After the death of Socrates….and the break-up of greek culture…that resulted from the peloponnesian war...Socratic philosophy went into a decline...and fragmented into several pieces, and the fragments of Stoic philosophy make up the body of Hellenistic philosophy, what I mean by Hellenistic philosophy is… the subsequent developments of Greek philosophy which take their cue from the Socratic approach to philosophy, yet they don’t have all the component parts of Socratic philosophy… they usually lack the width they almost always lack the poetry, occasionally they absorb some of the ethical doctrines or epistemological doctrines, but the ones who come after Socrates never really live up to the Socratic ideal, the three main fragments of Socratic philosophy breaks into are called: Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism. And these are the most important Hellenistic outgrowths from Socratic philosophy… And since Rome, the Roman Empire in particular is the political entity which ultimately dominates the Mediterranean Basin and absorbs, and inherits, the tradition of Greek philosophy...Most of the Hellenistic branches of philosophy are developed in connection or with reference to either politically or intellectually with Roman culture, and the first of these developments is Hedonism or Epicureanism, named after a guy named Epicurus and what Epicureanism says is that pleasure is the only good... and that the happy man is the one that has many pleasures... but no corresponding pains. And there is potentially a way of deriving that from Socratic philosophy, if you would take the idea of Socratic prudence, the man who drinks a little bit in order to get a certain degree of pleasure but then not so much as he will cause himself a hangover or cause himself some corresponding pain, he’s been prudently Socratic, picking and choosing his pleasures in such a way that he does not generate any corresponding pains. You can see possibly how people who were not entirely developed to the circle who were not highly committed to the Socratic conception of the soul, and a virtue, might want to derive that sort of justification for the pursuit of pleasure from the Socratic dialogues.

A second alternative, again a minor alternative, fragment of Socratic philosophy is called Skepticism. Socrates throughout most of the dialogues, I would emphasize the word most rather than all, says that he doesn’t know anything, part of the Socratic irony is this...posture. Of acting as if he’s really an ignorant man when in fact he is wise...In saying that the knows nothing and thus never trying to teach people by directly making declarative sentences, for the most part Socrates teaches by question-and-answer, Socrates helps people to articulate and to realize what’s already buried within their soul… When Socrates does that, when he’s in that skeptical mode he says: ‘I MYSELF KNOW NOTHING, ALL I DO IS INQUIRE INTO THINGS, I AM THE ETERNAL INQUIRER, I'M THE PATRON SAINT OF RATIONAL INQUIRY’ And it’s possible to see particularly within the context of the Roman Empire how Skepticism might develop from that Socratic stance of knowing nothing. Remember that the Roman Empire is a heterogeneous mix of peoples and cultures and religions and philosophical positions and after being forced to encounter one cosmogonic myth after another, one theory of religion after another, one theory of morals after another. Sophisticated Romans, sophisticated Hellenistic thinkers might well come to the conclusion that Lucian the skeptic did which is: ‘NO ONE REALLY KNOWS THE RIGHT PATH, NO ONE EVEN KNOWS IF THERE IS A RIGHT PATH. THE BEST WE CAN DO IS SAY THAT THE PRETENSIONS MADE BY THE VARIOUS SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY ARE JUST THAT, PRETENSIONS’ Skepticism while it may be rather negative, is at least right, we can be certain about what we do not know. And it’s possible to see how someone, especially someone who was terribly frustrated with the attempt to obtain final absolute knowledge might resort to skepticism as a kind of easy way out. A way of avoiding the burden of Socratic Inquiry .

The third and most important development in Hellenistic philosophy is called Stoicism and Stoicism is probably the greatest and most interesting achievement of the Hellenistic philosophers… And while it never achieves the poetic and intellectual grandeur of the Socratic synthesis, of the Platonic overarching system which makes statements about the entire human condition… Stoicism is in fact a noble philosophy, an excellent philosophy for silver men for the spirited men in the Republic who are going to be our guardians, it’s an excellent philosophy for military men, it’s an excellent philosophy for people who are going to be practical politicians, if they intend to be virtuous, if they intend to pursue the public good.

Estoicismo

And Stoicism, is characterized by rejection of pleasure, as a standard of human happiness and human felicity … Stoicism takes the position that the wise man, the good man, the philosopher, is a man who lives in accordance with nature, he fears only abdicating his moral responsibility, he is not afraid of pain. He is not afraid of death. He is not afraid of poverty, he is not afraid of any of the vicissitudes of the human condition, he fears only that he should let himself down, and then that he should be less than a complete human being….

According to the Stoics… and there are a number of Stoics, two or three or four or five that actually developed the doctrine, but all the doctrines are quite similar… The only matter of concern to a wise and philosophic individual is are the things completely under your control, you can’t control the movements of the Sun and the planets, you can’t control whether a leaky ship sinks or makes it to port, you can’t control the weather you can’t control other people, you can’t control the society around you. There is only one thing and one thing only that you are in control of, and that is you. Your will, your intentions, yourself. In other words the wise man, the truly philosophical man is the man who is entirely in control of his own soul, who takes utter and complete moral responsibility for his actions and is indifferent to everything else, not because he doesn’t care about other people, not because he doesn’t care about the felicity of the entire human species, but because it’s not under his control.... There is no use wondering or worrying about what tomorrow will bring, since tomorrow isn’t under your control. Do what’s right today... and let tomorrow take care of itself.

The stoic philosopher is the man who has liberated himself from fear, he’s not afraid of death, he is not afraid of pain, he is not afraid of other people’s dismissal as a fool. The only thing he cares about, is that he should meet his moral obligations…. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that ‘GREATNESS IS THE PERCEPTION THAT VIRTUE IS ENOUGH… ’ Which is an elegant and beautiful line and he might well have stolen that from one of the Stoics because all of the Stoics basically believe that. Virtue, moral virtue, an organized soul which pursues rationally the end which are good for all human beings. That’s the stoic conception of virtue. They finally understand. Their greatness consist in the fact that they perceive that virtue… is enough. ‘WE DO NOT NEED WEALTH, WE DO NOT NEED SEXUAL GRATIFICATION.. WE DO NOT NEED LIFE ITSELF...’ if moral virtue tells us that we must die in the pursuit of some good end, the protection of our family, the protection of our home, the protection of the innocent, ‘IN THE DOING OF RIGHT, NOTHING SHOULD BE SPARED, NOT EVEN OUR LIVES’

The Stoic wise man, is a man who has trained his soul, trained his mind, so that he is not afraid of apparent evils, he is only afraid of real evil, he is afraid of losing control of his soul, he is afraid of being a slave to lust, to desire, to emotion, the stoic man is the honorable philosopher, the man who stands at his duty and is steadfast and serious-minded.

In living according to nature, what the stoic philosopher does.. is examine the nature of the human condition and the nature of the world around us… he discerns his position in nature...he discerns the kind of creature that he is and he lives in such a way as not to disgrace himself as not to be less than what he truly could be. He won’t live the swinish life that we found with our softness, he wants to be if not a god, certainly not less than human, he won’t be an animal either, he will live up to the fullest potentials that human beings have to offer.

Los Estoicos

Now, among the Roman Stoics, two are especially noteworthy: one is Epictetus, and one is Marcus Aurelius… And one of the wonderful ironies about the history of philosophy is that Epictetus was a slave and Marcus Aurelius was an emperor… Philosophy is the great equalizer, both the slave and the emperor can equally well participate in a philosophy that is accessible to all human beings as human beings, there is nothing less conscious of social status than philosophy… A wise man, a man who is disciplined, in control of his emotions and follows the way of nature can be a good man, no matter what his position in the social structure is, he is not responsible for the social structure and it is not his problem. ‘IF..THE GODS, OR NATURE OR WHATEVER IS CONTROLLING THE WORLD MAKES YOU A SLAVE, THEN BE A GOOD SLAVE… IF GOD, OR NATURE OR WHATEVER IS CONTROLLING THE WORLD MAKES YOU AN EMPEROR, THEN BE A GOOD ONE…. YOUR JOB IS NOT TO DISGRACE YOURSELF AND LIVE UP TO THE HIGHEST POTENTIALS OF HUMAN BEING’.

The most interesting of the Stoics is Marcus Aurelius… Lord Acton the great English philosopher and historian once said that: ‘POWER CORRUPTS, AND ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY’ And that’s generally-speaking true…. The difficulty with that generalization is Marcus Aurelius… Marcus Aurelius was an absolute ruler, he was a ruler of the Roman Empire, he was an Emperor. ‘HE HAD ABSOLUTE POWER OF LIFE AND DEATH OVER EVERYONE IN THE KNOWN WORLD’ I don’t mean everyone in the world as we know it today but everyone in the world as the Romans would have known it. They don’t know about China, or they have a very attenuated conception of the Eskimos, for them, the world is the Mediterranean Basin and Rome owns it. And Marcus Aurelius owns Rome, essentially. His word is law.

Now, for almost all the Roman Emperors, they lived scandalous lives and they disgraced themselves. They were much more concerned with indulging their sensual appetites, satisfying their passions, flying into rages. Marcus Aurelius is the standing exception to that and the exception to Lord Acton’s generalization… ‘IN HIS CASE, POWER DID NOT CORRUPT, ABSOLUTE POWER DID NOT CORRUPT ABSOLUTELY. INSTEAD, ABSOLUTE POWER ALLOWED US TO SEE WHAT THE MAN UNDERNEATH THE BODY IS REALLY LIKE. IT ALLOWED US TO FIND OUT WHAT MARCUS AURELIUS’ SOUL WAS LIKE’ Imagine a man for whom all the restrains of law and custom, and political order are taken away. He can have whatever he wants. ‘IF A MAN UNDER THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES BEHAVES WELL, YOU KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT THE SOUL UNDERNEATH, BECAUSE NO EXTERNAL CONSTRAINT IS MAKING HIM DO WHAT HE IS DOING’ And Marcus Aurelius was the one example of an absolute ruler who behaves himself in such a way as not to disgrace himself…

It’s an amazing temptation, imagine what it is like, stopping to put yourself in that place for a second. Marcus Aurelius takes the throne in 160 to 180 AD and he dies in 180 A.D, 19 years… controlling the entire world. He can have all the money in the world...that’s not an exaggeration, all the money in the world, if he wants it, he can just collect it all. He can have sex with anyone he wants whenever he wants under any circumstances... If he wants to get drunk he can have wine brought in by the boatload. Infinitely. Forever. He can go on a drunk now and stay drunk for the next 19 years until he dies.

Imagine anything that the Bronce, desiring, emotional, irrational parts of your souls want and now imagine… that you can have it.

Now, under those circumstances, imagine that you are forced to bear with this human condition for 19 long years… Now ask yourself...and you didn’t give a show of hands but stop and think about it for a minute. How many of you would fail to disgrace yourselves? To tell you the truth, I don’t think that I could meet the challenge. If you’re honest about it and you stop to think about what kind of a man it takes to bear up under those circumstances. I think you’ll have to admit, or at least I’ll have to admit that he is a better man than I am. And that in its respect, over the centuries, Marcus Aurelius serves as a standing reproach to our self-indulgence, a standing reproach to the idea that we are unable... to deal with the circumstances of human life.

‘IF YOU CAN DEAL WITH TEMPTATION AT THAT LEVEL.. I CANNOT IMAGINE WHAT IS OUTSIDE THE HUMAN POTENTIAL’ And for the Stoics we must remember that: ‘ANY VIRTUE WHICH IS ACCESSIBLE TO ANY HUMAN BEING IS IN PRINCIPLE ACCESSIBLE TO ALL OF US. WE ALL HAVE A RATIONAL NATURE. WHICH ALLOWS US TO CONTROL... OUR FEELINGS, CONTROL OUR BEHAVIOR, CONTROL OUR CONNECTION TO OTHER PEOPLE’ Compared to Marcus Aurelius we have tiny little temptations. We are tempted to steal little things, we’re tempted to cheat on our income taxes, we’re tempted to cheat on our spouses. Marcus Aurelius has that sort of temptation magnified a thousand fold and he consistently does..good...stuff. Stop and think about this for a minute, this is no common man, this is not like the rest of us, and I don’t know how he did it, maybe he did it through philosophy, but well.. It remains to be seen.

Marcus is the last of the good emperors, he’s blasted the Antonine emperors and the emperors that come before him are generally speaking okay but they’re not as bad as the ones that come after. But.. Marcus is perhaps the greatest of the Romans, the noblest of the Romans. When old-fashioned writers talk about Roman virtue what they have in mind is Marcus Aurelius, a man who does what he ought to do regardless of circumstance, tough Roman virtue. He is not afraid of being dead, he is not afraid of being in pain, he is not afraid of having people laugh at him... He is only afraid of doing what’s wrong. He is only afraid of making caos of his soul, why? Because his soul is the only thing he’s completely in control of, it’s the only thing he’s responsible for, and the rest of it is a matter of indifference to him. He’ll certainly try and perform his function as Emperor in the best way he possibly can. But there are Germans at the border, and should they they succeed in winning this war he did the best he could, he has no reason to feel guilty, he has no reason to feel that this is a difficulty.

If for some reason he gets sick, well, sickness is part of human life.’YOU ACCEPT IT AS IT IS, YOU DEAL WITH IT THE BEST YOU CAN, AND THEN YOU MOVE ON’ In other words, Marcus Aurelius intends to live a life in which you will not have to feel guilty about anything and he succeeded in doing that under the most trying possible circumstances. Again, put yourself in a position where you could have anything you want, and no one can stop you, no matter how evil, no matter how depraved, no one can stop you because your word is law, Marcus Aurelius behaved himself for 19 years under those circumstances. A standing reproach to our self-indulgence.

The kind of things that Marcus Aurelius writes are not meant for publication, let’s think about this a little further… Marcus wrote this manuscript without intending to have it published, after his death he wanted to have it burned. Some… philosophically inclined… I guess bookkeeper, librarian, aide-de-camp or whoever it is who picked this up, said ‘No, we can’t just throw this out. We cannot lose the memory of such a great man and we can’t lose the sort of meditations that he created’.

The Meditations

He wrote a book called the meditations and it’s a book to himself, that’s not intended to be published... What sort of man writes a book to himself? What sense does that make? Think about it, the nature of a book is communicating something and we were thinking we could communicate it to some reader but this is not going to be published, it’s written to himself! What makes a man write a book to himself? And there is... a very deep answer I think here…. Marcus Aurelius writes a book to himself because he’s the loneliest man in the world. He has no friends because he has no equals. Think about a man breaking himself on the rock of an impossible virtue, he has no equals, everyone he talks to.. Wants something from him. He is the Emperor of everything in the world, he owns it all, everything he says immediately gets done, he has absolute life-and-death power over everyone.

So anytime he is in the throne room..he’s having an audience..someone comes in from some part of the Empire and they’re always here for some reason and they’re always here because they want something from him and all Marcus wants to do is live a philosophical life but he happens to have had the misfortune to be born the Emperor of Rome... what a pity… So he has to deal with these self-centered swine-ish people all the time and it is his responsibility to do good for them, to give them justice. To give them both examples of virtue and virtuous laws and virtuous decisions and… the weariness of it, gets to him after a while, the book that he’s written, the Meditations is shot through with a kind of philosophical melancholy that is extremely moving, despite the Stoic content of what he’s saying, in other words.. Oddly enough there are a few books in the world which generate more pathos, which create more of a sense of pity for a person reading this than this book, he’s writing a book to himself because he has no one else to talk to and what kind of things he writes in the book? ‘MORAL MAXIMS’ And I mean, he has two or three ideas, it’s okay, not a hundred-odd pages, but he says essentially the same thing again and again and again. Why? He has nobody to talk to, so that limits the scope of his conversations and he’s constantly trying to remind himself that: ‘LOOK, ALTHOUGH THE PEOPLE YOU’RE DEALING WITH ARE CORRUPT, EVIL AND DEPRAVED. IT’S YOUR JOB NOT TO GET ANGRY WITH THEM BUT TO TRY AND TEACH THEM AND MORALLY IMPROVE THEM. IF YOU CAN’T MORALLY IMPROVE THEM AT LEAST PUT UP WITH THEM BECAUSE THE GODS HAVE CREATED US SOCIAL ANIMALS AND IT IS PART OF THE MARK OR IT IS THE MARK OF A PHILOSOPHICAL MAN THAT HE SHOULD RETURN BENEFITS FOR HARM. BECAUSE THOSE THAT WOULD HARM OTHER PEOPLE DO NOT LIVE THE PHILOSOPHICAL LIFE. THOSE THAT DON’T WANT THE ULTIMATE GOOD FOR THEMSELVES AND FOR SOCIETY, DO SO BECAUSE THEY DON’T KNOW ANY BETTER’.

Marcus has not only political power but wisdom and in that respect he’s the only example in the Western tradition of any ruler who even remotely approximates Plato’s philosopher King! and he has some the qualities that Plato thought the philosopher King would have! He is totally disdainful of wealth! While he owns everything! What would it be like to own everything from England to Egypt? Well... the idea of accumulating more stuff becomes less and less interesting -if you stop and think about it. And if you could have sex with say a million people, the million at first has very limited attraction. And at that point he stops to think and he says ‘I WILL DO MY BEST TO CONSTANTLY DO WHAT I OUGHT TO DO’ And… there is a sort of whistling-in-the-graveyard tone to this book.. He is in some respects an enormous lonely man and in some respects an enormous sad man. It’s a melancholy in this that’s terrifically moving. And yet! we ought not to pity Marcus Aurelius. Because if he looked at our lives, he would pity us! Pathetic creatures that we are, we don’t even meet HIS standard of virtue and we are pitying him! Think about the irony of that, he said well ‘I’D PITY YOU BACK, IF I DIDN’T THINK IT WAS DISRESPECTFUL’

Think about what it takes to be something like Marcus Aurelius...we shall not see his like again.







MORAL MAXIMS

In the book itself, he has all kind of … intriguing, and… caustic if you will, moral maxims. He says things like this: ‘SOON YOU WILL HAVE FORGOTTEN ALL THINGS… AND SOON ALL THINGS WILL HAVE FORGOTTEN YOU’ (With a smile)... In other words don’t get overwrought. You’re angry with this guy just because he didn’t do what he was supposed to do? Ask yourself how many of the people that are working for you are doing what they are supposed to do? (Shrugs) Soon you’ll have forgotten all this because you’ll be dead and soon, all people who know you they’re going to be dead too and they’ll have forgotten you and so what’s the point of being mean to people?

Now imagine the kind of philosophical self-restraint we’re talking about here, this is a guy who could chop everyone’s head off if he gets sufficiently angry so he never does… Remarkable… remarkable. So Marcus Aurelius is a man who constantly, in his book, is writing short one and two line epigrams that essentially say things like ‘don’t lose your temper with these people Marcus you know how they are. Marcus it’s not your fault that they’re stupid you tried to teach them and you can keep on trying to teach them but if Socrates is a good man and they killed him what are you expecting they’ll do to you’ On the other hand.. Marcus Aurelius is willing to run the Roman Empire for the same reason that the Platonic philosopher King is, ‘IF HE GIVES UP, SOMEBODY WORSE IS GONNA TAKE THE JOB’ And you know what happens then right? He’d rather just go home and read his books he doesn’t want to listen to this stuff but he says ‘WELL, THE GODS PUT ME HERE I DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS JOB BUT I CAN’T VERY WELL GIVE IT UP I’D BE ABDICATING MY RESPONSIBILITY TO OTHER PEOPLE… IMAGINE THE BAD LAWS AND BAD EMPERORS WHO ARE GONNA GET AFTER ME. WELL SHOULD I GIVE UP THE JOB NOW OR STAND HERE UNTIL THE GODS ARE GOOD ENOUGH TO RELIEVE ME OF MY POST’ In fact, that’s the metaphor he uses all the time: ‘THE GODS HAVE PUT YOU ON GUARD OVER THE ROMAN EMPIRE, EVERYONE ELSE IS SLEEPING, STAY WHERE YOU ARE AND STAY AWAKE ELSEWISE GOD KNOWS WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN ’.

Marcus Aurelius is constantly whistling his way through the graveyard, trying to tell him that this is a very happy life that he loves being a philosopher that particularly loves the particular portion of reality the gods assigned to him. Now I think that, everyone believes this, except the people who read this book which perhaps is why it wasn’t supposed to be published. Because when you see this you see a terrifically lonely man, a man on inemense moral heroism, who has no shoulder to cry on, who disdains crying because what’s the point of crying? We must live in accordance with nature, now here’s the natural condition of human beings: ‘THEY GET BORN, ALL KINDS OF STUFF HAPPENS TO THEM AND THEY DIE’ Marcuse’s maxim’s with reference that are a ‘STOP COMPLAINING, THERE’S NOTHING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT, BECAUSE THERE ARE ONLY TWO KIND OF THINGS: THE KIND OF THINGS YOU CAN CONTROL AND THE KIND OF THINGS YOU CAN’T. IF YOU CAN’T CONTROL IT COMPLAINING ABOUT IS STUPID AND WASTE OF TIME AND I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANYMORE ABOUT IT BECAUSE YOU CAN’T CONTROL IT SO WHAT’S THE POINT OF TALKING ABOUT THIS OR YOU HAVE THE OTHER KIND OF THING, THE KIND OF THINGS YOU CAN CONTROL, LIKE YOUR INTENTIONS, YOUR BEHAVIOUR, LIKE YOUR ACTIONS AND SINCE YOU CAN CONTROL THEM, WHO DO YOU EXPECT TO HELP YOU OUT EXCEPT YOURSELF? STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT THAT TOO’ So whether it’s the kind of thing you can control or it’s the kind of thing you can’t control, Marcus Aurelius does not want to hear any complaints and he does not want to hear any excuses because there are no excuses to give….

Now that’s easy enough to say, and a lot of people think that other people should be this way... right? If you noticed you can’t help but admire this guy, like everyone of us, I’ve been in this audience and it’s ‘oh wow what a great guy I wish I knew him in person’ No you don’t, think of what he’ll think of you. You really don’t want to know this guy, maybe working for him?? Oh please no, this guy is never going to be satisfied and if he is satisfied it’s not like he’s gonna give you applause is gonna say ‘well, you’re doing what you ought to do, no compliments for you, you’re doing what you ought to do. You don’t need any reward beyond that, you’re living like a philosophical man which is a reward in itself, virtue it’s own reward, you’re virtuous what do you want from me? Back to work. And of course if you’re not virtuous you’re pretty much what he expects you to be you swine.

NO HIPOCRESÍA

And what’s unnerving about this is that there’s not the slightest taint of hypocrisy in it. He not only says this stuff, he acts this stuff. He not only talks to talk, he walks to walk, he does it. And he does it under worse more difficult circumstances than you, failed to do it and yet he still likes us, he will still go out of his way to help us out, if here were the judge in a court of law he would give us justice even though we have done nothing to deserve it. As a matter of fact, -what is the line from Hamlet? ‘If we gave every man what he deserved who would scape a whipping?’ Marcus Aurelius would, that’s part of the problem with Marcus Aurelius, there’s nothing quite like this guy in the whole history of the world.

Marcus Aurelius says things in his book like: ‘HUMAN BEINGS ARE SOCIAL ANIMALS, EITHER TEACH THEM, OR PUT UP WITH THEM’’ The kind of thing that man has to remind himself over I imagine… Or Marcus says in another passage ‘ARE YOU WEARY OF ENDURING THE BAD MEN OF THE WORLD?... THE GODS AREN’T AND THEY MADE THEM... ARE YOU REALLY WEARY OF ENDURING THE BAD MEN OF THE WORLD, SPECIALLY GIVEN THAT YOU’RE ONE OF THEM?’ (Ufff) Dreadful…. Powerful… Caustic, ruthless. Analysis of himself and others… He. Pulls. No. Punches. He is an honest man… and how many honest politicians are there in the world? I mean.. It’s been sometime since we had one leave us literary remains and here we certainly do have one. The Stoics put together an important and I think worthwhile idea particularly in this day of international politics and that’s the idea of a cosmopolitan political philosophy.

Cut this few people as cosmopolitan as lacking in provincial qualities as Marcus Aurelius, the stoic wise man has made his life consistent with nature and nature is universal and everywhere, it exists in every place in every time so… the stoic man is never any place but home. His… Paulus.. Is the cosmos, that is what makes him Cosmo...politan. In ancient Greek political theory you were citizen of one political polis , one particular palace, one particular city-state, you were an Athenian a year, you were a Spartan. The Stoic wise man is cosmopolitan. Wherever he is, he lives in accordance with nature, whatever he does, he does what he knows to be right, what difference does it make whether he’s in a jail cell or in a palace? As Marcus Aurelius puts it in a beautiful epigram in the book: ‘EVEN IN A PALACE IT IS POSSIBLE TO LIVE WELL’ (Grins) Mmh no excuses… don’t tell me that it’s because of temptation that won’t go over. No excuses go with Marcus.

The idea of a cosmopolitan political philosophy is one of the great achievements of Roman Stoicism and if you stop and think about it, it’s an excellent and a necessary idea when you're running something as big and heterogenous as the Roman Empire! This tremendously complicated mix of religions and cultures and peoples and all kinds of heterogeneous ideas means that… this is going to be a big patchwork, a big quilt, it’s not going to be one culturally-unified area but Marcus would be just as happy being a slave as he is being an Emperor he would have been just as happy being a Gaul or an Egyptian, as a Roman. As long as.. there is a nature there and there is a human spirit which can be made in accordance with nature, any of the external facts don’t matter and now for the first time we can perhaps see why the Roman Stoics have a reputation to some extent deserved of being kind of harsh, cold, unfeeling men. Because there’s nothing to worry about and it’s hard for them to sympathize with the fact that other people are worried about things that they regard as trivial or not worth worrying about at all.

Many of us worry about sickness, well, Marcus Aurelius will point out that all people get sick and once you get sick, since you’re a rational human being, you want to go to the doctor, do what he prescribes and fix your body! There’s no point in complaining any place along the line because you know what you’re supposed to do go do it! Stop asking somebody else to help you, If you don’t help yourself how can you ask anybody else to help you? Which is a fair criticism, it would be much less persuasive and much less impressive if this were sort of a hypocritical philosophy where Marcus Aurelius indulged himself and told everyone else to be stoical. What really makes this spring to life, what makes this persuasive and moving and important ,is that he lives the life. So he doesn’t complain when he gets sick, he doesn’t complain when he meets military reverses, he doesn’t complain about anything. Who would he complain to? The buck does stop with Marcus Aurelius, if you think of the chain of command of the Roman Empire, he doesn’t get to complain to anyone else, everyone complains to him and is constantly listening to complaints, and difficulties and problems and he’s watching people become unglued and he’s watching them become all upset, and watching them become greedy and avaricious and swinish and lustful and all those things he is not… So he is… rather harsh in his criticism, I think that’s a fair observation about him, but he’s not hypocritical. And he is not unfair. And that’s one of the cosmopolitan universal element in this political philosophy and in this moral philosophy, because the moral and political philosophy for years are going to be connected and in the same way that Plato’s Republic, Politics was Ethics written large and what was good for the individual soul, the gold, silver and bronze. The ordering of the soul, between reason, spirit, and desire. What’s good for the soul, is the same thing is good for the city. To have rational people running the government, like Marcus Aurelius, doing their best to follow the philosophical life. You’ll want bravery, and fortitude and courage among your soldiers, the silver virtues. And among the rest of people you expect the bronze virtues, they want to eat, and drink and make merry. It would be nice to make philosophers out of all of them but if we can’t, well the best we can do is to take care of them and to prevent misfortunes from befalling them, in some respects to try and save them from themselves.

Now, Marcus Aurelius is the only example of this in Roman culture, there’s not a great deal of things that we can compare him to. If we had to say that there was someone to compare him to would be Epictetus the slave and Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius could meet at a level of equality even though the social distinctions between them are enormous and grave, the reason they would meet at a level of equality because they could share mutual respect because they both understand that to have an orderly soul is the key thing in human life

And that’s what makes life worth living and whether you happen to be a slave or an emperor, doesn’t make any difference, whether you happen to be sick or healthy doesn’t make any difference, whether you happen to be just born and have a hundred years ahead of you or whether you’re on your deathbed doesn’t make any difference…

Marcus says… with regard to death, because many people are afraid of death and he has no understanding, he doesn’t really discern what everybody else’s problem is, he says ‘LOOK, EVERYONE DIES. SO YOU’RE GONNA DIE, SO WHAT’S THE POINT OF COMPLAINING ABOUT IT? I CAN UNDERSTAND TRYING TO AVOID IT, I MEAN HEALTH IS A GOOD THING, BUT WHEN YOU’RE GONNA DIE YOU’RE GONNA DIE. DON’T GIVE IN TO FEAR, DON’T GIVE IN TO IRRATIONAL MUSINGS, DON’T LET YOUR IMAGINATION RUN WILD, CONTROL YOUR FEELINGS, CONTROL YOUR EMOTIONS, CONTROL THAT PART OF YOU WHICH IS YOU, THE MEAT, YOUR BODY? NOT SO IMPORTANT. THE OTHER STUFF AROUND YOU IN THE WORLD? ARE A MATTER OF INDIFFERENCE TO YOU. AS LONG AS YOU FOLLOW THE WAY OF NATURE, AS LONG AS YOU ACT IN A RATIONAL FASHION, AS LONG AS YOU LIVE UP TO THE BEST POTENTIALS IN THE HUMAN SOUL. THEN YOU’RE ARE A GOOD MAN AND YOU NEED WORRY ABOUT NOTHING ELSE’

Some people worry about the gods...that the gods will cause you misfortunes, that the gods have a Hades or a Hell or an afterlife, where people will be tortured and have bad things done to them. Marcus adopts the same position that Socrates did, Marcus says: ‘I'M NOT CERTAIN IF THERE ARE GODS’ In the book itself he says ‘I AM NOT AWARE OF ANY RATIONAL PROOF THAT THERE EXISTS GODS AND I’M NOT AWARE OF ANY RATIONAL PROOF THAT THERE ARE NO GODS’ In other words, he’s agnostic in that respect. But he takes a position rather like that of Blaise Pascal and he says ‘let’s think about the implications are if God exists, and let’s think about what the implications are if God doesn’t exist, and let’s see if we can find one way of acting that will satisfy both contingencies!’ Logical guy...And he says: ‘Well, if the Gods don’t exist and the world is just atoms in the void’ if you think back to professor Stein Lofts lecture about early primitive physical theories ‘But we have atoms in the void, a homogenous stuff called matter and then the space that moves around it’ Well if there are no gods and there are is not moral order to the world and we’re just atoms in the void, well then what difference does it make what happens to you? Anybody else? So you come into being you go out of being, so what? You get healthy you get sick, so what? There is nothing to be excited about well because it’s just atoms in the void, don’t be afraid it is what it is, there’s nothing to be afraid of. You could say that Roman Stoicism is a way of telling people there is nothing to be afraid of. Nothing can happen to you, in nature that it is not part of nature, and nature, contains nothing fearful for the rational soul.

Now let’s take the other half of the past-galleon alternative, let’s consider the proposition that there are gods or a god, doesn’t matter if it’s monotheistic or polytheistic, if there are gods, then they must be rather like the gods of Socrates, they are all good, they are all wise, they’re all completely moral and completely virtuous and completely knowing and completely excellent. Would creates like these do anything bad to you? Well maybe they would, maybe you’ve been doing bad stuff maybe there is actually in store for you later on, there may well be a Hades, gods like that may want to create moral order in the world and dish out to the bad people of the world, just what they have coming to them. But suppose hypothetically you lived according to reason and according to nature and according to the universal law of the logos. Would the gods hurt a man like that or would a man like that be a friend of the gods? And if a man like that would be dealt fairly by the gods, justly by the gods and well by the gods, the gods will do you no harm.

So there are two possibilities, either the world is just atoms in the void, the world is just stuff in which case there’s nothing to be afraid of because you’re just part of that stuff you might as well go along with the flow, relax, enjoy the ride, nothing to be afraid of, nothing to be excited about…. On the other hand, and this I suspect deep down in Marcus is what the really believes, I mean we just read between the lines and find out what the man himself is like, he does basically believe in the gods, even he doesn’t know, if he had to place a wager either way the same way as Pascal but perhaps not for the same reasons, he would say ‘Yes, I believe in the gods’ and if the gods exists then they create moral order and they are perfectly moral themselves and they’re perfectly just and good and righteous themselves, then they will do you no harm.

So if there is an afterlife and you behaved well, the gods will do you no harm because you deserve no harm done to you… If there is an afterlife and you behaved badly you have no one to blame but yourself. In every case, the only thing that a man is in control of is the individual ego, himself. The cogito what Descartes will later on call the cogito, the self.

If you’re in control of that, if you have an orderly soul then you have a divine soul a good soul and your life is worth living. The gods will not penalize you for that, so what’s there to worry about, don’t worry be happy, either the world is atoms on the void nothing to worry about, if the gods are well then the gods certainly aren’t going to hurt you either way… Don’t worry, be happy… Do what you know you ought to do, meet your moral obligations.

In some respect, and I think that this is worth taking notes on if you happen to be here at the college next week or two weeks from now is that The Stoic conception of virtue is an anticipation of what I will call the content conception of virtue, those of you who are familiar with the works of Immanuel Kant can recognize the single-minded and ruthless acquirement of virtue as being the content conception of moral action or good moral behavior and the stoic conception as well. Both Kant and Marcus Aurelius have achieved the greatness that comes from being aware that… virtue. Is sufficient. In Itself.

The single-minded pursuit of rationality, of Justice, of Temperance, of Fortitude is what this book is all about. And in some respects I feel, a little bit like a voyeur in opening up a manuscript that Marcus never meant to publish and doubtless he would be nothing except embarrassed if he knew that people were reading this book. Because he wouldn’t want to show that crack in the Stoic face, he doesn’t want to give the idea to people that he ever worries or ever gets upset at all, in other words doubtless if he’s in heaven, he regrets every line he ever wrote, not because he doesn’t think it may benefit us, but because it shows…. The kind of weakness is not entirely consistent with Stoic virtue. Perhaps there are other Stoics, who suffered more pain. Who had greater difficulties. And never wrote a line. In Marcus Aurelius view, those men would be greater than he.

And whether there exists those people or not. Marcus Aurelius is kind of a standing reproach to our weakness, to our self-indulgence, to our willingness to give in to what we want, to our inclination to making excuses…about things that were entirely up to us. And to try and act as if we are not responsible for our behavior.

Well, one might wanna say that Marcus Aurelius is an important step in the construction of the western conception of the self, or the ego. You. Are the part of you not the meat but the will, the soul, the internal stuff. That’s what you’re responsible for, that’s what the gods will judge you on the basis of. Apart from that don’t worry about it, all of the things are a matter of indifference to you. Connect yourself to nature, do what’s right, and let the devil take the hindmost, it’s not your problem.

Stoicism, is an appropriate philosophy I would say, for serious ruthless, introspective people that want real answers and are willing to take no nonsense. In that respect it’s kind of a moral philosophy I would be inclined to teach. It’s a West Point. If I were teaching people that are going to be under terrible danger and terrible fearful conditions I would teach them to do what they know they ought to do and to discipline and organize their in such a way as they behave themselves in a way that it is not disgraceful. To avoid that is the epitome of Stoic virtue and it may not have all the attractive elements of Socratic philosophy. It lacks the poetic element of Platonism, it lacks the comprehensive intellectual drive of Socrates but still contains elements of Socratic nobility that neither Skepticism nor Epicureanism offer us. And in that respect I think it’s the true heir of Socratic philosophy.

The key idea behind Marcus Aurelius is something like this: ‘THAT, IT’S JUST A HUMAN CONDITION FOR US TO HAVE TROUBLES, AND WORRIES AND ANXIETIES AND PROBLEMS. DON’T TORTURE YOURSELF BY WORRYING ABOUT THINGS THAT AREN’T IN YOUR CONTROL, LEAVE THAT IN THE HANDS OF GOD, LEAVE THAT IN THE HANDS OF NATURE . DO YOUR BEST TO CONTROL THE THINGS THAT YOU DO HAVE CONTROL OVER; YOURSELF, YOUR BEHAVIOUR, YOUR INTENTIONS, AND YOUR ACTIONS. IF YOU DO THAT, YOU WILL LIVE A BLESSED AND HAPPY , AND VIRTUOUS, AND WISE LIFE. YOU WILL BE A REAL HUMAN BEING. IF YOU FAIL TO DO THAT, GRADUALLY THE INCLINATION TOWARDS DEBAUCHERY, EVIL, VICE, SIN, TO PUT IN THEOLOGICAL TERMS, WILL BECOME GREATER AND GREATER UNLESS YOU ARREST THIS SLIDE TOWARDS SELF-INDULGENCE. YOU WILL HARM YOURSELF AND YOU WILL HARM THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU. NO RATIONAL BEING WISHES TO HARM THEMSELVES, NO RATIONAL BEING WISHES TO HARM THE PEOPLE AROUND THEM. BECAUSE OF THAT, IF WE WERE TO BE RATIONAL, IT IS THE SAME THING AS MAKING US GOOD AND THAT IS THE SAME THING AS MAKING US FREE. NOT FREE IN THE SENSE OF POLITICAL FREEDOM BEING A SLAVE OR A FREE MAN. BUT FREE IN THE SENSE OF BEING AUTONOMOUS. MAKING OUR OWN DECISIONS, MAKING LAWS FOR OURSELVES. FREE IN THE SENSE OF NO LONGER BEING A SLAVE OF OUR PASSIONS, BEING PUSHED ABOUT BY OUR FEELINGS. BEING A TOY. THAT GETS MESSED WITH BY ARBITRARY THINGS THAT ARE REALLY BENEATH THE HUMAN CONDITION THAT ARE MERE EMOTION. IF WE WANNA BE FULLY HUMAN WE MUST BE FULLY FREE AND THAT MEANS FULLY RATIONAL AND THAT MEANS FULLY GOOD. ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES. THAT’S WHAT MARCUS AURELIUS SAYS…’

He did that himself and he hopes that other people will do it, he did the best he could and you can’t help but feel that at the end of his life he must have felt relieved. That the terrible crushing burden of this loneliness a man that has no equals and has no friends a man that has nothing but philosophy to guide him. Death must have been a great release. It’s like getting the evening off after you’ve put in your turn. Guarding the camp. And instead of becoming and obscure and unimportant figure. He’s become a symbol in the history of Western philosophy, of the practical, concrete immediate virtues. The sort of virtues which are accessible to us not because we have profound intellectual ability. Not because we are a Newton or a Kant but simply because we have problems and we are everyday rational human beings.

The Stoic man says that a virtue that is possible for one man is accessible to all of us. There is no excuse for us not being that good. If we provide such excuses for ourselves we harm ourselves and we harm others by preventing us from recognizing our true moral obligations…

‘MARCUS AURELIUS LET US KNOW...THAT ALL PEOPLE SUFFER BUT THAT NOT ALL PEOPLE PITY THEMSELVES…. MARCUS AURELIUS LET US KNOW THAT ALL MEN DIE. BUT THAT NOT ALL MEN DIE WHINING ’

Something to think about… take home and mull it over.