Pierre Hadot on Philosophy as a Way of Life

21 September 2026 – Pierre Hadot on Philosophy as a Way of Life 

Pierre Hadot (1922 to 2010) wrote a lot about Ancient Philosophy and what I call Late Classical Philosophy as well as early Christianity.  Some of his books have been translated into English from the original French.  One of them is called Philosophy as a Way of Life which contains a collection of essays that Hadot wrote on the theme that Ancient and Classical Philosophy were transformative and involved commitments to particular ways of life.  One of the essays is also titled ‘Philosophy as a Way of Life’ and it begins with a quote from Philo (about 20 BCE to 50 CE).

“Every person – whether Greek or Barbarian – who is in training for wisdom, leading a blameless, irreproachable life, chooses neither to commit injustice nor return it unto others, but to avoid the company of busybodies, and hold in contempt the places where they spend their time – courts, councils, marketplaces, assemblies – in short, every kind of meeting or reunion of thoughtless people.  As their goal is a life of peace and serenity, they contemplate nature and everything found within her: they attentively explore the earth, the sea, the air, the sky, and every nature found therein.  In thought, they accompany the moon, the sun, and the rotations of the other stars, whether fixed or wandering.  Their bodies remain on earth, but they give wings to their souls, so that, rising into the ether, they may observe the powers which dwell there, as is fitting for those who have truly become citizens of the world.  Such people consider the whole world as their city, and its citizens are the companions of wisdom; they have received their civic rights from virtue, which has been entrusted with presiding over the universal commonwealth.  Thus, filled with every excellence, they are accustomed no longer to take account of physical discomforts or exterior evils and they train themselves to be indifferent to indifferent things; they are armed against both pleasures and desires, and, in short, they always strive to keep themselves above passions . . . they do not give in under the blows of fate, because they have calculated its attacks in advance (for foresight makes easier to bear even the most difficult of the things that happen against our will; since then the mind no longer supposes what happens to be strange and novel, but its perception of them is dulled, as if it had to do with old and worn-out things).  It is obvious that people such as these, who find their joy in virtue, celebrate a festival their whole life long.  To be sure, there is only a small number of such people; they are like embers of wisdom kept smouldering in our cities, so that virtue may not be altogether snuffed out and disappear from our race.  But if only people everywhere felt the same way as this small number, and became as nature meant for them to be: blameless, irreproachable, and lovers of wisdom, rejoicing in the beautiful just because it is beautiful, and considering that there is no other good besides it . . . then our cities would be brimful of happiness.  They would know nothing of the things that cause grief and fear, but would be so filled with the causes of joy and well-being that there would be no single moment in which they could not lead a life full of joyful laughter; indeed, the whole cycle of the year would be a festival for them.”

(Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life¸ translation of Philo by Hadot, translation from the French by Michael Chase, Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA, 1995, pages 265-266, ISBN: 9780631180333)

1.  Hadot views this passage as primarily Stoic, but I tend to see it as a weaving of both Platonic and Stoic themes, which was not unusual at that time.  The emphasis on wisdom is shared by both Stoicism and Platonism, though I would say that Platonism is more oriented towards the transcendental than Stoicism, or this particular passage.  There may also be an Epicurean seasoning in the quote; I’m thinking of the emphasis on withdrawing from courts, councils, assemblies and marketplaces, which was a distinctive theme of the Epicurean tradition.

2.  The idea of never committing an injustice, nor returning an injustice, is a specifically Platonic theme found in dialogues such as Crito, The Republic, and Gorgias.  Injustice in this context is also often translated as ‘harm’, meaning that a Platonist should never harm another, even if that person has harmed him, the Platonist. 

3.  Being armed against both pleasures and desires is an important theme in Platonism; a lot of time is spent on this in Laws, to pick one example.  In Laws there is a discussion about how Spartan society trained young men to resist, or be indifferent to, pain, but the Athenian Stranger then argues that it is equally important, perhaps more important, to resist, or be indifferent to, pleasures.  The ascetic nature of Platonism is found in this indifference to pleasure.  Indifference to pleasure means not thinking of pleasure as a guiding principle in one’s life, not ordering one’s life and its activities by using pleasure as a standard.  This transforms the philosophical way of life into something that is clearly distinguishable from the life of most people.

4.  Philo considers this kind of life rare and compares such people to embers that have not been snuffed out.  They are embers of wisdom.

5.  Following the quote from Philo, Hadot writes, “In this passage from Philo of Alexandria, inspired by Stoicism, one of the fundamental aspects of philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman eras comes clearly to the forefront.  During this period, philosophy was a way of life.  This is not only to say that it was a specific type of moral conduct; we can easily see the role played in the passage from Philo by the contemplation of nature.  Rather, it means that philosophy was a mode of existing-in-the-world, which had to be practiced at each instant, and the goal of which was to transform the whole of the individual’s life.” (Ibid, page 265)

5.1  I think this transformation has two aspects.  The first is the transformation of the understanding, or mind.  This consists of an increased understanding of the material realm in which we live (which Philo mentions) as well as a shift of the mind from the material to the non-material and the transcendental (which is what Platonism specializes in).  I like to say that it is a shift of attention from the ephemeral to the eternal. 

Normally the mind is caught up by, and dominated by, material reality.  The shift of the mind to non-material and eternal realities is wisdom.

The second aspect is the training of the body so that it is not so demanding of the mind’s attention; in other words, asceticism.  It is withdrawing from a life in which the demands of the body have first priority.  The first and second aspects of this transformation work together and mutually reenforce each other.

6.  It was Hadot’s contribution to the study of Ancient and Classical Philosophy that these traditions were based on commitments, largely ethical, that were observable and that taking on these commitments was the start of wisdom. 

7.  Later Hadot writes, “In order better to understand in what way ancient philosophy could be a way of life, it is perhaps necessary to have recourse to the distinction proposed by the Stoics, between discourse about philosophy and philosophy itself.” (Ibid, page 266)

Discourse about philosophy serves philosophy itself.  For example, the study of logic serves to make clear distinctions between that which is eternal and that which is ephemeral.  And analysis enlightens us as to the nature of injustice and harm so that we can become philosophers by refraining from injustice and harm.

Hadot clarifies this by quoting Polemon who succeeded Xenocrates as the head of the Platonic Academy, “We should exercise ourselves with realities, not with dialectical speculations, like a man who has devoured some textbook on harmonics, but has never put his knowledge into practice.  Likewise, we must not be like those who, when it comes to their own lives, contradict their own teachings.” (Ibid, page 267)

7.1  Putting one’s knowledge into practice is, to pick one example, applying the understanding of non-harming and non-retaliation to the way we live our lives so that we assume a vegetarian, or vegan, way of life.

7.2  A little later, Hadot, writes, “An Epicurean saying puts it clearly, ‘Vain is the world of that philosopher which does not heal any suffering of man.’  Philosophical theories are in the service of philosophical life.” (Ibid, page 267)

8.  “Does the philosophical life, then, consist only in the application, at every moment, of well-studied theorems, in order to resolve life’s problems?  As a matter of fact, when we reflect on what the philosophical life implies, we realize that there is an abyss between philosophical theory and philosophizing as living action.  To take a similar case: it may seem as though artists, in their creative activity, do nothing but apply rules, yet there is an immeasurable distance between artistic creation and the abstract theory of art.  In philosophy, however, we are not dealing with the mere creation of a work of art: the goal is rather to transform ourselves.  The act of living in a genuinely philosophical way thus corresponds to an order of reality totally different from that of philosophical discourse.”  (Ibid, page 268)

8.1  The activity of musicianship is playing an instrument.  The activity of baking is kneading bread dough.  The activity of philosophy, the way of life of philosophy, is to live in accordance with certain requirements that the tradition upholds.  In Platonism, the Way of Philosophy is determined by the practices of renunciation found in the Platonic tradition, as well as the study of central writings of the tradition such as the Dialogues and the Enneads.

9.  “Thus, as we have seen, philosophy in the Hellenistic and Greek period took on the form of a way of life, an art of living, and a way of being.  This, however, was nothing new; ancient philosophy had had this character at least as far back as Socrates [Pythagoras?].  There was a Socratic style of life (which the Cynics were to imitate), and the Socratic dialogue was an exercise which brought Socrates’ interlocutor to put himself in question, to take care of himself, and to make his soul as beautiful and wise as possible.  Similarly, Plato defined philosophy as a training for death, and the philosopher as the person who does not fear death, because he contemplates the totality of time and of being.”  (Ibid pages 268-269)

10.  “Above all, the conception of philosophy as an art and form of living is not linked to political circumstances, or to a need for escape mechanisms and inner liberty.  Philosophy did not change its essence throughout the entire course of its history in antiquity.”  (Ibid page 269)

10.1  I think what Hadot is getting at in this quote is that philosophy as a way of life did not modify its commitments when political circumstances shifted; for example, the specifics of renunciation, or asceses, remained a constant in the Platonic tradition, and the need for retreating from political contexts remained a constant for Epicureans, and so forth.  It is true that Ancient and Classical Philosophy did have things to say about politics, just as they had things to say about running a household (see, for example, Plutarch).  But those things did not impinge on what it meant to live a philosophical life.

11.  “In general, historians of philosophy pay little attention to the fact that ancient philosophy was, first and foremost, a way of life.  They consider philosophy as, above all, philosophical discourse.”

11.1  I have often referred to Platonism as a type of Dharma; that is to say, that Platonism more closely resembles the way Indian Dharma traditions manifest than the way modern philosophy manifests.  And my reasoning is that the Dharma traditions of India are not just discourses and the clarification of propositions; they are also specific ways of life, identifiable ways of life, shaped by commitments that transform body and mind and shift one’s attention to one’s soul.  This is also true for Stoicism and Epicureanism.

11.2  If you want to grasp what it meant for Platonism and other philosophical traditions to lose the way of life that defined its existence in the Classical world, think of Buddhism having lost all connection with its ethical disciplines from the five basic precepts to the monastic Vinaya.  What remains?  Exactly what we have in modern philosophy; a focus on analytical discourse and not much else.

11.3  Hadot follows the above quote, quote 11, with a long discussion as to how philosophy lost its connection to its Ancient and Classical ways of life.  It’s a complex history involving the way Christianity reconfigured the place that philosophy has in a spiritual context, the rise of Universities in the later Middle Ages, along with the increased specialization of vocabulary and technical tools of analysis. 

11.4  “Ancient philosophy proposed to mankind an art of living.  By contrast, modern philosophy appears above all as the construction of a technical jargon reserved for specialists.” (Ibid page 272)

12.  “Such is the lesson of ancient philosophy: an invitation to each human being to transform himself.  Philosophy is a conversion, a transformation of one’s way of being and living, and a quest for wisdom.  This is not an easy matter.  As Spinoza wrote at the end of the Ethics: ‘If the way which I have pointed out as leading to this result seems exceedingly hard, it may nevertheless be discovered.  It must indeed be hard, since it is so seldom found.  How would it be possible, if salvation were easy to find, and could without great labour be found, that it should be neglected by almost everybody?  But all excellent things are as difficult as they are rare.’”  (Ibid page 275)