The Present Alone Is Our Happiness von Pierre Hadot

In this book of brilliantly erudite and precise discussions, which also serves as an introduction to Pierre Hadot's more scholarly works, Hadot explains that for the Ancients, philosophy was not reducible to the building of a theoretical system: it was above all a choice about how to live one's life.

Pierre Hadot is Professor Emeritus at the Collège de France, where he held the Chair of the History of Hellenistic and Roman Thought. Most of his major works have been translated into English, including Philosophy as a Way of Life, What is Ancient Philosophy? (1995), and The Veil of Isis (2006). His most recent book is N'oublie pas de vivre. Goethe et la tradition des exercices spirituels (2008). Arnold I. Davidson is Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago and Professor of the History of Political Philosophy at the University of Pisa. He has written widely on contemporary French philosophy, is the English language series editor of Michel Foucault's courses at the Collège de France, and is the author of The Emergence of Sexuality (2001). Jeannie Carlier is Professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. She has published essays on philosophy and religious practices in late antiquity and is a specialist in Neoplatonism.