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Paradox and the Fool in Seneca Samuel D. Mcvane Submitted In Paradox and the Fool in Seneca Samuel D. McVane Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2018 © 2017 Samuel D. McVane All rights reserved ABSTRACT Paradox and the Fool in Seneca Samuel D. McVane This dissertation argues that Seneca’s philosophical program and literary artistry are jointly coordinated to address and redress the pervasive experience of subverted expecta- tions, i.e. the experience of paradoxicality, attributed to the unwise by Seneca’s Stoic philos- ophy. With a focus on Seneca’s Epistulae Morales, I suggest that Seneca’s oft-noted paradoxi- cal style reveals and is meant to reflect our fundamentally inconsistent (and thus dissatisfy- ing) experience engendered, in his view, by the incoherency of our worldviews. While, as Seneca explores, our minds’ operations hide this distressing contradiction from our atten- tion, Seneca’s subtle but steady exposure of it and its source attempts to work against this self-deception. The intended result for the reader is the recognition of their own role in their dissatisfaction and the resulting commitment to its remedy through philosophical training. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 1 1: THE ANCIENT NOTION OF PARADOXICALITY .......................................... 10 I: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 10 II: THE LANGUAGE OF PARADOX AND MARVEL ..................................................................... 11 III: THE NATURE OF PARADOX .............................................................................................. 21 IV: PARADOX RESOLUTION ................................................................................................... 29 V: CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................... 37 2: THE NATURE OF PARADOXICALITY IN SENECA ....................................... 38 I: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 38 II: IGNORANCE IN STOIC THOUGHT ..................................................................................... 43 III: TYPES OF PARADOX IN SENECA ....................................................................................... 50 (A) “Conceptual” Paradox ..................................................................................................................... 50 (B) “Semantic” Paradox .......................................................................................................................... 68 (C) “Thaumastic” Paradox ..................................................................................................................... 77 IV: CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................... 92 3: THE FOOL’S EXPERIENCE OF PARADOX ..................................................... 95 I: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 95 II: THE HUMAN MIND AND THE NATURE OF THINGS IN PLATO’S COSMOS .......................... 98 III: SENECA’S PLATONIZING STOIC FRAMEWORK ................................................................ 102 (A) Platonic Orientation and Stoic Ignorance in Ep. 71 ................................................................. 104 (B) The Seneca Text and The Fool’s Experience ............................................................................. 110 IV: EP. 58 AND THE “WORLDS” OF THE FOOL AND THE SAGE ............................................ 124 (A) The “World” of Imaginaria ............................................................................................................. 129 i (B) The “World” of the Formae and God ........................................................................................... 139 V: CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................... 153 4: PARADOX AND SELF-IGNORANCE IN THE LETTERS ON ETHICS ..... 155 I: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 155 II: THE PROBLEMS OF SELF-IGNORANCE ............................................................................ 161 (A) Flattery and Projecting Self-Ignorance ........................................................................................ 165 (B) Projecting Self-Ignorance in Ep. 53 ............................................................................................. 169 III: SENECA’S “MIMETIC” STRATEGY AGAINST SELF-IGNORANCE ....................................... 178 (A) Seneca’s Approach in Contrast with Epictetus’ ......................................................................... 179 (B) Exemplarity, Mimesis, and Projecting Self-Ignorance .............................................................. 188 (C) The Mimetic Approach in Ep. 12 ................................................................................................ 194 IV: SENECA’S MIMETIC APPROACH IN BOOK SIX ................................................................ 204 V: CONCLUSION – TO EP. 58 AND ON ................................................................................. 222 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................... 227 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................... 229 ii Acknowledgements My sincere thanks goes to my advisors Katja Vogt and Gareth Williams. Katja, in her role as both my general academic advisor and dissertation advisor, provided copious, timely, and always insightful guidance and encouragement throughout my time at Columbia. At the same time, Gareth’s equally incisive advice concerning both my research and my time at Co- lumbia and thereafter and his stimulating conversation and interest in Seneca were invalua- ble. Thanks are due also to Elizabeth Scharffenberger, who sat on my committee and, just as importantly, passed to me her lighthearted and boundless enthusiasm for teaching. As are thanks due to Francesco de Angelis and James Ker, who kindly read and commented on my dissertation for and during my defense. Lastly, Wolfgang Mann encouraged me early on in my graduate study of philosophy and always gladly lent me his time and attention. My time and life at Columbia were made all the better by my friends and peers in the Classical Studies and Classics programs. In particular, Mathias, Charley, Joe, Zach, Jeremy, and Giulia provided me much needed moral support, intellectual stimulation, coffee breaks, and happy-hour drinks. And my Latin, Greek, and Literature Humanities students, in their curiosity, eagerness, and affability, were a constant reminder of why I love my work with the Classics. Finally, I will never be able to thank my parents enough for their support in every form for my education and for the love of learning and joy in reading that they modeled for me. Likewise, my brother and sister and their own academic successes provided an enduring source of inspiration to me. And that this love of learning was directed towards the Classics, my Latin teachers Laurie Covington and Richard Davis have my heartfelt gratitude. And last- ly, I am forever grateful to my wife Carrie, without whose encouragement, pride, and love this dissertation would never have come to be. iii Introduction In this study I argue that paradox or paradoxicality in Seneca’s works and the Epistu- lae Morales in particular provides an essential unifying foundation to Seneca’s notion of igno- rance, a means of its alleviation, and an important contribution to Senecan style and rhetoric. The standard Stoic conception of ignorance, as a mental state of incoherent and confused views, attitudes, and habits of thinking, anchors Seneca’s Stoic works. Yet, for Seneca, the life of the ignorant person or “fool” (stulti or φαῦλοι) – among whom all but the rarest of humans number – is characterized above all by the experience, manifestation, and embodi- ment of paradox, each of which result solely from his foolishness. Most basically, ignorance is understood here as a state of mind in which we make any number of assumptions, many of which however are confused, ill-founded, and inconsistent, such that on the whole our state of mind is far removed from the ideal of being knowledgeable and wise. Paradox relates to ignorance because, insofar as we are in this state, the world presents itself as puzzling, confusing, and contrary to our expectations, which is to say, paradoxical. Whenever we come to hold certain views, whether general, such as that virtue matters greatly, or particular, such as that a present setback is not so bad, these views are ill-integrated with the rest of our atti- tudes. They are therefore unstable: we default to earlier assumptions; they are muddy; and insofar as they do not fit with other views we hold, we don’t have a firm grip on them. This instability and the underlying incoherency of our states of mind are, in turn, manifested in our own lives – in thinking, affect, and action. Paradoxicality, thus,
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