In 1944, Hadot was ordained, but following Pope Pius XII’s encyclical Humani generis left the priesthood. He studied at the Sorbonne between 1946–1947. In 1961, he graduated from the École Pratique des Hautes Études, where he would become the Director of Studies from 1964 to 1986. He was eventually named professor at the Collège de France in 1982, where he held the Chair of History in Hellenistic and Roman Thought. In 1991, he retired from this position to become professeur honoraire at the collège; his last lecture was on 22 May that year. He concluded the class saying, "In the last analysis, we can scarcely talk about what is most important." Hadot was married to the historian of philosophy, Ilsetraut Hadot.
Philosophical work
Hadot was one of the first authors to introduce Ludwig Wittgenstein's thought into France. Hadot suggested that one cannot separate the form of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations from their content. Wittgenstein had claimed that philosophy was an illness of language and Hadot notes that the cure required a particular type of literary genre. Hadot is also famous for his analysis on the conception of philosophy during Greco-Roman antiquity. Hadot identified and analyzed the "spiritual exercises" used in ancient philosophy. By "spiritual exercises" Hadot means "practices... intended to effect a modification and a transformation in the subjects who practice them. The philosophy teacher's discourse could be presented in such a way that the disciple, as auditor, reader, or interlocutor, could make spiritual progress and transform himself within." Hadot shows that the key to understanding the original philosophical impulse is to be found in Socrates. What characterizes Socratic therapy above all is the importance given to living contact between human beings. Hadot's recurring theme is that philosophy in Antiquity was characterized by a series of spiritual exercises intended to transform the perception, and therefore the being, of those who practice it; that philosophy is best pursued in real conversation and not through written texts and lectures; and that philosophy, as it is taught in universities today, is for the most part a distortion of its original, therapeutic impulse. He brings these concerns together in What Is Ancient Philosophy?, which has been critically reviewed.
Publications
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with P. Henry, Marius Victorinus, Traités théologiques sur la Trinité, Cerf 1960.
Porphyre et Victorinus. Paris, Institut d'Etudes augustiniennes, 1968..
Marius Victorinus: recherches sur sa vie et ses oeuvres, 1971..
Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique. Paris, Etudes augustiniennes, 1981...
* Philosophy as a Way of Life. Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, edited with an Introduction by Arnold I. Davidson, translated by Michael Chase, Oxford/Cambridge, Massachusetts, Basil Blackwell, 1995, Oxford, Blackwell's, 1995..
La citadelle intérieure. Introduction aux Pensées de Marc Aurèle. Paris, Fayard, 1992..
Plotin ou la simplicité du regard ; 4e éd. Paris, Gallimard, 1997...
* Plotinus or the Simplicity of Vision, translated by Michael Chase, with an Introduction by Arnold A. Davidson, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1993.
Marc Aurèle. Ecrits pour lui même, texte établi et traduit par Pierre Hadot, avec la collaboration de Concetta Luna. vol. 1. Paris, Collection Budé, 1998. .
Plotin, Porphyre: Études néoplatoniciennes. Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1999.. .
La philosophie comme manière de vivre. Paris, Albin Michel, 2002...
* The Present Alone is Our Happiness: Conversations with Jeannie Carlier and Arnold I. Davidson, 2nd ed. Translated by Marc Djaballah and Michael Chase, Stanford / Stanford University Press, 2011.
Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique, nouvelle éd. Paris, Albin Michel, 2002...
Le voile d'Isis: Essai sur l'histoire de l'idée de nature. Paris, Gallimard, 2004...
* The Veil of Isis: An Essay on the History of the Idea of Nature., translated by Michael Chase, Cambridge, Massachusetts /London, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002.
Wittgenstein et les limites du langage. Paris, J. Vrin, 2004...
Apprendre à philosopher dans l'antiquité. L'enseignement du Manuel d'Epictète et son commentaire néoplatonicien. Paris, LGF, 2004...
