Pierre Hadot (1922–2010), the French philosopher and historian of ancient thought, enters the depth-psychology corpus principally as the architect of the ‘philosophy as a way of life’ (PWL) thesis — the claim that ancient philosophy was not primarily a body of theoretical propositions but a set of lived spiritual exercises aimed at transforming the self. Within the Seba library, Hadot functions above all as a foundational authority for Sharpe and Ure’s comprehensive genealogy of PWL, where he is named the foremost ‘giant’ upon whose shoulders the entire inquiry rests. His reading of Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and the Stoic disciplines — particularly the three rules of life governing desire, action, and assent — provides the hermeneutic framework through which ancient practice is recovered as psychologically and therapeutically relevant. A secondary tension emerges in the corpus around the reception of Hadot’s work: contextualist historians such as Ian Hunter appropriate his categories to relativistic ends, dissolving philosophy’s claim to transhistorical truth into the sociology of intellectual personae. Hadot himself authored the primary texts in the library (the two editions of what is catalogued as What Is Ancient Philosophy?), offering close reading of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations as spiritual exercise. The corpus also records Ilsetraut Hadot’s adjacent work on Senecan spiritual direction, indicating that the Hadot influence is familial as well as singular. Foucault’s parallel recovery of ancient ‘techniques of the self’ is consistently mapped against and alongside Hadot’s framework.
First and foremost amongst the giants is the French philosopher and historian of ideas, Pierre Hadot, whose work we will introduce specifically in a moment.
Sharpe and Ure explicitly position Hadot as the primary intellectual authority and founding giant for their entire study of philosophy as a way of life.
, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021thesis
First and foremost amongst the giants is the French philosopher and historian of ideas, Pierre Hadot, whose work we will introduce specifically in a moment.
This parallel passage confirms Hadot’s role as the acknowledged foundational authority underpinning the book’s historical and philosophical scope.
, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021thesis
Some historians of ideas, led by Ian Hunter (2007), have drawn on the contextualist aspects of Hadot’s work to suggest that PWL can be used to take what we might call a ‘global’ approach to Western thought, with relativistic implications.
This passage maps a contested appropriation of Hadot’s methodology, whereby contextualist historians extract relativistic conclusions from his framework that Hadot himself would resist.
, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021supporting
Some historians of ideas, led by Ian Hunter (2007), have drawn on the contextualist aspects of Hadot’s work to suggest that PWL can be used to take what we might call a ‘global’ approach to Western thought, with relativistic implications.
The passage identifies a productive tension in Hadot’s reception, where his historical contextualism is recruited for relativistic readings he did not intend.
, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021supporting
which the philosophers had only spoken (Hadot, 1995: 27).
Hadot is cited to support the argument that early Christian thinkers distinguished themselves from pagan philosophers by claiming to actualize, not merely theorize, the philosophical life.
, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021supporting
which the philosophers had only spoken (Hadot, 1995: 27).
The citation of Hadot’s 1995 work anchors the claim that Christian philosophy presented itself as the fulfillment of pagan philosophical aspiration.
, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021supporting
Ilsetraut Hadot, Sénèque: direction spirituelle et pratique de la philosophie (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2014).
The footnote reference to Ilsetraut Hadot’s work on Seneca situates the Hadot scholarly lineage within the corpus’s treatment of Stoic spiritual direction.
, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021supporting
Ilsetraut Hadot, Sénèque: direction spirituelle et pratique de la philosophie (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2014).
This bibliographic note extends the Hadot influence to Ilsetraut Hadot’s parallel scholarship on Senecan spiritual practice and philosophical direction.
, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021supporting
LES PENSÉES COMME EXERCICES SPIRITUELS 1. La « pratique » et la « théorie » 2. Les dogmes et leur formulation 3. Les trois règles de vie ou disciplines
The table of contents of Hadot’s own work establishes his core thesis: Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations are spiritual exercises organized around three Stoic disciplines of life.
, What Is Ancient Philosophy?, 1995aside
LES PENSÉES COMME EXERCICES SPIRITUELS 1. La « pratique » et la « théorie » 2. Les dogmes et leur formulation 3. Les trois règles de vie ou disciplines
This parallel edition confirms the stable structural argument of Hadot’s work: philosophy as spiritual exercise organized around a tripartite disciplinary framework.
, What Is Ancient Philosophy?, 2002aside
Michel Foucault unexpectedly changed his research focus from the history of modern sexual discourses to ancient Graeco-Roman sexuality and, in turn, to the techniques of the self or spiritual exercises that were central to ancient philosophy.
The passage introduces Foucault’s parallel recovery of ancient spiritual exercises as a second major tradition in conversation with — and implicitly indebted to — Hadot’s framework.
, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021aside
Michel Foucault unexpectedly changed his research focus from the history of modern sexual discourses to ancient Graeco-Roman sexuality and, in turn, to the techniques of the self or spiritual exercises that were central to ancient philosophy.
Foucault’s reorientation toward ancient techniques of the self is positioned here as a significant parallel trajectory to Hadot’s project, implicitly defining the intellectual field.
, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021aside