Theorique – Theoretique

“Hadot has distinguished two senses of the term “theoretical,” for which he has employed the terms theorique and theoretique. The first meaning of “thcoretical” is opposed to “practical,” since it designates theoretical discourse as opposed to lived philosophy. But the adjective theoretique which characterizes the life of contemplation, the life according to the intellect, is not opposed by Aristotle to philosophy as practiced and lived. In Aristotle this “theoretical life is not a pure abstraction, but a life of the intellect, which, no doubt, can use a theoretical discourse, but nonetheless remains a life and a praxis, and which can even make room for a non discursive activity of thought, when it is a question of perceiving indivisible objects and God himself by noetic intuition.”!” Thus to think of Aristotle as a pure theoretician is to focus exclusively on his theoretical discourse without bearing in mind that it is a way of life, however intellectualized, that he is recommending, and which is the ultimate basis of his philosophy”.