Beyond Philosophy

Seneca discusses the purpose of work. Life offers us work in different ways, at different moments, for different ends. Seneca advises Lucilius to avoid chasing after work that is merely drudgery, that achieves and aims for nothing virtuous. But a good person should not be totally idle: if you watch your life carefully, Seneca says, you will see opportunities for good work, work whose aims and execution makes you better, allowing you to acquire valuable knowledge and moral integrity (including the spiritual fortitude to carry life through good and bad fortune without falling to pieces). Doing good works makes us allies with the greater powers we see at work around us, in nature, instead of abject worshippers, beggars who hope nature spares them but have no will or ability to act on their own. Instead of looking for a career, find a way to express the divine integrity nature has shown you. Labor bonum non est: quid ergo est bonum? laboris contemptio. Itaque in vanum operosos culpaverim: ...

Like many ancients, Marcus regards our individual lives as acts of worship, unique expressions of personal religion that we must tend on our own, because nobody else can tend to them for us. In his day and age, the gods of Olympus were worshipped throughout the Roman world: Zeus was the god of all, the ruler of other gods, of men, and of all the universe (in its total and integral expression). As Zeus ruled all animal and human and divine society, so Marcus imagines the mind ruling our souls, which he conceives as little societies of emotions, impressions, and feelings that reason must put together and set apart harmoniously, in the manner of a good lord. «Συζῆν θεοῖς». συζῇ δὲ θεοῖς ὁ συνεχῶς δεικνὺς αὐτοῖς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ψυχὴν ἀρεσκομένην μὲν τοῖς ἀπονεμομένοις, ποιοῦσαν δὲ ὅσα βούλεται ὁ δαίμων, ὃν ἑκάστῳ προστάτην καὶ ἡγεμόνα ὁ Ζεὺς ἔδωκεν, ἀπόσπασμα ἑαυτοῦ. οὗτος δέ ἐστιν ὁ ἑκάστου νοῦς καὶ λόγος. Live with the gods . A man lives with the gods by showing them constantly how his soul i...

Unamuno discusses procreation, which he sees as the foundation for love inasmuch as it is required for life (including the life of primitive unicellular organisms, who interrupt normal asexual reproduction with occasional sexual exchanges that keep their DNA from terminal decay). Unamuno's understanding of sex: it is a form of death, involving the surrender of the self — to the lover, to potential children, and to the family whose existence will change our own for all time after the deed is done. Of course this means that sex, for Unamuno, is never casual. He sees it rather as sacramental. Siempre que hablamos de amor tenemos presente a la memoria el amor sexual, el amor entre hombre y mujer para perpetuar el linaje humano sobre la tierra. Y esto es lo que hace que no se consiga reducir el amor, ni a lo puramente intelectivo, ni a lo puramente volitivo, dejando lo sentimental o, si se quiere, sensitivo de él. Porque el amor no es en el fondo ni idea ni volición; es más bien deseo, ...

Seneca compares the common human lust for fame and fortune with the song of the sirens in ancient myth: as the sirens lured sailors to their doom, so our desires for material success will lure us to unhappiness, if we make the mistake of chasing eagerly after them. Feeling the pull of desire is not bad, per se; what is bad is giving in to the temptation to pursue recklessly after whatever it is we think we want. We have to learn to be enough for ourselves on our own, without our desires (fulfilled or not: in the end, fulfilling them is impossible, so it is always better to cut our losses before the pursuit of what is impossible harms us too much). Ad summam sapiens eris, si cluseris aures, quibus ceram parum est obdere: firmiore spissamento opus est quam in sociis usum Ulixem ferunt. Illa vox quae timebatur erat blanda, non tamen publica: at haec quae timenda est non ex uno scopulo sed ex omni terrarum parte circumsonat. Praetervehere itaque non unum locum insidiosa voluptate suspectu...

Marcus' take on good and evil : these are properly labels we bestow in the mind, upon our own unique reaction to events and things whose manifestation in the world at large is generally neutral (neither good nor evil per se). What makes a thing good is our ability and will to make good use of it, not some inherent quality it possesses that we should aspire to manipulate or control from a position outside our minds. The Stoic way to handle bad things: consider how their badness is derived from some personal mental judgment, or attitude, that then becomes subject to alteration. I can conquer the bad in my life best by seeing how it might be reclaimed for the good. Τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν καὶ κυριεῦον τῆς ψυχῆς σου μέρος ἄτρεπτον ἔστω ὑπὸ τῆς ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ λείας ἢ τραχείας κινήσεως καὶ μὴ συγκρ ι νάσθω, ἀλλὰ περιγραφέτω αὑτὸ καὶ περιοριζέτω τὰς πείσεις ἐκείνας ἐν τοῖς μορίοις. ὅταν δὲ ἀναδιδῶνται κατὰ τὴν ἑτέραν συμπάθειαν εἰς τὴν διάνοιαν ὡς ἐν σώματι ἡνωμένῳ, τότε πρὸς μὲν τὴν αἴσθησιν φυσικὴν...

Unamuno begins his imagination of human life with love, which he finds tragic because of its necessary and intimate association with death. We must desire affiliation with others and ourselves, must love the world, if we are to survive. But the ultimate end of our love's expression is mortality: even if we embrace some belief in love beyond death's grasp, we must pass through death all the same. The love we must hold will lead us eventually to his sister and spouse, death. Es el amor, lectores y hermanos míos, lo más trágico que en el mundo y en la vida hay; es el amor hijo del engaño y padre del desengaño; es el amor el consuelo en el desconsuelo, es la única medicina contra la muerte, siendo como es de ella hermana.      Fratelli, a un tempo stesso, Amore e Morte     Ingenerò la sorte, como cantó Leopardi. El amor busca con furia a través del amado, algo que está allende éste, y como no lo halla, se desespera. Love is the most tragic thing that exists, readers...

Seneca encourages Lucilius to finish and express his best moral character, which he has discovered by pursuing philosophy for private ends rather than public glory. Anything we do merely to draw attention to ourselves is always liable to become bad, even if it is initially worthy and worthwhile. Agnosco Lucilium meum: incipit quem promiserat exhibere. Sequere illum impetum animi quo ad optima quaeque calcatis popularibus bonis ibas: non desidero maiorem melioremque te fieri quam moliebaris. Fundamenta tua multum loci occupaverunt: tantum effice quantum conatus es, et illa quae tecum in animo tulisti tracta. I know my friend Lucilius, and now 'tis time to acknowledge him, for he begins to show some of the man he once promised to become. Follow that inner mental drive that has carried you beyond the goods dear to the mob, goods you have trampled underfoot on your way toward what is best. I desire nothing greater, or better, for you than that you become the character you have worked s...

How Marcus handles wrongdoing by others: he views them as independent obstacles, to which he must respond without recourse to passionate anger or attachment. Every disaster brought to him by the decision of others presents an occasion for him to use his own moral agency, without punting or deferring to theirs (which he regards as independent, capable of ruling and adjusting itself without his instruction). This approach lets him reach practical solutions that don't demand perfect consensus, or avoid personal liability. Ἄλλος ἁμαρτάνει. τί εἰς ἐμέ; ὄψεται· ἰδίαν ἔχει διάθεσιν, ἰδίαν ἐνέργειαν. ἐγὼ νῦν ἔχω, ὅ με θέλει νῦν ἔχειν ἡ κοινὴ φύσις, καὶ πράσσω, ὅ με νῦν πράσσειν θέλει ἡ ἐμὴ φύσις. Someone else does wrong. What is this to me? The wrongdoer will recognize the situation for himself, having his own character and expression. Meanwhile, I retain whatever agency our common nature wants to bestow upon me, and I do whatever my own personal nature desires.

Philosophy aims for truth that we can live by, not truth that is beyond question or refutation. Unamuno's philosophy is not a prescription of what must be true, but a description of the truest human insight he has been able to achieve. As such, it is necessarily imperfect, founded in sentiment rather than reason, incapable of claiming more universal scope for itself than its origins will allow. Y nada tampoco se adelanta con sacar a relucir las ambiguas palabras de pesimismo y optimismo, que con frecuencia nos dicen lo contrario que quien las emplea quiso decirnos. Poner a una doctrina el mote de pesimista, no es condenar su validez ni los llamados optimistas son más eficaces en la acción. Creo, por el contrario, que muchos de los más grandes héroes, acaso los mayores, han sido desesperados, y que por desesperación acabaron sus hazañas. Y que aparte esto y aceptando, ambiguas y todo como son, esas denominaciones de optimismo y pesimismo, cabe un cierto pesimismo trascendente engend...

Seneca concludes his epistle on death, advising Lucilius that we do not really fear death, as that would rationally entail living our lives in a state of unremitting terror, since there is no moment when we certainly cannot die. Non dubitare autem se quin senilis anima in primis labris esset, nec magna vi distraheretur a corpore. Ignis qui valentem materiam occupavit aqua et interdum ruina exstinguendus est: ille qui alimentis deficitur sua sponte subsidit. Libenter haec, mi Lucili, audio non tamquam nova, sed tamquam in rem praesentem perductus. Quid ergo? non multos spectavi abrumpentes vitam? Ego vero vidi, sed plus momenti apud me habent qui ad mortem veniunt sine odio vitae et admittunt illam, non attrahunt. Illud quidem aiebat tormentum nostra nos sentire opera, quod tunc trepidamus cum prope a nobis esse credimus mortem: a quo enim non prope est, parata omnibus locis omnibusque momentis? Sed consideremus inquit tunc cum aliqua causa moriendi videtur accedere, quanto aliae pr...

Marcus looks out at the universe, dwarfing himself and all humanity with life and being too big for our mortal experience to grasp. Here is wonder, and terror, and surrender, for all of us who look with him. Μέμνησο τῆς συμπάσης οὐσίας, ἧς ὀλίγιστον μετέχεις, καὶ τοῦ σύμπαντος αἰῶνος, οὗ βραχὺ καὶ  ἀκαριαῖόν σοι διάστημα ἀφώρισται, καὶ τῆς εἱμαρμένης, ἧς πόστον εἶ μέρος; Remember the vastness of all material existence, of which you possess only the smallest portion, and think upon the age of the universe, an age wherein your own little life occupies but a brief moment. Call to mind then the fate that binds all things together: what is your share in the web she weaves?

Doctrine or teaching is something we use to explain to ourselves what we do. It is not the real driver of our action, which is prior to any explanation or illustration we might offer. So, when Unamuno comes to discuss the war between morbid reason and vital sentiment, he finds something prior to any doctrine, including his own, in their conflict. The teachings he derives from sentiment, against reason, are expressions of his love for life, a fierce attachment to vital expression and continuation in the teeth of the tomb that is our rational destiny. These expressions do not require justification or impose any burden of belief on others. Indeed, they don't even impose burdens on him; instead, they express the burden of existence, as he finds it in his own experience. El hombre, en efecto, no se aviene a ignorar los móviles de su conducta propia, y así como uno a quien habiéndosele hipnotizado y sugerido tal o cual acto, inventa luego razones que lo justifiquen y hagan lógico a sus p...

How to prepare for pain, and death: reflect that no great pain lasts long, and that the arrival of death should be greeted with joy rather than terror, as a blessing the gods grant to crown mortal success. Fateor ergo ad hominem mihi carum ex pluribus me causis frequentius venisse, ut scirem an illum totiens eundem invenirem, numquid cum corporis viribus minueretur animi vigor; qui sic crescebat illi quomodo manifestior notari solet agitatorum laetitia cum septimo spatio palmae appropinquat. Dicebat quidem ille Epicuri praeceptis obsequens, primum sperare se nullum dolorem esse in illo extremo anhelitu; si tamen esset, habere aliquantum in ipsa brevitate solacii; nullum enim dolorem longum esse qui magnus est. Ceterum succursurum sibi etiam in ipsa distractione animae corporisque, si cum cruciatu id fieret, post illum dolorem se dolere non posse. Non dubitare autem se quin senilis anima in primis labris esset, nec magna vi distraheretur a corpore. Ignis qui valentem materiam occupavit ...