What is Ancient Philosophy?

Pierre Hadot. What is Ancient Philosophy? Trans. Michael Chase. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. xii + 362 pp. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-674-00733-6.

"Most people imagine that philosophy consists in delivering discourses from the heights of a chair, and in giving classes based on texts. But what these people utterly miss is the uninterrupted philosophy which we see being practiced every day in a way which is perfectly equal to itself" (38). Though professional philosophers have taken it on the chin lately for a variety of well-warranted reasons, this particular jab originates nearly two millennia ago with Plutarch. In What is Ancient Philosophy? Pierre Hadot appeals to Plutarch and a host of others as evidence for regarding ancient philosophy, above all else, as a way of life, one involving existential commitments in the context of a community that practices spiritually edifying exercises. Philosophical discourse, to be sure, was part and parcel of this way of life, but historically it-unlike most contemporary pedagogy, conference talks, and journal articles-did not stand apart from the practice of a way of life. In fact, classical philosophical discourse "originates in a choice of life and an existential option-not vice versa" (3).

Hadot's reminder of what should be obvious merits Christian scholarly attention. First, good scholarship demands treating ideas in context, and philosophy teachers too often teach texts and ideas in isolation from the concrete lives out of which they derive. Students are left with the unfortunate impression that philosophy has nothing to do with "real" life, an impression that the shallowness of contemporary culture may encourage, but that academicians should not confirm through ahistorical instruction. The point applies a fortiori for Christian philosophers, both because Christianity involves an irreducible union of orthodoxy and orthopraxy and because Christianity affirms a preternaturally high value for history. It can only help students appreciate the true character of Christian philosophy if they properly see that it, like ancient philosophy (and as it turns out, much medieval and modern philosophy), engages in seemingly abstract reflection not as a matter of odd curiosity or mental gymnastics, but in relation to a disciplined form of life committed to a particular notion of what is good. Hadot is right that we should teach the history of philosophy as...