Pierre Hadot

Pierre Hadot (French: [ado]; February 21, 1922 – April 24, 2010) was a French philosopher and historian of philosophy specializing in ancient philosophy, particularly Neoplatonism. 2Life In 1944, Hadot was ordained, but following Pope Pius XII’s encyclical Humani generis (1950) 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 (chaire d'histoire de la pensée hellénistique et romaine). In 1991, he retired from this position to become professeur honoraire at the collège; his last lecture was on May 22 of the same 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. 2Thought 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 genr