Beyond Philosophy

What we choose makes us good. Not what we happen to have, by accident or fortune. Invideas licet, etiam nunc libenter pro me dependet Epicurus. Magnificentior, mihi crede, sermo tuus in grabatto videbitur et in panno; non enim dicentur tantum illa sed probabuntur. Ego certe aliter audio quae dicit Demetrius noster, cum illum vidi nudum, quanto minus quam in stramentis incubantem: non praeceptor veri sed testis est. Quid ergo? non licet divitias in sinu positas contemnere? Quidni liceat? Et ille ingentis animi est qui illas circumfusas sibi, multum diuque miratus quod ad se venerint, ridet suasque audit magis esse quam sentit. Multum est non corrumpi divitiarum contubernio; magnus ille qui in divi tii s pauper est. Nescio inquis quomodo paupertatem iste laturus sit, si in illam inciderit. Nec ego, Epicure, an tu us si (‡) iste pauper contempturus sit divitias, si in illas inciderit; itaque in utroque mens aestimanda est inspiciendumque an ille paupertati indulgeat, an hic divitiis ...

Marcus warns himself to avoid nourishing the wrong habits. Having such habits is inevitable, of course, and his other notes suggest that we must work with them when they occur (in ourselves and others). But we don't want to encourage them at the expense of our better habits. Don't make your character most memorable to others from its worst expressions. Μέλαν ἦθος, θῆλυ ἦθος, περισκελὲς ἦθος, θηριῶδες, βοσκηματῶδες, παιδαριῶδες, βλακικόν, κίβδηλον, βωμολόχον, καπηλικόν, τυραννικόν. Some habits hide in the dark, brooding like possessive mothers, nourishing character that waxes fat and brutal, refusing adult responsibility to embrace indolence and fraud. This character will hang about the temple or the camp, stealing scraps from the altar and making low deals, becoming a law unto itself.

Reason will not spare the soul, unless we protect it by setting the premises of her activity carefully, making her ignore opportunities to demonstrate our inability to refute mortality. Léase con cuidado, en la primera parte de la Summa theologica de Santo Tomás de Aquino, los seis artículos primeros de la cuestión LXXV, en que trata de si el alma humana es cuerpo, de si es algo subsistente, de si lo es también el alma de los brutos, de si el hombre es alma, de si ésta se compone de materia y forma, y de si es incorruptible, y dígase luego si todo aquello no está sutilmente enderezado a soportar la creencia de que esa sustancialidad incorruptible le permite recibir de Dios la inmortalidad, pues claro es que como la creó al infundirla en el cuerpo, según Santo Tomás, podía al separarlo de él aniquilarla. Y como se ha hecho cien veces la crítica de esas pruebas, no es cosa de repetirla aquí. ¿Qué razón desprevenida puede concluir el que nuestra alma sea una sustancia del hecho de que l...

Seneca advises Lucilius to be content with life in its most minimal and personal expressions. Poverty that does not damage our health is actually preferable to wealth, as it allows us to make real friends and avoid wasting precious time with people who don't actually care for us. Quid fiet inquis huic turbae familiarium sine re familiari? Turba ista cum a te pasci desierit, ipsa se pascet, aut quod tu beneficio tuo non potes scire, paupertatis scies: illa veros certosque amicos retinebit, discedet quisquis non te se aliud sequebatur. Non est autem vel ob hoc unum amanda paupertas, quod a quibus ameris ostendet? O quando ille veniet dies quo nemo in honorem tuum mentiatur! Huc ergo cogitationes tuae tendant, hoc cura, hoc opta, omnia alia vota deo remissurus, ut contentus sis temet ipso et ex te nascentibus bonis. Quae potest esse felicitas propior? Redige te ad parva ex quibus cadere non possis, idque ut libentius facias, ad hoc pertinebit tributum huius epistulae, quod statim con...

The world is a well-appointed order, for it contains you: inside yourself, in the inner workings of your body and soul, you see a little vision of the grand harmony that inhabits the entire universe. Here Marcus Aurelius sums up a vision of man as microcosm that appears elsewhere in great poetry (Homer, Sappho) or philosophy (Plato, but also Democritus). Ἤτοι κόσμος διατεταγμένος ἢ κυκεὼν συμπεφορημένος μέν, ἀλλὰ κόσμος· ἢ ἐν σοὶ μέν τις κόσμος ὑφίστασθαι δύναται, ἐν δὲ τῷ παντὶ ἀκοσμία; καὶ ταῦτα οὕτως πάντων διακεκριμένων καὶ διακεχυμένων καὶ συμπαθῶν. The world is either a well-appointed ornament, or a scattered heap that nonetheless retains some order. For can you suppose that any order would exist in yourself, if the whole you inhabit were utterly chaotic? Within ourselves, as without, we see all things separating and combining, drawn together and apart by mutual sympathy.

We observe that our bodies have integrity extending beyond momentary expressions of material coherence. This observation becomes grounds for believing in our immortality (despite that belief being without compelling rational foundation). It is also grounds for noticing that the world has other things that persist and exist beyond any moment limited by our faculties for observation. William James, en la tercera de las conferencias que dedicó al pragmatismo en el Lowell Institute de Boston, en Diciembre de 1906 y Enero de 1907 ( Pragmatism, a new name for some old ways of thinking , publicado en 1907), y que es lo más débil de toda la obra del insigne pensador norteamericano —algo excesivamente débil—, dice así: «El escolasticismo ha tomado la noción de sustancia del sentido común, haciéndola técnica y articulada. Pocas cosas parecerían tener menos consecuencias pragmáticas para nosotros que las sustancias, privados como estamos de todo contacto con ellas. Pero hay un caso en que el esco...

Life is better when you approach it consistently, adopting attitudes that allow you to cultivate what you love and avoid what you hate without second-guessing yourself all the time. You will never see the fruits of long labor if you refuse to labor long. Remember, as you pursue what you love, that its final flower may not be what you imagined; that does not make it, or your love, worthless. Observa te itaque, numquid vestis tua domusque dissentiant, numquid in te liberalis sis, in tuos sordidus, numquid cenes frugaliter, aedifices luxuriose; unam semel ad quam vivas regulam prende et ad hanc omnem vitam tuam exaequa. Quidam se domi contrahunt, dilatant foris et extendunt: vitium est haec diversitas et signum vacillantis animi ac nondum habentis tenorem suum. Etiam nunc dicam unde sit ista inconstantia et dissimilitudo rerum consiliorumque: nemo proponit sibi quid velit, nec si proposuit perseverat in eo, sed transilit; nec tantum mutat sed redit et in ea quae deseruit ac damnavit revol...

Marcus rehearses how to make decisions. See all of your life when you consider each moment. Don't make the moments last longer than they should, or spend time worrying uselessly about them. Have a simple assessment of what is happening and what you can do to respond. Make your move, and rest content with whatever happens next. Ἑώρακας ἐκεῖνα, ἴδε καὶ ταῦτα. σεαυτὸν μὴ τάρασσε· ἅπλωσον σεαυτόν. ἁμαρτάνει τις; ἑαυτῷ ἁμαρτάνει. συμβέβηκέ σοί τι; καλῶς· ἐκ τῶν ὅλων ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς σοι συγκαθείμαρτο καὶ συνεκλώθετο πᾶν τὸ συμβαῖνον. τὸ δ’ ὅλον, βραχὺς ὁ βίος· κερδαντέον τὸ παρὸν σὺν εὐλογιστίᾳ καὶ δίκῃ. νῆφε ἀνειμένος  ( † )  . You have already seen the past. Look now to the present. Don't trouble yourself as you look. Simplify. Is someone else making a mistake? The harm is his, too. Has something happened to you? Good. Everything that happens to you is woven tight and fated, your part of the whole that flows naturally from the source of the universe. Life is brief, when you see all of i...

Unamuno develops further his take on reason. Reason is a tool for deconstructing or analysing contingent experience; it does not recognize premises beyond analysis, incapable of construction. Its pure and natural tendency is thus toward dissolution, disintegration, and eventually death. Lo que llamamos alma no es nada más que un término para designar la conciencia individual en su integridad y su persistencia; y que ella cambia, y que lo mismo que se integra se desintegra, es cosa evidente. Para Aristóteles era la forma sustancial del cuerpo, la entelequia, pero no una sustancia. Y más de un moderno la ha llamado un epifenómeno, término absurdo. Basta llamarla fenómeno. El racionalismo, y por éste entiendo la doctrina que no se atiene sino a la razón, a la verdad objetiva, es forzosamente materialista. Y no se me escandalicen los idealistas. Es menester ponerlo todo en claro, y la verdad es que eso que llamamos materialismo no quiere decir para nosotros otra cosa que la doctrina que n...

Philosophy teaches action, not diction. What we say is not as important as what we do. The wise man seeks to make his words a clear reflection of what he does, so that he and others can rely upon his character in difficult circumstances. If we have covered our true character in lies, nobody will know who we really are, and we might forget ourselves. Not lying to others is an important step on the way toward avoiding the mistake of lying to ourselves. Aliud propositum est declamantibus et assensionem coronae captantibus, aliud his qui iuvenum et otiosorum aures disputatione varia aut volubili detinent: facere docet philosophia, non dicere, et hoc exigit, ut ad legem suam quisque vivat, ne orationi vita dissentiat , vel ipsa int ra se vita un i us sit omnium actionum sine dissensione color is sit ( † ) . Maximum hoc est et officium sapientiae et indicium, ut verbis opera concordent, ut ipse ubique par sibi idemque sit. Quis hoc praestabit? Pauci, aliqui tamen. Est enim difficile ho...