[T]he same thing is advantageous to me which is advantageous to you; for I am not your friend unless whatever is at issue concerning you is my concern also. Friendship produces between us a partnership in all our affairs [Consortium rerum omnium inter nos facit amicitia]. There is no such thing as good or bad fortune for the individual; we live in common. And no one can live happily [beate] who has regard to himself alone and transforms everything into a question of his own utility [utilitates]; you must live for your neighbour, if you would live for yourself. This [public] society [societas], maintained with scrupulous care, which makes us mingle as men with our fellow-men [nos homines hominibus miscet] and holds that humankind has certain rights in common [iudicat aliquod esse commune ius generis humani], is also of great help in cherishing the more intimate society [interiorem societatem] which is based on friendship....For he that has much in common with a fellow-man will have all things in common with a friend.
And on this point, my excellent Lucilius, I should like to have those subtle dialecticians of yours advise me how I ought to help a friend, or how a fellow-man, rather than tell me in how many ways the word "friend" is used, and how many meanings the word "man" possesses. Lo, Wisdom and Folly are taking opposite sides....
Would you really know what philosophy offers to humanity? Philosophy offers counsel. Death calls away one man, and poverty chafes another; a third is worried either by his neighbour's wealth or by his own. So-and-so is afraid of bad luck; another desires to get away from his own good fortune. Some are ill-treated by men, others by the gods. Why, then, do you frame for me such games as these? It is no occasion for jest; you are retained as counsel for unhappy mankind. You have promised to help those in peril by sea, those in captivity, the sick and the needy, and those whose heads are under the poised axe. Whither are you straying? What are you doing?
this is how we fly to the stars [sic itur ad astra]
Therefore, my dear Lucilius, withdraw yourself as far as possible from these exceptions and objections of [false] philosophers. Openness and simplicity befit true goodness [aperta decent et simplicia bonitatem]. Even if there were many years left to you, you would have had to spend them frugally in order to have enough for the necessary things; but as it is, when your time is so scant, what madness it is to learn superfluous things!---Seneca, Letter 48, Translated by Richard Mott Gummere (with minor corrections).
It is a bit peculiar that Seneca feels the need to repeatedly criticize the (false/sophist) philosopher's tendency to focus on irrelevant puzzles (recall his critique of sophismata in Letter 45.). Luciulius, a rising politician,* does not seem to be the kind to be seduced by these. The strangeness is partially resolved when we recall that the lure of these puzzles that false philosophy offers is the public advantage they are thought to confer on those skilled at the techniques needed to resolve them; skill at logic chopping is taken to be, perhaps really is, useful in the courtroom and in public life.
To be sure, I doubt Seneca rejects the deployment of careful distinctions because he uses them throughout the letter (true vs false philosophy; public vs private; mere utility vs true interest; luxury items vs necessary items; etc). But the distinctions are not to be developed into intellectual weapons, but are in the service of a proper, more pacific end of philosophy. In the sense that the public understands utility, the aim(s) of true philosophy is futile, yet, simultaneously it is more valuable because it leads to true happiness which is grounded in true friendship and communality of interests. This partnership is not an abnegation of responsibility to mankind because it also involves advancing the common rights of the (future, recall letter 14) public.
I admit I feel the pull of Seneca's position, not just now that we're isolated, but especially when I am immersed in education. In reflecting on it I also see that if I were to articulate by way of example of what I will call the weaponization of contemporary analytic philosophy, the piece would become self-undermining. It would instantiate polemics. And that makes me notice that, in fact, in this sense Seneca practices the very thing he rejects (even though satire is the weapon of choice). I leave hanging today what to make of Seneca's own hybridity.
To withdraw from false philosophy also requires a particular kind of indifference to its worldly success and (false) glory or the way its professional hierarchy mimics the olicharchic tendency of outer society. Not, to be sure, indifference to its effects on would-be particular friends; nor neglect of techniques useful in one's philosophical development.
But to feel the pull of Seneca's call requires a turning of one's back on the jockeying for prestige and status; not, of course, in pursuit of humility. For, Seneca is explicit that the aim, one may say the ultimate humanist aim, of true philosophy is to be if not godlike then commensurable to a god [parem deo].
I close with one thought. The wish to become godlike is not intended, I think, to escape from humanity. Because the aim of being godlike is a form of excellence, bonitatem, one instantiates with others, and for others. And, as I share in the longing I discern in Seneca's letter, I wish to reach out to my true friends and whisper, I cherish your company.
*Letter 31 (recall--this letter is echoed in numerous ways in the present letter) tells us Lucilius travels to the provinces for the price of a petty procuratorship [procuratiunculae pretio].
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Hi Eric - this is a great essay. And the material from Seneca on friendship and the social order is enlivening as a conception for what philosophy is or ought to be up to. But I don't think I'm following you here:
I admit I feel the pull of Seneca's position, not just now that we're isolated, but especially when I am immersed in education. In reflecting on it I also see that if I were to articulate by way of example of what I will call the weaponization of contemporary analytic philosophy, the piece would become self-undermining. It would instantiate polemics. And that makes me notice that, in fact, in this sense Seneca practices the very thing he rejects (even though satire is the weapon of choice). I leave hanging today what to make of Seneca's own hybridity.
What's wrong with a little polemic? I take it you're right that Seneca doesn't abjure the use of a conceptual distinction or two when they're needed. If that's right, then logic-chopping is only a problem insofar as it's directed at unworthy ends, such as the pursuit of status at the expense of the attempt to live the good life. Insofar as a polemic employs logic-chopping in the interest of impelling the audience to reflect on and strive for the good life, then, how would it be self-undermining?
Posted by: Preston Stovall | 04/18/2020 at 01:36 PM
I also enjoyed this, Eric, so thank you.
Following on from Preston's point, I don't see why a critique of the weaponization of contemporary analytic philosophy - which I fully agree 'is a thing' - has to involve flashing a sword (or any other kind of 'shaft' ;-)). It could quite well be done with laughter.
Re which, check out this quote by fellow-Stoic Epictetus:
"To those who set out to become lecturers without due thought.
Those who have taken in the principles raw and without any dressing immediately want to vomit them up again, just as people with weak stomachs bring up their food. Digest them first, and then you won't vomit them up in this way...But after having digested them, show us some resulting change in your ruling centre, just as athletes show in their shoulders the result of their exercises and diet, and those who have become expoert craftsmen can show the results of what they have learned." (Discourses 3.21)"
Posted by: Cathy Legg | 04/21/2020 at 12:20 PM