Beyond Philosophy

Marcus' view of nature: the entire universe is a rhythmic expression of purposeful motion that repeats itself in the manner of a dance, with periods punctuated by final events (such as birth & death, in the animal life familiar to us). All the things we see around us—sun, rain, stars, subtle processes of healing & conceiving that require us to shrink & to grow, to die & to be reborn—are significant parts of this great dance. Even when these parts appear at odds, as the bright sun drying & the dark water drenching, still in the end they are working together, in perfect natural harmony. Our place is to move with them, making our own entrance & exit on the divine dance-floor as skillfully as we can. Μήτι ὁ ἥλιος τὰ τοῦ ὑετίου ἀξιοῖ ποιεῖν; μήτι ὁ Ἀσκληπιὸς τὰ τῆς Καρποφόρου (†); τί δὲ τῶν ἄστρων ἕκαστον; οὐχὶ διάφορα μέν, συνεργὰ δὲ πρὸς ταὐτόν; Would the sun ever deign to achieve what the rain does? Would Asclepius do the work of fertile Demeter? What about ea...

Unamuno believes that faith is ultimately a matter of belief, which in his mind means that it is always doubtful of material events & directed properly toward persons rather than things. We trust people, even when they are unable to deliver perfectly on particular promises (because of misunderstanding or misfortune). We do not trust events. Pero la fe, que es al fin y al cabo algo compuesto en que entra un elemento conocitivo, lógico o racional juntamente con uno afectivo, biótico o sentimental, y en rigor irracional, se nos presenta en forma de conocimiento. Y de aquí la insuperable dificultad de separarla de un dogma cualquiera. La fe pura, libre de dogmas, de que tanto escribí en un tiempo, es un fantasma. Ni con inventar aquello de la fe en la fe misma se salía del paso. La fe necesita una materia en que ejercerse . El creer es una forma de conocer, siquiera no fuese otra cosa que conocer nuestro anhelo vital y hasta formularlo. Sólo que el término creer tiene en nuestro lengua...

Seneca imagines haughty Roman nobles objecting to the free and friendly approach to slaves that he is recommending to Lucilius. Imagines and dismisses them. Hoc loco acclamabit mihi tota manus delicatorum nihil hac re humilius, nihil turpius. Hos ego eosdem deprehendam alienorum servorum osculantes manum. Ne illud quidem videtis, quam omnem invidiam maiores nostri dominis, omnem contumeliam servis detraxerint? Dominum patrem familiae appellaverunt, servos, quod etiam in mimis adhuc durat, familiares; instituerunt diem festum, non quo solo cum servis domini vescerentur, sed quo utique; honores illis in domo gerere, ius dicere permiserunt et domum pusillam rem publicam esse iudicaverunt. Quid ergo? omnes servos admovebo mensae meae? Non magis quam omnes liberos. Erras si existimas me quosdam quasi sordidioris operae reiecturum, ut puta illum mulionem et illum bubulcum. Non ministeriis illos aestimabo sed moribus: sibi quisque dat mores, ministeria casus assignat. Quidam cenent tecum qu...

Providence will make you a character in the drama of the world. You will accomplish what must be done, willy-nilly, but how you accomplish it is up to you. Do you want to fight against your role, to rail against it, to reject it even as you carry it out on the cosmic stage? Or would you like to make it the best expression of your character that you can? This decision is yours, and yours alone. Πάντες εἰς ἓν ἀποτέλεσμα συνεργοῦμεν, οἱ μὲν εἰδότως καὶ παρακολουθητικῶς, οἱ δὲ ἀνεπιστάτως, ὥσπερ καὶ τοὺς καθεύδοντας, οἶμαι, ὁ Ἡράκλειτος ἐργάτας εἶναι λέγει καὶ συνεργοὺς τῶν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ γινομένων. ἄλλος δὲ κατ’ ἄλλο συνεργεῖ, ἐκ περιουσίας δὲ καὶ ὁ μεμφόμενος καὶ ὁ ἀντιβαίνειν πειρώμενος καὶ ἀναιρεῖν τὰ γινόμενα· καὶ γὰρ τοῦ τοιούτου ἔχρῃζεν ὁ κόσμος. λοιπὸν οὖν σύνες εἰς τίνας ἑαυτὸν κατατάσσεις· ἐκεῖνος μὲν γὰρ πάντως σοι καλῶς χρήσεται ὁ τὰ ὅλα διοικῶν καὶ παραδέξεταί σε εἰς μέρος τι τῶν συνεργῶν καὶ συνεργητικῶν, ἀλλὰ σὺ μὴ τοιοῦτο μέρος γένῃ, οἷος ὁ εὐτελὴς καὶ γελοῖος στίχος ἐν τῷ δρά...

According to Unamuno, the first step toward belief in God is hope. We hope that divinity exists before we have any sort of conviction that he must be, or must have any form (if indeed he should exist). Faith is built on this hope, and (for Unamuno) involves a certain amount of creation. We create our own faith from the hope that we nurture. If we decide not to nurture hope, there is no faith, and no amount of rational argument can directly address this. A este Dios cordial o vivo se llega, y se vuelve a Él cuando por el Dios lógico o muerto se le ha dejado, por camino de fe y no de convicción racional o matemática. ¿Y qué cosa es fe? Así pregunta el catecismo de la doctrina cristiana que se nos enseñó en la escuela, y contesta así: creer lo que no vimos. A lo que hace ya una docena de años corregí en un ensayo diciendo: «¡creer lo que no vimos, no!, sino crear lo que no vemos». Y antes os he dicho que creer en Dios es, en primera instancia al menos, querer que le haya, anhelar la exist...

Seneca reflects on the fickleness of fortune as one reason for being kind to servants, and members of the lower classes generally. In the ancient world, anyone might be captured, taken in war by soldiers or in peace by privateers, and sold into slavery, becoming overnight a servant in spite of free or even noble upbringing, which was no universal guarantee of status. We should be the kind of master or boss that we would want to have, if and when being servants should fall to our lot. Vis tu cogitare istum quem servum tuum vocas ex isdem seminibus ortum eodem frui caelo, aeque spirare, aeque vivere, aeque mori! tam tu illum videre ingenuum potes quam ille te servum. Variana clade multos splendidissime natos, senatorium per militiam auspicantes gradum, fortuna depressit: alium ex illis pastorem, alium custodem casae fecit. Contemne nunc eius fortunae hominem in quam transire dum contemnis potes. Nolo in ingentem me locum immittere et de usu servorum disputare, in quos superbissimi, crude...

Marcus Aurelius consistently thinks that good and evil properly belong to the private life, rather than the public one. By his reckoning, hatred and love are best expressed in the confines of my own mind, as I reject and accept attitudes over which I have personal and wilful control. Public life will demand actions and attitudes from me, of course, but these are not the same, not as morally sound, as the actions and attitudes that I culture and keep within myself. Blaming the evil of the world rather than my own evil is a cause of useless blasphemy and misanthropy: instead of making evil an occasion for learning to express better the good that I carry inside, I learn to turn it into hatred of the gods and my fellow men. A bad outcome, as it tends to render me miserable and useless, to myself as well as others. Ὅ τι ἂν τῶν ἀπροαιρέτων ὑποστήσῃ σαυτῷ ἀγαθὸν ἢ κακόν, ἀνάγκη κατὰ τὴν περίπτωσιν τοῦ τοιούτου κακοῦ ἢ τὴν ἀπότευξιν τοῦ τοιούτου ἀγαθοῦ μέμψασθαί σε θεοῖς καὶ ἀνθρώπους δὲ μισῆσ...