Eight Videos On Philosophy As A Way Of Life

This semester, I have been teaching a class at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design titled "Philosophy, Mindfulness, and Life".  "Mindfulness" in that title has a much more broad scope than just contemporary mindfulness movement teachings and techniques.  The class is actually much more focused on what has come in recent years to be referred to a "Philosophy as a Way of Life".

That formulation is most closely associated with the French 20th century philosopher Pierre Hadot, but as I've discussed elsewhere, it is a way of understanding and doing philosophy that has been around since antiquity and continued on down to the present, developing through a number of traditions and movements (and Hadot would agree with this).

Earlier in the semester, I created eight new core concept videos specifically on Philosophy as a way of life for my students enrolled in that class.  I knew they would also be of interest to a much broader audience, so I'm bringing them all together here in one place.  

Five of them are on chapter 3 of Pierre Hadot's book Philosophy As A Way Of Life, entitled "Spiritual Exercises".  

• Spiritual Exercises & Philosophy
• Types of Spiritual Exercises
• Dialogue and Spiritual Exercise
• Death, Life, and Perspective
• Philosophical Writing & Spiritual Exercises

Three of them are on John Sellars' excellent article, "What Is Philosophy As A Way Of Life".

• Scientific vs Humanistic Philosophy
• Philosophy of Life As A Third Way
• Three Views on Philosophy as Way of Life

I hope you find them useful for understanding this way of understanding and engaging in philosophy!

Six Lecture Videos on Michel Foucault's Technologies of the Self

One of the texts that I've taught in my classes in the past, but never produced any lecture videos about until nowis Michel Foucault's piece, Technologies of the Self.  It fits in particularly well with one class I'm teaching this semester for Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.  It's titled "Philosophy, Mindfulness, and Life, but the class mainly focuses on Philosophy As A Way Of Life.

That's a term popularized by 20th century French philosopher Pierre Hadot, but as as approach towards philosophy it goes far beyond the ambit of his works.  Foucault's study of technologies of the self covers much of the same ground (as does, I would argue, what Alasdair MacIntyre calls "tradition-constituted inquiry").  The focus is on how intentional ways of living develop, employ, borrow, and transform practices.

Foucault's own emphasis on technologies allows him to explain his own overarching projects, framing them particularly in terms of his earlier focus on technologies of power, and his later shift to examining what he calls "technologies of the self."

You can find the essay in multiple places - one of them is in the collection Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth.

Here are those six videos:

• Four Types of Technologies
• Care of the Self and Knowing Oneself
• Socratic and Platonic Care of the Self
• Hellenistic and Roman Care of the Self
• Stoic Care of the Self
• Early Christian Care of the Self

I hope you find them useful and interesting.  As always, if you'd like to make a contribution to helping me continue my work making classic philosophical texts, thinkers, and topics accessible for people worldwide, consider becoming a monthly supporter on Patreon. If you'd like to make a one-time donation, you can do so directly on Paypal, or on Buy Me A Coffee.