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The Art of Living
Nine Spiritual Exercises
Massimo Pigliucci explains how to get Philo-Sophical.
On 20th May, 1521, Spanish troops fought against a Navarrese contingent supported by the French at the fortress of Pamplona. The Spanish lost the battle, but a little more than a month later, on June 30th, they decisively defeated the combined Navarrese and French forces at the Battle of Noáin, thus ending the Navarrese rebellion. One of the Spanish soldiers wounded at Pamplona was the Basque captain Íñigo López de Loyola, who was injured in both legs. While convalescing at the Benedictine abbey of Montserrat in Catalonia, Íñigo, who later took the name of Ignatius and founded the religious order known as the Society of Jesus, started working on a book of spiritual exercises. These practices were organized in four thematic weeks, meant to help Christians recommit to their faith. Yet as famous as Ignatius’s exercises became, he was not the originator of the idea of spiritual exercises. Several ancient Greco-Roman schools, including the Epicureans and the Stoics, had long before discovered that certain practices could be invaluable in living a good life.
The most comprehensive discussion of the history of philosophical exercises, including a comparison between the Hellenistic and Christian approaches, can be found in a classic book by French scholar Pierre Hadot, aptly entitled Philosophy as a Way of Life (1995). Hadot tells us that a list of such exercises was written down in two books by the Jewish Middle Platonist philosopher Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE-40 CE), Who is the Heir of Divine Things?, and Allegorical Interpretations, although similar exercises are scattered throughout the works of Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Plutarch, and other classical thinkers.
Let’s take a closer look at Philo’s approach, which some modern practitioners (including yours truly) find particularly useful. Philo recognized three major classes of exercises, having to do with reflection, action, and learning. Broadly speaking, the goals of the three classes are, respectively: to meditate on our life and on what is or is not important; to help us act appropriately, in accordance with our meditations; and to gain insights into what other people think so that our actions are most efficacious.
Beginning with reflection, there are three fundamental exercises that Philo advises us to do on a regular basis (daily, if possible, but at least weekly):
(i) Pay attention: that is, train ourselves to live and act in the moment, and not be distracted by other things, including regrets about the past or worries about the future;
(ii) Take the time to write down our thoughts about salient events of the day and how we reacted to them, in order to learn how to do better the next time;
(iii) Express gratitude by singling out things and especially people we’re thankful to have in our lives.
In terms of action, again he suggests three spiritual practices:
(iv) Engage in what has been called ‘therapy of the passions’ – being attentive to unhealthy emotions such as anger, learning to recognize them at their onset, and working on developing better reactions to whatever triggers them;
(v) Self-mastery: attempt to improve our temperance and self-control, for instance by engaging in occasional fasting, or abstaining from alcohol or drugs; and
(vi) Performance of duties, especially social ones, like writing to our friends, checking in with people we know who may be in need, and so forth.
Lastly, there are three exercises concerning learning:
(vii) Engage as much as possible in Socratic dialogue (ie philosophical discussion) with others;
(viii) Read philosophy, especially original texts; and
(ix) Inquire, that is, engage in research or scholarship, if one can. Or at the least, read other people’s writings concerning how the world works – what we would now call ‘science’, broadly construed.
The general idea is to improve our knowledge of the world (learning), regularly meditate on our experiences (reflection), and use these two tools for the crucial aspect: acting in life according to our chosen philosophical principles.
It helps to keep a diary of your practices, or a spreadsheet in which you write down when and how you have performed each exercise. Mine now goes back over a decade, and has gradually become a precious source of information about the evolution of my self. Since my records are electronic, I can search by keywords (something Philo certainly couldn’t do) and see when, or how frequently, certain issues come up. How often has anger been a problem? For what or whom have I been grateful? How good have I been at performing my duties toward others, or at engaging in self-control? The point is neither to chide ourselves for our failures, nor to ‘gamify’ our philosophical progress. Rather, such exercises are tools first used over two millennia ago to help us become better human beings, which is the goal of a philosophical just as much as of a religious life.
© Prof. Massimo Pigliucci 2025
Massimo Pigliucci is the K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York. His books include How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life (Basic Books) and Beyond Stoicism: A Guide to the Good Life with Stoics, Skeptics, Epicureans and Other Ancient Philosophers (with Greg Lopez and Meredith Kunz, The Experiment). More by him at massimopigliucci.org.