Category: Stoicism

Socratic Questioning, Stoicism and a Return to Virtue Ethics

Socratic Questioning, Stoicism and a Return to Virtue Ethics

Why did an angry mob storm the U.S. Capitol Building on 6th January? Perhaps simply because it seemed to them like the right thing to do. In their own imagination, they were acting quite righteously, and felt completely justified in doing things that looked to the rest of the world like madness, and a form of insurrection.

One woman turned to a reporter and said excitedly: “We should all go in, get them, and teach them a lesson.”

On hearing the initial news that the building had been breached, the crowd protesting outside cheered loudly. One woman turned to a reporter and said excitedly: “We should all go in, get them, and teach them a lesson.” Indeed, hot tempers can turn many people into budding educationalists. Take moral confusion, stir in self-righteous anger, and what you end up with, though, is a recipe for all sorts of violence. (Check out the Instagram video of this article if you want to listen to me read it as well.)

A few hours earlier, the crowd had been marching along Pennsylvania Avenue, past the statue of Benjamin Franklin that stands outside what’s currently the Trump International Hotel. Ben Franklin’s reflective, philosophical attitude toward his own values stands in contrast to the brash confidence of the angry mob. They believed an outburst of violence would teach their political enemies a lesson. He believed the republic would flourish only if the freedoms secured by The Constitution could be lived with wisdom and virtue. In a letter dated 17th April 1787, he wrote:

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.

Franklin therefore took the matter of improving his own character extremely seriously.

After reading the dialogues of Xenophon early in his twenties, Franklin fell in love with the Socratic method of questioning. At first he grilled other people, which they found quite irritating. Eventually, though, he realized that it was better to focus on questioning himself. He set about doing this systematically, for the rest of his life, as described in the part of his Autobiography titled Plan for Attaining Moral Perfection. Some of these values would be especially worth reviving in the Age of the Internet:

• Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation

• Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

• Tranquillity. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

Despite the proliferation of self-help books and articles, in print and online, this type of rigorous moral self-examination is actually very rare in modern society. Many people have barely examined their own values and as a result their ethical compass is, arguably, quite broken. For Franklin, though, and the Greek philosophers who inspired him, the quest to develop a rational and coherent set of virtues was worthwhile in itself, and should perhaps even be our supreme goal. Indeed, Socrates famously went so far as to say that, in this regard, the unexamined life was not worth living.

The Socratic Method

Socrates named his method after the technique of cross-examination (elenchus) used in Athenian law courts, where, then as now, witnesses were questioned to expose problems with their testimony. We should rigorously interrogate ourselves, he thought, so that we may expose contradictions in our own morality. He also described this method as a therapy for the mind, using words rather than drugs — a “talking cure”, as we say today. It was designed to overcome a special type of arrogance: the belief that we know things we do not actually know about the most important aspects of life.

The method involves concisely explaining our view of justice, or some other virtue, and then carefully considering exceptions to that definition. Socrates asks an Athenian general how he defines courage, for instance, and he says that it means standing your ground in battle and not running. Socrates points out that, among other things, that wouldn’t apply to cavalry units, who charge at the enemy. So they begin to revise the definition. If we’re willing to question all of our values in this way, he said, we become more open minded. The Socratic method, in other words, was introduced as a remedy for moral conceit and self-righteousness.

This kind of self-examination has profound psychological implications. Socrates, and the Stoic philosophers who followed in his footsteps, realized that our feelings of anger are often rooted in our conception of justice. When we feel strongly that someone’s actions are unjust, it’s difficult not to become angry — they did something they shouldn’t have done. When we respond with anger, though, we tend to feel our own actions are morally just — we’re giving them what we think they deserve in return.

At the beginning of Plato’s Republic, Socrates tackles head-on the popular saying, in ancient Greece, that justice consists in “helping our friends and harming our enemies.” He applies his trademark method to this way of thinking in order to expose in it what he considers to be a fatal contradiction. The Greek philosophers say that anger is typically associated with the desire for revenge, harming our enemies. The protestor at Capitol Hill who said “We should all go in, get them, and teach them a lesson”, was putting her revenge fantasy into words. However, the cliche she adopted hints at what Socrates saw as the central paradox of anger — is it a desire to improve things or make them worse?

Any outside observer to an argument will tell you that anger has a tendency to bring about the complete opposite of what it desires — like the mom yelling “Stop crying now!” at her toddler in the supermarket. For the most part, anger is counter-productive, especially when it comes to solving complex interpersonal or social problems. Likewise, paradoxically, armed militia groups in the US who claim to be defending constitution are the ones currently placing freedom and democracy most at risk.

It appears that these groups want to generate the very crisis they claim to be concerned about: a confrontation with the government. — Mick Mulroy, ‘Will there be an American insurgency’, ABC News

Time will tell but it’s likely that storming the Capitol Building also achieved the opposite of what those protestors wanted.

“Do good to our friends and make friends of our enemies” was universally conceded to be one of Socrates’ maxims.

So do we want to harm our enemies or educate them? “Which is better,” asks Socrates, “to live among bad citizens, or among good ones?” Nobody wants evil neighbours. No rational person would, therefore, intentionally corrupt and worsen the characters of their own fellow-citizens. They would merely harm themselves in doing so. Anger, though, is the desire to cause harm, or at least it’s typically at odds with the desire to do good. That’s why it usually leads to escalation. Angry people often behave irrationally, as if they want to make their enemies worse and create more of them — and they easily succeed in doing so.

We see it every day on the Internet. Peter says something that hurts Paul’s feelings. Paul gets angry and says something nasty back, because he wants to hurt Peter’s feelings. Peter, now more hurt and enraged, does the same back. And so it goes on, with the level of hostility often rapidly spiralling out of control. In recent years, hatred being fomented online has started to colour political discourse in general. It’s now given birth to a level of mutual contempt between factions that’s bordering, at times, on mass hysteria, as the incident at Capitol Hill shows.

If you really believe that something is bad for society then, logically, you should be strongly motivated to make things better, not worse. Socrates hints at but holds back from stating the conclusion of his argument in the Republic. However, Plutarch, a later philosopher wrote that “Do good to our friends and make friends of our enemies” was universally conceded to be one of Socrates’ maxims.

Ending Quarrels

If only the female protestor who wanted to “teach them a lesson” had meant that literally. She would have been fulfilling her duty as a citizen, for instance, if she believed an injustice had been done and tried her best to provide evidence. Instead, her anger and intolerance led her to join a mob who were doing the opposite, seeking to cause harm rather than to actually “teach” anyone anything. At the end of the day, their acts of violence are likely to make those who disagree with them more hostile, to create more enemies, and more potential for conflict.

In a sense, she didn’t know whether she wanted to help her perceived enemies or harm them, make them better or make them worse. If she’d followed the Socratic method, like Franklin whose statue she probably walked past that day, it would have led her to question the contradictions in her own moral reasoning. It could also have helped her to focus more on her own character, and making best use of the lawful and rational means within her own control.

Five centuries after Socrates’ death, the Stoic philosopher Epictetus told his students that they should dedicate their lives to emulating him. The main lesson he thought they could learn from Socrates might surprise you. “The wise and good man neither himself fights with any person,” Epictetus says, “nor does he allow another, so far as he can prevent it.” Socrates, he says, provides the best example of this. He exhibited extraordinary tolerance and self-control, never becoming angry with others even when they were insulting him. He was able to have penetrating conversations with others about their deepest values, questioning even their conception of what is just, while still remaining civilized and friendly.

What was his secret? Epictetus says that Socrates always remembered that other people’s opinions were up to them, and not directly under his control. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. He therefore placed more importance on improving himself than upon trying to influence others. Not even a political tyrant, says Epictetus, can stop me from taking responsibility for my own character and actions. If we really loved wisdom and could stand to talk about it rationally with others, while tolerating their freedom to disagree, we wouldn’t be in this mess. The Socratic belief that virtue is the main thing in life, says Epictetus, brings about “love in a family, concord in a state, peace among nations, and gratitude to God.”

Socratic Questioning, Stoicism and a Return to Virtue Ethics

Why did an angry mob storm the U.S. Capitol Building on 6th January? Perhaps simply because it seemed to them like the right thing to do. In their own imagination, they were acting quite righteously, and felt completely justified in doing things that looked to the rest of the world like madness, and a form of insurrection.

On hearing the initial news that the building had been breached, the crowd protesting outside cheered loudly. One woman turned to a reporter and said excitedly: “We should all go in, get them, and teach them a lesson.” Indeed, hot tempers can turn many people into budding educationalists. Take moral confusion, stir in self-righteous anger, and what you end up with, though, is a recipe for all sorts of violence.

A few hours earlier, the crowd had been marching along Pennsylvania Avenue, past the statue of Benjamin Franklin that stands outside what’s currently the Trump International Hotel. Ben Franklin’s reflective, philosophical attitude toward his own values stands in contrast to the brash confidence of the angry mob. They believed an outburst of violence would teach their political enemies a lesson. He believed the republic would flourish only if the freedoms secured by The Constitution could be lived with wisdom and virtue. Franklin therefore took the matter of improving his own character extremely seriously.

Read the rest of this article on Medium.

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The ancient Stoic philosophy of death

The ancient Stoic philosophy of death

Forget all else, Lucilius, and concentrate your thoughts on this one thing: not to fear the name of death. Through long reflection make death one of your close acquaintances, so that, if the situation arises, you are able even to go out and meet it. — Seneca, On Earthquakes

One day you will die. In many ways, though, death is already present with us throughout life. First, and most obviously, there is the fact that we are, most of us, bereaved several times. We also witness the bereavements suffered by others, and hear about deaths happening all over the world. As children, we learned that animals and plants die — as adults we have already come to know that everything born must die.

Then there is death in another sense: we are, in fact, dying every day. This is not the body to which your mother gave birth, as the Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius put it. The child dies to become the adolescent. The adolescent dies to become the man. The boy is father to the man but also predeceases him. We die every night when we go to sleep and awaken a different person, although we often barely notice what has been lost in the process.

Third, death is present in our awareness that every thought and act could, for all we know, be cut short. Whatever we begin may, by its nature, insofar as it takes time to complete, be interrupted. We’re always, inescapably, conscious at some level of the utter fragility of our existence. No matter how much we try to ignore it, we know, each moment of our lives, that our life could suddenly stop.

I think for many people, as I write this, the threat of death is on their minds more than usual.

The Stoic teacher Epictetus told his students to learn from the slaves whispering memento mori, and words to that effect, in the ears of generals and emperors as they rode in triumph through the streets of Rome. I think for many people, as I write this, the threat of death is on their minds more than usual. A few months ago I found myself lying in a hospital bed staring at the ceiling, hoping my heart would continue beating. I didn’t close my eyes and go to sleep that night just in case I didn’t wake up. A few weeks later, first thing in the morning, my phone rang and the stranger’s voice on the other end told me that one of my parents had died suddenly, in another country. We’re surrounded by death. We can try to close our eyes and shut it out but it won’t go away. It’s already there inside us, waiting. Et in arcadia ego — even in paradise, death is waiting.

The Ancient Philosophy of Death

Accepting our death can become a philosophy of life. One of the first men to speak openly about the philosophy of life and death in this way was the ancient Greek Sophist known as Prodicus of Ceos. I think it’s imperative today that we rediscover the ancient Greek wisdom concerning death that used to be part of our heritage.

The state of nonexistence to which we permanently return after our death is no different than the one we were in, for countless aeons, before we were born

Contrary to what I’ve said above, Prodicus taught that death does not exist, either for the living or for the dead. He meant that the living cannot know what death is like until they experience it — it’s just a word or something we perceive happening to other people. Death does not exist yet for the living; yet those who are dead no longer exist themselves. In the eponymous dialogue, Socrates explains this argument to his friend Axiochus, who is dying, and adds “Vain then is the sorrow in Axiochus grieving for Axiochus!”

Socrates describes the argument, perhaps also from Prodicus’ speech on death, that the state of nonexistence to which we permanently return after our demise is no different than the one we inhabited, for countless aeons, before we were born. (This “Argument from Symmetry” is usually attributed to the Epicureans, I know, but here we’re told it predates their school by well over a century.)

When he was dying, Diogenes reputedly asked his followers to simply dump his body outside the city walls.

There’s a wonderful illustration, by the way, of the same idea in an anecdote about Diogenes the Cynic. When he was dying, Diogenes reputedly asked his followers to simply dump his body outside the city walls. They were horrified and said that wild beasts would eat his corpse if it wasn’t disposed of properly. Diogenes calmly said that in that case he’d like them to leave his staff beside his body so that he could use it to beat off the animals. His friends were confused and said that if he was dead he surely wouldn’t know to lift his staff and defend himself — he’d be unconscious. Exactly, said Diogenes, so why on earth would I care, you fools, whether or not my corpse is being eaten? Death, as Seneca put it, is a release from all suffering, and a boundary beyond which our ills cannot pass.

However, to return to our friend, Axiochus objects that supposing death is a state of nonexistence free from pain, nevertheless he is right to fear losing his life, because death is also devoid of pleasures. Life contains many opportunities for enjoyment, he contends, of which he is about to be robbed. Socrates nods and replies that his friend will not, however, be at all conscious of that deprivation. It seems Axiochus can’t escape that easily from the steamroller logic of Socrates’ argument.

This line of reasoning is, of course, not meant to justify taking one’s own life. Socrates is consoling Axiochus about the inevitability of his own impending death from illness. However, Socrates seems also to agree with most of these arguments, and he goes on living. The Stoic ideal holds that the Sage, the man we should seek to emulate, “finds it a joy to live and in spite of that is not reluctant to die”, accepting his mortality and facing death with dignity when the time comes. Life gains value, paradoxically, from our acceptance of death.

The Value of Living

Everyone knows that a brush with death can make you reappraise your priorities in life. What does that really mean, though? It’s not the same for everyone, of course. For most people, nevertheless, it’s pretty similar. We realize that a lot of the things we previously thought were really important, and invested a lot of time and energy in, aren’t actually important at all. That’s powerful medicine. It shatters the illusions that we inherit from the society around us: all the consumerism, celebrity culture, narcissism, egotism, hedonism — all that kind of stuff. To learn how to die, is to unlearn how to be a slave, as Seneca puts it.

Wealth and reputation… You can’t take any of it with you — even if you were going anywhere. Alexander the Great knew that. He reputedly asked for his body to be carried through the towns with his hands dangling out either side of the casket so that everyone could see that he left the world empty-handed. It’s the revelation that most of the things people make out to be so very important in life are not — that it’s all a big con, basically. The Stoics and Cynics called this the τύφος (smoke) that surrounds us in life — smoke and mirrors.

Accepting the certainty of our own death is the royal road to Stoic magnanimity, the ability to become bigger than our troubles…

The Stoics called this ability to rise above our fears “magnanimity” (μεγαλοψυχία), which literally means having a big soul or vast mind in Greek (and Latin). All other virtues, they said, depend upon this quality.

For if magnanimity by itself alone can raise us far above everything, and if magnanimity is but a part of virtue, then too virtue as a whole will be sufficient in itself for well-being — looking down upon all things that seem troublesome. — Diogenes Laertius

Accepting the certainty of our own death is the royal road to Stoic magnanimity, the ability to become bigger than our troubles, and look down upon both pain and pleasure with equanimity. It’s the source of our moral and psychological freedom.

The Love of Wisdom

The Stoics believed that grasping this realization and holding on to it is, in a sense, the goal of life. It’s the beginning of wisdom — the epiphany that reveals all “external goods” such as wealth and reputation are necessarily ephemeral and ultimately vacuous. Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living, and by that he meant first and foremost examining our knowledge of virtue, our highest good. The meaning of philosophy as a way of life, for Socrates and the Stoics, is right there in its name, which literally means the love of wisdom. The way of the philosopher consists in cherishing insights such as these and viewing them as worth fighting to maintain.

Seneca thought that, ironically, an excessive fear of dying often leads to an early grave — nobody, I think, would dispute that. He goes much further, though, and says that the man who fears his own death will never do anything worthy of life. When we face death, if we can bear to look him in the face we have the opportunity to learn something that liberates us forever. If we dare to lift the bogeyman’s scary mask, as Socrates put it, each one of us may make the discovery that not wealth or reputation but wisdom is the goal of life.

Conquering Death-Anxiety

Marcus therefore advises contemplating death in each action, to focus our attention on its true worth:

During every one of your actions pause at each step and ask yourself: “Is death deemed catastrophic because of the loss of this?” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Seneca likewise imagines that we should respond to those afraid to die by saying “So are you living now?” We cannot be truly alive so long as we are enslaved by fears, and dread of death itself is the mother of all fears. The philosophy that makes us fearless in the face of death, says Seneca, is a battle plan “effective against all weapons and every kind of enemy”.

In his essay On Earthquakes, Seneca likewise emphasises the folly of fearing death by earthquakes or any other specific thing, when death surrounds us and can strike us down in an infinite number of ways. We can as easily be killed by a single stone as an entire city collapsing on our heads. He writes: “If you wish to fear nothing, consider that all things are to be feared.” Elsewhere he says in his letters: “It is not clear where death is waiting for you, so you should wait for it everywhere.” Epictetus makes the same point: “Do you want me, then, to respect and do obeisance to all these things, and to go about as the slave of them all?” To be everywhere is to be nowhere — and to fear everything is to fear nothing.

Know Thyself and be Mortal

The Delphic Temple of Apollo had several maxims engraved on a pillar at its entrance. According to legend, these went back to the Seven Sages of Greece, in the 6th century BC. Their influence permeated Western philosophy, in other words, from its very beginning. The most famous of these Delphic maxims was undoubtedly “Know thyself.” Seneca claimed that it was to be interpreted as a reference to human mortality:

Those whom you love and those whom you despise will both be made equal in the same ashes. This is the meaning of that command, “Know thyself”, which is written on the shrine of the Pythian oracle. — Seneca, Moral Letters

“What is man?”, asks Seneca. Nothing more than a potter’s vase, which can be shattered into pieces by the slightest knock.

You were born a mortal, and you have given birth to mortals: yourself a weak and fragile body, liable to all diseases, can you have hoped to produce anything strong and lasting from such unstable material? — Seneca, Moral Letters

The oracle also said “Think things befitting a mortal” (Φρόνει θνητά). To know ourselves is to remember that we are mortal, reason accordingly, and live accordingly.

Seneca told himself each night as he closed his eyes to sleep that he might not awaken to see the morning. Marcus Aurelius told himself repeatedly to contemplate his own death. In fact, he told himself to imagine he was already dead, and living on borrowed time.

In a world torn by hope and worry, dread and anger, imagine every day that dawns is the last you’ll see; the hour you never hoped for will prove a happy surprise. — Horace, Letters

This notion of contemplative meditation on the inevitability of death, and the transience of life, was common in philosophy until recent centuries. The iconic image of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a young philosophy student, holding aloft the skull of his childhood friend Yorick would have been recognisable to Elizabethan audiences as an allusion to common philosophical practices that involved contemplating images of death. It should make you realize, if nothing else, that anyone who resents or complains about absolutely anything in life is a rank hypocrite — because we’re ultimately all here by our own choosing.

The Contemplation of Death

Plato wasn’t there to witness Socrates’ execution. He portrays Phaedo, a beautiful and talented young man whom Socrates had rescued from life as a slave in an Athenian brothel, recounting the event, with awe, in the dialogue that bears his name:

Although I was witnessing the death of one who was my friend, I had no feeling of pity, for the man appeared happy both in manner and words as he died nobly and without fear. — Plato, Phaedo

In prison, awaiting execution, Socrates spent his final hours debating amiably with his friends about philosophy. Given the nearness of his own end, he chose to explore the question of what happens to the soul after death. He coolly examines several possibilities while keeping an open mind, tolerant of uncertainty.

He explains his view that philosophy is essentially a lifelong “practice of death” (melete thanatou), as the reason for his surprising indifference. He says that those who practice philosophy in the right way are constantly in training for death. His friends ask him to speak to them as though a little child remains deep within them who still fears death, and to reassure them there is nothing scary behind the mask of this bogeyman. He replies that they should “sing a charm” over their inner child every day until they have charmed away his fears. True philosophers, he says, fear dying least of all men.

The “contemplation of death” therefore emerged right at the most dramatic moment in the birth of Western philosophy, spoken at the heart of what Socrates called his philosophical swansong. When the time came, he calmly drank the poison and waited to die, something he’d clearly reconciled himself to, and faced with supreme equanimity and an attitude of philosophical curiosity.

It is not the things themselves that disturb men, but their judgements about these things. For example, death is nothing catastrophic, or else Socrates too would have thought so, but the judgement that death is catastrophic, this is the catastrophic thing. — Epictetus, Enchiridion

Forget all else, Lucilius, and concentrate your thoughts on this one thing: not to fear the name of death. Through long reflection make death one of your close acquaintances, so that, if the situation arises, you are able even to go out and meet it. — Seneca, On Earthquakes

One day you will die. In many ways, though, death is already present with us throughout life. First, and most obviously, there is the fact that we are, most of us, bereaved several times. We also witness the bereavements suffered by others, and hear about deaths happening all over the world. As children, we learned that animals and plants die — as adults we have already come to know that everything born must die.

Then there is death in another sense: we are, in fact, dying every day. This is not the body to which your mother gave birth, as the Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius put it. The child dies to become the adolescent. The adolescent dies to become the man. The boy is father to the man but also predeceases him. We die every night when we go to sleep and awaken a different person, although we often barely notice what has been lost in the process.

Third, death is present in our awareness that every thought and act could, for all we know, be cut short. Whatever we begin may, by its nature, insofar as it takes time to complete, be interrupted. We’re always, inescapably, conscious at some level of the utter fragility of our existence. No matter how much we try to ignore it, we know, each moment of our lives, that our life could suddenly stop.

Read the rest of this article on Medium.

Some questions I ask myself to get stuff written

Some questions I ask myself to get stuff written

I’m a writer. I was known for enjoying writing in my youth, as a schoolboy, but it was never my intention to do it for a living. Still, here we are… I’m the author of about six books and counting. I’m just finishing a graphic novel for one major publishing house, and about to start a biography for another. It seems like all I do these days is, well, write.

I find that sometimes writing comes easily. Usually that’s at about 3am in the morning, unfortunately, when normal people are asleep. Years and years ago, when I was stuck working on an essay, I decided to write down some questions and make myself answer them in order to get unstuck. I found it helped.

I still use the same questions when I’m writing nonfiction books and articles. Sometimes when my friends have told me that they’re stuck trying to write an essay or book chapter, I’ve shared my questions with them. They’re tough questions so it can be a bit annoying. If you’ve got the patience for it, though, they often seem to help. So here they are…

Essay-Writing Machine

1. What’s the main point you’re trying to arrive at in your conclusion?

2. What conclusion do you think your audience will expect you to arrive at?

3. What are the three main supporting points you must include?

4. “In other words…” — Say the same thing again but use completely different words to prove comprehension of your key points.

5. “So what?” — What’s the fundamental importance of each of your key points?

6. “What does it all mean?” — Explain how your key points link together or support your main conclusion as briefly as you can.

7. “Rubbish!” — What are the most powerful criticisms that could be made against your position? How can you best answer each one in turn?

8. What essential words, phrases, or quotations, should you include?

9. Paraphrase or explain each one to prove your comprehension of the terminology.

10. What unanswered questions do you still have about the subject?

11. Do some quick research — try to answer each of them as best you can.

12. What’s the most powerful statement of your position that you could include in your conclusion?

I’ve found it helpful to play other tricks on myself to get creative. Strangely, I often find that if I change the font and the background colour and layout of pages, then re-read my drafts, it helps me see things differently. I often print out drafts and read them aloud, or get other people to read them to me.

I’d love to know what strategies you use to

We didn’t say that that both influences shouldn’t or “can’t co-exist” as you put it, and that isn’t what we meant, nor was it intended to…

You’re referring to the sentence: “It’s unfortunate that third-wave therapists turned predominantly to Buddhism as an inspiration for introducing mindfulness to CBT when similar ideas were already there in Stoicism.” I think you’ve misread that, with respect.

We didn’t say that that both influences shouldn’t or “can’t co-exist” as you put it, and that isn’t what we meant, nor was it intended to be pejorative regarding Buddhism. All we said was that it was unfortunate that researchers turned *predominantly* to Buddhism, when they should also have looked at Stoicism insofar as it was already an existing influence. What we meant was that both influences could and should co-exist within CBT.

Stoicism and History as a Meditation on Death

Stoicism and History as a Meditation on Death

In a letter, believed to have been written in 139 AD, when Marcus Aurelius was just eighteen, his rhetoric master, Marcus Cornelius Fronto says in passing “I gave you advice on what you should do to prepare yourself for writing a work of history, since that is what you wished.”

…that I did not waste my time on writers of histories…

However, roughly three decades later, in The Meditations, looking back, Marcus thanks the gods that:

…when I had an inclination to philosophy, I did not fall into the hands of any Sophist, and that I did not waste my time on writers of histories… — Meditations, 1.17

Fronto himself was a Sophist of sorts, incidentally, although he taught Latin rather than Greek, but Marcus doesn’t seem to have him in mind here. By this point, in any case, Marcus seems to have thoroughly given up on the dream of becoming a historian.

Wander aimlessly no longer. For neither will you read your own memoirs, nor the acts of the ancient Romans and Greeks, and the selections from books which you were reserving for your old age. — Meditations, 3.14

What this seems to confirm, unsurprisingly, is that Marcus was mainly interested in Greek and Roman history. However, it seems that his desire to read histories has cooled along with his desire to write them. Indeed, he now exclaims: “Throw away your books; no longer distract yourself: it is not allowed” (2.2) and “cast away your thirst for books, so that you may not die murmuring, but cheerfully, truly, and from your heart thankful to the gods.” (3.2).

In general, the Stoic attitude toward books and study appears to have been that it’s good in moderation, precisely insofar as it serves the fundamental goal of life, which is to achieve wisdom and virtue. Studying can be virtuous but it can also be a vice if divorced from the goal of self-improvement.

History as a Meditation on Death

Throughout The Meditations Marcus reflects on history from a philosophical perspective, almost always as a reminder of the transience of material things and the insubstantial nature of our reputation after death.

Everywhere up and down you will find the same things, with which the old histories are filled, those of the middle ages and those of our own day, with which cities and houses are filled now. There is nothing new: all things are both familiar and short-lived. — Meditations, 7.1

This perspective lends itself to contemplation on transience and mortality but perhaps not to writing a detailed history.

Constantly consider how all things such as they now are, in time past also were; and consider that they will be the same again. And place before your eyes entire dramas and stages of the same form, whatever you have learned from your experience or from older history. For example, the whole court of Hadrian, and the whole court of Antoninus, and the whole court of Philip [of Macedon], Alexander the Great, Croesus; for all those were such dramas as we see now, only with different actors. — Meditations, 10.27

Here we get a hint at the individuals that Marcus’ histories may have focused upon. The historical figures he mentions most often in The Meditations are:

• Philip of Macedon

• Alexander the Great

• Pompey the Great

• Julius Caesar

• Augustus

Overall, this is not a particularly surprising list and the other names he mentions reflect the typical historical interest of educated Romans in the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Civil War of Julius Caesar, and the succession of emperors following Augustus. Indeed, the historical figure he mentions most often is Alexander the Great. However, when Marcus alludes to military and political leaders it’s often to criticize them, minimize their achievements, or to compare them negatively with philosophers.

Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great, what are they in comparison with Diogenes [the Cynic] and Heraclitus and Socrates? For they were acquainted with things, and their causes, and their matter, and the ruling principles of these men were the same. But as to the others, how many things had they for which to care, and to how many things were they slaves! — Meditations, 8.3

Despite having long contemplated the idea of writing histories, Marcus says very bluntly that Alexander the Great and his mule-driver were both levelled, and brought to exactly the same state, by death (Meditations, 6.24).

However, elsewhere he reminds himself that the wise are also mortal:

Alexander the Great, Pompey, and Julius Caesar, after so often completely destroying whole cities, and in battle cutting to pieces many ten thousands of cavalry and infantry, themselves too at last departed from life. Heraclitus, after so many speculations on the conflagration of the universe, was filled with water internally and died smeared all over with mud. Lice destroyed Democritus, and other lice killed Socrates. — Meditations, 3.3

The two philosophers he mentions or cites most frequently are Epictetus and Heraclitus, although he also mentions Pythagoras, Democritus, Socrates, Diogenes, Chrysippus, Epicurus, among others.

These meditations on the lives of famous historical individuals are sometimes expanded to encompass the history of great cities and even whole civilizations.

Augustus’ court, wife, daughter, descendants, ancestors, sister, Agrippa, kinsmen, intimates, friends; Areius, Maecenas, physicians, and sacrificing priests — the whole court is dead. Then turn to the rest, not considering the death of a single man [but of a whole race], as of the Pompeii; and that which is inscribed on the tombs: “The last of his race.” Then consider what trouble those before them have had that they might leave a successor, and then that of necessity some one must be the last. Again, here consider the death of a whole race. — Meditations, 8.31

Elsewhere he urges himself to think of how many are dead despite dedicating their lives to preventing illness or predicting the future. Every general who has defeated great armies has, in the end, been defeated by death. Great cities, like Pompeii, destroyed completely.

Think continually how many physicians are dead after often contracting their eyebrows over the sick, and how many astrologers after predicting with great pretensions the deaths of others, and how many philosophers after endless discourses on death or immortality, how many heroes after killing thousands, and how many tyrants who have used their power over men’s lives with terrible insolence, as if they were immortal. And how many cities are entirely dead, so to speak, Helice and Pompeii and Herculaneum, and others innumerable. Add to the reckoning all whom you have known, one after another. One man after burying another has been laid out dead, and another buries him, and all this in a short time. — Meditations, 4.48

Dead Emperors

Marcus asks himself to reflect, in particular, on the lives of earl emperors, particularly the first Augustus, but also Vespasian and Trajan:

Consider, for example, the times of Vespasian. you will see all these things, people marrying, bringing up children, sick, dying, warring, feasting, trafficking, cultivating the ground, flattering, obstinately arrogant, suspecting, plotting, wishing for some to die, grumbling about the present, loving, heaping up treasure, desiring consulship, kingly power. Well, then, that life of these people no longer exists at all. Again, remove to the times of Trajan. Again, all is the same. Their life too is gone. In like manner view also the other epochs of time and of whole nations, and see how many after great efforts soon fell and were resolved into the elements. — Meditations, 4.32

There’s nothing good or bad to say about them. Nero, however, mentioned in passing as a tyrant and moral degenerate comparable to the cruel Sicilian despot Phalaris (Meditations, 3.16).

Moreover, the names of famous Romans of the Republic, Augustus, the founder of the empire, and even recent emperors like Hadrian and Antoninus, all come to sound like historical references.

The words which were formerly familiar are now antiquated: so also the names of those who were famed of old, are now in a manner antiquated, Camillus, Caeso, Volesus, Leonnatus, and a little after also Scipio and Cato, then Augustus, then also Hadrian and Antoninus. For all things soon pass away and become a mere tale, and complete oblivion soon buries them. And I say this of those who have shone in a wondrous way. For the rest, as soon as they have breathed out their breath they are gone, and no man speaks of them. — Meditations, 4.33

They’re just names in history books or statues rather than references to flesh-and-blood individuals.

Autobiography as a Meditation on Death

Of course, Marcus also mentions not reading his own memoirs. We might have expected such a literate emperor to leave behind an autobiographical account of his own life for posterity. Once again, though, reflection on his life takes the form of a meditation on transience and mortality. Like Augustus and Hadrian, he will soon be nothing but another name in the history books.

This is the chief thing: Do not be perturbed, for all things are according to the nature of the universal, and in a little time you will be nobody and nowhere, like Hadrian and Augustus. — Meditations, 8.5

And again,

And call to recollection both how many things you have passed through, and how many things you have been able to endure, and that the history of your life is now complete and your service is ended. And how many beautiful things you have seen, and how many pleasures and pains you have despised, and how many things called honorable you have spurned, and to how many ill-minded folks you have shown a kind disposition. — Meditations, 5.31

Marcus even tells himself that when he sees living individuals he should call to mind historical figures of whom he’s reminded by them. Moreover, when he sees his own image he must “think of any other Caesar”, i.e., any preceding emperor.

Then let this thought be in your mind, “Where then are those men now?” Nowhere, or nobody knows where. For thereby you will continuously look at human things as smoke and nothing at all, especially if you reflect at the same time that what has once changed will never exist again in the infinite duration of time. — Meditations, 10.31

“Where are they now?” or ubi sunt, as it was known in Latin, became a well-known trope in poetry.

Conclusion

The theme of Marcus’ reflections on history, and his own autobiography, in The Meditations is very clear:

Consider the past — such great changes of political supremacies. You may foresee also the things which will be. For they will certainly be of like form, and it is not possible that they should deviate from the order of the things which take place now. Accordingly to have contemplated human life for forty years is the same as to have contemplated it for ten thousand years. For what more will you see? — Meditations, 7.49

This doesn’t lead Marcus to an attitude of hopelessness, though, but rather to one of non-attachment and perseverance. Those who engage in public life and merely imagine they are acting wisely like philosophers are absurd, he says, maybe because they pay too much heed to other people’s perceptions. Marcus tells himself, by contrast, to do right away what nature and reason require rather than looking around to see if anyone will observe it. However, Rome was not built in a day…

Nor yet expect Plato’s Republic: but be content if the smallest thing goes on well, and consider such an event to be no small matter. For who can change men’s opinions? And without a change of opinions what else is there than the slavery of men who groan while they pretend to obey? Come now and tell me of Alexander the Great and Philippus and Demetrius of Phalerum. They themselves shall judge whether they discovered what the common nature required, and trained themselves accordingly. But if they acted like tragic heroes, no one has condemned me to imitate them. Simple and modest is the work of philosophy. Do not draw me aside to insolence and pride. — Meditations, 9.29

What matters is doing what’s right whether or not you win acclaim for doing so. We should judge our own lives rather than being overly-concerned how history judges us.