1.

The book talks primarily about philosophy as a way of life, thus it focuses on
ancient philosophy. Its noteworthy that although Stoicism and Epicureanism
have different views, they share the same idea: Teaching people how to
improve their spiritual healthiness. Hadot describes the ancient philosophys
conception first, and then show us how the modern philosophy is different
and why it becomes like that. Through reading the book, it can be seen that
in the ancient times, learning philosophy is learning how one can change his
perception in order to improve his own life. As Hadot talks in chapter 3, doing
spiritual exercises is the key because only through that, you can raise your
position and see everything as a whole, including yourself. In these exercises,
they emphasize the importance of concentration on the present moment
(which is discussed further in the chapter 8): we have to pay attention only
to the present because it is the only thing we can affect with our own free
will. The future consists of things that havent happened and the past
consists of things that already happened, we shouldnt let them bother us
with things that are out of our hands. The ancient philosophy helps people
follow things which are morally good and avoid things which are morally bad,
improving their both physical and mental lives since for example, they can
get rid of the insatiable desires such as desires which are natural but not
necessary and especially desires which are neither natural nor necessary
(page 87). For ancient people, philosophy is an art of living. In contrast, the
modern philosophy is a hard and complex concept, which is reserved for
specialists. According to Hadot, philosophy began to change when

Christianity presented the Christian way of life (page 269). After that,
philosophy was no longer a free science, but a tool, a servant for theology,
so as a result, philosophy was no longer a way of life. Nowadays we can see
that philosophy is very far from our normal lives. Now it is attached to books
and high education level, and it requires many lectures to understand
properly and thoroughly.

2. Using the term Spiritual exercises is an unique way to describe the exercise
we need in order to achieve what we desire. First, its because there is no
word that is more reasonable than the word spiritual. As Hadot mentions in
page 81 and 82, we can consider some closely related words such as
psychic, moral, ethical, intellectual, of thought, of the soul but
they all can not fully illustrate the true meaning of this exercise. As I
understand, the word spiritual is used because in this exercise, you are no
longer in your normal view but within the perspective of the Whole (page
82). Its like when your soul escapes from your body, you can get a view from
above which covers the whole thing below, but this time, in this exercise,
with a higher position, you have to look at everything around you and
yourself, consider everything as a whole. You treat yourself as if you have
become a spirit and the word spiritual sure describes this task well.
Furthermore, exercise means that you have to practice regularly in order to
achieve the goal. The goal here, as the word spiritual implies, is to get a
healthy spiritual life, and that means you can eliminate the desires and

passions which are beyond our control. In Stoicism, we practice how to live
freely and consciously; and in Epicureanism, we learn how to enjoy our life,
enjoy our existence or in other words, appreciate the joy of existing. Besides,
we have to dialogue with ourselves: we have to ask ourselves and be honest
about our own desires and passions, then persuade our own soul by moving
from individuality to universality, freeing ourselves from the illusions of
individuality. Finally, with these exercises, we can achieve complete
liberation from the passions, utter lucidity, knowledge of ourselves and of the
world (page 103) which is the goal of the spiritual exercises the term
contains meanings that the words spiritual or exercise alone can not
demonstrate.

3. The theme I choose is the pleasure in thinking philosophically freely. The

reasons I choose this theme are because I love freedom and I like the way
they think about philosophy without any restrictions: They are not hesitated
to share their own thoughts, especially with very thoughtful arguments. In
Symposium, they make a discussion about love, a very interesting concept
which has been being deliberated all the time. The discussion can not come
up with a conclusion on what love is exactly, but it shows me a great
willingness to listen to other people: they receive the arguments before and
make a better argument, thus improving the conclusion about the topic so

that it becomes closer and closer to what love is. That is the joy of discussing
philosophically, which inspires me to think philosophically. In Metaphysics,
Aristotle amazes me by his inference even though maybe he had to spend
years before he could collect all of his thoughts and put them into his book.
He built everything by examining usual things and rules, making his
arguments not only easy enough to understand but also deep enough to
make readers surprised. In Meditations, Descartes shows readers a new
way of thinking, a proof of how free you can be when it comes to philosophy.
Instead of forming a foundation based on the outer world, he began from the
inside, the I. This proves that philosophy is not just an ordinary science but
a supreme one, in which we can think freely and may have different
thoughts, different perspectives yet we all have the same ambition: to seek
for wisdom. It is even more admirable in The Stoic Reader when they
considered philosophy truly as a way of life. I love how they teached people
the way of thinking which improves their own lives by being positive and
conscious. They literally broke the limit between a science, especially a
supreme one, and normal life. In the end, I want to quote a text in
Philosophy as a Way of Life: Everyone is free to define philosophy as he
likes, to choose whatever philosophy he wishes, or to invent if he can
whatever philosophy he may think valid. Thats exactly what I want to say
about philosophy and also that philosophy comes from peoples thoughts,
discussions and arguments. Thanks to this class, I can collect many different

reflections and thus I can sharpen my own knowledge and thoughts, which
sure helps me a lot in the future.