How To Be An Agnostic
if one argument is as good as any other. The best use of dialogue
was as an exercise aimed at the transformation of the interlocu-
tors. As Pierre Hadot, the contemporary philosopher who has
spearheaded the rediscovery of ancient philosophy as a way of
life, explains: ‘It was not a matter of combat between two individ-
uals, in which the more skillful person imposed his point of view,
but a joint effort on the part of two interlocutors in accord with
the rational demands of reasonable discourse.’ In other words,
the value of expressing yourself clearly was only so as to be able
to ‘offer’ it to another, who had a similarly well-honed argument
that, by understanding, you could grasp at what lay beneath the
argument too. The point of so inhabiting another view was to
identify with something beyond yourself to take you out of your-
self. A partial parallel today would be the seminar in which stu-
dents have to play the role of opponents in a debate. Another
is to think of Platonic dialogue as role playing: Plato calls them
‘entertainments’ in one place, meaning ‘serious play acting’.
Hadot argues that it is right to talk of ‘spiritual exercises’ in
the Academy too, since this underlines the centrality of expe-
riencing matters when discussing them, again in line with the
goal of a philosophy that is more than rational expression. The
idea is that working at this intuitive level – enunciating why
such and such does not feel right – was as valid as highlight-
ing logical inconsistencies and fl aws. To the same end, students
practised other exercises alongside dialogue. One was sexual
abstinence, as in ‘Platonic relationships’, though it would be a
mistake to take that as meaning a negation of passion: the aim
was to sublimate the energy of erotic love and focus its drive
on higher things. Another possible exercise had to do with the
analysis of dreams. There is a passage in the Republic in which
Plato sounds almost Freudian: ‘terrible and savage’ dreams could
provide someone with material for refl ection. It would contrib-
ute to what Chaucer wrote in The Monk’s Tale, recalling the
Delphic inscription: ‘Full wise is he that can himself know.’
Another central exercise was the contemplation of death.
Death is of interest because it is the moment when one’s life’s