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On selected "moral epistles" (from around 65 CE) by Lucius Annaeus Seneca: 4. On the Terrors of Death, 12. On Old Age, 49. On the Shortness of Life, 59. On Pleasure and Joy, 62. On Good Company, 92. On the Happy Life, 96. On Facing Hardship, and 116. On Self Control. We're joined by Massimo Pigliucci of the How to Be a Stoic blog, who for a long time was on the Rationally Speaking podcast.
Back in ep. 124 we considered the Stoic Epictetus, but due to audience demand, we wanted a second and a third opinion: Seneca, unlike Epictetus, explicitly advocated a public life, and seemed to have less problem with deep friendships and other sorts of attachments, so long as these things are kept in perspective. Unfortunately, Seneca is very light on actual justifications for this perspective, and apparently sees knowing the ultimate truths of existence as a fairly simple matter, the trick being to really internalize these truths and let them guide your actions, especially when tragedy strikes. Life is a battle, says Seneca, and it's really better for us that it is, as a life without challenge would be a life without meaning.
Massimo, along with Tad Brennan's The Stoic Life: Emotions, Duties, and Fate (2007), provided a reality check for all of this, helping us to interpret the text charitably and see how ancient Stoic writings are integrated into modern practice. The key is that the only thing ultimately important is your own virtue, which is all you have control over. Other things can and should be "preferred," but aren't granted the status of moral goods. When you work hard toward a goal, it's not the goal that's good, but the working itself.
Massimo and Dylan read from this new translation: Letters on Ethics: To Lucilius (The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
End song: "I Lose Control" by The MayTricks from So Chewy! (1993).
Jaycel Adkins says
January 25, 2016 at 6:57 pmAs a critic of the Epictetus episode, I want to commend you all for a job well done with this one.
Reading Brennan and having Massimo on to give a broader context to Stoic thought solved the issues I think most of us had with the Epictetus podcast.
Well done.
qapla says
January 27, 2016 at 11:31 amReally a great discussion and much needed follow up to the Epictetus episode. So much came to mind but one thing that did that is a bit of an aside although Buddhism was mentioned is how arete often translated as virtue is from the Greek root related to aristos as in aristocrats. Those born into aristos or nobility and those, arete, by whose own character and self development makes them arete morally noble and virtuous.
There is here a striking similarity to how the Buddha, who in the earliest Pali canon spoke often of the Greeks or “yona” Ionians, used the Vedic/Hindu term arya or ariya which is a cognate of arete (similarly Greek gnosis/gno is with Buddhist term jna / prajna “wisdom’) the noble ones that was a term for caste which one was born into and changed it to a term that describe a noble or virtuous person which one developed or cultivated by practicing the
Four Noble Truths catvari arya satyani
and the
Noble Eightfold Path arya marga
“The word “noble,” or ariya, is used by the Buddha to designate a particular type of person, the type of person which it is the aim of his teaching to create. … [T]he ariyans, the noble ones, the spiritual elite, who obtain this status not from birth, social station or ecclesiastical authority but from their inward nobility of character.” Bhikkhu Bodhi
As to the mention of physical or mental health there was/is the Greek and Buddhist ideas of “medical philosophy”
Chapter Twenty-Five of the The Shape of Ancinet Thought
The Ethics of Imperturbablity
https://books.google.com/books?id=gbjelOMYyN8C&pg=PT877&lpg=PT877&dq=the+shape+of+ancient+thought+the+ethics+of+imperturbability&source=bl&ots=dwtiPFlz22&sig=4J08u3Ne-Yy3X7K4DJZbCXgsgMM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi4kYyTsMrKAhXKJiYKHZ_4COkQ6AEIKzAC#v=onepage&q=the%20shape%20of%20ancient%20thought%20the%20ethics%20of%20imperturbability&f=false
Epictetus “What is the goal of virtue? Serenity”
serenity = euroia = “well-flowing-ness”
much respect