法国哲学家Pierre Hadot在中国火了起来。他关于古代哲学的著作, 明确地从现代意识形态的狭隘的理性和客观性标准中跳出来, 恢复古代哲学的本来面目; 作为一种生活方式的哲学, 古代哲学的重点不是论证知识或知识的可能性, 而是对人的being带来真正转化和提升的spiritual practice。当然, 现代哲学的意识形态已经根深蒂固, 而且已经成为体制性的既得利益, 因此这样的哲学立场终究属于异端或旁门。在我看来, 或许Pierre Hadot 在这条道路上走得不够远, 我们从他的著作中学不到太多具有启发性的见识。

另有两位当代哲学家的著作远比他深入, 震撼人心, 他们是Peter Kingsley和Algis Uzdavinys。所有研究古代哲学(无论东西)的学人, 都不要错过Peter Kingsley's <Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic>和<Reality>, 他的<In the Dark Places of Wisdom>已经有了中译本；Algis Uzdavinys' <Orpheus and the Roots of Platonism>, <Philosophy as a Rite of Rebirth: From Ancient Egypt to Neoplatonism>, <Ascent to Heaven in Islamic and Jewish Mysticism>和<Philosophy and Theurgy in Late Antiquity>。

关于Peter Kingsley's <Reality>, 评论之一： I'll say it again: this book is an esoteric transmission. There are worlds within this book--the whole cosmos is there waiting for you. There is a sacred space inside all of us just longing for what this ancient tradition has to offer--keep it open, keep it clear, and you just might find all you could ever need, more than you could ever imagine, inside it one day. But try to think about it, and you've already lost it; disrespect it, and it will leave you. This is not a book merely to be read. It is meant to be lived. You are the missing piece of the puzzle, and what it has to say can only come together inside you. 另有学者的疑虑：So startling is the similarity that one is tempted to wonder to what degree this book represents a kind of special pleading, which is why I give it only 4 stars. There's an ever-so-faint whiff of histrionics in this book that makes me ever so slightly suspicious. One would very much like this book to be true, but to what degree it represents a kind of sophisticated intellectual hokum that only experienced academics could see through, is a question only an experienced scholar could answer; unfortunately, that scholar would have to be as experienced in both philology and mysticism as Kingsley apparently is! Has Kingsley just made it all up, cobbled it together out of his own experiences and his readings of Eastern mystics, and read his conglomeration into those texts? It really doesn't seem so to me, but I'm in no position to judge. 唉, 学者总是要考虑真伪。

关于Peter Kingsley最初的开创性著作 <Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic>, 柏拉图主义专家John Dillon评价说: This is a most remarkable book, learned, discursive, but yet sharply focussed, on a subject which might seem to lend itself readily to various sorts of intemperate speculation ... this is splendid book, and one that should generate much discussion. 另一位古典学教授评论说：This is one of the best books I've ever read. I'm a Classics professor, and it's one of the best Classics books I've ever read, and it's more than that; it goes beyond the trends in current scholarship (which always operates in fads) to get at what the ancient Greeks were all about and why we can still learn from them. Written with real verve, a true eye-opener. It also transcends the silly "East vs. West" thinking that still dominates today. Read Kingsley. He does nothing less than re-direct our attention and thinking.

更重要的是这段评论：I always found it strange that most modern scholars believed that their understanding of Plato was superior to that of Neoplatonists like Iamblichus, who lived almost two thousand years closer to Plato than we do, and who doubtless had access to contextual materials now lost. Kingsley's book goes some way toward reconstructing this context, and in so doing indicates that Iamblichus and other antique philosophers often regarded as "degenerate" compared to the Platonic/Aristotelian "purity" were instead the bearers of a tradition with deep roots in pre-Socratic, even shamanistic, soil. A key figure in this suppressed lineage, according to Kingsley, was Empedocles, well-known for his doctrine of the elements, but little-known until now as an esoteric ancestor of magic, alchemy and Sufism. I consider a book important if, after reading it, the familiar has become strange again. Along with the works of Dan Merkur and Gregory Shaw, we may be seeing the birth of a new and rigourous form of antique esoteric scholarship.

我同样坚信, Neoplatonists like Iamblichus 才是通向古代哲学之真相和精华的门径。