The Art of Living: The Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy

409 Pages·2009·6.81 MB·English

by  John Sellars

THE ART OF LIVING
The Stoics on the Nature
and Function of
Philosophy
John Sellars
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway
London New York
WC1B 3DP NY 10018
UK USA
www.bloomsbury.com
First published in 2003 by Bristol Classical Press an imprint of
Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd.
This Edition 2009
© John Sellers 2003
John Sellers has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or
retrieval system, without prior permission in writing
from the publishers.
No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on
or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication
can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
eISBN-13: 978-1-47252112-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Typeset by John Sellers
Contents
Preface to the Second Edition
Abbreviations
Introduction
1 The Topic
2 The Structure
PART I: and
1 Philosophy and Biography
1 The Philosopher’s Beard
2 and
3 The Philosopher’s
4 Summary

2 The Socratic Origins of the Art of Living
1 Philosophy and
2 Care of Oneself in the Apology and Alcibiades I
3 The Analysis of in the Gorgias
4 Different Types of
5 The Role of
6 Aristotle’s Interpretation of Socrates
7 Summary

3 The Stoic Conception of the Art of Living
1 The Phrase ‘Art of Living’
2 The Ideal of the Sage
3 An Art Concerned with the Soul
4 Stoic Definitions of
5 The Relationship between and
6 The Stoic Division of Philosophy
7 Towards a Definition of Philosophy
8 Summary

4 Sceptical Objections
1 The Sceptical Method
2 Sextus Empiricus’ Objections to an Art of Living
3 Philosophy and Biography in Scepticism
4 Summary
PART II: and
5 Philosophical Exercises
1 The Relationship between and
2 The Concept of a Spiritual Exercise
3 The Function of Spiritual Exercises
4 The Mechanism of Spiritual Exercises
5 The Form of Spiritual Exercises

6 Exercises in the Handbook of Epictetus
1 Introduction to the Handbook
2 Three Types of Spiritual Exercise
3 Summary

7 Exercises in the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
1 The Literary Form of the Meditations
2 The Point of View of the Cosmos
3 Summary

Conclusion
1 Towards a Technical Conception of Philosophy
2 Two Conceptions of Philosophical Knowledge
3 Philosophy and Biography
4 Three Different Types of Philosophical Text
5 The Persistence of the Technical Conception of Philosophy
Additional Notes
Glossary of Greek Words and Phrases
Guide to Ancient Philosophers and Authors
Bibliography
Index Locorum
General Index
Preface to the Second Edition
I am delighted that Duckworth is publishing this paperback edition of The Art of
Living, first published in hardback by Ashgate in 2003. I am especially pleased
that it will take its place alongside the many respected volumes already
published in the Bristol Classical Paperbacks series. My hope, of course, is that
it will now reach a much wider audience than it has thus far.
The first edition received a number of careful and thorough reviews that
brought to light both issues about which I might have said more and places
where I might have been clearer. This new preface gives me the welcome
opportunity to address some of the comments that have been made.
1
As a number of reviewers have noted, this book can be taken on two levels.
On the one hand it is simply an attempt to explicate how the ancient Stoics
conceived philosophy. I argue that they conceived it as an art or craft and the
principal consequence of this is that, like other arts and crafts, mastery of
philosophy will require not only a grasp of theoretical principles but also an
element of practical training designed to digest those principles. As such it may
be read as a contribution to the scholarly history of ancient philosophy. On the
other hand it hopes to show how thinking about ancient conceptions of
philosophy might contribute to much wider debates about the nature and
function of philosophy. The remarks in the Introduction and Conclusion
hopefully indicate how this might be so, where I draw a contrast between a
purely theoretical understanding of philosophy and philosophy conceived as an
art or craft, which I call the technical conception of philosophy. There are many
dangers with trying to do two things at once in a single piece of work. There is
the risk that one might fail to reach either target audience or, if one does reach
them, to alienate them both. I certainly hope that this has not been the case. One
2
reviewer did seem uncomfortable with this two-fold agenda. He suggested that
my foray into metaphilosophy ‘seems to depend more closely on the lingering
tensions between continental and analytical traditions in contemporary
philosophy than it does on the evidence from the ancient philosophical tradition
which has been so sadly drafted into a foreign war’. This is indeed an
unfortunate impression as I had deliberately tried to undercut just this sort of
reading. In the Introduction I draw a contrast between the conceptions of
philosophy held by Hegel and Nietzsche (both ‘continental’ philosophers) and
try to illustrate the same contrast in a debate between Richard Sorabji and
Bernard Williams (both trained in the analytic tradition). These pairings were
chosen precisely to show that the distinction between the two conceptions of
philosophy outlined in the Introduction does not correspond to a distinction
between continental and analytic philosophy and, moreover, that both
conceptions of philosophy can be found within both of these two supposed
3
traditions.
This attempt to undercut the assumption that the distinction I draw maps onto
the analytic-continental division not only failed in its task for one reviewer but
also created a problem for another. This reviewer accused me of setting up
4
Bernard Williams as a straw man. This criticism is not without grounds. In the
Introduction I focus on two short occasional pieces by Williams and do not
seriously engage with his more substantial work, such as Ethics and the Limits of
Philosophy, despite having read it. Indeed, in many ways Williams is much more
of a philosophical ally than my passing remarks on him imply and I am happy to
acknowledge this here. I would particularly like to note his essay ‘Philosophy as
a Humanistic Discipline’, in which he rejects the attempt to assimilate
philosophy to science and situates philosophy within a wider humanistic
enterprise of trying to make sense of our lives, an enterprise concerned with
5
reflecting on our ideas and acting on the basis of those ideas. The occasional
remarks by Williams that I cite in the Introduction certainly do not do justice to
the full range of his reflections on the nature and role of philosophy.
Another philosopher who turned away from the scientistic image of
6
philosophy towards a humanistic one was Isaiah Berlin. A central theme in
Berlin’s work that echoes one of the guiding metaphilosophical ideas in this
book is a concern with what Berlin called the power of ideas. Philosophical ideas
are not merely objects of abstract and idle amusement but rather vital forces that
can transform an individual’s life and, in some cases, impact upon the lives of
millions. Berlin’s principal concern was with the impact of ideas at the social
and political level, but the same point may be made at the level of the individual.
I would want to argue, although I do not have the space to do it here, that this
concern with the practical impact of philosophical ideas stands within the same
broad tradition containing the Stoics (and others), the origins of which may be
7
traced back to Socrates.
It has been suggested that although I claim to remain impartial with regard to
the two different conceptions of philosophy I outline (see p. 175 below) this may
be slightly disingenuous, given my clear focus on philosophy conceived as an art
8
of living. While I am clearly attracted to the idea that philosophy be conceived
as an art of living, I would like to restate that I do not hold that this is the correct,
proper, true, or only way in which philosophy might be conceived. I do not hold
that other conceptions of philosophy are inevitably misguided, confused, or
false. Instead I should like to propose what I shall call metaphilosophical
pluralism. Drawing an analogy with Isaiah Berlin’s value pluralism, which holds
that there exist a number of equally objective but ultimately incommensurable
values, I advocate a metaphilosophical pluralism in which there may exist a
number of equally justifiable but incompatible conceptions of what philosophy
is, and there are no definitive grounds for ruling that any one of these
conceptions deserves to be given priority. My account of philosophy as an art of
living is offered as a contribution to this metaphilosophical pluralism rather than
an attempt to legislate dogmatically on what philosophy is or should be.
I should also like to stress that the idea that philosophy is concerned with
one’s way of life should not be assumed to imply that practical concerns
outweigh a commitment to truth. Instead it combines a commitment to truth with
the claim that that commitment is not merely theoretical but will also have real-
world consequences. A contrast is sometimes drawn between analytic
philosophy committed to ‘truth and knowledge’ and populist forms of
philosophy serving up ‘moral or spiritual improvement’ or ‘chicken soup for the
9
soul’. Yet, as Glock rightly notes, ‘the case of ancient philosophers like
Socrates demonstrates that one can seek moral or spiritual improvement, yet do
10
so through the reasoned pursuit of truth and knowledge’. This is clearly related
to the famous Socratic thesis that virtue is knowledge, though it is not identical
to it. One might reject that thesis while remaining committed to the view that a
philosophical pursuit of truth and knowledge will have an impact upon and
express itself in one’s way of life.
Having dealt with some of the issues arising out of the metaphilosophical side
of the book it is now time to turn to its historical side. This is the more
substantial side and I suspect that the majority of readers will be more interested
in ancient Stoicism than abstract metaphilosophy. Yet it is worth stressing the
metaphilosophy in order to keep in focus the nature of the claims I make about
Stoicism. One reviewer has greeted the volume as a contribution to the literature
on Stoic practical ethics, while another has lamented that it fails as a contribution
11
to the literature on Stoic moral theory. The book claims to do neither. It is
explicitly not about that narrow part of philosophy commonly called practical
ethics but rather about a wider conception of philosophy as such, embracing
logic, physics, and ethics, both practical and theoretical. I argue that for the
Stoics the traditional view of a tripartite conception of philosophy (‘logic,