In The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, Donald Robertson examines some of the allegories and metaphors used by the Stoics and other ancient philosophers to illustrate their ideas. For example, one common metepahor was that of athletic training. Another was military training. As Robertson explains, the "verbal principles of the Stoic are thought of as 'weapons' of the mind, which he uses to fight against emotional disturbance . . . The recollection of these weapons, the precepts of Stoicism, may possibly have been symbolized by the act of clenching the fist. For example,
The student as boxer, not fencer.
The fencer's weapon is picked up and put down again.
The boxer's is part of him. All he has to do it clench his fist. [Meditations, 12.9]"
Robertson points out that Stoic precepts weren't just quaint sayings or slogans, "more than just ideas tossed around in idle debate. These are the weapons used in the lifelong battle for happiness and mental health."
Showing posts with label Meditations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Meditations. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Thursday, June 21, 2012
The Inner Citadel and the two Natures
In The Inner Citadel, Pierre Hadot looks at Marcus Aurelius' idea of there being two "Natures" - an inner Nature (the soul), which emanates from outer, universal Nature (Providence, God, Zeus, whatever you want to call it).
"In this very moment I have what common Nature wants me to have at this moment, and at this moment I am doing what my own nature wants me to do at this moment (V, 25, 2).
As Marcus says, the road that these twwo different natures follow is, in fact, the same (V,3,2); it is the straightest and shortest road. It is here, moreover, that the notion of the daimōn briefly reappears, and it is extremely interesting to observe an identification and an opposition between the 'outer' god, who is universal Nature or Reason, and the 'inner' god - the daimōn or hēgemonikon - who emanates from it (V, 10, 6):
Nothing will happen to me which is not in conformity with the Nature of the All. It depends on me to do nothing which is contrary to my god and my daimōn."
"In this very moment I have what common Nature wants me to have at this moment, and at this moment I am doing what my own nature wants me to do at this moment (V, 25, 2).
As Marcus says, the road that these twwo different natures follow is, in fact, the same (V,3,2); it is the straightest and shortest road. It is here, moreover, that the notion of the daimōn briefly reappears, and it is extremely interesting to observe an identification and an opposition between the 'outer' god, who is universal Nature or Reason, and the 'inner' god - the daimōn or hēgemonikon - who emanates from it (V, 10, 6):
Nothing will happen to me which is not in conformity with the Nature of the All. It depends on me to do nothing which is contrary to my god and my daimōn."
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
From "The Inner Citadel" on Virtue and Joy
In Pierre Hadot's The Inner Citadel, he analyzes some of what is meant by "Virtue" and how it leads to joy . . .
Hadot believes that he detects a threefold structure repeated throughout the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, derived from Epictetus, and accounts for it as "an internal necessity, in the sense that there can be neither more nor fewer than three exercise-themes for the philosopher, because there can be neither more nor fewer than three acts of the soul."
The Greek word translated as "Virtue" is "Aretē." Aretē originally denoted pure excellence in an aristocratic warrior-elite sense, rather than moral excellence, but over time the sense had shifted somewhat. "We may suppose that this ideal of excellence and value always remained present in the mind of the philosophers. For the Stoics, aretē is absolute value, based no longer on warrior nobility, but on the nobility of the soul represented by the purity of our intentions." Virtue is one, in Stoic thought, yet may be thought of as consisting in the four "cardinal virtues," all of which, Hadot notes, imply one another, creating this unitarian view of Virtue.
Hadot notes that Marcus "often summarizes the three disciplines - of assent, of desire, and of action - by making the names of the virtues correspond to them. Thus the discipline of assent takes on the name of the virtue of 'truth;' the discipline of desire acquires the name of the virtue of 'temperance;' and the discipline of action, that of the virtue of 'justice.'" (Substituting "trutt" for the usual phrasing, "prudence," is not surprising, notes Hadot, since Plato uses "truth" for "prudence" in The Republic). There is a lengthy passage of the Meditations (IX, 1) cited to show Marcus following this division, in which "it is easy to recognize the three disciplines: that of action, which ordains that people should help one another; that of assent, which consists in distinguishing the true from the false; and that of desire, which consists in accepting the lot which universal Nature has reserved for us. To these three disciplines correspond three virtues. In the discipline of action, we must respect the value hierarchy of people and things, and thus act in accordance with justice. According to the discipline of assent, our discourse must be true, and the virtue particular to this discipline is truth. He who knowingly lies commits a twofold sin: in the area of assent, since his discourse is not true, and in the area of action, since he is committing an injustice with regard to other people. As for the person who lies involuntarily - in other words, who deceived himself - it is because he has not succeeded in criticizing his judgments and in becoming the master of his assent that he is no longer capable of distinguishing the true from the false. Finally, in the discipline of desire, we must desire only that which universal Nature wants, and we must not desire pleasures or flee sufferings. This discipline is characterized by temperance."
According to Hadot's analysis, then, "Nature appears to us in three aspects. She is the principle of attraction, which urges human beings to help one another and to practice justice, and is therefore the basis of justice. She is also the basis of truth; that is to say, the principle which founds the order of discourse, and the necessary relationship which must exist between beings and the true attributes that are said about them. To speak falsely, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, is therefore to be in disaccord with the order of the world. Finally, universal Nature, since she is indifferent to indifferent things, is the basis of temperance, in other words of that virtue which, instead of desiring pleasure, wants to consent to the will of universal Nature."
"Marcus here portrays universal Nature as the most ancient and august of goddesses, in such a way that any lapse with regard to the virtues - justice, truth, and temperance - of which this goddess is the model and the principle, is an impiety. The Stoics traditionally identified God, Nature, Truth, Destiny, and Zeus."
"In Marcus' view, these three disciplines and virtues bring into the soul the only true joy which exists in the world, since they place the soul in possession of all that is necessary: the one absolute value." "Joy, then, is the sign of an action's perfection." "Unlike Epicurean pleasure, Stoic joy is not the motive and end of moral action: rather, virtue is its own reward. Virtue seeks nothing above and beyond itself; instead, for the Stoics, joy, like Aristotelian pleasure, comes along as an extra surplus in addition to action in conformity with nature . . ." "Such joy is not, moreover, an irrational passion, because it is in conformity with reason."
Hadot believes that he detects a threefold structure repeated throughout the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, derived from Epictetus, and accounts for it as "an internal necessity, in the sense that there can be neither more nor fewer than three exercise-themes for the philosopher, because there can be neither more nor fewer than three acts of the soul."
The Greek word translated as "Virtue" is "Aretē." Aretē originally denoted pure excellence in an aristocratic warrior-elite sense, rather than moral excellence, but over time the sense had shifted somewhat. "We may suppose that this ideal of excellence and value always remained present in the mind of the philosophers. For the Stoics, aretē is absolute value, based no longer on warrior nobility, but on the nobility of the soul represented by the purity of our intentions." Virtue is one, in Stoic thought, yet may be thought of as consisting in the four "cardinal virtues," all of which, Hadot notes, imply one another, creating this unitarian view of Virtue.
Hadot notes that Marcus "often summarizes the three disciplines - of assent, of desire, and of action - by making the names of the virtues correspond to them. Thus the discipline of assent takes on the name of the virtue of 'truth;' the discipline of desire acquires the name of the virtue of 'temperance;' and the discipline of action, that of the virtue of 'justice.'" (Substituting "trutt" for the usual phrasing, "prudence," is not surprising, notes Hadot, since Plato uses "truth" for "prudence" in The Republic). There is a lengthy passage of the Meditations (IX, 1) cited to show Marcus following this division, in which "it is easy to recognize the three disciplines: that of action, which ordains that people should help one another; that of assent, which consists in distinguishing the true from the false; and that of desire, which consists in accepting the lot which universal Nature has reserved for us. To these three disciplines correspond three virtues. In the discipline of action, we must respect the value hierarchy of people and things, and thus act in accordance with justice. According to the discipline of assent, our discourse must be true, and the virtue particular to this discipline is truth. He who knowingly lies commits a twofold sin: in the area of assent, since his discourse is not true, and in the area of action, since he is committing an injustice with regard to other people. As for the person who lies involuntarily - in other words, who deceived himself - it is because he has not succeeded in criticizing his judgments and in becoming the master of his assent that he is no longer capable of distinguishing the true from the false. Finally, in the discipline of desire, we must desire only that which universal Nature wants, and we must not desire pleasures or flee sufferings. This discipline is characterized by temperance."
According to Hadot's analysis, then, "Nature appears to us in three aspects. She is the principle of attraction, which urges human beings to help one another and to practice justice, and is therefore the basis of justice. She is also the basis of truth; that is to say, the principle which founds the order of discourse, and the necessary relationship which must exist between beings and the true attributes that are said about them. To speak falsely, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, is therefore to be in disaccord with the order of the world. Finally, universal Nature, since she is indifferent to indifferent things, is the basis of temperance, in other words of that virtue which, instead of desiring pleasure, wants to consent to the will of universal Nature."
"Marcus here portrays universal Nature as the most ancient and august of goddesses, in such a way that any lapse with regard to the virtues - justice, truth, and temperance - of which this goddess is the model and the principle, is an impiety. The Stoics traditionally identified God, Nature, Truth, Destiny, and Zeus."
"In Marcus' view, these three disciplines and virtues bring into the soul the only true joy which exists in the world, since they place the soul in possession of all that is necessary: the one absolute value." "Joy, then, is the sign of an action's perfection." "Unlike Epicurean pleasure, Stoic joy is not the motive and end of moral action: rather, virtue is its own reward. Virtue seeks nothing above and beyond itself; instead, for the Stoics, joy, like Aristotelian pleasure, comes along as an extra surplus in addition to action in conformity with nature . . ." "Such joy is not, moreover, an irrational passion, because it is in conformity with reason."
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
From "The Inner Citadel" on Altruism
In The Inner Citadel, Pierre Hadot analyzes the Stoic rationale for valuing altruism.
Human beings participate in Reason - Reason is the defining characteristic of humanity, shared only with the gods, if such exist. In fact, many ancient Stoics believed that the logical faculty within a human being was in fact a spark of the Divine within us, essentially a small god, or a "piece" of God. Hence, "Intelligence and reason are common to all reasonable beings, for by virtue of their universality which transcends individuals, they allow us to shift from the egocentric viewpoint of the individual to the universal perspective of the All. This is why intelligence and reason tend naturally to envisage the good and interests of the Whole. Logikon ("rational") and koinōnikon ("caring about the common welfare") are inseparable (VII, 55)"
Hadot goes on to analyze the Stoic view of egotism, which is that it is harmful to the individual as well as for the whole. The oft-repeated maxim that "Universal Nature has made rational beings for the sake of one another" leads to the conclusion that a person who separates his own interests from those of the human race is like a severed body part - useless to itself and the whole of which it was part.
Human beings participate in Reason - Reason is the defining characteristic of humanity, shared only with the gods, if such exist. In fact, many ancient Stoics believed that the logical faculty within a human being was in fact a spark of the Divine within us, essentially a small god, or a "piece" of God. Hence, "Intelligence and reason are common to all reasonable beings, for by virtue of their universality which transcends individuals, they allow us to shift from the egocentric viewpoint of the individual to the universal perspective of the All. This is why intelligence and reason tend naturally to envisage the good and interests of the Whole. Logikon ("rational") and koinōnikon ("caring about the common welfare") are inseparable (VII, 55)"
Hadot goes on to analyze the Stoic view of egotism, which is that it is harmful to the individual as well as for the whole. The oft-repeated maxim that "Universal Nature has made rational beings for the sake of one another" leads to the conclusion that a person who separates his own interests from those of the human race is like a severed body part - useless to itself and the whole of which it was part.
Friday, June 15, 2012
The Inner Citadel
From "The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius" by Pierre Hadot:
Things Cannot Touch the Soul
Things cannot touch the soul.
They have no access to the soul.
They cannot produce our judgments.
They are outside of us.
They themselves know nothing, and by themselves they affirm nothing.
(Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, IV, 3, 10; V, 19; VI, 52; IX, 15)"
"The Inner Citadel
Things Cannot Touch the Soul
Things cannot touch the soul.
They have no access to the soul.
They cannot produce our judgments.
They are outside of us.
They themselves know nothing, and by themselves they affirm nothing.
(Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, IV, 3, 10; V, 19; VI, 52; IX, 15)"
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