Monthly Archives: April 2016

CERP: Day 36 – Diogenes Eps. 41-45.

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XLI. To Melesippus (p. 173)
Whoa.  It’s not controversial to state that not everyone *will* be virtuous, but it’s another thing entirely to say that not every *is capable* of virtue.  And to think, the Stoics are considered elitists!

XLII. To the wise Melesippe, greetings (p. 173)
Oh, Diogenes, flouting the νόμος.

XLIII. To the Maroneans, do well (p. 173)
**Even though** Hipparchia is a woman, she’ s a good figure to name a city after.  <rolls_eyes>.  I wonder if there would have been a “Cynic temperance movement” a la the WCTU in the 1920s and 1930s.  I suppose they wouldn’t have used the state in horrifying way, rather they’d have pointed out the absurdity of the drunkards.  We probably would have avoided the rise of the mafia, and NFA ’34, though…

XLIV. To Metrocles, do well (p. 175)
I don’t recall ever seeing “manual labor” as taking the place of interpersonal romantic activities.  Crates and Hipparchia come to mind as two Cynics who continued to engage in martial relations of a sort.

It’s interesting that the Ps-Diogenes is here advocating, effectively, a form of celibacy.  Maybe Diogenes’ Cynic really did anticipate the future priestly classes.

XLV. To Perdiccas, do well (p. 175)
Here, the Ps-Diogenes, friend of the gods, warns someone threatening him that only bad things would result from killing him.  I wonder how this meshes with the issue of Diogenes beating up an interlocutor, and also his public shaming of those who assaulted him?  I’m not sure if those stories are here, but I’ll keep my eye out for them.

 

This is part of the Cynic Epistles Reading Plan.

SLRP: LIX. On Pleasure And Joy (Part 2: 9 – 18)

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Seneca,

“[W]hy is it that folly holds us with such an insistent grasp? It is, primarily, because we do not combat it strongly enough, because we do not struggle towards salvation with all our might; secondly, because we do not put sufficient trust in the discoveries of the wise, and do not drink in their words with open hearts; we approach this great problem in too trifling a spirit.”

Here, this is the reason.  We have many and many modern Stoics who discount the words of the very people the profess to follow.  “No, no, they didn’t really mean we should do these things.  It’s all tricks and lifehacks for dealing with modern stress.”  Bah.

But what’s worse, those who would discount out of hand the teachings or those who see that the teachings are needed, but don’t do it anyway?

““You call me a man of sense, but I understand how many of the things which I crave are useless, and how many of the things which I desire will do me harm. I have not even the knowledge, which satiety teaches to animals, of what should be the measure of my food or my drink. I do not yet know how much I can hold.””

Clearly then, the latter.  Which is the camp I’m firmly in.  I can clearly see that explicit recommendations are laid out… I’m just not doing them.

“But how can a man learn, in the struggle against his vices, an amount that is enough, if the time which he gives to learning is only the amount left over from his vices? None of us goes deep below the surface. We skim the top only, and we regard the smattering of time spent in the search for wisdom as enough and to spare for a busy man.”

It seems that there can be no “part-time philosophers.”  Most of us, myself included, our tourists.  That’s an untenable situation, one which will either result in our buckling down and really getting to work, or moving on to a different hobby at some point.

Thank you for the letter today, it’s an excellent mirror which shows a dingy reflection.

Farewell.

Part of Michel Daw’s Reading Plan of Seneca’s Letters.

CERP: Day 35 – Diogenes Ep. 40.

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XL. Diogenes the Cynic to Alexander (p. 169)
Here, we see some of the proto-anarchist tinge to the Ps-Diogenes.  Likening tyrants to children, to the diseased, to those fearfully hiding behind walls.  He points that they (and specifically Alexander) hire men to watch after their health, but where are those who watch after their souls?

“For it is quite enough for them to be wicked by themselves; but, by giving a salary besides to very wicked men, you present them with the opportunity of doing no good.  And you yourself have a hand at doing things like this and worse.”

 

This is part of the Cynic Epistles Reading Plan.

SLRP: LIX. On Pleasure And Joy (Part 1: 1 – 8)

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Seneca,

We Stoics are often misconstrued a would-be emotionless automatons.  The confusion likes in our wishing to be rid of our πάθη, when the common conception is that ‘passion’ is a good thing, enlivening.  We seek a state called ἀπάθεια, too easily misunderstood as the common sort amotivational apathy.  By the time we get around to discussing εὐπάθη, the average listener already has their mind made up.  Robots.

Your letter today remarks on this distinction, here between ‘pleasure’ and ‘joy.’  The joy of the Sage, then, an unshakeable, rational elation of the spirit in the face of human existence and the breadth of the cosmos is as different from the base pleasures of vice than anything else we can imagine.

Thank you for the letter.

Farewell.

Part of Michel Daw’s Reading Plan of Seneca’s Letters.

CERP: Day 34 – Diogenes Ep. 39.

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XXXIX. To Monimus, do well (p. 165)
Well, this is an interesting one.  Firstly, I usually see the “practice to die” in Stoic contexts, I don’t recall ever seeing it in a Cynic one.  Secondly, since Stoicism has effectively no conception of an afterlife, this view stands out.  For Stoics, the pneuma of the sould returns to its source, and only the soul of the Sage might in some capacity live on, but still not past Ekpyrosis, beyond which only Zeus lives.

So, this conceptions of Hades as a place to which the soul travels (after what appears to be a true physical journey) where even the souls of philosophers are give a higher standing of sorts to those enslaved by their passions, by typhos.

It’s difficult for me personally to decide where in a text an author wants one to extract a metaphorical lesson on the nature of the soul and the consequences of life here on earth, and where the author is saying, “No really, this happens.  Don’t screw it up.”

Maybe it’s not important for the modern reader, but in trying to learn to think like the folks for whom these were written, I wish the distinction were clearer.

This is part of the Cynic Epistles Reading Plan.

SLRP: LVIII. On Being (Part 4: 27b – 37)

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Seneca,

The last section of your letter dealing with life and with on which conditions we might assent to end it was interesting to me today.  The Stoics get a lot of flak these days for their stance on suicide, which is almost always misinterpreted.

The qualifications seem reasonable:  mere pain or aging parts is not enough.  If the rational faculty is injured, or the human part of life gone, merely the movements of the body, it might be too late.  So, it is wise to meet the inevitable just before we might become incapable.

Thank you for the letter.

Vale.

Part of Michel Daw’s Reading Plan of Seneca’s Letters.

Importance of the mountain

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“The desert was created simply to be itself, not to be transformed by men into something else. So too the mountain and the sea. The desert is therefore the logical dwelling place for the man who seeks to be nothing but himself – that is to say, a creature solitary and poor and dependent on no one but God.”

— Thomas Merton, “Thoughts in Solitude”

CERP: Day 33 – Diogenes Ep. 38.

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XXXVIII. untitled: “After the games…” (p. 161)
Ah ha!   Here we have (finally) a second criterion on those from whom the mendicant my accept money or items.  The Ps-Diogenes even lays out the different sorts:  money, things worth money, food, and invitations to share a meal.  Previously, we’ve heard that only can philosopher accept things from the virtuous, or the good, or other philosophers.  Let’s lump them into one category called, and for the time being call them “the good.”  But, in this epistle, we have a second criterion, the mendicant can also accept from those who are benefited.

The Ps-Diogenes even lays out a sort of economic or market qualification.  I’d call it a capitalist one, but I’m sure someone would take umbrage.  So, let’s do that: a capitalist ethic then in mendicancy.

“…[S]ince I thought it improper to take something from a person who had himself not received anything.”

This second criterion makes the mendicancy of the Cynics practical.  One can generally see when an onlooker or interlocutor has understood or received something of benefit to them.  We can expect that the publicly-teaching philosopher would have developed this skill of discernment to a high degree.

I’ll reiterate:  I’m liking these longer letters a bit more than the previous 15 or so.

This is part of the Cynic Epistles Reading Plan.