Beyond Philosophy

Unamuno continues explaining his take on the Trinity. It is a personal society, he thinks, because that is how humans relate (i) with our own selves, on the most intimate terms; (ii) with others, whom we know as persons like ourselves; and (iii) with the universe, which we imagine as something like ourselves, but infinitely larger (beyond any hope of our being able to grasp or control). Y es que sentimos a Dios, más bien que como una conciencia sobrehumana, como la conciencia misma del linaje humano todo, pasado, presente y futuro, como la conciencia colectiva de todo el linaje, y aun más, como la conciencia total e infinita que abarca y sostiene las conciencias todas, infra-humanas, humanas y acaso sobre-humanas. La divinidad que hay en todo, desde la más baja, es decir, desde la menos consciente forma viva hasta la más alta, pasando por nuestra conciencia humana, la sentimos personalizada, consciente de sí misma, en Dios. Y a esa gradación de conciencias, sintiendo el salto de la nue...

Seneca tells Lucilius the secret to becoming an authentically free person: he must recognize good and evil for himself, not deferring to society's judgement, and carefully cultivate the good in his own life without becoming fixated upon the means he uses to pursue it in any given moment. Puta itaque te non equitem Romanum esse sed libertinum: potes hoc consequi, ut solus sis liber inter ingenuos. Quomodo? inquis. Si mala bonaque non populo auctore distin x eris. Intuendum est non unde veniant, sed quo eant. Si quid est quod vitam beatam potest facere, id bonum est suo iure; depravari enim in malum non potest. Quid est ergo in quo erratur, cum omnes beatam vitam optent? quod instrumenta eius pro ipsa habent et illam dum petunt fugiunt. Nam cum summa vitae beatae sit solida securitas et eius inconcussa fiducia, sollicitudinis colligunt causas et per insidiosum iter vitae non tantum ferunt sarcinas sed trahunt; ita longius ab effectu eius quod petunt semper abscedunt et quo plus ope...

Marcus shakes himself. All of us have to do a little self-correction now and then, snapping out of trances that our expectations tend to put us in. Ἀνάνηφε καὶ ἀνακαλοῦ σεαυτὸν καὶ ἐξυπνισθεὶς πάλιν καὶ ἐννοήσας ὅτι ὄνειροί σοι ἠνώχλουν, πάλιν ἐγρηγορὼς βλέπε ταῦτα, ὡς ἐκεῖνα ἔβλεπες. Sober up. Summon yourself once more to live among the waking. Recognize that dreams were driving you mad, and now that you are awake, see today's world as you saw yesterday's.

Unamuno continues to differentiate carefully between the Catholic Trinity and other ways of conceiving divinity, including pagan and Jewish antecedents to the Trinity as well as Protestant and heretical alternatives to it. The Catholic Trinity is irrational, unlike the Aristotelian or Deist God, and contradictory (containing society and unity together, as our life does). El sentimiento pagano de divinidad viva obvió a esto con el politeísmo. Es el conjunto de sus dioses, la república de éstos, lo que constituye realmente su Divinidad. El verdadero Dios del paganismo helénico es más bien que Zeus Padre ( Jupiter ), la sociedad toda de los dioses y semi-dioses. Y de aquí la solemnidad de la invocación de Demóstenes cuando invocaba a los dioses todos, y a todas las diosas: τοῖς θεοῖς εὔχομαι πᾶσι καὶ πάσαις . Y cuando los razonadores sustantivaron el término dios, θεός , que es propiamente un adjetivo, una cualidad predicada de cada uno de los dioses, y le añadieron un artículo, forjaron...

Seneca encourages Lucilius to pursue philosophy without thinking himself less than the great philosophers. Philosophy consists in expressing noble character, which for Seneca means cultivating virtue without regard to fortune. Anyone can cultivate virtue and become noble thereby, no matter the condition of their birth or the status conferred on them by society. A good philosophical character is not complacent because of success, nor dismayed by failure, and it does not take shame or glory from its ancestors, who cannot be finally responsible for it anymore than it for them. Whenever we do noble deeds, we show our kinship with others who have done such things, though they be not blood relations. Patricius Socrates non fuit; Cleanthes aquam traxit et rigando horto locavit manus; Platonem non accepit nobilem philosophia sed fecit: quid est quare desperes his te posse fieri parem? Omnes hi maiores tui sunt, si te illis geris dignum; geres autem, si hoc protinus tibi ipse persuaseris, a nul...

Marcus had a good mentor in his adopted father, the emperor Antoninus Pius. Here he reflects on the lessons his father's life teaches about how to be a good person, good enough that you can carry the burden of leadership without being corrupted or destroyed by it. Marcus has mentioned Antoninus before in these Notes , in 1.5 & 1.16 ( 1-4 , 4-7 , 8-10 ). Ὅρα μὴ ἀποκαισαρωθῇς, μὴ βαφῇς· γίνεται γάρ. τήρησον οὖν σεαυτὸν ἁπλοῦν, ἀγαθόν, ἀκέραιον, σεμνόν, ἄκομψον, τοῦ δικαίου φίλον, θεοσεβῆ, εὐμενῆ, φιλόστοργον, ἐρρωμένον πρὸς τὰ πρέποντα ἔργα. ἀγώνισαι, ἵνα τοιοῦτος συμμείνῃς, οἷόν σε ἠθέλησε ποιῆσαι φιλοσοφία. αἰδοῦ θεούς, σῷζε ἀνθρώπους. βραχὺς ὁ βίος· εἷς καρπὸς τῆς ἐπιγείου ζωῆς, διάθεσις ὁσία καὶ πράξεις κοινωνικαί. πάντα ὡς Ἀντωνίνου μαθητής· τὸ ὑπὲρ τῶν κατὰ λόγον πρασσομένων εὔτονον ἐκείνου καὶ τὸ ὁμαλὲς πανταχοῦ καὶ τὸ ὅσιον καὶ τὸ εὔδιον τοῦ προσώπου καὶ τὸ μειλίχιον καὶ τὸ ἀκενόδοξον καὶ τὸ περὶ τὴν κατάληψιν τῶν πραγμάτων φιλότιμον· καὶ ὡς ἐκεῖνος οὐκ ἄν τι ὅλως παρῆκε...

Unamuno continues explaining his understanding of the Virgin Mary and the Trinity. The Virgin, for him, is our Divine Mother, and the Trinity is fundamentally a vessel for holding our impression that God must be human & personal. Each human, it turns out, is properly a society: here Unamuno agrees with Walt Whitman, as well as cellular biologists. So a personal, human God must be society, as well. En uno de mis libros ( Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho , segunda parte, cap. LXVII) he dicho que «Dios era y es en nuestras mentes masculino. Su modo de juzgar y condenar a los hombres, modo de varón, no de persona humana por encima de sexo; modo de Padre. Y para compensarlo hacía falta la Madre, la Madre que perdona siempre, la Madre que abre siempre los brazos al hijo cuando huye éste de la mano levantada o del ceño fruncido del irritado padre; la madre en cuyo regazo se busca como consuelo una oscura remembranza de aquella tibia paz de la inconsciencia que dentro de él fué el alba que pre...

Seneca tells Lucilius that unlike nature or fortune, philosophy does not play favorites. She does not care where you are from, how you mark yourself, or how others mark you. Her light is there for everyone, and so for us, too, no matter who or what we might be. To her, we are all the children of the gods. Iterum tu mihi te pusillum facis et dicis malignius tecum egisse naturam prius, deinde fortunam, cum possis eximere te vulgo et ad felicitatem hominum maximam emergere. Si quid est aliud in philosophia boni, hoc est, quod stemma non inspicit; omnes, si ad originem primam revocantur, a dis sunt. Eques Romanus es, et ad hunc ordinem tua te perduxit industria; at mehercules multis quattuordecim clausa sunt, non omnes curia admittit, castra quoque quos ad laborem et periculum recipiant fastidiose legunt: bona mens omnibus patet, omnes ad hoc sumus nobiles. Nec reicit quemquam philosophia nec eligit: omnibus lucet. Once again you are playing the bratty child for me, saying that nature done...

If we are alive, we should not lose courage. Keep pushing for the achievement of the good you know, even when your soul wants to give way. Αἰσχρόν ἐστιν, ἐν ᾧ βίῳ τὸ σῶμά σοι μὴ ἀπαυδᾷ, ἐν τούτῳ τὴν ψυχὴν προαπαυδᾶν. Such a shame that your soul threatens to surrender in this moment of life, as your body yet stands firm.

Why do some Christians worship the Virgin Mary? Unamuno thinks this worship comes from our emotional need to make God a perfect specimen of humanity, which requires family rather than isolated individuals. He is also amenable to reading her into the orthodox Trinity (as not everyone would!). El culto a la Virgen, en efecto, la mariolatría, que ha ido poco a poco elevando en dignidad lo divino de la Virgen, hasta casi deificarla, no responde sino a la necesidad sentimental de que Dios sea hombre perfecto, de que entre la feminidad en Dios. Desde la expresión de Madre de Dios, θεοτόκος , deipara , ha ido la piedad católica exaltando a la Virgen María hasta declararla corredentora y proclamar dogmática su concepción sin mancha de pecado original, lo que la pone ya entre la Humanidad y la Divinidad y más cerca de ésta que de aquélla. Y alguien ha manifestado su sospecha de que, con el tiempo, acaso se llegue a hacer de ella algo así como una persona divina más. Y tal vez no por esto la Tr...

Seneca explains to Lucilius that there is no such thing as securing all information perfectly. People will know the things you are doing, and even if they don't, you will. You are people, too. Don't make the mistake of living in hiding from all the world, including yourself. If something about your conduct shames you, confront it, fix it, and move on. Quomodo hoc ad me pervenerit quaeris, quis mihi id te cogitare narraverit quod tu nulli narraveras? Is qui scit plurimum, rumor. Quid ergo? inquis  tantus sum ut possim excitare rumorem?  Non est quod te ad hunc locum respiciens metiaris: ad istum respice in quo moraris. Quidquid inter vicina eminet magnum est illic ubi eminet; nam magnitudo non habet modum certum: comparatio illam aut tollit aut deprimit. Navis quae in flumine magna est in mari parvula est; gubernaculum quod alteri navi magnum alteri exiguum est. Tu nunc in provincia, licet contemnas ipse te, magnus es. Quid agas, quemadmodum cenes, quemadmodum dormias, quaeri...

Marcus Aurelius takes another crack at death (cf. Notes 2.2 , 12 ; 3.1 ; 4.5 , 37 , 44 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 50 ; 6.24 ). Θάνατος ἀνάπαυλα αἰσθητικῆς ἀντιτυπίας καὶ ὁρμητικῆς νευροσπαστίας καὶ διανοητικῆς διεξόδου καὶ τῆς πρὸς τὴν σάρκα λειτουργίας. Death spells the end of our sensory reflection, of the strumming impulses that pluck our sinews. A pause in the outward passage of our understanding, interrupting the regular service we render unto the flesh.