Voile D Isis (Folio Essais) (French Edition) by Pierre Hadot

by Pierre Hadot

Nearly twenty-five hundred years ago the Greek thinker Heraclitus supposedly uttered the cryptic words "Phusis kruptesthai philei." How the aphorism, usually translated as "Nature loves to hide," has haunted Western culture ever since is the subject of this engaging study by Pierre Hadot. Taking the allegorical figure of the veiled goddess Isis as a guide, and drawing on the work of both the ancients and later thinkers such as Goethe, Rilke, Wittgenstein, and Heidegger, Hadot traces successive interpretations of Heraclitus' words. Over time, Hadot finds, "Nature loves to hide" has meant that all that lives tends to die; that Nature wraps herself in myths; and (for Heidegger) that Being unveils as it veils itself. Meanwhile the pronouncement has been used to explain everything from the opacity of the natural world to our modern angst.From these kaleidoscopic exegeses and usages emerge two contradictory approaches to the Promethean, or experimental-questing, approach, which embraces technology as a means of tearing the veil from Nature and revealing her secrets; and the Orphic, or contemplative-poetic, approach, according to which such a denuding of Nature is a grave trespass. In place of these two attitudes Hadot proposes one suggested by the Romantic vision of Rousseau, Goethe, and Schelling, who saw in the veiled Isis an allegorical expression of the sublime. "Nature is art and art is nature," Hadot writes, inviting us to embrace Isis and all she art makes us intensely aware of how completely we ourselves are not merely surrounded by nature but also part of nature.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Nature, Nonfiction, Essays, History Of Science, Art

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Pierre Hadot (né à Paris, le 21 février 1922 - mort à Orsay, le 25 avril 2010) est un philosophe, historien et philologue français, spécialiste de l'antiquité, profond connaisseur de la période hellénistique et en particulier du néoplatonisme et de Plotin. Pierre Hadot est l'auteur d'une œuvre développée notamment autour de la notion d'exercice spirituel et de philosophie comme manière de vivre.

Spécialiste de Plotin et du stoïcisme, en particulier de Marc-Aurèle, il est un de ceux qui ont accompagné le retour à la philosophie antique, considérée comme pratique, manière de vivre et exercice spirituel. Ses livres, très agréables à lire et d'une très grande érudition, manifestent constamment un rapport avec l'existence, l'expérience, voire la poésie, la littérature et le mysticisme.

Reviews

[Raquel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pierre Hadot me hace fascinarme por cada tema que toca, por cada filósofo que menciona. En general, me devuelve siempre al entusiasmo por la filosofía.
En este libro, parte de un aforismo de Heráclito, habitualmente traducido como “la naturaleza ama esconderse”, para trazar un recorrido de 2500 años de historia de la filosofía occidental alrededor de la cuestión de la naturaleza. Cuestión que es inseparable de otros temas que emergen a lo largo del libro: la ciencia, la magia, Dios, el arte, la mística, la concepción de la existencia misma. Todos estos temas aparecen condensados aquí, con especial atención al Platón del Timeo y sus influencias posteriores, el neoplatonismo y Goethe, entre otros.
Se trata de un libro plagado de referencias, erudito, y a la vez de fácil lectura (con paciencia para poder procesar la gran cantidad de información que presenta, eso sí) gracias a la prosa de Hadot, tan sencilla, directa, clara y sintética.
Lo he leído capítulo a capítulo con gran entusiasmo y me he dejado maravillar por los tantos fragmentos y citas realmente hermosos de leer que recoge. Se lo recomendaría a cualquier persona interesada por la filosofía del arte y de la naturaleza, y creo que podría disfrutar de estas páginas sin conocimientos especializados previos.

[Guillermo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hadot reflexiona sobre dos tendencias que han marcado la historia del pensamiento occidental: la de violentar la naturaleza para extraer de ella lo que está oculto y el intento de acompañar a la propia Naturaleza en su proceso mismo de creación. Prometeo frente a Orfeo.

[Katelis Viglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Nature loves to hide". The history of notion of nature in Western Thought. The main division of the book is between orphic and prometheic attitude of mind; the first is based on the respect toward nature; in the second, the violent and hostile exploitation of it, throught technique, magic and mechanical experiment is included. In the orphic category the revelation of nature's secrets comes through reason, poetry and Art.
The modern agony made the relation with nature more emotional, ambivalent, provoking terror, admiration and pleasure. The opening to mystery was still included in the revelation of Isis's statue in the 19th cent. But, according to Hadot, in contemporary world, we aren't talk anymore about the mystery of nature and Isis has gone with her voile to the land of dreams.
Even Martin Heidegger transferred the mystery of nature to the mystery of Being. At the end of the book, the writer proposes, repeating the words of Holderling, that we must become one with all living creatures and come back, throught the happy oblivion of self, to the Whole of Nature.

[Rhys · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoughtful and elegant exploration of the idea of Nature.

"Since Plato, the fruit of the contemplation of nature and its study had been called “greatness of soul.” For him, the soul that never ceases contemplating the totality of time and being could not contain within it any pettiness or baseness; it looked down upon human affairs from above and did not fear death."

I enjoyed the discussion around the balance of the 'solemn attention' of those measuring the footsteps of Nature, and the 'sacred shudder' when in the presence of its unfathomability and inaccessibility. I also appreciated the 'decency' of discovering the 'truth' of Nature though leaving her veils on - by leaving alone its 'vital illusions': "We no longer believe that the truth is still the truth, if its veils are taken away from it. ... For us today it is a question of decency, that one doesn’t want to see everything it its nudity,..." [Nietzsche]

[Matthew Wilder · Rating 4 out of 5]

A history of tropes of nature in philosophy, circulating around the phrase “Nature loves to hide.” But hide what, and where? What we discover, more often than not, is nature’s blueprints, its screenplay if you will; the elaborate artistic practice known as DNA and RNA. Life’s three acts, it would seem, even to the ancients, are long foretold. The strongest dilator on this subject, not surprisingly, is Nietzsche.

[Ronan Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

So the author was working on this beast for like 12 years, and it shows. A gateway drug into environmental aesthetics (and just environmental thought in general) that, like proper philosophy, is actually fun to read. Highly recommended.

[Ľuboš · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hadot's extraordinary essay was very challenging to read. It took me nearly a year of (discontinuous) reading to bite through its three hundred pages. The sheer amount of referenced literature and analyzed sources is nearly inconceivable and so is the diversity of motives, theories and thoughts that he analyzes with unrivaled rigor of his long career. At some points I got lost (even repeatedly), sometimes I had to put the book away for a few weeks, because I was too overwhelmed with information. It seemed to me that the essay itself was withholding its secrets as if paying respect to Isis and her veil. Nevertheless, I'm compelled to give it the absolute rating, because all these troubles are mostly due to my lack of historical and philosophical knowledge. This is no popularizing book, it's an honest work of history and philosophy and it deals with a motive hardest to seize. After all, fysis kryptesthai filei.

[Valaida · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful essay. I've learned a lot, it shattered my life! I was concerned though by the amount of time Pierre Hadot said he couldn't go deeper into the subjects he was writing about.

[Laurens Trommel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interessant maar in de loop van het boek raakte ik de draad enigszins kwijt van wat ik nu precies las en waarom dit relevant is. De korte conclusie aan het eind van het boek was erg behulpzaam bij het overzicht.

Achtereenvolgens in vijfentwintig eeuwen hebben deze drie woorden (phusis kruptesthai philei; de Natuur houdt zich graag verborgen) gediend om de problemen van de natuurwetenschap te verklaren, om een allegorische exegese van Bijbelteksten te rechtvaardigen, of het heidendom te verdedigen, om kritiek te uiten op het geweld dat de natuur wordt aangedaan door de techniek en de mechanisering van de wereld, en om de angst te verklaren die het in-de-wereld-zijn de moderne mens inboezemt.

Door het hele verhaal heen hebben we twee fundamentele houdingen kunnen waarnemen ten opzichte van de geheimen van de natuur: de ene voluntaristisch, de andere beschouwend. De ene hebben we Prometheus als beschermheer meegegeven die, ten dienste van de mens, de goden met list of geweld hun geheimen ontrukt. Deze houding maakte al heel vroeg aanspraak op legitimiteit door de stelling dat de mens het recht heeft de natuur - volgens de God van Genesis aan de mens toevertrouwd - te overheersen en zo nodig aan een gerechtelijke procedure te onderwerpen, of zelfs te martelen, zodat ze haar geheimen aan de mens prijsgeeft. Magie, mechanica en techniek horen in deze traditie thuis, en ze hebben overigens allemaal het doel om, ieder op zijn eigen manier, de vitale belangen van de mens te verdedigen. Metaforisch gezien wordt de weigering van de natuur haar geheimen prijs te geven geïnterpreteerd als een vijandige daad tegenover de mens. De natuur verzet zich tegen de mens en moet dus overwonnen en getemd worden.
De andere houding hebben we Orpheus als beschermheer gegeven. Hier is het zo dat als de natuur zich wil verbergen, ze dit vooral doet omdat de ontdekking van haar geheimen gevaarlijk is voor de mens. Door met behulp van techniek in te grijpen in de natuurlijke processen, loopt de mens het risico ze te verstoren, en erger nog, onvoorspelbare gevolgen te ontketenen. In dat perspectief zijn de beste manieren om de natuur te kennen de filosofische en de esthetische benadering, dus het rationele discours en de kunst, twee benaderingen die hun doel in zichzelf hebben, en een onzelfzuchtige houding veronderstellen. Naast de wetenschappelijke waarheid zou er dus plaats moeten zijn voor een esthetische waarheid, die authentieke kennis van de natuur verschaft. Deze beide houdingen zijn op zich volledig legitiem, ook al zijn in beide ernstige mogelijke ontsporingen te ontdekken. En hoe tegengesteld ze ook zijn, ze sluiten elkaar niet volledig uit.

Maar het verhaal was ook een verhaal van leven en dood, niet van de natuur, maar van het idee van de geheimen van de natuur. Hoewel dit idee na de opkomst van de mechanische revolutie nog heel levend was is het onder invloed van twee factoren langzamerhand verdwenen. Enerzijds was het idee 'geheim van de natuur' hoe dan ook verbonden met een bepaalde personifiëring van de natuur, en veronderstelde het een tegenstelling tussen een zichtbare schors en een verborgen kern, tussen een buiten en een binnen. De vooruitgang van de wetenschap en van het rationalisme hebben een eind gemaakt aan deze voorstellingen. Anderzijds heeft de wetenschappelijke vooruitgang ertoe geleid dat filosofen hun aandacht verplaatsten van de verklaring van fysische verschijnselen - wat nu aan de natuurwetenschap werd overgelaten - naar het vraagstuk van het zijn zelf.

Hier komen we nog een tekst uit de oudheid tegen die een hoofdrol gespeeld heeft in de vorming van ons westerse denken. Nu gaat het om de beschrijving die de godin van Saïs, door Plutarchus gelijkgesteld aan Artemis, van zichzelf geeft: 'Ik ben wat geweest is, wat is, en wat komen zal. Geen sterveling heeft mijn sluier opgelicht'. Onder invloed van de betekenis die in de vrijmetselarij aan het eind van de achttiende eeuw aan deze tekst werd gegeven, werd Isis, die tot dan toe de allegorische personificatie van de Natuur was, nu het symbool van het universele, oneindige en onzegbare zijn. De sluier van Isis betekent dan niet meer de geheimen van de natuur, maar het mysterie van het bestaan. De allegorie van de sluier van Isis voorziet de romantici nu van een literair middel om emoties uit te drukken, die zeker niet helemaal nieuw waren, maar die sinds Rousseau, Goethe en Schelling, steeds intenser waren geworden: zowel verwondering over als angst voor het bestaan van de wereld en van de mens in de wereld. Het ging nu niet meer om het oplossen van bepaalde raadsels met betrekking tot de manier waarop natuurlijke verschijnselen werken, maar om bewustwording van wat er radicaal problematisch en mysterieus is in het tevoorschijn komen van de totaliteit van de werkelijkheid.

[0:50 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A high-brow Alain De Botton; a Temu-version of Hans Blumenberg; Pierre Hadot's unusual mix of erudition and preference for the compact place him in a somewhat unique category. Based on this book, his reputation is well deserved: Hadot covers an impressive range of ideas, structuring them into far shorter and focused chapters than is typical of intellectual histories. This has a paradoxical effect of giving the book both a light, effortless feel while also not conceding to standard engagement tactics of intellectual history such as biographical detail or anecdotal flourish, let alone societal context. Hadot also chooses to allow various textual fragments to represent their eras via the ideas they contain. While he is to be commended for focusing on what matters and not vacillating between irrelevant meanderings, the text is still heavily affected by the reliance on short and strategically placed citational tid-bits which serve to buttress his chosen frameworks. This is nowhere more apparent than with Nietzsche, where he is presented as a proponent of the aesthetic-contemplative attitude which would leave truth of Nature out of the equation. By this method, we would have him stand side by side with someone like Goethe! Yet, due to his contradictions, the only way to read Nietzsche's work is by interpreting him as adopting different voices: by contrast to the Nietzsche of Gay Science, you have him castigating people for their lack of intellectual honesty in Antichrist, contradicting his distaste for truthfulness elsewhere.

The main thesis is that Hellenistic and later European culture have been obsessed with the concept of Nature personified by the figure of Isis, corresponding to Artemis of Ephesus, where Heraclitus penned the aphorism that Hadot takes as his launching pad: Nature loves to hide. The secondary thesis is that there have been two main currents determining the relation one takes to Nature: Promethean, emphasising scientific torture or mechanical duping(literal meaning of the greek original term) of Nature to serve human needs as per Prometheus-Lucifer stealing the fire from Heaven, and Orphic, emphasising disinterested contemplation of Nature's secrets without distorting them by forcing human technology on it. These are fascinating lines of inquiry and Hadot does a rather meticulous job of backing them up, parading a sequence of Enlightenment-era frontispieces depicting the figure of Artemis-Isis in the context of natural inquiry, enlightenment politics and masonry. Nature has been consistently feminised and the rhetoric of bashfulness and veiling constitutes a running theme throughout all the views presented here. What is perhaps interesting about this is that a mytheme derived from the Greek practice of veiling women - a practice which straddled the line between the bashful, idealised deification of Mother Nature and the concrete, social inferiority it designated in Greek culture where men's "hot" bodies did not require so much dress while women's "cold" bodies (cold equaled bad) required it - so that some of the most major rhetorical developments at the core of European civilisation have revolved around a practice that now constitutes one of the most hotly debated markers of European identity. It also shows the complexity of Goddess worship in how it connects to a kind of obsessive de-sexualization of women - achieved via veiling or innocence/purity cult, norms for breast covering - and thus represents a more complicated phenomenon than some anti-patriarchal statement. What's more, it shows that Goddess worship never fully vanished: it re-appeared in Europe via a Hellenistic resurgence that overtook Christianity with the Enlightenment, it haunted the French Revolution and continues to symbolise nationalism and it lay incipient in the concept of Providence in Christianity.

The Promethean-Orphic split is, of course, a simplification and it is very probable that Hadot's sympathies lie with the Orphic spirit. It is worthwhile to take a quick look at its fault-lines, though, which quickly arise when we note the absence of Christianity from Hadot's analysis. What is striking, though, is that Christian spirit clearly aligns with the Promethean spirit as Hadot defined it while much of Enlightenment intellectualism seems to align with the Orphic ideal of contemplative respect for the sanctity of Nature. This, however, is strange because Enlightenment is, on paper, supposedly concerned with humanism, while in fact it is the Christian commandment to make use of Earth's resources that clearly emphasises human interest over the majesty of Nature. The doctrine of rights, however, is based on the rhetoric of Nature rather than on the notion of Providence or Salvation. It is no longer the diplomatic-bureaucratic power of the Catholic Church that guarantees the peasant some possibility of appeal against the tyranny of the lords but rather a naturally arisen intellectual process by which humans have arrived at a dignitarian, honour morality-agreement that each conscious person vigilantly protects so as to avoid falling into the indignity of slavery. To my mind, this sounds more like an ethics of a chivalric secret order than a historical fact - it is a solid method of constructing a small elite group, but does such an ideal exist among the common people except as a hallucination?

Hadot notes that for Goethe, the veil of Nature lost its hidden aspect entirely and became a kind of cosmic arrangement; we may note relatedly that astronomy became the gold standard of physical theories, overlaying a kind of fictional poetic structure in the model of Plato's Timaeus to the concrete achievements of Earth-based medieval science. This notion of poiesis turns out to be something that many Enlightenment-intellectuals like Goethe advocated. While the problems with Galileo and Inquisition are often presented through a simplistic dual reading, the key issue was that Galileo threatened to overrule the Providence established by the Church based on naturalistic speculation on the movements of the stars. For the Christian mindset since Augustine, astronomy was related to vanity and curiosity - and coincidentally to the legitimation of the rule of Rome via cosmic myth. In a word, astronomy is a noble science, science of princes etc. What, then, really happens with the scientific revolution? Hadot notes some problems here for his Promethean-Orphic thesis but he doesn't emphasise them clearly enough for my taste. It is definitely not simply an influx of Promethean sentiment - since that already existed and was reflected in the mechanical ingenuity of the Middle Ages. Rather, the secret was to connect the sprawling, chaotic knowledge-bases pulled from local crafts traditions, trade lodges, folks medicine practicioners and overlay it with the Platonic astronomical grid and Hellenistic-cosmic philosophy. Some inevitably remained secret and continued from there. A scientific theory- a scientific _contemplation_, literally? The importance of the stars did not simply undo the achievements of Christian Prometheanism but it created a possibly hallucinatory theoretical matrix that still continues to this day on the demiurgic principles of Platonic poiesis.

Further connection between Christianity and Hadot's Prometheanism is to be found in the practice of witch-hunts and Inquisition's torture interrogations. If the object of Prometheanism was to torture Nature for the benefit of man, and Nature was represented by a woman, what better symbol for it than a book like Malleus Maleficarum? While most people view this book as a straightforwardly superstitious tome, it actually exists in a very subtle relation to the official theological stance which did consider feats of witchcraft - like therianthropy - to be illusory. This breaks the narrative of the credulous Middle Age-fool in the sense that the sin was, by default, not identified with a concretely supernatural chimera but rather with the choice to traffick with illusions which constitutes a blasphemous act. In terms of witch-hunts, they were the ones hunting people who believed in the supernatural, displaying a more intensely sceptical spirit than the UFO hobbyists of our current era. Malleus Maleficarum, the most famous book advocating for the torture of witches, twisted this idea of illusion even further in that the writers claimed witches were also able to produce impossible illusions in others while being themselves afflicted with a demon, which were something like obscure principles of the "material world". So, there was a recognition that the phantasms of "witches' sabbath" were all in her mind but that due to her state she was able to convince others so that in their memories, a phantasm of therianthropy or similar would be place. "Fake news", so to speak. The way to avoid this was to for the woman to live a chaste life and torturing confessions out of her becomes an activity safeguarding the realm of Man from illusory mental diseases: the torture being an application of concrete reality that breaks the "gift of muteness" that allows evasive, Satanic, material illusion to go unchecked.

Besides the Christianity so neglected by Hadot, Stoicism and Epicureanism are two Hellenistic philosophies that make Orphic-Promethean split feel uneasy. They also reflect certain possibilities for re-interpreting Prometheanism and Orphism after we arrived at the possible absurdity of associating Heinrich Kramer with the essentially Luciferian figure of Prometheus. Ultimately, the questions surrounding this theme seemed a bit more vital than in the later eras. Neither German romantic philosophy nor Spinozism do much else than take the Stoic conception of Reason-Nature and elaborate it with shuddering sentiments. The veil of Isis is only agreeable as long as the veil stays on and increasingly, the pre-sentiment of darkness holds sway, analysed in contra-distinction to a totalising world-picture of the Stoics to which one can simply say "yes" or "no", in an apparent pretence of having discovered everything. This leads, through Böhme, Schopenhauer and Schelling, to the concept of the unconscious, subconscious and the more modern problematics surrounding that - the place where the demon would place his phantasms if we asked Heinrich Kramer. Epicureanism rejects the totalising cosmos by achieving ataraxia through a kind of meditation on many possible arrangements of the universe - here it is not a question of a definite graspable entity to which one can say yes but rather the poiesis of Timaeus weaponized to individual liberation instead of...governance. Yet both Stoicism and Epicureanism seem eerily accurate to even 20th-21st century rhetorics: Epicureanism provides the popular scientific material of a calm wonder at being in an indifferent world as well as the obsession with multiverses; Stoicism provides a more philosophical take that is reflected in the closed universe of propositional logic and mythologies of world-reason.

Overall, Hadot's writing seems to be suffused with Orphic reverence for the morphological aspect of Nature. This attitude relates to various strands of vitalism and phenomenology that take it upon themselves to restore man's relation to the pre-Galilean lifeworld and re-assert the validity of ideas derived from ordinary experience - which, however, seems to put us right back from contemplation to a Promethean attitude of stealing the fire of astronomical theories to aspects of ordinary human experience "on this Earth". I just can't seem to keep these concepts stable - something always double-crosses and ruins the clear lines of battle. Thoughts hop around like imps. At any rate, this sort of attitude is directly hostile to the Epicureanism of popular science. The common point of contention in the anti-Cartesian, anti-Galilean turn is that lifeworld deals with mysteries of curves, spirals and such which are key to mysteries of nature - mysteries of formation. The problem with this view is something that vindicates the philosophy of Kant and connects it together with Descartes, from whom he deviates quite a bit otherwise - see f.ex Meillassoux's appraisal of the Cartesian program over what he terms Kantian correlationism. Descartes' program abstracted only the qualities because they are exchangeable but Kant's program abstracted also the spatial properties themselves. The banal fact is that the human eye is non-euclidean: this means that what we see as curved, in the life-world, is actually straight. In reality, we live in a kind of Minecraft world. For example, the serpentine snake movement, an image many cited authors used, is in reality a zig-zag in the form of lightning flash - like the astrological symbol of the sign of Aquarius. Can it then be coincidence that serpent has been the symbol of electromagnetism and Kundalini and features also in the elctromagnetic aspects of the Staff of Moses? We have here also a way of relating to the thoughts of natural sympathy through its background system: why is snake associated with fire? Because it is like a lighting flash in the world beyond our eye. This mode of reference places it on a solid basis.

This problematic is completely different from the mere problem of the scientific model and its relation to experience. It also up-ends the usual narrative that mankind applied straight lines to curved life-world because the world was not actually curved and instead, on a deeper level, the curved reality was a kind of application. This is the artifice and poiesis of the human brain Goethe talks about. However, the world is not complete or obvious, so it cannot be asserted or rejected, only explored. Poiesis also has nowhere to go without a forward-momentum supplied by a particular ethos. It may not be that reality is not accessible and must be veiled since we can take the data of our actual instrument of observation(eye, ayin) and make analogical conclusions based on it - supplanting mere arrangement. What is fascinating about this is that it vindicates a possibility of something like a Kepler-type attribution of pure geometrical figures to apparently ellipsoid bodies like Earth. If we place the structure of the eye and its impact on visual processing out of neuroscientific quirk to speculative physics, who knows how far this realization could go, considering the true extensions of objects are far different? The continuous flows are blocks and we can have an intimate relation with this idea beyond mere abstraction by noticing what we don't comprehend! Proceeding by analogy surpasses the idea of theory - with its hypothetico-deductive scaffolding that approaches contemplative discipline, or "spiritual exercises".

[Mariasole · Rating 5 out of 5]

E' un libro eccezionale, che condensa quasi 2500 anni di storia partendo dalla citazione di Eraclito "la natura ama nascondersi" e analizza la trasformazione di tale concetto attraverso il susseguirsi del pensiero filosofico. Della classicità si ripercorrono i tratti più salienti dell'idea della natura per i presocratici e da Platone in poi. Si vedrà come la frase è stata usata per difendere le idee pagane nei primi tempi dell'impero romano cristiano, come la Natura diventa un involucro dove la Divinità nasconde i suoi segreti e gli approcci di filosofi e artisti hanno utilizzato per il loro disvelamento, che l'autore suddivide in prometeici e orfici, i primi tendono ad usare la meccanica, i secondi l'arte e i discorsi razionali. Fino a giungere ai filosofi romantici, per poi concludere con Nietzche e Heidegger. Non è un testo facile, ma con tanta buona pazienza si può andare avanti senza problemi. Il professore Hadot ha creato un'opera per il vasto pubblico su un tema complesso e meraviglioso, posso solo lontanamente immaginare lo sforzo e la dedizione che lo hanno impegnato per tanti anni. Chapeau!

[Kavie · Rating 5 out of 5]

!!!

[Etienne Mahieux · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cet "essai sur l'histoire de l'idée de nature" comme le dit le sous-titre pourrait aussi se présenter comme l'histoire de la postérité extraordinaire de trois mots d'Héraclite : "phusis kruptesthai philei". D'habitude on traduit "La Nature aime à se cacher". D'après Pierre Hadot on a tort mais, ajoute-t-il avec un sourire, l'histoire des idées, c'est souvent l'histoire des contresens...
C'est donc le début de l'histoire de vingt-cinq siècles d'interprétations parfois diamétralement opposées qui révèlent le contenu que les philosophes donnent à la notion de nature et surtout la diversité des attitudes humaines par rapport à cette nature. En tant qu'elle aurait des secrets à comprendre, Pierre Hadot distingue deux grands types de réactions humaines : la réaction prométhéenne (extirper ces secrets par la violence de l'expérimentation et de la technique) et l'attitude orphique (les découvrir par le biais de la contemplation et de l'art).
L'exposé de Hadot est d'une rare limpidité dans ce domaine, remarquablement rythmé par sa construction qui lui permet de s'adresser aux non-spécialistes. Ce qui peut parfois sembler rapide ou allusif s'éclaire systématiquement quelques chapitres plus loin. Comme on n'échappe jamais tout à fait à sa spécialité de départ, il développe particulièrement ses perspectives sur la philosophie antique, mais aussi sur la pensée allemande. L'angle d'attaque (la pensée de la nature) lui permet d'aller souvent très loin dans la compréhension des auteurs cités (notamment, il m'éclaire Goethe).
L'ouvrage a vingt ans. Or notre rapport à la nature est en train, me semble-t-il, d'évoluer en raison de la crise écologique. Hadot s'arrête à l'existentialisme : on aimerait qu'un disciple se lève pour continuer l'enquête...

[Valentín Serrano García · Rating 5 out of 5]

Como con casi todos los ensayos de Pierre Hadot que han caído en mis manos, lo mínimo que puede decirse de "El velo de Isis" es que destila sabiduría artesanal.

Hadot quizás no sea un filósofo original al estilo de un Heidegger o un Derrida y, sin embargo, expone los fundamentos del pensamiento teórico (y práctico, su gran baza) grecorromano como pocos lo han conseguido. Aliñado todo de humildad y detallismo, regusto poético y bagaje erudito escanciado con delicadeza, este opúsculo se paladea con placer...y cuando parece que se ha apagado la inspiración, reaparece el candil de la sorpresa.

Aunque no tan imponente como su monumental "La ciudad interior", ni tan agudamente místico como "Wittgenstein y los limites del lenguaje", se trata de una obra sobresaliente, de recopilación y exposición, sobre los modos de entender la naturaleza y, además, engalanado con un velo literario y espiritual

[Juan Amaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una recomendación de un amigo a la que di muchas largas y llegó en el momento adecuado. Una exposición impactante de la tradición filosófica y del papel central que ha tenido la concepción de la Naturaleza en nosotros desde el pensamiento griego hasta el siglo XIX. Me quedo con muchos elementos para reflexiones que consideraba profundas y difíciles de abordar, pero esenciales para comprenderme en mi humanidad y existencia. Resalto la voluntad y apertura artística que estas reflexiones me han generado, y la necesidad de que estas tengan un papel en mi vida más allá del hobby distractor a las que las terminé rezagando y que por ello sentía bloqueadas.
Así mismo, me abre un campo para explorar aspectos de la política que no sabía como explorar y de las que me interesó mucho la última lectura de Harendt. Es de esos libros que repetiré hasta agotar, además de ser sencillos y hermosos de leer.

[Minäpäminä · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like it says on the tin, it's a history of an idea. Very much a springboard for further studies, but excellent as such. It's mostly quotations but they seem to be carefully chosen. I do feel it could've been either a 100 pages shorter or longer; either more in-depth or more concise.

The basic distinction Hadot makes is between a Promethean and an Orphic attitude towards nature, the former seeking to subjugate and use nature for the good of mankind, while the latter acts toward nature with awe and reverence, cultivating an aesthetic relationship with it. To use Martin Buber's terminology, the Promethean relationship is an I-It, while the Orphic is an I-Thou.

[Xavi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pido, por favor, que se habiliten temporalmente más estrellas porque las necesito. Maravillado por la capacidad expositiva de Hadot: escribe sin necesidad de deslumbrarte ni hacerte sentir inferior y, sin embargo, te alumbra con su conocimiento. Admirado por su tesis sobre la idea de Naturaleza a lo largo de la historia de la filosofía que parte del aforismo de Heráclito “a la naturaleza le gusta esconderse”. Creo que es uno de esos libros de los que sales distinto, ya sabéis cuáles son, al menos para mí ha sido así.

[Adrián · Rating 5 out of 5]

"«Comprender la forma» es en última instancia ser capaz de reproducir el acto mismo por medio del cual la naturaleza crea esa forma. Ya Plotino había dicho que las artes no imitan directamente lo que se ve, sino que se remontan a las razones, a los 'logoi', de donde resulta el efecto visible del proceso natural, lo que equivale a decir que el artista se casa, en cierto sentido, con el proceso de génesis de las fornas y opera como él. Goethe decía: «Supongo que los artistas griegos procedían según las leyes de la naturaleza misma, leyes cuyas huellas sigo».".

[Magdalena en su sepulcro · Rating 5 out of 5]

El velo epidermis:

"Savoir vivre, c'est savoir se construire, se créer un univers dans lequel on puisse vivre, un univers de formes, de sons, d'illusions aussi, de mensonges, de mythes. "Créer, pour nous, c'est voiler la vérité de la nature" [...] respecter la pudeur de la Nature, c'est en fait savoir qu'elle doit rester [...] artistiquement voilée."

"nous sommes nous-mêmes cette nature infinie et indicible"

[Luca Scoca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Da questo meraviglioso saggio traspare tutta l’intensità di una ricerca durata una vita e concretizzatasi poco a poco.
La qualità dell’approfondimento è degna dei grandi dotti, così come encomiabile è l’onestà intellettuale nell’affrontare quei pochi passaggi in cui Hadot afferma di star oltrepassando il suo ambito di competenze e non voler cadere in banalizzazioni.
“Andare al di là di me e di te. Sentire in modo cosmico” (Nietzsche)

[Tibling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tres complet, Pierre Hadot fait une doxograhie exhaustive sur la nature, de Démocrite à Heidegger, en y ajoutant toujours sa sensibilité, tournée vers la contemplation et le mystère. La distinction entre approche Prométhéenne et Orphéenne laisse songeur, et la troisième partie sur l'art, l'esthétique, l'expérience et le mystère est à relire.
Dernière phrase de Nietzsche : "Aller par-delà moi-même et toi-même. Éprouver de façon cosmique".

[Kristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am glad I ploughed through this, though it was not too much fun.

[Nello Maruca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro davvero ben fatto, estremamente interessante. Ottimo per una lettura, non adatto a uno studio sistematico, ma il testo stesso non ne ha la pretesa.

[Joshua Kuebler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read slowly to fully appreciate the depth of this lesser known gem.

[Shulamith Farhi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should really reread this. The gist is obviously right, but I'd have trouble recapitulating the details.

[Booker · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is about the idea of nature through history. It has some interesting parts and it's worth reading, but it doesn't contain any philosophy as a way of life.

[José Miguel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maravilloso ensayo sobre la naturaleza, toca muchos aspectos sobre esta, pero son dos los aspectos mas importantes referidos a la actitud que ha tenido el hombre respecto de la naturaleza y que tienen como génesis para el desarrollo de este ensayo la enigmática frase de Heráclito "la naturaleza ama esconderse". El autor refleja muy bien ambas actitudes al señalar que "Zeus quiere reservarse el secreto del fuego de la naturaleza y Prometeo busca arrancárselo". Y respecto a la otra actitud, dice a partir de la caída de Ícaro, "Es peligroso elevarse a pretensiones demasiado altas".

Muy en resumidas cuentas la primera actitud es la de Francis Bacon, la que trata de arrancarle o violentar a la naturaleza sus secretos, lo que de hay de verdad en ella (estamos hablando del universo reloj de Oreste , la física y la ciencia) y esta actitud nace de percibir a la naturaleza como hostil. La segunda actitud (principalmente de los románticos alemanes y que los griegos ya habían señalado) no trata de arrancar lo que hay de verdad, sino mas bien es una actitud contemplativa y de gozo ante el misterio de la existencia, es decir del asombro ante la aparición y el existir. Porque el misterio es impenetrable "la naturaleza ama esconderse".

[Mavibi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good didactic book about the history of the idea of nature in Western thought. You won't learn much if you are already familiar with the subject but it is still a pleasing way to freshen up. You could also go look at a flower, but who has ever seen one of those?

[Laura]

wow do i want to hide away to read this ...

[I-kai · Rating 3 out of 5]

given up on finishing it. I think reading half of it was enough; the book gets a bit repetitive from the discussion of Bacon onwards, and I just couldn't continue....