Contemplative Studies by Michael Chase
Contemplative Currents/Journal of Contemplative Studies, 2024
Includes dicussion of *theôria* in Greek thought, *mushahada* in Avicenna, mindfulness and its ne... more Includes dicussion of *theôria* in Greek thought, *mushahada* in Avicenna, mindfulness and its neurophysiological correlates, mysticism, Pierre Hadot and PWL, Buddhism. C.F. von Weizsäcker, and the possible links between quantum physics and consciousness.
Draft version of a paper to be given at Lille, Fe. 21-22, 2024
Notes on PWL, quantum physics and epistemic modesty. Since Pierre Hadot's work began to become be... more Notes on PWL, quantum physics and epistemic modesty. Since Pierre Hadot's work began to become better known in the English-speaking world in the mid-1990s, the philosophical orientation that has come to be known as "Philosophy as a Way of Life" (PWL) has now become a well-established field in academia. Among the most pressing issues in the study of Philosophy as a Way of Life (PWL) is the problem of updatng: to what extent must the views of ancient Greco-Roman thought be modified to make them appropriate for life in the twenty-first century? Some aspects of quantum physics, such as the room it seems to leave open for free will, might be thought to reinforce key concepts of PWL. Others, such as the notions of objectivity and disinterestedness, seem to be challenged by at least some interpretations of the findings of quantum physics.
Paper to be given at the University of Verona in October 2022
Studies our tendency to become habituated to the world, leading to taking it for granted and ceas... more Studies our tendency to become habituated to the world, leading to taking it for granted and ceasing to perceive its miraculous qualities. Beginning with ancient testimonies, I then proceed to examine the neurophysiological correlates of this phenomenon, before considering two suggestions by Pierre Hadot on how to recapture the experience of seeing the world as if for the first time: concentration on the present and aesthetic percetion. Finally, I suggest that mindfulness meditation may provide a third option.
Comparative Philosophy: Vol. 13: Iss. 2, Article 9., 2022
Studies the threefold hierarchy of certainty, from its origens in Mahāyāna Buddhism, through Isla... more Studies the threefold hierarchy of certainty, from its origens in Mahāyāna Buddhism, through Islam, to 17 th century China. This tripartite scheme may be traced back to the ancient Buddhist scheme of the threefold wisdom as systematized by Vasubandhu of Gandhāra in the 4th-5th centuries CE. Following the advent of Islam in the 8th century, it was combined with Qur'anic notions of certainty (al-yaqīn). Initially taken up by early Islamic mystics such as Sahl al-Tustarī and al-Ḥākim al-Tirmiḏī (late 9th-early 10th centuries), the notion of yaqīn was gradually systematized into the three-level hierarchy of "knowledge or science of certainly" (ʿilm al-yaqīn), "essence" (literally "eye") of certainty (ʿayn al-yaqīn), and "truth or reality of certainty" (ḥaqq al-yaqīn), a hierarchy that bears a distinct resemblance to the Buddhist threefold path of wisdom as discussed by Marc-Henri Deroche. Half a millennium later, this threefold hierarchy of levels of certainty, remotely inspired by Buddhism and integrated into the philosophical Sufism of Ibn ʿArabī and his Persian disciple Jāmī, this complex of ideas may have resurfaced in 17 th century China.
Premodern Experience of the Natural World in Translation, 2022
This chapter studies the conflict between reason and experience in Greek thought, from the Presoc... more This chapter studies the conflict between reason and experience in Greek thought, from the Presocratics, through the Greek rationalists (Plato, Aristotle and his Peripatetic successors, the Stoics), to Galen and his reception in the Arabic tradition. Special attention is paid to the Empirist tradition of Greco-Roman medicine, as an example of “memorism” (Frede) or “epistemic modesty.” In response to the Aristotelian doctrine of definition and demonstration, which denied that individual things, persons, and events are susceptible of true “knowledge,” some doctors, craftsman, and “mystic” schools such as the Islamic Sufis, and even Avicenna in some of his works, had recourse to alternative traditions that stressed the importance of experience, emphasizing the value of first-person “witnessing” over rationalist theorizing. In this sense, it is argued that empiricism may be compatible with some forms of “mysticism.” Thus, problems of translation, the limits of language and the ineffability of individuals, and the complementary tension between different types of “knowing,” are closely linked throughout the epistemological history of the West.
Religions , 2022
Following insights by Pierre Hadot, I suggest that although explicit discussions of practices of ... more Following insights by Pierre Hadot, I suggest that although explicit discussions of practices of breath control and other psychosomatic techniques of contemplative attention management are conspicuously absent in early Greek thought, there are some signs that analogous practices did exist, perhaps as early as Socrates. The combined evidence of Aristophanes and Plato suggests that Socrates may have engaged in a practice that has key features in common with meditative practices and experiences as attested in Zen Buddhism. This technique consists in two stages: an initial practice of top-down, voluntary, egocentric focused meditation resulting in a state of “absorption” or abstraction from all sensory input, followed by the practice of a more bottom-up, open, other- centered (allocentric) form of meditation, intended to provide a more global or universal perspective, in which the practitioner situates herself as a part of the cosmos. This paper includes discussion of “withdrawal” into oneself as a contemplative practice in Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Evagrius Ponticus, and Gregory Palamas.
Keywords: meditation; neurophysiology; contemplative studies; Plato; Socrates
Pierre Hadot & the nature of philosophy by Michael Chase
Bollettino della Società Filosofica Italiana, 2023
After a brief introduction, surveys the history of the global development of PWL, followed by an ... more After a brief introduction, surveys the history of the global development of PWL, followed by an account of the key features of this philosophical orientration. I then discuss some outstanding issues in the current PWL studies, with particular emphasis on the central but problematic notion of objectivity on the thought of Pierre Hadot. I conclude with an introduction to and brief summary of the other contributions to this issue of the Bollettino.
Talk to be given at a conference at the Universidad Panamericana, Mexico City, Oct. 11 2019na
Studies the place of cosmic consciousness and spiritual exercises within Pierre Hadot's notion of... more Studies the place of cosmic consciousness and spiritual exercises within Pierre Hadot's notion of Philosophy as a Way of life. Includes discussion of some of his contemporary critics, and the possible relevance of some recent studies on meditation and the physiology of the brain (AKA “neural Buddhism”)
Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture, 2021
2020, the year the coronavirus pandemic spread globally, marked the twenty-fifth year since the p... more 2020, the year the coronavirus pandemic spread globally, marked the twenty-fifth year since the publication of Pierre Hadot’s work Philosophy as a Way of Life (translated by co-author Michael Chase). In that time, what began as the research specialization of just a few scholars has become a growing area of philosophical and metaphilosophical inquiry, bringing together researchers from around the globe. Hadot’s key ideas of spiritual exercises, and the very idea of PWL, have been applied to a host of individual thinkers from across the history of philosophy: from the Hellenistic and Roman-era philosophers of direct concern to Hadot, through renaissance thinkers like Petrarch, Lipsius, Montaigne, Descartes, or Bacon, into nineteenth-century thinkers led by Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche.In more recent years, more global reflections on the “very idea” of PWL have begun to emerge, as well as dedicated journal editions. In these more recent PWL studies, some of the manifold research questions have begun to be explored, which were opened up by the studies of Pierre and Ilsetraut Hadot, as well as its reception in Michel Foucault’s later work.
What implications, after all, does understanding the history of PWL, and the predominance of this metaphilosophical conception in the history of Western thought, have for how we understand the practice(s) of philosophy today? Does recovering the alternative understandings of philosophy as a practice in history necessarily lead to a criticism of contemporary, solely academic or theoretical modes of philosophizing, or is the idea of PWL one which has only historiographical force?
Part Two of my Hadot obituary, published in the blog of Harvard University Press
Part One of an obituary of Pierre Hadot I wrote for the blog of Harvard University Press.
An presentation of a recent book by Ilsetraut Hadot on Seneca and spiritual guidance
Beginning with a sketch of Pierre Hadot's concept of ancient philosophy as a way of life, consist... more Beginning with a sketch of Pierre Hadot's concept of ancient philosophy as a way of life, consisting of a series of spiritual exercises intended to transform the practitioner by changing the way she looks at the world, I ask whether it's still possible to identify with the cosmos, as the Stoics recommended.
Buenos días, Es un placer para mi expresar mi reconocimiento al Departamento de Filosofía de La U... more Buenos días, Es un placer para mi expresar mi reconocimiento al Departamento de Filosofía de La Universidad de Guadalajara, y más específicamente al Profesor Fernando Leal, por haberme tan amablemente invitado a hablarles un poco sobre un hombre que fue muy maestro en París, Pierre Hadot.
Paper to be delivered at a seminar in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, September 2015
Books by Michael Chase
ORPHIC COLLECTION edited by Alberto Bernabé, translated by Michael Chase, 2025
Draft of my part of the Introduction to a forthcoming edition and translation, in collaboration w... more Draft of my part of the Introduction to a forthcoming edition and translation, in collaboration with A. Bernabé, of the Orphic Fragments (Loeb Classical Library)
– A translation from the Greek with Introduction, Indices, and Appendix of Variant Readings
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Contemplative Studies by Michael Chase
Keywords: meditation; neurophysiology; contemplative studies; Plato; Socrates
Pierre Hadot & the nature of philosophy by Michael Chase
What implications, after all, does understanding the history of PWL, and the predominance of this metaphilosophical conception in the history of Western thought, have for how we understand the practice(s) of philosophy today? Does recovering the alternative understandings of philosophy as a practice in history necessarily lead to a criticism of contemporary, solely academic or theoretical modes of philosophizing, or is the idea of PWL one which has only historiographical force?
Books by Michael Chase
Keywords: meditation; neurophysiology; contemplative studies; Plato; Socrates
What implications, after all, does understanding the history of PWL, and the predominance of this metaphilosophical conception in the history of Western thought, have for how we understand the practice(s) of philosophy today? Does recovering the alternative understandings of philosophy as a practice in history necessarily lead to a criticism of contemporary, solely academic or theoretical modes of philosophizing, or is the idea of PWL one which has only historiographical force?
Structures génériques (3). Réception des Catégories, Université Paris Diderot, 10 rue Alice Domon et Léonie Duquet, 75013 - Paris
He knew these doctrines through a translation (Arabic? Persian?) of the Philosophos Historia of Porphyry of Tyre (c. 234-c. 310 CE)
Partly at least from from Anaxagoras, Naẓẓām inherited a “proto-scientific” approach to the study of the natural world.
some reasons to believe this may have been the case for the medical sect of the Empiric physicians as well.
Scientific Questions Then and Now will invite historians of pre-modern thought and contemporary scientists to provide their perspectives on questions concerning time, space, matter, and creation.
Morning session. President : Pierre Caye (Jean Pépin, ENS, CNRS).
10h-10h40. Nicola Zito : « Mythe et eschatologie dans l'Antiquité tardive »
10h40-11h20. Michael Chase (Jean Pépin/ENS) : « Eschatologies du corps spirituel: Porphyre et Mullā Ṣadrā»
11h20-12:00. Adrian Mihai (University of Cambridge) : Purgatoire (titre à venir)
12h-14h: déjeuner
Afternoon session. President : Anca Vasiliu (Léon Robin, CNRS).
14h-14h40. Lucia Saudelli (Jean Pépin, CNRS) « L'inexistence de l'au-delà : pythagorisme, néo-pythagorisme et pseudo-pythagorisme »
14h40-15h20. Anna van den Kerchove (Institut de Théologie Protestante) : « Le voyage de l'âme dans des écrits hermétiques »
15h20-16h00 : Luc Brisson (ENS) : « La descente de l’âme dans un corps et le retour vers son origene : Plotin et Porphyre. »
16h-16h30 : break
16h30-17h10 : Andreea-Maria Lemnaru (Centre Léon Robin, LEM) : « L'au-delà dans le commentaire de Proclus sur le Mythe d'Er »
17h10-17h50. Dylan Burns (Freie Universitat Berlin) : « Sex, Death, and Free Will in Basilides, Bardaisan, and Origen.»
18h. Conclusion : Adrien Lecerf (Léon Robin).