No public honor in philosophy. Seneca, Epistles 4.33.3-5
Seneca
tells Lucilius that it is a mistake to give philosophers unique or
personal credit for ideas whose real limit is necessarily larger than
any singular take or expression. Having takes is fine; claiming
unique authority over them is not. Zeno is not Stoicism per se, and
the Stoic philosophy includes many others who owe him no fealty and
express Stoic values & ethics with as much authority as he does.
Seneca believes that philosophical insight is common to all of us,
unclaimable by individuals. Instead of taking credit for expressions
or opinions, the job of the philosopher is to handle them—to try
them, to implement them, to live with them. Living mindfully is how
we do philosophy. As you actually do this, as you live
mindfully, you see the folly and wrongness of trying to possess or
derive credit from the ideas that facilitate your life. They own you
more than you can own them, and you owe it to yourself and society to
avoid implying otherwise. There is no shortcut to philosophical
insight; you must handle and live it for yourself, referring to all
the examples you find.
Non
est ergo quod exigas excerpta et repetita: continuum est apud nostros
quidquid apud alios excerpitur. Non habemus itaque ista ocliferia nec
emptorem decipimus nihil inventurum cum intraverit praeter illa quae
in fronte suspensa sunt: ipsis permittimus unde velint sumere
exemplar. Iam puta nos velle singulares sententias ex turba separare:
cui illas assignabimus? Zenoni an Cleanthi an Chrysippo an Panaetio
an Posidonio? Non sumus sub rege: sibi quisque se vindicat. Apud
istos quidquid Hermarchus dixit, quidquid Metrodorus, ad unum
refertur; omnia quae quisquam in illo contubernio locutus est unius
ductu et auspiciis dicta sunt. Non possumus, inquam, licet temptemus,
educere aliquid ex tanta rerum aequalium multitudine:
pauperis
est numerare pecus.
Quocumque
miseris oculum, id tibi occurret quod eminere posset nisi inter paria
legeretur. Quare depone istam spem posse te summatim degustare
ingenia maximorum virorum: tota tibi inspicienda sunt, tota
tractanda.
It's
not really your place to ask for excerpts, then, or phrases repeated
over and over, to the point that they lose their context. We Stoics
have constant access ourselves to whatever it is that others turn
into aphorisms. We don't keep eye-catching words about, nor do we
deceive the one who would purchase our thoughts, as he will find
within our minds no more than our faces advertise. We allow ourselves
to take up an example of practical philosophy wherever we please.
Imagine for a moment that we do wish to separate individal
judgments from the crowd that history offers. To whom shall we assign
them, these singular expressions of thought abstracted from life? To
Zeno? To Cleanthes? To Chrysippus, or Panaetius, or Posidonius? We
are not subject to a king: each man has a claim to judgments all
shared (†). As for our opposition, whatever Hermarchus or
Metrodorus uttered separately still referred to essentially the same
thing: all that any one of them has said comes to us from the same
singular conduct and mode of living (‡). So we cannot really lead
any individual opinion out from this multitude of so many so alike
that their worth is basically the same. No matter how much we might want to.
Only
a poor man counts his flock.
Wherever
you direct your gaze midst the multitude of real philosophers, you
will meet no expression that can stand out: each is surrounded by
others just as good. So put away this hope you have of tasting only
briefly the genius of our greatest men. You must look over the entire
mass of our tradition, handling it thoroughly and completely for
yourself.
---
(†)
Zeno of Citium (c. 334-262 BCE) founded the Stoic school of
philosophy in Athens, where his teaching attracted students like
Cleanthes (c. 330-230), who passed the tradition on to Chrysippus (c.
279-206). Chrysippus' student Diogenes taught Panaetius (c. 185-109),
the master of Posidonius (c. 135-51). Panaetius & Posidonius took
Stoicism away from Athens to other cities, Panaetius to Rome &
his pupil to Rhodes. Like Zeno, all of these philosophers came
originally to Athens from other cities; Stoicism is their take on the
kind of Athenian philosophy practiced by Socrates.
(‡)
Hermarchus (c. 325-250 BCE) & Metrodorus (331-277) were members
of a school of philosophy that took its conduct and mode of living
from Epicurus (341-270), rather than Socrates. Unlike Stoics, who
believed that recognizing and cultivating virtue is the highest human
good, Epicureans believed that our duty is to cultivate pleasure that
minimizes pain (a position that led some to denounce them as
hedonists, even though Epicurus lived in a rather ascetic
fashion). Epicurus began teaching in Mitylene before moving to
Lampsacus, winding up at last in Athens, the capital city of ancient philosophy, where his school met in the
Garden he kept midway between the Academy of the Platonists and the
Stoa where Zeno & his pupils gathered.