For the Love of a Few Old Truths: In Praise of Pierre Hadot
Pierre Hadot tells us Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault (PWL) that the goal of his work has been to make people love a few old truths. The worldwide renown Hadot’s work has achieved, and its impact of phenomena like modern Stoicism, bears out that, in this characteristically understated aim, he has had great success.
For what it’s worth, I first came upon PWL in 2008. A friend was delivering a lecture course on the renowned French philosopher, Michel Foucault, and his influences, including this “Pierre Hadot” about whom I knew nothing.
In a key chapter of PWL, Hadot gently suggests that his contemporary was mistaken about key aspects of ancient philosophy. Hadot put into words my own apprehensions about Foucault’s last works far better than I could have, in a way that glimpsed a much larger vista of ancient learning.
This was my tangential way into a book which has been with me in one way or another ever since. It’s a book whose classically clear language (beautifully translated by Michael Chase) belies a depth of learning which Hadot had accumulated over decades, and which pointed him towards nothing less than a quietly revolutionary understanding of Western philosophy.