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.

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.