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Ilsetraut Hadot’s Seneca : Spiritual Direction and the Transformation of the Other
Sharpe, Matthew
Sharpe, Matthew
Author
Abstract
The aim of Ethics and Self-Cultivation is to establish and explore a new ‘cultivation of the self’ strand within contemporary moral philosophy. Although the revival of virtue ethics has helped reintroduce the eudaimonic tradition into mainstream philosophical debates, it has by and large been a revival of Aristotelian ethics combined with a modern preoccupation with standards for the moral rightness of actions. The essays comprising this volume offer a fresh approach to the eudaimonic tradition: instead of conditions for rightness of actions, it focuses on conceptions of human life that are best for the one living it. The first section of essays looks at the Hellenistic schools and the way they influenced modern thinkers like Spinoza, Kant, Nietzsche, Hadot, and Foucault in their thinking about self-cultivation. The second section offers contemporary perspectives on ethical self-cultivation by drawing on work in moral psychology, epistemology of self-knowledge, philosophy of mind, and meta-ethics.
The chapter follows the structure of Hadot's book on Seneca, examining in turn: firstly, her account of what she terms the "paraenetic" dimension to Seneca's self-conception as a philosophical "spiritual director"; secondly, her account of the antecedents of this philosophical persona and practice in preclassical and classical culture; and then thirdly her remarkable account of the diagnostic and prescriptive details of Seneca's spiritual direction, including in the Letters to Lucilius.
Keywords
Ilsetraut Hadot, Seneca, Letters to Lucilius
Date
2018
Type
Book chapter
Journal
Book
Ethics and Self-Cultivation: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
Volume
Issue
Page Range
104-123
Article Number
ACU Department
School of Philosophy
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
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Open Access Status
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All rights reserved
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