ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the dominant interpretations of Hellenistic philosophy in the Anglophone and Francophone traditions. While there is significant interpretative crossover in these traditions, for the most part they have remained separate, especially insofar as they emphasise alternative themes in the Hellenistic corpus. I begin by discussing how Anglophone scholars routinely interpret these exercises as consisting in moral exercises that aim to attenuate or exorcise inappropriate attachments, typically emphasising how passionate attachments generate damaging passions [pathē] that impact on our ability to act morally (3.1). This view arises from three interconnected Hellenistic doctrines, each of which have been influential in the Anglophone tradition: first, the view that passionate attachments inhibit our ability to attain the flourishing life (3.1.1); second, the claim that virtue is sufficient for flourishing (3.1.2); and, third, the endorsement of a minimal conception of prudential attachments and the discouragement of their pupils taking up passionate ones (3.1.3). The second half of the chapter charts the remarkably different direction taken by the Francophone scholarship. Although scholars in this tradition acknowledge the suspect nature of the passionate attachments for Hellenistic philosophers, the thinkers we will scrutinise in depth – Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault – are primarily interested in exercises of self-cultivation, which they claim have direct relevance to the transformation of practical philosophy and to contemporary life (3.2.1–3.2.2). Both Hadot and Foucault claim that the Hellenistic conception of self-shaping was not limited to improving our moral character, but also sought to transform the prudential and passionate characters of their pupils too, which is reflected in how the thinkers in the Francophone tradition (along with Nussbaum) prioritise the importance of the Socratic question for Hellenistic philosophy (3.2.3).
