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.