New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science

On angry and lovable old men

One day is equal to every day [Unus dies par omni est.]--Heraclitus, the obscure.

Almost nothing so boring as old people speaking to young people about old age and general decay. Yet, this is the 'hook' of Seneca's twelfth Letter, in which he goes out of his way to present himself as an angry old man who sees decay and death everywhere--nothing like the image of Stoic, apathetic wisdom one might expect. More important, he shows the persona 'Seneca' failing at enjoying the available life's variety of pleasures (marked by different Latin words, e.g, delectavit, voluptatis, iucundissima, etc). It might be the case that the old cannot really avoid looking death in the face, but it is not obvious that we all must fundamentally do so, especially because Seneca himself seems to make a hash of it. While the letter is nominally addressed to the young Lucilus, it is really an admonition to himself to embrace and love [complectamur...et amemus] old age. In recounting his foibles (and other aged men), he wishes to become a true friend of himself such that he is capable of moderated love (sans madness) (recall Letter 9).

It is, after all, not shameful [inprobe] to hope for another day, every day, in old and young alike. (In recounting his foibles, Seneca does not name his more shameful desires.) One might think such lack of shame, which is constituted by the recognition of a binding norm one fails to live up to,* is an instance of living without necessity. But that can't be quite right because in context Seneca treats the denial of necessity as equal to the possibility of ending one's life rather than the hope for another day. 

On Norms, blushes, and impartial spectators.

Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.--Kant
Quaere quid est virtus, et posce exemplar honesti.--Lucan (quoted by David Hume as epigraph to Treatise 3.)

Our bodies can betray us. The main ploy of Seneca’s eleventh Letter is to use the all-too-human-phenomenon of blushing to talk about the limits that nature and our natures put on any philosophical wisdom. Seneca relies on the idea that blushing cannot be controlled even if one has completed an training in philosophical emendation of the mind.  One aim of such a course is a kind of self-mastery, that is, to be composed. Seneca uses blushing as a metaphor for all the ways in which there are limits to our abilities to control nature more generally. Ever since Bacon and Descartes this outlook has been on the defensive, but if we are really heading toward an era of Environmental disasters, recognizing limits may well return to favor before long even if there might be over-the-counter pills against blushing.  

Above, I use the plural “our natures,” not just because in an earlier letter Seneca had already implied there are a variety of kinds of souls (recall), but also because in the eleventh letter Seneca insists that our characters are, in part, the product of varying natural endowments. This sheds some light on the point of the little mystery at the start the eleventh Letter. For, Seneca introduces a third party, Lucilus’s “friend,” but does not reveal his identity. Presumably this is the same “friend” that had acted as (postal) messenger between Lucilus and Seneca  before (recall the third letter). This time Seneca reports a conversation he had with the unnamed friend, and it reveals something about the qualities desired in a philosophical apprentice. It seems the friend has also started a course in philosophical improvement in which Seneca judges that he has progressed.)

Seneca and Wallace Stevens on Solitude

A naturall foole that could never learn by heart the order of numerall words, as One, Two, and Three, may observe every stroak of the Clock, and nod to it, or say one, one, one; but can never know what houre it strikes...Nor is it possible without Letters for any man to become either excellently wise, or (unless his memory be hurt by disease, or ill constitution of organs) excellently foolish. For words are wise mens counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the mony of fooles...one man calleth Wisdome, what another calleth Feare; and one Cruelty, what another Justice; one Prodigality, what another Magnanimity...such names can never be true grounds of any ratiocination. No more can Metaphors, and Tropes of speech: but these are less dangerous, because they profess their inconstancy; which the other do not.--Leviathan, 1.4

Night nursed not him in whose dark mind
 The clambering wings of birds of black revolved,
 Making harsh torment of the solitude.

 The walker in the moonlight walked alone,
 And in his heart his disbelief lay cold.--Wallace Stevens.

Despite the helpful reminder of 3AM Magazine, we at NewAPPS failed to celebrate the ninetieth birthday of Wallace Stevens' Harmonium. Seneca's mysterious, terse (under 325 words) tenth Letter, brought me back to Stevens' early poetry. Stevens talks of the (nightly) "torment of solitude," faced by the poetic mind (who happens to be a religious skeptic). Yet, Seneca seems to suggest that some of the very best people should seek solitude; in particular they should living with their conscience [conscientia] (recall eight letter). But presumably Stevens's poetic disbeliever is expressing his conscience faitfully.

On Being a PhD Supervisor (or Spinoza and Seneca on Equanimity)

Childhood is abundant in fruits, but infancy is sweeter [Fructuosior est adulescentia liberorum, sed infantia dulcior].--Seneca, Letter 9.

I am very bad at being powerless when I really want to help another that I care for who is self-undermining. I find it vexing, and because of the intensity of the passion, I am perfectly capable of making a situation worse--thus, not helping the person in need and frustrating my aims. Recognizing the pattern and even the fact that I re-enact childhood experience, has helped to some degree. But nobody that knows me will call me "unflappable" in such circumstances. (By contrast, I have remained unperturbed when I have been amidst gunfire and scary aircraft failures.) This particular incapacity has a work-place consequence: it makes me a less than ideal PhD supervisor for people that are self-undermining and it influences how we can do philosophy together.

In her best-selling and philosophically subtle book on Spinoza, Door Spinoza's Lens [full disclosure: I wrote a brief "afterword" to it, but that is obviously not why it is selling!] the Flemish scholar-public intellectual, Tinneke Beeckman, emphasizes the significance of equanimity. When one first encounters it in the Ethics, it seems to council resignation: "we should await and endure fortune's face with equanimity" [utramque fortunae faciem aequo animo exspectare et ferre]. E2p49S It is easy to mistake this for passivity in the face of harms done by others to us (as E4Appendix, ch. 14 suggests).* But in chapter 32 of the appendix to Ethics 4,   Spinoza makes clear that equanimity is consequent to being conscious of having done one's duty [si conscii simus nos functos nostro officio fuisse]. Given that Spinoza uses here the Ciceronian "officio," he means this in terms of meeting the obligations of one's public station or social role. Spinoza's version of equanimity is a public virtue, one that emphasizes a notion of duty that we can capture by way of 'public spiritedness.' As we know from Hutcheson this entails all of us can be heroes in modern times.

On being a Celebrity Philosopher

Reflect that nothing except the soul is worthy of wonder; for the soul, if it be great, naught is great.—Seneca, Letter 8.

Over half a decade ago I invited Peter Sloterdijk to a workshop; twenty-four days later, I inquired if the invite was received. I went ahead and planned the workshop without him. Not long before the workshop I heard from his 'assistent,' who was volunteered by Herr Prof. Dr. Sloterdijk to take his place. I felt bad for the 'assistent,' who confessed to having lack of time to prepare. I declined to put him on the program. But I did ask him to convey to Prof. Sloterdijk the thought that "he needs to realize this is no way to treat a colleague who (for example) may write his obituary one day."* (Not nice, admittedly, but it captured my outrage.) Much to my surprise, Sloterdijk answered the following week that there must have been a confusion because he had already written me a letter to inform me of his absence. After a round of apologies, we left it at that.**

By 'celebrity philosopher' I mean to convey a philosopher whose name is familiar beyond her own academic milieu; possibly her ideas and works are discussed not just in professional venues, but also in a wider context. So, I am not talking about somebody who offers a 'philosophy' to media-stars nor does a 'celebrity philosopher' have to possess mass fame. In our day, my old teachers, Daniel Dennett and Martha Nussbaum are paradigmatic celebrity philosophers. When I label somebody a ‘celebrity philosopher’ I do not intend to convey a judgment of quality one way or another.

On viewing and participating in pleasing cruelty

He may say with Parmenides, who, upon reading a philosophical discourse before a public assembly at Athens, and observing, that, except Plato, the whole company had left him, continued, notwithstanding, to read on, and said that Plato alone was audience enough for him.--Adam Smith

The English Bill of Rights (1689) expressly forbids ""cruel and unusual" punishment, and this found its way into the U.S. Constitution. One important, enduring argument against such punishment -- and many other forms of cruelty that may not, in fact, constitute 'punishment' -- can be found in Seneca's Letter 7: viewing and otherwise participating in the degradation and cruelty of others, even in the context of justified punishment  [ille meruit ut hoc pateretur], can harm not just the victims or punished, but perpetrators and spectators alike. This is especially so if the cruelty produces pleasure as it is likely to do at public spectacles [spectaculo]* because then this pleasure makes our soul receptive; a desire for more cruelty creeps up on us  [per voluptatem facilius vitia subrepunt].

Seneca's particular target is the institution of aestheticized, public spectacles of cruelty and inhumanity [crudelior et inhumanior].** He emphasizes the significance of audience participation [spectatoribus suis obiciuntur]. He reorients and subtly transforms Plato's arguments for censorship of the arts to focus on the more pernicious institutions that indirectly teach people to celebrate cruelty. Seneca's argument applies to a lot of issues that we are not likely to consider primarily in terms of political speech: mass sporting events; war coverage; disaster tourism, and any form of entertainment that rely on the pleasures derived from exposure to the suffering of others. (This is not to deny that the targets of Seneca's argument can overlap with Plato's, and that his argument is indebted to Plato's moral psychology.) 

On the Limitations of Philosophical Writing, or what is wisdom?

"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.*

The Double Life of Philosophers

It is the profession of philosophers to question platitudes that others accept without thinking twice. A dangerous profession, since philosophers are more easily discredited than platitudes, but a useful one.--David Lewis, Convention.

Of course, as philosophers, our commitment to challenging and questioning norms is real, and important. Far be it from me to claim that we’d be better off if we all had to be more conventional or couldn’t play around with taboos. Doing so is essential to both the philosophical method and the high quality of life we enjoy as philosophers.--Rebecca Kukla.

Recently, Rebeca Kukla published an insightful post at Leiter on the significance of the norm of social-norm violation among philosophers, including the one that encourages avoiding the appearance of concern with looks and dress.  She argues that the benefits (i.e., "high quality of life") of the norm of social norm violation are unevenly distributed within philosophy. Her cogent argument against the norm turns on "the cost of the most vulnerable members of the profession." While Kukla does not spell it out entirely, it seems she thinks that if we adjust the internal-to-philosophy norms we could distribute the current benefits to philosophizing more widely within philosophy without "undermining our commitment to challenging and questioning norms." She, thus, views philosophy as a moral or at least professional community.

Seneca, too, is concerned with the norm of social norm violation and warns against "repellent atire, unkempt hair, slovenly beard..." (Letter 5.) Seneca rejects the excesses now associated with the Cynics, but apparently commonly thought to be the 'philosopher's way' (even if "discretely pursued").  Anticipating Mandeville and Veblen, Seneca treats these instances of social norm-violation as expressing the desire to be conspicuous [conspici]. The "self-display" associated with self-punishing [poenam] norms (or what Hume would label 'monkish virtues') comes at the expense of making a contribution to society [proficere].

The Lutherans, Descartes, and Spinoza on Innate Ideas

Cuiuscumque humanae mentis ideae aliae adaequatae sunt, aliae autem mutilatae et confusae.--Spinoza, Ethica 3p1dem

Last week I had the good fortune to examine a PhD dissertation, "Lutheran Astronomers after the Fall (1540-1590): A reappraisal of the Renaissance dynamic of religion and astronomy," by the Ghent historian of science, Nienke Roelants (now: Dr. Nienke Roelants). One thing (among many) that I learned is that Luther and Melanchthon promoted an epistemology that includes a doctrine that has something like these five components: (i) in our Post-Lapsarian state, we need (ii) a mental emendation, that (iii) makes exact/clear (iv) the (innate) confused idea [of God] we already posses; (v) this emendation is rarely complete in an ordinary life.  Part of the process of such emendation is (a) by way of the rigorous (mathematical) study of nature, and (b) by copying the right sort of exemplars.

Descartes' version of the doctrine of innate ideas is that these are always clear and distinct in us. (Is that so? Descartes scholars should feel free to correct me.) So, that once one learns to recognize what is already in one's mind by way of the study of geometry, one has access to clear and distinct ideas. (He attributes a version of this to Plato's Meno in a letter, I think, to Voetius.)

On the Origin of Philosophical Blogging

NewAPPS is about three years old now. We have a wider, more durable, and pleasingly engaged audience than we ever imagined. Our activism and discussion about professional issues have generated quite a bit of publicity and controversy. Yet,  one feature has not received much public comment: week in week out, we produce free-standing philosophical essays (generally between 800-1200 words) that are nothing like journal articles nor (generally) even appropriate as drafts of journal articles. Of course, often we develop themes and even an identity over (explicitly and implicitly connected) series, but, in principle, each of the posts is independent. While plenty of other philosophical blogs also offer free-standing philosophical essays, these tend to be longer, or more narrowly focused on an area of expertise, and (generally) not as frequent. (Of course, many of us were inspired by Crookedtimber and Thoughts Arguments and Rants.) To be 'historical' about it, our philosophical blogging is -- despite our analytical or continental identity -- closer in spirit to the kind of thing one might find in Bacon's or Montaigne's essays than anything we have been trained to write.

Can you tell I am pretty proud of this? (Yeah, check 'vanity' in Montaigne!)

While there are precedents in the Ancient world (Epicurus' and Cicero's Letters), Seneca's Letters are the ground-zero for philosophical essayists. (I welcome alternative candidates.) I have been blogging about the Letters, but an extended discussion with my PhD students* made me realize the significance of Seneca's adopted constraints of form. For, the first four letters conform to a very tight 'template.' (These letters have an average of 383 words!) I am using 'template' to capture something about structure/form.

• Each letter starts with an arresting and almost invasive claim.
• Each letter encourages the recipient/reader to memorize some non-philosophical claim.
• Each letter draws attention to the teacher-student relationship and, in doing so, draws attention to some persona, 'Seneca,' behind the letters.

The State of Nature and Emendation in Seneca (and Spinoza, and Adam Smith)

No man has ever been so advanced by Fortune that she not threaten him as greatly as she had previously indulged him. Do not trust her seeming calm; in a moment the sea is moved to its depths.—Seneca, Letter 4. 

In context, Seneca’s acceptance of epistemic uncertainty (or here) is as much about natural events (the sea) as political events—in the previous line we’re reminded of the fates of Pompey, Crassus, and Lepidus. Political mastery does not guarantee immunity against a violent end. Seneca is not blind to the probable destination of his political fall. More important, the violent underpinning of Roman political institutions means that nobody is truly master [dominus] in their “own homes” [domesticis]: “just as many have been killed by angry slaves as by angry kings.” Somebody that “scorns his own life” [vitam suam contemptsit] will not be afraid to die, in order to kill. Seneca offers a veritable picture of a state of nature under the rule of law: “every one possesses the power which you fear.”*

One might think that Seneca is anticipating Spinoza: the state of nature is never fully absent in civil society. But Seneca’s position here is compatible with a more optimistic possibility: if one can remove the sources of anger and scorn of self, one might have a more secure and, perhaps, even less uncertain environment. One may not be able to calms the sea, but the ship of state might be made more even-keeled. It is an open question if Seneca’s proposed emendation of minds [emendato animo] is strictly limited to a kind of enjoyable [freuris] self-help (recall), or (if we cheating-ly glace ahead toward Letter 7) also by way of improved state institutions and social norms.   

On Representative Agents and Friendship (Seneca, Letter 3)

"Some men shrink into dark corners, to such a degree that they see darkly by day."--Pomponius, quoted by Seneca, Letter 3.

Our personality shapes, as Pomponius's maxim suggests, how we view the world. This is why any interpretation of a layered text often reveals as much about the interpreter as it does about the text. In the third letter, in the context of discussing a discussing true friendships [verae amicitiae], Seneca discusses three kinds of human types: (i) the gullible, (ii) the suspicious, and (iii) those that trust after a considered judgment (if this were a Platonic dialogue, we'd be looking for a fourth.)

Seneca does not explain much how good judgment is attained. He does exhibit a feature of it in the start of the letter:

You have sent a letter to me through the hand of a "friend" of yours, as you call him.  And in your very next sentence you warn me not to discuss with him all the matters that concern you, saying that even you yourself are not accustomed to do this; in oother words, you have in the same letter affirmed and denied that he is your friend. Now if you used this word of ours/a in the public [publico] sense, and called him "friend" in the same way in which we speak of all candidates for election as "honourable gentlemen,"...

Thus, a discerning judge pays attention to (a) the match between words and actions, and (b) does so by relying on (some) logic. More subtly, such a judge is aware that (c) the meaning of words is very context sensitive; in particular, (d) Seneca relies on a distinction between public the and private speech.* As we have seen, public speech is encountered in the market-place and politics, both the realm of uncertain uncertain and fickle popular opinion. One can have thousands of Facebook friends, but one's popularity need not imply credibility (and not all followers are steadfast).

How to become Canonical

Why write at all if one respects the authority of canonical texts?

Our reading habits reveal our minds; reciprocally, the way and what we read can also shape, even nourish our minds. The words we read are not merely, as the saying goes, food for thought (and sometimes, thus, the semblance of thought), or trusted friends, but they can even be medicine of the mind. Seneca's second letter thus, takes for granted that words can impact us greatly. (The letter -- a compact 321 words -- turns on a series of equations among words, potions, nourishment, friendship, and location.) As we have already seen, this fact is crucial to the very possibility of escaping the ordinary exchange economy.

In the second letter, Seneca distinguishes sharply between unsteady, wandering minds and firmer ones. Now, it is possible that these are so by nature. But even the better sort of minds need cultivation; Seneca suggests that one can copy better readers (like him) and by imitating these good habits improve our minds. The better sort of readers have a limited set of enduring [certis] books that through repeated rediscovery nourish. By example Seneca shows that the better sort of reader is willing to be critical of such, canonical works--he makes a point of criticizing Epicurus. It's not that he disagrees with what Epicurus wishes to convey -- the opinion of the market-place can be wrong in rejecting all what it takes to be poverty --, but Seneca also criticizes Epicurus, in part, for embracing the axiology and conceptual apparatus of the market-place: Epicurus mistakenly treats poverty as something substantial that can be the subject of predication (such that there can be contented and miserable forms of poverty). Famously, Seneca insists that if one is cheerful, that is self-sufficient (i.e., one's needs do not go beyond one's possessions), one cannot be poor [Illa vero non est paupertas, si laeta est.], a position he already announces in his first letter.

On an alternative Political Economy (Seneca, Letter 1)

Omnia, Lucili, aliena sunt, tempus tantum nostrum est.--Seneca, Letter 1.

At 280 words -- shorter than most frivolous blog posts -- Seneca's first letter to Lucilius takes full advantage of the economy of Latin prose. Its brevity may, thus, be thought to be an exemplar of what it seems to preach (in the first sentence): not to lose time.* Economy is a major theme of the letter as it explores the nature of possession, scarcity, value, profit, and other familiar economic concepts. In fact, in the brief span of the letter Seneca introduces two conceptions of economy (or axiological frameworks): in one we exchange commodities governed by the values established in the market, that is, uncertain popular opinion; in the second necessary loss reigns.+ Given that Seneca devalues the "foolish" attachments formed in the former (and seems to embrace the latter), we ought to reconsider the idea that losing time is a problem.

In order to teach a political economy that is an alternative to the usual one, Seneca turns to a bit of metaphysics: time is our only intrinsic property--our other properties are alienable. Seneca suggests that time's supreme value is due both to this peculiar fact and the necessity of our mortality. In this first letter, Seneca does not fully explain why the time(s) of our lives is the only such intrinsic property. (One may wonder why not the space of our lives?) If we substitute dying (for time(s) of our lives), the thought presents itself that the reason why the time of our life is our only intrinsic property may be that one's death(s) is the only necessity in a life. (We can, after all, not pay our taxes.) 

Clearly, for Seneca to think or have a name is not necessary.

If time is of the essence, why write 280 words?