Beyond Philosophy

Unamuno believes the Eucharist is the axis of Catholicism, and its religious purpose is to make humanity whole, uniting each particular individual with every other individual in the communion that is Christ's body. This communion, for him, must be a dialogue of particular persons: it cannot be resumed into something abstract, remote from personal intimacy. Quid ad aeternitatem? He aquí la pregunta capital. Y acaba el Credo con aquello de resurrectionem mortuorum et vitam venturi saeculi , la resurrección de los muertos y la vida venidera. En el cementerio, hoy amortizado, de Mallona, en mi pueblo natal, Bilbao, hay grabada una cuarteta que dice:            Aunque estamos en polvo convertidos,             en ti, Señor, nuestra esperanza fía,            que tornaremos a vivir vestidos            con la carne y la piel que nos cubría; o como el Catecismo dice: con...

Health requires us to change our minds, adapting them to our circumstances rather than the reverse. Seneca's counsel to Lucilius here reminds me of the poem by Rudyard Kipling: “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same … yours is the Earth, and everything that's in it, and—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!”     Poteram hoc loco epistulam claudere, nisi te male instituissem. Reges Parthos non potest quisquam salutare sine munere; tibi valedicere non licet gratis. Quid istic? ab Epicuro mutuum sumam: multis parasse divitias non finis miseriarum fuit sed mutatio. Nec hoc miror; non est enim in rebus vitium sed in ipso animo. Illud quod paupertatem nobis gravem fecerat et divitias graves fecit. Quemadmodum nihil refert utrum aegrum in ligneo lecto an in aureo colloces—quocumque illum transtuleris, morbum secum suum transferet—, sic nihil refert utrum aeger animus in divitiis an in paupertate ponatur: malum illum suum sequitur....

A Roman emperor must avoid acting like an idiot, in the sense of the word that Unamuno invokes . He cannot be a private citizen, who can afford to make decisions more capriciously insofar as his agency represents a much smaller threat to the common good. At some moment, an agent like the emperor has so much power that the best decision he can make will be to do nothing (lest his action miscarry, and prove more harmful to society than any benefit he might offer it). Finding that moment and negotiating it well requires the ability to cooperate with others, whose intentions will always matter (to Marcus, if not to everyone). If Marcus does not trust your intentions, then he will not change his policy in light of your repentance, which might be nothing more than a clever ruse. The truly repentant must show good faith ( bona fides ) by surrendering or avoiding material advantages that attend their contrition. Following the letter of the law here is never going to be sufficient. Δύο ταύτας ἑ...

Unamuno here notices something very important: reason requires limitation, and in biological terms this means mortality. Immortality is thus anti-rational. And so are all the judgments worth making, Unamuno is willing to aver: insofar as they embrace life without death, they must oppose reason. Marcus Aurelius and Seneca would not disagree with the opposition that Unamuno posits here, but they would argue, vigorously, that life demands death, that immortality is not to be sought — rationally or otherwise — in the denial of mortality. Y Atanasio tuvo el valor supremo de la fe, el de afirmar cosas contradictorias entre sí; «la perfecta contradicción que hay en el ὁμοούσιος trajo tras de sí todo un ejército de contradicciones, y más cuanto más avanzó el pensamiento», dice Harnack. Sí, así fué; y así tuvo que ser. «La dogmática se despidió para siempre del pensamiento claro y de los conceptos sostenibles, y se acostumbró a lo contrarracional», añade. Es que se acostó a la vida, que es cont...

A philosopher must live by what he needs, not what he wants. If it is unnecessary to my life, I must become indifferent to its possession, preparing to surrender it as I must eventually surrender all things I hold in mortality. Remember to separate needs from wants, and to spend enough time with the poorest folk you can find, so that you recognize real needs. A philosopher watches the happy poor with interest, not the billionaires. To be content with basic needs met is a great achievement. Many will not enjoy this doctrine of Seneca. Non est quod nos paupertas a philosophia revocet, ne egestas quidem. Toleranda est enim ad hoc properantibus vel fames; quam toleravere quidam in obsidionibus, et quod aliud erat illius patientiae praemium quam in arbitrium non cadere victoris? Quanto hoc maius est quod promittitur: perpetua libertas, nullius nec hominis nec dei timor. Ecquid vel esurienti ad ista veniendum est? Perpessi sunt exercitus inopiam omnium rerum, vixerunt herbarum radicibus et d...

See only what you see, not what interested parties expect you to see. Μὴ τοιαῦτα ὑπολάμβανε, οἷα ὁ ὑβρίζων κρίνει ἢ οἷά σε κρίνειν βούλεται, ἀλλὰ ἴδε αὐτά, ὁποῖα κατ᾽ ἀλήθειάν ἐστιν. Never assume for yourself the premises that a criminal assumes, or that he wants you to assume. Instead, see only what your eye shows you in truth.

Who is Christ? Unamuno presents two grand visions of the Lord: one from Athanasius, and the other from a long line of heretics whose contemporary representative is the theologian Harnack. Athanasius makes Christ a divinity-turned-human, while the heretics conceive him as humanity-turned-divine. Unamuno prefers the Christ of Athanasius, like the devout Catholic he is. Después de Pablo rodaron los años y las generaciones cristianas, trabajando en torno de aquel dogma central y sus consecuencias para asegurar la fe en la inmortalidad del alma individual, y vino el Niceno, y en él aquel formidable Atanasio, cuyo nombre es ya un emblema, encarnación de la fe popular. Era Atanasio un hombre de pocas letras, pero de mucha fe, y sobre todo, de la fe popular, henchido de hambre de inmortalidad. Y opúsose al arrianismo, que, como el protestantismo unitariano y sociniano amenazaba, aun sin saberlo ni quererlo, la base de esa fe. Para los arrianos, Cristo era ante todo un maestro, un maestro de mo...