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Of Cartesianism and spiritual exercises : Reading Descartes through Hadot, and Hadot through Descartes
Stettler, Matteo J. Sharpe, Matthew
Stettler, Matteo J.
Sharpe, Matthew
Abstract
This article challenges the recurrent critique that Pierre Hadot’s identification of ancient philosophy with the practice of spiritual exercises introduces a non- or irrational dimension into metaphilosophy. The occasion to do this is provided by Kerem Eksen’s recent reading of Descartes’s Meditations as consisting of solely intellectual, rather than spiritual, exercises—since the latter, Eksen claims, involve extrarational means and ends. Part 2 presents an alternative account of the role of cognition in the ancient meditatio at issue in understanding Descartes’s antecedents. This account is indebted to Michel Foucault’s characterization of ancient meditation as involving two cognitive mechanisms: an appropriation of thought, and an experiment in identification. Part 3 argues that attempts such as Eksen’s to depict spiritual exercises as wholly noncognitive themselves are the product of an “unexamined Cartesianism” that is fundamentally at odds with the monistic psychology of ancient Stoics like Marcus Aurelius as discussed in Hadot’s studies.
Keywords
Descartes, Hadot, Foucault, spiritual exercises, meditation
Date
2022
Type
Journal article
Journal
Philosophy Today
Book
Volume
66
Issue
3
Page Range
471-489
Article Number
ACU Department
School of Philosophy
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
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Open Access Status
License
All rights reserved
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Controlled