Monthly Archives: April 2016

SLRP: LVIII. On Being (Part 3: 20 – 27a)

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Seneca,

“None of us is the same man in old age that he was in youth; nor the same on the morrow as on the day preceding. Our bodies are burned along like flowing waters; every visible object accompanies time in its flight; of the things which we see, nothing is fixed.”

This brings to mind the Heraclitus Fragment:

ποταμοῖσι τοῖσιν αὐτοῖσιν ἐμβαίνουσιν ἕτερα καὶ ἕτερα ὕδατα ἐπιρρεῖ.
“On those who enter the same rivers, ever different waters flow.”

Heh, that will teach me to start writing a blog post before finishing the letter!  This same quote is the next line!

“We are weak, watery beings standing in the midst of unrealities; therefore let us turn our minds to the things that are everlasting. Let us look up to the ideal outlines of all things, that flit about on high, and to the God who moves among them and plans how he may defend from death that which he could not make imperishable because its substance forbade, and so by reason may overcome the defects of the body.”

So far, I’ve really enjoyed these days’ readings of the letter.  It’s excellent food for thought.  The lesson that even something as hypothetical as Platonic forms can be turned, like someone would do a sermon, into a message that we can use to better ourselves is a poignant one.

Early on in my study, I began to notice “Stoic messages” in things that I saw.  Whether it was Man of La Mancha (wow, was that really two years ago?), or some other bit of entertainment.  Of course, the authors probably did not mean to make such allusions as I was plucking from their works, but in looking back, I now see that as a crucial step to internalizing the teachings we’re working with.

It’s like “blue car syndrome”  but rather than simply noticing something we now have a greater affinity for, our minds are beginning to filter our sense-impressions, and even our memories through a Stoic lens.

Farewell.

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

CERP: Day 32 – Diogenes Ep. 37

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XXXVII. To Monimus, do well (p. 155)
Again, we have one of the more elegantly composed letters.  Here, the Ps-Diogenes in visiting a friend, he meets with apparent hardship, but when his earthly guest snubs him he takes the hospitality of the gods.  I assume this means he was sleeping in the temple (scandalous), but I’d like to also think it mean he was sleeping rough, in the home of the Gods which they themselve built:  the earth itself.

After finally meeting his friend, and chiding him mildly, he proceeds to turn every “kindness” and “hospitality” on its head.  He’s presented with the common sort, as we might expect a guest to receive.  Lavish furnishing, fine foods, attendants, etc.  Diogenes discards all of these, and prefers the simple gifts of philosophers, but there’s a crucial difference.

The “opportunistic hedonism” of Cynicism varies with the Stoic perspective here.  Instead of seeing these things as a spiritual discipline (although that’s mentioned), Diogenes has learned to enjoy these things qua these things.  He no longer forces himself to take the less pleasurable choice, he actually is more pleased with the simpler one.

I’m enjoying these longer letters, which speak to a depth to the school which is not immediately apparent upon first glance.  Those of us who are spies from the Stoic camp may take a keener interest in these.

 

This is part of the Cynic Epistles Reading Plan.

SLRP: LVIII. On Being (Part 2: 8b – 19)

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Seneca,

Wow, some of this is difficult to follow in English, if I may say so.  I wonder if the more overtly coded grammar of Latin made it any easier on Luicilius?  As it is, I’m passingly familiar with the specifics of Stoic ontology, and I would probably find this easier to parse if the Greek words were included.  I wrote about Something yesterday in passing, the highest classification of which you are speaking.

From there we break down into corporeal forms which exist, and incorporeals (time, void, space, lekta) which subsist, but don’t exist.  In the modern parlance, they supervene.  Within things corporeal we have the active and passive components, matter and pneuma.

With those broad strokes, we can fill in the specifics of everything from rocks, plants, animals and man.

It might just be that spreading out this letter of a few days is not the easiest method for groking it, and after we’re done, I’ll probably go back and read it straight through.

I’m looking forward to the discussion, though!

Farewell.

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

CERP: Day 31 – Diogenes Ep. 36.

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XXXVI. To Timomachus, do well (p. 149)
The tenor and style of this letter are very different from the majority of the preceding ones.  Remembering that the scholars posit at least four authors, that seems very clear here.

Diogenes seems to be having a fairly unsuccessful argument with this fellow on several points.  The first, that all the things he’s concerned about are not evils.  The second, that he’s asking protection from things Heracles cannot slay.  The third, that the very act is superstitious, and a little silly.  At best, it’s a waste of energy to have an inscription on every lintel when it could be on the city gates.  That made me chuckle.

This letter encapsulates the problem both Stoicism, Cynicism, and maybe philosophy in general (other than hedonistic/Cyrenaic) has.  Convincing folks that death, poverty, exposure, illness, and loss are not evils is difficult.  It’s nearly 180 degrees off the popular conception.

Here, even, Diogenes failed.  As, I suspect, the practicing philosopher fails with him or herself over and over to learn this same lesson.  Maybe, we can append ‘justice’ or ‘virtue;’ but we seem unwilling to make the substantive changes asked by philosophy.

We have the example, here Diogenes, pointing at what does not work, what is illogical, what is based on false assumptions.  It suggests corrections, “remove this, why not that, do it this way, here’s the good!”

“Ah… I’d rather not, can I just do this little piece?”

I wonder if that’s any more functional that the inscription of Heracles?

 

This is part of the Cynic Epistles Reading Plan.

SLRP: LVIII. On Being (Part 1: 1 – 8a)

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Seneca,

This letter of yours we are breaking into several chunks.  Today’s bit is a ramping up, as it were, for the discussion at hand.  You discuss the linguistic and philosophical problems of translation.  Don’t worry, we haven’t figured it out either.

Learning another language is not learning how to translate words, quid pro quo, but rather learning to think with new tools.  I’ve seen the word ὄν (but usually in the plural), translated as “some things,” and “the things which are,” and more besides.  Your translation of “that which is” seems to be in a similar vein.

Language and philosophy naturally go hand in hand.  Where I suspect your letter will bend is a place I too have gone.  I started studying Koine Greek in this most recent October.  I want to be able to read the primary texts in their native tongue.

I do wonder, however, if as a non-native speaker with no current, living language community, will I always be outside looking in?  Even at my early stages, the problems presented by ὄν and οὐσία are not small.  We see the same issue again and again with words like τι (Something), σῶμα (Body), and and ὑποστάσεω (subsistence, grounding), to name a few.

I’m looking forward to rest of this letter, because the incorporeals and the language issue are both interesting to me.

Farewell.

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

CERP: Day 30 – Diogenes Ep. 35.

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XXXV. To Sopolis, do well (p. 145)
Well.  This is an interesting one.  Ps-Diogenes begins with a critique of a teacher, and then also of a coach.  That moves quite directly into one of his stories of “manual labor,” as it were.

Diogenes’ main point at the beginning is that one should be consistent, and not teach what one doesn’t know.  Then, turns around and flouts the cultural nomos, by a fairly forthright discussion of sexual mores.

 

This is part of the Cynic Epistles Reading Plan.

SLRP: LVII. On The Trials Of Travel

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Seneca,

I found two parts particularly interesting from you letter today.  The first ties into something I was thinking about yesterday.  Currently, there is a common conception that the common English word stoic with a little-S is the same as our own school.  While it may be inspired by it, they are not the same.  This misapprehension results in people’s believing that Stoics are trying to “repress their emotions.”

I’m reading a book by Margaret Graver, in which she note the following:

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Your discussion today about the physiological responses to external stimuli as different from the passions fits well in with what Graver says above.

The second part which stuck out at me was the discussion on the nature of the soul.  For modern thinkers, the very idea of the soul has a material entity is alien.  We are all mostly dyed in the Cartesian model, and the concept that the soul could be a physical thing mixed in with the body is hard to grok.

I enjoy reading and thinking about these conceptions.  Thank you for the letter.

Farewell.

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

On emotions and habits

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Chrysippus is quoted by Galen and Cicero in making the following determination about fear.  The issue with fear is not that a present thing is evil but rather that an evil thing is present.

This is a very important distinction.  We may find ourselves amidst an emotion or passion, and try to coach ourselves that a present thing is indifferent.  But, and I think most of our experiences bear this out, often this kind of self-talk fails to ameliorate the impassioned state.

We are not likely to fix every passion in the moment this way.  This make sense when we look at the distinction presented above.  Since we are dealing with the impression that an evil thing is present we are dealing with old assents. 

These previous assents of which items or classes of items are good, evil, or indifferent have been built up and reinforced by us for decades.

What we are doing with the self-talk is very slowly building up new assents.  We’re changing our storeroom of classifies objects and classes.  We do this unit by unit, time after time.  It’s a slow and laborious process.

This is why the regimens of Musonius, Epictetus, and Marcus are firmly grounded in habit forming behaviors.  They knew that the change was not immediate.

We cannot (yet?) remember at every junction to reevaluate our goods, but we can build habits in the interim.

CERP: Day 29 – Diogenes Ep. 33 and 34.

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XXXIII. To Phanomachus, do well (p. 141)
This is a longer, and somewhat different version of the chreia in which we hear “If I were not Alexander, I would want to be Diogenes,” and Diogenes replies that he too would want to be Diogenes.  This is interesting, I don’t recall ever hearing about Diogenes gluing pages of a book together before.

I suppose that this is an allegorical denial of academic, superficial, or (for lack of a better word) “uppity” knowledge.  So, Diogenes sits in his τρίβων, sitting in the sun, living his wisdom and with both his actions and his life he show the academic knowledge to be worthless.

XXXIV. To Olympias, do well (p. 143)
Diogenes here is arguing for the Cynic mode of life.  Interestingly, he does not credit Antithenes and Socrates for his practice, but to Hera, Heracles, Odysseus:  the gods and heroes of Greece.

It is very interesting to me, that the praxis of Cynicism require the most argument.  The practice is a natural extension of the doctrine.  You can’t assent to the second while denying the first.  They are one and the same.

Yet, today (apparently) as then, the arguments are need to convince folks to do the thing.  But just like the gluing of the book, the lived philosophy should be the argument, not the intellectual logic of the thing.

This is part of the Cynic Epistles Reading Plan.

SLRP: LVI. On Quiet And Study (Part 2: 8b – 15)

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Seneca,

I’ve very much enjoyed yeterday’s and today’s letter.  These thoughts have been heavy on my mind lately.  Two section stuck out at me, and I’d like to comment on them.

The first:

“For all unconcealed vices are less serious; a disease also is farther on the road to being cured when it breaks forth from concealment and manifests its power. So with greed, ambition, and the other evils of the mind, – you may be sure that they do most harm when they are hidden behind a pretence of soundness.”

In an earlier letter, I think it was you mention that men build walls and homes not for protection, but to hide away their vices.  They secret them behind many kinds of walls.  Some of stone, and some of society, and more yet words and deeds.  Yet, we should act as if all our actions are within the public view.  Whether it be from God, or from the Sage, or simply from the people wish we could be; we should act as if none of our actions are hidden.

“Men think that we are in retirement, and yet we are not. For if we have sincerely retired, and have sounded the signal for retreat, and have scorned outward attractions, then, as I remarked above, no outward thing will distract us; no music of men or of birds can interrupt good thoughts, when they have once become steadfast and sure.  The mind which starts at words or at chance sounds is unstable and has not yet withdrawn into itself; it contains within itself an element of anxiety and rooted fear, and this makes one a prey to care…”

Ah!  This was what I was getting at with yesterday’s worries.  If we retire, are we neglecting some thing.  From this, I take, that the retirement that Marcus speaks of as ‘the inner citadel’ is the same sort of retirement you’re getting at.  However, we may have to train ourselves to it.  If that’s the case, it’s not a concern really that the training looks different from the thing itself.  A boxer may lift weights, jump rope, and stand up and down on boxes daily as training, but the fight itself contains none of these actions.

Our physical retirement, then, a temporary retreat from the world to train our inner citadel is well founded.  Once that training has been complete, we can return to the city, and carry our retirement with us.

Thank you for letter, it has been a great help.

Farewell.

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