A Contamination of Philosophy by Religion? Reassessing Hadot’s Notion of Spiritual Exercises

This chapter discusses one of the most frequent criticisms made against Hadot’s notion of spiritual exercises, focusing on one of his most fervent critics, John Cooper. According to the latter, the notion of spiritual exercises is derived from religion and Hadot’s use of it inaccurately blurs the distinction between the philosophical and the religious way of life. After i) clarifying the roots of Hadot’s notion of spiritual exercises, ii) outlining his own direct answers to similar criticisms, and iii) contextualizing the notion in ancient philosophical forms of askēsis, I argue that Cooper’s critical reading of Hadot is essentially determined by a narrower understanding of spirituality and a competing conception of what philosophy is. Although Cooper’s divergence from Hadot seems to be more terminological than philosophical or even hermeneutical in nature, their contrasting accounts bring to light two different metaphilosophies and two competing understandings not only of what philosophy was in antiquity but also of what it should become in contemporary times.