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November 15 - December 9, 2022
Within the Hellenistic traditions we find a few more household names (though I guess it depends on the household), with Epicurus and the so-called “Roman Stoics”: Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.
Broadly speaking, the Hellenistic period was a time of physicalism, with both the Stoics and Epicureans denying the reality of immaterial entities. It is an unusually dramatic shift within the history of philosophy, as if Alexander the Great sent out a memo to all philosophers telling them that incorporeal substances were no longer welcome.
Surely Socrates wasn’t just asking us to throw away our shoes and be rude to pedestrians.
Of greater interest to us was a movement, which imitated the Socratic lifestyle, and also reflected on the meaning of this lifestyle. These were the Cynics, perhaps the most outrageous group of philosophers to emerge in the ancient world. They did choose poverty and make cutting remarks to the townspeople, accusing them of hypocrisy and insufficient interest in virtue. No doubt the good citizens of Athens and other ancient cities regretted this particular form of allegiance to Socrates. Having gone to the trouble of putting the man to death, it must have been annoying to find a whole movement
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By that time we enter the period in which the Mediterranean basin, and beyond, is completely dominated by the Roman Empire, first under Augustus Caesar, and then under a series of emperors, some good, some bad, and one a Stoic philosopher.
In common with other Hellenistic schools, the Cynics’ highest aim was freedom from disturbance and imperturbability, in Greek ataraxia and apatheia.
Antisthenes also pioneered the Cynic practice of mocking the pretentions of his society. Sneering at the Athenians’ boast to descend from men who were born from the earth, he said that the same is true of snails and insects
It seems that Alexander the Great heard of this famous philosopher Diogenes, and sought him out. He found the Cynic sage sunning himself on the wine jar that was his home. Standing over him, Alexander said, “What favor can I offer you?” Diogenes replied, “Get out of my sun”
Wherever he lived, Diogenes became a law unto himself. He asserted the right to behave, and speak, however he liked. He called freedom of speech the greatest possession of man, and used this freedom to rail against the hypocrisy of his fellow Greeks. A famous story has him turning up at the market in broad daylight with a lantern, explaining that he was looking for a human being
A similar story has him already living as a Cynic, owning little more than his pouch, stick, and a cup for drinking. Seeing a little boy drinking from cupped hands, he threw away the cup, so as not to be outdone in frugality by a child
Once he was invited into a rich man’s fabulous house. He looked around at the opulent furnishings, and then spat in the owner’s face. He then explained to the shocked man that everything else in the house was too nice to spit on
Antisthenes met a priest who bragged that religious initiates like himself would be rewarded splendidly in the afterlife. Antisthenes acidly replied, “Why don’t you die, then?”
a philosopher named Hegesias accepted the hedonism and skeptical epistemology of Aristippus the Younger. But like an obscure Greek version of Schopenhauer, Hegesias taught that we cannot expect life to be more pleasant than painful. The best we can do is to avoid pain as much as possible. This crushingly pessimistic outlook won Hegesias the memorable nickname “death-persuader.” This was a philosopher who could literally drive you to suicide.
Do you like a nice garden? Do you enjoy the company of friends? Do you believe the world is made of tiny particles, which you call atoms? Do you trust the evidence of your senses? Do you find politics tiresome, and raise a skeptical eyebrow at those who live in fear of God? If your answer to these questions is “yes,” then you might want to consider becoming an Epicurean.
I’m well aware that along with Diogenes the Cynic, this makes three men named Diogenes that I’ve mentioned so far in this book, and we’re only in Chapter 4! Sorry about that. This latest entry in our ever-expanding Diogenes collection is Diogenes of Oinoanda, who like Diogenes Laertius lived a good half-millennium after Epicurus.
We can imagine Aristotle turning in his fairly fresh grave, complaining that Epicurus’ careful methodology hasn’t stopped him from assuming what he should be proving.
This, then, is Epicurus’ universe: an inconceivably large void, which lasts for infinite time, and has infinitely many atoms moving and colliding within it, forming bodies and whole cosmic systems scattered through unending emptiness.
Epicurus responds by holding simply that atoms all move at the same speed—you’ll never guess how fast. Yes, “inconceivably fast.”
The Epicureans and Cyrenaics shared a commitment to hedonism, so of course they were bitter rivals. There’s nothing worse than an opponent who is uncomfortably close to agreeing with you.
As he says in one of the pithy remarks he offered for his students’ self-training, the “cry of the flesh” is to be neither hungry, nor thirsty, nor cold.
This does answer Plato, and significantly fleshes out our picture of the ideal Epicurean life. It is a life of moderation, intended to minimize the fluctuations of pain and kinetic pleasure and to maximize the time we spend in the serene, static pleasure that comes with the elimination of all suffering.
I can remember being about 15 years old and having a sudden, crushing realization in English class, that one day I would cease to exist. An intimation of utter nothingness—not black emptiness, but genuine nothingness, non-existence.
You see nothing fearful, and remember nothing awful, about the time before you were born. So neither should you fear or expect anything awful in the time after death.
it is not really painful experiences or torment after death that I fear. As I said, when I was 15 what really got to me was the sheer idea of not existing anymore. And isn’t that worth fearing?
I, for instance, am not crazy about flying, whether or not I am in first class (actually I’ve never flown first class, but having read some Epicurus I try not to let that bother me).
Plato and Aristotle already drew attention to the capacity of animate beings to move themselves. But the Epicureans may have been the first to worry about the conditions under which this was possible. In particular, they worried that if everything in the universe happens as a matter of necessity, the world unfolding inevitably from the past to the present, then nothing would have a power of free volition. And they were right to worry. After all, their physics describes the world as the result of atomic collisions, each of which seems to be like one rock hitting another. This suggests that the
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It discusses a group he calls the Megarians, who claimed that everything that actually happens must happen. Chrysippus, like Aristotle, found these consequences troubling. So he proposed a novel conception of possibility and necessity. For Chrysippus, something is possible so long as it is not in itself impossible and furthermore is not prevented from happening
While the guest of a royal court, Sphaerus was presented with very realistic wax pomegranates as a practical joke. When he tried to eat one, the king mocked him for assenting to a false impression.
So the Stoic god is immanent, physically interwoven through all bodily things and hence through everything that exists.
Seneca is at his most powerful when he dissects human weakness and advises us on how to rise above that weakness.
For instance, in this work On the Shortness of Life he mentions a virtuous man named Julius Canus, condemned to death by Caligula. When they came to his prison to execute him he was found playing a game with his guard, and as they dragged him off he said to the centurion, “You’re my witness that I was ahead by one piece.”
Seneca follows the traditional Stoic view, holding that emotion means surrendering one’s self-determination, and being controlled by what is outside us.
Even my body is, on this way of thinking, a dispensable, external thing. If the tyrant says he will throw me in prison, I can say, “No, you will throw only my body in prison.” If he says he will cut off my head, I can shrug and say, “Who ever said that my head cannot be cut off?”
For instance, it was common for less-wealthy Romans to become clients of rich citizens and to visit their houses daily, to shake them down for money in exchange for support. When asked whether this is appropriate behavior, Epictetus responds that it depends: if you are the kind of person who begs for money, then it is appropriate
As an example of the kind of training that might work, he likes the following suggestion: on a hot day, when you are extremely thirsty, take a mouthful of cold water…then spit it out, and tell no one what you have done
Yet his fundamental advice to himself could be applied by anyone: when the world provokes you into a reaction, think first whether the reaction is the right one. Does a man offend your pride? Remember that he will be dead soon, as will you. Are you wrapped in the purple robes of unchallenged power? Remember that they are just rags dyed in ink. Are you consumed with desire for a woman? Do not pray that god will give her to you; pray rather to be relieved of your lust.
When Marcus considers his own little patch of that web, he often emphasizes the fleeting, ephemeral nature of his life and everything it contains. His remedy against feeling insulted is to remember the imminent death of everyone concerned, and that’s a typical thought. He applies it to fame and honor: why seek the approval of others, when they will soon enough be dead? He applies it to misfortunes and suffering: everything we undergo will be over soon, seen from the perspective of eternity. Of course, it takes a certain kind of person to take that amount of perspective on their own situation.
We found that Epicurus was happy to accept theories so long as they were not ruled out by evidence, and so long as they led to freedom from disturbance. Although he did insist on the truth of all sensations—something the Skeptics could enjoy refuting—Epicurus was not really in the absolute-certainty business.
And when I say “extensive,” I mean it. You could start reading Galen right now and not finish until you are ready to be mummified yourself.
Galen never tires of mocking the inadequate arguments offered by Aristotle and by the Stoics (especially Chrysippus) for their heart-centered theory. Their bad anatomy is the result of their bad methodology.
In the case of both Skepticism and Epicureanism, the answer may be that late antiquity was no time to be anti-religious. The Skeptics suspended belief about the nature of the gods, along with everything else. The Epicureans did admit the existence of the gods, but immediately added that these gods have nothing to do with us, so that we need not fear them. There was no place for such views in the religious ferment of the later empire, when paganism struggled to retain its cultural standing in the face of a new faith: Christianity. This new religion was promoted with a vehemence and sudden
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Later Platonists, like Porphyry, who had nothing but disdain and hostility for the Christians, showed considerable interest in Judaism, treating the ancient faith and its ancient Scriptures with respect.
The second Temple could only be built once the Persians defeated the Babylonians and ushered in an age of relative peace for the Jews living in and around Jerusalem. But this situation (along with pretty much every other situation) was changed by Alexander the Great.
But Philo himself wrote in Greek and even read his Bible in Greek. His version of the Bible is called the “seventy,” in Latin Septuagint, an allusion to the seventy-two scholars who were held to have translated it into Greek. These scholars were said to be divinely inspired, so that Philo assumed his Greek Bible could be read as the word of God, and not a second-hand version of that word in a new language.
Occasionally Plutarch even shows a sense of humor. In one of his ethical treatises, when stressing the importance of looking on the bright side of things, he gives the following example: if you want to hit a dog with a stone, and hit your mother-in-law instead, this isn’t so bad either.
A real James Joyce enthusiast will own not just a volume of Joyce’s short stories and a copy of Ulysses, but also Finnegans Wake. Indeed, the enthusiast may even go so far as attempting to read Finnegans Wake!
Boethus says that the soul may well be essentially alive. But really we are worried that the soul will cease to exist completely, not that it will continue to exist and be dead. And if it does cease to exist, it will lose even its essential properties.
This man Dio was also called “Chrystostom,” meaning “Golden Mouth.”
That story is a legend, of course, but Augustus really did use astrology as part of his imperial image. He had his horoscope made public, and his star-sign of Capricorn is found on surviving coins minted in his reign.
We seem to expect that a great life should have a great ending. Hence the fascination of famous last words: deathbed remarks that show wit or insight, or seem to encapsulate the personality of the dying person.
