06 - Philosophy Is Practice, Not Phrases

Three letters that between them define what Seneca thinks philosophy is for, beginning with a warning about the kind of philosopher who is really after an audience. The first is addressed to a temptation Lucilius has not yet succumbed to. Avoid, Seneca says, the example of those whose craving is for attention rather than improvement: shabby attire, long hair, an unkempt beard, a loudly announced contempt for silverware, sleeping on the ground. The name of philosophy is unpopular enough without our dissociating ourselves from the conventions of society. The rule he gives is one of the most quoted in the collection — inwardly everything should be different, but our outward face should conform with the crowd. The aim is a way of living not diametrically opposed to that of the mob but better than it, because the alternative repels the very people whose reform is wanted and makes them afraid that imitating us in one thing means imitating us in everything. Philosophy's first promise is fellowship, a sense of belonging to mankind, and ostentatious difference abandons that manifesto. It is contrary to nature to torture the body, refuse ordinary cleanliness, or adopt a diet that is not merely plain but revolting: philosophy calls for simple living, not for doing penance. It is a great man who can treat his earthenware as if it were silver, and no less great a man who can treat his silver as if it were earthenware. The day's find comes from the Stoic Hecato and turns the letter inward. Cease to hope, and you will cease to fear. The two seem unrelated and are in fact chained together, marching in step like a prisoner and the guard he is handcuffed to, because both belong to a mind held in suspense by the future. Foresight, the greatest blessing given to humanity, becomes a curse this way. A wild animal runs from the danger it can see and stops worrying once it has escaped; we are tormented by what is over and by what has not arrived. No one confines his unhappiness to the present. The second letter is the plainest statement of what the discipline actually does. Conviction needs deepening by daily reflection, and making noble resolutions matters less than keeping the ones already made — the work is to persevere until the will to good hardens into a disposition to good. Seneca declines to flatter: he has great hopes for Lucilius but is not yet confident about him, and asks him to examine whether he has advanced in philosophy or merely in years. Philosophy is not a popular pursuit and not a means of self-advertisement; its concern is not with words but with facts. It moulds the personality, orders a life, and sits at the helm keeping a man on course while he is tossed about in dangerous seas. Then he takes on the objection that makes the whole enterprise look pointless: what use is philosophy if everything is fixed by fate, or governed by a god, or left to chance? His answer refuses to choose. Whichever of the three is true — even if all three are true — philosophy is still needed. The third letter answers a request Lucilius keeps making and Seneca keeps refusing. Send me some Stoic maxims to close your letters with. Seneca will not, because the leading Stoics never dealt in gems: when a passage stands out in a work, that is a sign the work is uneven, and one tree draws no admiration where the whole forest rises to the same height. Epicurus gets credit for aphorisms only because his are scattered and unexpected. The Stoics do no window-dressing, putting nothing in the display that is not in the stock behind it. And to whom would a maxim even be attributed — Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Posidonius? We Stoics are no monarch's subjects; each asserts his own freedom, unlike the Epicureans, where whatever any member said was uttered under the authority of one man. A great mind has to be taken whole, because a work of genius is a synthesis from which nothing can be subtracted without damage: a woman is not beautiful when her ankle or her arm draws compliments, but when her whole appearance turns attention away from the parts. 📖 Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0140442103?... As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.