The Philosophy Garden: Stoicism And Beyond podcast

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Index Articulorum

לפני 8 ימים

הפעל מאוחר יותר

רשימות

לייק

אהבתי

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Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion, Greece. Photo by the Author. Here is a handy list of all the posts that have appeared in The Philosophy Garden, periodically updated. They are organized by philosopher and by the three classic topoi of logic, science (broadly construed, including the humanities), and ethics. (Why? See here .) Additional subheadings group, among others, the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series, our e-books, videos, and Stoic practice sessions. Podcast episodes are listed on a separate tab (with some exceptions, see below). Most recent essays on top within each subheading. Use the (subtle) ToC feature on the left side of the screen (only in the desktop version, not available on mobile or in the app, ask Substack!) to navigate to a specific section. You should see short vertically parallel lines, click on them, and the ToC will reveal itself. You can also simply search within the page for something that interests you using a keyword. The current version of the index covers posts published between September 9, 2022 (beginning of publication) and March 1, 2025 (included), for a total of 345 posts (counting podcast episodes and suggested readings). Check back from time to time for further updates. Massimo’s own stuff Beyond Stoicism : A guide to the good life with Stoics, Skeptics, Epicureans, and other ancient philosophers (Video) Beyond Stoicism , introduction to the book Five insights about character (from The Quest for Character) Alas, Alcibiades, what condition you suffer from! (Excerpt from The Quest for Character) Philosophers The Socratic view of the world Aristotle vs the Stoics: part II, ethics Aristotle vs the Stoics: part I, metaphysics and logic On Ayn Rand and Aristotle Dan Dennett Epictetus and the wand of Hermes Epictetus’s radical Stoicism— Part II Epictetus’s radical Stoicism— Part I Be a Stoic like Epictetus Reflecting on Ken Frazier, skeptic Heraclitus and Stoicism Marcus Aurelius’ Ten “Commandments” to Himself Plato’s Academy as political think tank Tracking Plato and Cicero in Syracuse Protagoras : should we re-evaluate the Sophists? In defense of Seneca Profiles in Skepticism Sextus Empiricus Cicero Carneades Arcesilaus , founder of the Skeptic Academy Pyrrho The Cyrenaics Logic (i.e., good reasoning) The (hermeneutic) circle of understanding Eagles and errors Without evidence, there is no knowledge Should academics be political activists? Against scientism Is rationality a fiction? Nope But is it fascism? On the worth of comedy and tragedy Why the Greco-Romans? It ain’t no fallacy: on living according to Nature The Nazi problem , a Stoic take The problem with presentism Should we be moral skeptics? Should we be skeptical of religion? The crucial question of burden of proof The unfortunate devolution of four crucial words Do extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? ChatGPT, the ultimate sophist? How to evaluate a philosophical theory What, if any, is the difference between religion and philosophy ? Three cheers for the end of the world? What criterion for knowledge? Who’s afraid of skepticism? Why we can’t, ultimately, prove anything How to assess the probability of pretty much everything The importance of doubting Is it true that you can’t derive an ought from an is? Plato’s mistake Sciences & Humanities (i.e., understanding the world) Let’s talk about (biological) sex— part II Let’s talk about (biological) sex— part I I’m skeptical, not afraid, of AI Self-Evident : How Benjamin Franklin’s two-word edit changed American history Free will and the problem of evil The problem with Deepak Chopra On the Stoic God (or absence thereof) The problem of the perverse Why Epicureans and Utilitarians are wrong: on the axiology of pain and pleasure The story of Pseudo-Seneca Stoicism and beauty Oh no! Am I a reductionist?? A visit to the Cryptozoology Museum The hedonic treadmill vs the eudaimonic staircase On the objectivity of ethical judgments The neuroscience and philosophy of evil I very much doubt the universe thinks What would change my mind about God? Scientific facts, scientific theories, and dishonest legislators Determinism, swerves, and the relationship between metaphysics and ethics The great philosophical exodus of 86 BCE Totalitarianism as a novel form of “government” The full colors of Greece and Rome On the steps of Marcus Aurelius: visiting Carnuntum Ethics (i.e., good living) On elections Some thoughts on Effective Altruism Stoic role ethics : a primer The universality of virtue ethics—III— Daoism The universality of virtue ethics—II— Confucianism The universality of virtue ethics—I— Buddhism Stoicism as a subversive activity Here are a few things I learned Virtue ethics, rules, and consequences The story of the pale Stoic in the storm A Stoic guide to your Valentine Day There is no upside to anger Interview with a Cynic Facing old age and death : a study in contrasts The Columnist and the Dog: a tale of two ascetics Love, kindness, … and Stoicism? Going to the Stoic Mind Gym Timon’s three questions What’s your ikigai? Should we not be disturbed by the death of a loved one? The fertile garden of philosophy How to talk to your emotions The three rules of Stoic Club Odysseus and Dante Odysseus and the Epicureans Odysseus and the Stoics Odysseus and the Cynics Stoic cosmopolitanism Secular pilgrimages What should we do with a tyrant? The three stages of philosophical therapy Dealing with insults , the Stoic way Telic vs atelic activities and the meaning of life Vita Dulcis : fear and desire in the Roman Empire Prosochē or not prosochē? On Stoic mindfulness The two reasons I left Christianity Five questions that will change your life The varieties of bad Stoicism There’s no such thing as a happy nihilist Five insights about character Birthday meditation on death What does it mean to live according to nature? Where are you from? New Year’s Resolutions , Stoic Style A few thoughts on Buddhism Everything you always wanted to know about Greek philosophy The philosophy of football Philosophy as a Way of Life—IV— Only the present is our happiness Philosophy as a Way of Life—III— Socrates and the finest state of the human soul Philosophy as a Way of Life—II— Spiritual exercises Philosophy as a Way of Life—I— How to run a philosophical school The nine kinds of ethical life The axiom of futility Figs in winter and the idea of an art of living (The first article in this newsletter.) New Stoicism Some modest suggestions Steven Gambardella’s new modern Stoicism Piotr Stankiewicz’s Reformed Stoicism Becker’s update Stoic ethics Stoic logic Stoic physics Podcast summaries (These are not individual episodes, which you will find here , but the occasional recap when we finish a given text, like Plato’s Laches, with links to all pertinent episodes.) Plato’s Lysis The Leading Doctrines of Epicurus Epicurus's Letter to Menoeceus Plato’s Ion Plato’s Laches Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers XXX, How to be queer with Sappho and Plato XXIX, How to make money with Pliny & co. XXVIII, How to flourish with Aristotle XXVII, How to do the right thing with Seneca XXVI, How to focus with John Cassian XXV, How to have a life with Seneca XXIV, How to be healthy with Galen XXIII, How to stop a conspiracy with Sallust XXII, How to innovate with Aristotle XXI, How to be a farmer like you mean it XX, How to tell a joke with Cicero and Quintilian XIX, How to give with Seneca XVIII, How to think about God with Cicero XVII, How to keep your cool with Seneca XVI, How to think about war with Thucydides XV, How to be a friend with Cicero XIV, How to win an argument with Cicero XIII, How to grow old with Cicero XII, How to run a country with Cicero XI, How to win an election with Quintus T. Cicero X, How to be a bad emperor with Suetonius IX, How to be content with Horace VIII, How to tell a story with Aristotle VII, How to die with Seneca VI, How to grieve with Pseudo-Cicero V, How to say no with Diogenes and the Cynics IV, How to drink with Obsopoeus III, How to be a leader with Plutarch II, How to keep an open mind with Sextus Empiricus I, How to be free , Epictetus style E-books The Cato Chronicles The Peloponnesian War A Short Guide to the Inner Citadel 24 Stoic Spiritual Exercises Stoicism and Emotion Toward a New Stoicism Philosophy as a Way of Life Videos John Sellars on Stoicism and Epicureanism Josiah Osgood on how to be a bad emperor Michael Fontaine on Cicero, jokes, and grief Vittorio Bufacchi on why Cicero matters Richard Bett on ancient Skepticism Don Robertson on Marcus Aurelius Jeff Beneker on Plutarch and leadership Mark Usher on Cynicism and how to say no Robin Reames on the importance of rhetoric James Romm on Seneca Peter Adamson on Classical and Hellenistic philosophy Tony Long on Epictetus Robin Waterfield on Plato Practice sessions Discipline of Assent 48, Counter anger with maxims 47, Analyze anger 46, Pause when angry 45, Study each impression scientifically 44, Decompose desired externals 43, Challenge your anxious thoughts 42, Retreat to your inner citadel 41, Question judgments around pain and disease 40, Focus on the mind-body connection 39, Keep basic Stoic concepts always at hand 38, Observe and counter four moods of the mind 37, Catch and examine the judgments underlying your impressions and impulses 36, Catch and apply the dichotomy of control to initial impressions Discipline of Action 35, Question every action 34, Care about more people (and other beings) 33, Set up social rules for living 32, Practice Stoic sympathy stealthily 31, Act with reservation 30, Do whatever political good you can 29, Review your actions nightly 28, Put the sage on your shoulder 27, Act the opposite of anger 26, Turn difficulties into opportunities 25, Deal virtuously with frustrating people 24, Premeditate on encountering difficult people 23, Don't speak about yourself 22, Roll with insults 21, Choose your company well 20, Speak little but well 19, Cut out busyness 18, Keep your peace of mind in mind Discipline of Desire & Aversion 17, Meditate on others’ virtues 16, Contemplate death , and how to live 15, Remind yourself of impermanence 14, Evaluate your goals 13, Start practicing minimalism 12, Put temptations out of sight 11, Moderate at mealtime 10, Act the opposite 9, Be careful what you call good and bad 8, Meditate on nature and the cosmos 7, Take a very broad perspective 6, Premeditation of future adversity 5, Strengthen yourself through minor physical hardship 4, Take another's perspective 3, Take an outside view 2, Focus on what is completely in your control 1, Discover what’s really in your control Practice like a Stoic: Introduction…

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Let’s talk about (biological) sex—part I

לפני 11 ימים

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[Welcome to Vegas!, photo by the Jennifer Sears.] I can’t believe I’m about to go there . For quite some time now I have made it my policy to stay away from current political and partisan controversies, on the ground that half the audience won’t even listen and the other half already agrees anyway. Not much to gain, possibly a lot to lose. Instead, as my readers might have noticed, I write about ancient history and philosophy, focus on episodes or concepts that are of value today, step back, and let people draw their own parallels and conclusions. But occasionally one needs to make exceptions to rules, and this is one. We are going to talk about (biological) sex, baby! (But not gender. And not gender roles. Or sexual preferences. Just sex.) I can’t believe I feel compelled to start with a disclaimer, but here it is: nothing that you are about to read should be construed as somehow opposing the rights of transgender people. If that’s going to be your conclusion, I don’t know what to tell you, other than you are flat out wrong. The story begins back in October of last year, when I was invited to give the opening keynote at the annual CSICon, the major conference of scientific skeptics, held in Las Vegas and organized by CSI, the Center for Skeptical Inquiry. (They publish Skeptical Inquirer magazine, for which I write. The former editor was a friend and esteemed colleague.) The title of my talk was “Why bother? The nature of pseudoscience, how to fight it, and why it matters.” I’ll publish an article based on it soon. Shortly after me, my friend Steven Novella, of Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe fame and a neurologist by profession, got on the stage and delivered his talk, entitled “When skeptics disagree.” I found myself nodding along, except when Steven got to the “controversy” about biological sex. He said that biologists themselves disagree on the best definition of sex: does it have to do with chromosomes? Is it about anatomy? Behavior? I immediately thought, uh-oh, here comes trouble! You see, I knew that one of the speakers slated for later on in the conference was my colleague Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist and author of Why Evolution Is True . I expected Jerry to seriously disagree with Steven’s characterization of the “controversy.” And sure enough, he did. Now, Jerry and I have at times not seen eye-to-eye about some matters, from technical issues concerning the nature of evolutionary theory to the roles of science and philosophy with respect to each other. But I thought in this case Jerry was right on target. Still, I let the matter go because of the policy explained above, and because CSICon is a friendly gathering where I’d rather have a nice conversation with fellow skeptics over martinis than fight yet another useless round of the culture wars. Skip a few months ahead and a colleague of mine, a philosopher, sends me a paper just published in the prestigious journal Biology & Philosophy. The authors are Aja Watkins, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Marina DiMarco, of Washington University in St. Louis. The title of their paper is “ Sex eliminativism .” It is a highly technical, clearly written and very well argued paper. But it also is, I think, fundamentally flawed, and a good example of why some scientists really dislike philosophers. I’m going to take my time going through Watkins & DiMarco’s paper, trying my best to explain what they are saying and why, as well as why I believe they got things wrong. That’s why, unusually, this is a two-part essay. Broadly speaking, I suspect Steven would agree with the paper, while I know for a fact that Jerry doesn’t. The Philosophy Garden: Stoicism and Beyond is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. The authors begin with the following: “This paper first argues that realist accounts of sex are wanting. We present a positive argument in favor of anti-realism about biological sex, and argue that, in practice, eliminating biological sex from large swaths of biological theory and practice is preferable.” (p. 2) Okay, before we can proceed we need to get clear on what the three crucial terms invoked by Watkins & DiMarco actually mean. Realism, anti-realism, and eliminativism are three metaphysical positions about scientific theories or concepts. Let’s consider a concrete example to make the distinctions among the three as clear as possible. We have all heard about atoms, right? They are the basic units of a chemical element. There are atoms of hydrogen, of oxygen, of gold, and so forth. Their internal structure is different, and indeed it is precisely such differences that confer distinguishing properties to the various elements. Hydrogen consists of a single proton (a positively charged particle) and a single electron (a negatively charged particle). Oxygen’s nucleus contains 8 protons and 8 neutrons (electrically neutral particles) and is surrounded by 8 electrons. Finally, gold is made of a whopping 79 protons, 118 neutrons, and 79 surrounding electrons. Now, if you are a realist about atoms, neutrons, protons, and electrons, you will say that what I just gave you is a description of how things actually are, to the best of our knowledge. That is, there really are out there things like atoms, and they really are made of things like neutrons, protons, and electrons. But if you are an anti-realist about atoms and their constituents, you will say instead that these are convenient conceptual or mathematical entities that are invoked by scientists in order to account for observable phenomena. After all, the particles themselves are not, in fact, observable (unless you happen to have handy a special instrument called a scanning tunneling microscope) and their existence needs to be deduced or postulated. What about eliminativism? This is a position that says that not only there is no good reason to assume that atoms and particles actually exist. They are not even needed as concepts because they don’t do any useful work within any scientific theory. They can, therefore, be eliminated (from scientific, and presumably also lay discourse). Nobody that I know of is an eliminativist about atoms and subatomic particles, and most scientists, at this point, are realists about them. But this is a relatively recent consensus. Up until the beginning of the 20th century there was no agreement that atoms were real. It was Albert Einstein who provided the first evidence in favor of atomic realism by way of explaining Brownian motion ( here is a fuller and better explanation). He published his analysis in one of the four landmark papers that characterized his famous “ annus mirabilis ” of 1905. (He later got the Nobel for another one of those papers, the one about the photoelectric effect.) The first photo of the internal structure of an hydrogen atom, taken by means of a quantum microscope . Fox News, 28 May 2013. Is anyone an eliminativist about anything? Yes. I, for one, count myself as an eliminativist about the concept of race. It does not correspond to any biological reality , and it is socially pernicious. So I’d rather simply not use it. (I am definitely in a minority here.) Another famous philosophical eliminativist is Patricia Churchland , who for decades now has pushed for the elimination of “folk” psychological concepts, such as pain, and their replacement with more accurate neurobiological descriptions, like “my C-fibers are firing.” Good luck with that. Now that we are a little more clear about the distinctions among realism, anti-realism, and eliminativism, let us return to Watkins & DiMarco’s paper. They write: “Most philosophers of biology, not to mention biologists themselves, are realists about biological sex. … The general consensus among biologists is that ‘males’ and ‘females’ are distinguished by the type of gamete members of each category produce. … The gametic definition generally does very well at applying to all forms of life that are ‘anisogamous,’ i.e., those organisms that produce gametes that are not all the same size. (Isogamous species produce only one size of gamete, but still reproduce sexually.)“ (p. 3) Note that the above is a definition, not an empirical observation. Sexes are defined with respect to the size of gametes they produce. Definitions cannot be right or wrong, they can only be useful or not. There are, of course, empirical observations that stem from the definition of sex in evolutionary biology, specifically: (i) most species of multicellular organisms are anisogamous, and (ii) few of these have multiple sexes, i.e., produce a variety, sometimes a continuum, of gamete sizes. These observations are what biologists wish to account for, and they have accordingly produced a number of theories—based on the gametic view—about the evolution of sexual strategies in nature. Okay, what’s the problem, then, especially given that—by admission of Watkins & DiMarco, most biologists and philosophers of science are in agreement? One problem is that: “The gametic definition is susceptible to counterexamples. For example, it is not guaranteed that all gametes with sperm-like morphology are necessarily smaller than all gametes with egg-like morphology; Drosophila bifurca, for instance, have gametes otherwise homologous to sperm but which range up to 5.8 cm in length.” (p. 4) Two sperms of Drosophila bifurca, The Atlantic . This is true, but possibly disingenuous, or at least misleading: while D. bifurca’s sperms are, indeed, very long compared to the eggs, most of the cellular material and sub-cellular organelles that get inherited by the offspring comes, as it is usual, from the eggs, not the sperms. Which means that functionally D. bifurca is not, in fact, an exception to the gametic rule. Also, biologists have a pretty good idea of why D. bifurca is so exceptional: the gigantic sperms likely evolved by what is known as a Fisherian runaway process . At any rate, as the authors themselves acknowledge, biology is “messy” and the only rule is that there are always exceptions. But the rules often help explain the exceptions; failing that, the exceptions themselves point toward new, interesting discoveries. Watkins & DiMarco make an analogy with species concepts: there too, there are exceptions, and some species concepts apply only to certain groups of organisms and not others. But that’s interesting, rather than problematic, and biologists are not about to give up and become “eliminativists” about the notion of species (even though Watkins and DiMarco seem to think they should). Still there is much more to the controversy, so please come back tomorrow for part II……

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How to be queer with Sappho and Plato

לפני 18 ימים

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[Based on How to be Queer : An Ancient Guide to Sexuality, by Sappho, Plato, and other lovers, translated by Sarah Nooter. Full book series here .] What is the difference between love and lust? Does the former require the latter? Is the latter inevitably a conduit to the former? From a biological perspective, lust for sex has been ingrained into us by natural selection because otherwise we would likely not bother having sex, which is necessary for the propagation of our genetic lineage. I mean, think about it: courtship requires time and resources, and it exposes you to attack from predators—at least if you were living in the African savannah. If it weren’t pleasurable, you’d rather take a nap. Or have a snack. But of course nature is not destiny. As evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker once put it, he decided to spend his life pursuing his career and cultivating friendships rather than having children. And if his genes didn’t like it they could go on and jump into a lake. The anthropologist Helen Fisher examined research on the issue of the relationship between love and lust and concluded that there is evidence for three phases of love in the human primate: (i) the lust phase, when we are moved by an intense sexual desire for the other person; (ii) the romantic phase, when we conceptualize (and, mostly, rationalize) our love interest as being the best person ever, the perfect soul mate, and so on; and (iii) the attachment phase, during which both lust and romance give way to a deeper, but calmer feeling of contentment with the relationship and acceptance of the other person’s inevitable quirks or shortcomings. Each phase is even accompanied by its own specific hormone profile : testosterone (in men) and estrogen (in women) for lust; norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin for romance; and oxytocin and vasopressin for attachment. But of course we all know, or have experienced, exceptions to the three-phase rule. Sometimes lust doesn’t evolve into romance, or romance doesn’t yield to attachment. Sometimes one or two phases can be skipped altogether. Shifting to a more conceptual level for a moment, my keyboard’s dictionary defines lust as “a passionate desire for something” and in the specific case of sex, as “a very strong sexual desire.” Romance is defined as “a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love,” and the latter is characterized as “an intense feeling of deep affection.” That sounds about right, at least as a first approximation, so we’ll go with these definitions for the purposes of the current essay. In modern culture, romance and love have positive connotations, while lust has a bit more dubious status. Most of us want to feel lust for something or someone, because it’s a good feeling. But the term also evokes a tendency to behave irrationally in the pursuit of one’s object of lust, even to highly detrimental effects for ourselves or others. Think of the stereotypical married man who cannot control his lust for a woman who is married to a friend, gives in to his impulses (and she to hers), in the process ruining two marriages and a friendship. The ancient Stoics, had they read Fisher’s book, would have likely come up with a different classification, putting both lust and romance into the “passions” ( pathe ), or unhealthy emotions, and separating out love (of the appropriate kind) as a healthy emotion ( eupatheia ). The unhealthy emotions, in Stoicism, are defined as those that have a tendency to override reason, or that push us to do things that are against reason. Again, think of the philandering man just described. The healthy emotions, by contrast, are those that are guided by, or align with, reason. Love for one’s partner, or children, or friends, falls into this second category. I was reminded of all of the above while reading “ How to be Queer : An Ancient Guide to Sexuality, by Sappho, Plato, and other lovers,” a collection of translations by Sarah Nooter for the ongoing Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series being published by Princeton University Press. Usually, when I write about this series, I provide an overview of the whole book, but in this case I will focus only on the last two chapters, because in my mind they encapsulate most of what’s going on with sex, lust, romance, and love. This is not at all to say that the first nine chapters of the book aren’t well worth reading. They present us with a superb sampler of poetry and prose, including Homer writing about the passion of “swift-footed” Achilles, Pindar on Poseidon and Pelops, Sappho on lesbian love, Aristophanes and Euripides on gender bending, and of course Plato on the origin of love (in the Symposium). All of it highly enjoyable and well worth reflecting on. But the last two chapters are simply superb. The first one (chapter 11 in the collection curated by Nooter), is comprised of two contrasting arguments put forth by Socrates in Plato’s Phaedrus; the second one (chapter 12) is the famous speech given by Alcibiades in Plato’s Symposium, this one addressing Socrates. They are masterpieces of philosophy, rhetoric, and literature. The Philosophy Garden: Stoicism and Beyond is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Let us begin with the two arguments articulated by Socrates to Phaedrus. They both concern the madness and passion of love. The first argument is meant to discourage a young man from entering into a relationship with an older man who is in love with him, advising the youth instead to prefer a man who is not in love. The second argument does exactly the opposite, and Socrates explicitly tells Phaedrus that the first argument is wrong while the second one hits the mark. Let’s see if you agree. Socrates begins by setting up the scene and the goal of the first argument: “There was once a boy, or rather a youth, and he was very handsome. He had a great many admirers. There was a wily one among them who was no less in love than the others but persuaded the boy that he was not. And at some point, while wooing him, he convinced him of this too, that it was right to please someone who is not in love with him rather than someone who is.” Is this right, that it is better to yield to someone who is not in love with us? Before we can answer the question directly, says Socrates, we need to examine the very concept of eros. (Keep in mind here that although obviously the Greek word is the root of our term “erotic,” the original meaning was much broader). Eros, it turns out, is desire. And inborn desire for pleasure is one of the forces that control a human life, the other being the cultural influences to which we are all exposed, and which nudge us to seek what is best according to the culture in which we grow up. Socrates here suggests that when cultural influences prevail and lead us toward what is best by way of sound reasoning we call that “moderation.” However, when desire rules we seek pleasure for its own sake and we are brought to “excess.” For instance, we need food to stay alive, but when desire for food overrides moderation then we become gluttons, and gluttony is a vice. Similarly: “Desire that overpowers the influence of reason to do what’s right and that leads to the pleasure of the beautiful and that, again, is vigorously strong-armed by similar desires toward the beauty of the body, and that wins out in the end—this desire takes its name from this very force and is called eros.” You can see where this is going: to grant our favors to someone who is in love with us, and who is therefore ruled by eros, is problematic, because it will lead to excess, not moderation. This is the root of all sorts of ancillary vices, including jealousy and possessiveness. A relationship controlled by eros will be destructive to one’s family, friendships, and material possessions, all of which will be sacrificed to the altar of lust and the madness of eros. In conclusion, says Socrates: “My boy, you must keep these things in mind and know that the affection of a lover is not derived from goodwill but rather is like a desire for food for the sake of satisfaction. Just as wolves love lambs, so do lovers adore their lad.” At this point, however, the sage of Athens completely switches sides, telling Phaedrus: “Know this then, handsome lad, that the prior speech … is not true. … For if it were simply the case that madness is bad, then [the speech] would be well spoken. But the fact is that the greatest of benefits comes to us through madness, or at least the kind given by divine grace. For indeed the prophetess at Delphi … when maddened has conferred the greatest goods upon Greece in private and public matters.” You see, we all agree that eros and the lust for the lover that it generates is madness, the antithesis of reason. And yet we also know that certain kinds of madness are the most divine thing a human being can possibly experience. This, continues Socrates, will not be believed by those who are merely clever, but will be accepted as true by those who are actually wise. Eros, Socrates states, is nourishment for the soul, which would otherwise dry up. Desire has the power to freshen and warm the soul, which is why we feel joy when in the presence of the beloved. The soul cannot stand to be without the lover, and that is why it forgets mothers and fathers, brothers and friends, as well as “all the rules of decency.” Socrates gets downright poetic in his enthusiastic defense of eros: “The flowing water of that rushing river—which Zeus when in love with Ganymede called the ‘rush’ of desire—washes over the lover, and some of it settles within him, while some of it overflows and streams forth into the world.” When I finished reading Socrates’s two speeches my first thought was that the Stoics had a point: the second situation described in the Phaedrus, the state of the soul of the lover, sounds ghastly, truly a kind of madness. Perhaps it comes from the gods or, as we would say today, from evolution, but either way it easily wrecks things, taking control of us and leading us to excesses that we will surely regret once the rush has passed. And you can count on the fact that it will pass. Or maybe you disagree and find the whole notion of a temperate love to be insipid and unattractive. Either way, one thing is startling here: where is the Socrates who has become a legendary embodiment of reason and temperance? You know, the guy who argues amiably with friends and strangers alike, who is steadfast in the midst of battle, and who serenely faces death by hemlock? Symposium scene in a fresco from the north wall of the Tomb of the Diver, Paestum, Italy, circa 475 BCE. Image from Wikimedia, CC license. We find that Socrates in the following, and last, chapter of Nooter’s book, the one devoted to Alcibiades’s speech in the Symposium. The scene is the house of Agathon, a poet who has invited a number of friends over for a drinking party in order to celebrate the triumph of his first tragedy. Each guest, including Aristophanes and Socrates, gives a speech in honor of love. Near the end, the legendary Alcibiades crashes the party and delivers his own speech, which is a forlorn love letter to none other than Socrates. Alcibiades was impossibly handsome, incredibly wealthy, witty, brave, and devilishly cunning. He had a very high opinion of himself, and was usually able to easily convince others to do his bidding. He will eventually play a major role in the Peloponnesian War , which will end in a disaster for Athens. He will also be hunted down and killed by Spartan spies, not before he rushed naked at them while brandishing his sword and shield, instilling so much fear in his opponents that they contended themselves to shoot him down at a distance, by using arrows and spears. [1] At Agathon’s symposium, however, Alcibiades is a much diminished man, and the fault is Socrates’s. Alcibiades begins his speech by announcing that he will reveal the real Socrates to those present. He says that Socrates pretends to be ignorant of all things, but in reality always knows exactly what he’s talking about. Moreover, he is endowed with a near infinite reservoir of temperance. Proof of this is that Alcibiades, madly in love with the philosopher, has tried multiple times to seduce him. He made an attempt once that they were alone at the gym. Nothing. He made another attempt at his house, but Socrates walked out immediately after dinner. Finally, he got Socrates to spend the night, and here is what happened (or didn’t happen, depending on how you look at it): “I wrapped my coat around him—for it was winter—and lay beneath his own thin cloak, like so, putting my arms around this truly devilish and wondrous man. I lay there all night. And in these things, again, Socrates, you cannot say that I am lying! For when I had indeed done all that, this man showed himself to be utterly superior and to hold my youth in contempt, mockery, and insult—and in regard to the very thing in which I thought I was really something, o gentlemen of the jury. For you are the judges of Socrates’s arrogance! Know well by the gods and goddesses, that when I arose in the morning I had no more had relations with Socrates than I would have had I slept with my own father or older brother.” Alcibiades was made mad by eros, but of the lowest kind, the sort that we associate with sexual lust. Socrates by contrast, is in love with wisdom—the literal meaning of a philosopher—and while he does not disdain earthly pleasures, he is always in control of himself, exercising temperance, which is the control of desire by reason. What a contrast with the Socrates of the Phaedrus! I leave it to you to ponder which version of Socrates you prefer, or to consider whether the Stoics were right in cautioning us not to yield to the pathe and to instead mindfully cultivate the eupatheiai . As to why Plato presents us with such contrasting portraits of Socrates, we need to remember that his dialogues were meant primarily as a teaching tool for his students at the Academy [2]. As any good teacher knows, you don’t present your pupils with the truth ready made. You stimulate their curiosity so that they work it out for themselves. _____ [1] For more about the complex relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades see The Quest for Character : What the Story of Socrates and Alcibiades Teaches Us about Our Search for Good Leaders, Basic Books, 2022. [2] Plato of Athens : A Life in Philosophy, by Robin Waterfield, Oxford University Press, 2023. See my conversation with Robin here . [Previous installments: I , II , III , IV , V , VI , VII , VIII , IX , X , XI , XII , XIII , XIV , XV , XVI , XVII , XVIII , XIX , XX , XXI , XXII , XXIII , XXIV , XXV , XXVI , XXVII , XXVIII , XXIX.]…

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Plato on being friends without knowing what friendship is

לפני 23 ימים

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“‘Shall we assume, then, that … the bad is akin to the bad; the good to the good; and what is neither good nor bad to what is neither good nor bad?’ They said they thought it was so: each was akin to its counterpart. ‘In that case, boys,’ I said, ‘haven’t we fallen back into those first statements of ours about friendship, which we rejected, since one unjust man will be a friend to another unjust man, a bad man to another bad man, no less than one good man to another good man?’ ‘It would appear so,’ they said. … ‘Then I don’t know what more to say.’ With that I was intending to provoke another of the older men into speaking. Just then, like evil spirits, Lysis’s and Menexenus’s tutors came over with the boys’ brothers, called to them, and told them to come home; it was already late. … However, I did say, just as they were leaving, ‘Lysis and Menexenus, we’ve now made utter fools of ourselves, an old man like me and you, since these people will go away and say that we think that we’re friends of one another – for I consider myself one of your number – though we were not as yet able to find out precisely what a friend is.’” (Lysis, 222c-223b)…

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Plato on loving things for the sake of other things

לפני 4 weeks

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“‘All right then,’ I said. ‘Now that we’ve got as far as this, boys, let’s be careful not to be deceived.’ … ‘Let’s consider the following case: medicine, we say, is a friend for the sake of health.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Is health a friend too, then?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘If it is a friend, it is so for the sake of something.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And that something is a friend, if it is to be consistent with what we admitted earlier.’ ‘Of course.’ ‘And that too, in its turn, will be a friend for the sake of a friend?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Well then, aren’t we bound to get tired going on like that and give up, or else arrive at some point of origin which will not refer us to yet another friend, but which will constitute the first thing that is a friend, for the sake of which we say that all the others too are friends?’ ‘We are.’ … “Admittedly, we do often say that we value gold and silver highly, but that hardly comes any nearer the truth. What we value most highly is that thing (whatever it may reveal itself as being) for the sake of which both gold and everything else that is procured are procured. Shall we settle for that?’ ‘Of course.’” (Lysis, 219c-220a) The Philosophy Garden: Stoicism and Beyond is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.…

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How to make money with Pliny & co.

לפני 5 weeks

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[Based on How to Make Money : An Ancient Guide to Wealth Management, by Pliny & co., translated by Luca Grillo. Full book series here .] “Someone once asked Cato about the best investment for one’s estate. ‘Raising cattle successfully,’ he replied. ‘And what comes second?’ ‘Raising them well enough.’ ‘And third?’ ‘Raising them poorly.’ ‘And fourth?’ ‘Cultivating land.’ ‘But’—added the interlocutor—‘what about moneylending?’ to which Cato replied, ‘And what about murdering someone?’” (Cicero, On Duties, 2.89) Cato the Elder (234-149 BCE) clearly ranked moneylending pretty low on the scale of morally acceptable occupations. Yet, this same Cato would later engage in the very practice he condemned, exemplifying the complex and often contradictory Roman attitudes toward wealth and its acquisition. These tensions between practical necessity and ethical ideals, between social status and economic reality, I think, continue to resonate in our modern world. Through How to Make Money , a collection of translations of ancient authors put together by Luca Grillo, we discover a society grappling with questions that still perplex us today: What makes an occupation honorable? How does one balance the pursuit of wealth with moral virtue? And what can the successes and failures of Roman entrepreneurs, from freed slaves who became wealthy merchants to corrupt contractors whose shoddy amphitheaters collapsed, teach us about our own relationship with money and success? As usual, by examining these ancient perspectives, we find not just historical curiosities, but practical wisdom that speaks directly to our modern anxieties and aspirations. Like us moderns, the Romans had a complicated relationship with money and the various ways of making it, but at least in theory their priorities were clear. Perhaps the quintessential story that tells us about what they aspired to is that of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (519-430 BCE). In 458 BCE, as Rome faced an imminent invasion by the Aequi, a tribe of Italics, the Senate dispatched messengers to find the retired military commander Cincinnatus, whom they discovered working his small farm across the Tiber. The messengers proclaimed that the Senate had appointed him dictator—granting him absolute power to save Rome from the crisis. After wiping the sweat and dirt from his brow, the story goes, Cincinnatus accepted the call to serve. He swiftly raised an army, defeated the Aequi in just fifteen days, and then, rather than retaining his near-absolute power, which by law he could have held for up to six months, he resigned and returned to his modest farm to continue plowing his fields. This act of voluntary renunciation of power became legendary in Roman culture, establishing an enduring ideal of civic virtue where duty to the state and—just as importantly—honest agricultural work, were seen as the highest forms of nobility. The story was so influential that it continued to inspire leaders millennia later—notably, George Washington was often compared to Cincinnatus for his similar willingness to relinquish power and return to his farm after his military and political service. The sculpture of Cincinnatus in Vienna’s Schönbrunn Garden. Image from Wikimedia, CC license. While service to the state and farming were idealized, a number of other occupations were looked upon with suspicion or even disdain by the Romans. As Grillo points out, the most lucrative occupations were not always the most respected. As we have seen usury, but also tax collection, ranked at the bottom, though they were both very profitable. In between we find architecture, medicine, and teaching. These are professions that occupy the mind, and so are worthy of some respect, even though they were not good enough for the elite. Nevertheless, graffiti uncovered at Pompeii clearly demonstrate that people found pride in their occupations, even if they were craftsmen or merchants. Some of the inscriptions recovered by the archeologists include: “The chicken sellers invite you to vote for Epidius and Suettius,” “The mat makers ask you to elect Lollius,” “The grocery sellers ask you to support Marcus Priscus,” and “The bakers urge you to elect Trebius.” Notice the connection between trade guilds and politics. Once again, nothing new under the sun… The Philosophy Garden: Stoicism and Beyond is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Predictably, we know much less about the jobs of women, though we have some inscriptions and some epitaphs curved on tombstones. Such epitaphs were pretty expensive, with the cheapest ones costing three months’ wages for an unskilled worker. As a result, many were buried anonymously in common graves. Even so, there was a surprising amount of social mobility in ancient Roman society, which is documented by some of the very same inscriptions and epitaphs. Interestingly, this social mobility could be enjoyed also by women and slaves. Some people could make fortunes on public contracts, which were highly regulated by the law. Investors would take risks and sometimes reap huge benefits and individuals of talent could raise through the ranks, even starting out as slaves, and become the equivalent of modern day billionaires. One way to invest your money would be in politics: it was expected that ambitious politicians would sponsor increasingly extravagant, and therefore, very expensive, public games. Moreover, you could literally buy votes come election time. This is not really very different from modern elections in the US, which cost billions of dollars and were lobbying by interest groups is essentially a form of legalized bribing. At the lowest rung of accepted professions were those that exploited the human body: prostitution, of course, but also dealing in gladiators and selling slaves. Although all of these occupations were legal, they were by far the most despised by public opinion. By studying how the Romans dealt with economics we also learn more than a bit of interesting etymology, as pointed out by Grillo. For instance, soldiers were paid by the weight ( pendo ) of a wage ( stips ), a process known as stipendium , from which the English word stipend. The Roman mint was dedicated to the goddess Juno Moneta, from which we get the term money. Another Latin word for money was pecunia , from pecus , meaning cattle—because a common form of investment was in farming animals. With that context in mind, let’s sample the text by way of a few highlights, accompanied by brief commentaries. The following is a nice story about a former slave that becomes the target of the envy of his neighbors because he has become very successful (in part by exploiting other slaves). But the legal system often worked, affording an opportunity to honest people to defend themselves and prevail in court. It is not by chance that Roman Law still forms the framework for modern civil law. “Caius Furius Cresimus, a former slave, reaped from his little field a much larger crop than his neighbors did from much bigger estates. So he was much disliked, as if he snatched other people’s harvest by dark magic. For this reason, he was summoned to court by the aedile Spurius Albinus, and he feared he would be condemned by the vote of the tribes. He brought all the farming tools and his entire team of slaves into the forum. They were healthy, well tended, and well dressed, as Piso reports, with excellent iron tools, heavy plowshares, and strong oxen. Then he said: ‘This is my dark magic, citizens, and I cannot even show you by bringing into the forum the work I did in my sleepless nights and how much I sweated.’ He was unanimously acquitted.” (Tools, in Natural History, by Pliny the Elder) Here is an example of an inscription, in this case concerning the case of a businesswoman moving from slavery to success: “To the Divine Spirits / Of Abudia Megiste, most dutiful / Freedwoman of Marcus, / Marcus Abudius Luminaris, her patron / And likewise husband / Made [this monument] for her / A well-deserving / Dealer in grain / And pulses at the middle stair / For himself / And his freedmen / And freedwomen and descendants / And for Marcus Abudius Saturninus / His son, fellow tribesman of the Esquiline tribe, of the body of elders, / Who lived eight years.” (Corpus of Latin Inscriptions, 6.2.9683) Marcus, who may have been a former slave himself, presumably paid for the inscription. He freed, married, and sponsored Megiste. Their son was enrolled in the elder body of the privileged Esquiline tribe (despite being very young, since we are told that he died aged eight). The reference to “middle stair” is to the (unknown to modern archeologists) location of Megiste’s business. The following bit is from Cicero to his brother Quintus, who was at the time of writing the Governor of Asia (i.e., modern Turkey) and was having trouble with the publicans, who were powerful private individuals who collected taxes on behalf of the local government and who often exploited the population out of greed: “The publicans present a serious threat to your goodwill and care. If we resist them, we alienate from us and from the state a class that has wonderfully supported us and which, with my mediation, has been allied with the state. Completely complying with them, however, amounts to throwing to the wolves the very people we are supposed to protect and favor. To be honest, this is the most serious challenge in your office … [which] requires quasi-divine wisdom, just like yours.” (Cicero’s letter to Quintus) This is an advertisement for a gladiatorial event organized in Pompeii: “The gladiatorial school of the aedile Aulus Suettius Certus will fight in Pompeii on May 31; [the show will include] an animal hunt and blinds for shade.” (Corpus of Latin Inscriptions, 4.1189) And the following is about a tragic episode that originated because of the greed of a builder, again not dissimilar from events we may read about in a modern newspaper or watch on the evening news: “A certain Atilius, who was the son of a freedman, began constructing an amphitheater for gladiatorial games at Fidenae [an ancient town 8 kilometers north of Rome]. But he did not cast the foundations into solid land, and he built the wooden structure on loose joints. … There was a great turnout because Fidenae is close to Rome. For this reason, the disaster was more lethal. The construction turned in on itself, then it shattered and collapsed. It pulled down and crushed an immense multitude of people, both those who were inside watching the shows and those who were gathered around the building.” (Tacitus, Annals, 4.62-63) Finally, here is a hypothetical case—imagined as an exercise by Seneca’s father—in which a lawyer defends a prostitute who killed a soldier: “A case for the girl by Albucius. A brutal and violent man approached her. I think that the gods themselves drove him not to violate the future priestess’s chastity but to promote it. She warned him to keep his hands off her holy body: ‘you would not dare to violate the chastity that the people respect and the gods expect.’ As he was laughing and rushing to his own ruin, she told him, ‘check your weapon, which you hold in support of chastity without realizing it.’ She snatched his sword and sunk it into his breast.” (Seneca the Elder, Controversies, 1.2) [Previous installments: I , II , III , IV , V , VI , VII , VIII , IX , X , XI , XII , XIII , XIV , XV , XVI , XVII , XVIII , XIX , XX , XXI , XXII , XXIII , XXIV , XXV , XXVI , XXVII , XXVIII .]…

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Plato on who really loves wisdom

לפני 5 weeks

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“‘That’s why we’d say that those who are already wise, whether they are gods or men, no longer love wisdom, and that those who are so ignorant that they are bad do not love wisdom either, because no bad or stupid man loves wisdom. So, we’re left with those who possess that bad thing, ignorance, but have not yet been rendered foolish or stupid by it, in that they still believe they don’t know what they don’t know. Consequently those who are still neither good nor bad do, in fact, love wisdom; whereas all those who are bad, as well as all those who are good, do not, because, as we decided earlier in our discussion, neither is opposite the friend of opposite, nor like of like. Don’t your remember?’ ‘Of course,’ they said. ‘So now, Lysis and Menexenus,’ I said, ‘we’ve done it! We’ve discovered what a friend is and what it is not. We say that in the soul, in the body and anywhere else, it is what is neither bad nor good that is the friend of the good because of the presence of bad.’ The two of them agreed wholeheartedly, admitting that it was so.” (Lysis, 218a-218c) The Philosophy Garden: Stoicism and Beyond is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.…

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Plato on why friendship between bad people is not possible

לפני 6 weeks

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“‘Have you come across the writings of our wisest men, which say that like must always be friend to like? These are, of course, the men who discuss and write about nature and the universe.’ ‘That’s true,’ he said. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘are they right?’ ‘Possibly,’ he replied. … [But] ‘We think that the closer one wicked man gets to another wicked man and the more he associates with him, the more he becomes hated by him, because he wrongs him; and it is, of course, impossible for wronger and wronged to be friends, isn’t it?’ ‘Yes,’ he replied. … ‘Well then, in my opinion, Lysis, this is what people mean when they say, in their cryptic way, that like is friend to like: friendship exists only between good men, whereas the bad man never achieves true friendship with either a good or a bad man. Do you agree?’ He nodded assent.” (Lysis, 214b-214d) The Philosophy Garden: Stoicism and Beyond is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.…

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All About Change