Notes and What I learned from "The Present Alone is Our Happiness" - What is Ethics? by Pierre Hadot

This is part 11 of a 12 post series reviewing the book "The Present Alone is Our Happiness"

Regarding the quest to be your best self -

At the end of the Timaeus, Plato speaks of the most excellent part of ourselves, which we must place in agreement with the harmony of the All.  I was struck, moreover, particularly when commenting on the Manual of Epictetus, to see how the notion of going toward the best, or turning toward the best (p. 176).

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one might say that it is a quest for a higher state or level of the self (p. 176).

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All Epictetus' labor consists precisely in trying to make the disciple aware of the fact that we must begin, above all, by sticking with things as they are, that is, with an objective representation ... One very often find lived logic in Marcus Aurelius, but also in Epictetus.  It means becoming aware of destiny, for Stoic philosophy, or else of becoming aware of physical realities, for the Epicureans (p. 177).

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duties of everyday life ... duty of taking the common good into account (p. 177).

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there is no separation between everyday life and philosophy (p. 179).

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One might then speak of silent ethics.  In fact, I have always tended to understand that at the end of the Tractatus, Wittgenstein considers that his reader has learned enough to leave philosophy behind and enter into wisdom, since wisdom is silent (p. 181).

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Bergson: 'Philosophy is not the construction of a system, but the resolution, taken once and for all, to look naively within oneself and around oneself' (p. 181).

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There is no end to philosophy, and it always oscillate between two poles: discourse, and decision about a way of life (p. 181).

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Nietzsche also says, in a very interesting way, that one must not be afraid of taking a Stoic recipe and then, according to the needs of life, an Epicurean recipe (p. 183).