The Great Philosophers: From Socrates to Foucault
Hadot's book demonstrates the extent to which philosophy has been, and still is, above all else a way of seeing and of being in the world.
He is the author of several landmark essays, collected together in Exercices Spirituels et Philosophie Antique Second Edition, Permissions Request permission to reuse content from this site. Table of contents Reviews Features Translator's Note. Philosophy, Exegesis and Creative Mistakes.
Ancient Spirituality and 'Christian Philosophy. Reflections of the Idea of the 'Cultivation of the Self'.
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Only the Present is our Happiness. The View From Above. The Sage and the World. Philosophy as a Way of Life.
The Great Philosophers from Socrates to Foucault
My existence is an awful burden — I would have dispensed with it long ago, were it not for the most illuminating tests and experiments I have been conducting in matters of mind and morality even in my state of suffering and almost absolute renunciation — the pleasure I take in my thirst for knowledge brings me to heights from which I triumph over all torment and despondency. As Nietzsche suggests, no matter how unbearable life can be, its self-examination comes with a reward: Life examined is thus life transformed. In this sense, true philosophy is by definition performative ; it is not something we talk about, it is something we do.
In his Memorabilia Xenophon has Socrates say: If it is to remain something meaningful, philosophy does not have to limit itself to describing things, it has to make things happen , it has to effectuate a change. Philosophy does not exist properly unless it is embodied in a human being; in a sense, philosophy is word become flesh. Christianity made the most of this insight.
In a sense, then, the life of such a philosopher is scripted, if by no other than herself. She just cannot do whatever she fancies; what she does has to be consistent with what she says one should be doing. Every single gesture has to fit into the logic of the whole; anything strident can endanger its integrity.
Had Socrates, for example, asked the Athenian court for forgiveness, that single gesture — an accidental weakness, one may call it — would have seriously compromised his entire philosophical project. One of the significant corollaries of the notion of philosophy as embodiment is a renewed gravity of biographical writing. A philosophical biography does not consist now in a series of isolated anecdotes, but it is a well structured narrative whose purpose is to instruct and shape the mind of the reader.
The need for such narratives led to the crafting of idealized accounts that might enlighten and edify. On the other hand, such an omission is indicative of how persuasive and widespread this interpretation has already become. Often it is as though Montaigne forgets where he is headed, if indeed he is headed anywhere; even more often the reader does not know what to make of what the book has to offer.
Why should we be interested in something like this at all? By ordinary literary standards, that such a book could even have had any success at all was unlikely; that it was an instant bestseller is incomprehensible. Yet, the Essays is no ordinary text. This is writing as an act of mourning — the proximity of death is the most important test a writer can pass. Socrates as a flesh-and-blood human being who lived, suffered or felt pleasure, sweated, and made love, who ate, burped, spit, pissed, and defecated.
Socrates, the comedic figure. Where else could he be? The ugly, pot-bellied eccentric. The soldier commended for his bravery who stands, like a snowman in the middle of a winter campaign, caught in one of his embarrassing staring fits. Importantly, this corporeal Socrates, an unsurpassable realist who knows the ugly world inside-out, does not want to make saints out of us, just slightly better human beings.
That philosophy was for him a matter of bodily performance is revealed in the story by the way he relates to the other guests.
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- The Great Philosophers: From Socrates to Foucault.
It may well be that it was on such occasions that Socrates — the lover of masks and disguises, the ironist, the histrionic — revealed something unusually deep about himself: The work they produce, outstanding as it may be, is not supposed to change their lives. Today philosophical conversions are regarded with suspicion and strongly discouraged; if they do happen, they tend to be dismissed. Today a philosopher can in principle live like a pig and still be seen capable of producing immortal works of philosophy.
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If he is to be criticized for anything, it is not the lack of harmony between what he says and what he does that concerns his critics, but the flaws of his work, the weakness of its arguments, the lack of internal consistency. However, things are not always that simple. In Martin Heidegger published Sein und Zeit , one of the most influential philosophical works of the twentieth century; some say the most important one.
Only a few years later Heidegger joined the Nazi Party. His political involvement is often cited as one of the most serious mistakes a philosopher can ever make. We are shocked, and rightly so. And, yet, where does our shock come from? From the fact that some German called Martin Heidegger joined the Nazi Party or rather from the fact that a great philosopher by that name did it?
The Great Philosophers: From Socrates to Foucault - Jeremy Stangroom - Google Книги
If the latter, why exactly are we upset? A Case For Connectedness. The Return of the Gods. By Arne De Boever. Life of the Party. A Book of Silences.
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- The Great Philosophers: From Socrates to Foucault?
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