Descriptions:
Video Description
Philosophy was never meant to be jargon trapped in textbooks. This lecture from Academy of Ideas uses the work of Pierre Hadot to recover a forgotten truth: for the ancients, philosophy was a way of life aimed at transforming the self. The video surveys the radical schools — Cynics, Epicureans, Stoics — and then offers three practical exercises anyone can try: meditate on death, practice on future troubles, and take the view from above. Each one is a tool for becoming freer, calmer, and more awake. It is philosophy as a daily practice, not a debate.
Full Video Transcript
Some today consider philosophy to be a superfluous enterprise, valuable only to those with their head in the clouds and time to kill.
This view may be partially attributable to the growing interest that contemporary philosophers have with producing ideas intended only for their fellow academics.
As the 20th century French philosopher Pierre Hadot pointed out, modern philosophy appears above all as the construction of a technical jargon reserved for modern specialists.
In contrast to modern philosophy, ancient philosophers were concerned not with the production of a technical jargon reserved for specialists,
but with the attainment of wisdom for the sake of instigating a transformation of self.
As Hadot put it, modern philosophers are artists of reason, while ancient philosophers were artists of life.
He is the one, in fact, wrote the ancient Stoic Seneca, who knows the fundamental thing, how to live.
In this video, we will unearth some of the ancient philosophers’ ideas on the elusive art of living,
displaying philosophy as a subject imbued with a potentially transformative power, which can help one change their life.
Many of the great ancient philosophers viewed humans as for the most part living monotonous misguided lives,
conforming without thought, and burdened by irrational fears and insecurities.
The 19th century American philosopher Henry David Thoreau encapsulated this view of the ancient philosophers, writing,
the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. According to the ancients,
in order to develop into a unique individual, capable of free thought and
able to attain a higher state of being than most,
wisdom was necessary. Throughout antiquity, wrote Hadot,
wisdom was considered a mode of being, a state in which a person
is in a way which is radically different from that of other people,
a state in which he is a kind of Superman. Today when one studies philosophy,
it is most commonly for purposes such as entering academia, law school, or to
train oneself in the rigors of logic and argumentation. For the ancients, one studied
philosophy to become a fully developed individual, able to navigate through life successfully,
calmly, and wisely. Speaking of philosophy, Seneca wrote,
It molds and builds the personality, orders one’s life, regulates one’s conduct, shows one what one
should do and what one should leave undone, and keeps one on the correct course as one is tossed
about in perilous seas. Without it, no one can lead a life free of fear or worry. In their quest
Set for wisdom, the ancient philosophers’ rupture from the status quo was radical.
The cynics owned little, lived on the streets, and openly shunned and mocked social norms
and conventions.
The Epicureans removed themselves from society altogether, setting up their own small community
of philosophers.
The Stoics sought to construct within themselves an impenetrable fortress, unaffected by either
men or fate.
While most today can’t or aren’t willing to undergo such a drastic rupture with the
status quo, the ancient philosophers put forth potentially transformative practical exercises.
These exercises can be practiced by anyone at any time, and can potentially raise one’s
self and worldview to a level higher than most can comprehend.
“…Practice these and the related percepts day and night,” wrote Epicurus, “…and you
will live as a god among men.”
Pierre Hadot spent much of his life investigating these percepts or practices, calling them
spiritual exercises.
The French sociologist George Friedman nicely captured the essence of the nature of spiritual
exercises with these words.
Take flight each day, at least for a moment however brief, as long as it is intense.
Every day a spiritual exercise.
Leave ordinary time behind.
Make an effort to rid yourself of your own passions.
Become eternal by surpassing yourself.
This inner effort is necessary, this ambition just.
While the ancient philosophers set forth numerous spiritual exercises, we will look at three
of the more powerful ones, meditating upon death, premeditating on future evils, and
assuming a view from above.
Far from being morbid, the ancient philosophers thought that frequently meditating on death
could help one appreciate and make the most of life by becoming aware of its inherent
fragility.
Most spend their days consumed with planning and acting for the sake of the future, unable
to enjoy the pleasures and beauty of the present moment, and completely unaware that the future
which consumes so much of their time and energy may never come.
We would be wise, thought the ancients, to remind ourselves of the uncertain and uncontrollable
nature of death more often.
Persuade yourself that each new day that dawns will be your last, then you will receive each
unexpected hour with gratitude.
Recognize all the value of each moment of time which is added on as if it were happening
by an incredible stroke of luck.
Let your every deed and word and thought be those of one who might depart from this life
this very moment, wrote Marcus Aurelius.
Popular among Stoic philosophers, premeditating on future evils was thought to be an effective
antidote to the inevitable painful and tragic situations
that everyone must face in one form or another. He robs present ills of their
power who has perceived their coming beforehand, wrote Seneca.
If we contemplate potentially painful events ahead of time,
acknowledging situations we are afraid of as a possibility,
we will be better prepared to endure and overcome them, as Seneca explained.
What is quite unlooked for is more crushing in its effect, and
unexpectedness adds to the weight of a disaster.
The fact that it was unforeseen has never failed to intensify a person’s
grief. This is a reason for ensuring that nothing ever takes us by surprise. We should
project our thoughts ahead of us at every turn and have in mind every possible eventuality
instead of only the usual course of events.
One of the more powerful and potent of the ancient spiritual exercises involved assuming
a view from above. The ancients thought that by contemplating the vast and majestic universe,
one can rise above all earthly troubles and look down upon the world as if from above.
Watch and see the courses of the stars as if you were running alongside them, and continually
dwell in your mind upon the changes of the elements into one another.
For these imaginations wash away the foulness of life on the earth.
When you are reasoning about mankind, look upon earthly things below, as if from some
vantage point above them.
Many people trudge through their days as if they have the weight of the world on their
shoulders, constantly worried about their own individual life and troubled by the suffering
and evil that seems so pervasive in the world.
To combat these existential sufferings, the ancients thought we should rise in our minds
to a higher perspective.
Place before your mind’s eye the vast spread of time’s abyss, and embrace the universe,
and then compare what we call human life with infinity.
Plato’s entire philosophy was built around transcending one’s individual perspective
for a more total universal perspective, and his words helped Nietzsche, who wrote of assuming
a position 6,000 feet beyond man and time, escape from the pressures of being human,
and realize that in the end, from the right perspective, there’s nothing to worry about,
for it’s all only human, all too human.
I thought of Plato’s words and felt them suddenly in my heart.
All in all, nothing human is worth taking very seriously, nevertheless.”
Along with cultivating a sense of release from the burdens of daily human existence,
A View from Above stimulates feelings of wonder.
Dwell on the beauty of life, wrote Marcus Aurelius.
Watch the stars and see yourself running with them.
Wisdom and wonder have a close connection.
Both Plato and Aristotle claimed philosophy to have been born in wonder, and the philosopher
to be continually sustained by wonder in his pursuit of wisdom.
Heidegger captured the wonder that enticed him, conceiving it as the wonder that a world
is worlding around us at all, that there are beings rather than nothing, that things are
and we ourselves are in their midst, that we ourselves are and yet barely know who we
are, and barely know that we do not know all this.
Along with instigating a transformation of self and a new way of seeing the world, the
ancient philosopher sought to become an autonomous individual, meaning an individual who is Allah
unto himself.
In our modern age of calm despotism and increasing social conformity, autonomous individuals
are sorely needed.
The individual who abides by the ancient conception of philosophy as a way of life, the endless
seekers who unsettle all things as Emerson described them, are those who rebel against
the ever-present forces of conformity and tyranny.
As Nietzsche wrote,
Where there have been powerful societies, governments, religions, public opinions, in
short, wherever there has been tyranny, there the solitary philosopher has been hated.
Your philosophy offers an asylum to a man into which no tyranny can force its way, the
inward cave, the labyrinth of the heart, and that annoys the tyrants.
Source: Academy of Ideas
“A view from above” – this is why we begin with The Pale Blue Dot perspective.