression of "bricolage," to take up a word currently in fashion, not only among anthropologists hut among biologists.

Thought evolves by incorporating prefabricated and pre-existing elements, which are given new meaning as they become integrated into a rational system. It is difficult to say what is most extraordinary about this process of integration: contingency, chance, irrationality, the very absurdity resulting from the elements used, or, on the contrary, the strange power of reason to integrate and systematize these disparate elements and to give them a new meaning.

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 yv ro6t OEavi-ov [know thyself] has acquired a new meaning . . . . One must first lose the world by the etrov] [for Husserl, the 'phenomenological bracketing' of the world], in order to regain it in a universal self-consciousness. Noli joras 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 "inner man" becomes the "transcendental ego" for Husserl, a knowing subject who regains the world in "a universal self-consciousness." 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. And by the same procedure of taking up such a formula again, we ourselves can apply to ancient philosophy what Husserl says of his own 1>hilmmphy: t.he Delphic oracle "Know thyself" has acquired a new meaning.

For 1111 the 11hiloso1>hy of which we have spoken also gives a new meaning to l hl' I >clphic form11 l11 . Thi11 new mc11ninir already appeared among the Stoics,

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Method

for whom the philosopher recognizes the presence of divine reason in the human self and who opposes his moral consciousness, which depends on him alone, to the rest of the universe. This new meaning appeared even more clearly among the Neoplatonists, who identify what they call the true self with the founding intellect of the world and even with the transcendent unity that founds all thought and all reality. In Hellenistic and Roman thought this movement, of which Husserl speaks, is thus already outlined, according to which one loses the world in order to find it again in universal self-consciousness. Thus Husserl consciously and explicitly presents himself as the heir to the tradition of "Know thyself " that runs from Socrates to Augustine to Descartes. But that is not all. This example, borrowed from Husserl, better enables us to understand concretely how these conferrals of new meaning can be realized in antiquity as well. Indeed, the expression in interiore homine habitat veritas, as my friend and colleague Goulven Madec has pointed out to me, is an allusion to a group of words borrowed from chapter 3, verses 1 6

and 1 7, o f Paul's letter to the Ephesians, from a n ancient Latin version, to be exact, in which the text appears as in interiore homi11e Christum habitare. But these words are merely a purely material conjunction that exists only in this Latin version and do not correspond to the contents of Paul's thought, for they belong to two different clauses of the sentence. On the one hand, Paul wishes for Christ to dn1el/ in the heart of his disciples through faith, and, on the other hand, in the preceding clause, he wishes for God to allow his disciples to be strengthened by the divine Spirit in the inner man, in interiorem hominem, as the Vulgate has it. So the earlier Latin version, by combining in interiure homine and Christum habitare, was either a mistranslation or was miscopied. The Augustinian formula, in interiore homine habitat veritas, is thus created from a group of words that do not represent a unified meaning in St Paul's text; but taken in itself, this group of words has a meaning for Augustine, and he explains it in the context of De vera religione where he uses it: the inner man, that is, the human spirit, discovers that what permits him to think and reason is the truth, that is, divine reason - that is, for Augustine, Christ, who dwells in, who is present within, the human spirit. In this way the formula takes on a Platonic meaning. We see how, from St Paul to Husserl, by way of Augustine, a group of words whose unity was originally only purely material, or which was a misunderstanding of the Latin translator, was given a new meaning by Augustine, and then by Husserl, thus taking its place in the vast tradition of the deepening of the idea of self-consciousness.

This example borrowed from Husserl allows us to touch on the importance of what in Western thought is called the topos. Literary theories use the term to refer to the formulae, images, and metaphors that forcibly impose themselves on the writer and the thinker in such a w11y 1 h11t t he LINC of these prefabricated models seems indispensable tu them in 1mlc�1� tn he 11hlc to express their own thoughts.

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67

Our Western thought has been nourished in this way and still lives off a relatively limited number of formulae and metaphors borrowed from the various traditions of which it is the result. For example, there are maxims that encourage a certain inner attitude such as "Know thyself'; those which have long guided our view of nature: "Nature makes no leaps," "Nature delights in diversity." There are metaphors such as "The force of truth," "The world as a book" (which is perhaps extended in the conception of the genetic code as a text). There are biblical formulae such as "I am who I am," which have profoundly marked the idea of God. The point I strongly wish to emphasize here is the following: these prefabricated models, of which I have just given some examples, were known during the Renaissance and in the modern world in the very form that they had in the Hellenistic and Roman tradition, and they were originally understood during the Renaissance and in the modern world with the very meaning these models of thought had during the Greco-Roman period, especially at the end of antiquity. So these models continue to explain many aspects of our contemporary thought and even the very significance, sometimes unexpected, that we find in antiquity. For example, the classical prejudice, which has done so much damage to the study of late Greek and Latin literatures, is an invention of the Greco-Roman period, which created the model of a canon of classical authors as a reaction against mannerism and the baroque, which, at that time, were called

"Asianism." But if the classical prejudice already existed during the Hellenistic and especially imperial eras, this is precisely because the distance we feel with respect to classical Greece also appeared at that time. It is precisely this Hellenistic spirit, this distance, in some ways modern, through which, for example, the traditional myths become the objects of scholarship or of philosophical and moral interpretations. It is through Hellenistic and Roman thought, particularly that of late antiquity, that the Renaissance was to perceive Greek tradition. This fact was to be of decisive importance for the birth of modern European thought and art. In another respect contemporary hermeneutic theories that, proclaiming the autonomy of the written text, have constructed a veritable tower of Babel of interpretations where all meanings become possible, come straight out of the practices of ancient exegesis, about which I spoke earlier. Another example: for our late colleague Roland Barthes,

"many features of our literature, of our teaching, of our institutions of language . . . would be elucidated and understood differently if we fully knew

. . . the rhetorical code that gave its language to our culture." This is completely true, and we could add that this knowledge would perhaps enable us to be conscious of the fact that in their methods and modes of expression our human sciences often operate in a way completely analogous to the mmlcl11 of ancient rhetoric.

Our hi111ory of Hellenistic and Roman thought should therefore not only 111111 l ��:t.c t he movcrm:nt of 1 houl(hl in philosophical works, but it should also

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Method

be a historical topics that will study the evolution of the meaning of the topoi, the models of which we have spoken, and the role they have played in the formation of Western thought. This historical topics should work hard at discerning the original meanings of the formulae and models and the different significances that successive reinterpretations have given them.

At first, this historical topics will take for its object of study those works that were founding models and the literary genres that they created. Euclid's Elements, for example, served as a model for Proclus's Elements of Theology but also for Spinoza's Ethics. Plato's Timaeus, itself inspired by pre-Socratic cosmic poems, served as a model for Lucretius' De rerum natura, and the eighteenth century, in tum, was to dream of a new cosmic poem that would exhibit the latest discoveries of science. Augustine's Confessions, as it was misinterpreted, moreover, inspired an enormous literature up to Rousseau and the romantics.

This topics could also be a topics of aphorisms: for example, of the maxims about nature that dominated the scientific imagination until the nineteenth century. This year [at the ColJege de France], we will study in this way the aphorism of Heraclitus that is usually phrased as "Nature loves to hide herself," although this is certainly not the original meaning of the three Greek words so translated. We will examine the significance this formula takes on throughout antiquity and later on, as a function of the evolution of the idea of nature, the very interpretation proposed by Martin Heidegger.

Above all, this historical topics will be a topics about the themes of meditations of which we spoke a few minutes ago, which have dominated and still dominate our Western thought. Plato, for example, had defined philosophy as an exercise for death, understood as the separation of the soul from the body. For Epicurus this exercise for death takes on a new meaning; it becomes the consciousness of the finitude of existence that gives an infinite value to each instant: "Persuade yourself that every new day that dawns will be your last one. And then you will receive each unhoped for hour with gratitude." In the perspective of Stoicism, the exercise for death takes on a different charac.'ter; it invites immediate conversion and makes inner freedom possible: "Let death be before your eyes each day and you will not have any base thoughts or excessive desires." A mosaic at the Roman National Museum is inspired, perhaps ironically, by this meditation, as it depicts a skeleton with a scythe accompanied by the inscription Gnothi seauton, "Know thyself." Be that as it may, Christianity will make abundant use of this theme of meditation.

There it can be treated in a manner close to Stoicism, as in this monk's reflection: "Since the beginning of our conversation, we have come closer to death. Let us be vigilant while we still have the time." But it changes radically when it is combined with the properly Christian theme of p11rt ici11ni-ion in Christ's death. Leaving aside all of the rich Western litemry t r1ulit iun1 No well illustrated by Mont11igne's chnpter "Thill to philrn111ph i1c i11 to ll�11 1�11 111 die,"

Fonns of Life and Forms of Discourse

69

we can go straight to Heidegger in order to rediscover this fundamental philosophical exercise in his definition of the authenticity of existence as a lucid anticipation of death.

Linked to the meditation upon death, the theme of the value of the present instant plays a fundamental role in all the philosophical schools. In short it is a consciousness of inner freedom. It can be summarized in a formula of this kind: you need only yourself in order immediately to find inner peace by ceasing to worry about the past and the future. You can be happy right now, or you will never be happy. Stoicism will insist on the effort needed to pay attention to oneself, the joyous acceptance of the present moment imposed on us by fate. The Epicurean will conceive of this liberation from cares about the past and the future as a relaxation, a pure joy of existing: "While we are speaking, jealous time has flown; seize today without placing your trust in tomorrow." This is Horace's famous laetus in praesens, this "enjoyment of the pure present," to use Andre Chastel's fine expression about Marsilio Fidno, who had taken this very formula of Horace's for his motto. Here again the history of this theme in Western thought is fascinating. I cannot resist the pleasure of evoking the dialogue between Faust and Helena, the climax of part two of Goethe's Faust: "Nun schaut der Geist nicht vorwarts, nicht zurilck, I Die Gegenwart allein ist unser Gluck" ["And so the spirit looks neither ahead nor behind. The present alone is our joy . . . Do not think about your destiny.

Being here is a duty, even though it only be an instant"].

I have come to the end of this inaugural address, which means that I have just completed what in antiquity was called an epideixis, a set speech. It is in a direct line with those that professors in the time of Libanius, for example, had to give in order to recruit an audience while at the same time trying to demonstrate the incomparable worth of their speciality and to display their eloquence. It would be interesting to investigate the historic paths by which this ancient practice was transmitted to the first professors at the College de France. In any case, at this very moment, we are in the process of fully living a Greco-Roman tradition. Philo of Alexandria said of these sei: speeches that the lecturer "brought into broad daylight the fruit of long efforts pursued in private, as painters and sculptors seek, in realizing their works, the applause of the public." And he opposed this behavior to the true philosophical instruction in which the teacher adapts his speech to the state of his listeners and brings them the cures they need in order to be healed.

The concern with individual destiny and spiritual progress, the intransigent assertion of moral requirements, the call for meditation, the invitation to seek this inner peace that all the schools, even those of the skeptics, propose Rs the aim of philosophy, the feeling for the seriousness and grandeur of existence

this seems to me to be what has never been surpassed in 1mdcn1 philmmphy and whnt always remains alive. Perhaps some people will Kt�t� in lht�Kt' 11 1 1 i l udcs 11 11 csc11 pc or evm;ion th1tt is incom patible with the

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Method

consciousness we should have of human suffering and misery, and they will think that the philosopher thereby shows himself to be irremediably foreign to the world. I would answer simply by quoting this beautiful text by Georges Friedmann, from 1 942, which offers a glimpse of the possibility of reconciling the concern for justice and spiritual effort; it could have been written by a Stoic of antiquity:

Take flight each day! At least for a moment, however brief, as long as it is intense. Every day a "spiritual exercise," alone or in the company of a man who also wishes to better himself . . . . Leave ordinary time behind. Make an effort to rid yourself of your own passions . . . . Become eternal by surpassing yourself. This inner effort is necessary, this ambition, just. Many are those who are entirely absorbed in militant politics, in the preparation for the social revolution. Rare, very rare, are those who, in order to prepare for the revolution, wish to become worthy of it.1

NOTES

Delivered as the inaugural lecture to the chair of the History of Hellenistic and Roman Thought, College de France, 1 8 February 1 983. � 1 983 by The College de France, Trans. Arnold I. Davidson and Paula Wissing. First published in English in Critical Inquiry 1 6 (spring 1 990)

I Petrus Ramus, Regii Eloquentiae Philosophiaeque Proftssoris, Oratio lnitio Suae Profassionis Habita, Paris 1 55 1 . Sec Walter J. Ong, Rum11s and Talon Inventory: A Short- Title Inventory of the Published Works of Peter R11mus (IS/5-1572) and of Omer Talon (ca. 1510-1562) in Their Original and in Their Variously Altered Fonns, Cambridge MA 1958, p. 1 58.

2 See Pierre Hadot and Claude Rapin, "Les Textes littcraires grecs de la Tresorerie d'AI Khanoun," pt. I , Etudes, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique 1 1 1 ( 1 987): 225-3 Georges Friedmann, la Puissance de la sagme, Paris 1 970, p. 359.

2

Philosophy, Exegesis, and Creative

Mistakes

Everyone is familiar with Whitehead's remark: "Western philosophy is nothing but a series of footnotes to Plato's dialogues." This statement could be interpreted in two ways: we could take it to mean that Plato's problematics have made a definitive mark upon Western philosophy, and this would be true. Alternatively, it could be taken to mean that, in a concrete sense, Western philosophy has assumed the form of commentaries - be they on Plato or on other philosophers - and that, more generally speaking, it has taken the form of exegesis. This, too, is to a very large extent true. It is important to realize that, for almost two thousand years - from the mid-fourth century BC

to the end of the sixteenth century AD - philosophy was conceived of, above all, as the exegesis of a small number of texts deriving from "authorities,"

chief among whom were Plato and Aristotle. We are, moreover, justified in asking ourselves if, even after the Cartesian revolution, philosophy does not still bear traces of its lengthy past, and if, even today, at least to a certain extent, it has not remained exegesis.

The long period of "exegetical" philosophy is linked to a sociological phenomenon: the existence of philosophical schools, in which the thought, life-style, and writings of a master were religiously preserved. This phenomenon seems already to have existed among the Presocratics, but we are best able to observe it from Plato on.

Plato had given his Academy an extremely solid material and juridical organization . The leaders of the school succeeded one another 1 in a continuous chain until Justinian's closure of the school of Athens in 529, and throughout this entire period, scholarly activity was carried out according to fixed, trnd itionnl methods. The other great schools, whether Peripatetic, Stoic, or Epicurean, were organized along similar lines. The writings of each Kl'hool'K foumler KcrVl'U 1111 the hnKiN for itK instruction and it

,

was determined

72

Method

in which order the student should read these writings, in order to acquire the best possible education. We still have some of the writings in which Platonists gave advice on the order in which Plato's dialogues were to be read. Thus, we can tell that from the fourth century BC on, Aristotle's logical writings were arranged in a definite scholastic order - the Organon which would not

-

change until modem times.

Instruction consisted above all in commenting on Plato and Aristotle, using previous commentaries and adding a new interpretation here and there. In this regard, we have an interesting testimony from Porphyry about the lessons of Plotinus:

During his classes, he used to have the commentaries read, perhaps of Severus or of Cronius or of Numenius or Gaius or Atticus, or of Peripatetics like Aspasius, Alexander, or whichever other came to hand.

Yet he never repeated anything from these commentaries word for word, restricted himself to these readings alone. Rather, he himself used to give a general explanation [theoria] of (Plato's or Aristotle's) text in his own personal way, which was different from current opinion. In his investigations, moreover, he brought to bear the spirit of Ammonius.2

The first commentator on Plato's Timaeus seems to have been Crantor (ca. 330 BC), and Platonic commentators continued their activity until the end of the Athenian school in the sixth century. From this point, the tradition was continued, both in the Arab world and in the Latin West, up until the Renaissance (Marsilio Ficino). As for Aristotle, he was first commented upon by Andronicus of Rhodes (first century BC), who was the first in a series extending through the end of the Renaissance, in the person of Zabardella. In addition to commentaries slriclo sensu, the exegetical activity of the philosophical schools took the form of dogmatic treatises, devoted to particular points of exegesis, and manuals designed to serve as introductions to the study of the masters. Moreover, the end of antiquity witnessed the appearance of other authorities, in addition to Plato and Aristotle: the authority of Revelations.

For Christians and Jews, this meant primarily the Bible, and for pagan philosophers, the Chaldaean Oracles. Both Judaism and Christianity sought to present themselves to the Greek world as philosophies; they thus developed, in the persons of Philo and Origen respectively, a biblical exegesis analogous to the traditional pagan exegesis of Plato. For their part, such pagan commentators on the Clzaldaean Oracles as Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus did their best to show that the teachings of the "gods" coincided with Plato's doctrines. If we understand by "theology" the rational exegesis of n sacred text, then we can say that during this period philosophy was trim11formed into theology, and it was to stay that way throughoul l hc M idLllc Al(cN. From 1 his perspec1ive, medicvnl Schol11111icH 11ppe11r11 UN t h�� l1111k11 I rnnt 11111111 ion of the

Philosophy, Exegesis, and Creative Mistakes

73

ancient exegetical tradition. M.-D. Chenu3 has defined the specific character of Scholastics as "dialectics applied to the comprehension 9f a text: either a continuous text, in which case the goal is the writing of a commentary, or of a series of texts, which are selected to serve as bases and proofs for a given speculative construction. " 4 For this scholar, Scholastics is "a rational form of thought which is consciously and deliberately elaborated, taking as its starting-point a text considered as authoritative." 5 If we accent these definitions, we can assert that Scholastic thought did nothing other than adopt thought-processes already traditionally used in the majority of ancient philosophical schools. Conversely, we could also say that these schools were already engaging in Scholastic thought. Throughout the Middle Ages, instruction consisted essentially in textual commentary, whether of the Bible, Aristotle, Boethius, or the Sentences of Peter Lombard.

These facts have important consequences for the general interpretation of the history of philosophy, especially during its pre-Cartesian period. Insofar as philosophy was considered exegesis, the search for truth, throughout this period, was confounded with the search for the meaning of "authentic" texts; that is, of those texts considered as authoritative. Truth was contained within these text.�; it was the property of their authors, as it was also the property of those groups who recognized the authority of these authors, and who were consequently the "heirs" of this original truth.

Philosophical problems were expressed in exegetical terms. For example, we find Plotinus writing the following in the course of his investigation of the problem of evil: "We must try to find out in what sense Plato says that evils shall not pass away, and that their existence is necessary." 6 Typically, the rest of Plotinus' inquiry consists in a discussion of the terminology used by Plato in his Theaelelus.7 The famous battle over universals, which divided the Middle Ages, was based on the exegesis of a single phrase from Porphyry's lsagoge. 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 Ti111aeus), Aristotle, Boethius, the first chapter of Genesis, and the prologue to the Gospel of John.

The fact that authentic texts raise questions is not due to any inherent defect. On the contrary: their obscurity, it was thought, was only the result of a technique used by a master, who wished to hint at a great many things at once, and therefore enclosed the "truth" in his formulations. Any potential m�aning, as long as it was coherent with what was considered to be the master's doctrine, was consequently held to be true. Charles Thurot's remark8

nbout the commentators on the grammarian Priscianus is applicable to all the philosopher cxegctcs:

I n their explanations of a text, the glossators did not seek to understand t hl' 11uthur111 1 huul(lu ; hut r111 hcr to tc11ch l he doctrine itself which they

74

Method

supposed to be contained in it. What they termed an "authentic" author could neither be mistaken, nor contradict himself, nor develop his arguments poorly, nor disagree with any other authentic author. The most forced exegesis was used in order to accommodate the letter of the text to what was considered the truth.9

It was believed that the truth had been "given" in the master's texts, and that all that had to be done was to bring it to light and explicate it. Plotinus, for example, writes: "These statements arc not new; they do not belong to the present time, but were made long ago, although not explicitly, and what we have said in this discussion has been an interpretation of them, relying on Plato's own writings for evidence that these views arc ancient. " 10 Here we encounter another aspect of the conception of truth implied by "exegetical"

philosophy. Each philosophical or religious school or group believed itself to be in possession of a traditional truth, communicated from the beginning by the divinity to a few wise men. Each therefore laid claim to being the legitimate depositary of the truth.

From this perspective, the conflict between pagans and Christians, from the second century AD on, is highly instructive. As both pagans and Christians recognized affinities between their respective doctrines, they accused each other of theft. Some claimed Plato plagiarized Moses, while others affirmed the contrary; the result was a series of chronological arguments destined to prove which of the two was historically prior. For Clement of Alexandria, the theft dated back even before the creation of humanity. It had been some wicked angel who, having discovered some traces of the divine truth, revealed philosophy to the wise of this world. 1 1

Pagans and Christians explained in the same way the differences which, despite certain analogies, persisted between their doctrines. They were the result of misunderstandings and mistranslations - in other words, bad exegesis

- of stolen texts. For Celsus, the Christian conception of humility was nothing but a poor interpretation of a passage in Plato's Laws;12 the idea of the kingdom of God only a misreading of a passage in Plato's text on the king of all things, ll and the notion of the resurrection only a misunderstanding of the idea of transmigration. On the Christian side, Justin asserted that some of Plato's statements showed that he had misunderstood the text of Moses.1�

In this intellectual atmosphere, error was the result of bad exegesis, mistranslation, and faulty understanding. Nowadays, however, historians seem to consider all exegetical thought as the result of mistakes or misunderstandings. We can briefly enumerate the forms these alleged mistakes and deformations are thought to assume: in the first place, the excgctes make arbitrary systematizations. For instance, they take out of context passages originally widely separated from each other, nml nn11lyze thl'rn in 11 pUl'ely formal way, in order t o reduce t he texts to hl' cxpl11inl'll to 11 hoil \' 111' rnhl'rl'nt

Philosophy, Exegesis, and Crtalivt Mistakes 75

doctrine. In this way, for instance, a four- or five-tiered hierarchy of being was extracted from various dialogues of Plato.

Nor is this the most serious abuse. Whether consciously or not, systematization amalgamates the most disparate notions, which had originated in different or even contradictory doctrines. Thus we find the commentators on Aristotle using Stoic and Platonic ideas in their exegesis of Aristotelian texts.

It is fairly frequent, especially in the case of translated texts, to find commentators trying to explain notions which simply do not exist in the original. In Psalm 1 1 3: 1 6, for example, we read: "The heaven is the heaven of the Lord. " Augustine, however, started out from the Greek translation of the Bible, and understood: "The heaven of heavens is of [i.e. belongs to] the Lord." Augustine is thus led to imagine a cosmological reality, which he identifies with the intelligible world, which he then goes on to try and locate with relation to the "heaven" mentioned in the first verse of Genesis. From the point of view of the actual text of the Bible, this whole construction is based on thin air.

Cases of misunderstanding arc not always this extreme. Nevertheless, it frequently occurs that exegeses construct entire edifices of interpretation on the basis of a banal or misunderstood phrase. The whole of Neoplatonic exegesis of the Parmenides seems to be an example of such a phenomenon.

The modern historian may be somewhat disconcerted on coming across such modes of thought, so far removed from his usual manner of reasoning.

He is, however, forced to admit one fact: very often, mistakes and misunderstandings have brought about important evolutions in the history of philosophy. In particular, they have caused new ideas to appear. 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, 15 which, as I have shown elsewhere, 16 was thought up by Porphyry in order to solve a problem posed by a passage in Plato. In the Parmenides, 17 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 (elre) in the sense of a pure, transcendent act, prior to being as a substantial object (etanl). L 'etant, then, is the first substance and the first determination of l 'etre.

The history of the notion of being is, moreover, marked by a whole series of such creative mistakes. If we consider the series formed by ousia in Plato,

,,,,,;,, in Ari11tot le, rm.fill in the Stoics, rmsit1 in the Neoplatonists, and subs1at11ia

,

ur m1�111111 in the church F11thcrs 11nd the Scholastics, we shall find that the

76

Method

idea of ousia or essence is amongst the most confused and confusing of notions. I have tried to show elsewhere18 that the distinction, established by Boethius, between esse and quod est19 did not originally have the meaning that the Middle Ages was later to attribute to it.

It is clear that historians of philosophy must use the greatest caution in applying the idea of "system" for the comprehension of the philosophical works of antiquity and the Middle Ages. It is not the case that every properly philosophical endeavor is "systematic" in the Kantian or Hegelian sense. For two thousand years, philosophical thought utilized a methodology which condemned it to accept incoherences and far-fetched associations, precisely to the extent that it wanted to be systematic. But to study the actual progress of exegetical thought is to begin to realize that thought can function rationally in many different ways, which are not necessarily the same as those of mathematical logic or Hegelian dialectic.

Philosophers of the modem era, from the seventeenth to the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, refused the argument from authority and abandoned the exegetical mode of thinking. They began to consider that the truth was not a ready-made given, but was rather the result of a process of elaboration, carried out by a reason grounded in itself. After an initial period of optimism, however, in which people believed it was possible for thought to postulate itself in an absolute way, philosophy began to become more and more aware, from the nineteenth century on, of its historical and especially linguistic conditioning.

This was a legitimate reaction, but it could be that it<t 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.

�OTES

Even if, from a juridical point of view, the succession of Platonic diadochoi was interrupted in the first century BC, the successors of Plato nevertheless always considered themselves heirs of an unbroken spiritual tradition.

2 Porphyry, life of Plotinus, 1 4, 1 1 .

3 M.-D. Chenu, fntroductio11 a /'etude de saitl/ Tht1mas d 'Aquin, Paris 1 954.

4 Ibid, p. 55.

5 Ibid.

6 Plotinus, Enneads, I, 8, 6, 1 .

7 Plato, Thet1eletus, I 76a5-8.

8 Charles Thurot, l:'J.�traits tie

munusails lt1tim pour str11ir

. . .

11 I 'lmtmrr 1/t'J dortrinrs

R.r11111m11ti1�11/e1, PnriH I 869.

Philosophy, Exegesis, and Crealive Mislalees 77

9 Ibid, p. 103.

10 Plotinus, Enneatls, S I, 8, 1 1 -14.

1 1 Oement of Alexandria, Stromata, I, 1 7, 8 1 , 4.

12 Plato, LaJPs, 7 1 6a.

1 3 Plato, Second Letter, 3 1 2a.

14 For the texts from Celsus and Justin, cf. C. Andresen, Logos und Nomos, Berlin 1 955, pp. 1 46 ff. On the idea of the "ownership of the truth," cf. Hans Blumenberg, Die Legitimiliil tkr Neuzeit, Frankfurt 1966, p. 47.

IS [The distinction alluded to here is that between the French words itre - 'to be'

or 'being' - and the participle ttant, 'a being' (the corresponding Greek terms are lo einai and to 011.) Porphyry conceived of the infinitive 'being' as pure activity; while 'being' as a noun was an emanation from, and substantification of, this being qua pure activity. - Trans.]

1 6 Pierre Hadot, Porplryre et Victorinus, 2 vols, Paris 1968, vol. I, pp. 1 29-32.

17 Plato, Parmenides, 142b.

18 Pierre Hadot, "La distinction de l'etre et l'ctant dans le 'De Hebdomadibus' de BoCa:," in Misce/lania Mediaevalia, vol. 2, Berlin 1963, pp. 147-53.

1 9 ["Being" I "to be," and "chat which is." - Trans.]

Part II

Spiritual Ex ercises

3

Spiritual Exercises

To take flight every day! At least for a moment, which may be brief, as long as it is intense. A "spiritual exercise" every day - either alone, or in the company of someone who also wishes to better himself. Spiritual exercises. Step out of duration . . . try to get rid of your own passions, vanities, and the itch for talk about your own name, which sometimes burns you like a chronic disease. A void backbiting. Get rid of pity and hatred. Love all free human beings. Become eternal by transcending yourself.

This work on yourself is necessary; this ambition justified. Lots of people let themselves be wholly absorbed by militant politics and the preparation for social revolution. Rare, much more rare, are they who, in order to prepare for the revolution, are willing to make themselves worthy of it.

With the exception of the last few lines, doesn't this text look like a pastiche of Marcus Aurelius? It is by Georges Friedmann, 1 and it is quite possible that, when he wrote it, the author was not aware of the resemblance. Moreover, in the rest of his book, in which he seeks a place "to re-source himself '',2 he comes to the conclusion that there is no tradition - be it Jewish, Christian, or Oriental - compatible with contemporary spiritual demands. Curiously, however, he does not ask himself about the value of the philosophical tradition of Greco-Roman antiquity, although the lines we have just quoted show to just what extent ancient tradition continues - albeit unconsciously - to live within him, as it does within each of us.

".Spiritual exercises. " The expression is a bit disconcerting for the contemporary reader. In the first place, it is no longer quite fashionable these days to use the word "spiritual." 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 1111r>cct11 of the rcnlity we want to describe. Since, in these exercises, it is 1 h11uirh1 which, llK ii were, rnkcK itself nK it11 own subject-matter,�1 and seeks to

82

Spiritual Exercises

modify itself, it would be possible for us to speak in terms of "thought exercises." Yet the word "thought" does not indicate clearly enough that imagination and sensibility play a very important role in these exercises. For the same reason, we cannot be satisfied with "intellectual exercises," although such intellectual factors as definition, division, ratiocination, reading, investigation, and rhetorical amplification play a large role in them. "Ethical exercises" is a rather tempting expression, since, as we shall see, the exercises in question contribute in a powerful way to the therapeutics of the passions, and have to do with the conduct of life. Yet, here again, this would be too limited a view of things. As we can glimpse through Friedmann's text, these exercises in fact correspond to a transformation of our vision of the world, and to a metamorphosis of our personality. 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 ("Become eternal by transcending yourself").

Here our reader may say, "All right, we'll accept the expression 'spiritual exercises'. But are we talking about Ignatius of Loyola's Exercitia spiritualia?4

What relationship is there between lgnatian meditations and Friedmann's program of "stepping out of duration . . . becoming eternal by transcending oneself?" Our reply, quite simply, is that Ignatius' Exercilia spiritualia arc nothing but a Christian version of a Greco-Roman tradition, the extent of which we hope to demonstrate in what follows. In the first place, both the idea and the terminology of e�:erdtium spirituale arc attested in early Latin Christianity, well before Ignatius of Loyola, and they correspond to the Greek Christian term askesis.5 In tum, askesis - which must be understood not as asceticism, but as the practice of spiritual exercises - already existed within the philosophical tradition of antiquity.6 In the final analysis, it is to antiquity that we must return in order to explain the origin and significance of this idea of spiritual exercises, which, as Friedmann's example shows, is still alive in contemporary consciousness.

The goal of the present chapter is not merely to draw attention to the existence of spiritual exercises in Greco-Latin antiquity, but above all to delimit the scope and importance of the phenomenon, and to show the consequences which it entails for the understanding not only of ancient thought, but of philosophy itself.7

1 Leaming to Live

Spiritual exercises can he best observed in 1 hc l'lllll l'XI of I lclll�niHt k 111ul Roman schooli; of' philosophy. The Stoic11, fol' in11l lllll'l' , 1lt�d111�rtl l'� plidtly

Spiritual EJ.�erdses

83

that philosophy, for them, was an "exercise!' 8 In their view, philosophy did not consist in teaching an abstract theory9 - much less in the e,xegesis of texts10

- but rather in the art of living. 1 1 It is a concrete attitude and determinate lifestyle, 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. 12 It is a conversion13 which turns our entire life upside down, changing the life of the person who goes through it.14 It raises the individual from an inauthentic condition of life, darkened by unconsciousness and harassed by worry, to an authentic state of life, in which he attains self-consciousness, an exact vision of the world, inner peace, and freedom.

In the view of all philosophical schools, mankind's principal cause of suffering, disorder, and unconsciousness were the passions: that is, unregulated desires and exaggerated fears. People are prevented from truly living, it was taught, because they are dominated by worries. Philosophy thus appears, in the first place, as a therapeutic of the passions15 (in the words of Friedmann: "Try to get rid of your own passions"). Each school had its own therapeutic method, 16 but all of them linked their therapeutics to a profound transformation of the individual's mode of seeing and being. The object of spiritual exercises is precisely to bring about this transformation.

To begin with, let us consider the example of the Stoics. For them, all mankind's woes derive from the fact that he seeks to acquire or to keep possessions that he may either lose or fail to obtain, and from the fact that he tries to avoid misfortunes which are often inevitable. The task of philosophy, then, is to educate people, so that they seek only the goods they are able to obtain, and try to avoid only those evils which it is possible to avoid. In order for something good to be always obtainable, or an evil always avoidable, they must depend exclusively on man's freedom; but the only things which fulfill these conditions are moral good and evil. They alone depend on us; everything else does not depend on us. Here, "everything else," which does not depend on us, refers to the necessary linkage of cause and effect, which is not subject to our freedom. It must be indifferent to us: that is, we must not introduce any differences into it, but accept it in its entirety, as willed by fate. This is the domain of nature.

We have here 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.17

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.

No 11ystcmatic treatise codifying the instructions and techniques for Npiritu11l cxcrciNcN h11K come down to us. '" However, allusions to one or the

84

Spiritual Exercises

other of such inner activities are very frequent in the writings of the Roman and Hellenistic periods. It thus appears that these exercises were well known, and that it was enough to allude to them, since they were a part of daily life in the philosophical schools. They took their place within a traditional course of oral instruction.

Thanks to Philo of Alexandria, however, we do possess two lists of spiritual exercises. They do not completely overlap, but they do have the merit of giving us a fairly complete panorama of Stoico-Platonic inspired philosophical therapeutics. One of these lists19 enumerates the following elements: research (zetesis), thorough investigation (skepsis), reading (anagnosis), listening (akroasis), attention (prosoche), self-mastery (enkrateia), and indifference to indifferent things. The other20 names successively: reading, meditations (meleta1), therapies21 of the passions, remembrance of good things,22 self-mastery (enkrateia), and the accomplishment of duties. With the help of these lists, we shall be able to give a brief description of Stoic spiritual exercises. We shall study the following groups in succession: first attention, then meditations and "remembrances of good things," then the more intellectual exercises: reading, listening, research, and investigation, and finally the more active exercises: self-mastery, accomplishment of duties, and indifference to indifferent things.

Attention (prosoche) is the fundamental Stoic spiritual attitude.23 It is a continuous vigilance and presence of mind, self consciousness which never sleeps, and a constant tension of the spirit.2� Thanks to this attitude, the philosopher is fully aware of what he does at each instant, and he wills his actions fully. Thanks to his spiritual vigilance, the Stoic always has "at hand"

(procheiron) the fundamental rule of life: that is, the distinction between what depends on us and what does not. As in Epicureanism, so for Stoicism: it is essential that the adepts be supplied with a fundamental principle which is formulable in a few words, and extremely clear and simple, precisely so that it may remain easily accessible to the mind, and be applicable with the sureness and constancy of a reflex. "You must not separate yourself from these general principles; don't sleep, eat, drink, or converse with other men without them." 25

It is this vigilance of the spirit which lets us apply the fundamental rule to each of life's particular situations, and always to do what we do "appropriately." 26

We could also define this attitude as "concentration on the present moment": n Everywhere and at all times, it is up to you to rejoice piously at what is occurring at the present moment, to conduct yourself with justice towards the people who are present here and now, and to apply rul� of discernment to your present representations, so that nothing slips in that is not objective.211

Attention to the present moment is, in a sense, the key to Hpiritunl e"crci11cs.

Ir frees us from the p11ssionH, which 11rc 11lwnys CllUKcd hy the l>RNI or the

Spiritual Exercises

85

future29 - two areas which do not depend on us. By encouraging concentration on the minuscule present moment, which, in its exiguity, is always bearable and controllable,30 attention increases our vigilance. Finally, ' attention to the present moment allows us to accede to cosmic consciousness, by making us attentive to the infinite value of each instant,31 and causing us to accept each moment of existence from the viewpoint of the universal law of the cosmos.

Attention ( prosoche) allows us to respond immediately to events, as if they were questions asked of us all of a sudden. 32 In order for this to be possible, we must always have the fundamental principles "at hand" ( procheiron).33 We are to steep ourselves in the rule of life (kanon),34 by mentally applying it to all life's possible different situations, just as we assimilate a grammatical or mathematical rule through practice, by applying it to individual cases. In this case, however, we are not dealing with mere knowledge, but with the transformation of our personality.

We must also associate our imagination and affectivity with the training of our thought. Here, we must bring into play all the psychagogic techniques and rhetorical methods of amplification.35 We must formulate the rule of life to ourselves in the most striking and concrete way. We must keep life's events

"before our eyes," 36 and see them in the light of the fundamental rule. This is known as the exercise of memorization (mneme)31 and meditation (me/ete)38

on the rule of life.

The exercise of meditation39 allows us to be ready at the moment when an unexpected - and perhaps dramatic - circumstance occurs. In the exercise called praemeditatio malorum,40 we are to represent to ourselves poverty, suffering, and death. We must confront life's difficulties face to face, remembering that they are not evils, since they do not depend on us. This is why we must engrave striking maxims in our memory,41 so that, when the time comes, they can help us accept such events, which are, after all, part of the course of nature; we will thus have these maxims and sentences "at hand . " 42 What we need are persuasive formulae or arguments (epilogismoi),4l which we can repeat to ourselves in difficult circumstances, so as to check movements of fear, anger, or sadness.

First thing in the morning, we should go over in advance what we have to do during the course of the day, and decide on the principles which will guide and inspire our actions.44 In the evening, we should examine ourselves again, so as to be aware of the faults we have committed or the progress we have made 45 We should also examine our dreams.46

.

As we can see, the exercise of meditation is an attempt to control inner discourse, in an effort to render it coherent. The goal is to arrange it around o simple, universal principle: the distinction between what does and does not depend on us, or between freedom and nature. Whoever wishes to make prnl(rc1111 Ntri vcs, hy means of dialogue with himsclf47 or with others,48 as well 1111 hy writinic,4� to "carry on his rcflcct inn11 in due order" �0 and finally to arrive

86

Spiritual Exercises

at a complete transformation of his representation of the world, his inner climate, and his outer behavior. These methods testify to a deep knowledge of the therapeutic powers of the world. si

The exercise of meditation and memorization requires nourishment. This is where the more specifically intellectual exercises, as enumerated by Philo, come in: reading, listening, research, and investigation. It is a relatively simple matter to provide food for meditation: one could read the sayings of the poets and philosophers, for instance, or the apoph1hegmata.s2 "Reading," however, could also include the explanation of specifically philosophical texts, works written by teachers in philosophical schools. Such texts could be read or heard within the framework of the philosophical instruction given by a professor.s3

Fortified by such instruction, the disciple would be able to study with precision the entire speculative edifice which sustained and justified the fundamental rule, as well as all the physical and logical research of which this rule was the summary.s4 "Research" and "investigation" were the result of putting instruction into practice. For example, we are to get used to defining objects and events from a physical point of view, that is, we must picture them as they are when situated within the cosmic Whole.ss Alternatively, we can divide or dissect events in order to recognize the elements into which they can be reduced.56

Finally, we come to the practical exercises, intended to create habits. Some of these are very much "interior," and very close to the thought exercises we have just discussed. "Indifference to indifferent things," for example, was nothing other than the application of the fundamental rule. s7 Other exercises, such as self-mastery and fulfilling the duties of social life, entailed practical forms of behavior. Here again, we encounter Friedmann's themes: "Try to get rid of your own passions, vanities, and the itch for talk about your own name

. . . Avoid backbiting. Get rid of pity and hatred. Love all free human beings."

There are a large number of treatises relating to these exercises in Plutarch: On Restraining Anger, On Peace of Mind, On Brotherly Love, On the Love of Children, On Garruli{y, On the Love of Wealth, On False Shame, On Envy and Haired. Seneca also composed works of the same genre: On Anger, On Benefits, On Peace of Mind, On Leisure In this kind of exercise, one very

.

simple principle is always recommended: begin practicing on easier things, so as gradually to acquire a stable, solid habit. 58

For the Stoic, then, doing philosophy meant practicing how to "live": that is, how to live freely and consciously. Consciously, in that we pass beyond the limits of individuality, to recognize ourselves as a part of the reason-animated cosmos. Freely, in that we give up desiring that which does not depend on us and is beyond our control, so as to attach ourselves only to what depends on us: actions which are just and in conformity with reason.

It is easy to understand that a philosophy like Stoicism, which re<1uircs vigilance, energy, and psychic tcm1ion, shoulJ consi111 c1111cntially in Nt>irituol

Spiritual Exercises

87

exercises. But it will perhaps come as a surprise to learn than Epicureanism, usually considered the philosophy of pleasure, gives just as pr,ominent a place as Stoicism to precise practices which are nothing other than spiritual exercises. The reason for this is that, for Epicurus just as much as for the Stoics, philosophy is a therapeutics: "We must concern ourselves with the healing of our own lives." 59 In this context, healing consists in bringing one's soul back from the worries of life to the simple joy of existing. People's unhappiness, for the Epicureans, comes from the fact that they are afraid of things which are not to be feared, and desire things which it is not necessary to desire, and which are beyond their control. Consequently, their life is consumed in worries over unjustified fears and unsatisfied desires. As a result, they are deprived of the only genuine plea.i;ure there is: the pleasure of existing. This is why Epicurean physics can liberate us from fear: it can show us that the gods have no effect on the progress of the world and that death, being complete dissolution, is not a part of life.60 Epicurean ethics: Epicurean, as deliverance from desires can deliver us from our insatiable desires, by distinguishing between desires which are both natural and necessary, desires which are natural but not necessary, and desires which are neither natural nor necessary. It is enough to satisfy the first category of desires, and give up the last and eventually the second as well - in order to ensure the absence of

-

worries,61 and to reveal the sheer joy of existing: "The cries of the flesh are:

'Not to be hungry', 'not to be thirsty', 'not to be cold'. For if one enjoys the possession of this, and the hope of continuing to possess it, he might rival even Zeus in happiness." 62 This is the source of the feeling of gratitude, which one would hardly have expected, which illuminates what one might call Epicurean piety towards all things: "Thanks be to blessed Nature, that she has made what is necessary easy to obtain, and what is not easy unnecessary." 6J

Spiritual exercises are required for the healing of the soul. Like the Stoics, the Epicureans advise us to meditate upon and assimilate, "day and night,"

brief aphorisms or summaries which will allow us to keep the fundamental dogmas "at hand." 64 .For instance, there is the well-known tetrapharmakos, or four-fold healing formula: "God presents no fears, death no worries. And while good is readily attainable, evil is readily endurable. " 65 The abundance of collections of Epicurean aphorisms is a response to the demands of the spiritual exercise of meditation.66 As with the Stoics, however, the study of the dogmatic treatises of the school's great founders was also an exercise intended to provide material for meditation,67 so as more thoroughly to impregnate the soul with the fundamental intuitions of Epicureanism.

The study of physics is a particularly important spiritual exercise: "we i;hould not think that any other end is served by knowledge of celestial l'henomena . . . thnn freedom from disturbance and firm confidence, just as in 1 hc other licldN of Nludy . " "" Cont emplation of the physical world and

88

Spiritual Exercises

imagination of the infinite are important elements of Epicurean physics. Both can bring about a complete change in our way of looking at things. The closed universe is infinitely dilated, and we derive from this spectacle a unique spiritual pleasure:

the walls of the world open out, I see action going on throughout the whole void, . . . Thereupon from all these things a sort of divine delight gets hold upon me and a shuddering, because nature thus by your power (i.e. Epicurus') has been so manifestly laid open and unveiled in every part.69

Meditation, however, be it simple or erudite, is not the only Epicurean spiritual exercise. To cure the soul, it is not necessary, as the Stoics would have it, to train it to stretch itself tight, but rather to train it to relax. Instead of picturing misfortunes in advance, so as to be prepared to bear them, we must rather, say the Epicureans, detach our thought from the vision of painful things, and fix our eyes on pleasurable ones. We arc to relive memories of past pleasures, and enjoy the pleasures of the present, recognizing how intense and agreeable these present pleasures are.70 We have here a quite distinctive spiritual exercise, different from the constant vigilance of the Stoic, with his constant readiness to safeguard his moral liberty at each instant. Instead, Epicureanism preaches the deliberate, continually renewed choice of relaxation and serenity, combined with a profound gratitude71 toward nature and life,72 which constantly offer us joy and pleasure, if only we know how to find them.

By the same token, the spiritual exercise of trying to live in the present moment is very different for Stoics and Epicureans. For the former, it means mental tension and constant wakefulness of the moral conscience; for the latter, it is, as we have seen, an invitation to relaxation and serenity. Worry, which tears us in the direction of the future, hides from us the incomparable value of the simple fact of existing: "We are born once, and cannot be born twice, but for all time must be no more. But you, who are not master of tomorrow, postpone your happiness: life is wasted in procrastination and each one of us dies overwhelmed with cares." 7J This is the doctrine contained in Horace's famous saying: carpe diem.

Life ebbs as I speak:

so seize each day, and grant the next no credit.74

For the Epicureans, in the last analysis, pleasure is a spiritual exercise. Not pleasure in the form of mere sensual gratification, but the intellectual 1>le11surc derived from contemplating nature, the thought of pleasurc11 past nnd prc11cnt , and lastly the pleasure o f fricnd11hip. I n Epicurc1m conununit ic11, fritmd11hi1111

Spiritual Exercises

89

also had its spiritual exercises, carried out in a joyous, relaxed atmosphere.

These include the public confession of one's faults;76 m)itual correction, carried out in a fraternal spirit; and examining one's conscience.n Above all, friendship itself was, as it were, the spiritual exercise par excellence: "Each person was to tend towards creating the atmosphere in which hearts could flourish. The main goal was to be happy, and mutual affection and the confidence with which they relied upon each other contributed more than anything else to this happiness." 78

2 Learning to Dialogue

The practice of spiritual exercises is likely to be rooted in traditions going back to immemorial timcs.79 It is, however, the figure of Socrates that causes them to emerge into Western consciousness, for this figure was, and has remained, the living call to awaken our moral consciousness.80 We ought not to forget that this call sounded forth within a specific form: that of dialogue.

In the "Socratic" HI dialogue, the question truly at stake is not what is being talked about, but who is doing the talking.

anyone who is close to Socrates and enters into conversation with him is liable to be drawn into an argument, and whatever subject he may start, he will be continually carried round and round by him, until at last he finds that he has to give an account both of his present and past life, and when he is once entangled, Socrates will not let him go until he has completely and thoroughly sifted him . . . And I think there is no harm in being reminded of any wrong thing which we are, or have been, doing; he who does not run away from criticism will be sure to take more heed of his afterlife.82

In a "Socratic" dialogue, Socrates' interlocutor docs not learn anything, and Socrates has no intention of teaching him anything. He repeats, moreover, to all who are willing to listen, that the only thing he knows is that he docs not know anything.HJ Y ct, like an indefatigable horsefly,IH Socrates harassed his interlocutors with questions which put themselves into question, forcing them to pay attention to and take care of themselves.85

My very good friend , you are an Athenian, and belong to a city which is the greatest and most famous in the world for its wisdom and Nlrcngth. Arc you not ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring 1111 much money as possible, and similarly with reputation and honour, 1111d l(ive no nttenl ion or thought to truth f aletht�ia I or thought fphronesis]

or the perfection of your 1mul I p.�)1c/1t'j? Ki�

90

Spiritual Exercises

Socrates' mission consisted in inviting his contemporaries to examine their conscience, and to take care for their inner progress: I did not care for the things that most people care about - making money, having a comfortable home, high military or civil rank, and all the other activities, political appointments, secret societies, party organizations, which go on in our city I set myself to do you - each one

.

.

.

We spend our lives "reading," that is, carrying out exegeses, and sometimes even exegeses of exegeses. Epictetus tells us what he thinks of such activities:

"Come and listen to me read my commentaries . . . I will explain Chrysippus to you like no one else can, and I'll provide a complete analysis of his entire text . . . If necessary, I can even add the views of Antipater and Archedcmos" . So it's for this, is it, thnt young men

.

.

arc to leave their fatherlands and their own pnrcntt�: to l'Olllc nnd liKl t!ll to you explain words? Triflinl( lil l lc wcmh1? IM

Spiritual Exercises

109

And yet we have forgotten how to read: how to pause, liberate ourselves from our worries, return into ourselves, and leave aside our searc)J for subtlety and originality, in order to meditate calmly, ruminate, and let the texts speak to us. This, too, is a spiritual exercise, and one of the most difficult. As Goethe said: "Ordinary people don't know how much time and effort it takes to learn how to read. I've spent eighty years at it, and I still can't say that I've reached my goal." IB7

NOTES

Georges Friedmann, La P11issance et la Sagesse, Paris 1 970, p. 359. On June 30, 1 977, shortly before his death, Friedmann was kind enough to write me to tell me how much he had been "moved" by my reaction to his book. In the same letter, he referred me to the final remarks he had presented at the close of the Colloquium organdies by the CNRS [National Centre of Scientific Research], 3-5 May, 1977, to commemorate the tricentenary of the death of Spinoza.

There, apropos of a passage from Spinoza's Ethics, he spoke of the Stoicism of the ancients. Cf. Georges Friedmann, "Le Sage et notre siecle," Revue de SJmtlitse 99 ( 1 978), p. 288.

2 Friedmann, la P11issance, pp. 1 83-284.

3 Epictetus, Disco11rses, 3, 22, 20: "From now on my mind [tlianoia] is the material with which I have to work, as the carpenter has his timbers, the shoemaker his hides."

4 [Ignatius of Loyola (ca. 1 49 1 - 1 556), founder of the Jesuit Order, wrote his handbook entitled Spirit11nl E.\�ercises beginning in 1 522. The goal of the work was to purify its reader from sin and lead him to God, via a four-stage meditation: beginning with meditation on sin, the reader progresses to considering the kingdom of Christ, the passion, and finally the risen and glorified Lord. - Trans.]

5 In Latin literature, cf. , for example, Rufinus, History of the Monks [written ca. AD 403], ch. 29, PL 2 1 , 4100: "Cum quadraginta annis fuisset in excrcitiis spiritualibus conversatus" ["After he had become t.-onversant with spiritual exercises for forty years" - Trans.], and ch. 29 (ibid., col. 4530): "Ad acriora semetipsum spiritalis vitae cxtendit exercitia" ["He exerted himself to the more zealous exercises of the spiritual life." - Trans.].

In the Greek world, we find this terminology already in Oement of Alexandria, Stromata, 4, 6, 27, I. Cf. J. Leclercq, "Exercices spirituels," in Dictiormaire tie Spiritualite, vol. 4, cols 1 902-8.

{> In his very important work Seelenfiihrung. Methodik der E:A.�erzitien in der Antike, Munich 1 954, Paul Rabbow situated Ignatius of Loyola's Exercitia spiritualia back within the ancient tradition .

7 There have been relatively few studies devoted to this subject. The fundamental work is th11r of Rabbow, Seelerljuhrrmlf, cf. also the review of Rabbow's work by (i, l .uck, Gmmum 28 ( 1 95<>), pp. 2(18 71 ; H.-L. Hijmans jr AIKEIIi, Notes 011

l1'plt:ttt11.1 ' li'i/11111li111111/ ,\)1s1tm, A11Nct1 l 1J51T;' A.C. Vnn Geytcnbeck, M1mmi11s R1di1.<

1 10

Spiritual Exercises

and Greek Diatribes, Assen 1 963; W. Schmid, "Epikur," in Reallexikon for Antike und Christentum, vol. S, 1 962, cols 73S-40; I. Hadot "Epicure et l'enseignement philosophique hellenistique et romain," in Actes du VJ/le Co11gres Bude, Paris 1 969; H.-G. lngenkamp, Plutarchs Schriften iiber die Heilung der See/e, Gottingen 1 97 1 ; V. Goldschmidt, Le systeme stoi"cien et l'idee de temps, 4th edn, Paris 1 98S.

8 Pseudo-Galen, Philosophical History, S, in H. Diels, ed., Doxographi Graeci, p. 602, 1 8; Pseudo-Plutarch, Placita, I, 2, ibid, p. 273, 14. The idea originates with the Cynics; cf. Diogenes Laertius, 6, 70-1 , and now the important work of M.-0. Goulet-Cazi:, L 'Ascese cynique. Un commentaire de Diogene Lairce, VI, 70, 71, Paris 1986. Lucian ( Toxaris, 27; Vitarum auctio, 7) uses the word askesis to designate philosophical sects themselves. On the need for philosophical exercises, cf. Epictetus, Discourses, 2, 9, 13; 2, 1 8, 26; 3, 8, I; 3, 1 2, 1 -7; 4, 6, 1 6; 4, 1 2, 1 3; Musonius Rufus, p. 22, 9ff Hense; Seneca, Letter, 90, 46.

9 Seneca, Letter, 20, 2: "Philosophy teaches us how to act, not how to talk."

10 Epictetus, Discourses, I, 4, 1 4ff: spiritual progress does not consist in learning how to explain Chrysippus better, but in transforming one's own freedom; cf. 2, 1 6, 34.

1 1 Epictetus, Discourses, I, I S, 2: "The subject-matter of the art of living (i .e. philosophy) is the life of every individual;" cf. I, 26, 7. Plutarch, Table-talk, I, 2, 623B: "Since philosophy is the art of living, it should not be kept apart from any pastime."

12 Galen, Galen On the Passio11s and Errors of the Soul, I, 4, p. 1 1 , 4 Marquardt:

"make yourself better."

13 On conversion, cf. Arthur Darby Nock, Conversion, Oxford 1 933, pp. 1 64-86; Pierre Hadot "Epistrophe et Metanoia dans l'historie de la philosophic," in Actes du lie Congres International de Philosophie 1 2, Brussels 19S3, pp. 3 1 -6; Pierre Hadot, "Conversio," in Historiches Wiirterbuch der Pl1ilosophie, vol. 1, cols 1033-6, 1 97 1 .

1 4 Seneca, Letter, 6, l : " I feel, my dear Lucilius, that I am being not only reformed, but transformed . . I

.

therefore wish to impart to you this sudden change in myself."

IS Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, 3, 6: "Truly, philosophy is the medicine of the soul"; cf. Epictetus, Discourses, 2, 2 1 , I S; 22. Chrysippus wrote a Therapeutics of the Passio,,s; cf. S VF, vol. 3, �474. Cf. also the aphorism attributed to Epicurus by Usener (Epicurea, fr. 22 1 = Porphyry Ad Marcel/am, 3 1 , p. 294, 7-8 Nauck):

"Vain is the word of that philosopher which does not heal any suffering of man."

According to H. Chadwick, The Sentences of Sextus, Cambridge 1 959, p. 1 78, n.

336, this sentence is Pythagorean. Cf. Epictetus, Discourses, 3, 23, 30: "The philosopher's school is a clinic."

16 The Epicurean method must be distinguished from that of the Stoics. According to Olympiodorus, CommePltary on tl1e First Aldbiiltles of Plaw, pp. <>, MT; 54, 1 5ff; 1 4S, 1 2ff Wcsterink, the Stoics cure contraries by contraries; the Pyth11gnrc11n11

let the patient taste the passions with hili linger1i1>11; 1md SucrntcH 1 rc11111 hi�

patients by homeopathy, le11Jing them, for ux11n11llc, from t he lnw 111' ll.'rrvN1 ri11l

Spiritual Exercises

1 1 1

beauty to the love of eternal beauty. Cf. also Proclus, In Alcibordtm, p. 1 5 1 , 1 4, vol. 2, p. 2 1 7 Segonds.

17 Cf. below. We find the distinction between what depends on us and what does not depend on us in Epictetus, Discourses, I, 1 , 7; I, 4, 27; I, 22, 9; 2, 5, 4; and Epictetus, Manual, ch. 4.

18 Many Stoic treatises entitled On Exercises have been lost; cf. the list of titles in Diogenes Laertius, 7, 1 66-7. A short treatise entitled On Exercise, by Musonius Rufus, has been preserved (pp. 22-7 Hense). After a general introduction concerning the need for exercises in philosophy, Rufus recommends physical exercises: becoming used to foul weather, hunger, and thirst. These exercises benefit the soul, giving it strength and temperance. He then recommends exercises designed particularly for the soul, which, says Rufus, consist in steeping oneself in the demonstrations and principles bearing on the distinction between real and apparent goods and evils. With the help of these exercises, we will get into the habit of not fearing what most people consider as evils: poverty, suffering, and death. One chapter of Epictetus' Disco1mes is dedicated to askesis (3, 1 2, 1-7). Cf. bc:low . The: treatise 011 Exerdse by the PseudoPlutarch, preserved in Arabic (cf. J. Gildmeister and F. Bilcheler, "PseudoPlutarchos Peri askisefis,"

Rheit1isches Museum NF 27 ( 1 872), pp. 520-38), is of no particular interest in this context.

1 9 Philo Judaeus, Who is the Heir of Divi11e Things, 253.

20 Philo Judaeus, Allegorical lmerpretations, 3, 1 8 .

2 1 The word therapeiai can also mean acts of worship, and this meaning would be entirely possible in Philo's mind. Nevertheless, in the present context it seems to me that it designates the therapeutics of the passions. Cf. Philo Judaeus, On 1/1e Special Laws, I, 1 9 1 ; 1 97; 230; 2, 1 7.

22 Ton kalon 11111emai. Cf. Galen, Gale11 On the Passio11s and Err(!rs of the S<ml, l, 5, 25, pp. 1 9, 8 Marquardt.

23 On this theme, cf. Rabbow, Seelenfiihmmg, pp. 249-50; Hijmans, AIKEEIII, pp. 68-70. Cf. especially Epictetus, Discourses, 4, 1 2, 1 -2 1 .

24 The idea o f tension (tonos) i s particularly in evidence i n Epictetus, Discourses, 4, 1 2, 15 and 19. The concept of tonos is central to Stoicism, as is that of relaxation (a11esis) in Epicureanism . Cf. F. Ravaisson, Essai sur la Metaphysiq11e d 'Austote, Paris, 1 846, repr. Hildesheim 1 963, p. 1 1 7.

25 Epictetus, Discourses, 4, 1 2 , 7; cf. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 3, 1 3; Galen, Gale11 On the Passions and Errors of tl1e Soul, 1, 9, 5 1 , p. 40, 10

Marquardt.

26 Epictetus, Discourses, 4, 1 2, 1 5-18.

27 ' Cf. below.

28 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7, 54; cf. 3, 1 2; 8, 36; 9, 6.

29 Only the present depends on us, since our free action cannot be extended either to the post or to the future. Free action is that which either brings about Komething in the present, or else accepts the present event, which has been willed by line; cf. Mnrcu11 Aurelius, Medit11tif111s, 2, 1 4; 4, 26, 5; 1 2, 26; Seneca, On llt'llr/ils, 7, 2, 4: "Rcjoidntc in 1.hcNe 1,reKt�nt evt,n111."

1 12

Spiritual Exercises

30 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 3, 1 O; 2, 14; 8, 36.

31 Cf., for instance, Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4, 23. Marcus also stresses the cosmic value of the instant in 5, 8, 3: "This event occurred for you, was prescribed for you, and had some kind of relationship to you, having been woven since the beginning, from the most ancient causes."

32 Epictetus, Discourses, 2, 16, 2 3; 3,

-

8, 1-5.

33 Cf. Rabbow, See/enfiihnung, pp. 1 24-30, 334-6; I. Hadot, Seneca und die griuh1"s,h-romiuhe Tradition der Seelenleitung, Berlin 1 969, pp. 57-8. See also Galen, Galen On the Passions and E"ors of the Soul, 1 , 5, 24, p. 18, 19 Marquardt; Seneca, On Benefits, 1, 2, I ; Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 1, 63.

34 Seneca, On Benefits, 1, 2, 1-2; Epictetus, Discourses, 3, 3, 14-16.

35 On the role of rhetoric in spiritual exercises, sec Rabbow, SeelerrfiihnuP1g, pp. 5 5-90; Hijmans, ALKEJ:IX, p. 89; I. Hadot, Seneca, pp. 1 7, 184. For examples in Plutarch, see Ingcnkamp, Plutarchs Schrifien, pp. 99ff.

36 Marcus Aurelius, Medi1a1ior1s, 1, 58: "In every contingency, keep before .vour e.ves those who, when the same thing befell them, were saddened, astonished, resentful. Where are they now? Nowhere." Epictetus, Manual, ch. 2 1 : "Keep before .vour e.ves every day death and exile, and everything that seems terrible, but most of all death; and then you will never have any abject thought, nor excessive desire." On this exercise, see Rabbow, Seelenj'iihrU11g, p. 330.

37 Cf. the passage from Philo cited above. Hijmans, AJ:KEJ:IJ:, p. 69, calls attention to the frequency of the expression "Remember!" in Epictetus. It recurs quite often in Marcus Aurelius, for instance, Meditations, 2, 4; 8, 1 5 ; 29. Cf. Galen, Galer1 On the Passions and E"ors of the So11/, l , 5, 25, p. 1 9, 8- 1 0 Marquardt:

"With the help of memory, keep 'at hand' the ugliness of those who succumb to anger, and the beauty of those who master it."

38 It is only after much hesitation that I have translated mtlete by "meditation." In fact, melett and iL'I Latin equivalent meditatifl designate "preparatory exercises,"

in particular those of rhetoricians. If 1 ha\�e finally resigned myself to adopting the translation "meditation," it is because the exercise designated by mtltte corresponds, in the last analysis, rather well to what we nowadays term meditatio11: an effort to assimilate an idea, notion, or principle, and make them come alive in the soul. We must not, however, lose sight of the term's ambiguity: meditation is exercise, and exercise is meditation. For instance, the "premeditation" of death is a "pre-exercise" of death; the (Oltidiana meditatio cited in the following note could just as well be translated as "daily exercises. "

3 9 See Rabbow, See/enfiihrung, pp. 23- 1 50, 325-8; and Seneca, On Benefits, 1, 2, 1 :

"These are the things that my friend Demetrius says the beginner in philosophy must grasp with both hands, these arc the precepts that he must never let go.

Rather, he must cling fast to them and make them a part of himself, and by daily meditation reach the point where thc.'lc salutary maxims occur to him of their own accord." Cf. also Galen, Ga/e11 011 t/1e Passior1s anti E"nrs 1if tl1t Soul, l , 5, 25, p. 1 9, 13 Marquardt.

40 ["Pre-meditation of misfortunes"

Trans. I On the /m1t111tdit11ti11 "'"'"'""'� 11cc R11bhow, Srtlrr(/lilir1111R, l'I'� 1 '111 70; I . I l11Ll111 , St'1t1l'tl, p11. (J() I .

Spiritual Exercises

1 13

41 See above.

42 See above.

43 Cf. lngenkamp, Plutarchs Schufien, pp. 99- l OS; Rabbow, Seelenfohrung, pp. 1 48, 340-2.

44 Cf. Galen, Galen On the Passions and E"ors of the Soul, l, S, 24, p. 18, 1 2

Marquardt: "As soon as we get u p in the morning, w e must consider i n advance, with regard to the various acts we will perform throughout the day, whether it is better to live as a slave of our passions, or to utilize reason against all of them ."

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2, 1 , I : "At the break of dawn, say to yourself: 'I'm going to come across a nosy person, an ingrate, a thug, a cheat, a jealous man, and an anti-social man. AU these defects have affiicted them because of their ignoram.."C of what is truly good and evil.' " Cf ibid, S, I , I : "In the morning, when you have trouble getting up, have this thought at hand [procheiron]: 'I'm getting up to do a man's work.' "

4S On the examination of the conscience, see Rabbow, Seele11fiilirung, pp. 1 80-8, 344-7; I. Hadot, Seneca, pp. 68-70; Hijmans, AIKEIII, p. 88.

46 Cf. Plutarch, Honi One may K1101P One is Making Progress i'1 Virtue, �1 2, 82F: "It was Zeno's belief that everyone could, thanks to his dreams, have knowledge of what progress he was making. One has made real progrc.<;s if he no longer dreams that he is giving in to some shameful passion, or giving his consent to something evil or unjust - or even committing it - and if, instead, the soul's faculties of representation and afTectivity, relaxed by reason, shine as if in an ocean of diaphanous serenity, untroubled by waves.''

47 See below.

48 This is the domain of spiritual guidance; sec I. Hadot, Senm1, pp. S-97.

Note especially Galen, Galen 011 the Passio11s and Errors of the Soul, I , 7, 36, p. 27, 22 Marquardt: we are to ask an older man to tell us frankly about our defects.

49 Cf. Rabbow, Seeletifiilirung, p. 3 1 1 , n. 64; I. Hadot, Smeca, p. S9. Marcus Aurelius' Meditations are, of course, the example par eJ.�cel/e11u of this. Note also Horace, Satires, l, 4, 1 38: "When I have some spare time, l amuse myself by writing these thoughts down on paper."

SO The phrase is Descartes', but it gives good expression to the St�ic ideal of inner coherence. [This is the third of Rene Descartes' well-known "four laws" which he exposes in Part 2 of his Discourse 011 the Method. - Trans.]

SI On this subject, sec P. Lain Entralgo, "Die platonische Rationalisienung .der Bcsprechung (Etnf18q) und die Erfindung dcr Psychotherapie durch das Wort,"

Hermes 68 (19S8), pp. 298-323; P. Lain Entralgo, The Therapy of the Word in

' Clt1ssica/ Atlliqui()', New Haven 1 970; and the review of this latter work by F.

Kudlien, G11omo'1 4S ( 1 973), pp. 410-12.

S2 ["Collections of aphorisms" - Trans.] Cf. Rabbow, Sulenfiihrung, pp. 2 1 S-22,

.1S2-4; G.A. Gerhard, Plioi11i.\' von Ko/op/ion, Leipzig 1909, pp. 228-84; I.

1 ladot, Se,,eca, pp. 1 6- 1 7. Sec also Seneca, lttter, 94, 27; 43; 98, S; 108, 9. On collections of poetical and philosophicnl aphorisms, see W. Spocrri, "Gnome," in

!>tr Nmtt /111111)�, \'ol. 2 , 1 %7, col11 H22 9; C:hndwick, Smttnces t1f Se.\�t11s;

1 14

Spiritual Exercises

T. Klauser, "Apophthcgma," Rea/le:i:icon for Antike und Christemun I ( 1950), pp. 545-50. Sec also P. Wendland, Ana:i:imenes 11on Lampsakos, Berlin 1905, pp. l OOff.

53 The term akroasis as used by Philo could designate, among other things, attending a course in philosophy; cf. Epictetus, Discourses, 3, 23, 27; 38. Normally, the course included the reading, with commentary, of a philosophical text (anagnosis}, often done by the disciple and criticized by the master (cf. Epictetus, Discourses, l, 26, l; Porphyry, Lij( of Plotinus, ch. 14). See also I. Bruns, De si:hola Epirlelc, Kiel 1897. This does not, of course, exclude the individual reading of philosophical texts; cf. Epictetus, Discourses, 4, 4, 14-1 8 (where Epictetus reproaches his disciples for reading texts without putting them into practice). After the reading with commentary, a philosophy class would normally include a discussion (diatribe) with the audience, as well as individual discussions (cf. I. Hadot, Se11eca, p. 65). For the listener, this entire ensemble could be a spiritual exercise. With regard to reading, we should add that exegesis, whether literal or allegorical, was one of the most important spiritual exercises at the end of antiquity, among both pagans and Christians.

54 On the educational program in Hellenistic schools, with its transition from aphorisms to epitomai (summaries of basic principles), and finally to full-scale treatises, sec I. Hadot I 969a, pp. 53-6; 1 969b.

55 On the exercise of definition, sec below.

56 On this exercise, sec Rabbow, See/mfiihrung, pp. 42-9.

57 Philo's expression "indifference to indifferent things" corresponds exactly to the spiritual exercises mentioned by Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 1 1 , 16: "Our soul finds within itself the power to live a perfectly happy life, if we can remain indifferent towards indifferent things." This formula seems to be a reminiscence of the definition of the goal of human life according to Aristo of Chios (SVF, 1, �360, = Clement of Alexandria, Stromatfl, 2, 2 1 , 129, 6, p. 183, 1 4- 1 6 Stiihlin): "And why should I mention Aristo? He said the goal was indifference, but he leaves 'the indifferent' as simply 'the indifferent.' " On this theme, see below. We must bear in mind that here "indifference" does not mean a lack of interest, but rather equal love for each of life's instants; that is, we are not to make any "difference" between them.

58 See Rabbow, Su/enfiihr11ng, pp. 223-49; Ingcnkamp, Plutarclls Sd1iifien, pp. 1 05-1 8. The technical term for this process is e1/1ismos.

59 Epicurus, Gnomo/ogium Vaticanum, �64. Cf. also Leiter to Metwecus, �1 22: "No one can come too early or too late to secure the health of his soul."

60 Epicurus, Ratae Senlenliae, �1 1 : "If we were not troubled by our suspicions of the phenomena of the sky and about death, fearing that it concerns us, and also by our failure to grasp the limits of pains and desires, we should have no need of natural science [physioloxia]." On Epicurean theology, sec Schmid, "Epikur"; D. Lemke, Die Theologie Epikurs, Munich 1 973.

6 1 Epicurus, Rtittle Selllmtiae, �29; Epicurus, Lmer 111 Me11<1ttm, � 1 27.

62 Epicurus, Gn()ln. V111. �33. Cf. A.-J. Fcstugicrc:, /!'pirnre et m tl1t11.\', 1'11rh1 1 94(1, p. 44.

Spiritual Exercises

1 1 5

63 Epicurus Fr. 469, p. 300, 26ff Usener.

64 On these Epicurean exercises of meditation, see Schmid, "Epikur," p. 744; Rabbow, Seelmfohrung, pp. 1 29, 336-8; I. Hadot, Seneca, pp. 52L3. Cf. Epicurus, Leiter lo Menoenu, �135, 5-8: "Meditate therefore on these things and things like them night and day by yourself, and with someone similar to yourself, and you shall be disturbed, either awake or asleep, but you shall live like a god among men." Ibid, �123, 1-2: "That which I used constandy to recommend to you, put it into practice and meditate upon It [me/eta], considering them to be the elements of the living well." Ibid, � 1 24, 7-8: "Become accustomed [sunethi.ze] to considering that death is nothing to us."

65 Cf. Philodemus, Adversus sophistas, col. 4, 1 0-14, p. 87 Sbordone, cited by Festugiere, Epicure, p. 46, n. 1, Schmid, "Epikur," col . 744; translation by A.A.

Long and D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol. l: Translations of the Principal Sources, 11Jith Philosophical Commentary, Cambridge 1987, repr. 1988, p.

1 56, section J; Greek text, vol. 2, Greek and Latin Texts 'IDith Notes and Bibliography, p. 1 6 1 . The technical term used here to indicate that this aphorism must always be "at hand" is parhepomet1on.

66 For instance, the Ratae Sententiae or Kuriai Doxai ["Principal Doctrines"), which were known to Cicero (On Ends, 2, 20), and the Gnorn. Vat.

67 On the curriculum in the Epicurean school, see above.

68 Epicurus, Leiter to Pythodes, �85 = Long and Sedley, Hellenistic Philosophers, section 1 8 C ( I ), vol. I , pp. 91-2; Greek text, vol. 2, p. 94. Cf. Letter to Herodotus,

�37: "I recommend . . . constant occupation in the investigation of the science of nature, since I consider that this activity provides the greatest serenity in life."

69 Lucretius, On tlie Nature of Things, 3, 1 6f, 28ff. This passage is quite remarkable.

On the one hand, it illustrates the fact that Epicurean physics was a true source of pleasure for the sage: it allowed him to have a grandiose imaginative vision of the formation and dissolution of the universe in the infinity of space. On the other, it throws light on one of the most fundamental feelings of the human experience: l1orror in the face of the enigma of nature. One thinks of Goethe's formulation in Faust, Part 2, 6272ff: "The shudder is the best part of man.

However dearly the world makes him pay for it, he feels the Prodigious deep inside, seized with astonishment." ("Das Schaudcrn ist der Menschheit bestes Teil. Wie auch die Welt ihm das Gefilhl verteure, Ergriffen ftihlt er tief das Ungehcurc.") On Epicurean spiritual exercises in general, see P .-H. Schrijvers, Horror ac Divina Vo/uptas. Et11des s11r la poetique et la poesie de L11crece, Amsterdam 1 970.

70 I. Hadot, Seneca, pp. 62-3; Rabbow, Seelenfiihrung, p. 280. Cf. Cicero, On Ends,

,I, 1 7, SS; I, 19, 62; Tusculan Disputations, I S, 32-3.

7 1 Epicurus, Gnom. Vat., �7S: "The saying, 'Wait till the end of a long life' (to know if you've been happy) is ungrateful towards the good things of the past." Cf. ibid,

�69; � 1 9: "He who has forgotten yesterday's good fortune is already an old man."

72 Cf. I�:. Hoffmann, "Epikur," in M. Dessoir, ed., Die Geschidue der Philosophie, vol. I, Wi1.'!lbaden 1 925, p. 223: "f:xistcnce is to be considered, first and limm11111t, 1111 11 11urc: 111.'Cidc:nt , 110 that it nmy then be lived as a completely unique

1 16

Spiritual Exercises

miracle. We must first realize that existence, inevitably, is a one-shot affair, in order to be able to celebrate that in it which is irreplaceable and unique."

73 Epicurus, Gnom. Vat. , �14. Cf. Lucretius, On the Nature of Tiiings, 3, 957-60, and G. Rodis-Lewis, Epicure et son ecole, Paris, 1 975, pp. 269-83.

74 Horace, Odes, I, 1 1 , 7: "Oum loquimur, fugerit invida I aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero." Cf. ibid, 2, 1 6, 25: "A soul content with the present."

75 On Epicurean friendship, see Schmid, "Epikur," cols 740-55; Festugiere, Epicure, pp. 36-70; I. Hadot 1969a, pp. 63fT; Rodis-Lewis, Epicure, pp. 362-9.

76 Cf. S. Sudhaus, "Epikur als Beichtirater," Archiv for Rtligio11S11Jissenscliafi 14

( 191 1 ), pp. 647ff. The fundamental text is Philodemus, Peri parrhisias ["On Free Speech"], ed. A. Olivieri, Leipzig 1914; cf. I. Hadot, Seneca, p. 63; M. Gigante 1968, pp. 1 96-217.

77 Schmid, "Epikur," cols. 741-3.

78 Festugiere, Epicure, p. 69.

79 The prehistory of spiritual exercises is to be sought, first of all, in traditional rules of life and popular exhortation (cf. I. Hadot, Seneca, pp. 1 0-22). Must we go back further still, and look for it first of all in Pythagoreanism, and then, beyond Pythagoras, in magico-religious/shamanistic traditions of respiratory techniques and mnemonic exercises? This theory, defended by E.R. Dodds, The Greeks and the lrratio11al (= Sather Classical Lectures 25), 3rd edn, Berkeley/London 1 963; L. Gernet, Anthropo/ogie de la Grece antique, Paris 1 968, pp. 423-5; J.-P. Vernant, Mythe et pensee chez /es Crees, Paris 1 97 1 , pp. 94ff, 1 08ff; M. Detienne, De la pe11see religieuse ti la pmsee p/1ilosophique. La notion de Daimon da11s le pythagoisme aP1det1, Paris 1963; M. Detienne, Les maitres de vbiite da11s la Grece arc/1ai'que, Paris 1967, pp. 1 24ff; H. Joly, Le renversement plato11icim, Paris 1974, pp. 67-70; is entirely plausible. However, I shall not go into the matter here, first of all owing to my lack of competence in the field of the anthropology of prehistory and of archaic Greece, and secondly, because it seems to me that the problems inherent in the history of Pythagoreanism are extremely complex, so that it presupposes a rigorous criticism of our sources (many of which are late, idyllic projections, reflecting Stoic and Platonic concepts). Thirdly, the spiritual exercises under discussion here are mental processes which have nothing in common with cataleptic trances, but, on th� contrary, respond to a rigorous demand for rational control, a demand which, as far as we are concerned, emerges with the figure of Socrates.

80 The historical Socrates is a probably insoluble enigma. But the figure of Socrates, as it is sketched by Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes, is a wellattested historical fact. When, in what follows, I speak of "Socrates," I shall be referring to this figure of Socrates. See below, ch. 5 , "The Figure of Socrates."

81 By using quotation marks, I wish to underline the fact that we arc not dealing with authentically Socratic dialoi,'Ucs, but with literary composit ions which imitate - more or less faithfully - the dinlogues of SocrnteH, or in which the figure of Socrates plays a role h is in this sense thnt Plotn111 JinlogueR 11rc

.

Socrntic.

Spiritual Exercises

1 1 7

82 Plato, Laches, 1 87e-1 88b.

83 Aristotle, Sophistical Refutations, 1 83b8: "Socrates used to ask _questions and not to answer them - for he used to confess that he did not 1'now." Cf. Plato, Apology, 2 ld5: "I do not think that I know what I do not know."

84 Plato, Apology, 30el-5: "If you put me to death, you will not easily find anyone to take my place . . . God has specially appointed me to this city, as though it were a large thoroughbred horse which . . . needs the stimulation of some stinging fly."

85 On taking care of oneself, cf. Plato, Apology, 29d; 31 b; 36c.

86 Ibid, 29d5-e3. Cf. 30a6-b l : "For I spend my time going about trying to persuade you, young and old, to make your first and chief concern not for your bodies nor for your possessions, but for the highest welfare of your souls."

87 Plato, Apo/11gy, 36b4-c6.

88 Plato, Symposium, 2 1 5e6-2 1 6a5.

89 In this respect, Stoic exhortation remains Socratic. More than one of Epictetus'

Di1&ourses seems to imitate the Socratic style; cf., for instance, Discourses, I, 1 1 , 1 -40. Epictetus praises the Socratic method ,t 2, 12, 5-1 6, but he empha.'lizes that, in his day, it is no longer easy to practice it: "Nowadays, especially in Rome, it is not at all a safe business" (2, 1 2, 1 7; 24). Epictetus pictures a philosopher trying to have a Socratic dialogue with a consular personage, and ending up receiving a fist in the face. If we can trust Diogenes Laertius, LiVts of the Philosophers, 2, 2 1 , a similar incident had happened to Socrates himself.

90 On the history of this theme, see Pierre Courcelle, Connais-toi toi-mime. De So(rate ti saint Bernard, 3 vols, Paris 1974--5.

91 Plato, Symposium, 1 74d.

92 Plato, ibid, 220c--d.

93 Aristophanes, Clouds, 700-6, � 76 1-3; cf. 740-5. As a matter of fact, the true meaning of these verses is not entirely clear. They could be interpreted as an allusion to an exercise of mental concentration; this is the view of G. Meautis, l 'time hellb1ique, Paris 1 932, p. 1 83; A.-J. Festugiere, Contemplation ti vie conttmplatit-e selon Platot1, 2nd edn, Paris 1950, pp. 67-73; W. Schmid, "Das Sokratcsbild der Wolken," Phitologus 91 ( 1 948), pp. 209-28; A.E. Taylor, Vaina Socratica, Oxford 1 9 1 1 , pp. 1 29 7 5. The terms phrontizein and ekphrontizein,

-

used in Aristophanes' description, became - perhaps under Aristophanes'

influence - technical terms for designating Socrates' habits. Cf. Plato, Symposium, 220c: Socrates stays standing, phrontizot1 ti; Xenophon, Symposium, 6, 6: Socrates is nicknamed the plirontislts. But it is not certain that, in Aristophanes, this phrontizein corresponds to an exercise of meditation directed towards oneself. In the first place, the comparison with the may-beetle gives us to understand that thought takes flight toward "elevated" things. In his Symposium, Xenophon tells us it relates to the "meteora," in other words to celestial phenomena (cf. Plato, Ap11logy, 1 8b). Secondly, in the Clouds, Strepsiades phrontizei about the means he will use to settle a business affair, not about himself. It is more a question of the mcrhmlolo1n� of research (cf. I . 742: 1lit1ide nod e.wm1ine). The most interesting de111il 11eern11 tu me lo be the plm111c: "Ir ynu come up 11g11inNt 110 insoluble point,

1 18

Spiritual Exercises

jump to another" (702-4), repeated at 743ff: "If an idea gets you into any difficulty, let go of it, withdraw for a bit, then submit it to your judgement again, shift it around and weigh it carefully." This means that, when one arrives at an aporia, one must take up the question again, from a new point of departure. This method is constantly applied in the Platonic dialogues, as has been shown by Rene Schaerer, La Question platonidenne. Etudes sur /es rapports de la penste et de /'expressions dans /es Dialogues (= Memoires de l'Universite de Neuchatel 1 0), 2nd edn with postscript, Neuchatel 1 969, pp. 84-7; citing Meno, 79e; Pltaedo, 1 05b; Theaetetus, 187a-b; Phi/ebus, 60a. As Schaerer points out (p. 86), we have to do with a process "which forces the mind indefatigably to tum around in circles, in search of the True." It is perhaps this aspect of Socratic methodology which explains Aristophanes' allusions to decours and circuits of thought. Be this as it may, this method is also discernible in Aristotle, as we can sec by the examples collected by H. Bonitz, lnde.t�

aristotelicus, Berlin 1 870, repr. Graz 1 955, col. 1 1 1 , 35ff: "Taking another point of departure, we shall say." We find Plotinus using the same method, for instance in Enm:ad, 5, 8, 4, 45; 5, 8, 1 3, 24; 6, 4, 1 6, 47. On Aristotle, cf. the remarks of I. Di.iring, "Aristotle and the heritage from Plato," Eranos 62 ( 1964), pp. 84-99.

94 Diogenes Lacrtius, lives of the Philosophers, 6, 6. Ancient man frequently spoke to himself out loud. Some examples: Pyrrho in Diogenes Laertius 9, 64 (= Long and Sedley, Hellenistic Philosophers, IA, vol. 1, p. 13; vol. 2, p. 3): "When once discovered talking to himself, he was asked the reason, and said that he was training to be virtuous." Philo of Athens, in Diogenes Laertius, lives of the P/1ilosophers, 9, 69: "Philo

. . . had a habit of very often talking to himself . . . that i.o; why Timon says of him:

'Philo . . . he who, apart from mankind, used to speak and converse with himself, with no concern for glory or disputcs.' " Qcanthcs, in Diogenes Laertius, lii:es of che Philosop/1ers, 1, 171: [Cleanthcs] used often to scold himself out loud. Upon hearing him, Ariston once asked him: 'Who are you scolding?' Cleanthes laughed and replied,

'Some old man who has grey hair but no brains.' " Horace, Satires, I, 4, 137: "Thus, with lips shut tight, I debate with myself." ("Hacc ego mecum compressis agito labris.") Epictetus, Discourses, 3, 14, 2: "Man - if you really an: a man - then walk by yourself, talk to yourself, and don't hide yourself in the chorus." On meditating while walking, cf. Horace, letter, 1, 4, 4-5: "strolling peacefully amid the healthful woods, bearing in mind all the thoughts worthy of a sage and a good man." - On the problems pcsed by interior and exterior dialogue with oneself, sec F. Leo, "Der Monolog im Drama,'' Abha11Jlunge11 der Colling. Gese/lsthaji tier Wissenschaji. NF 10, 5 ( 1908); Wolfgang Schadewelt, Mono/og und Selbstgespiiich. U111ersuchungen z.ur Fonngeschid11e der griechischen Tragiidie, Berlin 1926; F. Dirlmeier, "Vom Monolog der Dichting zum

'innen:n' Logos bei Platon und Aristotcles," in Augellliihlte Schrijim zu Diduung 11nd Phi/osophie tkr Griechen, Heidelberg 1970, pp. 142-54; G. Misch, Geschidttt der Au1obiographie, vol. I, Berlin 1949, pp. 86, 94, 363, 380, 426, 450, 4118. Concerning the prehistory of this spiritual exercise, one may no1.c 1-lomcr, Otb��y. 20, 1 7--2.l:

Spiritual Exercises

1 19

He struck himself on the chest and spoke to his heart and scolded it:

"Bear up, my heart.

have had worse to endure before this

on that day when the irresistible Cyclops ate up my strong companions . . .

"

So he spoke, addressing his own dear heart within him; and the heart in great obedience endured and stood it without complaint, but the man himself was twisting and turning.

This passage is quoted by Plato, Republic, 441b: "there Homer has clearly represented that in us which has reflected about the better and the worse as rebuking that which feels unreasoning anger as if it were a distinct and different thing." Cf. Phaedo, 94d-e.

95 Thus, according to Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, 8, 19: "Plotinus was present at the same time to himself and to others." [On this theme, sec Pierre Hadot, Plotin ou la simp/icite du regard, 3rd edn, Paris 1 989. An English translation of this work is in preparation. - Trans.)

96 Plato, Meno, 75c-d.

97 V. Goldschmidt, Les dialogues de Platon. Structure et methode dialectique (=Bibliothcque de philosophic contemporaire, Histoire de la Philosophic et Philosophic generate), 2nd cdn, Paris 1963, pp. 337-8.

98 See above. In La Question platonicienne, pp. 84-7, Schacrer has admirably demonstrated the significance of this Platonic method.

99 Plato, Seventh Leuer, 344b; 34lc-d. Cf. Goldschmidt, Les dialogues, p. 8; Schaerer, La Question platonicienne, p. 86. For the perspective we are adopting, these two works are of fundamental importance.

100 Plato, Republic, 450b.

JOI "The dialogue's goal is more to form than to inform," writes Goldschmidt, Les dialogues, p. 3, citing Plato, Statesman, 285-6. Cf. ibid, pp. 1 62-3; Schaercr, La Qpestion platonicienne, p. 2 1 6.

1 02 Plato, Statesman, 285c-d.

1 03 Ibid, 286d. In the words of Schaercr (La Question platonicienne, p. 87): "Definitions arc worthless in and of themselves. Their entire value consists in the road travelled to achieve them. Along the way, the interlocutor acquires more met11al penetration (Sophist, 227a-b), more cotifidence ( Theaetttus, 1 87b), and more skillfulness in all things (Statesman, 285dff). His soul is thereby purified, as he rejects the opinions which formerly barred the way co enlightenment (Sophist, 230b-c). But whatever words one uses to designate this dialectical progress, it always takes place in the soul of the interlocutor - and, by the same token, in the soul of the intelligent reader."

104 Cf. Schaerer, La Question platonicienne, pp. 38-44; Goldschmidt Les dialogues, pp.

79-80, 292, and 34 1 : "The Republic solves the problem of Justice and its advantages. At the same time, and by the same token, it urges us on towards Justice." On the cxhortatory character of the dialogues, see K. Gaiser, Protreptik und Pariinese bei Platon. Untersuch1mgen zur Fonn des platonischen Dialogs, Stuttgart 1959; K. Gaiser, P/atone come scrillore filosojico, Naples 1984.

105 Plato, Me1111, H i e:.

l llt1 Phuu, Rtpultlii.�, SOSc:.

120

S piritua/ Exercises

107 The dialectical exercise, as it rids our thought of the illusions of the senses, brings about the apprenticeship for death which we are about to discuss; cf. Plato, Phaedo, 83a.

1 08 Brice Parain, "Le langage et I' existence" ["Language and existence"], in L 'Existence, Paris 1945, p. 173. Parain's novels, especially La morl de Socrate ["The Death of Socrates"], Paris 1950, try to make comprehensible this relationship between language and death.

109 Sallustius, Sal/ustius: Concerning the Gods and tire Universe, 5, 3, p. 1 1 Nock.

1 1 0 Plato, Apology, 28b-30b.

1 1 1 Plato, Phaedo, 67e. Cf. ibid, 64a, 80e.

1 12 Plato, ibid, 67c. Note the use of the verb "to accustom" (ethisa1), which presupposes the practice of exercises.

1 13 Cf. above.

1 14 Cf. Plato, Phaedo, 84a: "The philosophical soul calms the sea of the passions, following the course of reasoning and always being present within it, contemplating and drawing nourishment from the true, the divine, and that which is not subject to opinion." Cf. ibid, 6Se, 66c, 79c, 81b, 83b-d.

1 1 5 Plato, Republfr, 571 d .

1 16 Plato, Republic, 57 l d-572a.

1 1 7 Plato, Phaedo, 64a-b. This is probably an allusion to Aristophanes, Clouds, verses 1 03, 504.

1 1 8 La Rochefoucauld, Ma.-ri,nes, no. 26.

1 19 Horace, Letler, l, 4, 1 3-14: "Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum; gratia superveniet quae non sperabitur hora." Once again, we encounter the Epicurean theme of gratitude.

1 20 Michel de Montaigne, Essays, bk I, ch. 20, vol. 1, p. 87 Villey/Saulnier = vol.

1, p. 1 1 1 Ives. Cf. Seneca, Leiter, 26, 8: "Meanwhile Epicurus will oblige me with these words: 'Think on death,' or rather, if you prefer the phrase, on 'migration to heaven.' The meaning is clear - that it is a wonderful thing to learn thoroughly how to die . . . 'think on death.' In saying this, he bids us think on freedom . . .

He who has learned to die has un-leamed slavery. [.Qui mori didicit, servire dedidicit.]" As we can see, the Stoic Seneca borrowed the maxim "Meditare mortem" from Epicurus.

1 2 1 Epictetus, Manual, ch. 2 1 . Cf. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2, 1 1 : "Let your every deed and word and thought be those of one who might depart from this life this very moment."

1 22 See above.

1 23 Cf. A. de Waelhens, la philosophie de Martin Heidegger (= Bibliotheque Philosophique de Louvain 2), 4th edn, Louvain 1955, pp. 1 35-5 1 ; and especially Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, �53, pp. 260ff. As R. Brague pointed out in his review of the first edition of this work (Eludes phi/osophiques, 1982), Heidegger here "is careful to distinguish Being-for-Death from the metlitatio mortis." It is perfectly true that Heideggerian Being-for-Death only takes on its full meaning within the perspective particular to Heidegger; it is nonetheless true: that we have here a system which makes of the anticipation or forcstnlling of Lleath 11 prccomlillon of 11uthentic exi11tencc, We muHI 11111 furgcl th111 in Pliucmic philoNuphy, the '"'Int iN

Spiritual Exercises

121

not simply to think about death, but to carry out a training fo r dying which is, in reality, a training for life .

1 24 Cf. Plato, Republic, 525c, 532b8, and especially 5 18c: "the true analogy for this indwelling power in the soul and the organ whereby each of us learns is that of an eye that could not be converted to the light from the darkness except by turning the whole body. Even so this organ of knowledge must be turned around from the world of becoming together with the entire soul . . . until it is able to endure the contemplation of that which is. Education is the art of turning this eye of the soul."

1 25 Plato, Republic, 604b-d.

1 26 Should we call this exercise already Stoic, or should we rather say that Stoic exercises are still Platonic?

1 27 Plato, Republic, 486a. This passage is quoted by Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations, 7, 35.

1 28 Cf. I. Hadot, Seneca, pp. 1 1 5-17, 1 28-30.

1 29 Aristotle, Paris of Animals, 2, 3, 5, 645a 9- 1 0.

1 30 Sec above.

1 3 1 Epictetus, Diuoi1rses, I, 6, 1 9-25: "God has brought man into the world to be a spectator of himself and his works, and not merely a spectator, but also an interpreter . . . Nature . . . did not end [i.e. in the case of mankind] until she reached contemplation and understanding and a manner of life harmonious with nature. Take heed, therefore, lest you die without ever having been spectators of these things. You arc wi lling to travel to Olympia to look at the work of Pheidias, and each of you regards it as a misfortune to die without seeing such sights; yet when there is no need to travel at all, when you have such works near you and under your noses, will you not yearn to look at these works and know them? Will you consequently refuse to learn either who you are, or for what you have been born, or what is the meaning of the spectacle to which you have been admitted?"

1 32 Philo Judaeus, On the Special Laws, 2, chs. 44--6; cf. the other passages from Philo on the contemplation of the world quoted by A.-J. Festugiere, la rtvtla1io11

d'Hem1es Trismegiste, vo1. 2, Paris 1949, p. 599.

1 33 Plutarch, 011 Peace of Mind, �20, 477c.

1 34 On this theme, sec Fcstugiere, La reve/a1im1, vol. 2, pp. 441 -57; P. Courcelle, la Consolation de Phi/osophie dans la traditio11 lilleraire, Paris 1967, pp. 355-72.

1 35 Marcus Aurelius, Medi1ations, 1 2, 24. Cf. ibid, 9, 30: "Contemplate from up above."

1 36 Seneca, Natural Questions, I, Preface, 7-9.

1 37 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8, 54; 9, 32.

1 38 Plotinus, Ermead, 6, 5, 12, 1 9-29.

1 39 For example, Plotinus, E11nead, I, 2; Porphyry, Se111ences, ch. 32; Macrobius, f;omme11tary on the Dream of' Scipio, I, 8, 3-1 1 ; Olympiodorus, Commentary on Plato 's Pliaedo, pp. 23, 25ff, 45, l 4ff. Cf. 0. Schissel von Fleschenberg, Marinos vim Neap11lis 1md die neuplatonischen Tugendgrade, Athens 1 928, with the review by W. Theiler in G1iomo11 5 ( 1929), pp. 307-1 7; I. Hadot, le problbne d"

neoplat011isme ttle.\'andn

/Jierodes et Simplicus,

'n,

Paris 1 978, pp. I 52ff. On the

important role played by this theme in the systematization of Christian mystid1m, Nee I I. vnn l .icNhuut, /,11 tl1r11rie pl11ti11ie1111e de la 11er111. Ess11i s11r la gmese

1 22

Spiritual Exercises

d'un article de la Somme Tlreologique de saint Thomas, Fribourg 1 926, as well as the texts cited in P. Henry, Plotin et /'Occident. Firmicus Maternus, Marius Victorinus, Saint Augustin et Macrobe (= Spicileguim sacrum Lovaniense, Etudes et Documents l S), Louvain 1 934, pp. 248-SO.

140 Marinus, Lift of Produs, chs 14, 1 8, 2 1 , 22, 24, 28.

141 Cf. P. Hadot, "La metaphysique de Porphyre," in Porplryre (= Entretiens Hardt sur l'Antiquite Classique 1 2), Vandoeuvres/Geneva 1 966, pp. 1 27-9.

1 42 Porphyry, On Abstinence, I, 30.

1 43 Ibid, I, 29 (phJisiosis ltai zoe).

144 Plotinus, Ennead, 1 , S, 7, 10, 28-32.

1 4S Ibid, 1, 6, 9, 8-26.

146 To put this observation into relation with what we have said above, we may say that the spirit of Platonism consists precisely in making knowledge into a spiritual exercise. In order to know, one must transform one.'lelf.

1 47 As, for example, at Ennead, S, 8, 1 1 , 1-39. As has been shown by P. Merlan, M011opsychism, Mysticism, Metaconsciousness. Problems of the Soul in the Neoaristotelian anti Neoplatonlc Tradition (= Archives internationaux d'Histoire des idees 2), The Hague 1 963, this experiential knowledge of the Intellect has much in common with certain aspects of the Aristotelian tradition.

1 48 Plotinus, Ennead, 6, 7, 36, 6-9.

1 49 Ibid, 6, 7, 33, 1-2.

l SO Ibid, 6, 7, 34, 2-4.

l S l lbid, S, 3, 1 7, 38.

1 S2 Ibid, 6, 9, 10, 14-17. At this point, we ought to take into account the entire post-Plotinian tradition. Perhaps it will suffice to recall that Damascius' Life of Isidore, one of the last works of the Neoplatonic school, is full of allusions to spiritual exercises.

1 S3 This comparison is quite frequent in Epictetus; cf. Discourses, I , 4, 1 3; 2, 17, 29; 3, 2 1 , 3. The metaphor of the Olympic games of the soul is also quite common; cf. Epictetus, Manual, ch. S l , 2; Plato, PhaeJrus, 2S6b; Porphyry, On Abstinence, I , 3 1 .

1 S4 According to J . Delorme, Gymnasion, Paris 1 960, pp. 31 6ff, 466: "Athletic exercises were always accompanied by intellectual exercises. "

1 SS Cf. above.

1 S6 Cf. K. Borinski, Die Antilte irr Poetik 1md Kunsttheorit, vol. 1 , Leipzig 1914, pp. 169fT.

1 S7 Plato, Rep11blic, 61 1 d--<:.

1 S8 Cf. K. Schneider, Die st:/1RJeigenden Gotter, Hildesheim 1 966, pp. 29-S3 .

1 S9 Cf. Lucretius, S, 8 (referring t o Epicurus): "He was a god" (Deus ille fuit); Epicurus, Leiter to Merroet:us, �� 13S; 23, J, Long and Sedley, Hellenistic Philosophers vol. 2, p. I S2; vol. 1 , p. 144: "You will live like a god among men."

1'60 The philosopher is neither a sage, nor a non-sage; cf. H.- J. Kramer, Plotonisnms und helltnistische Philosophie, Berlin/New York 197 1 , pp. 1 74-S, 228-9.

1 6 1 Heidegger's analyses of the authentic and inauthentic modes of existence can help to understand this situation; cf. A. de Waelhens, la plrilosoplrie dt M1mi11

Heidegger, pp. 1 01), 1 (19.

Spiritual Exercises

1 23

1 62 [On conversion, cf. above. - Trans.]

1 63 Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, 6, 103.

1 64 Damascius, Life of Isidorus, �147, p. 1 27, 1 2-1 3 Zinzten.

1 65 Sextus Empiricus, Against the Logicians, 2, vol. 2, pp. 426-8 Bury; Against the Physicists, 1 , vol. 3, pp. 26-8 Bury; Against the Physicists, 2, vol. 3, p. 292 Bury; Outlines of Pyrrhonisn1, vol. 1, pp. 324-6 Bury. Cf. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, 9, 61-2: "He lived in conformity with everyday life [bios]." Such was Pyrrho's life-style, which, at least on the surface, was not very different from the average man's: "He lived in fraternal piety with his sister, a midwife . . . now and then even taking things for sale to market, poultry or pigs for instance, and with complete indifference he would clean the house. It is said that he was so indifferent that he washed a piglet himself." (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, 9, 66.) All that mattered was one's inner attitude; therefore the sage conformed to "life," i.e. to the opinions of non-philosophers. But he did so with indifference, that is, wjth an inner freedom which preserved his serenity and peace of mind. This is, incidentally, the same Pyrrho who, when frightened by a dog, replied to his mocking onlookers: "It is difficult to strip oneselr completely of being human." (Diogenes Lacrtius, Lives of the Philosophers, 9, 66, fr. J C Long and Sedley, He/lenistif Philosophers, vol. 1 , p. 14; vol. 2, p. 3.) 1 66 Cf., with regard to Plato, V. Goldschmidt, "Sur le probli:me du 'systi:me de Platon'," Rivista critifa di stonia del/a filosofia 5( 1959), pp. 169-78. The recent researches of K. Gaiser and H.-J. Kriimer on Plato's unwritten teachings have once again raised doubts about the existence of systematic thought in antiquity.

1 67 Plato, Phaedrus, 264c.

168 I. During, Aristoteles. Darstellung und Interpretation sei11es Denkens, Heidelberg 1 966, pp. 29, 33, 41 , 226.

1 69 Cf. I. During, "Von Aristoteles bis Leibniz. Einige Haupttinien in der Gcschichtc des Aristotelismus," in P. Mordux, ed., Aristoteles in der neuren Forschut1g (= Wege der Forschung 61), Darmstadt 1968, p. 259: "In reality, Aristotle thought in terms of problems: he was a creator of methods, a pedagogue, and an organizer of collaborative scientific work. He did, of course, have strong systematic tendencies, but what he was striving after was a systematic way of approaching problems . . . The idea of creating a self-contained system, however, never even entered his mind."

1 70 During, "Aristotle and the heritage from Plato," pp. 97-8.

171 See above.

1 72 During, Aristoteles, p. 4 1 , n. 253.

1 73 Ibid, pp. 5, 289, 433.

174 Porphyry, Lift of Plotir1us, 4, I I ; 5, 60.

1 75 Cf., for instance, with regard to Plotinus' doctrine of the soul, Henry Blumenthal,

"Soul, world-soul, and individual soul in Plotinus," in Le Neoplat011isme, 1 97 1 .

1 76 Cf. I. Hadot, "Le systcmc theologiquc de Simplicius dans son commentairc sur le Manuel d'Epictetc," in Le Neop/atonisme, 197 1 , pp. 266, 279; I. Hadot, Le pro/1/bne, llp. 47- 65, 147-67.

1 77 C :f. the <llll>lation from Chrysippus' T/1m1peulikos in SVF 3, � 474, pp. 1 24-5, 111kcn from OriMcn, AJ(fliml Cl'lms, I , M; K, 5 1 . Note how Origen introduces his

124

Spiritual Exercises

citation: "Chrysippus

in his endeavours to restrain the passions of the human

� . .

soul, not pretending to determine what doctrines are the true ones, says that those who have been brought under the dominion of the passions are to be treated according to the principles of the various schools." On this theme, cf. I. Hadot, Sene,a, pp. 3, 2 1 , 44, 54, 83; 1969b, p. 3 5 1 . We ought therefore not to be surprised to find the Stoic Seneca utilizing Epicurean aphorisms to exhort his disciple Lucilius; cf. I. Hadot, Seneca, p. 83. A concrete example of this parenetic eclecticism may be found in the manuscript Vati,anus Graeros 1950.

According to Festugiere, La rrotlation, vol. 2, p. 90, n. 2: "It is interesting to note that the second half of Vat. gr. 1950 . . . which forms an independent whole, contains the Memorabilia of Xenophon (f. 280fT), followed by the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (f. 341 fT), then the Manual of Epictetus (f. 392�), and finally, after a page of rhetorical pieces (f. 40 1 ), the collectfon of Epicurean aphorisms entitled Gnomologium Vaticanum (f. 401 �fT.). This whole ensemble, including the selections from Epicurus, is the work of a Stoic, who has gathered together for his personal use a number of fundamental texts on moral doctrine - a kind of

'book of devotion', as it were. Now, the first item on the list is the Socrates of the Memorabilia."

1 78 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9, 39; 4, 3, 2.

1 79 See above.

1 80 Augustine, On t/1e Trinity, 1 5, 6, 10: "Quia in nobis fiunt vel in nobis sunt, cum ista meminimus, aspicimus, volimus." Memory, knowledge, and will are, for Augustine, the three trinitary images. On the exercitatio animi ("exercise of the soul") in Augustine, see H.-1. Marrou, Saint Augustin et la fin de la ,u/ture antique, Paris 1938, p. 299.

1 8 1 On the utilization of the word philosophia in Christianity, see A.N. Malingrey,

"Philosop/1ia. " Et1ide d'un groupe de mots dans la litterature grecque, des Presocratiques au /Ve sitcle ap. J.-C., Paris 196 1 . Clement of Alexandria is one of the best witnesses for the ancient tradition of spiritual exercises. He emphasizes the importance of the master-disciple relationship (Stromata, I, I , 9, 1), the value of psychagogy (ibid, I, 2, 20, 1 ), and the need for exercises and a hunt after the truth (ibid, I, 2, 2 1 , 1 : "the truth reveals itself full of sweetness when one has searched for it and obtained it at the cost of great efforts.") 1 82 For H. Happ, JI.vie, Berlin 1 97 1 , p. 66, n. 282, the concern for "systems" goes back to Francisco de Suarez (1 548- 1 6 1 7).

1 83 Cf. K. Jaspers, "Epikur," in Weltbewohner und Weimarianer (Festschifi E. Beutler), Zurich 1 960, p. 1 32; and Immanuel Kant, Die Me1aphysik der Sitten ( 1 797), Ethische Methodenlehre, Zwieter Abschnitt. Die etl1is,he Asketik, in Immanuel Kant 's Werke, ed. Ernst Cassircr, Berlin 1916, �53 . Here Kant shows how the practice of virtue - which he calls ascetics - should be carried out with Stoic energy combined with Epicurean joie de vivre.

1 84 Vauvenargues, Reflections et maximes, �400 [Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues ( 1 7 1 5-1 747), friend of Voltaire. - Trans. ], together with �39H:

"Every thought is new when the author expresses it in his own way," and above all �399: "There arc many things we do not know well enough, and thal ii is good to have rc1lcn1ed ."

Spiritual Exercises

1 25

1 85 "It is contained in the very briefest statements," says Plato, speaking of the essence of his own doctrine (Seventh Letter, 334e). "The esse�e of philosophy is the spirit of simplicity . . . always and everywhere, complication is superficial, construction is an accessory, and synthesis an appearance. Philosophizing is a simple act" (Henri Bergson, La pensee et le mouvant, Paris 1946, p. 1 39).

1 86 Epictetus, Dis(ourses, 3, 2 1 , 7-8.

1 87 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Conversations 111i1h &kmnann, trans. John Oxenford, 2 vols, 1850, 25 January, 1 830.

4

Ancient Spiritual Exercises

and "Christian Philosophy"

It was the great merit of Paul Rabbow to have shown, in his Seelmfiihrung, 1

in what sense the methods of meditation set forth and practiced in Ignatius of Loyola's Exercilia spirilua/ia2 were deeply rooted in the spiritual exercises of ancient philosophy. Rabbow begins his book by discussing the various techniques by means of which rhetoricians throughout antiquity sought to persuade their audiences. These included, for example, oratorical amplification and lifelike, stirring descriptions of events.3 Above all, Rabbow gives a remarkable analysis of the exercises practiced by the Stoics and Epicureans, emphasizing the point that they were spirilual exercises of the same kind as we find in Ignatius of Loyola. On both these points, Rabbow's book opened the way to new areas of research. It is possible, however, that even the author himself did not foresee all the consequences of his discovery.

In the first place, Rabbow seems to me to have linked the phenomenon of spiritual exercises too closely to what he terms the "inward orientation"

(lnnenwendung)� which, he claims, took place in the Greek mentality in the third century BC, and which manifested itself in the development of the Stoic and Epicurean schools. As a matter of fact, however, this phenomenon was much more widespread. We can already detect its outlines in the Socratic/Platonic dialogues, and it continues right up until the end of antiquity.

The reason for this is that it is linked to the very essence of ancient philosophy. It is philosophy itself that the ancients thought of as a spiritual exercise.

If Rabbow tends to limit the extent of spiritual exercises to the Hellenistic/Roman period, the reason is perhaps that he restricts himself to considering their ethical aspect alone. Moreover, he considers ethics only in philosophies like Stoicism and Epicurcanism, which uppcnr to 1u:cord 1irc-

Ancient Spiritual Exercises

1 27

dominance to ethical questions in their instruction. In fact, Rabbow goes so far as to define spiritual exercises as moral exercises: By "moral exercise," we mean a procedure or determinate act, intended to influence oneself, carried out with the express goal of achieving a determinate moral effect. It always looks beyond itself, in as much as it repeats itself, or at least is linked together with other acts to form a methodical ensemble.5

With the advent of Christianity, Rabbow continues, these moral exercises were transformed into spiritual exercises:

Spiritual exercises, then, which resemble moral exercises like a twin, both in essence and structure, were raised to their classical rigor and perfection in the Exercitia spiritua/ia of Ignatius of Loyola. Spiritual exercises thus belong properly to the religious sphere, since their goal is to fortify, maintain, and renew life "in the Spirit," the vita spiritualis. 6

Christian spiritual exercises did indeed take on a new meaning by virtue of the specific character of Christian spirituality, inspired as it is by the death of Christ and the Trinitarian life of the divine Persons. But to speak, apropos of the philosophical exercises of antiquity, of simple "moral exercises" is to misunderstand their importance and significance. As we showed above, these exercises have as their goal the transformation of our vision of the world, and the metamorphosis of our being. They therefore have not merely a moral, but also an existential value. We are not just dealing here with a code of good moral conduct, but with a way of being, in the strongest sense of the term. In the last analysis, then, the term "spiritual exercises" is the best one, because it leaves no doubt that we are dealing with exercises which engage the totality of the spirit. 7

Secondly, one gets the impression from reading Rab bow that Ignatius of Loyola rediscovered spiritual exercises thanks to the sixteenth-century renaissance of rhetorical studies.8 In fact, however, rhetoric for the ancients was only one of many ingredients of exercises which were first and foremost philosophical in the strict sense of the term. Moreover, ever since the first centuries of the church's existence, Christian spirituality has been the heir of anc;.ient philosophy and its spiritual practices. There was thus nothing to prevent Ignatius from finding the methodology for his Exercitia within the Christian tradition itself. In the following pages, we hope to show, with the help of a few quotations, in what way ancient spiritual exercises were preserved and transmitted by an entire current of ancient Christian thouicht: that current, namely, which defined Christianity itself as 11 philm111phy,

128

Spiritual Exercises

Before we begin our study, we must be more specific about the notion of spiritual exercises. "Exercise" corresponds to the Greek terms askesis or melete. Let us be clear at the outset about the limits of the present inquiry: we shall not be discussing "asceticism" in the modem sense of the word, as it is defined, for instance, by Heussi: "Complete abstinence or restriction in the use of food, drink, sleep, dress, and property, and especially continence in sexual matters." 9 Here, we must carefully distinguish between two different phenomena. On the one hand, there is the Christian and

-

subsequently modem - use of the word "asceticism", as we have just seen it defined. On the other, there is use of the word askesis in ancient philosophy.

For ancient philosophers, the word askesis designated exclusively the spiritual exercises we have discussed above: 10 inner activities of the thought and the will. Whether or not sexual or alimentary practices analogous to those of Christian asceticism existed among certain ancient philosophers - the Cynics, for example, or the Neoplatonists - is a wholly different question. Such practices have nothing to do with philosophical thought-exercises. This question has been competently dealt with by many authors,1 1 who have shown both the analogies and the differences between asceticism (in the modern sense of the word) in ancient philosophy and in Christianity. What we propose to examine here is rather the way in which as/mis, in the philosophical sense of the term, was received into Christianity.

In order to understand the phenomenon under consideration, it is essential to recall that there was a widespread Christian tradition which portrayed Christianity as a philosop�y. This assimilation began with those Christian writers of the second century who are usually referred to as the Apologists, and in particular with Justin. The Apologists considered Christianity a philosophy, and to mark its opposition to Greek philosophy, they spoke of Christianity as

"our philosophy" or as "Barbarian philosophy." 12 They did not, however, consider Christianity to be just one philosophy among others; they thought of it as the philosophy. They believed that that which had been scattered and dispersed throughout Greek philosophy had been synthesi7.ed and systematized in Christian philosophy. Each Greek philosopher, they wrote, had possessed only a portion of the Logos, 13 whereas the Christians were in possession of the logos itself, incarnated in Jesus Christ. If to do philosophy was to live in accordance with the law of reason, then the Christians were philosophers, since they lived in conformity with the law of the divine Logos. 1�

Clement of Alexandria dwells at length on this theme. He establishes a close link between philosophy and paideia, by which he means the education of mankind. Already within Greek philosophy, the Logos, or divine pedagogue, had been at work educating humanity, but Christianity itself, as the complete revelation of the logos, was the true philosophy1 5 which "teaches us to conduct ourselves so that we may resemble God, and to nccepl the divine plan

[oikonomial as the guiding principle of all our cduc111ion.11 16

Ancient Spiritual Exercises

1 29

The identification of Christianity with true philosophy inspired many aspects of the teaching of Origen, and it remained influentiaL throughout the Origenist tradition, especially among the Cappadocian Fathers: Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzen, and Gregory of Nyssa. It is also in evidence in John Chrysostom. 17 All these authors speak of "our philosophy"; of the

"complete philosophy"; or of "the philosophy according to Christ. "

We may well ask ourselves if such an identification was legitimate, and wonder whether it did not contribute to a large extent to the notorious

"Hellenization" of Christianity, about which so much has been written. I will not go into this complex problem here, but shall limit myself to pointing out that in portraying Christianity as a philosophy, this tradition was the heir -

almost certainly consciously so - of a tendency already at work in the Jewish tradition, particularly in Philo of Alexandria. 18 Philo portrayed Judaism as a patrios phi/osophia: the traditional philosophy of the Jewish people. The same terminology was used by Flavius Josephus. 19

When, a few centuries later, monasticism came to represent the culmination of Christian perfection, it, too, could be portrayed as a philosophia. From the fourth century on, this is exactly how it was in fact described, by church Fathers such as Gregory Nazianzen,20 Gregory of Nyssa, and John Chrysostom,21 and especially by Evagrius Ponticus.22 This viewpoint was still current in the fifth century, for instance in Theodoret of Cyrrhus.13

Here again, it was Philo of Alexandria who had shown the way. He had given the name "philosophers" to the Therapeutae, who, according to his description,24 lived in solitude, meditating on the law and devoting themselves to contemplation. Jean Leclercq25 has shown that, under the influence of Greek tradition, the monastic life continued to be designated by the term phi/osophia throughout the Middle Ages. Thus, a Cistercian monastic text tells us that Bernard of Clairvaux used to initiate his disciples "into the disciplines of celestial philosophy. " 26 Finally, John of Salisbury maintained that it was the monks who "philosophized" in the most correct and authentic way.27

The importance of this assimilation between Christianity and philosophy cannot be over-emphasized. Let us be clear on one point, however: there can be no question of denying the incomparable originality of Christianity. We shall return to this point later; in particular, we shall emphasize the specifically Christian character of this "philosophy," as well as the care Christians have taken to connect it with the biblical/ evangelical tradition.

Moreover, the tendency to assimilation was confined within strict historical limits, and always linked more or less closely to the tradition of the Apologists and of Origen. This tendency did, however, exist; its importance was considerable, and its result was the introduction of philosophical spiritual exercises into Christianity.

A long with its 11hsorption of spiritual exercises, Christi�nity acquired a KJll'Ci lic 11tyk� of' l i fe, spiritu11l 1lt t i t udc, nnd 1.on11lity, which h11d been absent

1 30

Spiritual Exercises

from primitive Christianity. This fact is highly significant: it shows that if Christianity was able to be assimilated to a philosophy, the reason was that philosophy itself was already, above all else, a way of being and a style of life.

As Jean Leclercq points out: "In the monastic Middle Ages, just as much as in Antiquity, philosophia did not designate a theory or a means of knowledge, but a lived, experienced wisdom, and a way of living according to reason." za We remarked above29 that the fundamental attitude of the Stoic philosopher was prosoche: attention to oneself and vigilance at every instant. For the Stoics, the person who is "awake" is always perfectly conscious not only of what he does, but of what he is. In other words, he is aware of his place in the universe and of his relationship to God. His self-consciousness is, first and foremost, a moral consciousness.

A person endowed with such consciousness seeks to purify and rectify his intentions at every instant. He is constantly on the lookout for signs within himself of any motive for action other than the will to do good. Such self-consciousness is not, however, merely a moral conscience; it is also cosmic consciousness. The "attentive" person lives constantly in the presence of God and is constantly remembering God, joyfully consenting to the will of universal reason, and he sees all things with the eyes of God himself.

Such is the philosophical attitude par excellence. It is also the attitude of the Christian philosopher. We encounter this attitude already in Clement of Alexandria, in a passage which foreshadows the spirit which was later to reign in philosophically-inspired monasticism: "It is necessary that divine law inspire fear, so that the philosopher may acquire and conserve peace of mind

[ amerimtiia ], by dint of prudence [ eulabeia] and attention to himself [prosoche], and that he may remain exempt from sins and falls in all things." JO For Clement, the divine law is simultaneously the universal reason of the philosophers, and the divine word of the Christians. It inspires fear, not in the sense of a passion - which, as such, would be condemned by the Stoics -

but rather in the sense of a certain circumspection in thought and action.

Such attention to oneself brings about amerimnia or peace of mind, one of the most sought-after goals in monasticism.

Attention to oneself is the subject of a very important sermon by Basil of Caesarea.31 Basil bases his sermon on the Greek version of a passage from Deuteronomy: "Give heed to yourself, lest there be a hidden word in your heart." 32 On this basis, Basil develops an entire theory of prosoche, strongly influenced by �the Stoic and Platonic traditions. We shall return to this point later. For the moment, let us simply note that Basil's reason for commenting on this particular passage of Deuteronomy is that, for him, it evokes a technical term of ancient philosophy. For Basil, attention to oneself consists in awakening the rational principles of thought and action which God has placed in our souls.33 We arc to watch over 011rselves that is, over our 11piri1 and our

-

soul - nnd nol over th111 which i11 mm (our body) or 1 hn1 whkh iN rllmul 11/11mt

Ancient Spiritual Exercises

1 3 1

us (our possessions).3'1 Thus, prosoche consists i n paying attention to the beauty of our souls, by constantly renewing the examination 06 our conscience and our knowledge of ourselves.35 By so doing, we can correct the judgments we bring upon ourselves. If we think we are rich and noble, we are to recall that we are made of earth, and ask ourselves where are the famous men who have preceded us now. If, on the contrary, we are poor and in disgrace, we are to take cognizance of the riches and splendors which the cosmos offers us: our body, the earth, the sky, and the stars, and we shall then be reminded of our divine vocation.36 It is not hard to recognize the philosophical character of these themes.

Prosoche or attention17 to oneself, the philosopher's fundamental attitude, became the fundamental attitude of the monk. We can observe this phenomenon in Athanasius' Life of Antony, written in AD 357. When describing the saint's conversion to the monastic life, Athanasius simply says: "He began to pay attention to himself." 38 Antony himself, we read later, is supposed to have said to his disciples on his deathbed: "Live as though you were dying every day, paying heed to yourselves fprosechontes heautois] and remembering what you heard from my preaching." 39

In the sixth century, Dorotheus of Gaza remarked: "We are so negligent that we do not know why we have gone ou t of the world . . . That is why we are not making progress . . . The reason for it is that there is no prosocke in our hearts." "� As we have seen;� attention and vigilance presuppose continuous concentration on the present moment, which must be lived as if it were, simultaneously, the first and last moment of life. Athanasius tells us that Antony used to make no attempt to remember the time he had already spent at his exercises, but rather made a brand new effort every day, as if starting afresh from zero.42 In other words, he lived the present moment as if it were his first, but also his last. We also saw that Antony told his disciples to "Live as though you were dying every day." 43 Athanasius reports another of Antony's sayings: "If we live as if we were going to die each day, we will not commit sin." -H We arc to wake up thinking it possible that we may not make it until the evening, and go to sleep thinking that we shall not wake up.45

Epictetus had spoken along similar lines: "Let death be before your eyes every day, and you will never have any abject thought nor excessive desire." 46

In the same vein, Marcus Aurelius wrote: "Let your every deed and word and thought be those of one who might depart from this life this very moment." 47 Dorotheus of Gaza also established a close link between prosocke and the imminence of death: "Let us pay heed to ourselves, brothers, and be vigilant while we still have time . . . Look! Since the time we sat down at this conference we have used up two or three hours of our time and got that much nearer to death. Y ct though we see that we are losing time, we are not afraid l " 48 And again: "Let us pay heed to ourselves and be vigilant, brothers.

Who will l(ivc UK hack the present time if we w111nc it?" 4'1

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Spiritual Exercises

Attention to the present is simultaneously control of one's thoughts, acceptance of the divine will, and the purification of one's intentions with regard to others. We have an excellent summary of this constant attention to the present in a well-known Meditation of Marcus Aurelius: Everywhere and at all times, it is up to you to rejoice piously at what is occurring at the present moment, to conduct yourself with justice towards the people who are present here and now, and to apply rules of discernment [emphilotekhnein] to your present representations [phantasia1] , so that nothing slips in that is not objcctive.50

We encounter the same continuous vigilance over both thought and intentions in monastic spirituality, where it is transformed into the "watch of the heart," si also known as nepsis 52 or vigilance. We are not dealing here with a mere exercise of the moral conscience. Rather, prosoche relocates man within his genuine being: that is, his relationship to God. It is thus equivalent to the continuous exercise of the presence of God. In the words of Plotinus' disciple Porphyry: "Let God be present as overseer and guardian of every action, deed and word!" s3 Here we have one of the fundamental themes of philosophical prosoche: presence both to God and to oneself.

"Have your joy and your rest in one thing only: in progressing from one action done for the sake of others to another such act, always accompanied by the remembrance of God." 5� This Meditation of Marcus Aurelius has to do, once again, with the theme of exercises involving the presence of God. At the same time, it introduces to us an expression which was later to play an important role in monastic spirituality. The "remembrance of God" is a perpetual reference to God at each instant of life. Basil of Cacsarca links it explicitly with the "watch of the heart": "We must keep watch over our heart with all vigilance . . . to avoid ever losing the thought of God." ss Diadochus of Photicc often evokes this theme. For him, the remembrance of God is entirely equivalent to prosocl1e: "Only they know their failures who never let their intellects be distracted from the remembrance of God." 56 "Since then [i.e. since its fall], it is only with difficulty that the human intellect can remember God and His commandments."57 We are to

close off all the intellect's avenues of escape, by means of the remembrance of God.58

What distinguishes a man who is virtue's friend is that he constantly consumes everything that is earthly in his heart by means of the remembrance of God, so that, bit by bit, the evil in it is dispersed by the fire of the 1�cmembrnncc of the Uood, nn<l hi11 11oul

Ancient Spiritual Exercises

1 33

returns in perfection to its natural brilliance; nay, even with increased splendor.59

Clearly, remembrance of God is, in some sense, the very essence of prosoche.

It is the most radical method for ensuring one's presence to God and to oneself.6Cl Vague intentions, however, are not sufficient for true attention to one's self. We noted that Diadochus of Photice speaks of the "remembrance of God and of His commandments." In ancient philosophy as well, prosoche required meditating on and memorizing rules of life (kanones), those principles which were to be applied in each particular circumstance, at each moment in life. It was essential to have the principles of life, the fundamental

"dogmas," constantly "at hand."

We encounter this same theme once again in the monastic tradition. Here, however, philosophical dogmas are replaced by the Commandments as an evangelical rule of life, and the words of Christ, enunciating the principles of Christian life. Yet the rule of life could be inspired not only by the evangelical commandments, but also by the words of the "ancients;" in other words, of the first monks. We have only to recall Antony, on his deathbed, recommending that his disciples remember his exhortations.61 Evagrius Ponticus declares:

" It is a very nece&-sary thing . . . to examine carefully the ways of the monks who have traveled, in an earlier age, straight along the road and to direct oneself along the same paths." 62

Both the evangelical commandments and the words of the ancients were presented in the form of short sentences, which - just as in the philosophical tradition - could be easily memorized and meditated upon. The numerous collections of Apophlhegmata and of Kephalaia we find in monastic literature are a response to this need for memorization and meditation. Apophthegmata63

were the famous sayings which the ancients - that is to say, the Desert Fathers - pronounced in specific circumstances. This literary genre was already in existence in the philosophical tradition, and we find numerous examples of it in the works of Diogenes Laertius. As for Ke_phalaia,64 these are collections of relatively short sentences, usually grouped into "centuries."

This, too, was a literary genre much in vogue in traditional philosophical literature; some examples are Marcus Aurelius' Meditations and Porphyry's Sentences. Both these literary genres are responses to the requirements of meditation.

Like philosophical meditation, Christian meditation flourished by using all available means of rhetoric and oratorical amplification, and by mobilizing all possible resources of the imagination. Thus, for example, Evagrius Ponticus used to invite his disciples to imagine their own death, the decomposition of their bodies, the terrors and sufferings of their souls in Hell, ilnd eternal fire; then, by way of contrast, they were to picture the happiness of 1hc ju111 .M

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Meditation must, in any case, be constant. Dorotheus of Gaza insists strongly on this point:

Meditate constantly on this advice in your hearts, Brothers. Study the words of the holy Elders.66

If we remember the sayings of the holy Elders, brothers, and meditate on them constantly, it will be difficult for us to sin.67

If you wish to possess these sayings at the opportune moment, meditate on them constantly.68

In the spiritual life, there is a kind of conspiracy between, on the one hand, normative sayings, which are memorized and meditated upon, and, on the other, the events which provide the occasion for putting them into practice. Dorotheus of Gaza promised his monks that, if they constantly meditated on the "works of the holy Elders," they would "be able to profit from everything that happens to you, and to make progress by the help of God." 69 Dorotheus no doubt meant that after such meditation, his monks would be able to recognize the will of God in all events, thanks to the words of the Fathers, which were likewise inspired by the will of God.

Vigilance and self-attention clearly presuppose the practice of examining one's conscience. We have already seen, in the case of Basil of Caesarea,711 the close link between prosoche and the examination of conscience. It seems that the practice of the examination of the conscience occurs for the first rime, within the Christian tradition, in Origen 's Commentary on the Song of Songs. 71

In the course of his interpretation of verse l : 81 "Unless thou know thyself, 0 fair one among women," 72 Ori gen explains that the soul must examine its feelings and actions. Does it have the good as a goal? Does it seek after the various virtues? Is it making progress? For instance, has it completely suppressed the passions of anger, sadness, fear, and love of glory? What is its manner of giving and receiving, or of judging the truth?

This series of questions, devoid as it is of any exclusively Christian feature, takes its place in the philosophical tradition of the examination of conscience, as it had been recommended by the Pythagoreans, the Epicureans, the Stoics

- especially Seneca and Epictetus - and many other philosophers, such as Plutarch and Galen.7l We find the practice recommended again by John Chrysostom,7� and especially by Dorotheus of Gaza: We ought not only to examine ourselves every day but also every season, every month, and every week, and ask ourselves: "What stage nm I at now with regards to the pm1sion by which I waN overcome luNt week?"

Ancienl Spiritual Exercises

1 3 5

Similarly every year: "Last year I was overcome b y such and such a passion; how about now?"

The Fathers have told us how useful it is for each of us to purify himself in tum, by examining, every evening, how we have spent the day, and every morning, how we have spent the night . . . . Truly, however, we who sin so much and are so forgetful, really need to examine ourselves every six hours also, so that we may know how we have spent these hours and in what way we have sinned.75

In this regard there is an interesting detail in Athanasius' Life of Antony.

According to his biographer, Antony used to recommend to his disciples that they take written notes of the actions and movements of their souls. It is possible that written examinations of conscience were already part of the philosophical tradition;76 they would have been useful, if not necessary, in order to ensure that the investigation was as precise as possible. For Antony, however, the important aspect was the therapeutic value of writing: "Let each one of us note and record our actions and the stirrings of our souls as though we were going to give an account of them to each other." 77 Surely, he continues, we would not dare to commit sins in public, in full view of others:

"Let this record replace the eyes of our fellow ascetics." According to Antony, the act of writing gives us the impression of being in public, in front of an audience. We can also discern the therapeutic value of writing in a passage in which Dorotheus of Gaza reports that he felt "help and relier� 78 by the mere fact of having written to his spiritual director.

Another interesting psychological point: Plato and Zeno had remarked that the quality of our dreams allows us to judge the spiritual state of our soul.79

We find this observation repeated by Evagrius Ponticus80 and Diadochus of Photice.81

Finally, prosoche implies self-mastery. That is, it implies the triumph of reason over the passions, since it is the passions that cause the distraction, dispersion, and dissipation of the soul. Monastic literature insists tirelessly on the misdeeds of the passions, which were often personified in demoniacal form.

Many recollections of ancient philosophy were preserved in monastic exercises of self-mastery. For instance, we find Dorotheus of Gaza, like Epictetus, advising his disciples to begin by training themselves in little th,ings, so as to create a habit,82 before moving on to greater things. Similarly, he advises them to diminish the number of their sins bit by bit, in order to defeat a passion.u We find Evagrius Ponticus proposing that one passion ought to be combated by means of another - fornication, for instance, by the concern for one's good reputation - as long as it remains impossible to combat the passion directly by the virtue which is opposed to it. This was the method already KUl(Ke11tcJ by Cicero in hiK 1i11rn/a11 Disp"tations.84

1 36

Spiritual Exercises

We said above that Christianity's acceptance of spiritual exercises had introduced into it a certain spiritual attitude and style of life which it had previously lacked. As an example, let us consider the concept of exercises as a whole. In the very process of performing repetitious actions and undergoing a training in order to modify and transform ourselves, there is a certain reflectivity and distance which is very different from evangelical spontaneity.

Attention to oneself - the essence of prosoche - gives rises to a whole series of techniques of introspection. It engenders an extraordinary finesse in the examination of conscience and spiritual discernment. Most significantly, the ideal sought after in these exercises, and the goals proposed for the spiritual life, became tinged with a strong Stoico-Platonic coloration; that is to say, since by the end of antiquity Neoplatonism had integrated Stoic ethics within itself, that they were deeply infused with Neoplatonism. This is the case, for instance, in Dorotheus of Gaza, who describes spiritual perfection in completely Stoic terms: it is the transformation of the will so that it becomes identified with the Divine Will:

He who has no will of his own always does what he wishes. For since he has no will of his own, everything that happens satisfies him. He finds himself doing as he wills all the time, for he does not want things to be as he wills them, but he wills that they be just as they arc.85

The most recent editors of Dorotheus compare this text with a passage from the Manual of Epictetus: "Do not seek to have everything that happens happen as you wish, but wish for everything to happen as it actually does happen, and your life will be serene." Rb

Spiritual perfection is also depicted as apalheia - the complete absence of passions - a Stoic concept taken up by Ncoplatonism. For Dorotheus of Gaza, apatheia is the end-result of the annihilation of one's own will: "From this cutting off of self-will a man procures for himself detachment [aprospatheia], and from detachment he comes, with the help of God, to perfect apatheia." R7

We may note in passing that the means Dorotheus recommends for cutting off self-will are wholly identical to the exercises of self-mastery of the philosophical tradition. In order to cure curiosity, for instance, Plutarch advised people not to read funeral epitaphs, not to snoop on their neighbors, and to turn their backs on street scenes.RR Similarly, Dorotheus advises us not to look in the direction where we want to look; not to ask the cook what he's preparing for dinner; and not to join in a conversation we find already underway.89 This is what Dorotheus means by "cutting off self-will."

It is with Evagrius, however, that we can see most clearly just how closely Christian apatheia can be linked to philosophical concepts. In Evagrius'

Praktikos, we find the following definition: "The K inicdom of Heaven is apalheia of the soul along with true knowlcd1o1c of c1d111 in1o1 1 hi n1i111. '""1 When

Ancient Spiritual Exercises

1 37

we turn to comment on a formula such as this, we find how great is the distance separating such speculations from the evangelical spir)t. As we know, the evangelical message consisted in the announcement of an eschatological event called "the Kingdom of Heaven" or "the Kingdom of God. " Evagrius begins by differentiating between the two expressions, and interpreting them in a highly personal way. Enlarging upon the Origenist tradition,91 he considers that the two expressions designate two inner states of the soul. More precisely, they designate two stages of spiritual progress: The Kingdom of Heaven is apatheia of the soul along with true knowledge of existing things.

The Kingdom of God is knowledge of the Holy Trinity co-extensive with the capacity of the intelligence and giving it a surpassing incorruptibility .92

Two levels of knowledge are distinguished here: the knowledge of beings and the knowledge of God. We then realize that this distinction corresponds exactly to a division of the parts of philosophy which was well known to Origen, and is attested in Platonism at least since the time of Plutarch.93 In chis division, three separate stages or levels of spiritual progress are distinguished, which correspond to the three parts of philosophy: ethics - or

"practics,'' as Evagrius calls it - physics, and theology. Ethics corresponds to initial purification, physics to definitive detachment from the sensible world and contemplation of the order of nature; finally, theology corresponds to contemplation of the principle of all things. According to the Evagrian schema, however, ethics corresponds to praktike, physics to "the Kingdom of Heaven," which includes the true knowledge of beings, and theology corresponds to "the Kingdom of God," which is the knowledge of the Trinity. In Neoplatonic systematization, these degrees also correspond to degrees of virtue. According to Porphyry,94 the soul begins by utilizing the political virtues to dominate the passions via the state of metriopatheia. It then rises to the level of the kathartic virtues. These virtues begin to detach the soul from the body, but do not yet do so completely; this is only the beginning of apatheia. Not until the level of the theoretical virtues does the soul attain to full apatheia and perfect separation from the body. It is at this level that the soul is able to contemplate the forms within the divine intellect, which are the moqels for the phenomenal world.95 This level, characterized by apatheia and the contemplation of existents, corresponds to Evagrius' "Kingdom of Heaven." According to Evagrius, the soul now contemplates the multiplicity of physeis ("natures"; hence the denomination "physical"): on the one hand, the intelligible forms, and on the other the logoi of sensible bcings.''6 The final stage, noetic in nature, is the contemplation of God llim11c:lf. Thu11, Ev11griu11 !IUm11 up his thought in these terms: "Christianity is

1 38

Spiritual Exercises

the doctrine of Christ our Savior. It is composed of praktike, of physics, and of theology." 97

Apatheia plays an essential role, not only in theoretical constructions such as Evagrian metaphysics, but also in monastic spirituality. There, its value is closely linked to that of peace of mind and absence of worry: amerimnia98 or tranqui/litas.99 Dorotheus of Gaza100 does not hesitate to declare that peace of mind is so important that one must, if necessary, drop what one has undertaken if one's peace of mind is endangered. Peace of mind tranquillitas

-

animi

had, moreover, always been a central value within the philosophical

-

tradition.101

For Porphyry, as we have seen, apatlreia was a result of the soul's detachment from the body. Here we touch once again upon the philosophical exercise par excellence. As we saw above, Plato had declared: "those who go about philosophizing correctly are in training for death." 102 As late as the seventh century, we still find the echo of this saying in Maximus Confessor:

"In conformity with the philosophy of Christ, let us make of our life a training for death." ioJ

Yet Maximus himself is only the inheritor of a rich tradition, which repeatedly identified Christian philosophy with training for death. We encounter this theme already in Clement of Alexandria, 1114 who understood such training in a thoroughly Platonic sense, as the attempt spiritually to separate the soul from the body. For Clement, perfect knowledge, or gnosis, is a kind of death. It separates the soul from the body, and promotes the soul to a life entirely devoted to the good, allowing it to devote itself to the contemplation of genuine realities with a purified mind. Again, the same motif recurs in Gregory Nazianzen: "Make of this life, as Plato said, a training for death, while

- to speak in his terms - separating the soul from the body as far as possible." 105 "This," he tells us, "is the practice of philosophy." Evagrius, for his part, expresses himself in terms strikingly similar to Porphyry's: To separate the body from the soul is the privilege only of Him who has joined them together. But to separate the soul from the body lies as well in the power of the person who pursues virtue. For our Fathers gave to the training for death and to the flight from the body a special name: anachoresis [i.e. the monastic life ].106

It is easy to see that the Platonic concept of the flight from the body, which exercised such an attraction upon the young Augustine, was an element added 0'1

to Christianity, and not essential to it. Nevertheless, this concept determined the orientation of the whole of Christian spirituality in a quite specific direction.

So far, we have noted the permanent survival of certain philosophical spiritual exercises in Christianity and mono11tici11m, nnd we hnvc tried to make

Ancient Spiritual Exercises

1 39

comprehensible the particular tonality that their reception introduced into Christianity. We must not, however, exaggerate the i"'l>ortance of this phenomenon. In the first place, as we have said, it manifested itself only in a rather restricted circle: among Christian writers who had received a philosophical education. Even in their case, however, the final synthesis is essentially Christian.

To be sure, our authors strove to Christianize their borrowings as much as possible; but this is perhaps the least important aspect of the matter. They believed they recognized spiritual exercises, which they had learned through philosophy, in specific scriptural passages. Thus, we saw Basil of Caesarea making a connection between prosoche and a text from Deuteronomy .107 Then, in Athanasius' Life of Antony, and throughout monastic literature, prosoche was transformed into the "watch of the heart," under the influence of Proverbs, 4:23: "Above all else, guard your heart." 1118 Examination of one's conscience was often justified by the Second Letter to the Corinthians, 13:5:

"Examine yourselves . . . and test yourselves." 109 Finally, the meditation on death was recommended on the basis of First Corinthians, 1 5: 3 1 : "I die every day." uo

Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to believe that these references were enough, all by themselves, to Christianize spiritual exercises. The reason why Christian authors paid attention to these particular biblical passages was that they were already familiar, from other sources, with the spiritual exercises of prosoche, meditation on death, and examination of the conscience. By themselves, the texts from scripture could never have supplied a method for practicing these exercises. Often, in fact, a given scriptural passage has only a distant connection with a particular spiritual exercise.

More important is the overall spirit in which Christian and monastic spiritual exercises were practiced. They always presupposed the assistance of God's grace, and they made of humility the most important of virtues. In the words of Dorotheus of Gaza: "The closer one comes to God, the more one sees oneself as a sinner." 1 1 1 Such humility makes us consider ourselves inferior to others. It leads us to maintain the greatest reserve in both conduct and speech, and to adopt certain significant bodily positions, for instance prostration before other monks.

Two .other fundamental virtues were penitence and obedience. Penitence, inspired by the fear and love of God, could take the form of extremely severe self-mortification. The remembrance of death was intended not only to make people realize the urgency of conversion, but also to develop the fear of God.

In turn, it is linked to meditation on the Last Judgment, and thereby to the virtue of penitence. The same holds true of the examination of conscience.

Obedience - the renunciation of one's own will, in complete submission to the orders of o superior - completely transformed the philosophical practice of s1>irilual direclion. We can Nee 10 juHI what extremes such obedience could

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Spiritual Exercises

be taken in Dorotheus' Life of Dositheus. 112 The director of conscience had an absolute power of decision over his disciple's possessions, eating habits, and entire way of life.

In the final analysis, all these virtues were transfigured by the transcendent dimension of the love of God and of Christ. Thus, to train for death, or to separate the soul from the body, was at the same time to participate in the death of Christ. To renounce one's will was to adhere to divine love.

Generally speaking, we can say that monasticism in Egypt and Syriam was born and developed in a Christian milieu, spontaneously and without the intervention of a philosophical model. The first monks were not cultivated men, but Christians who wanted to attain to Christian perfection by the heroic practice of the evangelical prescriptions, and the imitation of the Life of Christ. It was, therefore, natural that they should seek their techniques of perfection in the Old and the New Testament. Under Alexandrian influence, however - the distant influence of Philo, and the more immediate influence of Origen and Clement of Alexandria, magnificently orchestrated by the Cappadocians - certain philosophical spiritual techniques were introduced into Christian spirituality. The result of this was that the Christian ideal was described, and, in part, practiced, by borrowing models and vocabulary from the Greek philosophical tradition. Thanks to its literary and philosophical qualities, this tendency became dominant, and it was through its agency that the heritage of ancient spiritual exercises was transmitted to Christian spirituality: first to that of the Middle Ages, and subsequently to that of modern times.

NOTES

1 See above.

2 See above.

3 Paul Rabbow, Seelenfiihrung. Metliodik der E.\�erzitien in der Antike, Munich 1 954, p. 23.

4 Ibid, p. 1 7.

S Ibid, p. 1 8.

6 Ibid.

7 See above.

8 Rabbow, Seelenfohrung p. 30 1 , n. 5; p. 306, nn. 14, 1 7.

9 K. Heussi, Der Ursprung des Monchtums, Tiibingen 1 936, p. 1 3 .

IO See above.

I I For example, G. Kretschmar, "Der Ursprung der friichristlichcn Askese,"

Zeitschrifi fiir Theologie U'1d Kirche 6 1 ( 1 964), pp. 27-67; P. Nagel /Jie Motivir

,

rung der Askese in der a/w1 Kird1e u'1d tier Urspnmg tlt.f Mli1ulm111., (= Tcxte und Untcrsuchungcn :r.ur Geschichtc: dc:r 11ltchriKt.lichcn l .itc:r111ur <J5), Hc:rlin l <JM; H. Lohse, AsA�ru 11111/ Mii11d1111111 i11 tlrr .-l11til�r 11111/ 111 1/er 11/tt'll l\'ird1I',

Ancient Spiritual Exercises

141

Munich/Vienna 1969; K.S. Frank, ed., Askese und Miinchtum in der a/ten Kirche (= Wege der Forschung 409), Darmstadt 1975; R. Hauser apd G. Lanczkowski,

"Askese," in Historisches Wiirterbuch der Philosophie, vol. I, cols 538-41, 1971

(with good bibliography); }. de Guibert, "Ascese," in Dictio1maire de Spiritualite, vol. I, cols 936-1010.

1 2 Justin, Dialogue with Trypho, 8, I; Tatian, Address to the Greeks, 31, 35, 55; Melito in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 4, 26, 7.

13 Justin, Second Apology, 2, 13, 3; Lactantius, Divine Institutes, 1, 1, 7: "if someone had arisen who could collect the truth scattered and dispersed among the individual philosophers and sects and reduce it to one body, that one . . . would not disagree with us"; 7, 8, 3: "We . . . are able to pick out the truth by surer signs; we who gather it, not from fluctuating suspicion, but who know it from divine tradition."

14 Justin, Apology, I, 46, 1-4.

1 5 Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, I, 1 3, 57, 1-58, 5; I, 5, 28, 1-32, 4.

16 Ibid, I, 1 1 , 52, 3.

17 Most of the relevant texts have been assembled in A.N. Malingrey, "Phi/osophia. "

Etude d'un groupe de mots dans la litterature grecque, d.es Presocratiques au /Ve siecle ap. J.-C., Paris 196 1 .

1 8 Philo Judaeus, The legation t o Caius, 1 56; 345; Life of Moses, 2, 2 1 6; On the Contemplative life, 26.

19 Flavius Josephus, Antiquiti.es of the Jews, 18, 1 1 ; 23.

20 Gregory Nazianzen, Apologetica, 1 03, PG 35, 504A.

21 John Chrysostom, Against the Opponents of the Monastic life, 3, 13, PG 47, col.

372.

22 See below.

23 Theodoret of Cyrrhus, History of the Monks of Syria, 2, 3, I ; 4, I , 9; 4, 2, 1 9; 4, 1 0, 1 5; 6, 13, 1 ; 8, 2, 3 Canivet.

24 Philo Judaeus, On the Contemplative life, 2; 30.

25 }. Leclercq, "Pour l'histoire de !'expression 'philosophic chretienne'," Melanges de Science Religeuise 9 (1952), pp. 221-6.

26 E:t:ordium magnum Cisterciense, Pl 1 85, 437.

27 John of Salisbury, Polycraticus, 1, 21, Pl 199, 696.

28 Leclercq "Pour l'histoire," p. 22 1 .

29 See above.

30 Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, 2, 20, 120, I .

3 1 Basil of Caesarea, In /l/ud Attende tibi ipsi, PG 3 1 , cols 197-2 1 7. P. Adnes, "Garde du ca:ur," Dictionnaire de Spiritualitc, vol. 6, col. 108, points to the existence of a multitude of sermons relating to this theme. He cites C. Baur, Initia Patrum Graecorum (= Studi e Testi 18 1 , 2), Vatican City 1 955, p. 374.

32 Deuteronomy, 1 5: 9. [ The Septuagint Greek version of the Bible renders this phrase as proseche seautoi me genetai rhema krypton en tei kardiai sou: "Pay attention to yourself, lest a hidden word come to be in your heart," which the King James Version renders as "Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart. " The Greek title of Basil's sermon is consequently eis to Proseche seautoi:

"On t he wonl�, 'Oivt� hcml to yourself' " Trnns.)

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Spiritual Exercises

33 Basil, In Illud Allende, 2, 201B, pp. 433--4 Wagner.

34 Ibid, 3, 204A, p. 43S Wagner. This distinction was current in Platonic circles; cf.

Plato, First Alcibiades, 130-ld; Apology, 36bk6.

3S Ibid, 3, 204B; S, 209B, pp. 43S, 440 Wagner.

36 Ibid, S-6, 209C-2 1 3A, pp. 440-2 Wagner.

37 On the following exercises, the reader may consult the following articles in the Dfrtionnaire de Spiritualite: "Attention," "Apatheia," "Contemplation," "Examen de Conscience," "Direction spirituelle," "Exercices spirituels," "Garde du coeur."

38 Prosechon heautoi. Athanasius, Life of Antony, 3, PG 26, 844B, p. 32 Gregg.

39 Ibid, 9 1 , 969B, p. 97 Gregg.

40 Dorotheus of Gaza, Didaskaliai, 1 0, �104, line 9 Regnault/de Preville = p. 1 63

Wheeler. The concept of prosoche plays a very important role throughout the monastic tradition; cf. for instance Diadochus of Photice, Kephalaia Gnostica,

�27, p. 98, 19 Des Places.

41 See above.

42 Athanasius, Life of Antony, 8S3A; 868A; 9698; pp. 37, 43, 97 Gregg/Clebsch.

43 Cf. above.

44 Ibid, 19, 872A, p. 4S Gregg/Clebsch.

4S Ibid.

46 Epictetus, Manual, 2 1 . See above.

47 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2, 1 1 .

48 Dorotheus of Gaza, Didaskaliai, �1 14, 1-lS Regnault/de Preville = p . 1 73

Wheeler.

49 Ibid, �1 04, 1-3 Regnault/de Preville = p. 163 Wheeler.

SO Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7, S4.

Sl Athanasius, Life of Antony, 873C; Basil of Caesarea, Regulae fusius tractatae, PG

3 1 , 921 B = p. 243 Wagner. Cf. John Cassian, Col/ationes, vol. 1 , p. 84 Pichery

= p. 84 Luibheid: "we must practice the reading of the Scripture, together with all the other virtuous activities, and we do so to trap a"d to hold our hearts free of the harm of every dangerous passion." [Basil and Athanasius use the term phulake, among whose many meanings are "protection," "control," "guarding,"

and "observance." It can also mean a prison or a prisoner. Originally, however, phu/ake meant a night-watch or the person charged with this duty (the Latin custodia); and this is the meaning I have tried to convey by translating he tes leardias phulalee by "watch of the heart." All the other meanings, however, arc relevant and should be borne in mind. - Trans.]

S2 Dorotheus of Gaza, Didoslealiai, �104 Regnault/de Preville = p. 1 63 Wheeler.

S3 Porphyry, Porphyry the Philosopher, To Marcella, 1 2.

S4 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6, 7.

SS Basil, In 11/ud allende, p. 243 Wagner.

S6 Diadochus of Photice, Kepha/aia Gnostica, 27, p. 98, 1 1 Des Places.

57 Ibid, S6, p. 1 17, l S .

S S Ibid, S9, p . 1 1 9, 1 -2.

S9 Ibid, 97, p. 1 60, 3 .

60 On the theme of presence, see above.

Ancient Spiritual Exercises

143

61 See above.

62 Evagrius of Pontis, Pralttikos, �9 1 , p. 9 1 Bamberger.

63 Cf. T. Klauser, "Apophthegmata," Rea/lexicon for Antilte und Christentum ( 1950), pp. 545-50.

64 Cf. E. von lvanka, "Kephalaia," Byzantinische Zeitschrifl 47 ( 1954), pp. 258-9 1 .

6 5 Apophthegmata Patrum, P G 6 5 , 1 73A-B.

66 Dorotheus of Gaza, Ditlasltaliai, �60, 27, p. 120 Wheeler.

67 Ibid, �69, 2, p. 1 3 1 Wheeler.

68 Ibid, � 1 89, 4-5.

69 Ibid, �60, 30, pp. 1 20-1 Wheeler.

70 See above.

71 Origen, Commentary on the Song of Songs, pp. 143, 27ff. Baehrens = pp. 1 28ff Lawson.

72 [Again, while the King James Bible reads "If thou know not, 0 thou fairest among women", the Greek Septuagint version gives "Unless you know yourself"

(Ean me gnois seauten) - Trans.]

73 See the references in I. Hadot, Seneca und die griechisch-romische Tradition tier Seelenleitung, Berlin 1969, pp. 66-7 1 .

74 John Chrysostom, Non esse ad gratiam concionandum, PG SO, 659-60.

75 Dorotheus of Gaza, Didasltaliai, ��1 1 1 , 13; 1 1 7, 7, pp. 170; 1 75 Wheeler.

76 Cf. I. Hadot, Seneca, p. 70.

77 Athanasius, Life of Antony, PG 26, 924B, p. 73 Gregg/Clebsch.

78 Dorotheus of Gaza, Ditlasltaliai, �25, 1 1 , p. 91 Wheeler.

79 Sec above.

80 Evagrius of Pontis, Praktikos, ��54-6, p. 3 1 Bamberger. Cf. F. Refoule, "Reves et vie spirituelle d'apres Evagre le Pontique," Supplement d.e la Vie Spirituelle 59

( 196 1 ), pp. 470-5 16.

81 Diadochus of Photice, Kephalaia Gnostica, 37, p. 106 Des Places.

82 Dorotheus of Gaza, Didskaliai, �20, p. 89 Wheeler. L. Rcgnault and J. de Preville, editors of the Sources Chretiem1es edition, cite as a parallel Epictetus, Discourses, I, 18, 1 8.

83 Ibid, �120, p. 1 78 Wheeler. Regnault and de Preville compare Epictetus, Discourses, 2, 18.

84 Evagrius of Pontis, Praktikos, �58, p. 32 Bamberger. In their Sources Chretiennes edition, A. and C. Guillaumont cite as a parallel Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, 4, 75.

85 Dorotheus of Gaza, Didaskaliai, �202, 12.

86 Epictetus, Manual, 8.

87 Dorotheus of Gaza, Didaskaliai, �20, 1 1-13, p. 88 Wheeler.

88 Plutarch, On Curiosity, 520Dff.

89 Dorotheus of Gaza, Didaskaliai, 20, pp. 88-9 Wheeler.

90 Evagrius of Pontis, Praktiltos, 2, p. 1 5 Bamberger.

91 See the texts cited by A. and C. Guillaumont in the notes to their commentary on the Praktikos (SC 1 7 1 ), p. 499, n. 2; p. 50 1 , n. 3.

92 1�:vngrius of Pontis, Prt1ktik11s, ��2--3, pp. 1 5-16 Bamberger.

1J3 Cf. P. llndot, "1 .11 division dcK parties de la philosophic dans l'Antiquite,"

MuMcum l�lelvc1in1111 .lf1 ( 1 11711), l'I'� 20 1 23.

144

Spiritual Exercises

94 Cf. I. Hadot, Lt probltme du niop/atonisme alexandrin, Hiirodis el Simplicus, Paris 1 978, pp. 1 52-8.

95 Porphyry, Sentences, p. 27, 9, Lamberz.

96 Cf. the note in A. and C. Guillaumont, 1 97 1 , p. 500.

97 Evagrius of Pontis, Praletikos, �I, p. 1 5 Bamberger.

98 On amtrimnia, see Diadochus of Photice, Kephalaia Gnostica, 25, p. 97, 7; 30, p.

100, 19; 65, p. 1 25, 1 2; 67, p. 127, 22 Des Places. For Dorotheus of Gaza, see, inter alia, Didaskaliai, �68, 2.

99 For occurrences of tranquillitas, cf. John Cassian, Conferences, I, 7, vol. I, p. 85

Pichery = p. 42 Luibheid; 1 9, 1 1 , vol. 3, p. 48 Pichery.

100 Dorotheus of Gaza, Didaskaliai, ��58-60, pp. 1 1 8-20 Wheeler.

1 0 1 In the treatises of Plutarch and Seneca, for instance.

1 02 See above.

1 03 Maximus Confessor, Commentary on the Our Father, PG 90, 900A = p. 1 14

Berthold.

1 04 Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, 5, 1 1 , 67, 1 , pp. 370-1 Stiihlin.

1 05 Gregory Nazianzen, Epistula 3 1 , vol. I , p. 39 Gallay.

106 Evagrius of Pontis Praktikos,

,

�52, p. 30 Bamberger. Compare Porphyry,

Sentences, 8, p. 3, 6 Lamberz: "What nature has bound together, she also unbinds, but that which the soul binds, the soul likewise unbinds. It was nature that bound the body within the soul, but it was the soul which bound itself within the body. Therefore, while it is nature that unbinds the body from the soul, it is the soul which unbinds itself from the body."

I 07 Cf. above.

1 08 Athanasius, life of Antony, 873C, p. 47 Gregg/Clebsch.

109 Ibid, 924A, p. 72 Gregg/Clcbsch.

1 1 0 Ibid, 872A, p. 45 Gregg/Clebsch.

1 1 1 Dorotheus of Ga7.a, Didaskaliai, � 1 5 1 , 47.

1 1 2 Dorotheus of Gaza, life 1if Dositheus, ��5-9, edited among Dorotheus' Spiritual Works in Regnault/de Preville 1963, pp. 129ff.

1 13 Cf. A. Voobus, A History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient (= CSCO vol. 184, Subsidia 14, vol. 197, Subsidia 17), Louvain 1 958-60.

Part III

Figures

5

The Figure of Socrates

Since the dawn of Greek thought, the sage has functioned as a living, concrete model. Aristotle testifies to this in a passage from his Protrepticus: "What more accurate standard or measure of good things do we have than the Sage?" 1

There were several reasons for the fact that my research on the sage as a model gradually became fixed upon Socrates. In the first place, I found in him a figure who had exercised a widespread influence of the greatest importance on the entire Western tradition. Secondly, and most importantly, the figure of Socrates - as sketched by Plato, at any rate - had, it seemed to me, one unique advantage. It is the portrait of a mediator between the transcendent ideal of wisdom and concrete human reality. It is a paradox of highly Socratic irony that Socrates was not a sage, but a "philo-sopher": that is, a lover of wisdom.

To speak about Socrates is, of course, to expose oneself to all sorts of historical difficulties. The accounts we have of him by Plato and by Xenophon have transformed, idealized, and deformed the historical Socrates.2

I shall not attempt here to uncover or reconstruct the historical Socrates.

Instead, what I shall try to set forth is the figure of Socrates, as it has influenced our Western tradition. Since this is a phenomenon of immense proportions, however, I shall restrict myself to two of its aspects: the figure of Socrates as depicted in Plato's Symposium, and as it was perceived by those two great Socratics, Kierkegaard3 and Nietzsche. 4

1 Silenus

Socrates thus functions as a mediator between ideal norms and human reality.

The concepts of "mediation" and "intermediate" call to mind the ideas of equilibrium and the Golden Mean. We should therefore expect to see in Socrates a harmonious figure, combining divine and human characteristics in llclicutc nu1mccN.

148

Figures

Nothing could be further from the truth. The figure of Socrates is ambiguous, troubling, and strangely disconcerting. The first surprise in store for us is his physical ugliness, which is well attested by the testimony of Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes.5 "It is significant," wrote Nietzsche, "that Socrates was the first great Hellene to be ugly." 6 "Everything in him is exaggerated, bujfo, a caricature." 7 Nietzsche goes on to evoke his "crab-like eyes, puffed-up lips, and hanging belly," 8 and he takes pleasure in telling the story of how the physiognomist Zopyrus once told Socrates he was a monster, keeping hidden within himself the worst vices and appetites. Socrates, says Nietzsche, simply replied: "How well you know me! " 9 If Socrates really did resemble a Silenus, as he is depicted in Plato's Symposium,10 such suspicions were quite understandable. In popular imagination, Sileni and satyrs were hybrid demons, half-animal, half-men, who made up the escort of Dionysos.

These impudent, ribald buffoons also constituted the chorus of satyr-plays, a literary genre of which Euripides' Cyclops is one of the few remaining examples.

The Sileni were purely natural beings. They stood for the negation of culture and civilization, for grotesque buffoonery, and for the license of the instincts.1 1

To use Kierkegaard's expression, Socrates was a cobold. 12 To b e sure, Plato gives us to understand that Socrates' resemblance to Silenus was only an appearance, beneath which something else was hidden. Alcibiades, in his famous speech in praise of Socrates at the end of the Symposium, 1.i compares Socrates to the little statues of Sileni that could be found in sculptors' shops, which concealed little figurines of the gods inside themselves. Similarly, Socrates' exterior appearance - ugly, buffoon-like, impudent, almost monstrous - was only a mask and a facade.

Here we are led to another paradox: Socrates was not only ugly, but a dissimulator as well. Nietzsche writes: "Everything in him is concealed, ulterior, subterranean." 14 Socrates masks himself, and at the same time is used as a mask by others.

Socrates masks himself: here we encounter that famous Socratic irony, the meaning of which we shall have to clarify later on. Socrates pretends to be ignorant and impudent. "He spends his whole life," says Alcibiades, "playing the part of a simpleton and a child." i; "The nouns and verbs which form the outer envelope of his words arc like the hide of an impudent satyr. "11' His ignorant appearance and amorous attentions "are what he has wrapped around himself, like a carved Silenus." 17

Socrates pulled off his enterprise of dissimulation so well that he succeeded in definitively masking himself from history. He wrote nothing, engaging only in dialogue. All the testimonies we possess about him hide him from us more than they reveal him, precisely because Socrates hns nlwnyN been UNed 11s n mask by those who have spoken nhoul him.

The Figure of Socrates

149

Because he was himself masked, Socrates became the prosopon, or mask, of personalities who felt the need to take shelter behind hinl. It was from him that they got the idea both to mask themselves, and to u�e Socratic irony as a mask. We have here a phenomenon extremely rich in its literary, pedagogical, and psychological implications.

The original nucleus of this phenomenon was the irony of Socrates himself.

Socrates, the eternal interrogator, used skillful questions to bring his interlocutors to admit their ignorance. By so doing, he disturbed them so much that they were eventually led to question their entire lives. After Socrates'

death, the memory of his Socratic conversations inspired a new literary genre, the logoi sokratikoi, which imitated the conversations Socrates had had with a wide variety of interlocutors. In these logoi sokratikoi, Socrates became a prosopon - an interlocutor or character - and hence, if we recall the meaning of prosopon in the ancient theater, a mask. Especially in the subtle, refined form given it by Plato, the Socratic dialogue was intended to provoke in its readers an effect analogous to that produced by the living discourse of Socrates himself. Thus, the reader of these dialogues finds himself in the same situation as Socrates' interlocutors: he does not know w�ere Socrates'

questions are going to lead him. Socrates' elusive, unsettling prosopon/mask sows disquiet in the soul of the reader, leading it to a heightening of consciousness which may go as far as far as a philosophical conversion. As Konrad Gaiser has convincingly shown,'8 the reader himself is invited to take refuge behind the mask of Socrates. In almost all Plato's Socratic dialogues, there comes a moment of crisis, when the interlocutors are overcome by discouragement. They no longer have confidence in the possibility of continuing the discussion, and it seems as though the dialogue is about to be broken off. This is where Socrates intervenes: he takes the others' doubt, uneasiness, and discouragement upon himself. He assumes all the risks of the dialectical adventure, and carries out a complete switching of roles. If the enterprise fails, it will henceforth be his responsibility. In this way, he shows his interlocutors a projection of their own selves. They can now transfer their personal uneasiness onto Socrates, and regain confidence in dialectical research and in the logos itself.

In his dialogues, Plato too uses Socrates as a mask, or, in Nietzsche's terminology, as a "semiotics. " 19 As Paul Friedlander2� has pointed out, whereas the "ego" had long since made its appearance in Greek literature -

,Hesiod, Xenophanes, Parmenides, Empedocles, the Sophists, and even Xenophon do not hesitate to speak in the first person - Plato completely effaces himself behind Socrates in his dialogues, and systematically avoids the use of the first person singular We arc dealing here with an cxl rcmcly subtle

.

relatinnNhip, whose significance is extremely h1ml lo M"f11Np. Arc we to su1,1mNc, wi1h G11i11cr 11ml H .-J. Kritmcr,11 1 h1 t l1l1u11 ,�111�l'l'ulh� 1li111 in1.tui11hcd hctwccn 1 w11 khulN 111' te1u�hing: hi11 own, whkh "�1111 111 111, 111�1 1 1�1 , 11111l 1�1�1wrvC'd

1 50

Figures

for members of the Academy, and his written dialogues, in which he utilized the mask of Socrates to exhort his readers to philosophy? Alternatively, should we conclude that Plato uses the figure of Socrates to set forth his doctrines with a certain degree of distance and irony? In any case, this initial situation has indelibly influenced Western consciousness. Whenever thinkers have been aware of - and frightened by - the radical renewal of which they were the bearers, they too have used a mask to confront their contemporaries.

They have usually chosen to use the ironic mask of Socrates.

When, in the nineteenth century, j.G. Hamann praised Socrates in his Socratic Memorabilia, he did so, to use his own term, to mimike. 22 In other words, Hamann himself took up the mask of Socrates - the rationalist par excellence in the eyes of the eighteenth ccntury21 - in order to make people see, behind the mask, a figure prophetic of Christ.

What, for Hamann, was only a temporary expedient became a fundamental, existential attitude for Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard's penchant for masks is most evident in his use of pseudonyms. As is well known, most of Kierkegaard's works were first published under a variety of pseudonyms: Victor Eremita, Johannes Oimacus, etc. W c are not dealing here with an editorial caprice.

Rather, for Kierkegaard, all these pseudonyms correspond to different levels

- the "aesthetic," "ethical," and "religious" - at which the author was supposed to be situated. Kierkegaard speaks successively of Christianity as an aesthete, then as a moralist, in order to force his contemporaries into the awareness that they are not true Christians. "He hid himself beneath the mask of an artist and half-believing moralist to speak about what he believed most deeply." 24

Kierkegaard was perfectly aware of the Socratic character of his method: From the point of view of my whole activity as an author, integrally conceived, the aesthetic work is a deception, and herein is to be found the deeper significance of the use of pseudonyms. A deception, however, is a rather ugly thing. To this I would make answer: One must not let oneself be deceived by the word "deception." One can deceive a person for the truth's sake, and (to recall old Socrates) one can deceive a person into the truth. Indeed, it is only by this means, i.e. by deceiving him, that it is possible to bring into the truth one who is in an illusion.25

Kierkegaard's goal was to make the reader aware of his mistakes, not by directly refuting them, but by setting them forth in such a way that their absurdity would become clearly apparent. This is as Socratic as can be. At the same time, Kierkegaard used pseudonymy to give voice to all the different characters within him. In the process, he objectified his various selves, without recognizing himself in any of them, just ns Socrates, by means of hiN

skillful questions, objectified the self of hii; intc1�locutor11 wit hout recol(nizinl(

The Figure of Socrates

1 5 1

himself i n any of them. Thus we find Kierkegaard writing: "Because o f my melancholy, it was years before I was able to say 'thou' to �yself. Between my melancholy and my 'thou,' there was a whole world of fantasy. I exhausted it, in part, in my pseudonyms." 26 Yet Kierkegaard was not content to mask himself behind pseudonyms. His real mask was Socratic irony itself; it was Socrates himself: "0 Socrates! Yours and mine are the same adventure! I am alone. My only analogy is Socrates. My task is a Socratic task." 27

Kierkegaard termed this Socratic method his "method of indirect communication." 28 We encounter it once again in Nietzsche, for whom it is the method of the great educator: "An educator never says what he himself thinks, but always only what he thinks of a thing in relation to the requirements of those he educates. He must not be detected in this dissimulation." 29 This method is justified by the educator's transcendent mission:

"Every profound spirit needs a mask; better yet, around every profound spirit a mask is continually growing, thanks to the constantly false - that is to say, superficial - interpretation of his every word, step, and manifestation of life." JO The mask of the Socratic Silenus served as the model for Nietzsche's theory of the mask. As he wrote in the unpublished writings of the last period of his life:

I believe that this was the magic of Socrates: he had one soul, and another one in behind it, and behind it still another one. It was in the first one that Xenophon lay down to sleep; in the second, Plato; and in the third one Plato again, but this time Plato with his own second soul.

Plato himself is a man with many a hidden cave behind and facades out front.31

As for Kierkegaard, so for Nietzsche: masks were a pedagogical necessity, but also a psychological need. Nietzsche himself could be included in his category of "men who want only to be seen shining through others. And there's a lot of wisdom in this." 32 In his Ecce Homo,-13 Nietzsche himself admits that he used his masters Schopenhauer and Wagner as masks in writing his Untimely Meditations, just as Plato had used Socrates as a

"semiotics." There is indeed a relationship comparable to that between Plato and Socrates here: Nietzsche was speaking of an ideal Wagner and an ideal Schopenhauer, who were really nothing other than Nietzsche himself. As Bertram34 has convincingly shown, one of Nietzsche's masks was certainly Socrates himself; Socrates, whom he pursued with the same amorous hatred that Nietzsche feels for Nietzsche; that same Socrates who, he tells us, "is so close to me, that I am almost always fighting with him." 35 The side of SocmteH Nietzsche hates is identical with the Nietzsche who dissolves myths, rcplndng the l(od11 by the knowledge of good and evil; the Nietzsche who brinl(ll men'11 mind11 back ro 1hinl(11 humnn, 1111 too human The side of

.

1 52

Figures

Socrates which Nietzsche loves, and of which he is jealous, is what he himself would like to be: the seducer, the educator, and the guide of souls. We shall have occasion to return to this amorous hatred.

The Socratic mask is the mask of irony. If we examine the texts - by Plato,36

Aristotle,37 or Theophrastus38 - in which the word eironeia appears, we can conclude that irony is a psychological attitude in which the individual uses self-deprecation in an attempt to appear inferior to what he really is. In the art and usage of discourse, it takes the form of pretending to concede that one's interlocutor is right, and to adopt the point of view of one's adversary.

The rhetorical figure of eironeia, then, consists in using words or speeches which the audience would rather have expected to hear coming from the mouth of one's adversary.39 This is certainly the form assumed by Socratic irony. In the words of Cicero: "By disparaging himself, Socrates used to concede more than was necessary to the adversaries he wanted to refute.

Thus, thinking one thing and saying another, he enjoyed using the kind of dissimulation which the Greeks call 'irony'." 40 Socratic irony is thus a feigned self-deprecation, which consists primarily in passing oneself off as someone completely ordinary and superficial. As Alcibiades puts it in his praise of Socrates:

His speech is for all the world like those Sileni that open up down the middle. When you listen to it for the first time, you just can't help finding it absolutely ridiculous. He talks about pack asses and blacksmiths and shoemakers and tanners, and he always seems to be repeating the same thing, so that anyone who wasn't used to his style and wasn't very quick on the uptake would naturally take it for the most utter nonsense.41

Not only was Socrates guilty of banality in the subjects he discussed, but his interlocutors were banal, as well. He sought out and found his audience in the marketplace, the gymnasia, artists' workshops, and shops. He was a street person. In the words of Nietzsche: "Mediocrity is the most appropriate mask the superior spirit can wear." 42 Socrates talked and debated, but he refused to be considered a master. "When people came to sec him," remarks Epictetus, "and asked him to introduce them to other philosophers, he complied readily, and willingly accepted to pass unnoticed himself." 43

Here we touch the heart of Socratic irony: if Socrates refused to teach or be considered a master, it was because he had nothing to say or to communicate, for the excellent reason that, as he frequently proclaimed, he did not know anything. Since he had nothing to say, and no thesis to defend, all Socrates could do was to ask questions, even thoul(h he himself refused to answer them. In the first book of the Repu/Jlir, ThrR11ymRcllllt1 cries out: "Y c gods! Herc we have the well-known rirm1ri11 of Sorn11l�111 "till I k nrw ii und

The Figure of Socrates

1 53

predicted that when it came to replying you would refuse and dissemble and do anything rather than answer any question that anyo\le asked you." 44

Aristotle described the situation even more clearly: "Socrates used to ask questions and not answer them - for he used to confess that he did not know." 45

Obviously, we cannot know exactly how Socrates' discussions with the Athenians took place. Plato's dialogues - even the most "Socratic" - are only a doubly weak imitation of them. In the first place, they are not spoken, but written, and, as Hegel remarked, "in printed dialogue, answers are altogether under the author's control; but to say that in actual life people are found to answer as they arc here made to do, is quite another thing." 46 Moreover, beneath the surface charm of literary fiction, we can recognize in Plato's dialogues the trace of the scholastic exercises of the Platonic Academy.

Aristotle codified the rules of these dialectical jousts in his Topics.41 There were well-defined roles for both questioner and respondent in these argumentation exercises, and the rules of this intellectual fencing were rigorously defined.

It is not our task here to try to disentangle what may be properly "Socratic"

in the conversations reported by Plato; rather, we arc concerned to uncover the significance of Socratic irony as it was known to tradition, and the movements of consciousness to which it corresponds.

Otto Apelt48 has given a good description of the mechanism of Socratic irony: Spa/tung und Verdoppelung.49 Socrates splits himself into two, so that there are two Socrates: the Socrates who knows in advance how the discussion is going to end, and the Socrates who travels the entire dialectical path along with his interlocutor. Socrates' interlocutors do not know where he is leading them, and therein lies the irony. As he travels the path along with his interlocutors, Socrates constantly demands total agreement from them. He takes his partner's position as his starting point, and gradually makes him admit all the consequences of his position. This a priori agreement is founded on the rational demands of the Logos,50 or reasonable discourse. By constantly demanding assent, Socrates leads his interlocutor to recognize that his initial position was contradictory, and he thereby objectifies their common undertaking. As a rule, Socrates chooses an activity familiar to his interlocutor as the subject of discussion, and tries to define, together with him, the practical knowledge required to carry out this activity. For example, a general must know how to fight bravely, and a soothsayer must behave piously towards the go<Js. At the end of the road, however, the general turns out to have no idea of what courage really is, and the soothsayer docsn 't know what piety is. It is t hen that the interlocutor rcali7..cs that he doesn't really know the reasons for hiH actions Suddenly, his whole value-system seems to him without

.

foundat ion . Up unt il then, he had, to a certain extent, identified with the v11luc..'-NYNtcm which hnd dictated to him his way of thinking and speaking.

l lt�m�cfort h , tu� i11 op1m11cd to it.

1 54

Figures

Thus, the interlocutor, too, is cut in two: there is the interlocutor as he was before his conversation with Socrates, and there is the interlocutor who, in the course of their constant mutual accord, has identified himself with Socrates, and who henceforth will never be the same again.

The absolutely essential point in this ironical method is the path which Socrates and his interlocutor travel together. Socrates pretends he wants to learn something from his interlocutor, and this constitutes his ironic selfdeprecation. In fact, however, even while Socrates appears ro identify himself with the interlocutor, and enter completely into his� discourse, in the last analysis it is the interlocutor who unconsciously enters into Socrates' discourse and identifies himself with him. Let us not forget: to identify oneself with Socrates is to identify oneself with aporia and doubt, for Socrates doesn't know anything; all he knows is that he knows nothing. Therefore, at the end of the discussion, the interlocutor has not learned anything; in fact, he no longer even knows anything. And yet, throughout the duration of the discussion, he has experienced what true activity of the mind is. Better yet, he has been Socrates himself. And Socrates is interrogation, questioning, and stepping back to take a look at oneself; in a word, he is consciousness.

Such is the profound meaning of Socratic maieutics. In a famous passage of the Theaetetus,51 Socrates tells how he practices the same trade as did his mother, who was a midwife, attending corporeal births. Socrates himself, he claims, is a midwife of the mind, and it is to the birth of minds that he attends. Socrates himself does not engender anything, since he knows nothing; he merely helps others to engender themselves. As Kierkegaard was well aware, Socratic maieutics stands the master-disciple relationship on its head:

to be a teacher does not mean simply to affirm that such a thing is so, or to deliver a lecture, & etc. No, to be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner. Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn from the learner, put yourself in his place so that you may understand what he understands and in the way he understands it. 52

The disciple is the opportunity for the master to understand himself, as the master is the opportunity for the disciple to understand himself.

When he dies, the master has no claim on the disciple's soul, no more than the disciple has on that of the master . . . The best way to understand Socrates is precisely to understand that we do not owe him anything. That is what Socrates preferred, and it is good that he was able to prefer this. 53

Here we touch upon one of the possible rncnningN of Socratcfi' cnigmat k declaration: "I only know one t hing: th111 iM, 1h111 I llun'I know 11ny1 him(." 1�

The Figure of Socrates

1 55

This statement could be interpreted as meaning that Socrates did not possess any transmissible knowledge, and was unable to cause ideas to pass from his mind into that of others. As Socrates is made to say in Plato's Symposium, "My dear Agathon . I only wish that wisdom were the kind of thing that flowed

.

.

. . . from the vessel that was full to the one that was empty." 55

In Xenophon's Memoirs of Socrates, Hippias tells Socrates that, instead of always asking questions about justice, he would do better simply to say, once and for all, whar justice is. Socrates replies: "If I don't reveal my views on justice in words, I do so by my conduct." 56 To be sure, Socrates was a passionate lover of words and dialogue. With just as much passion, however, he sought to demonstrate to us the limits of language. What he wanted to show us is that we can never understand justice if we do not live it. Justice, like every authentic reality, is indefinable, and this is what Socrates sought to make his interlocutor understand, in order to urge him to "live" justice. The questioning of discourse leads to the questioning of the individual, who must decide whether or not he will resolve to live according to his conscience and to reason. In the words of one of Socrates' interlocutors: "Anyone who enters into conversation with Socrates is liable to be drawn into an argument, and whatever subject he may start, he will be continually carried round and round by him, until at last he finds that he has to give an account both of his present and past life." 57 The individual thus finds himself called into question in the most fundamental bases of his action, and he becomes aware of the living problem he himself represents for himself. All values are consequently turned upside down, as is the importance previously accorded them. As Socrates says in Plato's Apology:

I care nothing for what most people care about: money-making, administration of property, generalships, success in public debates, magistracies, coalitions, and political factions . I did not choose that

.

.

path, but rather the one by which I could do the greatest good to each of you in particular: by trying to persuade each of you to concern himself less about what he has that about what he is, so that he may make himself as good and as reasonable as possible. 58

The Socratic enterprise is existential in that it appeals to the individual.

This is why Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, each in his own way, tried to repeat it .. In the following text by Nietzsche, where he describes the "Schopenhauerian man," isolated in the midst of his contemporaries, it is hard not to think of Socrates' constant appeal to "take care of yourself," 59 and his continual calling into question of the individual:

hiN fellow men , . 11trut about in a hundred masquerades, as youths, old

,

men, liu herN, cit iienN, 1nic11t11, oflki11IN, merchants, mindful solely of

1 56

Figures

their comedy and not at all of themselves. To the question: "To what end do you live?" they would all quickly reply with pride: "To become a good citizen, or scholar, or statesmanl" 60

the objective of all human arrangements is through distracting one's thoughts to cease to be aware of life.61

Haste is universal because everyone is in flight from himself.62

Already in Plato's Symposium, Alcibiades had said: "Socrates makes me admit to myself that, even though I myself am deficient in so many regards, I continue to take no care for myself, but occupy myself with the business of the Athenians." 113 This passage allows us to glimpse the political consequences of such a reversal of values and upending of the guiding norms of life.

Concern for one's individual destiny cannot help but lead to conflict with the state. 64 This is the deepest meaning of the trial and death of Socrates.

Socratic irony becomes especially dramatic when, thanks to the evidence of Plato's Apology of Socrates, we sec it being used at the expense of the philosopher's accusers, and, in a sense, bringing about his condemnation to death.M

Here we have an instance of the "seriousness of existence" of which Kierkegaard speaks."" For Kierkegaard, Socrates' merit was that he was an exis1i11g thinker, not a speculative philosopher who has forgotten what it means to exist. Kierkegaard's fundamental category of existence is the individual, or the unique, isolated in the solitude of his existential responsibility. For Kierkegaard, Socrates was its discoverer.1'7

Here we come upon one of the most profound reasons for Socratic irony: direct language is not adequate for communicating the experience of existing, the authentic consciousness of being, the seriousness of life as we live it, or the solitude of decision making. To speak is to be doubly condemned to banality. In the first place, there can be no direct communication of existential experience, and in this sense, every speech-act is "banal." Secondly, however, it is this same banality which, in the form of irony, can make indirect communication possible.611 In the words of Nietzsche: "I believe I sense that Socrates was profound; his irony was above all the necessity to pass himself off as superficial, in order to be able to associate with people at all." 69 For the existential thinker, banality and superficiality are a vital necessity. The existentialist must remain in contact with mankind, even if the latter is at a level of less-than-adequate consciousness. At the same time, however, we have here to do with a pedagogical artifice. The circuitous detours of irony, and the shock of aporit1, can cause the reader to attnin 10 the seriousness of existential consciousness, especially if, 1ts we sh11ll 11cc l111c1", 1�hc power of l�:ros is thrown in for icood measure.

The Figure o/Socrates

1 57

Socrates had no system to teach. Throughout, his philosophy was a spiritual exercise, an invitation to a new way of life, active reflection, and living consciousness.

Perhaps the Socratic formula: "I know that I know nothing" ought to be given a deeper meaning. We are thus brought back to our starting point: Socrates knows that he is not a sage.70 As an individual, his conscience was aroused and spurred on by this feeling of imperfection and incompleteness.

In this regard, Kierkegaard can help us to understand the significance of the figure of Socrates. Kierkegaard asserts that he knows only one thing: that he is not a Christian. He was intimately convinced of this fact, because to be a Christian is to have a genuine personal and existential relationship with Christ; it is to intcriorize Christ in a decision emanating from the depths of the self. Since such interiorization is so very difficult, it is virtually impossible for anyone truly to be a Christian. The only true Christian was Christ. At any rate, the least we can say is that the best Christian is he who is aware of not being a Christian, insofar as he recognizes that he is not a Christian.71

Like every existential consciousness, Kierkegaard's was divided. It existed only in its consciousness of not truly existing. Kierkegaardian consciousness is identical to Socratic consciousness:

0 Socrates, you had the accursed advantage of making it painfully obvious, by means of your ignorance, that others were even less wise than you. They didn't even know that they were ignorant. Your adventure was the same as mine. People become exasperated with me when they sec that I can show that others are even less Christian than I; I who respect Christianity so much that I see and admit that I am not a Christian!72

Socratic consciousness is also torn and divided: not by the figure of Christ, but by the transcendent norm of the figure of the sage.

justice, as we have seen, cannot be defined. It must be lived. All the human discourse in the world could never suffice to express the depth of one person's resolution to be just. All human decisions arc, howc�er, fragile and precarious.

When a person chooses to be just in the context of a particular act, he has the inkling of an existence which could be just in the full sense of the term. Such a fully just existence is that of the sage, who is not sop/10s, but philo-sophos: not a wise man, but one who desires wisdom, precisely because he lacks it. Paul Friedlander puts it well: "Socratic irony, at its center, expresses the tension between ignorance - that is, the impossibility ultimately to put into words

'what justice is' - and the direct experience of the unknown, the existence of the just man, whom justice raises to the level of the divine." 73

just llS K icrkc1c1111rd wns only Christian insofar as he was conscious of not being n ( :lui11tii111, Sm�1�111c11 wn11 n 1mgc only insofar as he was conscious of not

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being wise. An immense desire arises from such an awareness of privation, and this is why, for Western consciousness, Socrates the philosopher takes on the features of Eros, the eternal vagabond in search of true beauty.

2 Eros

It could be said that Socrates was the first individual in the history of Western thought. Werner Jaeger,. was right to point out that Plato and Xenophon, in their Socratic writings, strive to make the reader sense Socrates' originality and uniqueness as they sketch his literary portrait. This need of theirs was certainly the result of the extraordinary experience of having known an incomparable personality, and, as Kierkegaard pointed out, 75 it is the true explanation of the terms atopos, atopia, and atopotatos, which recur so often in the Platonic corpus76 to describe Socrates' character. In the Theaetetus, for instance, Socrates declares: "They say I am atopotatos, and all I create is aporia." 77 Etymologically, atopos means "out of place," hence strange, extravagant, absurd, unclassifiable, and disconcerting. In the Symposium, Alcibiades insists on this point in his speech in praise of Socrates. Normally, he says, there are classes of men, ideal types to which individuals correspond.

For example, there is the type of the "great general, noble and courageous,"

represented in Homeric antiquity by Achilles, and among contemporary figures by the Spartan leader Brasidas. Then there is the type of the "clever and eloquent statesman," represented in antiquity by Nestor the Greek and Antenor the Trojan, and by Pericles among contemporaries. Socrates, however, docs not fit into any category. He cannot be compared to any man, concludes Alcibiades; only to Sileni or satyrs.78

Socrates was indeed an individual: that individual so dear to Kierkegaard that he would have liked to have as an epitaph: "He was That Individual. " 79

And yet, although Socrates was unlike anyone else, we shall now see him take on the mythic characteristics of Eros;80 an Eros, that is, conceived as a projection of the figure of Socrates.

In Socrates, erotic irony is intimately connected to dialectical irony, and it leads to reversals of situation quite analogous to those caused by the latter.

Let us be quite clear: the love in question here is homosexual love, precisely because it is educative love. In the Greece of Socrates' day, masculine love was a vestige and remainder of archaic warrior edU<."lltion, in which the young nobleman was trained in the aristocratic virtues, within the framework of virile friendship, and under the direction of an older man . The master-disciple relationship was conceived during the period of the Sophists, on the model of this archaic relationship, and ii waN frequently spoken of in erotic terms. We must not, of course, for1tct tlw rolt� t'l11ycd hy rhetoric nnd lilcrnry fiction in thiK wny of' 11pcnkin1<."1

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1 59

Socrates' erotic irony consisted in pretending to be in love until, thanks to the reversal brought about by irony, the object of his amoreus attentions fell in love himself. Such is the story Alcibiades tells in his speech in praise of Socrates. Alcibiades, believing in the sincerity of the numerous declarations of love Socrates had made to him, invited Socrates home one night in order to seduce him. He slipped into bed with him, and wrapped his arms around nim. Much to Alcibiades' surprise, however, Socrates remained in complete control of himself, and did not let himself be seduced at all. "Since that time,''

declares Alcibiades,

I am the one who has been reduced to slavery, and I'm in the state of a man bitten by a viper.82

I've been bitten in the heart, or the mind, or whatever you like to call it, by Socrates' philosophy . . . the moment I hear him speak I am �

smitten with a kind of sacred rage, worse than any Corybant, and my heart jumps into my mouth and the tears start into my eyes . . . I'm not the only one, either; there's Charmides, and Euthydemus, and ever so many more. He's made fools of them all, just as if he were the beloved, not the lover.83

It is hard to imagine a better commentary on this passage than the following one, by Kierkegaard:

one might possibly call him a seducer, for he deceived the youth and awakened longings which he never satisfied . . . He deceived them all in the same way as he deceived Alcibiades who . . . observes that instead of the lover, Socrates became the beloved . . . he attracted the youth to him, hut when they looked up to him, when they sought repose in him, when forgetting all else they sought a safe abode in his lov�, when they themselves ceased to exist and lived only in being loved by him - then he was gone, then the enchantment was over, then they felt the deep pangs of unrequited love, felt that they had been deceived and that it was not Socrates who loved them but they who loved Socrates.8�

Socrates' erotic irony consisted in pretending to be in love. In dialectic irony, Socrates pretended, as he asked his questions, that his real desire was that his interlocutor communicate to him his knowledge or wisdom. In fact, however, this game of questions and answers resulted in the interlocutor realizing that he was incapable of curing Socrates' ignorance, for he in fact had neither wisdom nor knowledge to give to Socrates. What the interlocutor renlly desired, 1 hen, wns to enrol in Socrates' school: the school of the conHcim111m�NN 111' 11111 -know inl(.

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In erotic irony, Socrates used amorous declarations to pretend that he wanted his ostensible lover to hand over to him not his knowledge, but his physical beauty. This situation is understandable: Socrates was not attractive, whereas the young man was. In this case, however, the beloved - or supposedly beloved - discovered through Socrates' attitude that he was incapable of satisfying Socrates' love, because there was no true beauty within him. Upon discovering his shortcomings, the beloved would then fall in love with Socrates. It was not beauty with which the beloved fell in love - Socrates did not have any - rather, he fell in love with the love which, according to Socrates' definition in the Symposium,85 is desire for the beauty which all of us lack. To be in love with Socrates, then, was to be in love with love.

This is precisely the meaning of the Symposium.86 The whole dialogue is constructed so as to make the reader guess the identity between the figures of Socrates and Eros. Plato depicts the guests taking turns, going from left to right, giving speeches in praise of Eros. In succession, we hear Phaedrus and Pausanias, then Eryximachus the doctor, Aristophanes the comic poet, and finally the tragic poet Ariston. When Socrates' turn comes, he does not give a straightforward speech in praise of love, for that would be contrary to his method. Instead, he reports the conversation he had once had with Diotima, a priestess from Mantinea, who told him the myth of the birth of Eros.

Theoretically, the dialogue would have ended here, were it not for Alcibiades'

sudden intrusion into the banquet room. Crowned with violets and ivy leaves and rather drunk, Alcibiades submits to the rules of the banquet, but instead of praising Eros, he gives a speech in praise of Socrates.

The identity between Socrates and Eros is underlined in several ways: not only does the speech in praise of Socrates take its place in the series of speeches already given in praise of Eros, but, in addition, there are many significant features in common between the portrait of Eros, as sketched by Diotima, and the portrait of Socrates given by Alcibiades.

On the day of Aphrodite's birth, recounts Diotima, the gods had a banquet.

Penia - that is, "Poverty" or "Privation" - came begging at the end of the meal. There she espied Poros - "Means," "Expedient," or "Wealth" - drunk on nectar and asleep in Zeus' garden. As a way out of her destitution, Penia decided to have a child by Poros, so she lay with him while he slept, and conceived Eros.

This account of the genealogy of Eros allows Diotima to give a description of him so subtle that it can be interpreted on a variety of levels. In the first place, following the exact words of the myth, we can recognize in Eros the features of both his mother and his father. From his father's side, he gets his clever, inventive mind (in Greek euporit1). From his mother, he inherits the condition of a poverty-stricken beggar: t1p11rit1. Behind this dest.Tiption, we can distinguish a quite pnrticulnr conccp1ion of love. Where111; 1he other guests had described Eros in an idt.'l1li:1.ctl wily, Sm�1�11tl'll l'l'l'ounlN hiN l'nnverHllt inn with

The Figure of Socrates

1 6 1

Diotima in order to introduce some realism into the vision of love. Contrary to what the other guests assume, says Socrates, it is not the case that love is beautiful. If it were, it would no longer be love, for Eros is essentially desire, and the only thing that can be desired is that which one does not have. Eros, then, cannot be beautiful: as the son of Penia, he lacks beauty, but as the son of Poros, he knows how to remedy his lack. Agathon has confused love with its object, the beloved.

For Socrates, love is a lover. It is therefore not, as most people think, a god, but only a daimon; a being intermediate between the human and the divine.

This is why there is something comic about Diotima's description of Eros.

In it, we can perceive the beggarly existence to which love can condemn us.

This is the familiar theme of "Militat omnis amans": 37 in which the lover stands guard on his beloved's doorstep, or spends the night sleeping on the ground. Eros is both beggar and soldier, but also inventor, sorcerer, magician, and clever talker, for love makes him ingenious. For him, life is an uninterrupted suite of discouragement and hope, need and satisfaction, which succeed one another in accordance with the successes and defeats of his love.

This is Eros in his monstrous aspect - good-for-nothing, shameless, obstinate, loud-mouthed and savage - whose misdeeds are depicted with such relish in Greek poetry, right down to the Byzantine period.88

And yet, with astonishing skill, Plato makes the features of Socrates "the philosopher" appear beneath the figure of Eros the hunter. Agathon may think Eros is delicate and lovely, but Diotima asserts he is, in reality, always poor, rough, dirty, and barefoot. In his speech in praise of Socrate.'>, Alcibiades likewise portrays Socrates as barefoot, covered only by a coarse coat which barely protects him from the winter cold.89 From the context of the dialogue, we learn that Socrates has, exceptionally, taken a bath before coming to the symposium.'111 The comic poets, too, had a good laugh at the expense of Socrates' bare feet and old cloak.91

The figure of Socrates as Eros the beggar was subsequently taken up by the Cynic philosophers, in particular Diogenes. Diogenes, who seems to have designated himself as a "furious Socrates," used to go wandering with only his cloak and knapsack, bereft of hearth and home:92 As Friedlander points out,93 barefooted Eros also calls to mind primitive man, as he is depicted by Plato in the Protagoras (32 l c5) and the Statesman (272a5).

We arc thus brought back to the figure of that purely natural being, Silenus, with his primitive strength, more primal than culture and civilization. The fact that this element enters into the complex portrait of Socrates/Eros is not a matter of indifference. Rather, it corresponds perfectly to the reversal of values brought about by Socratic L'Onsciousness. For the person concerned about his soul, what is essential is not 10 be found in appearance, dress, or comfort, but in freedom.

And yet, I >iolimn Hlrcs.o;es that Eros has inherited some features from his fnlhcr: "lw Kl'IN 1 1�111ll1 for noble 1muls, for he is bold, headstrong, and full of

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endurance. He's a dangerous hunter, always plotting some trick; he lusts after cleverness,"' is full of resources, and is always thinking up some scheme; he's a terrible sorcerer, magician, and sophist." 95 We could very well be listening to Strepsiades in Aristophanes' Clouds, describing what he wants to become after his Socratic education: "audacious, glib, daring and headstrong . . . never at a loss for words, a real fox." 96 In his speech praising Socrates, Alcibiades had called him an impudent Silenus,97 and Agathon had bestowed upon Socrates the epithet of hybristes.98 For Alcibiades, Socrates is a magician99 and a smooth talker, skilled in attracting pretty boys. 100

Eros' toughness appears once again in the portrait which Alcibiades sketches of Socrates on campaign with the army. He could, Alcibiades says, put up with cold, hunger, and fear, and hold his wine as easily as he endured long bouts of meditation. 161 During the retreat from Delion, Alcibiades tells us, Socrates walked as calmly as if he were in the streets of Athens, where Aristophanes describes him as "holding his head high . . . rolling his eyes, barefoot, looking solemn." 102 As we can see, this portrait of Socrates/Eros is not very flattering; we are clearly smack in the midst of Platonic - if not Socratic - irony. Nevertheless, this image is not without its profound psychological truth.

Eros, Diotima tells us, is a daimon: that is, a being intermediate between gods and men. Once more, we are forced to consider the problem of intermediary states, and we realize once more just how uncomfortable such a situation is. Eros the daimon, as Diotima describes him to us, is undefinable and unclassifiable: he too, like Socrates, is alopos. He is neither god nor man, fair nor ugly, wise nor foolish, good nor evil. 103 Yet he still embodies desire, for, like Socrates, he is aware that he is neither handsome nor wise. This is why he is a philo-sopher - a lover of wisdom. In other words, he desires to attain to the level of being of divine perfection. Thus, according to Diotima's description, Eros is the desire for his own perfection, which is to say, for his true self. He suffers from being deprived of the plenitude of being, and he strives to attain it. When other men fall in love with Socrates/Eros - that is, when they fall in love with love, such as Socrates reveals it to them - what they love in Socrates is his love for, and aspiration toward, beauty and the perfection of being. In Socrates, they find the path toward their own perfection.

Eros, like Socrates, is merely a call and a possibility; he is neither wisdom nor beauty itself. To be sure, if one opens up the little Sileni mentioned by Alcibiades, they turn out to be full of statues of gods. 104 The Sileni, however, are not themselves the statues. They only open up so that one can get at them.

The etymological meaning of Poros, Erm;' father, is "means of access" or

"way out." Socrat�es is only n SilenuK, opcninic up onto something beyond himsel f.

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The philosopher, too, is nothing other than this: a summons to existence.

As Socrates puts it ironically to the handsome Alcibiades: "If you love me, it must be because you have seen in me a beauty which bears no resemblance to your own physical beauty . . . But consider the matter more carefully, lest you make a mistake both about me and about me and about my real nothingness.,, 105 Here Socrates gives Alcibiades a warning. In loving Socrates, he is really only loving Eros: not Aphrodite's son, but the son of Poros and Penia. The cause of his love is that he senses that Socrates can open up to him a path toward an extraordinary beauty, transcending all earthly beauties.

Socrates� virtues - those statues of the gods hidden within the ironical Silenus

- which Alcibiades admires so much, 106 are only a reflection and a foretaste of that perfect wisdom which Socrates desires, and which Alcibiades desires through Socrates.

In Socratic Eros, we find the same basic structure as in Socratic irony: a divided consciousness, passionately aware that it is not what it ought to be. It is from this feeling of separation and lack that love is born.

One of Plato's greatest merits will always be that he was able, via the myth of Socrates/Eros, to introduce into the philosophical life the dimension of love - that is, of desire and the irrational. He accomplished this in several ways: in the first place, in the experience of dialogue itself, in which two interlocutors experience a passionate will to clarify a problem together. Q�ite apart from the dialectical movement of the logos, the path traveled together by Socrates and his partner, and their common will to come to an agreement, arc already a kind of love. There is a great deal more philosophy in spiritual exercises like Socrates' dialogues than in the construction of a philosophical system. The task of dialogue consists essentially in pointing out the limits of language, and its inability to communicate moral and existential experience.

Yet the dialogue itself, qua event and spiritual activity, already constitutes a moral and existential experience, for Socratic philosophy is not the solitary elaboration of a system, but the awakening of consciousness, and accession to a level of being which can only be reached in a person-to-person relationship.

Just like ironical Socrates, Eros teaches nothing, for he is ignorant. He does not make people more wise; he makes them other. He, too, is maieutic: he helps souls to engender themselves.

It is touching to trace the influence of Socratic Eros throughout history. 107 In third-century Alexandria, for instance, the Christian writer Gregory Thaumaturgus praised his master Origen in the following terms:

And thus, like some spark lighting upon our inmost soul, love was kiml led and bu rNI into flame within us - a love at once for the Logos . . .

ond for 1hiN m1111, ilN friend 11nd advocate .

sometimes he would

.

.

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refrain from adding any judgment value to naked reality.60 In the words of Epictetus: "we shall never give our assent to anything but that of which we have an objective representation," 61 and he adds the following illustration: So-and-so's son is dead.

What happened?

His son is dead.

Nothing else?

Not a thing.

So-and so's ship sank.

What happened?

His ship sank.

So-and-so was carted off to prison.

What happened?

He was carted off to prison.

- But if we now add to this "He has had bad luck," then each of us is adding this observation on his own account.62

In these objective/realistic definitions, some historians63 believe they can discover the traces of an attitude of repugnance in the face of matter and the objects of the physical world. Thus, according to this view, Marcus Aurelius renounced the Stoic doctrine of the immanence of divine reason in the world and in matter, and there is no longer any trace in him of the admiration felt by Chrysippus for the phenomenal world. We can therefore, it is alleged, find traces in Marcus of a tendency to affirm the transcendence of a divinity existing apart from the phenomenal world.

Some passages in Marcus do indeed seem provocative in this regard, but they require the most painstaking interpretation. When, for instance, Marcus evokes "the putridity of the matter underlying all things . . . liquid, dust, bones, stench," M he does not mean to say that matter itself is putrefaction; rather, he wants to emphasize that the transformations of matter, qua natural processes, are necessarily accompanied by phenomena which seem to us to be repugnant, although in reality they too are natural.

The passage we have cited above65 may seem even more provocative: "Just like your bath-water appears to you - oil, sweat, filth, dirty water, all kinds of loathsome stuff - such is each portion of life, and every substance." This concise text can be interpreted in several different ways. In the first place, we could say that Marcus is here applying his method of objective definitions.

What he means to say would be this: "when I observe physical and physiological phenomena as they truly are, I have to admit that there nre many aspects of them which seem to me to he diNl(UNt inl( or 1 rlvi11l: 1 hcy

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consist of dust, the filth which covers abandoned objects, bad smells, and stenches. Our objective representation must recognize all .these aspects of reality, without seeking to conceal any of them." Yet this realist vision has a threefold function. In the first place, it is intended to prepare us to confront life such as it is. As Seneca remarks,

To be offended by these things is just as ridiculous as to complain that you got splashed in the bath, or that you got pushed around in a crowd, or that you got dirty in a mud-puddle. The same things happen in life as in the baths, in a crowd, or on the road . . . Life is not a delicate thing.66

Secondly, the realistic outlook is not intended to deny the immanence of reason in the world, but to persuade us to search for reason where it can be found in its purest state: in the daimon or inner genius, that guiding principle within man, source of freedom and principle of the moral life.

Finally, by reinforcing the sombre tones of disgust and repulsion, such definitions are intended to provide a contrast with the splendid illumination which transfigures all things when we consider them from the perspective of universal reason. Elsewhere, Marcus does not hesitate to declare: Everything comes from above, whether it has originated directly in that common directing principle, or whether it is a necessary consequence thereof. Thus, the gaping jaws of a lion, poison, and all kinds of unpleasant things, like thorns and mud, are by-products of those venerable, beautiful things on high. Don't imagine, therefore, that these unpleasant things are alien to that principle you venerate, but rather consider that source of all things. 67

Here it is quite clear that filth, dust, and other such apparently repulsive aspects of reality are the necessary consequence of a natural process which, in the last analysis, goes back to universal reason. It is thus not matter itself which seems repulsive to us, but the accessory phenomena which accompany its transformations. Here Marcus68 is in complete accord with Stoic orthodoxy, according to which matter is docile and subservient to reason, which molds and governs it. The function of Marcus' physico/objective definitions is precisely to make us realize that the feelings of repulsion we feel in the presence of some phenomena which accompany natural processes are nothing but an anthropocentric prejudice. In the following charming passage, Marcus expresses his belief that nature is beautiful in all its aspects: There iK Komc:thing pleasant and attractive about even the incidental hy-prudm�111 of 11111ur1d l'hc:nomc:na. For instance, when bread is being

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baked, some parts of it split open, and it is precisely those parts which split apart in this way, and which, in a sense, have nothing to do with bread-making itself, which are somehow quite appropriate, and excite our appetite in a most particular way. The same is true of figs: it is when they are at their ripest that they burst open. In the case of very ripe olives, it is precisely their proximity to decay which adds to them a certain beauty. The same is true with ripe ears of corn which bend towards the ground; with the lion's wrinkled forehead; with the foam spuming forth from the mouths of wild pigs, and many other such things: if we look at them in isolation, they are far from being beautiful.

Nevertheless, because they are incidental by-products of natural processes, they add to the beauty of these processes and have an attractive effect on us. Thus, as long as one has a feeling for, and a deep understanding of Nature's processes, there is scarcely any of the things that occur as incidental by-products which will not present itself to one as pleasant, at least in some of its aspects. Such a person . . . will look upon the actual gaping jaws of wild beasts with no less pleasure than upon all the imitations of them that sculptors and painters offer us. With his wise vision, he will be able to discern the rich maturity of old men and women, as well as the lovely charm in young children; and there arc many such things, which do not appeal to everyone; only to that person who has truly familiarized himself with nature and its workings.69

It is instructive to compare this text with the passage from Aristotle quoted abovc.70

Already in Aristotle, but especially in Marcus Aurelius, we can see a revolution taking place. In the place of an idealistic aesthetics, which considers as beautiful only that which is rational and functional, manifesting beautiful proportions and an ideal form, there appears a realistic aesthetics which finds beauty in things just the way they are, in everything that lives and exists. We know from Aulus Gellius,71 moreover, that Marcus' distinction between nature's original plan and the unforeseen consequences resulting from this plan goes back to Chrysippus. Thus, in this case as well, Marcus stands firmly within orthodox Stoic tradition.

To return to the "provocative" passage with which we began:72 it appears that Marcus' meaning is as follows. When dealing with what the Stoics termed indiflerentia73

that is, things which depend not upon us, but upon

-

universal nature- we must not make any distinction between what is repulsive and what is pleasant; any more than does nature itself.74 Dirt, mud, and thorns, after all, come from the same source as the rose and the springtime.

Thus, from the point of view of nature, and therefore also of whoever is familiar with nature, there is no distinction t.o he made between hath-water and the rest of ercntion : cvcrythinl{ iN

"nnt ur11I . "

Marcus Aurelius

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We can hardly hope to deduce Marcus' psychological states from any of the preceding. Was he an optimist or a pessimist? Did he suffer from a stomach ulcer? The Meditations do not allow us to respond to these questions.

All we can learn from them is about spiritual exercises, as they were traditionally practiced by the Stoics.

2 Epictetus

In Marcus Aurelius' day, the greatest authority in questions of Stoicism was Epictetus. As the slave of Epaphroditus, one of Nero's freedmen, Epictetus had attended the classes of the Stoic Musonius Rufus. When Epictetus in turn was subsequently freed by Epaphroditus, he opened a philosophy school at Rome. In AD 93-4, Epictetus fell victim to the edict by which the emperor Domitian banished philosophers from Rome and Italy, and he set himself up in Nicopolis in Epirus. There he opened another school, where one of his regular students was the future civil servant and historian Arrian of Nicomedia. It was Arrian who was responsible for transmitting what we know about Epictetus' teaching; for Epictetus, like many philosophers in antiquity, never wrote anything down.

What Arrian thus preserved for us was not the technical part of Epictetus'

philosophical instruction - his commentaries on Stoic authors such as Chrysippus, for example, or his more general explanations of doctrine.

Rather, what Arrian copied down was the discussions which, as was usual in ancient philosophical schools, took place after the technical part of the class.

In these discussions, the master would reply to questions from his audience, or enlarge upon particular points which were of importance for leading a philosophical life.75 It is important to emphasize this point, for it means that we must not expect to find technical, systematic expositions of every aspect of Stoic doctrines in Epictetus' Discourses. Instead, they deal with a rather limited number of problems, for the most part restricted to ethical matters.

This does not prove, of course, that Epictetus did not take up the whole of the Stoic system in the course of his theoretical teaching. Besides, only the first four books of Arrian's work have survived. We know from a passage in Aulus Gellius,76 who cites an extract from the fifth book of Epictetus'

Discourses, that a part of the work has been lost. For these two reasons, then, we must be wary of concluding, on the basis of these collections of Arrian's notes, that theoretical philosophical teaching gradually became impoverished in the course of later Stoicism.

What we can say is that Epictetus did insist very strongly upon a concept that was traditional in Stoicism:n the difference between discourse about philosophy and the practice of philosophy itself.

h is 11omc1 ime11 claimed that the Stoics recognized two parts of philosophy: on the cmc h111ul , t h�y di11tinguished :i t heoretical discursive part, comprising

-

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physics and logic; that is, the study of nature and of the rules of discourse.

On the other, there was the practical part of philosophy, corresponding to ethics. This is incorrect. Rather, both theoretical philosophical discourse and philosophy itself as it was lived and experienced were made up of three constituent parts.

In theoretical philosophical discourse, the three parts of philosophy were necessarily distinguished. They were made the object of separate explanations, developed according to a logical principle of succession, and they laid the foundations for and developed the basic principles of Stoic doctrine. On the level of theoretical discourse, then, the parts of philosophy were in a sense external to one another, in accordance with the requirements of didactic exposition. Philosophy itself, however, is the exercise of wisdom; it is a unique act, renewed at each instant, and it may be just as well described as the exercise of logic, physics, or ethics, according to the subject-matter on which it is exercised, without its unity being in any way diminished. On this level, we are no longer concerned with theoretical logical - that is, the theory of correct reasoning - rather, we are concerned not to let ourselves be deceived in our everyday lives by false representations. We arc no longer concerned with theoretical physics - the theory of the origin and evolution of the cosmos

- we are concerned with being aware at every instant that we are parts of the cosmos, and that we must make our desires conform to this situation . We no longer do ethical theory - the definition and classification of virtues and duties - we simply act in an ethical way.

Concrete philosophical praxis requires that we always bear in mind the Stoics' fundamental dogmas. These dogmas were intended to constitute the basis for our rectitude of judgment, our attitude toward the cosmos, and the conduct we should adopt towards our fellow citizens within the city. Philosophy as it was lived and experienced thus implied continuous exercises of meditation and constant vigilance, in order to keep alive in one's mind the principles taught by theoretical discourse.

If we want to understand why Epictetus attaches so much importance to what he terms "the three areas of exercises," we shall have to bear in mind this distinction between theoretical philosophical discourse and concrete philosophy as it is lived and experienced. In the Discourses as reported by Arrian, these three areas are presented with such systematic rigor that we are justified in suspecting that this doctrine had an important role to play in Epictetus' theoretical teaching.

Epictetus bases his doctrine on the traditional Stoic distinction between things which depend on us and things which do not: "What depends on us is value-judgments, inclinations to act, desires, aversions, and, in a word, everything that is our doing. What does not depend on us is the body, wealth, glory, high political positions, and, in a word, everything that is not our own doing." 78 What depends u1,on us is t he nets of our own soul, hcc11u11c we 11rc

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able freely to choose them. What does not depend on us is those things that depend on the general course of nature and of fate. Among the acts of the soul which do depend on us, some correspond to the area of judgment and assent, others to the area of desire, and, finally, still others correspond to the area of inclinations to action.

For Epictetus, then, it is these three areas, acts of the soul, or aspects of

"that which depends on us" which define the three forms of philosophical exercises. By comparing the relevant passages in Epictetus' Discourses,19 we can present the theory of the three forms or areas of philosophical exercises as follows.

The first area is that of desire and aversion. People are unhappy because they desire things they may either lose or fail to obtain, and because they try to avoid misfortunes which are often inevitable. This happens because such desiderata as wealth and health, for example, do not depend on us. The discipline of desire consequently consists in accustoming ourselves to the gradual renunciation of such desires and aversions, so that, in the end, we shall desire only that which does depend on us - moral virtue - and shall also avoid only that which depends on us - moral evil. We are to regard everything which does not depend on us as indifferent; that is to say, we must not make any difference between such things. Rather, we must accept them all, willed as they are by universal nature. The discipline of desire concerns the passions or emotions ( pathe) which we feel as a result of what happens to us.

The second area of exercises is that of motivating inclinations, or action.

For Epictetus, this area is related first and foremost to human relationships within the city. It corresponds to what the Stoics traditionally called "the duties" (ta kathekonta): those actions which are appropriate to the inclinations of our nature. Duties are actions - they thus fall under the category of things which depend on us - bearing upon objects which do not depend on us - such as other people, politics, health, art, etc. As we have seen, such objects ought to be matters of indifference; yet, by dint of a reasonable justification, they can be considered as corresponding to that deeply-embedded instinct which impels rational human nature to act for its own conservation. Duties are thus actions "appropriate" to our rational nature, and they consist in placing ourselves in the service of the human community, in the form of the city/state and of the family.

The third area of exercises is that of assent (sunkatathesis). Epictetus urges us to criticize each representation ( phantasia) as it presents itself to us, and give our assent only to that which is "objective." In other words, we are to set aside all subjective value-judgments. Epictetus formulates the principle guiding this exercise as follows: "People are not troubled by things, but by their j udgements abo111 things. " 80

For Epk-u:tu11, these three areas (topoi) of exercise correspond to the t hree 1111pcL'IN 1 11' 11hil111111phy as it is lived and experienced , as opposed to

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the three parts of philosophical discourse. This becomes clear from a passage in the Discourses in which he criticizes pseudo-philosophers, who are content just to read theoretical discourses about philosophy. Here we can clearly see that the second and third areas correspond respectively to ethics and to dialectics. The connection between logic and the third of our topoi is particularly evident:

It is as if, in the area of the exercise of assent, we were surrounded by representations, some of them "objective" and others not, and we did not want to distinguish between them, but preferred to read treatises with titles like On Comprehension! How does this come about? The reason is that we have never carried out our reading or our writing in such a way that, when it comes to action, we could use the representations we receive in a way consonant with nature; instead, we arc content when we have learned what is said to us, and can explain it to others; when we can analyze syllogisms and examine hypothetical arguments.81

In this passage, Epictetus underlines the opposition between, on the one hand, theoretical logic, as it was set forth in treatises with titles like On Comprehension; and, on the other, what we might term "lived logic," or logic as applied to life, which consists in the discipline of assent, and the critique of those representations which actually do present themselves to us. In the rest of this passage, we find the same opposition between theoretical discourse and practical, "lived" exercises, this time with regard to the second area. Epictetus shows that the only justification for reading theoretical treatises like On Inclination or On Duties is so that, in concrete situations, we can act in conformity with mankind's rational nature.

In the tripartite division of philosophy,112 the areas of logic and ethics are followed by that of physics. Can physics, then, be made to correspond to the discipline of desire? It would seem as though the passage we have just quoted prohibits such an identification. When, in the context of the discipline of desire, Epictetus speaks of treatises entitled On Desire and Aversion, we have every reason to believe these were treatises relating to ethics. However, even though the abstract theory of "desire" as such, insofar as it is an act of the soul, pertains to the areas of ethics and psychology, the lived attitude which corresponds to the discipline of desire does indeed seem to be a kind of applied physics, which one lives and experiences in the manner of a spiritual exercise. On several occasions, Epictetus insists that the discipline of desire consists in "learning to desire that everything happen just the way it does happen." 83 We are to "keep our will in harmony with what happens," JH and to "be well-pleased with the divine government of things." Hl "If a good man could foresee the future, he would cooper11te with Nickness, death, and mutilation; for he would he awnrc lhnl thiK lml lll'cn ord11ined hy the univcrNal

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order of things, and that the whole is more important than its parts." 86 We have here a true case of physics lived and experienced as a spiritual exercise.

Since, in order to discipline their desires, people need to be intensely conscious of the fact that they are a part of the cosmos, they must replace each event within the perspective of universal nature.

Such, for Epictetus, is the practice and exercise of philosophy, and we find this fundamental scheme repeated throughout the Discourses. Epictetus'

disciple Arrian, who was responsible for the redaction of both the Discourses and the Manual, made no mistake in this regard, when he chose to group the sayings which make up the Manual according to the three disciplines or areas we have just distinguished. 87

3 Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus

It is fair to say that the essential substance of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations c.-omes from Epictetus. In the first place, it is probably from Epictetus that Marcus got the very idea of the literary genre of meditation by means of writing: "These are the kinds of things on which lovers of wisdom ought to meditate; they ought to write them down every day, and use them to train themselves." 811 "Let these thoughts be 'at hand' for you, day and night Write them down and re-read them; talk about them, both to yourself and with others." 119

The idea of dialogue with oneself had existed for a long time; one thinks of Homer's depiction of Odysseus admonishing himself: "Bear up, my heart." 90 The custom of writing down, for one's personal use, either one's own thoughts or the sayings one has read is also no doubt extremely old .

Nevertheless, we have every reason to believe that it was from Epictetus that Marcus derived the idea of this particular form of self-exhortation and conversation with oneself, bearing as it does upon the same rules of life and principles of action upon which Epictetus had advised his readers to meditate.

The object of Marcus' meditations and exercises was none other than Epictetus' three fundamental themes: the discipline of desire, the discipline of inclinations, and the discipline of judgment. This conceptual structure is peculiar to Epictetus, and is found nowhere else in the philosophical literature of antiquity.91 Moreover, in the course of a series of quotations from Epictetus, Marcus cites a fragment which clearly sets forth the three themes we have been examining:

What must be found is a method with regard to assent [to sugkatatit/1es-1hai ]. In the area [topos] of the inclinations [honnai ], we must keep vigilant our attentive faculty, so that these inclinations may operate with reserve:, in l hc 11crvicc of the community, and in a way corresponding to t he v11lur uf lhl'ir ohjcclN. Finally, when it comes to things that do not

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depend on us, we must abstain totally from desire [orekseos apekhesthai ]

and feel no aversion towards any of them.92

Additionally, Marcus repeatedly formulates the triple rule of life himself. We can easily recognize it in the following passages: What is enough for you?

- Your present value-judgement, so long as it is objective;

- The action you are accomplishing at the present moment, so long as it is done for the benefit of the human community;

- Your present inner disposition, as long as it rejoices in every event brought about by causes outside yoursclf.93

A rational nature is proceeding as it should if it fulfills the following conditions:

- If, in its representations [ phantasiai ], it does not give its assent

[sugkatatithemene] either to what is false, or to what is unclear;

- If it guides its inclinations [honnas] only towards those actions which serve the human community;

- If it has desire [orekseis] or aversion only for things that depend on us, while joyfully greeting everything allotted to it by universal nature.94

Wipe out your representations [ phantasian].

Check your inclinations [honnaij.

Extinguish your desire [oreksin].

Keep your directing principle [hegemonikon] under your control.95

On what, then, should we exert our efforts? Only this:

- correct intentions;

- actions [prakseis] carried out in the service of the community;

- speech [logos] which could never be used to deceive;

- an inner disposition [diathesis] which joyfully greets each event like something necessary and familiar, since it flows from so grand a principle, and so great a source.'16

The reader will perhaps have noticed that, although it is quite obvious that Marcus Aurelius took over his tripartite structure from Epictetus, there is nevertheless a difference in tone and emphasis in Marcus' presentation of it.

When, for instance, Marcus speaks of the discipline of desire, he does not, as Epictetus had done, insist on the necessity of desiring only those things which depend on us - that is, moral good so that our desires may not be frustrated.

-

Rather, Marcus, in n much more explicit way thlln EpictctuK, conceives of this exercise as putting our desires in harmony with the will of fate 1111d of

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1 97

universal reason. Its goal is to bring about within us an attitude of indifference to indifferent things; that is, whatever does not depend on us. For Marcus, much more than for Epictetus, the discipline of desire takes on the form of applied "physics," or physics transformed into a spiritual exercise.

The discipline of desire culminates in a joyful, loving satisfaction97 in the events willed by nature. But in order to achieve this state, we must totally change our way of looking at things. We must consider them from the point of view of universal nature, and this implies learning to recognize the chain of causes which produce each event. We are to consider each event as woven by destiny, and as flowing forth by natural necessity from the first causes. The discipline of desire thus obliges us to relocate the totality of human life within a coi.mic perspective, and become aware of the fact that we are a part of the world: "He who doesn't know what the world is doesn't know where he himself is, either. He who doesn't know for what purpose the world exists, doesn't know who he is himself. Whoever doesn't know the answer to one of these questions is unable to say for what purpose he himself exists." 98

In order to practice this kind of "physics," Marcus, as we have seen, tries to follow a rigorous method of definition,99 which consists in relocating all objects within the totality of the universe, and all events within the nexus of causes and effects. They are to be defined in and for themselves, and separated from the conventional, anthropomorphic representations mankind habitually makes of them.

Here we can perhaps glimpse in what way the three disciplines, like the three parts of philosophy, imply one another within the single act of philosophizing. The method of "physical" definition discussed by Marcus corresponds to the discipline of assent, which prescribes that we must give our assent only to those representations which are objective and freed from all subjective value-judgments.

Once prolonged experience has allowed us to come to know nature's ways and laws, "physics," when practiced as a spiritual exercise, leads us to

"familiarity" with nature.11lD Thanks to this familiarity, we can perceive the links between all phenomena which seem strange or repugnant to us, and between these phenomena and universal reason, the source from which they flow. From such a perspective, every event will seem to us beautiful and worthy of our affectionate assent. To be indifferent to indifferent things means to make no difference between them; in other words, to love them equally, just as nature does: " 'The earth loves the rain; she also loves the venerable Ether.'101 And the Universe, too, loves to produce all that must be produced.

Thus, I say to the Universe: 'I love along with you!' Isn't this, after all, the meaning of of the phrase, 'Such-and-such an event "loves" to happen?' " 102

When, in ancient Greek, one wished to say that something "usually occurs,"

m "iN lll'CUNtomcd to occur," n common idiom made it pm;siblc to sny the

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event "loves" to occur ( philei ginesthai). Here, Marcus gives us to understand that events literally "love" to happen. We are to "love" to see them happen, because universal nature "loves" to produce them.

In the last analysis, such an attitude of joyful consent to the world corresponds to an attitude of obedience to the divine will. This is why Marcus sometimes describes the discipline of desire as an invitation to "follow the gods" or "God," as in the following presentation of the three disciplines:

"Keep the daimon within you in a state of serenity; so that it may follow God in an appropriate way, neither saying anything contrary to the truth, nor doing anything contrary to justice." 103 In the formulation of the second theme, Epictetus placed more emphasis on the fact that our inclinations and actions must be related to our duties (kathekonta) toward our fellow-men. Marcus, by contrast, speaks more often about just actions, done in the service of the human community. As was the case with the first theme, the second theme takes on a strongly emotional tonality for Marcus: we must love other people with all our hearts, he writes,1�" for rational beings are not only parts of the same whole, but the limbs of the same body. Moreover, we arc to extend our love even toward those who commit injustices against us, bearing in mind that they belong to the same human race as we do, and that, if they sin, they do so involuntarily, and out of ignorance.105

Marcus differs the least from Epictetus in his presentation of the third theme, the discipline of assent. The discipline Marcus imposes on himself relates, however, not only to the inner logos - that is, to the assent we give to our representations (phantasia1) - but also to the outer logos; that is, our manner of expressing ourselves.1111� Herc, the fundamental virtue is that of truth, understood as rectitude of thought and speech. Lies, even when involuntary, arc the result of the deformation of our faculty of judgment.107

When formulating the triple rule of life, Marcus also likes to insist on the fact that we must concentrate on the prese111 moment: the present representation, the present action, and the present inner disposition (whether of desire or of aversion).

We find nothing of the sort in Epictetus, yet Marcus' attitude here is in complete accord with the fundamental Stoic attitude of attention (prosoche) as directed toward the present moment. 'Oii Nothing must escape the vigilance of consciousness: neither our relationship to destiny and the way of the world - this is the discipline of desire - nor our relationship with our fellow men (discipline of the active will), nor, finally, our relationship to ourselves (discipline of assent).

Elsewhere, Marcus links the three philosophical exercises to their corresponding virtues. We thus have the following schema: Discipline

Corresponding virtue

Of desire

Temperance (sophro�J'1fe); absence of worries (al<1rtu�ia) Of inclinations

Justice (dikaitJ�J'llt')

Of assent

Truth (11/etl1ei<1); 11hi;cncc of hurry (t1prt1ptosi11).

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1 99

Marcus enumerates the three virtues corresponding to the three disciplines in the following terms: "Absence of hurry, love of our fellow-men, obedience to the gods." 109

This vocabulary is totally absent from Epictetus' Discourses. How are we to explain these differences in the way Marcus and Epictetus present the three fundamental exercises of philosophy?

In the first place, it seems certain that Marcus possessed more information about Epictetus' teachings than we do today. In the first book of his Meditations,1 10 Marcus tells us that he came to know the writings of Epictetus thanks to Quintus Junius Rusticus, a statesman who had taught Marcus the fundamentals of Stoic doctrine before going on to become one of his counsellors. Marcus states that Rusticus loaned him his personal copy of Epictetus' hypomnemata; that is, a book of notes taken down at his classes.

This statement can be interpreted in two ways:

The book in question could be a copy of the work by Arrian. In the prefatory letter he placed at the beginning of his edition of Epictetus'

Discourses, Arrian himself describes his work as a collection of hypomnemata: Whatever I heard him say, I tried to write down, using his very words as far as possible, so that I should have in the future some "notes intended to help me remember" [hypomnemata] of his thought and his frankness. As was to be expected, these notes often have the appearance of an improvised, spontaneous conversation between two men, not such as one would write if he was expecting them to be read one day. 11 1

Now, Arrian had come to attend the classes o f Epictetus sometime between AD 107 and 1 09. His prefatory letter to Lucius Gellius was probably written after Epictetus' death, some time between 1 25 and 1 30, and the Discourses themselves were published ca. AD 1 30. Aulus Gellius recountsl lZ

that, in the year he spent studying at Athens - around AD 1 40 he had

-

been present at a discussion in the course of which the famous millionaire Herod Atticus had brought to him from a library a copy of what Gellius refers to as the dissertationes of Epictetus, arrangei:l (digestae) by Arrian. He also tells how, on the way from Cassiopeia to Brindisium, he came across a philosopher who had a copy of the same work in his baggage. This shows that is was at least possible that Marcus read a copy of this book, which had been loaned to him by Rusticus.

2 We might also consider another suggestion, which has already been proposed by Farquharson. What Rusticus loaned to Marcus, on this hypothesis, would have been Rusticus' own notes, which he himself had taken durinic Epictetus' lectures. From the chronological point of view, if we Rl'1111t 1 h11 t l�:11i,�1ct us died between AD 1 25 and 1 30, and if Rusticus was

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born at the beginning of the second century, as we are entitled to deduce from his official cursus, it would then be entirely possible for Rustious to have been Epictetus' student. Moreover, it is hard to imagine that there was no copy of Epictetus' Discourses available in Rome around AD 145-6, even though the work had been widely diffused in Greece by 140. Besides, Marcus represents Rusticus' gift as something exceptional; we are thus entitled to wonder if the gift may not, after all, have been Rusticus' own notes. It is, moreover, more or less certain that Marcus had read Arrian's work, since the Meditations are full of literal citations taken from it.

Whether Marcus had read only the Discourses as arranged by Arrian, or whether he had read Rusticus' notes as well, one thing is beyond doubt: Marcus was familiar with more texts concerning Epictetus' teaching than we are today. We possess only a part of Arrian's work; and if Rusticus' notes did in fact exist, they may well have revealed to Marcus some aspects of Epictetus' teachings which had not been noted down by Arrian.

It is thanks to Marcus that we know some otherwise unknown fragments of Epictetus, such as the following: "You are a little soul, bearing the weight of a dead body." 113 This fragment also goes to show that "pessimistic"

features are not exclusively characteristic of Marcus Aurelius, as has often been claimed. Thus, we may suppose that the differences in presentation of the three exercises which we find in Marcus and in the extant works of Epictetus can be explainc:d by the influence of passages of Epictetus which were known to Marcus, but subsequently were lost.

Finally, we must not forget that there is a profound difference between the literary genre of Epictetus' Discourses and Marcus Aurelius' Meditations.

Arrian's work, even if it was more extensively rearranged than its author is willing to admit in his preface, is quite literally a series of Discourses given before an audience. Their subject-matter was inspired by specific circumstances: questions directed to the master, or visits of people from outside the school. The argumentation was adapt<.>d to the capacities of the audience, and its goal was to persuade them.

By contrast, Marcus wa"> alone with himself. For my part, I cannot discern in the Meditations the hesitations, contradictions, and strugglings of a man abandoned to his solitude, which some scholars have thought to detect in them. 1 1� On the contrary, one is rather astounded by the firmness of thought and technical nature of the philosophical vocabulary one encounters from beginning to end of the Meditations. Everything points to the conclusion that either Marcus had perfectly assimilated the teachings of Rusticus and Epictetus, or else that he always had Epictetus' own texts at hand, for the practice of his meditation exercises. One is also astonished, moreover, by the extraordinary literary quality of the majority of the Medittitions. M11rcus'

former teacher of rhetoric, Fmn10, had tnuicht him how tu finely chiHd his

Marcus Aurelius

20 1

sentences, and Marcus always sought to give to his thoughts the clarity, rigor, and striking formulations necessary to give them the sought-after therapeutical and psychagogic effect. After all, it is not enough merely to repeat some rational principle to oneself, in order to be persuaded of it; 1 15 everything depends on how you formulate it. The Meditations have the appearance of variations, sometimes executed with supreme virtuosity, on a small number of fundamental themes; indeed, they are variations almost exclusively on the three themes first taken up by Epictetus. In some passages, such as those we have seen cited above, the triple schema, enunciating the three philosophical exercises we must practice at each instant, is presented in its entirety, with only some slight variations. Elsewhere, only two of the themes, or even a single one, are presented.

As for the variations: sometimes they develop one or another of the three themes, at other times they set forth motifs associated with these principal themes. For instance, under the heading of the discipline of desire, we are presented with the theme of destiny weaving for us in advance all that is going to happen to us;1 16

or a discussion of the "physical" definition of objects;117 the natural character of the accessory phenomena which accompany natural phenomena;1 18 or the theme of death. 1 19 Under the heading of the second discipline, that of inclinations, we find the associated themes of love for others,120 or of rational action. 121

Thus Marcus, in the course of his solitary meditations, was led to orchestrate and make explicit everything that was implied by the doctrine of the three disciplines as proposed by Epictetus. Often, Marcus does little more than expand upon brief notes which were already sketched in the Discourses arranged by Arrian : this is the case for the theme of joyous satisfaction with the events willed by universal reason, for example, or with the theme of obedience to the gods. 122

To conclude: each time Marcus wrote down one of his Meditatiom, he knew exactly what he was doing: he was exhorting himself to practice one of the disciplines: either that of desire, of action, or of assent. At the same time, he was exhorting himself to practice philosophy itself, in its divisions of physics, ethics, and logic. 123

Perhaps now we are in a better position to understand what it is that gives Marcus Aurelius' Meditations the fascinating power� they have exerted over generations of readers. It is precisely the fact that we have the feeling of witnessing the practice of spiritual exercises - captured live, so to speak.

There have been a great many preachers, theoreticians, spiritual directors, and censors in the history of world literature. Yet it is extremely rare to have the chance to see someone in the process of training himself to be a human being:

"When you have trouble getting up in the morning, let this thought be in your mind: I'm waking up in order to do a man's work." 124

We have already stressed that Marcus seldom seems to hesitate, stumble, or foci his way as he practices exercises which follow the directions Epictetus had skctclml in 1ulv11ncc so precisely. Nonetheless, we feel a quite particular

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emotion as we catch a person in the process of doing what we are all trying to do: to give a meaning to our life, to strive to live in a state of perfect awareness and to give each of life's instants its full value. To be sure, Marcus is talking to himself, but we still get the impression that he is talking to each one of us as well.

NOTES

[Ernest Renan ( 1 823-92) dominated French religious studies in the nineteenth century, not without provoking occasional scandalous controversies. His Marc Aurilt was published in 1882. - Trans.)

2 E.R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxitty, Cambridge 1 965, p. 29, n. 1 , with reference to Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8, 1, I ; 10, 8, 1-2; 1 1 , 1 8, S; S, 10, l .

3 Dio Cassius, 7 1 , 36, l .

4 Dodds, Pagan and Christian, p . 29, n . I .

S R. Dailly and H . van Effenterre, "Le cas Marc AurCle. Essai de psychosomatique historique,'' Rtvue dts Etwits Ancitnnts S6 ( 19S4), pp. 347-6S.

6 Dio Cassius, 7 1 , 6, 4.

7 Dailly and Effenterre, "Le cas Marc Auri:le," p. 3S4.

8 Ibid, p. 3SS.

9 T.W. Africa, The opium addiction

"

of Marcus Aurelius,'' Journal of the History

of Ideas ( Jan.-Mar. 1961), pp. 97-102.

10 Dio Cassius, Roman Histories, 71, 6, 4.

1 1 Galen, Works, vol. 14, p. 3 Kilhn.

12 Africa, "Opium addiction," p. 1 0 1 .

1 3 Thomas De Quincey, Conji:ssions of an English Opi11m-eater, 1st edn in London Maga:z:int, Sept./Oct. 1 82 1 -Dec. 1822, repr. New York 19SO, p. 60.

1 4 Marcus Aurelius, Mtditations, 4, 43 .

I S Ibid, S, 23.

16 Seneca, letttr, 99.

17 Seneca, letter, 49, 3.

1 8 Leonidas of Tarentum, in Tl1t Greek Anthology, 7, 472, vol. 2 Paton.

19 SVF vol. 2, �762 (= Plutarch, On Common Conceptions, 1 083 D): "substance . . .

always in flux and in motion."

20 Plato, Cratylus, 402a; cf. A.A. Long, "Heraclcitus and Stoicism,'' in Philosophia (Academy of Athens) S-6 ( 1 975-6).

21 Plutarch, On tht Obsoltsunct of Oracles, 432a.

22 Ovid, Mttamorphosts, I S, 1 79.

23 On the view from on high, see below.

24 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, S, 24.

2S Ibid, 1 2, 24.

26 Ibid, 9, 32.

27 Ibid, 1 1 , I , 3.

28 Ibid, 6, 36, I .

Marcus Aurelius

203

29 Ibid, 1 2, 32.

30 See above.

31 Plato, Republic, 486a.

32 Sec below.

33 Philo Judaeus, On lhe Special UJl)S, 3, 1-2.

34 Maximus of Tyre, 22, 6, p. 91 Dilbner.

35 Ovid, Metamorphoses, J S, 147.

36 For instance, Seneca, Natural Questions, "Preface," 7-1 3, quoted above.

37 See above.

38 Cicero, Scipio 's Dream, 3, 1 6ff. Cf. the remarks on this passage by A.-J.

Festugiere, La revelation d'Hmnis Trismegiste, vol. 2, Paris 1949, pp. 44 1 ff.

39 Blaise Pascal, Pensees, Section 2, �72, p. 347 Brunschvicg. Cf. the quotation from Ernest Renan, below.

40 [The word "nausea" is here used in the Sartrean sense of sudden, almost physical disgust before the absurd meaninglessness oflife; cf. Jean-Paul Sartre, La Nausee, Paris 1938. - Trans.]

41 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8, 24.

42 Ibid, 2, 2.

43 Ibid, 6, 13.

44 Ibid, S, 33, 2.

45 Ibid, 10, 10.

46 Ibid, 1 0, 19.

47 Ibid, 4, 48, 3.

48 Ibid, 10, 27.

49 Ibid, 6, 46.

SO Ibid, 4, 32.

51 Ibid, 10, 1 8; 3 1 .

52 Ibid, S, 33.

53 Ibid, 3, 10.

54 Ibid, 9, 30.

55' Ibid, 7, 2 1 .

56 Epictetus, Discourses, 4, 1 , 143.

57 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 12, 2, 3.

58 Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, 3, 944-9.

59 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4, 1 1 , 1-2.

60 [In Stoic epistemology, a phantasia leataleplilee was a 'sense-presentation so clear and irrefutable that it entailed immediate assent. Since the correspondence between representations and objects could not otherwise be verified, it was thus the Stoics' only criterion of judgment between truth and falsehood. - Trans.]

61 Epictetus, Discourses, 3, 8, 4.

62 Ibid.

63 E.g. R.B. Rutherford, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: A Study, Oxford 1989, p. 243.

64 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9, 36.

65 Ibid, 8, 24, cited above., n. 41.

M Sc:m:co, l.rtt,.,. to /,11rili11s, 1 07, 2 .

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Figures

67 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6, 36, 2.

68 Ibid, 6, l; 6, S.

69 Ibid, 3, 2.

70 Cf. above.

71 Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, 1 2, I .

72 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8, 24.

73 Cf. above.

74 Ibid, 9, l, 9.

75 Cf. I. Hadot, Seneca und die griectisch-romische Tradition der Seelenleitung, Berlin 1 969, pp. 56--7.

76 Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, 1 9, I , 1 4.

77 Cf. below.

78 Epictetus, Manual, I, I .

79 Cf. esp. Epictetus, Discourses, I , 4, 1 1 ; 3 , 2 , 1 ; 3 , 1 2, I .

80 Epictetus, Manual, S .

8 1 Epictetus, Discourses, 4 , 3 , 13ff.

82 [On the tripartite division of philosophy in ant1qutty, cf. P. Hadot, "La mi:taphysique du Porphyrc," in Porphyre (= Entreticns Hardt sur l'Antiquiti: Classique 1 2), Vandoeuvrcs/Geneva 1 966; Hadot, "La division des parties de la philosophic dans l'Antiquite,'' Museum Helevetfrum 36 (1 979), pp. 201-23.

- Trans.]

83 Epictetus, Discourses, I, 1 2, I S.

84 Ibid, I, 1 2, 1 7.

85 Ibid, I, 1 2, 8.

86 Ibid, 2, 10, S.

87 This was already noticed by M. Pohlenz, Die Stoa. Geschichtt einer geistigen Be111egung, 1948-9; Sth edn, 2 vols, Gt;ttingcn 1978-80, vol. 2, p. 162.

88 Epictetus, Discourses, I, I, 25.

89 Ibid, 3, 24, 103. On the importance of having memorable sayings "at hand"

(procheiron), see above.

90 Homer, Odyssey, 20, 18-23.

91 The resemblances which have been proposed between Epictetus and Panaitios, Eudorus, and Seneca (cf. Pohlenz, Die Stoa, vol. 2, p. 162) are not very convincing.

92 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 1 1 , 37.

93 Ibid, 9, 36; cf. above. Cf. also ibid, 7, 54, quoted above.

94 Ibid, 8, 7.

95 Ibid, 9, 7.

96 Ibid, 4, 33.

97 Euarestein. The same term is used by Epictetus; cf. Discourses, I, 1 2, 8.

98 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8, 52.

99 Ibid, 3, 1 1 .

1 00 Cf. ibid, 4, 33; 3, 2, 6; 4, 44.

101 [An adaptation of Euripides, fr. 898 Nauck, 2nd edn. The same quotation had already been used by Aristotle in his discussion of friendship at Nicomacheari Ethics, 8, 2, l l S5a32ff. - Trans.]

1 02 Ibid, 1 0, 2 1 .

Marcus Aurelius

205

103 Ibid, 3, 1 6, 2.

104 Ibid, 7, 1 3 .

105 Ibid, 7 , 22.

1 06 [For the Stoics, there was a fundamental identity between the "inner [endiathetos]

logos," or thought, and the "outer [prophorikos] logos," or speech. - Trans.]

1 07 Ibid, 9, l , 2-4.

108 On the concept of prosoche, cf. above.

109 Meditations, 3, 9.

1 10 Ibid., I, 7, 3.

1 1 1 Arrian, ltller to Lucius Gellius, in Epictetus, Discourses, vol. I, p. 4, 2-4 Oldfather.

1 12 Aulus Gellius, Allie Nights, I, 2.

l l3 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4, 41 = Epictetus fr. 26, vol. 2, p. 47 1 Oldfather.

1 1 4 Cf., for example, Rutherford, Meditations, p. 229.

1 1 5 Cf. M. Alexandre, "Le travail de la sentence chez Marc Aurele: philosophic et rhetorique," in Formes breves (= Publications de la Faculte des Lettres et des Langues de l'Universite de Poitiers 3), Poitiers 1 979.

1 16 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 3, 4, 5; 3, 1 1 , 4; 3, 1 6, 3; 4, 26, 4. In this and in the following notes, I have given only the minimum number of examples, so as not to strain the reader's patience with an excess of tedious references.

1 17 Ibid, 3, I I ; 8, 6; 1 1 , 2.

1 18 Ibid, 3, 2; 4, 36, 2.

1 19 Ibid, 2, 12, 3; 2, 14; 2, 17, 4-5; 3, 3.

1 20 Ibid, 7, 1 3, 3; 7, 22.

121 Ibid, 2, 1 6, 6; 12, 20.

1 22 Cf. ibid, 1, 1 2, 8.

1 23 Cf. ibid, 8, 1 3 .

1 24 Ibid, 5, 1 .

7

Reflections on the Idea of the

"Cultivation of the Self"

In his preface to The Use of Pleasure, as well as in a chapter of The Care of the Self,1 Michel Foucault made mention of.my article 'Exercices spiritucls', the first version of which dates back to 1976.2 Foucault seems to have been particularly interested by the following points, which I developed in this article: the description of ancient philosophy as an art, style, or way of life; the attempt I made to explain how modern philosophy had forgotten this tradition, and had become an almost entirely theoretical discourse; and the idea I sketched out in the article, and have developed more fully above, that Christianity had taken over as its own certain techniques of spiritual exercises, as they had already been practiced in antiquity.

Here, I should like to offer a few remarks with a view to delineating the differences of interpretation, and in the last analysis of philosophical choice, which separate us, above and beyond our points of agreement. These differences could have provided the substance for a dialogue between us, which, unfortunately, was interrupted all too soon by Foucault's premature death.

In The Care of the Self, Foucault meticulously describes what he terms the

" practices of the self" (pratiques de soi), recommended in antiquity by Stoic philosophers. These include the care of one's self, which can only be carried out under the direction of a spiritual guide; the attention paid to the body and the soul which the "care of the self" implies; exercises of abstinence; examination of the conscience; the filtering of representations; and, finally, the conversion toward and possession of the self. M. Foucault conceives of these practices as "arts of existence" and "techniques of the self. "

I t i s quite true that, i n this connection, the ancients d i d speak o f a n "art of living. " It seems to me, however, that the description M . Foucault !(ives of what I h11d termed "spirit ual exercises," anti which he prcfc1�11 111 cilll

Reflections on the Idea of the "Cultivation of the Self"

207

"techniques of the self," is precisely focused far too much on the "self," or at least on a specific conception of the self.

In particular, Foucault presents Greco-Roman ethics as an ethics of the pleasure one takes in oneself: "Access to the self is liable to replace this kind of violent, uncertain, and temporary pleasures with a form of pleasure one takes in oneself, serenely and forever." 3 To illustrate his point, Foucault cites Seneca's twenty-third Letter, where he speaks of the joy one can find within oneself, and specifically within the best portion of oneself. In fact, however, I must say that there is a great deal of inexactitude in this way of presenting the matter. In Letter 23, Seneca explicitly opposes voluptas and gaudium - pleasure and joy - and one cannot, therefore, speak of

"another form of pleasure," as does Foucault (Care of the Self, p. 83) when talking about joy. This is not just a quibble over words, although the Stoics did attach a great deal of importance to words, and carefully distinguished between hedone - "pleasure" - and eupatheia "joy".4 No,

-

this is no mere question of vocabulary. If the Stoics insist on the word gaudimn/"joy," it is precisely because they refuse to introduce the principle of pleasure into moral life. For them, happiness does not consist in pleasure, but in virtue itself, which is its own reward. Long before Kant, the Stoics strove jealously to preserve the purity of intention of the moral consciousness.

Secondly and most importantly, it is not the case that the Stoic finds his joy in his "self;" rather, as Seneca says, he finds it "in the best portion of the self," in "the true good." 5 Joy is to be found "in the conscience turned towards the good; in intentions which have no other object than virtue; in just actions." 6 Joy can be found in what Seneca calls "perfect reason" 7 (that is to say, in divine reason)8 since for him, human reason is nothing other than reason capable of being made perfect. The "best portion of oneself," 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 a part of universal reason.

In fact, the goal of Stoic exercises is to go beyond the self, and think and act in unison with universal reason. The three exercises described by Marcus Aurelius,9 following Epictetus, are highly significant in this regard. As we saw above, they are as follows:

1 to judge objectively, in accordance with inner reason; 2 to act in accordance with the reason which all human beings have in common; and

3 to accept the destiny imposed upon us by cosmic reason. For the Stoics, there is only one single reason at work here, and this reason is man's true Relf.

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Figures

I can well understand Foucault's motives for giving short shrift to these aspects, of which he was perfectly aware. His description of the practices of the self - like, moreover, my description of spiritual exercises - is not merely an historical study, but rather a tacit attempt to offer contemporary mankind a model of life, which Foucault calls "an aesthetics of existence." Now, according to a more or less universal tendency of modern thought, which is perhaps more instinctive than reflective, the ideas of "universal reason" and

"universal nature" do not have much meaning any more. It was therefore convenient to "bracket" them.

For the moment, then, let us say that, from an historical point of view, it seems difficult to accept that the philosophical practice of the Stoics and Platonists was nothing but a relationship to one's self, a culture of the self, or a pleasure taken in oneself. The psychic content of these exercises seems to me to be something else entirely. In my view, the feeling of belonging to a whole is an essential element: belonging, that is, both to the whole constituted by the human community, and to that constituted by the cosmic whole.

Seneca sums it up in four words: Toti se inserens mundo,10 "Plunging oneself into the totality of the world." In his adminble Anthropo/ogie philosophique, 1 1

Groethuysen pointed out the importance o f this fundamental point. Such a cosmic perspective radically transforms the feeling one has of oneself.

Oddly, Foucault does not have much to say 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, for it cannot found itself upon nature, which according to its views is the product of chance. It would seem, therefore, to be an ethics perfectly suited to the modern mentality. Perhaps the reason for this silence is to be found in the fact that it is rather difficult to integrate Epicurean hedonism into the overall schema of the use of pleasures proposed by M. Foucault. Be this as it may, the Epicureans did make use of spiritual exercises, for instance the examination of conscience. As we have said, however, these practices are not based on the norms of nature or universal reason, because for the Epicureans the formation of the world is the result of mere chance. Nevertheless, here again, this spiritual exercise cannot be defined simply as culture of the self, a relationship of the self to the self, or pleasure that can be found in one's own self. The Epicurean was not afraid to admit that he needed other things besides himself in order 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. Finally, he needed the imaginative contemplation of an infinite number of universes in the infinite void, in order to experience what Lucretius calls tlivi11a vo/uptt1s et lwm1r. MctroJorus, n disciple of Epicurm1 givcK n good nccmml uf 1 hc 1':tlicurcnn 1;ngc'li immcrKion

,

Reflections on the Idea of the ' "Cultivation of the Self"

209

in the cosmos: "Remember that, although born mortal with a limited life-span, you have risen in thought as far as the eternity and infinity of things, and that you have seen everything that has been, and everything that shall be." 12 In Epicureanism, there is an extraordinary reversal of perspective.

Precisely because existence seems to the Epicurean to be pure chance, inexorably unique, he greets life like a kind of miracle, a gratuitous, unexpected gift of nature, and existence for him is a wonderful celebration.

Let us consider another example to illustrate the differences between our interpretations of the "care of the self." In an interesting article entitled

"Ecriture de soi," 13 M. Foucault took as his point of departure a remarkable text concerning the therapeutic value of writing, which I had studied in Exercices spirituels. 14 According to this text, St Antony used to advise his disciples to write down their actions and the emotions of their souls, as if they were going to make them known to others. "Let writing take the place of the eyes of other people," Antony used to say . This anecdote leads M. Foucault to reflect on the various forms adopted in antiquity by what he calls the

"writing of the self." In particular, he examines the literary genre of hypomnemata, which one could translate as "spiritual notebooks," in which one writes down other people's thoughts, which may serve for the edification of the person writing them down. Foucault15 describes the goal of this exercise in the following terms: the point is to "capture what-has-already-been-said

[capter le dijti-dit]," and to "collect what one may have heard or read, with a view to nothing less than the constitution of the self." He then asks himself,

"How can we be placed in the presence of our selves with the help of ageless discourses, picked up from any old place?" And he replies as follows: "this exercise was supposed to allow one to turn back towards the past. The contribution of the hypomnemala is one of the means by which one detaches the soul from worries about the future, in order to inflect it toward meditation on the past. " Both in Epicurean and in Stoic ethics, Foucault thinks he perceives the refusal of a mental attitude directed toward the future, and the tendency to accord a positive value to the possession of a past which one can enjoy autonomously and without worries.

It seems to me that this is a mistaken interpretation. It is true that the Epicureans - and on{v the Epicureans - did consider the memory of pleasant moments in the past as one of the principal sources of pleasure, but this has nothing to do with the meditation on "what-has-already-been-said" practiced in hypomnemala. Rather, as we saw above, 16 Stoics and Epicureans had in common an attitude which consisted in liberating oneself not only from worries about the future, but also from the burden of the past, in order to concentrate on the present moment; in order either to enjoy it, or to act within it. From this point of view, neither the Stoics nor even the Epicureans accorded a positive value to the past. The fundamental philosophic attitude consisted in li1�l1tR ;,, tht flrtsmt, and in possessing not the past, but the

2 1 0

Figures

present. That the Epicureans also attached a great deal of importance to the thoughts formulated by their predecessors is a wholly different matter. But although hypomnemata deal with what has already been said, they do not deal with just anything "already said," the only merit of which would be that it is a part of the past. Rather, it is because one recognizes in this "thing already said" - which usually consisted in the dogmas of the school's founding members - that which reason itself has to say to the present. It is because one recognizes, in the dogmas of Epicurus or Chrysippus, an ever-present value, precisely because they are the very expression of reason. In other words, when one writes or notes something down, it is not an alien thought one is making one's own. Rather, one is utilizing formulae considered as apt to actualize what is already present within the reason of the person writing, and bring it to life.

According to M. Foucault, this method made a deliberate attempt to be eclectic, and therefore implied a personal choice; this then explains the

"constitution of the self."

Writing as a personal exercise, done by oneself and for oneself, is an art of disparate truth; more precisely, it is a way of combining the traditional authority of what has already been said, with the singularity of the truth which asserts itself in it, and the particularity of the circumstances which determine its utilization.

In fact, however, personal choice is not to be found in eclecticism, at least for the Stoics and Epicureans. Eclecticism is only used for converting beginners.

At that stage, anything goes. For instance, Foucault finds an example of eclecticism in the Letters to Lucilius, in which the Stoic Seneca quotes sayings of Epicurus. The goal of these letters, however, is to convert Lucilius, and to cause him to begin to lead a moral life. The utilization of Epicurus appears only in the first Letters, and soon disappears. 17 On the contrary, personal choice in fact intervenes only when' one adheres exclusively to a precise form of life, be it Stoicism or Epicureanism, considered as in conformity with reason. It is only in the New Academy - in the person of Cicero, for instance

- that a personal choice is made according to what reason considers as most likely at a given moment.

It is thus not the case, as Foucault maintains,18 that the individual forges a spiritual identity for himself by writing down and re-reading disparate thoughts. In the first place, as we have seen, these thoughts are not disparate, but chosen because of their coherence. Secondly, and most importantly, the point is not to forge oneself a spiritual identity by writing, but rather to liberate oneself from one's individuality, in order to raise oneself up to universality. It is thus incorrect to speak of "writing of' the 11el f": not only is it not the case t hat one 11write11 onc11t�lf," hut wh111 iN more, it iN not t he t�llsc

Reflections on the Idea of the "Cultivation of the Self"

2 1 1

that writing constitutes the self. Writing, like the other spiritual exercises, changes the level of the self. and universalizes it. The miracle of this exercise, carried out in solitude, is that it allows its practitioner to accede to the universality of reason within the confines of space and time.

For the monk Antony, the therapeutic value of writing consisted precisely in its universalizing power. Writing, says Antony, takes the place of other people's eyes. A person writing feels he is being watched; he is no longer alone, but is a part of the silently present human community. When one formulates one's personal acts in writing, one is taken up by the machinery of reason, logic, and universality. What was confused and subjective becomes thereby objective.

To summarize: what Foucault calls "practices of the selr' do indeed correspond, for the Platonists as well as for the Stoics, to a movement of conversion toward 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. I concur on all these points. 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, 19 one is then practicing "physics" as a spiritual exercise.

In this way, one identifies oneself with an "Other": nature, or universal reason, as it is present within each individual. This implies a radical transformation of perspective, and contains a universalist, cosmic dimension, upon which, it seems to me, M. FoU<.-ault did not sufficiently insist.

lnteriorization is a going beyond oneself; it is universalization.

The preceding remarks are not intended to be relevant only to an historical analysis of ancient philosophy. They are also an attempt at defining an ethical model which modern man can discover in antiquity. 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. This, however, deserves a more attentive study than I am able to devote to it here. Personally, I believe firmly - albeit perhaps naively - that it is possible for modern man to l i ve, nor ns a Rage (.ffJphos) - most of the ancients did not hold this to be possible hut ''" 11 1m1cti1ioner of t he ever-fragile e.\'ercisc of wisdom. This can

2 1 2

Figures

be attempted, starting out from the lived experience of the concrete, living, and perceiving subject, under the triple form defined, as we saw above, by Marcus Aurelius:

1 as an effort to practice objectivity of judgment; 2 as an effort to live according to justice, in the service of the human community; and

3 as an effort to become aware of our situation as a part of the universe. Such an exercise of wisdom will thus be an attempt to render oneself open to the universal.

More specifically, I think modern man can practice the spiritual exercises of antiquity, at the same time separating them from the philosophical or mythic discourse which came along with them. The same spiritual exercise can, in fact, be justified by extremely diverse philosophical discourses. These latter are nothing but clumsy attempts, coming after the fact, to describe and justify inner experiences whose existential density is not, in the last analysis, susceptible of any attempt at theorization or systemati7.ation. Stoics and Epicureans, for example -

for completely different reasons - urged their disciples to concentrate their attention on the present moment, and free themselves from worries about the future as well as the burden of the past Whoever concretely practices this exercise, however, sees the universe with new eyes, as if he were seeing it for the first time. In the enjoyment of the pure present, he discovers the mystery and splendor of existence. At such moments, as Nietzsche said,20 we say yes "not only to ourselves, but to all existence." It is therefore not necessary, in order to practice these exercises, to believe in the Stoics' nature or universal reason. Rather, as one practices them, one lives concretely according to reason. In the words of Marcus Aurelius:21 "Although everything happens at random, don't you, too, act at random." In this way, we <.-an accede concretely to the universality of the cosmic perspective, and the wonderful mystery of the presence of the universe.

NOTES

M. Foucault, The Care of tl1e Self (= History of Sexuali�y, vol. 3), trans. Robert Hurley, New York 1 986. [References are to the French edition, Le Souci de soi, Paris 1984 - Trans.]

2 Am1uaire de la 5' Section de /'Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes, 1975-6.

3 Foucault, Souci, pp. 83--4.

4 We find this distinction again in Plotinus and in Bergson, the latter linking together joy and creation; cf. Henri Bergson, L 'E11ergir spiri111elle, 1 4th c<ln, P11ris 1 930, p. 24.

5 Scncc11, Ll'llrr, 2.l, (),

Reflections on the Idea of the "Cultivation of the Self"

213

6 Ibid, 23, 7.

7 Seneca, Letter, 1 24, 23.

8 Seneca, Letter, 92, 27.

9 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7, 54; 9, 6; 8, 7.

10 Seneca, Letter, 46, 6.

1 1 B. Groethuysen, Anthropo/ogie philosophique, Paris 1952, repr. 1980, p. 80.

12 Cf. above.

13 ["Writing of the self"; M. Foucault, "L'ecriturc de soi," Corps ecrit 5 ( 1983), pp.

3-23 - Trans.]

14 Cf. above.

1 5 Art. cit., p. 8.

16 Above.

17 Cf. I. Hadot, "Epicure et l'enseignement philosophique hellenique et romain,"

in Actes du Ville Congres Bude, Paris 1969, p. 35 1 .

1 8 Loe. cit., pp. 1 1-13.

19 Cf. above.

ZO Reference [?]

Zl Marcus Aurelius, Meditatiom, 10, 28, 3.

Part IV

Them es

8

"Only the Present is our Happiness": The Value of the Present Instant in

Goethe and in Ancient Philosophy

"Then the spirit looks neither ahead nor behind. Only the present is our happiness." 1 In this verse from Goethe's Set'ond Fa11st, we find an expression of the art of concentrating on and recognizing the value of the present instant. It corresponds to an experience of time which was lived with particular intensity in such ancient philosophies as Epicureanism and Stoicism, and in what follows we shall be especially concerned with this type of experience. We ought not, however, to forget the literary context in which these lines arc spoken, the meaning they take on within the context of the Second Faw;/, and, more generally, within the work of Goethe. In the proces.o;, we will find that Goethe himself is a remarkable witness for the type of experience we have mentioned.

The verses quoted mark one of the climaxes of the Second Fa11s1; a moment when Faust seems to reach the culminating point of his "quest for the highest existencc." 2

Beside him, on the throne which he has had built for her, sits Helen, whom he had evoked in the first act, after a terrifying journey to the . realm of the Mothers, in order to amuse the emperor; but had since fallen hopelessly in love with her: Has the Source of Beauty, overflowing its banks, Flowed into the deepest recesses of my being? . . .

To you I dedicate the stirring of all strength, The essence too of passion;

To you, affection, love, worship, and madness.3

It is llcll�n for whom he has searched throughout the second act, throughout 1111 l hl' 111y1 hk11I formN of clntisical Green�. I le has spoken of her with 1hc

2 1 8

Themes

centaur Chiron, and with Manto the Sibyl, and finally, it is she who, in the third act, has come to take refuge in the medieval fortress -

perhaps Mistra in the Peloponnese - of which he appears as the lord and master.

It is then that the extraordinary encounter takes place between Faust and Helen; Faust, who, although he appears in the guise of a medieval knight, is really the personification of modern man, and Helen, who, although she is evoked in the form of the heroine of the Trojan War, is, in fact, the figure of beauty itself, and in the last analysis of the beauty of nature.

With consummate mastery, Goethe has succeeded in bringing these figures and symbols to life, in such a way that the encounter between Faust and Helen is as highly-charged with emotion as the meeting between two lovers, as laden with historical significance as the meeting between two epochs, and as fu ll of meaning as the encounter of a human being with his destiny.

The choice of poetic form is used very skillfully to represent both the dialogue of the two lovers and the encounter between two historical epochs.

Since the beginning of the third act, 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 antistrophc. Now, however, at the moment when Helen meets Faust and hears the watchman Lynccus speak in rhymed distichs, she is astonished and charmed by this unknown poetic form: No sooner has one word struck the car

Than another comes to caress its predccessor.4

The birth of Helen's love for Faust will, moreover, express itself in the same rhymed distichs, which Faust begins and Helen finishes, inventing the rhyme each time. As she learns this new poetic form, Helen learns, as Phorkyas says, to spell out the alphabet of love.; Helen begins: Tell me, then, how can I, too, speak so prettily?

"That's easy enough," replies Faust;

It must come from the heart,

And when one's breast with longing overflows,

One looks around, and asks -

llelt'n:

who sh11ll enjoy ii w ilh us.

"Only the Present is our Happiness "

219

Faust begins again:

Now the spirit looks not forward, nor behind

Only the present -

Helen:

is our happiness.

Faust: It is our treasure, our highest prize, our possession and our pledge.

But who confirms it?

Helen:

My hand.6

The love duet ends, for the moment, with this sign of Helen's yielding, and the rhyme-play thus ends in a "confinnatio" which is now no longer the echo of a rhyme, but the gift of a hand. Faust and Helen then fall silent, and embrace each other without a word, while the chorus, adopting the tone of an epithalamion, describes their embrace. Then the dialogue of love - and also of rhyming verses - starts up again between Faust and Helen, and causes us to live a moment of such intensity and pregnancy that both time and the drama seem to stop. Helen says:

I feel myself so far away and yet so close;

And I say only too gladly: Here Am I! Here!

Faust: I can scarcely breathe; my words tremble and falter; This is a dream, and time and place have disappeared.

Helen: It seems to me that I am broken down with age, and yet I am so new;

Mingled with you, I am faithful to the Unknown.

Faust: Don't rack your brains about your destiny, so unique!

Existence is a duty, be it only for an instant.7

Here the drama seems to stop. We think that Helen and Faust have nothing left to desire, fulfilled as they are by each other's presence. But Mephistopheles, who, in order to adapt himself to the Greek world, has taken on the monstrous mask of Phorkyas, breaks off this perfect moment by announcing the menacing approach of the troops of Menelaus, and Faust reproaches him for his ill-timed interruption. The marvelous instant has now disappeared, but the dispositions of Faust anJ of I lclcn will still be reflected in the deS<..Tiption of the ideal Arcadia in which F11UNI 1111J Helen arc to engender Euphorion, the genius of poetry.

220

Themes

The dialogue we have quoted may be understood at several levels. First and foremost, it is the dialogue between two lovers, who, as such, resemble all lovers everywhere. Faust and Helen are two lovers absorbed by the living presence of the beloved: they forget everything - both past and future - which is other than this presence. Their excess of happiness gives them an impression of dreamlike unreality: time and space disappear. We are entering the unknown, and it is the moment of love fulfilled.

On a second level of interpretation, however, the dialogue takes place between Faust and Helen as symbolic figures, representing, on the one hand, modem man in his ceaseless striving, and on the other, ancient beauty in its soothing presence; both are miraculously reunited by the magic of poetry, which abolishes the centuries. In this dialogue, Faust as modern man tries to make Helen forget her past, so that she may be wholly in the present instant, which she is incapable of understanding. She feels herself to be so distant and yet so close, abandoned by life and yet in the process of rebirth, living in Faust, mingled with him, and trusting in the unknown. Faust asks her not to reflect upon her strange destiny, but to accept the new existence which is being offered to her. In this dialogue between two symbolic figures, Helen becomes "modernized," if one may say so; as she adopts rhyme, the symbol of modern interiority, she has doubts, and reflects upon her destiny. At the same time, Faust becomes "antiquated": he speaks as a man of antiquity, when he urges Helen to concentrate on the present moment, and not to lose it in hesitant reflection on the past and the future. As Goethe said in a letter to Zelter, this was the characteristic feature of ancient life and art: to know how to live in the present, and to know what he called "the healthiness of the moment." In antiquity, says Goethe, the instant was "pregnant;" in other words, filled with meaning, but it was also lived in all its reality and the fullness of its richness, sufficient unto itself. We no longer know how to live in the present, continues Goethe. For us, the ideal is in the future, and can only be the object of a sort of nostalgic desire, while the present is considered trivial and banal. We no longer know how to profit from the present; we no longer know - as the Greeks did - how to act in the present, and upon the present.8 Indeed, if Faust speaks to Helen as a man of the ancient world, it is precisely because the presence of Helen - that is, the presence of ancient beauty - reveals to him what presence itself is: the presence of the world,

"That splendid feeling of the present" (He"liches Gefiihl der Gegenwart) as Goethe wrote in the East- West Divan.9

This, finally, is the reason why the dialogue can be understood at a third level. Here, it is no longer the dialogue of two lovers, nor of two historical figures, but rather the dialogue of man with himself. The encounter with Helen is not only the encounter with ancient beauty emanating from nature; it is also the encounter wit h n living wisdom 1md art of living: that

"hcnhhincss of t he moment " which we mt�nt lnncd nhovc. The nlhili111 Fnust

"Only the Present is our Happiness "

221

had wagered with Mephistopheles that he would never say to an instant:

"Stay, you are so beautiful!" But now, following after humble Gretchen, it is ancient, noble Helen who reveals to him the splendor of being - that is, of the present instant - and teaches him to say yes to the world and to himself.

We must now define the ancient experience of time which we saw expressed in the above-quoted verses from Faust. Basing ourselves on the letter from Goethe to Zeller we cited above, we might think that we have to do with a generalized, common experience of ancient man, and that it was natural for ancient man to be familiar with what Goethe calls the "healthiness of the moment." Moreover, following Goethe, many historians and philosophers, from Oswald Spengler10 to the logician Hintikka, 11 have alluded to the fact that the Greeks "lived in the present moment" more than did the representatives of other cultures. In his book Die Zauberflote,12 Siegfried Morenz gives a good summary of this conception: "No one has better characterized the particular nature of Greece than Goethe . . . in the dialogue between Faust and Helen: ' . . . then the spirit looks neither backwards nor ahead. Only the present is our happiness. ' "

We must certainly agree that the Greeks in general gave particular attention to the present moment, and this attention could take on several different ethical and artistic meanings. Popular wisdom advised people both to be content with the present, and to know how to utilize it. Being content with the present meant, on the one hand, being content with earthly existence.

This is what Goethe admired in ancient art, particularly in funerary art, where the deceased was represented not with his eyes raised toward the heavens, but in the act of living his daily life. On the other hand, knowing how to utilize the present meant knowing how to recognize and seize the favorable and decisive instant (kairos). Kairos designated all the possibilities contained within a given moment: a good general, for example, knows how to strike at the opportune kairos, and sculptors fix in marble the most significant kairos of the scene which they wish to bring to life.

It does seem, then, that the Greeks paid particular attention to the present moment. This, however, does not justify us in imagining - as did Winckelmann, Goethe, and Holderlin - the existence of an idealized Greece, the citizens of which, because they lived in the present moment, were perpetually bathed in beauty and serenity. As a matter of fact, people in antiquity were just as filled with anguish as we are today, and ancient poetry often preserves the echo of this anguish, which sometimes goes as far as despair. Like us, the ancients bore the burden of the past, the uncertainty of the future, and the fear of death. Indeed, it was for this human anguish that ancient philosophies

- particularly F.picurcanism and Stoicism - sought to provide a remedy.

These philo!IUllhics were therapies, intended to provide a cure for anguish, and to hrintc f'rt�t�dom and self-mastery, and their goal was to allow people to

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free themselves from the past and the future, so that they could live within the present. Here we have to do with an experience of time wholly different from the common, general experience we have been describing. As we shall see, this experience corresponds precisely to that expressed in the verses from Faust: "Only the present is our happiness . . . don't think about your destiny.

Existence is a duty." We are dealing with a philosophical conversion, implying a voluntary, radical transformation of one's way of living and looking at the world. This is the true "healthiness of the moment," which leads to serenity.

Despite the profound differences between Epicurean and Stoic doctrine, we find an extraordinary structural analogy between the experiences of time as it was lived in both schools. This analogy will perhaps allow us to glimpse a certain common experience of the present underlying their doctrinal divergences. We can define this analogy as follows: both Epicureanism and Stoicism privilege the present, to the detriment of the past and above all of the future. They posit as an axiom that happiness can only be found in the present, that one instant of happiness is equivalent to an eternity of happiness, and that happiness can and must be found immediately, here and now. Both Epicureanism and Stoicism invite us to rcsituate the present instant within the perspective of the cosmos, and to accord infinite value to the slightest moment of existence.

To begin with Epicureanism: it is a therapy of anguish, and a philosophy which seeks, above all, to procure peace of mind. Its goal is consequently to liberate mankind from everything that is a cause of anguish for the soul: the belief that the gods are concerned with mankind; the fear of post-mortem punishment; the worries and pain brought about by unsatisfied desires; and the moral uneasiness caused by the concern to act out of perfect purity of intention.

Epicureanism does away with all this. With regard to the gods, it affirms that they themselves live in perfect tranquillity. They are not troubled by the worry of producing or governing the universe, since the latter is the result of a fortuitous coming together of eternally existent atoms. With regard to death, Epicureanism asserts that the soul docs not survive the body, and that death is not an event within life. With regard to desires, it affirms that they trouble us to the extent that they are artificial and useless. We must reject all those desires which are neither natural nor necessary, and satisfy - with prudence

- those of our desires which are natural but not necessary. Above all, we are to satisfy those desires which are indispensable for the continuation of our existence. As for moral worries, they will be completely appea.o;ed once we realize that man, like all other living beings, is always motivated by pleasure.

If we seek for wisdom, this is simply because it brings peace of mind: in other words, a pleasurable state.

What Epicureanism proposes is a fom1 of wisdom, which tc11chcs Uli how to relax and to suppre11s our worries. This only appc11rs to be easy, mcll'covcr;

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for we must renounce a great deal, in order that we may desire only that which we are certain of obtaining, and submit our desires to the judgment of reason. What is required, in fact, is a total transformation of our lives, and one of the principal aspects of this transformation is the change of our attitude toward time. According to Epicureanism, senseless people - that is, the majority of mankind - are tormented by vast, hollow desires which have to do with wealth, glory, power, and the unbridled pleasures of the flesh. 13 What is characteristic of all these desires is that they cannot be satisfied in the present. This is why, for the Epicureans,

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

According to an Epicurean saying, "The life of a foolish man is fearful and unpleasant; it is swept totally away into the future." 15 Thus, Epicurean wisdom proposes a radical transformation, which must be active at each instant of life, of mankind's attitude toward time. We must, it teaches, learn how to enjoy the pleasure of the present, without letting ourselves be distracted from it. If the past is unpleasant to us, we are to avoid thinking about it, and we must not think about the future, insofar as the idea of it provokes in us fears or unbridled expectations. Only thoughts about what is pleasant - of pleasure, whether past or future - are to be allowed into the present moment, especially when we are trying to compensate for current suffering. This transformation presupposes a specific conception of pleasure, peculiar to Epicureanism, according to which the quality of pleasure depends neither on the quantity of desires it satisfies, nor on the length of time it lasts.

The quality of pleasure does not depend on the quantity of desires it satisfies. The best and most intense pleasure is that which is mixed to the least extent with worry, and which is the most certain to ensure peace of mind. It can therefore be procured by the satisfaction of natural and necessary desires; that is, those desires which are essential and necessary for the preservation of existence. Now, such desires can easily be satisfied, without our having to rely on the future for them, and without our being exposed to the worry and uncertainty of lengthy pursuit. "Thanks be to blessed nature, who made necessary things easy to obtain, and things which are hard to obtain unnecessary. " 111

What causes us to think about the past or the future are such illnesses of the sou l llN 1 hc human passions, desires for wealth, power, or depravity; but the purc111 , 11111111 in1 cni;c pleasure can easily be obtained within the present.

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Not only does pleasure not depend upon the quantity of satisfied desires, but -

above all - it does not depend upon duration. It has no need to be long-lasting in order to be perfect: "An infinite period of time could not cause us more pleasure than can be derived from this one, which we can see is finite." 17

"Finite time and infinite time bring us the same pleasure, if we measure its limits by reason. " 18 This may seem paradoxical, but it is founded on a theoretical conception. As the Stoics were to repeat, a tiny circle is no more of a circle than a large one. 19 The Epicureans thought of pleasure as a reality in and for itself, not situated within the category of time. Aristotle had said that pleasure is total and complete at each moment of its duration, and that its prolongation does not change its essence.2� For the Epicureans, a practical attitude is joined to this theoretical representation: if pleasure limits itself to that which procures perfect peace of mind, it attains a summit which cannot be surpassed, and it is impossible for it to by increased by duration. In the words of Guyau: "In enjoyment, there is a kind of inner plenitude and over-abundance which makes it independent of time, as well as of everything else. True pleasure bears its infinity within itself." 21

Thus, pleasure is wholly within the present moment, and we need not wait for anything from the future to increase it. Everything we have been saying so far could be summed up in the following verses from Horace: "Let the soul which is happy with the present learn to hate to worry about what lies ahead." 22 The happy mind does not look towards the future. If we limit our desires in a reasonable way, we can be happy right now. Not only can we be happy, but we mus/: happiness must be found immediately, here and now, and in the present. Instead of reflecting about our lives as a whole, calculating our hopes and worries, we must seize happiness within the present moment.

The matter is urgent; in the words of an Epicurean saying: We are only born once - twice is not allowed - and it is necessary that we shall be no more, for all eternity; and yet you, who are not master of tomorrow, you keep on putting off your joy? Yet life is vainly consumed in these delays, and each of us dies without ever having known peace. 23

Once again, we find the echo of this idea in Horace: "While we are talking, jealous time has fled. So seize the day [carpe diem], and put no trust in tomorrow." H Horace's carpe diem is by no means, as is often believed, the advice of a sensualist playboy; on the contrary, it is an invitation to conversion. We are invited to become aware of the vanity of our immensely vain desires, at the same time as of the imminence of death, the uniqueness of life, and the uniqueness of the present instant. From this perspective, each instant appears as a marvclom1 gift which fillH itR recipient with grat itude:

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Believe that each new day that dawns will be the last for you: Then each unexpected hour shall come to you as a delightful gift. 25

There is perhaps an echo here of the Epicurean Philodemus: "Receive each additional moment of time in a manner appropriate to its value; as if one were having an incredible stroke of luck." 26

We have already encountered the Epicureans' feelings of gratitude and astonishment, in the context of the miraculous coincidence between the needs of living beings and the facilities provided for them by nature. The secret of Epicurean joy and serenity is to live each instant as if it were the last, but also as if it were the first. We experience the same grateful astonishment when we accept the instant as though it were unexpected, or by greeting it as entirely new: "If the whole world were appear to mortals now, for the first time; if it was suddenly and unexpectedly exposed to their view; what could one think of more marvelous than these things, and which mankind would less have dared to believe?" 27 In the last analysis, the secret of Epicurean joy and serenity is the experience of infinite pleasure provided by the consciousness of existence, even if it be only for a moment. In the words of an Epicurean saying: "The cry of the flesh is: Not to be hungry, not to be thirsty, not to be cold. Whoever has these things, and hopes to keep on having them, can rival in happiness with Zeus himself." 28 The lack of hunger and thirst is thus the condition for being able to continue to exist, being conscious of existing, and enjoying this consciousness of existing. God has nothing more than this.

It could be objected that God's pleasure consists in his knowledge that he has the happiness of existing forever. Not so, replies Epicurus; for the pleasure of one instant of existence is just as total and complete as a pleasure of infinite duration, and man is just as immortal as God, because death is not a part of life.2'1

In order to show that one single instant of happiness is enough to give such infinite pleasure, the Epicureans practiced telling themselves each day: "I have had all the pleasure I could have expected." In the words of Horace: "He will be master of himself and live joyfully who can say, every day: 'I have lived.' " �10 Seneca also takes up this Epicurean theme: When we are about to go to sleep, let us say in joyous cheerfulness: "I have lived; I have travelled the route that fortune had assigned to me."

If God should grant us tomorrow as well, let us accept it joyfully. That person is most happy and in tranquil possession of himself who awaits tomorrow without worries.31 Whoever says: "I have lived", gets up every day to receive unexpected riches.32

We c11n Rhm sec here the role played in Epicureanism by the thought of deat h . T11 1111 y , cn�ry c\�cning: "I have lived," is to say "my life is over." It is

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to practice the same exercise as that which consists in saying: "Today will be the last day of my life." Yet it is precisely this exercise of becoming aware of life's finitude which reveals the infinite value of the pleasure of existing within the present instant. From the point of view of death, the mere fact of existing

- even if only for a moment - seems to be of infinite value, and gives us pleasure of infinite intensity. Only once we have become aware of the fact that we have already - in one instant of existence - had everything there was to be had, can we say with equanimity: "my life is over."

It is here, moreover, that the cosmic perspective comes into play. The Epicureans had their own particular vision of the universe. As Lucretius put it: thanks to the doctrine of Epicurus, which explained the origin of the universe by the fall of atoms in a void, the walls of the world burst open for the Epicurean: he saw all things come into being within the immense void,33 and traversed the immensity of the all. Alternatively, he exclaims, in the words of Metrodorus: "Remember that, born a mortal, with a limited life-span, you have risen up in soul to eternity and the infinity of things, and that you have seen all that has been and all that shall be." 34 Here again, we encounter the contrast between finite and infinite time.

Within finite time, the sage grasps all that takes place within infinite time, or as Leon Robin puts it in his commentary on Lucretius: "The sage places himself within the immutability of eternal Nature, which is independent of time." 35

Thus, the sage perceives the totality of the cosmos within his consciousness of the fact of existing. Nature gives him everything within an instant, and since she has already given him everything, she has nothing left to give him, as she says in Lucretius' poem: "You must always expect the same things, even though the span of your life should triumph over all the ages; nay, even were you never to die." �11�

The fundamental attitude that the Stoic must maintain at each instant of his life is one of attention, vigilance, and continuous tension, concentrated upon each and every moment, in order not to miss anything which is contrary to reason. We find an excellent description of this attitude in Marcus Aurelius:

Here is what is enough for you:

1 . the judgment you are bringing to bear at this moment upon reality, as long as it is objective;

2. the action you are carrying out at this moment, as long as it is accomplished in the service of the human community; and 3. the inner disposition in which you find yourself at this moment , as long as it is a disposition of joy in the face of the conjunction of events caused by cx1 rnncom1 cnus11lit y . 11

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Thus, Marcus used to train himself to concentrate upon the present moment; that is, upon what he was thinking, doing, and feeling within the present instant. "This is enough for you," he tells himself, and the expression has a double meaning:

It is enough to keep you busy; you have no need to think about anything else; and

2 It is enough to make you happy; there is no need to seek for anything else.

This is the spiritual exercise Marcus himself calls "delimiting the present." 38

Delimiting the present means turning one's attention away from the past and the future, in order to concentrate it upon what one is in the process of doing.

The present of which Marcus speaks is a present delimited by human consciousness. The Stoics distinguished two ways of defining the present.39 The first consisted in understanding the present as the limit between the past and the future: from this point of view, no present time ever actually exists, since time is infinitely divisible. This, however, is an abstract, quasi-mathematical division, with the present being reduced to an infinitesimal instant.

The second way consisted in defining the present with reference to human consciousness. In this case, the present represented a certain "thickness" of time, corresponding to the attention-span of lived consciousness. When Marcus advises us to "delimit the present," he is talking about this lived present, relative to consciousness. This is an important point: the present is defined by its reference to man's thoughts and actions.

The present suffices for our happiness, because it is the only thing which belongs to us, and depends upon us. For the Stoics, it was essential to distinguish between what does and does not depend upon us. The past does not belong to us, since it is definitively fixated, and the future does not depend on us, because it docs not yet exist. Only the present depends on us, and it is therefore the only thing which can be either good or bad, since it is the only thing which depends upon our will. Since the past and the future do not depend on us, they do not come under the category of moral good or evil, and must therefore be indifferent to us.�0 It is a waste of time to worry about what is long gone, or what will perhaps never occur; we must therefore

"delimit the present." "All the happiness you are trying to achieve by long, roundabout ways: you can have it all right now . . . . that is, if you leave everything past behind you, entrust the future to providence, and if you arrange the present in accordance with piety and justice. " �1

Elsewhere, Marcus describes the exercise of delimiting the present in the following terms:

if you licpnrntc from yourself, that is, from your thought . . . everything you h11\'l' 1111id or done in the past, everything that disturbs you about

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Themes

the future; all that . . . attaches itself to you against your will . . . if you separate from yourself the future and the past, and apply yourself exclusively to living the life that you are living - that is to say, the present - you can live all the time that remains to you until your death, in calm, benevolence, and serenity.0

Seneca describes the same exercise as follows:

Two things must be cut short:43 the fear of the future and the memory of past discomfort; the one does not concern me any more, and the other does not concern me yet.44

The sage enjoys the present without depending on the future . . . .

Liberated from the burden of worries which torture the mind, he does not hope for or desire anything. He does not plunge forward into the unknown, for he is happy with what he has [i.e. the present, which is all that belongs to us]. And don't believe that he is content with not very much, for what he has is everything.45

Here we witness the same transformation of the present that we encountered in Epicureanism. In the present, say the Stoics, we have everything, and only the present is our happiness. There are two reasons why the present is sufficient for our happiness: in the first place, Stoic happiness - like Epicurean pleasure - is complete at every instant and does not increase over time. The second reason is that we already possess the whole of reality within the present instant, and even infinite duration could not give us more than what we have right now.

Happiness, then - that is, for the Stoics, moral action or virtue - is always total and complete, at each moment of its duration. Like pleasure for the Epicurean sage, the happiness of the Stoic sage is perfect. It lacks nothing, just as a circle, whether it is large or small, still remains a circle. The same is true of a propitious or opportune moment or favorable opportunity: it is an instant, the perfection of which depends not on its duration, but rather on its quality, and the harmony which exists between one's exterior situation and the possibilities that one has.46 Happiness is nothing more nor less than that instant in which man is wholly in accord with nature.

Just as was the case for the Epicureans, one instant of happiness is, according to the Stoics, equivalent to an eternity. In the words of Chrysippus:

"If a person has wisdom for one instant, he is no less happy than he who possesses it for an eternity." 47 Similarly, as for the Epicureans, so for the Stoics: we will never be happy if we arc not so right now . It's now or never.

The matter is urgent : we must hurry, for death is imminent, 1md nil we require in order Lo he hnppy h1 tu "''"'' 10 he No. The 11nNt nnJ t he f'utur�� nrc

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of no use. What is needed is the immediate transformation of our way of thinking, of acting, and of accepting events. We must think in accordance with truth, act in accordance with justice, and lovingly accept what comes to pass. In the words of Marcus Aurelius: "How easy it is to find oneself, right away, in a state of perfect peace of mind." 411 In other words, it is enough just to want it.

For the Stoics, as for the Epicureans, it is the imminence of death which gives the present instant its value. "We must carry out each action of our lives as if it were the last." 49 This is the secret of concentration on the present moment: we are to give it all its seriousness, value, and splendor, in order to show up the vanity of all that we pursue with so much worry: all of which, in the end, will be taken away from us by death. We must live each day with a consciousness so acute, and an attention so intense, that we can say to ourselves each evening: "I have lived; I have actualized my life, and have had all that I could expect from life." In the words of Seneca: "He has peace of mind who has lived his entire life every day. 11 5o We have just seen the first reason why the present alone is sufficient for our happiness: namely, that one instant of happiness is equivalent to a whole eternity of happiness. The second reason is that, within one instant, we possess the totality of the universe. The present instant is fleeting - Marcus insists strongly on this point51 - but even within this flash, as Seneca says,

"we can proclaim, along with God: 'all this belongs to me.' 11 52 The instant is our only point of contact with reality, yet it offers us the whole of reality; precisely because it is a passage and a metamorphosis, it allows us to participate in the overall movement of the event of the world, and the reality of the world's coming-to-be.

In order to understand the preceding, we must bear in mind what moral action, virtue, and wisdom meant for the Stoics. Moral good - for the Stoics, the only kind of good there is - has a cosmic dimension: it is the harmonization of the reason within us with the reason w�ich guides the cosmos, and produces the chain of causes and effect which makes up fate. At each moment, we must harmonize our judgment, action, and desires with universal reason. In particular, we must joyfully accept the conj unction of events which results from the course of nature. At each instant, we must therefore resituate ourselves within the perspective of universal reason, so that, at each instant, our consciousness may become a cosmic consciousness.

Thus, if one lives in accord with universal reason, at each instant his consciousness expands into the infinity of the cosmos, and the entire universe is present to him. For the Stoics, this is possible because there is a total mixture and mutual implication of everything with everything else: Chrysippus, for example, spoke of a drop of wine being mixed with the whole of the sea, and spreading to the entire world.53 "He who sees the present moment secs all thnr hns happened from all eternity, and all that will happen t h rouicho u l i n fi n i l l' l ime. 11 �� This explains the attention given to each current

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event, and to what is happening to us at each instant. Each event implies the entire world: "Whatever happens to you has been prepared for you from all eternity, and the mutual linkage of cause and effect has, from all eternity, woven together your existence and the occurrence of this event." 55

One could speak here of a mystical dimension of Stoicism. At each moment and every instant, we must say "yes" to the universe; that is, to the will of universal reason. We must want that which universal reason wants: that is, the present instant, exactly as it is. Some Christian mystics have also described their state as a continuous consent to the will of God. Marcus, for his part, cries out: "I say to the universe: 'I love along with you.' " 56 We have here a profound feeling of participation and identification; of belonging to a whole which transcends our individual limits, and gives us a feeling of intimacy with the universe. For Seneca, the sage plunges himself into the whole of the universe (toti se inserens mundo).57

Because the sage lives within his consciousness of the world, the world is constantly present to him. In Stoicism, even more than in Epicureanism, the present moment takes on an infinite value: it contains within it the entire cosmos, and all the value and wealth of being.

It is quite remarkable that the two schools of Stoicism and Epicureanism, in other respects so opposed, should both place the concentration of consciousness upon the present moment at the very center of their way of life.

The difference between the two attitudes consists only in the fact that the Epicurean enjoys the present moment, whereas the Stoic wills it intensely; for the one, it is a pleasure; for the other, a duty.

Our scene from Faust echoes this double motif in two key phrases: "Only the present is our happiness," and "Existence is a duty." SR

In his conversations with Falk,.�1 Goethe had spoken of certain beings who, by virtue of their innate tendencies, arc half Stoic and half Epicurean. He found nothing surprising, he said, in the fact that they accepted the fundamental principles of the two systems at the same time, and even that they tried to unite them as far as was possible. One might say that Goethe himself, in his way of living the present moment, was also "half Stoic and half Epicurean." He enjoyed the present moment like an Epicurean, and willed it intensely like a Stoic.

In Goethe, we re-encounter most of the themes we have enumerated above; in particular, the delimitation of the present followed by expansion into the totality of the cosmos, which we observed in Epicureanism and in Stoicism.

In this regard, Goethe could have mentioned an opposition that was dear to him: that between "systole" and "diastole."

First of all, let us consider concentration on and delimitation of the present.

In moments of happiness, these processes take place spontaneously: "Then the spirit looks neither forward nor behind . " This verse from Faust is ed10ed by a poem dedicated to Count Puar:w

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23 1

Happiness looks neither forward nor backwards;

And thus the instant becomes eternal.

The present instant is perceived as a grace which is accorded us, or an opportunity we are offered.

The mind may also, however, turn voluntarily away from the past and the future, in order to more fully enjoy the present state of reality. Such is the attitude of Goethe's Egmont:61

Do I live only in order to think about life? Must I prevent myself from enjoying the present moment, that I may be sure of the one that follows, and then waste that one, too, in cares and useless worries? . . . Does the sun illuminate me today, that I may ponder what happened yesterday?

That I may guess at and arrange that which cannot be guessed nor arranged: the fate of the oncoming day?

This is the same secret of happiness which Goethe formulated in the "Rule of Life":62

Would you model for yourself a pleasant life?

Worry not about the past

Let not anger get the upper hand

Rejoice in the present without ceasing

Hate no man . . . .

And the future? Abandon it to God.

This is the height of wisdom; the wisdom of the child in the Marienbad Elegy:63

Hour by hour, life is kindly offered us

We have learned but little from yesterday

Of tomorrow, all knowledge is forbidden,

And if I ever feared the coming evening, �

The setting sun still saw what brought me joy.

Do like me, then: with joyful wisdom

Look the instant in the eye! Do not delay!

Hurry! Run to greet it, lively and benevolent, Be it for action, for joy or for love!

Wherever you may be, be like a child, wholly and always; Then you will be the All; and invincible.

The "rule of life" - that "high wisdom" - consists in looking neither forwnrd 1101� hehind, but in becoming aware of the uniqueness and

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incomparable value of the present. In Goethe, then, we find the same exercise of delimitation of the present that we had encountered in ancient philosophy.

This exercise is, however, inseparable from another exercise, which consists in becoming aware of the inner richness of the present, and of the totality contained within the instant. By delimiting the present, consciousness, far from shrinking, swells to fill the dimensions of the world; for that vision which "looks the instant in the eye" is the disinterested vision of the artist, the poet, and the sage, which is interested in reality for its own sake.

Enjoying the present, without thinking about the past or the future, does not mean living in total instantaneousness. Thoughts about the past and the future are to be avoided only insofar as rehashing past defeats, and cowering in fear of future difficulties, can cause distractions, worries, hopes, or despair, which turn our attention away from the present, where it ought to be concentrated. When we do concentrate our attention on the future, however, we discover that the present itself contains both the past and the future, insofar as it is the genuine passage within which the action and movement of reality are carried out. It is this past and this future which are seized by the artist's vision, in the instant which he chooses to describe or to reproduce. The artists of antiquity, says Goethe, knew how to choose the "pregnant" instant, heavy with meaning, "which marks a decisive turning-point between time and eternity." "' To use one of Goethe's favorite terms, such instants "symbolize" an entire past, and an entire future.

Likewise, when an artist seizes an instant of the movement of a dancer, it allows us to glimpse both the "before" and the "after": "The marvelous suppleness with which a dancer moves from one figure to another, and provokes our admiration in the face of such artistry: it is fixated for a moment, so that wc can see, simultaneously, the past, the present and the future, and wc are thus transported into a supra terrestrial state." 65

Whoever practices the art of living must also recognize that each instant is pregnant: heavy with meaning, it contains both the past and the future; not only of the individual, but also of the cosmos in which he is plunged. This is what Goethe gives us to understand in his poem "The Testament:" "'

Let reason b e present everywhere

Where life rejoices in life.

This point at which life rejoices in life iK nothing other thnn t he prcitcnt instnnt. "Then," cont in ucN Goet he,

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the past has gained steadfastness

The present is alive beforehand,

The Instant is eternity.

Goethe is even more explicit on this point in one of his conversations with Eckermann:67 "Hold fast to the present. Every circumstance, every instant is of infinite value, for it is the representative of an entire eternity."

Some commentators have believed they could explain Goethe's conception of the instant as eternity by Neoplatonic or Pietistic influence.68 It is true that we do find within these traditions the representation of God as eternal present; but such a conception is not to be found in Goethe's writings. When Goethe speaks of the eternal in his poem entitled "Testament," for example, he is talking about the eternity of the cosmic process of becoming: Throughout all things, the Eternal pursues its course . . . .

Being is eternal, for laws

Protect the living treasures

With which the All adorns itself.

In order to explain the Goethean notion of the instant as representative of eternity, we must rather think of the Epicurean and Stoic tradition of which I have spoken above. This tradition affirmed, in the first place, that one instant of happiness is equivalent to an eternity; and, secondly, that one instant of existence contains the whole eternity of the cosmos. In Goethean terms, this second idea could be expressed by saying that the instant is the symbol of eternity. Goethe defined the symbol as "the living, instantaneous revelation of the unexplorable," 69 but we could just as well define the instant as "the living symbol of the unexplorable." The idea of the

"unexplorable" corresponds to what, for Goethe, is the inexpressible mystery at the basis of nature and of all reality. It is its very fleetingness and perishable nature that make the instant the symbol of eternity, because its ephemeral nature reveals the eternal movement and metamorphosis which is, simultaneously, the eternal presence of being: "All that� is perishable is only a symbol." 70

It is here that the thought of death comes into play, for life itself is perpetual metamorphosis, and, inseparably, the death of every instant.

Sometimes, for Goethe, this theme takes on a mystical tone: In order to find himself in the Infinite

The individual willingly accepts to disappear.

It is a pleasure to abandon oneself.71

l would 1m1i11&: the living creature who aspires to death in the flame.72

234

Themes

In the last analysis, then, it is eternity - that is, the totality of being - which gives the present moment its value, meaning, and pregnancy. "If the eternal remains present to us at each instant, we do not suffer from the fleetingness of time." 73 The ultimate meaning of Goethe's attitude toward the present is thus, as it was for ancient philosophy, the happiness and the duty of existing in the cosmos. It is a profound feeling of participation in and identification with a reality which transcends the limits of the individual. "Great is the joy of existence, and greater yet the joy we feel in the presence of the world." 7�

"Throughout all things, the Eternal pursues its course. Hold on to Being with delight!" 75

We ought here to cite the entire song of the watchman Lynceus near the end of the Second Faust:

In all things, I see

The eternal adornment,

And since it pleases me,

I please myself as well.

You, my happy eyes: �

Whatever you have seen,

Be it what it may,

It certainly was beautiful.71�

In his work on Winckelmann, Goethe presents this wonderstruck consent to being - to the being of the entire cosmos - as characteristic of the ancient soul.

If man feels at home in the world as within an All, an All which is great, beautiful, noble and precious; if the pleasure of living in harmony with this All gives him a pure, free delight, then the universe - if it could be conscious of itself - would exult with joy; it would have attained its goal, and would be amazed at this summit of its becoming and its being. After all, what good is all this profligate abundance of suns, planets, moons, stars, Milky Ways, comets, nebula, worlds in the process of becoming and which have come to be, if, when all is said and done, one happy man does not rejoice, unconsciously, in his own existence?77

When Goethe says "unconsciously," he means that the reasons why people may be happy, and may be in harmony with the universe, arc unknown and completely incomprehensible to them. Here we come across another case of the "unexplorable," 78 to use one of Goethe's favorite expressions. Y ct the innocent joy of existing, and the spontaneous, unrcflccting pleasure which living beings take in existence, arc an original phenomenon which reveals the presence of 1m uncxplorahlc my11tcry: "The child iN plcni;cd by l ht� cnkc,

"Only the Present is our Happiness "

235

without knowing anything about the pastry-cook; and starlings like cherries, without them stopping to think about where they came from." 79

We again find this "yes" to the world and consent to being in the following passage from Nietzsche, whatever reservations about it he himself may have had: Let us assume we say "Yes!" to one single, unique moment: we have thus said yes, not only to ourselves, but to the whole of existence. For nothing is isolated, neither in ourselves nor in things. And if, even once, our soul has vibrated and resounded like a string with happiness, all eternity was necessary to create the conditions for this one event; and all eternity has been approved, redeemed, justified, and affirmed.80

Not long ago, Georges Friedmann courageously denounced the tragic lack of balance which has come about in the modern world between "power" and

"wisdom." 81 If we have chosen here to present some aspects of one of the fundamental themes of the European spiritual tradition, it was not in order to satisfy some historical or literary curiosity, but to describe a spiritual attitude: an attitude which, for ourselves and for modern man in general, hypnotized as we arc by language, images, information, and the myth of the future, seemed to us to provide one of the best means of access to this wisdom, so misunderstood and yet so necessary. The call of Socrates speaks to us more now than ever before: "Take care for yourself." 82 This call is echoed by Nietzsche's remark: "Is it not the case that all human institutions"

- to which we might add: "as well as the whole of modern life'' - are intended to prevent mankind from feeling their life, by means of the constant dispersion of their thoughts?" 83

NOTES

I Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, 938 1 .

2 Ibid, 4685.

3 Ibid, 6487-500.

4 Ibid, 9370.

5 Ibid, 94 1 9.

6 Ibid, 9377-84.

7 Ibid, 941 1 - 1 8.

8 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Letter to Zclter of October 19, I 829, in Goethes Briefe, ed. K.R. Mandelkow, Munich 1 967, vol. 4, p. 346.

9 "Book of the Cup-Bearer" ("Das Schenkenbuch"), in Goethes Werke, Hamburger Ausgabe (hereafter HA), vol. 2, p. 94.

10 0. Spengler, Der Unterga11g des Abendlandes, Munich 1 923, vol. I, p. 1 1 .

1 1 J . I lin1 ikka, Timr a11tl Necessity, Oxford, 1 973, p. 86.

1 2 S. Mon�ni, /Jir 7.t111ber_/liite, M unster, 1 952, p. 89.

236

Themes

13 Cicero, Dt finibus, I, 18, S9.

14 Ibid, I, 18, 60.

15 Seneca, Letters to Lu,ilius, I S, 9.

16 Epicurus, fr. 240, p. S67 Arrighetti = Stobaeus vol. ill, 17, 22 Hense.

17 Cicero, Dt finibus, I, 19, 63.

18 Epicurus, Ratat Smtentiat, 1 9, p. 1 27 Arrighetti.

19 Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 14, 27.

20 Aristotle, Ni,homa,hean Ethfrs, 10, 3, 1 1 74a1 7ff; cf. H.-J. Kramer, Platonismus und hel/misti1'he Philosoph�, Berlin/New York 1 97 1 , pp. 1 88fT.

2 1 J.M. Guyau, La morale d'Epfrure, Paris 1 927, pp. l 12fT.

22 Horace, Otks, 2, 16, 2Sf.

23 Epicurus, Gnomologi,um Vatfranum �14, p. 1 43 Arrighetti.

24 Horace, Otks, I, 1 1 , 7.

2S Horace, Lt11er, I, 4, 1 3.

26 Cf. M. Gigante, Rfrhmhe Filodemee, Naples 1 983, pp. 181, 2 1 S-16.

27 Lucretius, On the Nature of T/1ings, 1033-6.

28 Epicurus, Gnomologicum Vaticanum, �33, p. 1 46 Arrighetti.

29 Epicurus, Lt11er 10 Menoeceus, ��1 2+..S, p. 108 Arrighetti.

30 Horace, Odes, 3, 29, 42.

31 Without worries (sine sollicitudine), because h� knows that on that day he has received all that it was possible to have, and that there is nothing left to be desired.

32 Seneca, Letters lo Lucilius, 1 2, 9.

33 Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, 3, 16-- 1 7.

34 The most accessible text of this saying has been preserved by Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, V, 14, 138, 2. Cf. the commentary of A. Le Boulluec in Clement d'Alexandrie, Stromates, V, Paris 1 981 , p. 369.

JS L. Robin, Lucrece, Dt la Nature, Commentaire des livres III-JV, Paris 1926, repr. 1 962, p. I S i .

3 6 Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, III, 947-9.

37 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9, 6.

38 Ibid, 7, 29, 3; 3, 12, 1 .

39 The principal text may be found i n S VF 2 , S09 [ = Arius Didymus fr . 26 Dicls, in Stobaeus vol. 1, p. l OS, Sff. Wachsmuth]; for a commentary cf. P. Hadot, "Zur Vorgeschichte des Begritls Existenz," Arthivfiir Begriffigesch1&hte 13 ( 1969), pp.

1 1 8-19.

40 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6, 32, 3.

41 Ibid, 1 2, I , 1 -2.

42 Ibid, 1 2, 3, 3-4.

43 [Circumcidenda. Literally, to cut a circle off the bark of a tree, thereby pruning or even killing it. - Trans.]

44 Seneca, Letters to Lu,ilius, 18, 14.

45 Seneca, On Benefits, 1, 2, +-5.

46 Cicero, De finibru, 3, 1 4, 4S.

47 Plutarch, On Common Ctm,eptions, 8, 1 062a.

48 Marcus Aurelius, Meditalitms, 5, 2.

49 Ibid, 2, 5, 2: 7, (19.

"Only the Present is our Happiness "

237

SO Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, IOI, 10.

S I Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2, 1 4, 3.

S2 Seneca, On Benefits, 7, 3, 3.

S3 Plutarch, On Common Conceptions, 37, 1 078e.

S4 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6, 37.

SS Ibid, 10, S.

S6 Ibid, 10, 2 1 .

S7 Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 66, 6.

S8 Goethe, Faust, 9382, 9418.

S9 Conversation with J.D. Falk, in F. von Biedermann, ed., Goethes Gespriiche, Leipzig 1 9 1 0, vol. 4, p. 469.

60 "An Grafen Paar," in Goelhes Siimtliche Werke (Cottasche Jubilaumsausgabe), Stuttgart 1 902, vol. 3, p. 1 3 .

61 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Egmont, Act 2.

62 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Lebensregel," in Sprikhe, 971T, in Goethes Werke, HA, vol. I, p. 3 19.

63 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elegie, v. 9 1 1T, in Goelhes Werke, HA, vol. I, p. 384.

64 Goethe, Letter to Zelter of October 1 9, 1 829, in Goethes Briefe, vol. 4, p. 347.

6S Goethe, Letter to Sickler of April 28, 1 8 1 2, in ibid, vol. 3, p. 1 84.

66 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Vermiichtnis, in Goethes Werke, HA, vol. I, p. 370.

67 J.P. Eckermann, Gespriiche mit Goethe, Wiesbaden 19SS (conversation of November 3, 1 823), p. 61 .

68 Neoplatonism: H. Schmitz, Goethes Altesdenken, Bonn 19S9, pp. 1 S2ff. Pietism: W. Schadewelt, Goethestudien, Zurich 1 963, p. 44S.

69 Maximen und Reflexionen, 3 1 4 Hecker = Goethes Werke, HA, 7S2.

70 Goethe, Faust, 1 2 1 04.

71 "Eins und Alles," in Goe1hes Werke, HA, vol. I, p. 368.

72 "Sclige Sehnsucht,'' in Diwan, in Goethes WerJ:e, HA, vol. 2, p. 18.

73 Letter to August von Bernstorff of April 1 7, 1 823, in Goethes Briefe, vol. 4, p. 63 .

74 Book of Suleika, in the East-West Divan, in Goethes Werke, HA, vol. 2, p. 70.

7S "Testament,'' foe. di.

76 Faust, 1 1 296-303.

77 "Winckelmann,'' in Goethes Werke, HA, vol. 1 2, p. 98.

78 Cf. Maximen und Reflexionen 1 207 Hecker = Goethes Werke, HA vol. 1 2, 7 1 8.

79 Eckermann, Gespriiche (conversation of February 28, "183 1 ), p. 438.

80 Friedrich Nietzsche, Posthumous Fragments, Ende 1 886-Friljahr 1887, 7[38], in Friedrich Nietzsche, Siimtliche Werke, eds G. Colli and M. Montinari, I S vols, Berlin 1 980 (hereafter Colli/Montinari), vol. 1 2, pp. 307-8.

81 G. Friedmann, La Puissanee et la Sagesse, Paris 1970.

82 Plato, Alcibiades, 1 20d4; Apology, 36c.

83 Friedrich Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations, 3, 4: Schopenhauer as Educator, 3, 4, vol. I, p. 373 Colli/Montinari.

9

The View from Above

No one has better expressed our longing for a view from above and flight of the soul than Goethe's Faust, as he went for his Easter promenade with Wagner and glimpsed the evening sunset:1

0 why does no wing lift me from the ground To strive after the sun for ever?

In an endless evening dusk, I'd see

The silent earth beneath my feet.

Each hill would be ablaze, each vale bestilled,

And silver brooks would flow in golden streams . . .

Before me day, behind the night

Heaven above and underneath the waves:

A lovely dream, until it disappears! . . .

Alas! To the Spirit's wings

No mortal wing can join so easily.

And yet, when high above us, lost in vast blue spaces The skylark sings her warbling tune,

It is inborn in every man,

That his mind surges onwards and upwards.

To the casual reader, this text seems to be nothing more than a dream about flying: the banal desire, innate in every human being, to be able to fly. A mere topos, in other words, as historians are often only too quick to categorize it.

In fact, however, the theme of the flight of the soul plays a role of extraordinary importance in Goethe, as we can already glimpse from the following lines of his letter to Schiller of May 1 2, 1 798: "Your letter found me

in the Iliad, to which I

.

.

.

When, in 1 964, I was elected to the Fifth Section of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes,9 my colleagues viewed me above all as the translator of Victorin us, and it was natural for me to have been elected to the chair of Latin Patristics. Among other factors, this explains how I came to publish an edition and translation of the Apologia David of Bishop Ambrose of Milan.10 I must confess, however, that Latin Patristics didn't really interest me. Fortunately, my colleagues agreed to change the title of my chair, which became

"Theologies and Mysticisms of Hellenistic Greece and of the End of Antiquity." Thus I was able to return to the mystical passages of Plotinus, on which I commented before my auditors for many years.

However, it was also at this time that my relationship with Plotinus began to become more complex, and that I arrived at my present position. On the one hand, I believe that this great author has yet to be explained in the detailed way he deserves, and that's why I have undertaken the translation with commentary of the totality of his works. Moreover, the phenomenon of mysticism, which is so striking in Plotinus, continues to intrigue me. Y ct, as I grow older, Plotinus speaks to me less and less, if I may say so I have

.

become considerably detached from him. From 1 970 on, I have felt very strongly that it was Epicurcnnism and Stoicism which could nouri11h the spiritual l i fe of men and women of our times, 1111 well 1111 my own . Tlllll w1111

Postscript

281

how I came to write my book on spiritual exercises. Indeed, here at the end of the century - and no one is more surprised at this than myself - we are witnessing an increasing interest in these two philosophies on the part of the reading public. This is a remarkable phenomenon, hard to explain.

To sum up my inner evolution, I would say the following: in 1 946, I naively believed that I, too, could relive the Plotinian mystical experience. But I later realized that this was an illusion. The conclusion of my book Plotinus already hinted that the idea of the "purely spiritual" is untenable. It is true that there is something ineffable in human existence, but this ineffable is within our very perception of the world, in the mystery of our existence and that of the cosmos. Still, it can lead to an experience which could be qualified as mystical.

M. C. What do the expressions "philosophy" and "living a philosophical life" signify for you?

P.H. For me, the word "philosophy" corresponds first of all to an historical phenomenon. In was the Greeks who created the word, probably in the sixth or fifth century BC, and it was Plato who gave it its strongest meaning: philo-sophia, "love of wisdom," the wisdom which one lacks. Since that time there has been an intellectual, spiritual, and social phenomenon, which has taken on a variety of forms, and which has been called philosophy. From this point of view, it is legitimate to ask whether there exists a "philosophy"

outside of the Western tradition, or of the Arabic tradition, insofar as the latter is the inheritor of Greek philosophy.

Now, an historical phenomenon is in constant evolution. Contemporary

"philosophy" is obviously very different from the "philosophy" of Socrates and Plato, just as contemporary Christianity is very different from the Evangelistic message. Is this evolution a good thing? Is it an evil? I won't go into that. I do think, however, that it is always legitimate to go back to the origins, in order better to understand the meaning of a phenomenon, and that is what I try to do.

I have tried to define what philosophy was for a person in antiquity. In my view, the essential characteristic of the phenomenon "philosophy" in antiquity was that at that time a philosopher was, above all, someone who lived in a philosophical way. In other words, the philosopher was someone whose life was guided by his or her reason, and who was a practitioner of the moral virtues. This is obvious, for example, from the portrait Alcibiades gives of Socrates at the end of Plato's Symposium. We can also observe it in Xenophon, where Hippias asks Socrates for a definition of justice. Socrates replies:

"Instead of talking about it, I make it appear through my actions." Originally, then, philosophy is above all the choice of a form of life, to which philosophical discourse then gives justifications and theoretical foundations.

Philosophical discourse is not the same thing as philosophy: the Stoics said so explicitly, and the other schools admitted it implicitly. True, there can be no philosophy without some discourse - either inner or outward - on the part

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Postscript

of the philosopher. This can take the fonn of pedagogical activity carried out on others, of inner meditation, or of the discursive explanation of intuitive contemplation. But this discourse is not the essential part of philosophy, and it will have value only if it has a relationship with philosophical life. As an Epicurean sentence puts it: "The discourse of philosophers is in vain, unless it heals some passion of the soul."

M. C. Are spiritual exercises still possible today? They were thought up in the very distant past, as responses to specific social structures and material conditions, but our current living conditions bear very little resemblance to those of antiquity. The spiritual exercises of the Stoics and the Epicureans, for example, are the consequences of the basic hypotheses of each school: on the one hand, faith in the providential Logos; on the other, atomism, belief in chance, and denial of post-mortem existence. Nowadays, however, we may no longer believe in these hypotheses. Is it still possible to practice the spiritual exercises of antiquity, separating them from the systems of which they were a part, and substituting our own basic hypotheses for the outmoded ones of antiquity?

Let's take the example of injustice. One of the greatest sources of pain for modern man is, I would think, the suffering of innocent people. Every day, the media overwhelm us with images of this suffering, and we witness it every day in the streets of our cities. How can we avoid giving in to despair if we no longer believe, like Marcus Aurelius, in a divine providence, consubstantial with ourselves, which arranges everything for the best, and ensures that injustices are only apparent?

P. H. To reply to your question, I refer you to the beginning of the chapter entitled "Spiritual exercises," where I quote the passage from the diary of Georges Friedmann which he quotes in his book La Puissance et la Sagesse:11

"A 'spiritual exercise' every day - either alone or else in the company of someone who also wants to improve himself. . . . Step out of duration . . . try to get rid of your own passions." I think this testimony suffices to prove that spiritual exercises arc still being practiced in our day and age.

Spiritual exercises do not correspond to specific social structures or material conditions. They have been, and continue to be, practiced in every age, in the most widely diverse milieus, and in widely different latitudes: China, Japan, India; among the Christians, Muslims, and Jews.

If one admits, as I do, that the various philosophical schools of antiquity were characterized above all by their choice of a form of life, which is then justified after the fact by a given systematic construction (for instance, Stoicism is the choice of an attitude of coherence with oneself, which is later justified by a general theory of the coherence of the universe with itself) -

then it is easy to understand how one can can remain faithful to one's choice of a form of life without being obliged to adhere to the systemat ic construction which claims to found it. As Ruyer haH w1�inen112 "Excel'' for s1,cc:iali111s,

Postscript

283

no one is very interested in the motives of Stoicism, taken over for the most part from Heraclitus, or in those of Epicurean ethics or Democritean atomism. Nevertheless, as attitudes, Stoicism and Epicureanism are still very much alive." As a matter of fact, ethics - that is to say, choosing the good -

is not the consequence of metaphysics, but metaphysics is the consequence of ethics.

You give the example of injustice and the suffering of innocent people. For Marcus Aurelius, the fact that there is a providence (that is, simply, that there is coherence in the world), does not mean that injustice is only an appearance.

It is quite real, and in his Meditations Marcus often expresses his anger against liars and the unjust. For him, the discipline of action consists precisely in acting in the service of the human community; in other words, in practicing justice oneself and in correcting injustices. Such an attitude is independent of any theory of providence. Besides, Marcus himself says: "Whether or not the world is ruled by reason (and thus by providence), don't you act unreasonably. " He then goes on to add that if we do act according to reason, that proves that there is also reason in the world. This is proof that it is one's choice of life which precedes metaphysical theories, and that we can make our choice of life, whether or not we justify it by improved or entirely new arguments.

M. C. You often speak of "nature" or "universal nature" in the context of the triple discipline of the Stoics. For example, according to Marcus Aurelius we must learn "the ways and laws of . nature." What is meant here by

"nature"? Is it the "nature" in which we stroll and have picnics? The "nature"

which "makes no leaps"?

P. H. For the Stoics, nature is at the same time the program in conformity with which the events which constitute the universe are necessarily linked to one another, and the programmed sequence which results from them. Thus, it is the rational order which presides over the evolution of the visible world.

It is this programming and this rationality which give the world its coherence.

To act according to nature is therefore to act in a programmed, rational manner, in full awareness of the fact that one is a part of the cosmic whole, as well as a part of the whole formed by the city of l:hose beings which share in reason. On the one hand, then, it is to act in the service of the human community, and, on the other, to consent to the general movement of the universe. The Stoics were saying exactly the same thing as Einstein, when he denounced the optical illusion of a person who imagines himself to be a separate entity, while he is really a part of that whole which we call the universe. Einstein also declared that it is our duty to open our hearts to all living beings, and to all of nature in her magnificence.

M. C. The triple discipline of spiritual exercises is intended to lead me towards the inner transformation of my way of seeing, and eventually, to restore me ns nn integrnl and integrated part of the cosmos. According to this

284

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theory, my task is to discipline my desires, my inclinations, and my assent.

The last two domains correspond respectively to ethics - I must observe my duties toward my fellow citizens - and to logic or epistemology: I must accept as true only that which is freed from my subjective prejudices.

All this seems feasible enough. But as far as the discipline of desire is concerned: it is surely true that the majority of our unhappiness comes from our unsatisfied desires; this was taught by the Buddha, among others. But is it really possible for me to discipline my desires; that is, to persuade myself by means of rational considerations no longer to desire a particular object?

Let's take sexual desire as an example. If I feel desire for a woman, it is perfectly possible for me to tell myself that I will not act according to "'J' desire; in other words, that I will not attempt to satisfy my desire. But can I really go further than that, and, in the presence of the desired object, command myself not to desire it at{v longer? I have difficulties with this point.

P. H. Can purely rational considerations be effective against passion or sexual desire? Here we return to the very idea of spiritual exercises.

What's interesting about the idea of spiritual exercises is precisely that it is nor a matter of a purely rational consideration, but the putting in action of all kinds of means, intended to act upon one's self. Imagination and affectivity play a capital role here: we must represent to ourselves in vivid colors the dangers of such-and-such a passion, and use striking formulations of ideas in order to exhort ourselves. We must also create habits, and fortify ourselves by preparing ourselves against hardships in advance. In Epicurean communities, people help one another, admit their weaknesses to each other, and warn others of such-andsuch a dangerous tendency which is beginning to manifest itself in them.

All these techniques can be useful in crisis situations. Yet we must not allow them to make us forget that what is most important is the profound orientation of our lives, the fundamental choice of a life, which engages us passionately. The problem is not so much to repress such-and-such a passion, as it is to learn to see things "from above," in the grandiose perspective of universal nature and of humanity, compared to which many passions may appear ridiculously insignificant. It is then that rational knowledge may become force and will, and thereby become extremely efficacious.

M. C. On May 22, 1 99 1 , you gave your last lecture at the College de France.

After some three decades of teaching, the last words you pronounced in public were: "In the last analysis, we can scarcely talk about what is most important."

This seems paradoxical . After a lifetime devoted to humanistic studies, have you finally come to the conclusion of the Neoplatonist philosopher Damascius,13 who wrote "What will be the limit of our discourse, if it is nut an impotent silence, and the admission of our absolute lack of knowledge concerning those things about which we mny never gnin knowlcdl(c, Hince they ore inncce1111iblc11?

Postsm'pt

285

P.H. You're alluding to the last words of my last class: "In the final analysis, we can scarcely talk about what is most important." I was saying that about Plotinus, for whom the most important thing was not his teaching, but the unutterable experience of union with the One. For Plotinus, abstract teaching could allude to this experience, but could not lead to it. Only asceticism and a moral life could truly prepare the soul for such a union (and here again, we find the same opposition between philosophical discourse and the philosophical life).

Obviously, however, when I used this phrase, I was hinting at my own experience as a teacher and my experience of life. I wasn't only talking about the experience of the ineffable among the Neoplatonists, but about a more general experience.

Everything which is "technical" in the broad sense of the term, whether we arc talking about the exact sciences or the humanistic sciences, is perfectly able to be communicated by teaching or conversation. But everything that touches the domain of the existential - which is what is most important for human beings - for instance, our feeling of existence, our impressions when faced by death, our perception of nature, our sensations, and a fortiori the mystical experience, is not directly communicable. The phrases we use to describe them are conventional and banal; we realize this when we try to console someone over the loss of a loved one. That's why it often happens that a poem or a biography are more philosophical than a philosophical treatise, simply because they allow us to glimpse this unsayable in an indirect way. Here again, we find the kind of mysticism evoked in Wittgenstein's Tractatus: "There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical."

NOTES

[In April-May 1992, M. Hadot was kind enough to respond to some questions I had asked him during the course of the preparation of this translation. What follows is a translation of our exchange. All notes arc my own. - Trans.]

1 [Etienne Gilson, author of many highly influential works on Medieval thought; cf. History of Cliristian Philosophy in tile Middle Ages, New York 1955.]

2 [Emile Brehier, the first modem editor and translator of Plotinus, also wrote important works on Stoicism, and a three-volume History of Pliilosophy which was, for many decades, the standard reference work on the subject in France.]

3 Uean Wahl, expert on Existentialism, was the author of such works as Etudes kierkegaardiem1es ("Studies on Kierkegaard"), 3rd edn, Paris 1967.]

4 [Maurice de Gandillac, a specialist on Neoplatonism, was author of important works on Plotinus (la s11gesse de Plotin, Paris 1966), and Nicolas of Cusa, among others.]

5 LJean Hyppolite was the translator and exegete of Hegel (Genest et Structure de la Pl1e110111bwl0Kit� tie /'esprit tie Hegel, Paris 1946), who exercised a great influence un French Marxi11m. I

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6 [3rd edn, Paris 1 989. An English translation is in preparation.]

7 [2 vols, Paris 1 968.]

8 [P. Henry, Plolin ti /'Ocrident. Firmicus Maltrnus, Marius Virtorinus, Saini Augustin ti Marrobe (= Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense, Etudes et Documents 1 5), Louvain 1934.]

9 [The Practical School of Higher Studies, of which the fifth section is the Section of Religious Sciences. Hadot had as his colleagues at this institution such eminent scholars as Qaude Levi-Strauss, Georges Dumezil, Henry Corbin, Henri-Charles Puech, and the great Hellenist AndrC-Jean Festugiere, to name but a few.]

10 [Ambroist de Milan, Apologie tie David, intro. Latin text, notes and index Pierre Hadot, trans. Marius Cordier (= Sources Chretiennes 239), Paris 1 977.) 11 ["Power and Wisdom," Paris 1 970.]

12 [R. Ruyer, Tl1t Gnosis of Princeton, p. 220.]

13 [On the Finl Principles, I, 7, p. 1 5, 22-5 Ruelle.J

Select Bibliography

ANTHOLOGIES

Von Amim, H., ed., Stoicorum Vettrum Fragmenta, 4 vols, Leipzig 1903 (abbreviated SVF).

Diets, H., and W. Kranz, eds, Die Fragme11te der Vorsokatiker, 3 vols, Dublin/Zurich 1956, 8th edn, repr. 1974.

Long, A.A. and D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol. 1 : Translations of the Principal Sourm, with Philosophical Commentary, vol. 2: Greele and Lati11 Texts TPith Note.f and Bibliography, Cambridge 1987, repr. 1 988.

Nauck, A., ed., Tragicorum Graecorur11 Fragmenta, Leipzig 1 889, 2nd edn, repr. Hildesheim 1964.

ANCIENT AUTHORS

Apoplrthegmata Patrum (Tire Sayings of tire Fathm), PG 65.

-- English trans. : Tire Sayings of tire Dmrt Fatlrers, trans. Benedicta Ward, Mowbray 1 975.

Aristophanes, Nubes (Clouds), ed. K.J . Dover, Aristoplranes ' Clouds, Oxford 1 968, repr.

1970.

-- English trans.: Aristoplranes: The Achamians, Tire Clouds, Lysistrata, trans. and intro. Alan H. Sommerstcin, Harmondsworth 1973, repr. 1985.

Aristotle, Opera, ed. I. Bekker, Aristotelis opera, 5 vols, Berlin 1 83 1 , repr. 1 960.

-- English trans.: The Complete Works of Aristotle, Revised Oxford Translation, ed . Jonathan Barnes (= Bollingen Series 71 .2), Princeton NJ 1984.

Ariinotlc, Sop/1istici Elenchi (On Sophistical Refutations), trans. W.A. Pickard

C11mbridge.

AriHtotlc, IJe partil111s 1mimali11m (Part.f of Animals), trans. W. Ogle.

288

Select Bibliography

Aristotle, Protrepticus, ed. W .D. Ross, Aristotelis Fragmenta Selecta, Oxford 1 955.

-- English trans.: J. Barnes and G. Lawrence in J. Barnes, ed., 1 984, vol. 2.

-- German trans.: Der Protreptikos des Aris1oteles, trans., intro. and commentary Ingemar During, Frankfurt 1 969.

Athanasius, Vila Antonii (Life of Antony), PG 26, 835-976B.

-- English trans.: Athanasius. The Life of Antony and the Lei/er to Marce/linus, trans.

and intro. Robert C. Gregg, preface William A. Clebsch (Classics of Western Spirituality), New York/Ramsey NY /Toronto 1 980.

Augustine, De Trinitate (On tile Trinity), PL 42, 8 1 9-1098.

Basil of Caesarea, In 11/ud Allende tibi ipsi (Homily on the Words, "Give Heed to ThysefF')

-- L 'homilie de Basile de Cesaree sur le mot "observt-loi toi-mime ': ed. S.Y. Rudberg (= Acta Universitatis Stockliolmensis, Studia Graeca Stockholmensia 2), Stockholm 1962.

-- English trans.: Saini Basil: Ascttical Works, trans. Sister M. Monica Wagner, CSC (= FC 9), Washington DC 1 950, repr. 1 970.

Basil of Caesarea, Regulae fusius trat�tatae ( The Long Rules; otherwise known as Asi:eticon magnum or Q�aestiones), PG 3 1 , 901-1 052.

-- English trans.: Saint Basil: Ascetical Works, trans. Sister M. Monica Wagner, CSC {= FC 9), Washington DC 1 950, repr. 1 970.

Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, eds 0. Stahlin, L. Friichtel and U. Treu, in Clemens Alexandrinus [ = GCS 52 ( 1 5), 17], vol. 2, 3rd cdn, Berlin 1960; vol. 3, 2nd edn, 1 970.

-- English trans.: in ANF Z, trans. W.A. Wilson, Buffalo 1885, repr. Grand Rapids 1 977.

Damascius, Vita Isidori, ed. C. Zinzten, Life of Isidorus: Damascii vitae Isidori reliquiae

{= Bibliollieca graeca et Latina mppletoria I), Hildesheim 1967.

Diadochus of Photice, Kephalaia Gnoslica (G11ostic chaptel"s); Capita ce111um de perfectione spirituali (One Hu11dred Cliaptm on Spirilual Perfection), ed. Edouard des Places, SJ, in Diadoque de Photici, Oeuvres spiritue/les (= SC 5bis), Paris 1 955, repr.

with suppl. 1966.

Diogenes Laertius, Vitae pl1ilosopliorum (Lives of the Plti/o.(ophers), ed. R.D. Hicks, Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Emi11et1I Philosophers, with English trans. R.D.H. (LCL), 2 vols, London/Cambridge MA 1 925, repr. 1950.

Dorotheus of Ga1.a, Didaskaliai (Instructions), ed. with French trans., in Oeuvres spirituelles, eds L. Regnault and J. de Prcville (= SC 92), Paris 1 963.

-- English trans.: Dorotheus of Gaza: Discourses and Sayittgs, trans. E.P. Wheeler (= Cistercia11 Studies 33), Kalama1.oo 1977.

Epictetus, Opera, ed. W.A. Oldfather, Epictetus, The Discourses as reported by Arrian, the Manual, and the Fragments, with English trans. W.A.0. (LCL), 2 vols, London/Cambridge MA 1928, repr. 1 959.

Epicurus, Opera, ed. H. Usener, Epicurea {Sammlung Wissenschaftlicher Commentaren), Stuttgart 1 887, repr. 1 966.

-- ed. with English trans.: Epicurus, The E.\"lattt Remaitts, short critical apparatus, trans. and notes Cyril Bailey, Oxford 1926, rcpr. Hildesheim/New York, 1970.

-- ed. with Italian trans.: Epic11ro, Opere, t r11n11. Gr11zi1mo Arrighett i (= Biblio1/1er11

di rnl111r11 filMt!/ica 41 ), Turin I %0; 2nd c:dn, 197.1.

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289

Eusebius, Historia etclesiastica (Ecclesiastical History), ed. with French trans. G. Bardy, Eusibe de Cesaree. Histoire mlesiastique, 3 vols (= SC 3 1 , 4S, SS), Paris 1 9S2-8.

Evagrius of Pontus, Praktikos, ed. with French trans. A. and C. Guillaumont, Evagre le Pontique: Traite pralitJUe ou le moine, vol. 2 (= SC 1 7 1 ), Paris 1 97 1 .

-- English trans.: Evagrius Ponti&us. The Praktikos. Chapters on Prayer, trans ., intro.

and notes John Eudes Bamberger (= Cisterdan Studies 4), Kalamazoo 1978.

Galen, De cognoscendis rurandisque animi morltis (On Diagnosing and Curing the Illnesses of the Soul ), ed. Joann. Marquardt (= C/audii Galeni Pergameni scripta minora, vol. I), Leipzig 1 884.

-- English trans: Galen On the Passions and Errors of the Soul, trans. P.W. Harkins, Columbus OH 1 963.

Gregory Nazianzen, Apologeticus de fuga (In Defense for his Flight to Pontus), PG 3S, 408-S l 3 .

Gregory Nazianzen, Epistula 31, trans. P . Gallay, in Gregoire de Nar.iarrr.e, Lettres t/rtologiques (= SC 208), Paris 1 974. @BIB PLUS = Gregory Thaumaturgus, In Origenem oratio panegyrica (Speech in Praise of Origen), ed. H. Crouzel, Gregoire le Thaumaturge. Remerciement ti Origine suivi de la lettre d Origine ti Gregoire

'

(= SC

148), Paris 1 969.

-- English rrans.: in ANF 6, trans. S.D.F. Salmond.

Homer, Iliad, English trans. : Tire Iliad of Homer, trans. and intro. Richmond Lattimore, London 19S l , repr. 1961 .

Homer, Odyssey, English trans.: The OtJ.vsse.J' of Homer, trans. Richmond Lattimore, New York 196S, repr. 1 97S.

Horace, Horace, Satires, Epistks and Ars Poetica, with English trans. H. Rushton Fairclough (I.CL), London/Cambridge MA 1926, repr. 1 947.

Horace, Horace, the Odes and Epodes, with English trans. C.E. Bennett (LCL), London/C..amhridgc MA 1 9 1 4; 2nd edn, 1947.

Horace, Odes, English tnins.: Horace: T/1e Complete Odes and Epotles with the Centennial H.vmn, trans. with notes W.G. Shepherd, Harmondsworth 1983.

John Cassian, Collationes Sanctorum Patrum (Conferences of the Ho(v Fathers).

--Jean Cassien, Conftrences, ed. and French trans. E. Pichery, Paris, vol. 1 (= SC

42) 1 966, vol. 2 (= SC 54) 1958, vol. 3 (= SC 64) 1 959.

-- English trans. : John Cassian, Conferences, trans. and preface Colin Luibheid, intro. Owen Chadwick (CWS), New York/Mahwah NJ/Toronto 1 985.

John Chrysostom, Ar/versus oppugnatores vitae monasticae .(Against the Opporrents of the Monastic Life), PG 47, 3 1 9-86.

John Chrysostom, Non esse ad gratiam con&ionandurn ( That One s/1ould not make Speeches intended to Please the Public), PG SO, 653-62.

John of Salisbury, Po(vcraticus, ed. C.C.J. Webb, Oxford 1 909, repr. 1 965.

-- partial English trans.: John Dickinson, The Statesman 's Book of John of Salisbury, New York 1927.

--Joseph B. Pike, Frivolities of Courtiers and Footsteps of Philosophers, Oxford, 1938.

Flavius Josephus, Antiquitates ludaeorun1 (Antiquities of the Je11Js), ed. B. Niese, Flavii losephi opera, 4 vols, Berlin 1 887-90.

Justin, Dialol(llS mm Tryphone (Dialogue 11Jith Trypho), ed. E.J. Goodspeed, Die iiltesten ApoloRtlttl, G6ttiniccm 191 5.

290

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Justin, Apologia (Apology), ed. E.J. Goodspeed, Die iiltesten Apologeten, Gt>ttingen 191 5.

Justin, Apologia secunda (Second Apology), ed. E.J. Goodspeed, Dit iiltesten Apo/ogeten, Gt>ttingen 1 9 1 5 .

Lactantius, Divinae institutiones (Divine Institutes), ed. and French trans. Pierre Monat

[= SC 204 ( 1 973); 205 (1973); 326 ( 1 986); 337 (1987), etc.].

-- English trans.: in Lactantius, The Divine Institutes, Boo/es I-VII, trans. Sister Mary Francis McDonald (= PC 49), Washington DC 1964.

Leonidas of Tarentum, Opera, ed. W.R. Paton, in The Grtele Anthology, with English trans. W.R.P. (LCL), 5 vols, London/Cambridge MA 1 953.

Lucian, Opera, eds A.M. Harmon, K. Kilburn, et al., Lucian 111ith an English Translation (LCL). 8 vols, London/Cambridge MA 191 3ff.

Lucian, lcaromennipus, in Opera, eds Hamon et al., vol. 2, ed. Harmon, 19 1 5, repr. 1 960.

Lucian, Charon sive tontemp/antes (Charon or tht Overseers), in Opera, eds Harmon et al., vol. 2, ed. Harmon, 1 9 1 5, repr. 1 960.

Lucian, Dialogi mortuorum (Dialogues of the Dead), in Opera, eds Harmon et al., vol. 7, ed. MacLeod, 1 96 1 .

Lucian, fluomodo historia conscribenda sit (Ho111 One Should Write History), i n Opera, eds Harmon et al., vol. 6, ed. K. Kilburn, 1959, repr. 1968.

Lucretius, De rerum natura (011 the Nature of Things), ed. W.H.D. Rouse, Lucretius, De rtrom natura, revised with new text, introduction, notes, and index M.F. Smith (LCL), 2nd edn, London/Cambridge MA 1982.

Marcus Aurelius, Opera, ed. A.S.L. Farquharson, The Meditations of tl1t Emperor Marcus Aurelius, ed., trans. and commentary A.S.L.F., vol. 1 : Text and Translation; vol. 2: Greek Commentary, Oxford, 1944, repr. 1968.

Marcus Aurelius, Marti A11rtlii Antonini ad se ipsum libri XII, ed. Joachim Dalfen, Leipzig 1 979.

Maximus Confessor, Various writings, in PG 4; 19; 90-1 .

Maximus Confessor, Maximus Confessor: Selected Writings, trans. and notes George C.

Berthold, intro. Jaroslav Pelikan, preface lrenee-Henri Dalmais, O.P. (CWS), New York/Mahwah NJ/Toronto 1985.

Metrodorus, ed. A. Korte, "Metrodori epicurei fragmenta," Jahrbiithtr fiir Classische Philologit, Suppl. XVII (1 890), pp. 529ff.

Olympiodorus, b1 Altibiadem, ed. L.G. Westerink, Commentary on the First Alcibiades of Plato, critical text and indices L.G.W., Amsterdam 1 956.

Origen, Contra Ce/sum (Against Ce/sus). ed. M. Borret, Origene, Contre Geise, 4 vols (=

SC 1 32; 136; 147; 1 50), Paris 1967-9.

-- English trans.: H.E. Chadwick, Cambridge 1 965.

Origen, In Canticum Can1icor11m (Commemary on the Song of So11gs), ed. W.A.

Baehrens, GCS 33, Berlin 1 925.

-- English trans. : Origen, The So11g of So11gs, Com111e11tal')' and Homilies, trans. and annotated R.P. Lawson (= ACW 26), London/Westminster MD 1 957.

Ovid, Metamorp/1oses, with English trans. Frank Justus Miller (I.CL), 2 vols, London 1 9 1 6.

Phil0 Jmlac:u111 Optr11, ed11 l .. Cohn ond P. Wemll1md, (1 voh1, llcrlin 1 8116 I CJ I S .

Select Bibliography

29 1

Philo Judaeus, De Specialibus /egibus (On the Special Laws), in Opera, eds Cohn and Wendland, vol. 5, ed. Cohn, 1 906, repr. 1 962.

-- Text and English trans.: F.H. Colson (LCL), vol. 7-, London/Cambridge MA 1937, repr. 1 958.

Philo Judaeus, Vita Mosis (Life of Moses), in Opera, eds Cohn and Wendland, vol. 4, Cohn, 1902, repr. 1 962.

Philo Judaeus, Ltgatio ad Gaium ( The Legation to Gaius), in Opera, eds Cohn and Wendland, vol. 6, eds Cohn and S. Reiter, 1 9 1 5, repr. 1 962.

Philo Judaeus, De vita contemplativa (On the Contemplative life), in Opera, eds Cohn and Wendland, vol. 6, eds Cohn and S. Reiter, 1 9 1 5, repr. 1 962.Plato, Opera, ed.

J. Burnett, Oxford 1 900-7.

-- English trans.: The Collected Dialogues of Plato, including the Letters, eds Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (= Bollingen Series 7 1 ), Princeton, NJ 1 96 1 ; 2nd edn 1 %3.

Plato, Apologia Socratis (Apology), trans. H. Tredennick, in Collected Dialogues, eds Hamilton and Cairns.

Plato, lathes, trans. B. Jowett, in ColleGted Dialogues, eds Hamilton and Cairns.

Plato, Pl1aedo, trans. H. Tredennick, in Collected Dialogues, eds Hamilton and Cairns.

Plato, Phaedrus, trans. R. Hackforth, in Col/ecud Dialogues, eds Hamilton and Cairns.

Plato, Republic, trans. P. Shorey, in Collected Dialogues, eds Hamilton and Cairns.

Plato, Seventh Leiter, trans. A.L. Post, in Collected Dialogues, eds Hamilton and Cairns.

Plato, Politicus ( The Statesman), trans. J.B. Skemp, in Collected Dialogues, eds Hamilton and Cairns.

Plato, Symposium, trans. M. Joyce, in Co/lectetl Dialogues, eds Hamilton and Cairns.

Plotinus, Enneades, eds P. Henry and H.-R. Schwyzer, Plorini opera, 3 vols, Leiden 1951-73.

--�English trans. : Plotinus, trans. Arthur Hilary Armstrong (LCL), 7 vols, Cambridge MA 1 966-88.

Plutarch, Moralia, ed. and trans. F.C. Babbitt, Plutarch s Moralia, with English trans.

(LCL), London/Cambridge MA.

Plutarch, De com111u11ibus notitiis contra Stoicos (On Common Conceptions), in Moralia, ed. Babbitt, vol. 1 3, pt. 2, ed. H. Cherniss, 1 976.

Plutarch, De deftctu oraculorum (On the Obsolescet1&e of Oracles), in Moralia, ed. Babbitt, vol. 5, ed. F.C. Babbitt, 1957.

Plutarch, De tranquillilate animi (On Peace of Mind), in Moralia, ed. Babbitt, vol. 6, ed. W .C. Helmbold.

Plutarch, Quaestiones conviviales (Table-talk), in Moralia, ed. Babbitt, vol. 4, ed.

C. Hubert, 1938, repr. 1971 .

Plutarch, Quomodn qw's suos in virtute sen1ia1 proftctus (How Ot1e may K11ow One is Maki11g Progress in Virtue), in Moralia, ed. Babbin, vol. 1 , ed. F.C. Babbitt, 1927, repr. 1969.

Porphyry, Ad Marcel/am, ed. W. Potscher, Porphyrios. trpoa MapKElla�, Leiden 1 969.

-- English trans.: Porphyry the Philosopher, To Marcella, text, trans. intro. and notes by K. O'Brien Wicker (= Society of Biblical Literature, Texts and Translations 28, Groeco-Roman Religion Series I O), Atlanta 1 987.

292

Select Bibliography

Porphyry, De abstinentia (On Abstinence), text and French trans., Porphyre: De L 'abstinence, Livre I, vol. I , text and trans. Jean Bouffartigue, Paris 1977.

-- Livres 2 et 3, vol. 2, text jean Bouffartigue, trans. Jean Bouffartigue and Michel Patillon, Paris 1 979.

-- English trans.: Select Works of Porphyry . . . Translated from the Greek, trans.

Thomas Taylor, London 1 823, repr. Ann Arbor 1965.

Porphyry, Sententiae (Sentences), ed. E. Lamberz: Porphyrius, Sententiae ad lntelligibilia Ducentes, Leipzig 1975.

-- English trans.: Select Works of Porphyry . . . Translated from the Greek, trans.

Thomas Taylor, London 1 823, repr. Ann Arbor 1965.

Proclus, Jn Alcibiadem (Commentary on Plato s First Alcibiades), text and French trans., Proclus: Sur le Premier Alcibiade de Plato11, text and trans. A. Ph. Segonds, 2 vols, Paris 1 985--6.

Quintillian, lnstitiutio Oratorica (Oratorical Institutions), text and English trans.

ed. H.E. Butler (LCL), 2 vols, 1921-2.

Rufinus, Historia Monachorum (History of the Monks), PL 2 1 .

Sallustius, De diis et mundo, text and English trans., Sallustius: Concerning the Gods and the Universe, ed., prolegomena and trans. A.O. Nock, Cambridge 1 926.

Seneca, Opera, ed. and English trans. Thomas H. Corcoran (LCL), 10 vols, London/Cambridge MA.

Seneca, Ad Lucilium epistulae morales (Letters to Lucilius), ed. and English trans.

Richard C. Gummere, 3 vols, London/Cambridge MA, 1 934.

Seneca, De beneficiis (011 Benefits) in Se11eca: Moral Essays, with English trans. John.

W. Basore (LCL), 3 vols, London/Cambridge MA 1 935, repr. 1 958.

Seneca, Questiones r1aturales (Natural Q�estions), in Opera, ed. Corcoran, vol. 7, London/Cambridge MA 1 97 1 .

Septuagint, ed. A. Rahlfs, Sep111agin1a, Id est Vetus Testamentum graece iu,.�ta LXX

itllerpretes, Stuttgart 1935.

Sextus Empiricus, Opera, ed. and English trans. R.G. Bury, Sel'tt1s Empiricus (LCL), 4 vols, London/Cambridge MA 1933-49.

Tatian, Oratio ad Graecos (Address to the Greeks), ed. E.J. Goodspeed, Die iiltesten Apologeten, Gtittingen 1915.

Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Historia Religiosa (= Philotheus) (History of the Monks of Syria), ed. and French trans. P. Canivet and A. Leroy-Molinghen, Thtodoret de Cyr.

L 'histoire ths moines de Syrie, 2 vols (= SC 234; 257), Paris 1977-9.

Xenophon, Memorabilia, ed. E.C. Marchant, Xenophomis opera omnia, vol. 2, 2nd edn, Oxford 192 1 , rcpr. 1 97 1 .

-- English trans.: H . Tredennick and R . Waterfield, in Xenophon: Conversations of Socrates, Harmondsworth 1990.

MODERN AUTHORS

Adnes, P., "Garde du coeur," Dictiomwire de Spiritualitt, vol. 6, (.'01. 1 08.

Africa, T.W., "The opium addiction of M11rcu11 Aurelius," Jmm1a/ 1>f 1/1t Ui.fl11ry 1>f lde11s (Jan. -Mar. I% I ), pp. 97 102.

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293

Alexandre, M., "Le travail de la sentence chez Marc Aurele: philosophic et rhetorique," in Formes brives (= Publications de la Faculte des Leures et des Langues de l'Universite de Poitiers 3), Poitiers 1 979.

Andresen, C., Logos und Nomos, Berlin 1955.

Apelt, 0., Platonische Auftiitu, Berlin 1912.

Association Guillaume Bude, Actes du VIII' Congris (Paris, 5-10 April 1 968), Paris 1 969.

Bacon, Helen H., "Socrates crowned," The Virginia IJ]larterly Revit'/lJ 35 ( 1959), pp.

41 5-30.

Bergson, Henri, L 'E11ergie spirituelle, 14th edn, Paris 1930.

-- La Pensee et le mouvant, Paris 1 946.

-- English trans. : The Creative Mind, trans. Mabelle L. Andison, New York 1946.

Bertram, E., Nietzsche. Versuch einer Mytho/ogie, Berlin 1 9 1 8, rcpr. Bonn, 8th edn, 1965.

Blake, William, Complete Writings, with Variant Readings, ed. Geoffrey Keynes, London 1 972.

Blumenberg, Hans, Die legitimitiit der Neuuit, Frankfurt 1 966.

Blumenthal, Henry, "Soul, world-soul, and individual soul in Plotinus," in Le Neop/atonisme, 1 97 1 .

Bohlin, T., S. Kierkegaards Leben und Wertkn, 1925.

Bt>hm, B., Soltrates ;,,, achtuhnttn Jahrhundert. Studien zum Werdegang Jes modemen Persiinlichkeitsbewusstseins, Leipzig 1929.

Bonitz, H., lndtJ.' aristottlicus, Berlin 1 870, rcpr. Graz 1955.

Borinski, K., Die Antilte in Poetik untl Kunsttheorie, vol. I, Leipzig 1914.

Bruns, I., De schola Epicteti, Kiel 1 897.

Caillois, R., Esthetique generalisee, Paris 1 962.

Carus, C.G., Symbolik Jer menschlichm Gestalt, 1 858, repr. Hildesheim/DamlStadt 1962.

Chadwick, H., The Sentt11ces of Sextus, Cambridge 1 959.

Chenu, M.-D., Introduction a l'ttude de saint Thomas d'Aquin, Paris 1 954.

Courcelle, Pierre, La Consolatio11 de Philosophie Jans la tradition lilleraire, Paris 1 967.

Courcelle, Pierre, Com1ais-1oi toi-mime. De Socrate a saint Bernard, 3 vols, Paris 1 974-5.

Dailly, R., and 1-1. van Effenterre, "Le cas Marc Aurele. Essai de psychosomatique historiquc," Revue Jes Etudes Anciennes 56 ( 1954), pp. 347-65.

Delcourt, Marie, "Utrumque-neutrum," in Melanges H.-Ch. Puech, Paris 1 974.

Delorme, j., Gymnasion, Paris 1960.

Descartes, R., Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seekit1g for 1/1e Truth in the Sciences, English trans. in Descartes: Seltetiot1s, ed. Ralph M. Eaton, New York 1 927.

Detienne, M., De la pensee religieuse a la pensee philosop/1ique. La notio11 de Daimon Jans le pythagorisme ancien, Paris 1963.

Detienne, M., Les maitres Je vmte dans la Grice archai'que, Paris 1 967.

Detienne, M., and J.-P. Vemant, Les ruses tie /'intelligence. La metis ties Crees, Paris 1974.

Dirlmeicr, F., "Vom Monolog der Dichtung zum 'inneren' Logos bei Platon und Aris101cles, '' in Auge1Piihl1t Schrifien zu Dichtung und Philosophie der Gritehen, I lcidclbcrg 1970.

294

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Dodds, E.R., The Gl'etks and lhe Irrational (= Sather Classical Lectures 25), 3rd edn, Berkeley/London 1963.

Dodds, E.R., Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety, Cambridge 1965.

Dilring, I., "Aristotle and the heritage from Plato," Eranos 62 ( 1 964), pp. 84-99.

Dilring, I., Aristoteles. Darstel/ung und Interpretation seines Denkens, Heidelberg 1 966.

Dilring, I., "Von Aristoteles bis Leibniz. Einige Hauptlinien in der Geschichte des Aristotelismus," in P. Moraux, ed., Aristoteles in der neueren Forschung (= Wege der Forschung 61), Darmstadt 1968.

Eckermann, J.P., Gesprache mit Goethe, Wiesbaden 1 955.

Emrich, W., Die Symbolik von Fausl II, Frankfurt 1957.

Festugii:re, A.-J., Epicure et ses dieux, Paris 1946.

Festugii:re, A.-J., La revelation d 'Hmnes Trismegiste, vol. 2, Paris 1949.

Festugii:re, A.-J., Conlemplation et vie contemplative se/on Platon, 2nd edn, Paris 1950.Foucault, M., "L'ecriture de soi," Corps ecrit 5 ( 1 983), pp. 3-23.

Foucault, M., Histoire de la sexualite, vol. 2: L 'Usage tks p/aisirs, Paris 1984.

Foucault, M., Histoire tk la sexualite, vol. 3: Le Souci de soi, Paris 1 984.

-- English trans.: The Care of the Self(= History of Se).�ualitJ', vol. 2), trans. Robert Hurley, New York 1986.

Frank, K.S., ed., Askese und Monchtum i11 der a/ten Kirche (= Wege der Forschung 409), Darmstadt 1975.

Friedlander, P., Plato: An lt1troduction (= Bollingen Series 59. 1 ), trans. H. Meyerhoff, vol. I , 2nd edn, Princeton NJ 1 969.

Friedmann, G., La Puissa11ce et la Sagesse, Paris 1970.

Friedmann, G., "Le Sage ct notrc sickle,'' Revue de Synthese 99 (1978).

Friedrich, C.D., and C.G. Carus, De la peinlure de paysage, Paris 1 988.

Gaiser, K., Protreptik und Paranese bei P/aton. Untersuchungen zur Form des platonischen Dialogs, Stuttgart 1959.

Gaiser, K., Platons ungeschriebene Lehre. Studien zur systematischen und geschicht/ichen Begro11dung der Wissens1'hafie11 in der platonisd1en Schule, Stuttgart 1963, 2nd edn, 1 968.

Gaiser, K., Platone come scrittore filosofic-o, Naples 1 984.

Gasquet, J., Cezanne, Paris 1 988.

Gerhard, G.A., Phoini.r vo11 Ko/op/1011, Leipzig 1 909.

Gcrnet, L., An1hropologie de la Grece antique, Paris 1968.

Van Geytenbeek, A.C., Muso11ius Rufus and Greek Diatribes, Assen 1 963.

Gigante, M., "Philodi:me: Sur la liberte de la parole," Acres du VIII' Congres Bude, Paris 1 969.

Gigante, M., Ricerche Filodemee, Naples 1 983.

von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, Goethes Gespriiche mil Eckermann, ed. Franz Deibel, 2

vols, Leipzig 1 908.

-- English trans. : Co11versati1ms with Et:ker111ann, trans. John Oxcnford, 2 vols, 1 850.von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, Wilhelm Meisters Lehrj11/ire.

-- English trans. : Wilhelm Meister 's Appre111iceship a11tl Trtm!ls, Fmm the Germa11 of Goethe, trans. Thomas Carlyle, 2 vols, 2nd edn, U 139.

Goldschmidt, V.; "Sur le probleme du 111y11rcme de Plaron','' Rhiist" l'rilfr11 ,/; 111iri11

tit/la fi/11sofi11 S ( I 9S1J), pp. 161) 7H.

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Goldschmidt, V., Les dialogues de Platon. Structure et mithode dialmique (= Bibliotheque de philosophic contemporaine, Histoire de la Philosophic et Philosophic gi:nerale), 2nd edn, Paris 1 963.

Goldschmidt, V., Le systime stoi"cien et l'it/Je de temps, 4th edn, Paris 1 985.

Gould, Thomas, Platonic Love, London 1 963.

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Hadot, I., Le problime d11 nioplatonisme a/eJ:andrin, Hiirodis el Simp/icus, Paris 1 978.

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Index

Abelard 33

Boethius' translation 5 1

abstraction, and oral tradition of

dialogue 2 1 , 22, 105-6

philosophy 20

discourse 28

Academicians 60

exegesis 7 1 , 72, 75

aesthetics

philosophy as a way of life 266, 269

Aristotle 1 90

on Socrates 1 53

Marcus Aurelius 1 89-90, 251

theory 29

perception 254-6

Arrian of Nicomedia 1 9 1 , 195, 1 99, 200

Africa, Thomas W. 180, 1 8 1-2

artists 254, 255, 256

Agathon 1 66, 1 69

ascetidsm 1 28

Alexander Severus 4

Asianism 67

Ambrose

assent see judgment

Philo's text, use of 65

Athanasius 1 3 1 , 135

translation of Plotinus 3, 5 1

attention to oneself

Andronicus o f Rhodes 72

Christianity 130-6

Antisthencs 9 1

displacement of 254

Antoninus Pious 57

Marcus Aurelius 1 98

Antony, St

Stoic spiritual exercises 84-5, 1 30

attention to oneself 1 3 1 , 1 33, 1 39

Augustine

conscience, examination of 135

confessions in Conjessiom 186

conversion 1 3 1

Confessions, inspiration of 68

writing, therapeutic value 1 35, 209,

conversion 5 1 -2

2 1 1

exegesis 16-1 7

Apelles 266

Husserl's adaptation 65

Apologists 1 28

mistranslations 3, 66, 75

Apophthegmata 133

physics, logic, and ethics 26

Aristophanes 90-1 , 1 66, 1 69

rules of discourse 13

Aristotelianism

self, mystery of 1 5-17: original sin

absorption into Platonism 56

1 6, 52

exegetical phase 5

structure of work for spiritual

life, conduct of 58

progress 64

physics 97

Trinity 107

scholasticism 63

Aulus Gellius 190, 19 1 , 199

theory and practice, relationship

authentic texts 73-4

between 60

t\ristotle

Barth, Casper 10

aesthetics 1 90

Barthes, Roland 56

302

Index

Basil of Caesarea

Oearchus of Soloi 24 1

attention to oneself 1 30-1 , 134, 139

Clement of Alexandria 74, 1 28

watch of the heart 132

attention to oneself 1 30

Baudelaire, Charles 248

integration 269

Baumgarten 254

spiritual perfection 138

being

Oeonymus of Athens 74, 128, 241

as infinitive 5-6, 75

attention to oneself 1 30

negative theology of 6

integration 269

as participle �. 75

spiritual perfection 138

Bergson, Henri 253--4, 257, 258, 272, 278

conscience, examination of 131, 1 34-5,

Bernard, Paul 54

1 39

Bernard of Clairvaux 129

consolations 22-3

biographies of philosophers 30

contamination of paganism and

Blake, William 260

Christianity 4-5

Boethius

Copernican revolution 253

es� and id quod est, distinction

cosmic consciousness 266, 273

between 6, 76

Courcelle, Jeanne 52

translation of Aristotelian

Courcelle, Pierre 50-2

commentator 5 1

Crantor 72

brevity o f existence 1 85-6

creative misunderstandings 6-7

cryptography, mystical 1 0-1 1

Caillois, Roger 256

Cynicism

Cambiano, Giuseppe 30

flight of the soul 245-7

Carus, G. G. 255

life, conduct of 58, 103--4

Casaubon, Meric 179

philo.11ophy as a way of life 266, 269

Cato of Utico 272

Celsus 74

Dailly, R. 180

CC-anne, Paul 255-6, 257

Damascius 104, 284

Chastel, Andre 243

Dead Poets ' Society 1 87

Chenu, M.-D. 73

death

Christianity

awareness of: Antony 1 3 1 ; Epictetus

Hadot, influence on 277-a

1 3 1 ; Marcus Aureliu.11 1 3 1

historical evolution of philosophy 32,

Christianity 138, 1 39

107, 269-70

Epicureanism 222, 225-6

Kierkegaard's views 1 57

and flight of the soul 240-1

and paganism 4-5, 74-5

Lucretius' views 1 87

as a philosophy 1 28-30

Marcus Aurelius' views 1 87

spiritual exercises 1 27--40

philosophy as a training for 242

Chrysippus 1 23--4n

preparation for 68-9: consolations

happiness and wisdom 228

22-3; Epicurus 68, 95; Heidegger

lost works 53

96; Maximus Confessor 138;

and Marcus Aurelius 188, 190

meditation 59; Plato 22, 28, 68,

philosopher, concept of 30, 272

95, 96-7, 241 , 269; Socrates 94;

Stoic dogmas 61

spiritual exercises 93-1 0 1 ;

wine in the sea 229

Stoicism 68, 96, 229

Cicero, Marcus Tullius

Delphic oracle 65

flight of the soul 240

Democritus 1 86, 24 1

infinity 1 84

demonic 1 64-5

philosophers 272

Dest.-artcs, Rene

self-mastery 1 35

philosophy RR w11y of lil'C 272

on Socrates I 52

NtJiritual exrrciNCN 3.l, 27 1

Index

303

desire 1 1

philosophy as a way of life 267

Epictetus 193, 1 94

physical vision of human reality 1 87

Hadot on 284

physics 97

Marcus Aurelius 195-7, 198, 201

serenity 136

and physics 12, 194

on Socrates 1 52

tyranny of 95

Socratic style 1 16 n

Diadochus of Photice

Epicureanism

attention to God and oneself 132-3

cosmic conscioumess 266, 267, 268

dreams 135

ethics 208-9

dialectic and persuasion 92-3

exegetical phase 5

dialogue

features 34, 3 5

learning to 20, 89-93

flight o f the soul 243, 245

philosophical work as 1 05

Hadot's interest iri 280-1

diatribe 63

library find 53-4

Dio Qtssius 1 80

life, conduct of 57, 58

Diogenes Laertius 1 1 8n, 123n

meditation 59

Diogenes the Cynic 98, 1 6 1

present, value of 69, 88, 209-1 0, 2 1 2,

discourse 26-8, 3 1 -2

222�, 259-60, 268

Dodds, E. R. 180

sage 252

Domitian 1 9 1

self-control 59

Dorotheus o f Gaza

spiritual exercises 1 26: happiness

attention to oneself 1 3 1

103; learning to die 95; learning to

conscience, examination of 1 34--5

live 87-9

meditation 1 34

Epicurus

obedience 140

death, philosophy as exercise for 68

peace of mind 1 38

discourse 27

self-mastery 1 35

dogmas, disagreements 61

sin 1 39

flight of the soul 243

spiritual perfection 136

meditation, dogmas for 60

dreams

philosopher concept 30, 272

Christianity 135

philosophy as a way of life 266

and flight of the soul 24 1

theory and practice, relationship

tyranny of desire revealed in 95

between 60

Zeno's beliefs l 1 3n

wisdom 57

During, I. 1 05�

Erasmus 33

duties 1 93

Eros 1 60-5

wisdom 265

Eckhardt, Meister 270

erotic irony 1 5 �5

eclecticism 2 1 0

escapism, ancient philosophy as 274

Effenterre, H. van 1 80

ethics 137

Einstein, Albert 283

Epicurean 208-9

Eleusis 28

Foucault 24-5, 206-7

Epaphroditus 19 1

and inclinations 1 2

ephemerality of human life 1 85�

spiritual exercises 23-5, 1 26-7

Epictetus 1 9 1

Stoicism 2�

-5

death, awareness of 1 3 1

Euclid 64, 68

discourse 27, 267

Eusebius of Caesarca 4

exegesis 108

Evagrius Ponticus

and Marcus Aurelius 195-202

dreams 135

objective repre.">entation 1 88

self-mastery 135

philosophical topoi 1 2-13, 193-5

spiritual exercises 1 33

304

Index

Evagrius Ponticus (e-ont.)

spiritual exercises 1 02

spiritual perfection 136-7, 1 38

Stoicism 227, 228

exegetical philosophy 5-7, 71--6

healing, Epicureanism 87

Augustine 16-17

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 272

scholasticism 63-4

Heidegger, Manin 272

existentialism 277, 278

death, philosophy as training for 96

Henry, Paul 5 1 , 279-80

Ficino, Marsilio 69

Heraclitus 68

Flavius Josephus 1 29

Herod Atticus 1 99

flight of the soul 238-48

hierarchy, Christianity and paganism 5

Foucault, Michel

Hippocrates 1 86

care of the self 206-1 2

historical psychology

enthusiasm for Hadot 1 , 206

Augustine 1 6, 1 7

ethics and spiritual exercises 24-5,

dangers I S

206-7

Holderlin, Friedrich

Friedmann, Georges 70, 8 1 , 97, 1 08, 282

erotic pedagogy 1 64

power and wisdom 235

and Socrates 1 67, 168

spiritual exercises 82: learning to live

Holzmann, Wilhelm 10

83, 86

Homer

friendship, Epicurean attitudes 88-9

dialogue 1 1 8-19, 195

Fronto 200

flight of the soul 238-9, 240, 247

Horace

Galen 1 80-1

carpe Jiem 88, 224-S

Gataker, Thomas 179

dialogue l 1 8n

Gesner, Andreas 1 79

present, value of 69, 224

Gilson, Etienne 277

Husserl, Edmund

Glaucos 1 02-3

Delphic oracle, adaptation of 65

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von l 76n

"know thyself" tradition 66

on demonic 1 64-5

perceptions of the world 272, 273

dialogue 2 1 7-21

world of science and world of

erotic pedagogy 164

perception 253

eternity 233-4

hypomntmala 1 1 , 179, 209-10

existence, joy of 234-5

flight of the soul 23s-9, 244-5

Ignatius of Loyola 82, 126, 1 27, 270

horror l 1 5n, 274

inclinations 1 1

poetry 239, 244-5

Epictetus 193

present, value of 69, 2 1 7, 220-1 , 222,

and ethics 1 2

230-4

Marcus Aurelius 195, 1 98, 201

on reading 109

indifference to indifferent things 86, 197

and Socrates 1 64

indirect communication 1 5 1 , 156

gratitude, Epicurean piety 87

infinity 184

Greek literature 50-1

Marcus Aurelius on 1 83, 1 84

Gregory Nazianzen 1 38

investigation, as spiritual exercise 86

Gregory Thaumaturgus 1 63-4

irony, Socratic

Groethuyscn, Bernard 25 1

dialectical 149-58

Guarducd, Margherita s-9

erotic 1 58-65

Guyau, J. M. 224

Jesus Christ I(}- I I

Hadot, Ilsetraut 22--3

John of Salisbury l 2'J

Hamann, J. G. 1 50

j udgment 1 1

happiness

l�:pictel UN l lJJ, l 'N

Index

305

and logic 12, 194

cultivation of the self 207, 2 1 2

Marcus Aurelius 1 95, 198

death, awareness o f 131

Julian 4

divine providence 282, 283

jurists 57

and Epictetus 1 95-202

Justin 74, 1 28

flight of the soul 244, 245

Meditalio,,s: as spiritual exercise

kairos 221

1 79-91; style 133; underlying

Kant, Immanuel

structure 10-1 1 , 1 2-15

aesthetic perception 255

parmsis 107

ancient representation of philosophy 33

peace of mind 229

virtue, practice of 124n

physics as spiritual exercise 98, 99

Kepha/aia 173

political ideas 274

Kierkegaard, Seren

present, attention to 1 32, 226-8

Christianity 1 57

rhetoric 60

existence, seriousness of 1 56

sage 251

pseudonymy 1 50-1

Maritain, Jacques 277, 278-9

on Socrates 1 57, 1 58: erotic irony 1 59

Marius Victorinus 279-80

Klee, Paul 255, 256, 257

Marx, Karl 272

"know thyself" maxim 20

Marxism 278

Husserl 66

Maximus C.Onfessor 1 38

Socrates 20, 90

Maximus of Tyre 1 84

meditation 59-60

landscape-painting 255

Christian spiritual exercises 1 33-4

Leclerq, Jean 129, 1 30, 270

Epicurean spiritual exercises 87, 88

Leonidas of Tarentum 1 82

Socrates's disciples 91

listening, as spiritual exercise 86

Stoic spiritual exercises 85-6

live, learning to 82-9

by writing 195

logic

memori1.ation

and judgment 12, 194

monastic spiritual exercises 1 33

spiritual exercises 24-5

Stoic spiritual exercises 85-6

Stoicism 25-6

Merleau-Ponty, M. 253, 254, 256, 257, 273

logoi sokra1ikoi 149

meteoro/ogia 243

love, and Socrates 1 58-64

Metrodorus 208-9, 226, 266

Lucian 57

Meyer, C. F. 1 66

flight of the soul 245-6, 247

mistranslations 3, 66, 75

Lucretius

misunderstandings 6-7

anxiety 1 86

monasticism 269-70

on death 187

as a philosophy 1 29

flight of the soul 243, 245

spiritual exercises 1 3 1 , 132, 1 33, 1 38,

physics 97

140: passions 1 35

Plato's model 68

monotheism 5

poetic meter 62

Montaigne, Michel de 33

rules of discourse 13

death, views on 96

sage 252

Hadot, influence on 278

universalism 226

Montgolfier brothers 239

world 257--8, 274

Morenz, Siegfried 22 1

Moses 74

Marcus Aurelius

Musonius Rufus 1 9 1

aesthetics 189-90, 25 1

bam1litv of life 1 85

names, Marcus Aurelius' views 1 86

co!lmic. consciousness 266

nature

306

Index

nature (cont.)

aesthetic 254-6

Marcus Aurelius on 1 89-90

everyday 252--4

Hadot on 283

persuasion 92

see also physics

Peter, St 8-9

Neoplatonism

Petrarch 33

being as infinitive and being as

Philo judaeus

participle, distinction � between S-6

exegesis 72

emergence 56

Platonic formulae, use of 65

exegesis 75

Philo of Alexandria

new meanings of earlier works 66

flight of the soul 240, 243-4

spiritual exercises 99, 1 00

Judaism as a philosophy 1 29

Stoic ethics, integration o f 1 36

philosophy as a way of life 265

Newman 277

set speeches 69

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm

spiritual exercises 84, 86, 97-8

ancient philosophy tradition 272

universalism 184

erotic pedagogy 1 64

Philodemus 225

genius of the heart 1 70

philosopher, concepts of 30--4, 272

indirect communication I S i

physics 1 37-8

present, focus on 2 1 2, 235

and desire 1 2, 194

and Socrates 1 48, 1 5 1-2, 1 56, 1 67-70:

night of the soul 242-3

seductive powers 1 65-6; style

Marcus Aurelius 1 97

155-6

spiritual exercises 24-5

Stoicism 25-6

obedience 139-40

study, as spiritual exercise 87-8, 97-9

objective representation 187-9

Plato

opium, and Marcus Aurelius 180-1

being as infinite and being as participle,

oral tradition of philosophy 19-22, 23,

distinction between 5-6, 75

61-3

death, philosophy as training for 22,

Ori gen

28, 68, 95, 96-7, 24 1 , 269

Ambrose's translations 3

dialogue 20, 2 1 , 62, 90, 9 1 -3, 105:

Christianity as a philosophy 1 29

methodology 106

on Chrysippus 1 23-4n

discourse 28

conscience, examination of 1 34

exegesis 7 1 , 72, 73, 75

dogmas, disagreements 61

flight of the soul 240-2, 243

exegesis 72

and Moses 74

Gregory Thaumaturgus' praise 1 63-4

river of Heraclitus 1 82

Ovid

on Socrates 1 48, 149-50, 1 53: erotic

night of the soul 245

irony 1 58, 160, 1 6 1, 1 63

time a.c; a river 182

Timaeus, as model 68

universalism 184

paganism 4-5, 74-S

wisdom, nature of 57

Parain, Brice 93

Platonism

parenesis 106-7

Academy 1 06

PasL'll, Blaise 1 84

adaptations 65

Paul, St 66

exegetical phase 5

peace of mind 1 38

night of t he soul 242-3

Marcus Aureli us 229

Glaucos 102-3

Seneca 229

life, conduct of 58���9

Peguy, Charles 278

philosophical death 242

penitence 1 39

ri ver 1 82

percept ion

Sch11l1111t lci11m 63 -4

Index

307

Socrates' death 94

Proclus 61

spiritual exercises 99

Euclid's model 64, 68

spiritual progress 64

flight of the soul 24 �

Stoicism and Aristotelianism,

treatises 64

absorption of 56

Pythagoreans 9

theory and practice, relationship

between 60

Quincey, Thomas De 181-2, 1 83, 1 84

pleasure, Epicurean attitudes 88-9,

Quintillian 265

222-(), 268

Quintus Mucius Scaevola Pontifex 272

Plotinus

Ambrose's translations 3, 5 I

Rabbow, Paul 1 26

dialogue 2, 22

Ramus, Petrus 49, 52

discourse 28-9

reading, as spiritual exercise 86, 101-9

exegesis 72, 73, 74

relaxation, Epicureans 88

Hadot's interest in 279, 280, 28 1 , 285

Renan, Ernest 1 79--80, 247

methodology 1 06

research, as spiritual exercise 86

Plato's text, use of 65

Revelations 72

spiritual exercises 99, JOO, IOI , 102, I07

rhetoric 21

structure of work for spiritual

and persuasion 92

progress 64

and spiritual exercises 1 27

theory and practice, relationship

Rilke, Rainer Maria 258, 278

between 60

Ritter, J. 254

Plutarch

Robin, Leon 226

flight of the soul 24 1

Rogatianus 57

spiritual exercises 59: curiosity, cure

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 259, 260

for 1 36; learning to live 86;

Rufus, Musonius I I In

physics 97--8

Rusticus, Quintus lunius 1 99-200

Polemon 267

Rutilus Rufus 272

Porphyry

Ruyer, R. 282-3

attention to God and oneself 1 32

being as infinitive and being as

sage

participle, distinction between 6, 75

nature of 57-8, 1 47, 226

exegesis 73

and the world 251�1

influence on late Christian thought 5 1

Sallustius I 04

nature and soul 144n

Scholasticism 72-3, !07, 270-1

on Plotinus 72, 1 06

Schopenhauer, Arthur 271 , 272

spiritual progress 99- 100, 1 37

science, world of 252---4

style 1 33

self-control 59

theory and prac..-tice, distinction

self-mastery, as spiritual exercise 86,

between 60

135

present, value of 69, 22 1-2, 259-60

Seneca

Christians 1 3 1 -2

belonging to the whole 208

Epicureans 69, 88, 209-10, 2 1 2,

eclecticism 210

222-{), 259-60, 268

Epicureanism l 24n

Goethe 69, 2 1 7, 220-- 1 , 222, 230--4

flight of the soul 240, 245

Marcus Aurelius 1 32, 226-8

joy 207, 225

Nietzsche 2 12, 235

objective representation 1 89

Seneca 228, 229

peace of mind 229

Stoics 69, 84-5, 212, 222, 226-30, 260,

present, value of 228, 229

268

river of being 1 82, 1 83

Priscianus 73---4

sage's life 58

308

Index

Seneca (contd)

flight o f th e soul 242-3

spiritual exercises: learning to die

Hadot's interest in 280-1

96; learning to live 86, 130;

life, conduct of 57, 58-9

physics as 98-9

and Marcus Aurelius: aesthetics

universalism 230

190; objective representation

wisdom 261

187-8, 189; river of being 182,

world 257, 26 1, 273

183; spiritual exercises 13, 14

serenity

meditation 59

Epictetus 136

new meanings of earlier works 65-6

Epicureans 88, 225

philosophical death 242

present, value of 221 , 222

philosophk"al discourse 25-6

Sextus 261 , 266

philosophy as a way of life 266-7,

Sileni 1 48, 1 61 , 162

S

268

implicius 27-8

Skepticism

pleasure and joy 207

life, conduct of 56-7

political ideas 274

, 1 04

philosophy as a way of life 266

premeditation on future evils 23

theory and practice, relationship

present, value of 69, 84-5, 2 1 2,

between 60

222, 226-30, 260, 268

Socrates

sage 25 1, 252

death 93-4, 1 66-7, 1 68-70

self-<:ontrol 59

dialogue 20, 23, 89-9 1 , 92-3, 149

spiritual exercises 1 26: happiness

figure of 1 47: daimon 1 64; dialectical

103; learning to die 96; learning

irony 1 49-58; Dionysos 1 69-70;

to live 82-7

erotic irony I 58-65; and Nietzsche

spiritual perfection 1 36

165-70;

physical appearance 147-8; seductive

reaching, texts written for 63

powers 165-6

theology 137-8

"know thyself" maxim 20, 90

theoretical discourse 29

Logos, faithfulness to 93

theoretical life 29

philosophy as a way of life 26(>, 269,

Therapcutae 1 29

28 1

theriac and Marcus Aurelius 1 80-1

unclas.'lifiability 57

wisdom 23 5, 265

theses 63

Thomism 27

soul

flight of 238-48

Thoreau 33

immateriality and immortality 100- 1

Thurot, Charles 73-4

Spinoza, Benedict d e 27 1-2

treatises 64

Euclid's model 68

truth

philosophy as a way of life 272, 275

authentic texts 73-4

spiritual exercises 33

pagan and Christian conceptions 4

Stoicism

absorption into Platonism 56

Ulpian 57

cosmic consciousness 266

universities, nature of 32, 271}- I , 278-9

death, exercise for 68

dogmas, disagreements 6 1

Vcync, Paul 25

Epictetus 1 9 1 -2

view from ah<wc 23H �48

exegetical phase 5

Vohnirc 25011

features 34, JS

wi11dom

Index

309

love of 265

Xenocrates 266

nature of 57, 58, 1 03, 228, 261

Xenophon I I 7n

Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef Johann 1 7,

flight of the soul 240

1 8, 280, 285

on Socrates 23, 1 55, 1 58, 1 67

worry, Epicureans' attitudes 88

Xylander IO

writing, therapeutic values 209-1 1

Antony 135, 209, 2 1 1

Zeno l l3n

Foucault 209-1 0

Zopyrus 148

Marcus Aurelius 1 95

9 111

780631

I

180333

Document Outline

Contents

Translator's Note

Abbreviations

Introduction: Pierre Hadot and the Spiritual Phenomenon of Ancient Philosophy by Arnold I. Davidson

1 Method and Practices of Interpretation in the History of Ancient Philosophy and Theology

2 Spiritual Exercises

Notes

Part I: Method

1. Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse in Ancient Philosophy

Notes

2. Philosophy, Exegesis, and Creative Mistakes

Notes

Part II: Spiritual Exercises

3. Spiritual Exercises

1 Learning to Live

2 Learning to Dialogue

3 Learning to Die

4 Leaming How to Read

Notes

4. Ancient Spiritual Exercises and "Christian Philosophy"

Notes

Part III: Figures

5. The Figure of Socrates

1 Silenus

2 Eros

3 Dionysos

Notes

6. Marcus Aurelius

1 The Meditations as a Spiritual Exercise

2 Epictetus

3 Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus

Notes

7. Reflections on the Idea of the "Cultivation of the Self"

Notes

Part IV: Themes

8. "Only the Present is our Happiness": The Value of the Present Instant in Goethe and in Ancient Philosophy

Notes

9. The View from Above

Notes

10. The Sage and the World

1 Definition of the Problem

2 The World of Science and the World of Everyday Perception

3 Aesthetic Perception

4 Spectator Novus

S The Instant

6 The Sage and the World

Notes

11. Philosophy as a Way of Life

Notes

Postscript: An Interview with Pierre Hadot

Notes

Select Bibliography

ANTHOLOGIES

ANCIENT AUTHORS

MODERN AUTHORS

Index