Beyond Philosophy

Unamuno believes the Eucharist is the axis of Catholicism, and its religious purpose is to make humanity whole, uniting each particular individual with every other individual in the communion that is Christ's body. This communion, for him, must be a dialogue of particular persons: it cannot be resumed into something abstract, remote from personal intimacy. Quid ad aeternitatem? He aquí la pregunta capital. Y acaba el Credo con aquello de resurrectionem mortuorum et vitam venturi saeculi , la resurrección de los muertos y la vida venidera. En el cementerio, hoy amortizado, de Mallona, en mi pueblo natal, Bilbao, hay grabada una cuarteta que dice:            Aunque estamos en polvo convertidos,             en ti, Señor, nuestra esperanza fía,            que tornaremos a vivir vestidos            con la carne y la piel que nos cubría; o como el Catecismo dice: con...

Health requires us to change our minds, adapting them to our circumstances rather than the reverse. Seneca's counsel to Lucilius here reminds me of the poem by Rudyard Kipling: “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same … yours is the Earth, and everything that's in it, and—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!”     Poteram hoc loco epistulam claudere, nisi te male instituissem. Reges Parthos non potest quisquam salutare sine munere; tibi valedicere non licet gratis. Quid istic? ab Epicuro mutuum sumam: multis parasse divitias non finis miseriarum fuit sed mutatio. Nec hoc miror; non est enim in rebus vitium sed in ipso animo. Illud quod paupertatem nobis gravem fecerat et divitias graves fecit. Quemadmodum nihil refert utrum aegrum in ligneo lecto an in aureo colloces—quocumque illum transtuleris, morbum secum suum transferet—, sic nihil refert utrum aeger animus in divitiis an in paupertate ponatur: malum illum suum sequitur....

A Roman emperor must avoid acting like an idiot, in the sense of the word that Unamuno invokes . He cannot be a private citizen, who can afford to make decisions more capriciously insofar as his agency represents a much smaller threat to the common good. At some moment, an agent like the emperor has so much power that the best decision he can make will be to do nothing (lest his action miscarry, and prove more harmful to society than any benefit he might offer it). Finding that moment and negotiating it well requires the ability to cooperate with others, whose intentions will always matter (to Marcus, if not to everyone). If Marcus does not trust your intentions, then he will not change his policy in light of your repentance, which might be nothing more than a clever ruse. The truly repentant must show good faith ( bona fides ) by surrendering or avoiding material advantages that attend their contrition. Following the letter of the law here is never going to be sufficient. Δύο ταύτας ἑ...

Unamuno here notices something very important: reason requires limitation, and in biological terms this means mortality. Immortality is thus anti-rational. And so are all the judgments worth making, Unamuno is willing to aver: insofar as they embrace life without death, they must oppose reason. Marcus Aurelius and Seneca would not disagree with the opposition that Unamuno posits here, but they would argue, vigorously, that life demands death, that immortality is not to be sought — rationally or otherwise — in the denial of mortality. Y Atanasio tuvo el valor supremo de la fe, el de afirmar cosas contradictorias entre sí; «la perfecta contradicción que hay en el ὁμοούσιος trajo tras de sí todo un ejército de contradicciones, y más cuanto más avanzó el pensamiento», dice Harnack. Sí, así fué; y así tuvo que ser. «La dogmática se despidió para siempre del pensamiento claro y de los conceptos sostenibles, y se acostumbró a lo contrarracional», añade. Es que se acostó a la vida, que es cont...

A philosopher must live by what he needs, not what he wants. If it is unnecessary to my life, I must become indifferent to its possession, preparing to surrender it as I must eventually surrender all things I hold in mortality. Remember to separate needs from wants, and to spend enough time with the poorest folk you can find, so that you recognize real needs. A philosopher watches the happy poor with interest, not the billionaires. To be content with basic needs met is a great achievement. Many will not enjoy this doctrine of Seneca. Non est quod nos paupertas a philosophia revocet, ne egestas quidem. Toleranda est enim ad hoc properantibus vel fames; quam toleravere quidam in obsidionibus, et quod aliud erat illius patientiae praemium quam in arbitrium non cadere victoris? Quanto hoc maius est quod promittitur: perpetua libertas, nullius nec hominis nec dei timor. Ecquid vel esurienti ad ista veniendum est? Perpessi sunt exercitus inopiam omnium rerum, vixerunt herbarum radicibus et d...

See only what you see, not what interested parties expect you to see. Μὴ τοιαῦτα ὑπολάμβανε, οἷα ὁ ὑβρίζων κρίνει ἢ οἷά σε κρίνειν βούλεται, ἀλλὰ ἴδε αὐτά, ὁποῖα κατ᾽ ἀλήθειάν ἐστιν. Never assume for yourself the premises that a criminal assumes, or that he wants you to assume. Instead, see only what your eye shows you in truth.

Who is Christ? Unamuno presents two grand visions of the Lord: one from Athanasius, and the other from a long line of heretics whose contemporary representative is the theologian Harnack. Athanasius makes Christ a divinity-turned-human, while the heretics conceive him as humanity-turned-divine. Unamuno prefers the Christ of Athanasius, like the devout Catholic he is. Después de Pablo rodaron los años y las generaciones cristianas, trabajando en torno de aquel dogma central y sus consecuencias para asegurar la fe en la inmortalidad del alma individual, y vino el Niceno, y en él aquel formidable Atanasio, cuyo nombre es ya un emblema, encarnación de la fe popular. Era Atanasio un hombre de pocas letras, pero de mucha fe, y sobre todo, de la fe popular, henchido de hambre de inmortalidad. Y opúsose al arrianismo, que, como el protestantismo unitariano y sociniano amenazaba, aun sin saberlo ni quererlo, la base de esa fe. Para los arrianos, Cristo era ante todo un maestro, un maestro de mo...

Seneca urges Lucilius to embrace poverty as the best way to philosophy. The life of the mind requires us to avoid piling up material things. A university can be rich or wise, not both, for they are mutually exclusive. We are always careless of the mortality we cannot see.     Proice omnia ista, si sapis, immo ut sapias, et ad bonam mentem magno cursu ac totis viribus tende; si quid est quo teneris, aut expedi aut incide. Moratur inquis me res familiaris; sic illam disponere volo ut sufficere nihil agenti possit, ne aut paupertas mihi oneri sit aut ego alicui. Cum hoc dicis, non videris vim ac potentiam eius de quo cogitas boni nosse; et summam quidem rei pervides, quantum philosophia prosit, partes autem nondum satis subtiliter dispicis, necdum scis quantum ubique nos adiuvet, quemadmodum et in maximis, ut Ciceronis utar verbo, opituletur et in minima descendat. Mihi crede, advoca illam in consilium: suadebit tibi ne ad calculos sedeas.     Nempe hoc quaeris et hoc...

Marcus, like other Stoics, conceives the world to be a regular, non-chaotic place. We observe cycles of birth, flourishing, decay, and death in nature, and the outcome of these cycles is that life continues. This is what we call just (and within these very broad parameters, predictable and rational). All human action happens within this grand action, so even events that seem bad or wrong to us must somehow, naturally and rudimentally, be just. Our task then becomes to find ways of respecting that justice, observing and moving with it, so that our conscience accepts the standard already required, and embodied, by our life. Seeing how our suffering is just causes us to bear it better, with nobility. Instead of resenting what should not be, we brace ourselves to make the best of our just fate. When it becomes uniquely unkind, we feel the call to become especially heroic. The Greeks dramatized this as tragedy. Reading Marcus and Seneca makes you doubt that all audiences viewed traged ies ...

Unamuno believes that Christianity requires God to relate personally, without any other mediator, to each individual. God did not die and return to life to save us all, but to save each one of us, alone. And it was not an error that made him do this, a mistake or sin originating with our ancestors, but a love for each individual, which drove him to create conditions under which that individual might live forever. Y en torno al dogma, de experiencia íntima pauliniana, de la resurreción e inmortalidad del Cristo, garantía de la resurrección e inmortalidad de cada creyente, se formó la cristología toda. El Dios hombre, el Verbo encarnado, fué para que el hombre, a su modo, se hiciese Dios, esto es, inmortal. Y el Dios cristiano, el Padre del Cristo, un Dios necesariamente antropomórfico, es el que, como dice el Catecismo de la doctrina cristiana que en la escuela nos hicieron aprender de memoria, ha creado el mundo para el hombre, para cada hombre. Y el fin de la redención fué, a pesar de...

Natural desires carry limits: it is very hard to eat too many apples. Unnatural desires have no limit: it is very easy to want too much money. Iam ab initio, si te bene novi, circumspicies quid haec epistula munusculi attulerit: excute illam, et invenies. Non est quod mireris animum meum: adhuc de alieno liberalis sum. Quare autem alienum dixi? quidquid bene dictum est ab ullo meum est. Istuc quoque ab Epicuro dictum est: si ad naturam vives, numquam eris pauper; si ad opiniones, numquam eris dives. E xiguum natura desiderat, opinio immensum. Congeratur in te quidquid multi locupletes possederant; ultra privatum pecuniae modum fortuna te provehat, auro tegat, purpura vestiat, eo deliciarum opumque perducat ut terram marmoribus abscondas; non tantum habere tibi liceat sed calcare divitias; accedant statuae et picturae et quidquid ars ulla luxuriae elaboravit: maiora cupere ab his disces. Naturalia desideria finita sunt: ex falsa opinione nascentia ubi desinant non habent; nullus enim t...

Marcus Aurelius is fond of the notion that all things have purpose . But he does not say that we must control or understand that purpose fully; our place is to sense it, and then to move with it, adapting the rhythm of our expression to fit within the great cosmic dance that demands it. Ἠνάγκασται ἡ τοῦ συμφέροντος φύσις τοῦτο ποιεῖν. The nature of what must be compelled itself to create this moment.

Unamuno follows Paul in maintaining that the resurrection is the central doctrine of Christianity, even when this means that he must deny the testimony of Justin Martyr. Así, cada uno por su lado, judíos y griegos, llegaron al verdadero descubrimiento de la muerte, que es el que hace entrar a los pueblos, como a los hombres, en la pubertad espiritual, la del sentimiento trágico de la vida, que es cuando engendra la humanidad al Dios vivo. El descubrimiento de la muerte es el que nos revela a Dios, y la muerte del hombre perfecto, del Cristo, fué la suprema revelación de la muerte, la del hombre que no debía morir y murió. Tal descubrimiento, el de la inmortalidad, preparado por los procesos religiosos judaico y helénico, fué lo específicamente cristiano. Y lo llevó a cabo sobre todo Pablo de Tarso, aquel judío fariseo helenizado. Pablo no había conocido personalmente a Jesús, y por eso le descubrió como Cristo. «Se puede decir que es, en general, la teología del Apóstol la primera teol...

Philosophy teaches the mind to adapt itself to every human circumstance. Thus Seneca. Dicet aliquis, quid mihi prodest philosophia, si fatum est? quid prodest, si deus rector est? quid prodest, si casus imperat? Nam et mutari certa non possunt et nihil praeparari potest adversus incerta, sed aut consilium meum occupavit deus decrevitque quid facerem, aut consilio meo nihil fortuna permittit. Quidquid est ex his, Lucili, vel si omnia haec sunt, philosophandum est; sive nos inexorabili lege fata constringunt, sive arbiter deus universi cuncta disposuit, sive casus res humanas sine ordine impellit et iactat, philosophia nos tueri debet. Haec adhortabitur ut deo libenter pareamus, ut fortunae contumaciter; haec docebit ut deum sequaris, feras casum. Sed non est nunc in hanc disputationem transeundum, quid sit iuris nostri si providentia in imperio est, aut si fatorum series illigatos trahit, aut si repentina ac subita dominantur: illo nunc revertor, ut te moneam et exhorter ne patiaris i...

This aphorism expresses one of Marcus' favorite lessons from philosophy, that conventional notions of harm and benefit poison our minds, causing us to suffer unnecessarily, and badly, because we feel deeply wounded or moved by things that should not touch us . You can find similar expressions in Seneca. Ὃ χείρω αὐτὸν ἑαυτοῦ ἄνθρωπον οὐ ποιεῖ, τοῦτο οὐδὲ τὸν βίον αὐτοῦ χείρω ποιεῖ οὐδὲ βλάπτει οὔτε ἔξωθεν οὔτε ἔνδοθεν. Whatever does not make a person worse than he is does not make his life any worse. Nor does it harm him in any way, on the outside or within.

Having attempted to sum up the Jews, Unamuno now gives us his take on the Greeks. For him, their culture offers a revelation of death, from which life longs to escape. They begin to imagine different ways of escaping or cheating death ( as various gods and heroes, notably Orpheus, were said to have done or attempted). But they did not reach the faith of Christians in personal immortality, even as they never achieved monocult in the manner of the Jews. La cultura helénica, por su parte, acabó descubriendo la muerte, y descubrir la muerte es descubrir el hambre de inmortalidad. No aparece este anhelo en los poemas homéricos que no son algo inicial, sino final; no el arranque, sino el término de una civilización. Ellos marcan el paso de la vieja religión de la Naturaleza, la de Zeus, a la religión más espiritual de Apolo, la de la redención. Mas en el fondo persistía siempre la religión popular e íntima de los misterios eleusinos, el culto de las almas y de los antepasados. «En cuanto c...