Philosophy As A Way Of Life - Who Else Besides Hadot?

One of the areas I work in as a professional philosopher is Stoic philosophy. Up to this point, I've admittedly published relatively little in traditional academic formats about Stoicism, but I regularly write, speak, and produce content about Stoicism in more popular and public settings.  Currently, I also edit an important forum for modern interpretations, discussion, and application of Stoic philosophy, Stoicism Today.  Though I'm not an orthodox Stoic, but rather an avowed eclectic, I draw upon and apply Stoic insights, practices, and techniques, not only in my own life, but also with clients in my philosophical counseling practice.

As a result, I move in quite a few circles that consist of other people who are interested in Stoicism.  That's actually something I'm very happy and grateful about - that I get to engage in conversations, not just with fellow academics, but with all sorts of people about philosophy.  Sometimes this takes place at an introductory level, but often the people I get into discussions with have developed an admirably extensive grasp of Stoic literature and doctrine.  The people drawn to Stoicism very often are interested in applying it - it putting it to work, and thereby also putting it to the test.  That is because, to use the phrase the Pierre Hadot so famously popularized, Stoicism is the sort of theory or doctrine that we can call "philosophy as a way of life."

I get asked about Hadot - and about this conception of "philosophy as a way of life" - a lot.  And I have to admit that, at times, I can be a bit brusque or dismissive in my replies, particularly when the assumption seems to be that this realization (that philosophy is meant to be lived and practiced) is something radically new, that until Hadot (or even better, Foucault) came along to reveal this feature of ancient philosophy to us, we late modern philosophers were all in the dark about this.  So here, I'd like to provide a reply at length to an interlocutor who was asking me about that topic - "philosophy as a way of life".