Beyond Philosophy

~ Unamuno construes belief or faith as an emotional commitment. If we are drawn strongly to deny or affirm a thing, then it is bound powerfully to us, and we to it. In this way, many who deny God's existence passionately end up affirming with action (and feeling) what their words deny. ~ Los que dicen creer en Dios, y ni le aman ni le temen, no creen en Él, sino en aquellos que les han enseñado que Dios existe, los cuales, a su vez con harta frecuencia, tampoco creen en Él. Los que sin pasión de ánimo, sin congoja, sin incertidumbre, sin duda, sin la desesperación en el consuelo, creen creer en Dios, no creen sino en la idea Dios, mas no en Dios mismo. Y así como se cree en Él por amor, puede también creerse por temor, y hasta por odio, como creía en Él aquel ladrón Vanni Fucci, a quien el Dante hace insultarle con torpes gestos desde el Infierno. ( Inf. XXV, 1, 3). Que también los demonios creen en Dios, y muchos ateos. ¿No es, acaso, una manera de creer en Él esa furia con que ...

~ Seneca does not like approaches to philosophy that render it as a matter of chopping logic, interrogating syntax, articulating universal grammars. For him, this is weak sauce: insufficient to nourish strong minds. ~ Pudet dicere contra fortunam militaturis quae porrigant tela, quemadmodum illos subornent. Hac ad summum bonum itur? per istud philosophiae sive nive et turpes infamesque etiam ad album sedentibus exceptiones? Quid enim aliud agitis, cum eum quem interrogatis scientes in fraudem inducitis, quam ut formula cecidisse videatur? Sed quemadmodum illos praetor, sic hos philosophia in integrum restituit. Quid disceditis ab ingentibus promissis et grandia locuti, effecturos vos ut non magis auri fulgor quam gladii praestringat oculos meos, ut ingenti constantia et quod omnes optant et quod omnes timent calcem, ad grammaticorum elementa descenditis? Quid dicitis?     sic itur ad astra. Hoc enim est quod mihi philosophia promittit, ut parem deo faciat; ad hoc invitatus su...

~ How can we improve our moral character? One method that Marcus recommends to himself: we should take time to see the best in the characters with whom we live. Railing at the wicked should not consume all, or the most important part, of our lives. ~ Ὅταν εὐφρᾶναι σεαυτὸν θέλῃς, ἐνθυμοῦ τὰ προτερήματα τῶν συμβιούντων· οἷον τοῦ μὲν τὸ δραστήριον, τοῦ δὲ τὸ αἰδῆμον, τοῦ δὲ τὸ εὐμετάδοτον, ἄλλου δὲ ἄλλο τι. οὐδὲν γὰρ οὕτως εὐφραίνει ὡς τὰ ὁμοιώματα τῶν ἀρετῶν ἐμφαινόμενα τοῖς ἤθεσι τῶν συζώντων καὶ ἀθρόα ὡς οἷόν τε συμπίπτοντα. διὸ καὶ πρόχειρα αὐτὰ ἑκτέον. Whenever you wish to cheer yourself up, think on the real achievements of those who live with you. Consider the activity that one of them has, the modesty expressed by another, the generosity of a third, and so on. There is nothing so cheering as the appearance of virtues in the habits of our fellowmen, especially when these virtues manifest as close and thick as possible. For they are then right at your own hand, ready to be grasped.

~ Unamuno conceives faith as a process whereby we imagine the world as a divine person. This is only possible, really, because the world acts in us to make such a revelation desirable, before we are consciously or deliberately aware of it. Seeing God in the world is only possible because he operates within us to make such a vision possible, compelling, desirable. Why do we see anything? For Unamuno, the answer is that God wants to reveal himself to us. When we see him there, outside, we recognize him here, within ourselves. Not as something we control or define, with perfect clarity, but as someone we can love, and make, and believe in. ~ Mas, aunque decimos que la fe es cosa de la voluntad, mejor sería acaso decir que es la voluntad misma, la voluntad de no morir, o más bien otra potencia anímica distinta de la inteligencia, de la voluntad y del sentimiento. Tendríamos, pues, el sentir, el conocer, el querer y el creer, o sea crear. Porque ni el sentimiento, ni la inteligencia, ni...

 ~ Seneca warns Lucilius against those who render philosophy as pedantic word-play, a game of making & arguing verbal definitions. ~ O pueriles ineptias! in hoc supercilia subduximus? in hoc barbam demisimus? hoc est quod tristes docemus et pallidi? Vis scire quid philosophia promittat generi humano? consilium. Alium mors vocat, alium paupertas urit, alium divitiae vel alienae torquent vel suae; ille malam fortunam horret, hic se felicitati suae subducere cupit; hunc homines male habent, illum dii. Quid mihi lusoria ista componis? non est iocandi locus: ad miseros advocatus es. Opem laturum te naufragis, captis, aegris, egentibus, intentae securi subiectum praestantibus caput pollicitus es: quo diverteris? quid agis? Hic cum quo ludis timet: succurre, quidquid laqueti respondentium poenis (†) . Omnes undique ad te manus tendunt, perditae vitae perituraeque auxilium aliquod implorant, in te spes opesque sunt; rogant ut ex tanta illos volutatione extrahas, ut disiectis et er...

 ~ Marcus advises himself to avoid carrying pride or grudges to the grave, which awaits all of humanity as something natural (& in his mind, good, though we commonly regard it as evil). ~ Ἐννόει συνεχῶς παντοίους ἀνθρώπους καὶ παντοίων μὲν ἐπιτηδευμάτων, παντοδαπῶν δὲ ἐθνῶν τεθνεῶτας, ὥστε κατιέναι τοῦτο μέχρι Φιλιστίωνος καὶ Φοίβου καὶ Ὀριγανίωνος. μέτιθι νῦν ἐπὶ τὰ ἄλλα φῦλα· ἐκεῖ δὴ μεταβαλεῖν ἡμᾶς δεῖ ὅπου τοσοῦτοι μὲν δεινοὶ ῥήτορες, τοσοῦτοι δὲ σεμνοὶ φιλόσοφοι, Ἡράκλειτος, Πυθαγόρας, Σωκράτης, τοσοῦτοι δὲ ἥρωες πρότερον, τοσοῦτοι δὲ ὕστερον στρατηγοί, τύραννοι· ἐπὶ τούτοις δὲ Εὔδοξος, Ἵππαρχος, Ἀρχιμήδης, ἄλλαι φύσεις ὀξεῖαι, μεγαλόφρονες, φιλόπονοι, πανοῦργοι, αὐθάδεις, αὐτῆς τῆς ἐπικήρου καὶ ἐφημέρου τῶν ἀνθρώπων ζωῆς χλευασταί, οἷον Μένιππος καὶ ὅσοι τοιοῦτοι. περὶ πάντων τούτων ἐννόει ὅτι πάλαι κεῖνται· τί οὖν τοῦτο δεινὸν αὐτοῖς; τί δαὶ τοῖς μηδ’ ὀνομαζομένοις ὅλως; ἓν ὧδε πολλοῦ ἄξιον, τὸ μετ’ ἀληθείας καὶ δικαιοσύνης εὐμενῆ τοῖς ψεύσταις καὶ ἀδίκοις διαβιοῦν....

~ Unamuno sees belief or faith (he does not distinguish the two) as active commitment that necessarily transcends any kind of intellectual conviction. The latter is not sufficient to inspire lively action, which needs more will than it is ever capable of drawing down. ~ Mas, por otra parte, este elemento personal de la creencia le da un carácter afectivo, amoroso y sobre todo, en la fe religiosa, el referirse a lo que se espera. Apenas hay quien sacrificara la vida por mantener que los tres ángulos de un triángulo valgan dos rectos, pues tal verdad no necesita del sacrificio de nuestra vida; mas, en cambio, muchos han perdido la vida por mantener su fe religiosa, y es que los mártires hacen la fe más aún que la fe los mártires. Pues la fe no es la mera adhesión del intelecto a un principio abstracto, no es el reconocimiento de una verdad teórica en que la voluntad no hace sino movernos a entender; la fe es cosa de la voluntad, es movimiento del ánimo hacia una verdad práctica, hacia u...

~ Seneca plays a riddle-game with Lucilius, mocking the way pedants pose & solve rhetorical problems (like the problem of overdefining friendship). This is either a completely new epistle (as some MSS have it), or a continuation of the one before (as others record). ~ Mus syllaba est; mus autem caseum rodit; syllaba ergo caseum rodit. Puta nunc me istuc non posse solvere: quod mihi ex ista inscientia periculum imminet? quod incommodum? Sine dubio verendum est ne quando in muscipulo syllabas capiam, aut ne quando, si neglegentior fuero, caseum liber comedat. Nisi forte illa acutior est collectio: mus syllaba est; syllaba autem caseum non rodit; mus ergo caseum non rodit. The word mouse is a single syllable. Mouse gnaws nummy cheese (†). So a single syllable consumes three. Imagine that I am incapable of solving this riddle. What danger threatens me, because of the ignorance that keeps me from solving it? Where is my difficulty or discomfort, here? No doubt we must fear that I may...

~ Sometimes, Marcus just waves his fist at the sky. Too much regularity in our experience of the world is painful, as is too little. ~ Ὥσπερ προσίσταταί σοι τὰ ἐν τῷ ἀμφιθεάτρῳ καὶ τοῖς τοιούτοις χωρίοις ὡς ἀεὶ τὰ αὐτὰ ὁρώμενα, καὶ τὸ ὁμοειδὲς προσκορῆ τὴν θέαν ποιεῖ, τοῦτο καὶ ἐπὶ ὅλου τοῦ βίου πάσχεις· πάντα γὰρ ἄνω κάτω τὰ αὐτὰ καὶ ἐκ τῶν αὐτῶν. μέχρι τίνος οὖν; The same events are always starting up before your eyes in the arena and other public venues. Familiarity makes these spectacles boring, so that you become weary of witnessing them. This you suffer with all your life. Always the same things going up and down, from the same origins. To what end?

~ In Unamuno's view, belief requires some personal confidence whose referent is eventually future (and so unknown to creatures like ourselves, which dwell in the present & see the past rather than the future). The future is unknown until it manifests as present, & the past is vulnerable always to lies (in good faith, when we deceive ourselves unknowingly, and bad, when we deceive others on purpose). Faith is the bridge that we create between what we know (a past whose appearance in our memory is eternally suspect) and what we don't (a future that is invisible & unknown, essentially unknowable). This faith is not strictly belief, per se, but Unamuno will take both faith & belief as referring ultimately to the same thing: personal confidence in the universal Person(s) known as God. ~ Y como la persona es una voluntad y la voluntad se refiere siempre al porvenir, el que cree, cree en lo que vendrá, esto es, en lo que espera. No se cree, en rigor, lo que es y lo qu...

~ Seneca continues his discussion of friendship, talking about the way we distinguish between actual friends, whom we know and care for personally, and fellow human beings, for whom we ideally cultivate a general & even friendly affection, though we do not know them personally or intimately. Seneca would not call any general relationship to mankind friendship, though Lucilius appears to have suggested this & asked Seneca to parse friendship more precisely, a task that Seneca refuses. ~ Hoc, Lucili virorum optime, mihi ab istis subtilibus praecipi malo, quid amico praestare debeam, quid homini, quam quot modis amicus dicatur, et homo quam multa significet. In diversum ecce sapientia et stultitia discedunt! cui accedo? in utram ire partem iubes? Illi homo pro amico est, huic amicus non est pro homine; ille amicum sibi parat, hic se amico: tu mihi verba distorques et syllabas digeris. Scilicet nisi interrogationes vaferrimas struxero et conclusione falsa a vero nascens mendacium ...

~ Marcus reflects on healthy human society, which requires all its members to assume burdens together. If we cannot share liability, then we are not part of a functioning human whole. A telling observation in all times, but especially ours (when we frequently hallucinate wholes that don't really exist, because nobody shares liability within them). ~ Ὅσα ἑκάστῳ συμβαίνει, ταῦτα τῷ ὅλῳ συμφέρει· ἤρκει τοῦτο. ἀλλ’ ἔτι ἐκεῖνο ὡς ἐπίπαν ὄψει παραφυλάξας, ὅσα ἀνθρώπῳ, καὶ ἑτέροις ἀνθρώποις. κοινότερον δὲ νῦν τὸ συμφέρον ἐπὶ τῶν μέσων λαμβανέσθω. What happens to each individual part matters also to the whole. You have known this for a while. But still, the more you look closely, the more you will see how what occurs to one person also ends up happening to others. What is essential for folk in the middle of your society must be taken up now as a burden shared more by outliers, too.

~ Unamuno continues to parse the difference between rational mortality, with its concomitant utility & practical legibility, and irrational vitality, with its affection for personality & will to immortality. ~ «Hay una distinción en la geografía del mundo que se nos presenta cuando establecemos los diferentes pensamientos y deseos de los hombres respecto a su religión. Recordemos cómo el mundo todo está en general dividido en dos hemisferios por lo que a esto hace. Una mitad del mundo, el gran Oriente oscuro, es místico. Insiste en no ver cosa alguna demasiado clara. Poned distinta y clara una cualquiera de las grandes ideas de la vida, e inmediatamente le parece al oriental que no es verdadera. Tiene un instinto que le dice que los más vastos pensamientos son demasiado vastos para la mente humana, y que si se presentan en formas de expresión que la mente humana puede comprender, se violenta su naturaleza y se pierde su fuerza. Y por otra parte, el occidental exige claridad y ...

A nice meditation on friendship, from Seneca. Ad epistulam quam mihi ex itinere misisti, tam longam quam ipsum iter fuit, postea rescribam; seducere me debeo et quid suadeam circumspicere. Nam tu quoque, qui consulis, diu an consuleres cogitasti: quanto magis hoc mihi faciendum est, cum longiore mora opus sit ut solvas quaestionem quam ut proponas? utique cum aliud tibi expediat, aliud mihi. Iterum ego tamquam Epicureus loquor? mihi vero idem expedit quod tibi: aut non sum amicus, nisi quidquid agitur ad te pertinens meum est. Consortium rerum omnium inter nos facit amicitia; nec secundi quicquam singulis est nec adversi; in commune vivitur. Nec potest quisquam beate degere qui se tantum intuetur, qui omnia ad utilitates suas convertit: alteri vivas oportet, si vis tibi vivere. Haec societas diligenter et sancte observata, quae nos homines hominibus miscet et iudicat aliquod esse commune ius generis humani, plurimum ad illam quoque de qua loquebar interiorem societatem amicitiae colend...

Marcus lays out his own approach to life, one that finds good by recourse to communal standards (evident in religion, and in shared human and animal interaction). What is not good for the community he inhabits he categorically rejects as good for himself. This reveals a conception of good that will not work in most modern environs (which presume a level of autonomy in the individual self that is largely alien to antiquity, not just Marcus: philosophers intent upon individual ethics, as opposed to communal, were seen as strange, mad, even dangerous; this is one of the problems Athens has with Socrates). Εἰ μὲν οὖν ἐβουλεύσαντο περὶ ἐμοῦ καὶ τῶν ἐμοὶ συμβῆναι ὀφειλόντων οἱ θεοί, καλῶς ἐβουλεύσαντο· ἄβουλον γὰρ θεὸν οὐδὲ ἐπινοῆσαι ῥᾴδιον, κακοποιῆσαι δέ με διὰ τίνα αἰτίαν ἔμελλον ὁρμᾶν; τί γὰρ αὐτοῖς ἢ τῷ κοινῷ, οὗ μάλιστα προνοοῦνται, ἐκ τούτου περιεγένετο; εἰ δὲ μὴ ἐβουλεύσαντο κατ’ ἰδίαν περὶ ἐμοῦ, περί γε τῶν κοινῶν πάντως ἐβουλεύσαντο, οἷς κατ’ ἐπακολούθησιν καὶ ταῦτα συμβαίνοντα ἀσπ...

Faith, trust, confidence: Unamuno believes that these are for people, not things. It is easier for him to trust the ignorance of a person than to have faith in knowledge or information, as things in themselves. La fe que definió San Pablo, la πίστις , pistis , griega, se traduce mejor por confianza. La voz pisti s, en efecto, procede del verbo πείθω , peitho, que si en su voz activa significa persuadir, en la media equivale a confiar en uno, hacerle caso, fiarse de él, obedecer. Y fiarse, fidare se , procede del tema fid— de donde fides , fe, y de donde también confianza —. Y el tema griego πιθ —pith— y el latino fid parecen hermanos. Y en resolución, que la voz misma fe lleva en su origen implícito el sentido de confianza, de rendimiento a una voluntad ajena, a una persona. Sólo se confía en las personas. Confíase en la Providencia que concebimos como algo personal y consciente, no en el Hado, que es algo impersonal. Y así se cree en quien nos dice la verdad, en quien nos da ...

Seneca finishes his epistle on how masters should relate to servants, showcasing the abiding contempt that Romans had for kings, even in the age of the emperors. Note his warning about the power of luxury: having our every whim catered to makes us naturally furious, inclined to rage whenever the least little thing is denied us (whether by accident or on purpose, by human intervention or by nature). Dicet aliquis nunc me vocare ad pilleum servos et dominos de fastigio suo deicere, quod dixi, colant potius dominum quam timeant. Ita inquit prorsus? colant tamquam clientes, tamquam salutatores? Hoc qui dixerit obliviscetur id dominis parum non esse quod deo sat est. Qui colitur, et amatur: non potest amor cum timore misceri. Rectissime ergo facere te iudico quod timeri a servis tuis non vis, quod verborum castigatione uteris: verberibus muta admonentur. Non quidquid nos offendit et laedit; sed ad rabiem cogunt pervenire deliciae, ut quidquid non ex voluntate respondit iram evocet. Regum ...

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...