Philosophy as a Way of Life

Pierre Hadot’s formulation — la philosophie comme manière de vivre — names the ancient conviction that philosophy is not principally a body of doctrine but a practice: a disciplined reorientation of perception, attention, desire, and action, of which argument is only one exercise among many. In Socrates, in Plato’s Phaedo, in the Stoic Enchiridion and Meditations, in Epicurus’s letters, and in the Neoplatonic Enneads, philosophy is an askēsis — a training — whose goal is transformation of the practitioner.

For the Seba tradition this frame is load-bearing because depth psychology stands in genetic continuity with the ancient philosophical schools: individuation is an askēsis, the analytic hour is a spiritual exercise, contemplation-theoria is the ancient name for what the tradition still teaches. See ure-philosophy-way-life for the scholarly treatment.

Relationships

• ure-philosophy-way-life
• apatheia
• contemplation-theoria