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comment by mk
mk  ·  3609 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Stoicism: a practical philosophy you can actually use

Thanks. Much better than my treatment. Also, I am going to make it a point to read Meditations this year. I've had it recommended plenty.





kleinbl00  ·  3609 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's on my list. We maybe oughtta hubskibookclub it.

OftenBen  ·  3609 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I just ordered it, delivery is monday.

mk  ·  3609 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'll do the same.

user-inactivated  ·  3609 days ago  ·  link  ·  

mk kleinbl00 OftenBen

It's a very important book and I found it astonishing in its sheer incisive truth -- but his sentences are so convoluted as to be essentially unreadable. Caesar, he was not. It took me a surprisingly long time to finish.

And as bfv says, it doesn't have a whole lot of depth; it's mostly aphorisms and references to Aurelius' father.

EDIT: this link is a very good read.

EDIT2: though I found this sickening. I can't stand the (very common) general mindset of the author.

MrDr  ·  3582 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I don't see any links in your first edit.

user-inactivated  ·  3609 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I don't know about lacking depth, if you know a bit about the Stoics you can see how he made use of philosophy, and it's very different than the way you learned to do philosophy if you took some philosophy classes. You just have to go in knowing a little about the Stoics or it all sounds like something your grandmother might embroider and hang on the bathroom wall. It doesn't stand on its own.

user-inactivated  ·  3609 days ago  ·  link  ·  

He might say something like, "you work with the lot in life you are given," but not go into the verbose exposition I've grown to expect from philosophers of the Age of Reason.

user-inactivated  ·  3609 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Well, yes, he's turning the things he got from his teachers into aphorisms and rephrasing them to keep them fresh in his head without turning them into words to be repeated out of habit. It was his journal and not meant to be read by other people; he didn't need to explain things to himself at length, just to remind himself. If you want a lengthier explanation, Epictetus is one of his student's notes from his lectures, and is meant to be instructive, and Seneca is as verbose as anyone could ask for. None of them are up to modern standards, because even philosophy has made some progress over the past 2000 years, but there are books that are meant to do what you wanted Meditations to do. Meditations just one of them.

But do read Pierre Hadot's The Inner Citadel for why Meditations isn't as shallow as it looks.

user-inactivated  ·  3609 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You misunderstand; I did not want Meditations to do that. I think it's actually possible philosophy has gone backward in the last 2000 years. Or possibly jumped in front of a bus.

briandmyers  ·  3608 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    it's actually possible philosophy has gone backward in the last 2000 years

It has certainly changed considerably, at least. For the Greeks and Romans, philosophy was expected to guide one in how to live one's daily life. That role is mostly expected to be filled by religion nowadays, not by philosophy.

user-inactivated  ·  3609 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Hadot agrees with you. I don't think I do. We've gained precision, and the cost of that is that we know when we're waving our hands. It turns out when you're talking about big things like how people in general ought to live, you invariably wave your hands a lot. It makes attempts to talk about them look ridiculous, and trying to talk about them feel ridiculous. But the ancients were waving their hands too, they just didn't know it.

user-inactivated  ·  3609 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The greatest hand-waver of them all was dear Bertrand, though. I always secretly pretended he was Bertie Wooster's namesake.

In all seriousness, I tried to articulate what I disagree with here and I can't, really. Just that I've read a lot of post-Renaissance philosophy and a lot of classical philosophy and a bare handful in between and I know which era I'd pick if I was on a desert island. If that's the best rationalization I can mount, though, I clearly don't belong with Descartes anyway.

ecib  ·  3608 days ago  ·  link  ·  

If you are down with a tablet (not your style right now I know) there are good free versions available for immediate download. I downloaded it last year on iBooks and if they have it public domain there I'm sure kindle does.

briandmyers  ·  3608 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I got the free version and read the first chapter, then decided to get the Hays translation. Only 8 bucks and well worth it, IMO.

veen  ·  3609 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I've also added it to my Kindle! Let me know if there's a book club thing.

user-inactivated  ·  3609 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Meditations is quotable, but it really is mostly him paraphrasing things in his journal. It's like reading the slides for a lecture, not very informative unless you're already familiar with the material.