DOCSLIB.ORG

Stoicism in Descartes, Pascal, and Spinoza: Examining Neostoicism's

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Stoicism in Descartes, Pascal, and Spinoza: Examining Neostoicism's University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 4-8-2016 Stoicism in Descartes, Pascal, and Spinoza: Examining Neostoicism’s Influence in the Seventeenth Century Daniel Collette University of South Florida, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the Philosophy Commons Scholar Commons Citation Collette, Daniel, "Stoicism in Descartes, Pascal, and Spinoza: Examining Neostoicism’s Influence in the Seventeenth Century" (2016). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/6210 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Stoicism in Descartes, Pascal, and Spinoza: Examining Neostoicism’s Influence in the Seventeenth Century by Daniel Collette A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Major Professor: Roger Ariew, Ph.D. Daniel Garber, Ph.D. Colin Heydt, Ph.D. Douglas Jesseph, Ph.D. Thomas Williams, Ph.D. Date of Approval: March 25, 2016 Keywords: Early Modern Philosophy, History of Ethics, Stoicism, Neostoicism, Descartes, Pascal, Spinoza Copyright © 2016, Daniel Collette DEDICATION For Alistair and Wesley, my raison d'être. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Most chapters were presented in earlier form as colloquium; Mary Domski, Julia Jorati, Matt Kisner, and Julie Walsh offered especially helpful comments. My committee is composed of the finest people: Daniel Garber, Colin Heydt, Douglas Jesseph, and Thomas Williams. I am grateful to have learned with them; any errors in this manuscript are my own. I owe very special gratitude to my committee chair, Roger Ariew, for his unceasing generosity of time and a lasting mark of modeling excellence. He has shown what it means to be successful while still maintaining one’s integrity and ‘soul’. I am abundantly grateful for Doina-Cristina Rusu, the only non-committee member to read this work as it formed. She has provided many insightful comments making my arguments markedly better, and I have finished sooner because of her encouragement. I am a better philosopher, and a better person, because of her friendship. Additionally, many dear friends deserve credit for their encouragement and collaboration: Vlad Alexandrescu, Anthony Desantis, Anthony Fernandez, Benny Goldberg, Dahlia Guzman, Hugh LaFollette, Charles MacKenzie, Lucio Mare, Lucien Monson, Erika Oshiro, Nancy Stanlick, Jeff Steele, Christine Wieseler, Milton Wilcox, and Andrew Winters. Others I omit out of oversight, not ingratitude. To Joseph Anderson and Aaron Spink, many ideas and drafts (which sort of draft I will leave to the reader) have been exchanged at Coppertop and many places traveled: the bonds of friendship are the highest reward from candidacy. Finally, thank you to Jennifer Collette. More than anyone she has felt the weight of this process; I could not have done this as soon, or as well, without her. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Abbreviations ..................................................................................................................... iii Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iv Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1 Chapter One: Descartes’ First Morality: A Pyrrhonian Morale Par Provision .............................15 I. An Early Indifference Towards Morality .......................................................................18 I.a. Ethics in the Meditations on First Philosophy? ...............................................20 I.b. One Remaining Detail .....................................................................................28 II. An Alternative Reading of the Morale Par Provision ..................................................29 III. The Objection From a Letter to Elisabeth, 4 August 1645 ..........................................35 Chapter Two: Passions Embodied: Descartes’ Letters to Elisabeth Revisited ..............................38 I. The Passions of the Soul as Physiology .........................................................................40 I.a. The Passions of the Soul as Natural Philosophy ..............................................42 I.b. The Order of Philosophy and a Physics of Man ..............................................47 I.c. The Cartesian (Re)construction of the Passions of the Soul ............................50 II. Cartesian Morality .........................................................................................................53 II.a. Descartes and the Greek Ethicists ..................................................................54 II.b. Descartes’ (Late) Ethics .................................................................................58 II.c. A Historical Precedent for Descartes’ Approach ...........................................63 III. Conclusion ...................................................................................................................66 Chapter Three: Pascal On the Good Life: If Happiness Fails, Try Stoicism .................................68 I. Pascal’s Use of “Order” in the Pensées ..........................................................................69 II. Pascal’s Philosophical Anatomy ...................................................................................74 II.a. Pascal and Augustine ......................................................................................74 II.b. Pascal and Descartes ......................................................................................81 II.c. Pascal and Montaigne .....................................................................................94 II.d. Pascal and Epictetus .....................................................................................100 III. Pascal on Morality and the Good Life .......................................................................102 Chapter Four: Spinoza’s Anti-Stoicism, or, Spinoza Among the Neostoics ...............................115 I. Some Interpretations of Spinoza and the Stoic Morality ..............................................118 II. Spinoza’s Anti-Stoicism ..............................................................................................124 III. Spinoza Among the Neostoics ...................................................................................138 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................143 i References ....................................................................................................................................149 Appendix: Medieval References to Stoicism ...............................................................................160 ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AC Descartes, René. Meditations, Objections, and Replies. Edited and Translated by Roger Ariew and Donald Cress. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co., 2006. AG Leibniz, G.W. Philosophical Essays. Edited and Translated by Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1989. AT Descartes, René. Œuvres de Descartes. Edited by Charles Adam and Paul Tannery. Paris, 1910. EW Hobbes, Thomas. The English Works of Thomas Hobbes Vol. VI. London: Bohn, 1839-45. CD Augustine. City of God. Edited by Henry Bettenson. New York, NY: Penguin Classics, 2003. CSM Descartes, René. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes: Volumes I-II. Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugland Murdoch. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2007-2009. CSMK Descartes, René. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes: Volume III, The Correspondence. Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugland Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ST Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. I-II. Translated by the English Dominican Province, 2008. http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2.htm. References to Pascal’s work are from Jean Mesnard’s Œuvres complétes, currently in four volumes (1964-1992). Since Volumes V-VIII are still forthcoming, I make the following exceptions. References for the Pensées are to the Sellier (S) edition (1999), though I also provide the older Lafuma (L) citations. References to the Entretien avec M. de Sacy are from Mesnard and Mengotti’s 1994 edition; this newer manuscript was discovered and published after already appearing in the Œuvres complétes. In some cases, a text is not available in any of the above collections. Under these conditions, I reference Le Guern’s Œuvres complétes (1965). All translations of the Pensées are from Roger Ariew’s edition (Blaise Pascal, Pensées, ed. and trans. Roger Ariew [Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 2005]). All translations of Spinoza’s work are from Samuel Shirley’s Complete Works (Benedict Spinoza, Complete Works, ed. Samuel Shirley [Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co., 2002]). iii ABSTRACT My dissertation focuses on the moral philosophy of Descartes, Pascal, and Spinoza in the context of the revival of Stoicism within the seventeenth century.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • A Synthetic Approach to the Ground of Global Justice
    ISSN 2392-0890, no 8/2017, pp. 54-62, DOI: 10.5604/01.3001.0012.0388 Modern Stoicism and the Responsibility for the Global Polis PIOTR STANKIEWICZ Institute of Philosophy, University of Warsaw, Krakowskie Przedmieście 3, 00-927 Warsaw, Poland, E-mail: [email protected] Abstract This article outlines the premises and promises of a modern comeback of Stoicism, particularly the question of reinterpretation of the original doctrine, the contemporary intricacies of the principle of “following nature,” and the foundations that modern Stoicism establishes for global responsibility. Key words: Stoicism, modern Stoicism, ethics, virtue ethics, political philosophy, cosmopolitanism, responsibility. There is no doubt today that Stoicism is coming back. The ancient philosophical school established by Zeno and Chrysippus, and immortalized by Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius’ is enjoying its second youth. As Massimo Pigliucci puts it: The 21st century is seeing yet another revival of virtue ethics in general and of Stoicism in particular. [...] When it comes more specifically to Stoicism, new scholarly works and translations of classics, as well as biographies of prominent Stoics, keep appearing at a sustained rate. [...] In parallel with the above, Stoicism is, in some sense, returning to its roots as practical philosophy, as the ancient Stoics very clearly meant their system to be primarily of guidance for everyday life, not a theoretical exercise.(Pigliucci, Stoicism) Stankiewicz/Studies in Global Ethics and Global Education/ no 8/2017, pp. 54-62 Just as Pigliucci underscores, what is remarkable about the present boom of interest in Stoicism is that it is not confined to the academia.
    [Show full text]
  • David Suchoff Family Resemblances: Ludwig Wittgenstein As a Jewish Philosopher the Admonition to Silence with Which Wittgenstein
    David Suchoff Family Resemblances: Ludwig Wittgenstein as a Jewish Philosopher The admonition to silence with which Wittgenstein ended the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922) also marks the starting point for the emer- gence of his Jewish philosophical voice. Karl Kraus provides an instructive contrast: as a writer well known to Wittgenstein, Kraus’s outspoken and aggressive ridicule of “jüdeln” or “mauscheln” –the actual or alleged pronunciation of German with a Jewish or Yiddish accent – defined a “self-fashioning” of Jewish identity – from German and Hebrew in this case – that modeled false alternatives in philosophic terms.1 Kraus pre- sented Wittgenstein with an either-or choice between German and Jewish identity, while engaging in a witty but also unwitting illumination of the interplay between apparently exclusive alternatives that were linguistically influenced by the other’s voice. As Kraus became a touchstone for Ger- man Jewish writers from Franz Kafka to Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, he also shed light on the situation that allowed Wittgenstein to develop his own non-essentialist notion of identity, as the term “family resemblance” emerged from his revaluation of the discourse around Judaism. This transition from The False Prison, as David Pears calls Wittgenstein’s move from the Tractatus to the Philosophical Investiga- tions, was also a transformation of the opposition between German and Jewish “identities,” and a recovery of the multiple differences from which such apparently stable entities continually draw in their interconnected forms of life.2 “I’ll teach you differences,” the line from King Lear that Wittgenstein mentioned to M. O’C. Drury as “not bad” as a “motto” for the Philo- sophical Investigations, in this way represents Wittgenstein’s assertion of a German Jewish philosophic position.
    [Show full text]
  • Can Family Resemblance Determine a Concept?
    Sonia Micu Can Family Resemblance Determine a Concept? What is known as the history of concepts is really a history either of our knowledge of concepts or of the meanings of words. Often it is only after immense intellectual effort, which may have continued over centuries, that humanity at last succeeds in achieving knowledge of a concept in its pure form, in stripping off the irrelevant accretions which veil it from the eyes of the mind1. – Gottlob Frege Abstract This short essay analyses the notion of ‘family resemblance’ and investigates its ability to determine a concept. I explore the topic starting from Frege’s definition of a concept and I imagine possible criticism of the shortcomings brought by the lack of boundaries of this notion. I argue against such an objection and I try to show how a concept can be determined through family resemblance. Introduction In his exploration of the essence of language, Wittgenstein introduced the idea of a web of resemblances that would explain how certain objects are connected through overlapping similarities, rather than through one common feature. The notion of ‘family resemblance’ has created controversy ever since it was introduction in Philosophical Investigations (1953). The main criticism brought to the idea has been its lack of boundaries and the way it prevents this notion from determining a concept. In what follows, I will try to show that failing to determine a sharply defined concept does not make family resemblance incapable of determining a concept altogether. I will start by describing the notion of ‘family resemblance’ and the context which led to its introduction.
    [Show full text]
  • Augustine on Knowledge
    Augustine on Knowledge Divine Illumination as an Argument Against Scepticism ANITA VAN DER BOS RMA: RELIGION & CULTURE Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Research Master Thesis s2217473, April 2017 FIRST SUPERVISOR: dr. M. Van Dijk SECOND SUPERVISOR: dr. dr. F.L. Roig Lanzillotta 1 2 Content Augustine on Knowledge ........................................................................................................................ 1 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................ 4 Preface .................................................................................................................................................... 5 Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 6 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 7 The life of Saint Augustine ................................................................................................................... 9 The influence of the Contra Academicos .......................................................................................... 13 Note on the quotations ........................................................................................................................ 14 1. Scepticism ........................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • KEIMPE ALGRA 155-184.Qxd
    Ο Ζήνων ο Κιτιέας και η Στωική κοσμολογία: μερικές σημειώσεις και δυο συγκεκριμένες περιπτώσεις. KEIMPE ALGRA Η έκταση και η φύση της συμβολής του Ζήνωνα στη Στωική φυσική και κοσμολογία είναι δύσκολο να θεμελιωθούν. Η ανακοίνωση αυτή μελετά μερικά από τα σχετικά προβλήματα. Η χρήση της ονομαστικής ετικέτας "Ζήνων" από τις αρχαίες μας πηγές δε θα πρέπει πάντα να αξιολογείται επιφανειακά, και η απόδοση καθώς και η διευθέτηση του υλικού του Hans Von Arnim στο Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta (SVF) δε θα πρέπει να γίνεται αποδεκτή χωρίς κριτική, για λόγους που περιγράφονται σ’ αυτή την εργασία. Παρέχονται δύο συγκεκριμένες περιπτώσεις αποσπασμάτων, οι οποίες, με μια πιο προσεκτική ματιά, δε θα πρέπει να αποδοθούν στο Ζήνωνα. Τελικά, υποστηρίζεται ότι ο Ζήνων δεν ήταν παραγωγικός συγγραφέας σε θέματα φυσικής, και ότι έτυχε στους διαδόχους του ( σε μερικούς από αυτούς) – πιο συγκεκριμένα στον Σφαίρο, στον Κλεάνθη και στον Χρύσιππο – να επεξεργαστούν περαιτέρω και να συγκροτήσουν λεπτομερειακά την φυσική κοσμοεικόνα της Στωικής σχολής. Αυτό σημαίνει πως υπάρχουν περιθώρια ανάπτυξης της φυσικής και της κοσμολογίας στα πλαίσια του αρχαίου Στωικισμού, και πως, συνακόλουθα, είναι ζωτικής σημασίας να διακρίνουμε πιο ξεκάθαρα, απ’ ότι συνήθως, τι πρέπει με ασφάλεια να αποδοθεί στο Ζήνωνα και ότι τέτοιου είδους "κοινά στωικά" δόγματα πρέπεί μόνο πιθανά, ή μερικά, να ανιχνευτούν σ΄αυτόν. Zeno of Citium and Stoic Cosmology: some notes and two case studies KEIMPE ALGRA 1 Zeno of Citium, as indeed the early Stoics in general, conceived of philosophy as consisting of three interrelated parts: logic, physics and ethics.1 But although Zeno’s foundational work covered all three areas, he appears to have had his preferences.
    [Show full text]
  • Divine Illumination As “Conditio Sine Qua Non” for True Knowledge in the Philosophy of St Augustine
    DIVINE ILLUMINATION AS “CONDITIO SINE QUA NON” FOR TRUE KNOWLEDGE IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF ST AUGUSTINE Emmanuel OGUNDELE, PhD Introduction St. Augustine in many aspects of his philosophy was preoccupied with the issue of knowledge. This knowledge in the true sense is rather impossible to reach without the divine light which shines on us, for 'in His divine light we see light.' The beaming of the illuminating light of the creator who lives in unassailable light on us makes knowledge possible. For Augustine, true knowledge comes from within, through Divine illumination and not from without. This is theme that will be explored in this article. St. Augustine was born in Tagaste in 354 A.D. of a pagan father by the name Patricius and a devout Christian mother, Monica. His baptism and conversion into Christianity was delayed and he was eventually baptised in 387. He did higher studies first at Madaura and later at Carthage. At this time, he was still committed to Manichaeism. He later started teaching Rhetoric in Carthage and eventually opened a school of Rhetoric in Rome. After a while, he abandoned Manichaeism and scepticism and embraced Platonism. He had a riotous youthful life in which he lost his way into a life of sensuality. In 384 AD, he moved to Milan where he 1 2 met Bishop Ambrose who eventually baptised him on his conversion in 387 AD. His mother died in 388 AD, the year in which he returned to his homeland. In 391, the people of Hippo where he was staying in order to convert a friend acclaimed him a priest and he was finally ordained a priest by Bishop Valerius.
    [Show full text]
  • Stoicism and the Virtue of Toleration
    STOICISM AND THE VIRTUE OF TOLERATION John Lombardini1 Abstract: This article argues that the Stoics possessed a conception of toleration as a personal and social virtue. In contrast with previous scholarship, I argue that such a conception of toleration only emerges as a product of the novel conceptions of the vir- tue of endurance offered by Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. The first section provides a survey of the Stoic conception of endurance in order to demonstrate how the distinc- tive treatments of endurance in Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius merit classification of a conception of toleration; the second section offers a brief reconstruction of the argu- ments for toleration in the Meditations. Introduction In his history of the concept of toleration, Rainer Forst identifies its earliest articulation with the use of tolerantia in Stoic philosophy. Though the word tolerantia first occurs in Cicero, it is used to explicate Stoic doctrine. In the Paradoxa Stoicorum, Cicero identifies the tolerantia fortunae (the endurance of what befalls one) as a virtue characteristic of the sage, and connects it with a contempt for human affairs (rerum humanarum contemptione);2 in De Finibus, endurance (toleratio) is contrasted with Epicurus’ maxim that severe pain is brief while long-lasting pain is light as a truer method for dealing with pain.3 Seneca, in his Epistulae Morales, also identifies tolerantia as a virtue, defending it as such against those Stoics who maintain that a strong endurance (fortem tolerantiam) is undesirable, and linking it
    [Show full text]
  • Stoicism and Political Thought from Lipsius to Rousseau
    Philosophic Pride Brooke.indb 1 1/17/2012 12:09:47 PM This page intentionally left blank Brooke.indb 2 1/17/2012 12:09:47 PM Philosophic Pride stoicism and political thought from lipsius to rousseau Christopher Brooke princeton university press Princeton and Oxford Brooke.indb 3 1/17/2012 12:09:47 PM Copyright © 2012 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW press.princeton.edu Jacket illustration: The Four Philosophers, c. 1611–12 (oil on panel), by Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640); Palazzo Pitti, Florence, Italy. Reproduced courtesy of The Bridgeman Art Library; photo copyright Alinari All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brooke, Christopher, 1973– Philosophic pride : Stoicism and political thought from Lipsius to Rousseau / Christopher Brooke. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. 253) and index. ISBN 978-0-691-15208-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Political science—Philosophy— History. I. Title. JA71.B757 2012 320.01—dc23 2011034498 This book has been composed in Sabon LT Std Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 00 Brooke FM i-xxiv.indd 4 1/24/2012 3:05:14 PM For Josephine Brooke.indb 5 1/17/2012 12:09:47 PM This page intentionally left blank The Stoic last in philosophic pride, By him called virtue, and his virtuous man, Wise, perfect in himself, and all possessing, Equal to God, oft shames not to prefer, As fearing God nor man, contemning all Wealth, pleasure, pain or torment, death and life— Which, when he lists, he leaves, or boasts he can; For all his tedious talk is but vain boast, Or subtle shifts conviction to evade.
    [Show full text]
  • The Anti-Essentialism Paper
    The New Pragmatism, Anti-essentialism, and What is Universal: It’s The Situation All The Way Down C. F. Abel Stephen F. Austin State University [email protected] The New Pragmatism, Anti-essentialism, and What is Universal: It’s The Situation All The Way Down C. F. Abel Stephen F. Austin State University [email protected] A well-known scientist once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!" Introduction “New Pragmatism” attacks the very foundation of pragmatic thought by denying that we may ever have any definitive experience. As what we are experiencing is up for grabs, we can never know any situation that we may encounter, and we are left to ground both our knowledge and our values in our language games alone. This paper argues that this set of claims is founded on two errors, one regarding the nature of language games and the other regarding the nature of deconstruction. The “Old Pragmatism,” by way of contrast, is non-essentialist but not anti- essentialist, and it resolves the problem of how we might know “the situation,” given the subjectivity of our observations and the contingencies of our language games, by suggesting that our experiences can be understood as existing in, and constituted by, the totality of their particular instances or modes at the time of inquiry.
    [Show full text]
  • Language Logic and Reality: a Stoic Perspective (Spring 2013)
    Language Logic and Reality: A Stoic Perspective Aaron Tuor History of Lingustics WWU Spring 2013 1 Language, Logic, and Reality: A Stoic perspective Contents 1 Introduction: The Tripartite Division of Stoic Philosophy.............................3 2 Stoic Physics...................................................................................................4 3 Stoic Dialectic.................................................................................................4 3.1 A Stoic Theory of Mind: Logos and presentations..........................4 3.2 Stoic Philosophy of Language: Lekta versus linguistic forms.........6 3.3 Stoic Logic.......................................................................................7 3.3.1 Simple and Complex Axiomata........................................7 3.3.2 Truth Conditions and Sentence Connectives....................8 3.3.3 Inference Schemata and Truths of Logic..........................9 3.4 Stoic Theory of Knowledge.............................................................10 3.4.1 Truth..................................................................................10 3.4.2 Knowledge........................................................................11 4 Conclusion: Analysis of an eristic argument..................................................12 4.1 Hermogenes as the Measure of "Man is the measure."...................13 Appendix I: Truth Tables and Inference Schemata...........................................17 Appendix II: Diagram of Communication.........................................................18
    [Show full text]
  • Stoic Enlightenments
    Copyright © 2011 Margaret Felice Wald All rights reserved STOIC ENLIGHTENMENTS By MARGARET FELICE WALD A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in English written under the direction of Michael McKeon and approved by ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey October 2011 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Stoic Enlightenments By MARGARET FELICE WALD Dissertation Director: Michael McKeon Stoic ideals infused seventeenth- and eighteenth-century thought, not only in the figure of the ascetic sage who grins and bears all, but also in a myriad of other constructions, shaping the way the period imagined ethical, political, linguistic, epistemological, and social reform. My dissertation examines the literary manifestation of Stoicism’s legacy, in particular regarding the institution and danger of autonomy, the foundation and limitation of virtue, the nature of the passions, the difference between good and evil, and the referentiality of language. Alongside the standard satirical responses to the ancient creed’s rigor and rationalism, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century poetry, drama, and prose developed Stoic formulations that made the most demanding of philosophical ideals tenable within the framework of common experience. Instead of serving as hallmarks for hypocrisy, the literary stoics I investigate uphold a brand of stoicism fit for the post-regicidal, post- Protestant Reformation, post-scientific revolutionary world. My project reveals how writers used Stoicism to determine the viability of philosophical precept and establish ways of compensating for human fallibility. The ambivalent status of the Stoic sage, staged and restaged in countless texts, exemplified the period’s anxiety about measuring up to its ideals, its efforts to discover the plenitude of ii natural laws and to live by them.
    [Show full text]
  • Marcus Aurelius Was a Roman Emperor From
    Marcus Aurelius Roman Emperor and Philosopher Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor from 161-180 A.D, at a time when to be a Roman Emperor really meant being an emperor of almost all of the known world, for Rome’s territory then was at its most expansive. Therefore his job was not a small one. And yet at the same time as ruling the empire, and campaigning against troublesome tribes in what is now central and middle Europe (do you remember him from the start of the Gilm Gladiator?), he was also a philosopher. This did not mean that he just sat around thinking lofty thoughts in his spare time. Rather, the philosophy he chose to study was aimed at helping the individual to live life better, that is with values and a focussed mind. Marcus never wanted any glory – his own writings tell us that the last thing he desired was to be ‘treated like a Caesar’. All he wanted was to perform his duty admirably to his own people, family and, indeed, to himself. It was his favourite philosophy as a way of life, Stoicism, which enabled him to do this. Stoicism was a philosophy practised across the Ancient World for around half a millennium since its foundation by Zeno in the 4th century B.C. Nowadays, of course, we still have the word ‘stoic’ in our own language. It tends to mean someone who ‘ just gets on with things’ and who is rather ‘inGlexible, rigid and even emotionless.’ But, as history obscures so many things from the past, this could not be further from the truth.
    [Show full text]