The Meditations of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121–80) is consistently one of the best-selling philosophy books, ancient or modern. Countl

The Enduring Appeal of the Stoics

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2021-06-21 21:00:05

The Meditations of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121–80) is consistently one of the best-selling philosophy books, ancient or modern. Countless readers continue to find inspiration from his notebook jottings. At the same time, this is not a book that is often taken seriously by modern philosophers. This is even the case with modern specialists in ancient philosophy. After all, how can Marcus’ notebook jottings compare with the depth and sophistication of work like Aristotle’s Metaphysics?

The error in that kind of negative assessment is that it implicitly assumes that Marcus was trying to do the same thing as Aristotle, and then failing miserably. But he wasn’t. Marcus’ aim was quite different. So, what was Marcus doing? His book Meditations is a collection of notes and reflections written to himself. It is comprised of comments on events in his own life, quotations from texts he was reading, and – most importantly of all – constant reminders of how he ought to act and what he ought to think about things happening to him.

On meeting a rude and angry person, Marcus tells himself not to respond in kind but instead to remember that they are a fellow human being who is evidently going through a difficult time (Med. 2.1). The appropriate response, then, is sympathy rather than indignation. Marcus repeats ideas like these to himself again and again. The goal is to digest them so that they become second nature. As he puts it himself, his aim is to dye his soul a new colour, and to do this thoroughly one has to dip the cloth in the dye multiples times, so to speak (Med. 5.16).[1]The Greek text for this passage, and all those mentioned in this piece, can be read on Perseus, which will allow exploration of the rest of the work in its original language. Other ideas are given in Further Reading.

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