ABSTRACT
Pierre Hadot was born in Paris on February 21, 1922 and died on April 24, 2010.1 It was his mother’s decision that he too, just like his two older brothers, would become a priest. In fact, as Hadot recalls, in his childhood he “never imagined that [he] could do anything in life other than what [his] brothers did, and thus [he] naturally found [himself] at the Petit Séminaire de Rheims at the age of ten.”2 He has since become one of the most distinguished specialists in ancient philosophy who unveiled its relevance in relation to the existential challenges of our present times. Hadot was Director of Studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (1964-85), requesting that the title of his Chair, Latin Patristics, be changed to Theologies and Mysticisms of Hellenistic Greece and the End of Antiquity. At the time of his death at the age of 88, Hadot was Professor Emeritus at the Collège de France, where he previously held the Chair of the History of Hellenistic and Roman Thought (1982-91). A corresponding member of the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur (Mainz, since 1972), and of the Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Munich, since 2001), he also received a doctorate honoris causa in philosophy from the University of Neuchâtel (1985), and another one from Laval University (Québec, November 2002). In recognition of his lifetime’s work, Hadot received the Grand Prix de Philosophie de l’Académie Française in 1999. He specialized in
1 It should perhaps be noted here that some sources mistakenly give Rheims (Marne, Champagne-Ardenne) as Pierre Hadot’s birthplace (see, for instance, Alan D. Schrift’s otherwise excellent book Twentieth-Century French Philosophy: Key Themes and Thinkers, Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell 2006, p. 135) when in fact his family had to flee Rheims in 1914 only to return to “a city almost entirely destroyed by the bombings” a month after his birth in Paris. Cf. Pierre Hadot, La Philosophie comme manière de vivre. Entretiens avec Jeannie Carlier et Arnold I. Davidson, Paris: Éditions Albin Michel 2001, p. 18. (English translation: The Present Alone Is Our Happiness: Conversations with Jeannie Carlier and Arnold I. Davidson, trans. by Marc Djaballah, Stanford: Stanford University Press 2009, p. 2.)
Neoplatonism, but he has also written extensively on Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Wittgenstein, Goethe, and others.3
