"What Tarquin the Proud said in his garden with the poppy blooms was understood by the son but not by the messenger.--Hamann,"--Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard.
"If wisdom were give me under the express condition that it must be kept hidden and not uttered, I should refuse it. No good thing is pleasant to possess, without friends to share it."--Seneca (Letter 6).
Can philosophical writing legitimately call attention to its own limitations? By 'limitation' I do not merely mean (a) the ways in which it its possible philosophical aims are constrained by or even unattainable due to the written form, but also (b) the ways in which it might fall short of other philosophical activities. (Let's leave aside the ways in which it falls short of non-philosophical activities.) For, while (a) can be viewed as a species of self-awareness or truth in advertising, when (b) is true, we might wonder why one is writing at all and not just engaging in those other activities (which by stipulation are better at whatever one is trying to achieve)--at its extreme, then, there might be circumstances where persisting in philosophical writing, however much required (say) for one's sanity, might be an instance of ἀκρασία.
In an otherwise effusive letter (six), Seneca explicitly calls attention to the limitations of his writing when it comes to pursuit of wisdom [sapientia]. At first it seems (echoing Plato's Phaedrus 275a) that he is primarily interested in claiming that "the living voice [viva vox] and the intimacy of a common life will help you more than the written word."[Plus tamen tibi et viva vox et convictus quam oratio proderit.] We might think we're in Derrida's territory. But not all speech is created equally; in context, Seneca rejects learning by attending lectures or even philosophical dialogue. What really facilitates philosophical learning is observing exemplary behavior that can be copied [breve et efficax per exempla]. It's not clear this primarily involves speech at all. Rather, it requires living together with a proper model. Seneca advocates this residential-college approach by comparing it favorably to his own way of teaching, which (among other things) in each letter involves, (i) assigning (authoritative) maxims to be memorized (recall, and here, here) [deinde quia longum iter est per praecepta], and (ii) assigning selected admired texts. In fact, Seneca insists that what, say, Socrates said was far less relevant than his practices (or norms) [plus ex moribus quam ex verbis Socratis traxit] to Plato and Aristotle.*
Not to put to fine point on it: in order to become wise, one must possess the skills that we tend to associate with0 a novelist or a detective or a judge in judging others and then somehow have the capacity to imitate the right sort of characters. It's not clear if the exemplar has to be wise, too. While Seneca implies that Cleanthes' model, Zeno, was wise, his analysis allows the possibility that somebody may have been a model such that somebody could become wise, in part, by learning, too, from his mistakes. Seneca comes close to implying that Socrates may not have been so wise.
One advantage of this second possibility is that it prevents a vicious regress where one requires wise models into the dawn of pre-history, or that one needs to postulate a freak of nature to get the series started. It also allows the less than wise -- such as Seneca explicitly claims to be -- to be possible teachers in part by learning from their students. The path to wisdom can be a joint project [conferemus] for teacher and student, one that does not merely emend [emendari] (recall, and here, here) but even transforms ([transfigurari] one's constitution As Seneca puts it about himself, he still needs changes [mutandum].
So, one can make progress on the path to wisdom in residential colleges (monasteries, communes, etc.) with less than wise teachers. One good criterion of being on the road to wisdom is developing the skill to recognize one's blemishes (or more strongly, vices) [vitia]. In context, Seneca medicalizes the vices--i.e., they are features of a soul that can be treated with the right kind of therapy. In the earliest letters, Seneca had implied that this therapy is primarily verbal, but in this letter he implies that for the right kind of prepared (good judging) soul being in the presence of the wise can also be the road to wisdom and that the right kind of teacher-student combination may also be a means toward wisdom. One can learn a lot, after all, from a Plato when he shows up to observe you.
So far so good.
But Seneca also presents himself as rather impulsive in this sixth letter. He has recognized a sudden change in himself [subitam mutationem mei]: he has more trust or security [fiduciam] in his friendship with Lucilus. In line with the paragraphs above, he invites [accerso] Lucilius to come join him. Seneca's embrace of the existence of the secure grounds for true friendship with Lucilus is not inconsequential: it is the kind of thing in which and for which they may die [illius cum qua homines moriuntur, pro qua moriuntur]. In the age of Nero this is not an empty claim. (Given that Socrates' tyranical students were, in part, the source of Socrates' problems, Seneca was also aware of precedents to the problem of choosing students wisely.)
Even so, all of this is surprising because only a few letters earlier (the third), Seneca had both chided Lucilus for being irresponsible (and inconsistent) in his use of 'friendship' and he had taught that the embrace of true friendship requires considerable prior judgment (recall). In that third letter, he had shown that good judgment requires being on the look-out for practical contradictions (or tensions)--and this is also explicitly affirmed in his treatment of Cleanthes' characteristics in this very letter (see above).** There is little reason to believe that Lucillus has earned the trust.*** So, in a letter that [A] explicitly thematizes the limitations of writing, Seneca [B] also explicitly draws attention to the fact that the persona, 'Seneca,' who functions as the official intended author of these letters may also be limited. Yet, [C] behind this persona is, as it were, the true author, who by calling attention to the limitation of 'Seneca', implies awareness of this very limitation (an awareness that is explicitly a marker of being on the road of wisdom). This true author may be capable of self-command, where 'Seneca' is portrayed otherwise.
Now, in the utterly banal recognition that an author may differ from her self-presentation, that is, in moving from [A-B] to [C] we have crossed the line between an exoteric and esoteric reading. What enables the move is not just the template that Seneca deploys for each letter (recall), but also the fact that the letters are read consecutively. Now, for some the banal move to [C] is taboo--smacking of Straussianism (etc.). [As an aside, I don't recommend anybody wishing to find a job in professional philosophy to test this taboo (but the non-Straussians, E. Curley on Spinoza, P. Russell on Hume, and C. Wilson on early modern Epicureanism have all explored esoteric readings fruitfully).]
Even so, the very text that thematizes the limitations of writing, also points to some of the possible strengths of writing: one can convey multiple messages with the very same words, or actions. See the Hamannian passage, which functions as the epigraph to Fear and Trembling, from Kierkegaard above. Again, the very same exemplar may be understood simultaneously wisely and not wisely, and even when understood wisely, its meaning can be practiced differently. And, in fact, upon re-reading one might notice that while Seneca allows that many benefit from being proximate to a proper exemplar, he does not rule out the possibility that if one reads his maxims one may also find a path, albeit longer, to wisdom.
*One oddity here is that Aristotle presumably did not see Socrates up close in the way that Plato did.
**Given that Seneca's position allows a multiplicy of true friendships, it seems that with Lucilus he belives he is capaple of sharing in "honorable desires" [honesta cupiendi], even if one may wonder if either is steady enough to attain much wisdom.
***One option that I do not explore above, but that is explored in the letter, is that Seneca now has the right kind of trust in himself.
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