Use Ancient Philosphy in Your Lives

Here I propose to say what is wrong with American education. It may be a problem elsewhere, but I live in America.

 American education does teach us what is the best kind of life, how to live that best life.

Psyche's Sprinkle a little ancient philosophy into your daily routines touches on these issues.

According to the French philosopher Pierre Hadot (1922-2010), ancient philosophy was something that had to be practised at each instant, and the goal of which was to transform the whole of the individual’s life. ‘Real wisdom,’ Hadot observed, ‘does not merely cause us to know: it makes us “be” in a different way.’

Central to Hadot’s reading of ancient philosophy are what he termed ‘spiritual exercises’. The form of these exercises, described as ‘voluntary, personal practices through which we seek to change our way of being and of seeing the world’, varied greatly, but the goal was always consistent. One might read, write, converse with others or meditate but, in all cases, the practising philosopher seeks through these exercises to enter into a dialogue with oneself, to convince and persuade oneself of some point, and to establish in oneself the strength to live according to its truth. These exercises required the sustaining nourishment of philosophical ideas, and they gave the practising philosopher the means through which to bring these ideas to life, embedding them into one’s way of being.

For the philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome, philosophy was supposed to transform our way of living because it was philosophy that provided the means by which humankind was to flourish, to live well and to avoid the troublesome emotions that disrupt the lives of many of us. For these thinkers, philosophy was therapeutic, the discipline that could help us rid ourselves of the unnecessary suffering and anxiety that results from our misguided way of seeing and understanding the world.

We leave definitions of the good life to the market - that the buying of goods makes us good people. At the same time, our ethics arise from our Protestant heritage - which is supposed to be opposed to the goods of Mammon. What makes a good person cannot be the one who dies with the most toys. The good citizen cannot be the one whose interests rise no higher than their paychecks. Would we have elected Donald J. Trump with a more enlightened population?

Anyone using a computer is literate enough to read Plato or Aristotle. Why aren't they?

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