Attention in the Neoplatonic tradition

Pierre Hadot noted that prosokhê, as a continuous act of attention to oneself and to the present moment, was constitutive of philosophy as a unique, lived act, renewed at every moment. The idea of prosokhê is equivalent to vigilance. It implies, at every moment of our lives, that we renew the choice we have made to embark upon a particular philosophical path. Hadot emphasizes the fact that the practice of prosokhê is closely linked to the Platonic exercise of philosophy as training for death, and gives value to each of life’s instants. It also implies a continuous conversion of the gaze and a return to oneself and one’s own Origin.

Our workshop aims to retrace some traits of the philosophical tradition of attention, which, starting with Plato, passes through some of the most important figures of Neoplatonism, such as Porphyry and Plotinus, to be taken up again in late antiquity by Augustine, Cassian, Gregory the Great, and finally reaching some modern authors such as Descartes and Malebranche.