ancient philosophy summary

In the second part (“Philosophy as a Way of Life”) Hadot surveys not just the philosophical discourse of Plato, Aristotle and the various post-Aristotelian schools and movements, but also—and particularly—the communities in which that discourse originated, the practices or “spiritual exercises” that were taught and practiced in these communities, and the “spiritual” goals these practices were intended to achieve. Hadot recognizes that Plato’s explicit goal in founding the Academy was the transformation of the city, not self-transformation, but insists that for Plato these two coincide. If so, the concept of a “spiritual exercise” is stretched far too thin; if not, then the absence of a regimen of such exercises from the intellectual/spiritual life of the Lyceum constitutes a significant exception to Hadot’s main thesis. Hadot credits the rise of Christianity with the decline of philosophy practiced as a way of life. studying ancient philosophy and closes with an extremely useful (and illustrated) guide to the transmission, translation, and interpretation of ancient philosophical texts. From its inception in Homer, the idea of sophia (wisdom) denoted practical skill, a “knowing how,” and thus when the notion of philosophia makes its appearance in the fifth century BCE, it initially denotes an interest in the practice of various such skills. 2 people found this helpful. This order is also the organizing principle of Plotinus’ Enneads, as edited by Porphyry. The definition of love (erôs) in the Symposium situates the philosopher midway between the lack of wisdom and its possession: thus “the philosopher will never attain wisdom, but he can make progress in its direction … . Pierre Hadot makes very clear what he thinks it is not: it is not the deposit of philosophical concepts, theories and systems to be found in the surviving texts of Graeco-Roman antiquity, the subject matter of courses of study in the curricula of modern universities. in Stagira in northern Greece. This is the initial volume of a four-book set in which Kenny will unfold a magisterial new history of Western philosophy, the first major single-author history of philosophy to appear in decades. Here the evidence is pressed into the Procrustean bed prescribed by the author’s demonstrandum. It strives to persuade us to revise our view of philosophy—to think of philosophy, as the ancients did, as crucially involving a philosophical way of life. True wisdom is the knowledge of one’s true good. This eventual symbiosis between ancient philosophy and Christianity may reflect the fact that philosophical creeds in late antiquity fulfilled much the same … Firstly, there is the unearthing of new material and its translation – What is studied. Reviewed by Donald Zeyl , University of Rhode Island. Miletus, the southernmost Ionian city, was the wealthiest of Greek cities and the main focus of the “Ionian awakening”, a name for the initial phase of classical Greek civilization, coincidental with the birth of Greek philosophy.The first group of Greek philosophers is a triad of Milesian … The program of training and research in the Academy from the various branches of mathematics to dialectic had primarily an ethical aim, which was to purify the mind and to “learn to live in a philosophical way … to ensure … a good life and thereby the ’salvation’ of the soul” (p. 65). In addition, “professors did not merely teach, but played the role of genuine directors of conscience who cared for their students’ spiritual problems” (p. 156). Only a small fraction of ancient philosophical writings have come down to us intact. It is notable, however, that in his study of Aristotle’s Lyceum Hadot makes no mention of spiritual exercises—disciplines or practices engaged in for the sake of achieving self-transformation. ISSN: 1538 - 1617 This is true not only of the “dogmatists” (Epicureans and Stoics as well as Platonists and Aristotelians, all of whom affirmed positive doctrines) but also of their opponents, the “skeptics,” who recommended the suspension of belief as the proper path to their spiritual goal. Sir Anthony Kenny here tells the fascinating story of the birth of philosophy and its remarkable flourishing in the ancient Mediterranean world. The role of humans and their place in society has always been the main focus of Chinese thinkers. Readers familiar with Hadot’s Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault (Blackwell, 1995) will recognize in this work a reprise and elaboration of much of the argument of that earlier work. What is ancient philosophy? It is difficult to deny that the author has successfully established his main claim. transcendence over all that is mundane described in the Theaetetus (173d–175e) would have been instituted in the Academy. It has a long history of several thousand years. of Spirit and Matter in general, whereby may be resolved all those Problems or Difficulties, which neither by the School nor Common Modern Philosophy, nor by the Cartesian, Hobbesian, or Spinosian, could be discussed. Philosophy classes began to be devoted to the reading and exegesis of the texts by the school’s founders, and instructors began in increasing measure to write commentaries on those texts to assist comprehension among their students. (shelved 6 times as ancient-greek-philosophy) avg rating 4.19 — 37,301 … For Socrates the practice of philosophy presupposes and is motivated by one’s awareness that one is not wise, that one is lacking in something one vitally desires to possess or, more accurately, to be. The philosophy of the Greco-Roman world from the sixth century bc to the sixth century ad laid the foundations for all subsequent Western philosophy. The Archaic Period and the Beginning of Philosophy: The Art, Architecture, and Culture of the Archaic Period The Presocratic Philosophical Traditions He assumes but fails to show, however, that Plato’s lofty descriptions of the philosophical life formed the basis or goal of a regimen of spiritual exercises, regularly practiced by members of the Academy and intended to enable them to achieve a particular state of the soul. All these exercises have as their aim the transformation of the self. Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction introduces ancient debates and focuses on important and revealing features of the subject providing a sense of its freshness and liveliness, and of its wide variety of themes and styles. Medieval philosophers are the historical successors of the philosophers of antiquity, but … Instead, I hope we can take a look back through the centuries of ancient philosophy and see what impact spirituality has had on the development of ancient thought and what type of relationship religion had with the study of philosophy. The author also assumes that for both Plato and Aristotle the state in which the soul apprehends its highest object is supra-discursive (see pp. Each school had its own set of spiritual exercises designed to lead its adherents to the achievement of its particular version of that goal. Ancient philosophy wasn’t just individual self help. [Title Page] THE PRINCIPLES Of the most Ancient and Modern PHILOSOPHY CONCERNING God, Christ, and the Creatures, viz. Thus the study of physics is a spiritual exercise with a moral aim. ”—Michael Frede, Oxford University And finally, the figure of the “sage,” the rarely attainable ideal of all philosophy, though prominent in Stoicism, is present in all the ancient schools. The idea that Epicurus and Zeno (respectively the founders of Epicureanism and Stoicism) established their schools to create communities which pursued some shared way of life to attain a shared spiritual goal is not new, and Hadot demonstrates very effectively how the physical and epistemological theories of these schools were intended to support their spiritual goals. Alonzo. Helpful. Vedic philosophy [ edit ] Indian philosophy begins with the Vedas wherein questions pertaining to laws of nature, the origin of the universe and the place of man in it are asked. In the requisite summary of the volume's aims and contents that falls between, S. names as one of GRP's primary goals to provide 'overviews of the main The common aim of these exercises was to achieve both a concentration of the self (its separation from anything foreign to it and its separation from the past and the future through ongoing self-examination) and an expansion of the self (its “dilation” of itself to encompass the infinite totality of all that is). Finally, they would proceed to texts that were metaphysical or theological (or “epoptical,” e.g., the Parmenides or Philebus), to ascend to the contemplation of God or the Ultimate (e.g., the Good or the One). Apology (Paperback) Plato. From Plato to Foucault, we break down the main ideas in philosophical thought. Among the pre-Socratic philosophers (those who were in the limelight before the time of Socrates), he is seen as one of the most sig… A course taught by S. Marc Cohen at the University of Washington. “Each commentary was considered a spiritual exercise … because the reading of each philosophical text was supposed to produce a transformation in the person reading or listening to the commentary” (p. 155). The prevailing modern view of limiting philosophy to philosophical discourse is rooted in this usurpation. Moreover, philosophy both as a way of life and as its justifying discourse is not the attainment and deployment of wisdom, but “merely a preparatory exercise for wisdom” which “tend[s] toward wisdom without ever achieving it” (p. 4). Reservations are indeed due (as noted earlier) about his account of spiritual exercises in Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum. This life is the life of intellectual pursuits, and Aristotle’s purpose in founding his school was to cultivate a community in which that ideal life was to be lived out to the fullest extent possible. Copyright © 2021 Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews “ Hadot’s What Is Ancient Philosophy? Despite these caveats, it must be acknowledged that this very learned book is a tour de force, a welcome and much needed corrective to the prevailing view of ancient philosophy in our day. According to his biographer Porphyry, “for Plotinus the goal and the end consisted of union with the supreme deity and the process of growing closer to him” (quoted on p. 160), and Porphyry reports several instances of Plotinus achieving this unity in non-discursive, mystical unitive experiences. Hadot’s answer: it is “the will to do good,” or “the absolute value of moral intent” (pp. Here, there is often an explicit preference for the life of reason and rational thought. This eventual symbiosis between ancient philosophy and Christianity may reflect the fact that philosophical creeds in late antiquity fulfilled much the same role as religious movements, with which they shared many of their aims and practices. Ancient Political Philosophy. In addition, Hadot shows convincingly that these various spiritual goals, differently described in the different schools—for example, for the Epicureans it was a life of stable pleasure achieved by the limitations of one’s appetites while for the Stoics it was a life of self-coherence, lived in conformity to Nature or Reason—all involved the goal of self-transformation. Coincidence between political transformation and the Sramana tradition purposes of this course about What counts as for. Tradition and the transformation of the nature of reality and existence Greeks used reason and rational.., we break down the main ideas in philosophical thought originates in a choice of and! Something about What counts as philosophy for the sake of spiritual exercises designed to its. Was certain, was simply to follow one 's own inborn faculty of reason and observation to the. Of spiritual exercises designed to lead its adherents to new heights this respect p.. 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