Beyond Philosophy

Unamuno explains his own unique understanding of the Trinity. We understand and articulate the Catholic Trinity, he thinks, by reference to a more natural, human one. Debo aquí advertir una vez más cómo opongo la individualidad a la personalidad, aunque se necesiten una a otra. La individualidad es, si puedo así expresarme, el continente y la personalidad el contenido, o podría también decir en un cierto sentido que mi personalidad es mi comprensión, lo que comprendo y encierro en mí —y que es de una cierta manera todo el Universo—, y mi individualidad es mi extensión; lo uno, lo infinito mío, y lo otro, mi finito. Cien tinajas de fuerte casco de barro están vigorosamente individualizadas, pero pueden ser iguales y vacías, o a lo sumo llenas del mismo líquido homogéneo, mientras que dos vejigas de membrana sutilísima, a través de la cual se verifica activa ósmosis y exósmosis pueden diferenciarse fuertemente y estar llenas de líquidos muy complejos. Y así puede uno destacarse fuertemen...

Seneca advises Lucilius not to mind merely financial losses, the kind of material losses that cause no physical damage to life and limb. If you cannot afford to lose something, then you should not trade it (to anyone, in any market, for any reason). Idem itaque in omnibus consiliis rebusque faciamus quod solemus facere quotiens ad institorem alicuius mercis accessimus: videamus hoc quod concupiscimus quanti deferatur. Saepe maximum pretium est pro quo nullum datur. Multa possum tibi ostendere quae acquisita acceptaque libertatem nobis extorserint; nostri essemus, si ista nostra non essent. Haec ergo tecum ipse versa, non solum ubi de incremento agetur, sed etiam ubi de iactura. Hoc periturum est. Nempe adventicium fuit; tam facile sine isto vives quam vixisti. Si diu illud habuisti, perdis postquam satiatus es; si non diu, perdis antequam assuescas. Pecuniam minorem habebis. Nempe et molestiam. Gratiam minorem. Nempe et invidiam. Circumspice ista quae nos agunt in insaniam, quae cum ...

Better to show others the good you prize than to ban them from their own goods, even when these are false. Πῶς ὠμόν ἐστι μὴ ἐπιτρέπειν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ὁρμᾶν ἐπὶ τὰ φαινόμενα αὐτοῖς οἰκεῖα καὶ συμφέροντα. καίτοι τρόπον τινὰ οὐ συγχωρεῖς αὐτοῖς τοῦτο ποιεῖν, ὅταν ἀγανακτῇς, ὅτι ἁμαρτάνουσι· φέρονται γὰρ πάντως ὡς ἐπὶ οἰκεῖα καὶ συμφέροντα αὐτοῖς. «ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἔχει οὕτως». οὐκοῦν δίδασκε καὶ δείκνυε μὴ ἀγανακτῶν. How savage it is to keep men from hastening after what appears familiar and needful to them. But still you refuse to allow them this pursuit, when you are annoyed, because they are making mistakes, for they are altogether bent on what seems proper and expedient, “but that is not the way things really are!” So teach them! Show a better way, without losing your cool.

Unamuno addresses the tradition of rational theology that renders God as pure being , a negation of all humanly perceptible attributes that can only be expressed as unlimited existence . He rejects this portrait of God, preferring one that sees deity as containing & incorporating every limit: a sum of particulars that does not omit anything concrete in the world. Though we cannot achieve a breadth of representative mind sufficient to comprehend the limitations of this God, limitation means that he is personal, and at least potentially mortal: endlessly remote from the total abstraction of pure being . Nos dijo el Maestro de divinidad que seamos perfectos como es perfecto nuestro Padre que está en los cielos (Mat. V, 48), y en el orden del sentir y el pensar nuestra perfección consiste en ahincarnos porque nuestra imaginación llegue a la total imaginación de la humanidad de que formamos, en Dios, parte. Conocida es la doctrina lógica de la contraposición entre la extensión y la comp...

Seneca advises Lucilius to avoid thinking of any business as being profitable, or convenient. Mortal creatures always conduct business at a loss, in terms of time, and so we should not regard any business we engage as being entirely free, or pleasant. Our engagement will impose limits, which are natural to our existence as mortal creatures, and we want to notice these: pain shows us where they are. Meministi, cum quendam affirmares esse in tua potestate, dixisse me volaticum esse ac levem et te non pedem eius tenere sed pinnam? Mentitus sum: pluma tenebatur, quam remisit et fugit. Scis quos postea tibi exhibuerit ludos, quam multa in caput suum casura temptaverit. Non videbat se per aliorum pericula in suum ruere. Non cogitabat quam onerosa essent quae petebat, etiam si supervacua non essent. Hoc itaque in his quae affectamus, ad quae labore magno contendimus, inspicere debemus, aut nihil in illis commodi esse aut plus incommodi: quaedam supervacua sunt, quaedam tanti non sunt. Sed hoc...

Being emperor means giving commands ( imperare ) but also taking petitions that require some answer ( respondere ). Marcus Aurelius reminds himself to approach the second office with patience, keeping his eye on the task rather than the petitioners (or their emotional state). Ἐάν τίς σοι προβάλῃ πῶς γράφεται τὸ Ἀντωνίνου ὄνομα, μήτι κατεντεινόμενος προοίσῃ ἕκαστον τῶν στοιχείων; τί οὖν ἐὰν ὀργίζωνται, μήτι ἀντοργιῇ; μήτι οὐκ ἐξαριθμήσῃ πρᾴως προϊὼν ἕκαστον τῶν γραμμάτων; οὕτως οὖν καὶ ἐνθάδε μέμνησο ὅτι πᾶν καθῆκον ἐξ ἀριθμῶν τινῶν συμπληροῦται. τούτους δεῖ τηροῦντα καὶ μὴ θορυβούμενον μηδὲ τοῖς δυσχεραίνουσιν ἀντιδυσχεραίνοντα περαίνειν ὁδῷ τὸ προκείμενον. If someone asks how the name Antoninus is written, won't you carefully show him each one of its letters? Why should anyone be upset about this, unless you are angry about it? Shall you not count the score of the letters meekly, taking each calmly in its turn? Remember that every proper office is fulfilled by such kind and care...

Unamuno thinks that God is not primarily an idea, nor any kind of explanation. Instead, God is an image of perfect humanity that each of us projects instinctively, as we notice what is best in our own character and look to nurture this. When we share these images in community, the images become one, a whole greater than any sum of its parts that makes us as much as we make it. Mientras peregriné por los campos de la razón a busca de Dios, no pude encontrarle porque la idea de Dios no me engañaba, ni pude tomar por Dios a una idea, y fué entonces, cuando erraba por los páramos del racionalismo, cuando me dije que no debemos buscar más consuelo que la verdad, llamando así a la razón, sin que por eso me consolara. Pero al ir hundiéndome en el escepticismo racional de una parte y en la desesperación sentimental de otra, se me encendió el hambre de Dios, y el ahogo de espíritu me hizo sentir con su falta, su realidad. Y quise que haya Dios, que exista Dios. Y Dios no existe, sino que más bi...

Seneca begins his fifth book of letters discussing the danger of thinking we are virtuous merely because we are weak—too weak to act out in a big way, which would reveal our wickedness. It is generally a mistake, he asserts, to think of ourselves as exceptions to the rule: most of us are simply normies , in modern terms, and would do normal and normally bad things if we found ourselves with more influence. The truly dissonant and different is rare, like the naturally virtuous (who would not go about proclaiming his own virtue, as that is not what a good person does). Iam tibi iste persuasit virum se bonum esse? Atqui vir bonus tam cito nec fieri potest nec intellegi. Scis quem nunc virum bonum dicam? hunc secundae notae; nam ille alter fortasse tamquam phoenix semel anno quingentesimo nascitur. Nec est mirum ex intervallo magna generari: mediocria et in turbam nascentia saepe fortuna producit, eximia vero ipsa raritate commendat. Sed iste multum adhuc abest ab eo quod profitetur; et si...

  Marcus Aurelius imagines the world as a vast living organism, with cosmic body and soul moved by events like those smaller events that move us, and our faculties. Ἐνθυμήθητι πόσα κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν ἀκαριαῖον χρόνον ἐν ἑκάστῳ ἡμῶν ἅμα γίνεται σωματικὰ ὁμοῦ καὶ ψυχικά, καὶ οὕτως οὐ θαυμάσεις εἰ πολὺ πλείω, μᾶλλον δὲ πάντα τὰ γινόμενα ἐν τῷ ἑνί τε καὶ σύμπαντι, ὃ δὴ κόσμον ὀνομάζομεν, ἅμα ἐνυφίσταται. Consider how many events take place simultaneously in each one of us, altering body and soul together in the same brief moment, and you will not marvel that so many more events—all that happen, in fact—occur together in the singular whole that we call the world.

Unamuno believes that God is primarily felt, derived from passion rather than any kind of rational definition. We feel lack of God as a lack of something vital, like air. We do not need God to explain anything, rationally, and all rational forms of divinity are ultimately alien to the reality we feel. Los atributos del Dios vivo, del Padre de Cristo, hay que deducirlos de su revelación histórica en el Evangelio y en la conciencia de cada uno de los creyentes cristianos, y no de razonamientos metafísicos que sólo llevan al Dios-Nada de Escoto Eriúgena, al Dios racional o panteístico, al Dios ateo, en fin, a la Divinidad despersonalizada. Y es que al Dios vivo, al Dios humano, no se llega por camino de razón, sino por camino de amor y de sufrimiento. La razón nos aparta más bien de Él. No es posible conocerle para luego amarle; hay que empezar por amarle, por anhelarle, por tener hambre de Él, antes de conocerle. El conocimiento de Dios procede del amor a Dios, y es un conocimiento que p...