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