2013 Fall Proseminar Class Notes A
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September 11, 2013
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add text. Alfino (talk) 19:58, 4 September 2013 (PDT)
First Post By: Alynna Nemes
When I read Hadot's "Spiritual Exercises," I rediscovered the origin of my passion for philosophy in one simple phrase, "Know thyself" (90). Throughout the reading, the phrase takes on multiple meanings that are encompassed by the need for spiritual exercises with the goals of "self realization and improvement" (102). To me, philosophy is a journey to discover the best way to live life, while opening my mind to new perspectives that could help me improve myself. Also, it delves into other fields of study that involve contemplating, understanding, and changing human nature (history, psychology, sociology, etc.). I agree with the definition that philosophy is "a method for training people to live and to look at the world in a new way" (107).
However, this contradicts Deleuze’s "What is Philosophy,” when "philosophy is the art of forming, inventing, and fabricating concepts" (2). Present day philosophy strays from spiritual exercises and improvement of human nature by becoming more cynical of philosophy itself, becoming lost in all the complexities of self-realization. Current philosophy has lost its own ability to enrich human nature because its modern principles are unable to correspond with humanity’s new set of ideals and beliefs, rendering the ideas of the past irrelevant or ineffective. As Deleuze notes, "Those who criticize without creating, those who are content to defend the vanished concept without being able to give it the forces it needs to return to life are the plague of philosophy" (28). There is no dialogue and truth being fought out; philosophy has become a petty subject of arguments with no real world impact. The ancient followers of Stoicism and Epicureanism developed and answered that philosophy is meant to be lived and experienced because "there are some truths whose meaning will never be exhausted by the generations of man" (Hadot 108). Concepts within philosophy don't always have to be new; they can be practical and simple to evoke self realization. Philosophy has strayed from its roots and I hope that we can one day return philosophy back to its original spiritual exercises.
Marshall Powell:
I find the criticisms of modern academic philosophy that Hadot describes to resonate very much with what I see in my own reading. The simple and unadorned language that many of the stoic philosophers use, makes memorization and internalization much simpler than sifting through the complicated, and roundabout language of many modern philosophers. The stoics also focused heavily on recognizing scope of one's existence relative to the universe in order to act in a way that befits a being of little significance. Modern western philosophy is much more a theoretical pursuit than it was at the time of ancient stoic philosophers, focused more on changing perspective on specific arguments, rather than influencing a complete change in a persons practice. I strongly agree that philosophy should shape one's actions rather than bolster one's pride.
However, I believe Hadot demonstrates the weaknesses of modern philosophy in his argument for the use of spiritual exercises. He begins by rejecting the language that people are familiar with and understand well, in favor of spiritual. His argument is that the other words people would commonly use are too narrow to fully describe what the exercises are doing, but he fails to critique his use of spiritual to the same level. Spiritual seems to be an especially bad choice because the preconceptions of spiritual that most people hold are vastly different than the idea he is trying to convey. For the use to make any sort of real sense, the definition must be so vague that it fails to say anything definitive at all. At best people will have to guess at how exactly a change in spirit will practically effect their life, and at worst it might cause a person to wholly misinterpret the meaning of the exercises Hadot describes. He seems to equate the differing ideas of philosopher a very different schools of thought as all engaging in spiritual exercise, but does not provide much evidence in most of the cases. He tries to connect what appear to be people on opposing ends of the philosophical spectrum with out thoroughly explaining the ties and without providing much critique of his claims.
These passages seems to be written by different people, because of how significantly Hadot's style varies between.
