Man in the Face of Passing and the Transitory Nature of the Moment in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations (original) (raw)
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This paper focuses on the role and function of the “fleeting present moment” in Marcus Aurelius and intends to resolve Marcus Aurelius’ puzzle about possessing the most fleeting thing of all by explaining what it means when we say that we ‘possess’ the present moment. Moreover, the paper focuses on the present moment’s role in removing the fear of death and being able to properly plan one’s own life. It compares Marcus Aurelius’ view on time with Chrysippus’ stance on time and the present by resorting to the notion of “retrenchability”, mainly developed by M. Schofield. It also shows the relevance of Epictetus’ distinction between what is up to us and what is not up to us. The main claim is that the present moment is plastic in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations: that is, the way in which an agent acts during the present moment depends upon oneself, but it is also up to the agent to retrench or expand the present moment (and this depends on one’s state of mind). This conceptualization of present time allows one to understand the relevance of the present moment for a correct calculation of one’s practical life. At the same time, it shows the way in which the Stoic Emperor apparently applied a physical concept of time to account for action, though he is above all concerned with “lived time”; for in the Meditations, the relevant framework for time and particularly the present moment is psychological and moral.
Embracing Mortality: Psychological Preparation on Death in the Guidance of Stoic Philosophy
Muallim Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (MJSSH) , 2024
Humanity's greatest fear is the inevitability of death, the ultimate fate that all strive to evade. This collective dread of mortality stems from its perceived malevolence. Across the ages, from religious rituals promising salvation to scientific efforts to delay death, human attempts to confront mortality vary widely. Yet death remains inescapable, a natural consequence of life. While religious doctrines offer comfort through ideas of an afterlife, and science views death as a biological challenge to be postponed. Conversely, philosophy advocates for an intellectual acceptance of death's inevitability. The Stoic Philosophy, in particular, advocate for the joyful acceptance of death as an integral part of life. This philosophical stance fosters a positive perspective on death, encouraging individuals to live life to its fullest potential. Embracing death with joy entails psychological reassurance and preparatory measures for life's inevitable end. This qualitative study explores psychological preparation for death using primary and secondary data sources. Primary sources include the philosophical texts by Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, specifically "Letters to Lucilius," "On the Shortness of Life," and "Meditations." Secondary data is collected from peer-reviewed journals, books, and reports that contextualize these works within modern psychological frameworks. The primary audience includes individuals preparing for death due to age or illness and those grieving loved ones, offering a pathway to peace and understanding through Stoic wisdom. Moreover, this will be a guidance to those who work with the terminally ill people to get psychological resilience. By embracing death, Stoicism encourages both the dying and the bereaved to find psychological reassurance and encourage all to live a meaningful life in the given time frame.
Stoic ethics as a guide to the political life in Marcus Aurelius
Revista Escritos (Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana): Vol. 28 Núm. 61 (2020): Julio - diciembre, 2021
Marcus Aurelius reigned from 161 A.D. to 180 A.D., and he ranks among the most successful emperors of the antonine dynasty. The success of his administration may be attributed to his philosopher personality and, more than that, to his stoic character. Meditations presents thoughts of a stoicism devotee, which reflects in moments of intimacy on the challenges that he faced throughout his life as an emperor. It is in the practice of the ethical precepts of stoicism that he finds his refuge. The text consists of a series of spiritual exercises which reaffirm the indifference to pleasures, contempt for fame, detachment from riches and abnegation for political power. This paper is a study of Meditations, and its main purpose is to elucidate how the stoic way of life is incorporated in the figure of the philosopher emperor; this, as a military function, as he was a commander of the Roman army in the war against the Nordics, where political virtue was tested. Amid the chaos of an insane struggle for the survival of Rome, he found in stoicism a precious source of inspiration. Marcus Aurelius was not dazzled by the cult of the emperor's personality; he acted for the natural right to freedom and guided his political actions for the common good. His stoic perseverance reveals itself in a harmonious conduct with the city, the rational and cosmic organism from which the emperor is a simple part.
Socratic Themes in the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
In C. Moore, ed., Brill's Companion to the Reception of Socrates (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 2019
Although Marcus Aurelius refers to Socrates only a handful of times in the Meditations, and often only to name him as an example of an illustrious figure now long dead, this chapter argues that there is a distinctive Socratic character to the philosophical project that we see at work in Marcus's notebook writings. In those few places where Marcus does invoke Socrates it is usually in connection with one of the central preoccupations of the Meditations, in particular the notion of taking care of oneself, the primacy of virtue, and the need for self-control. This chapter i) examines Marcus's knowledge of Socrates and the sources he used, and ii) explores the Socratic themes in the Meditations noted above. Although Marcus does not explicitly say very much about Socrates, I suggest that he probably considered the Meditations to embody a deeply Socratic project.
Escritos, 2020
http://dx.doi.org/10.18566/escr.v28n61.a04 Marcus Aurelius reigned from 161 A.D. to 180 A.D., and he ranks among the most successful emperors of the antonine dynasty. The success of his administration may be attributed to his philosopher personality and, more than that, to his stoic character. Meditations presents thoughts of a stoicism devotee, which reflects in moments of intimacy on the challenges that he faced throughout his life as an emperor. It is in the practice of the ethical precepts of stoicism that he finds his refuge. The text consists of a series of spiritual exercises which reaffirm the indifference to pleasures, contempt for fame, detachment from riches and abnegation for political power. This paper is a study of Meditations, and its main purpose is to elucidate how the stoic way of life is incorporated in the figure of the philosopher emperor; this, as a military function, as he was a commander of the Roman army in the war against the Nordics, where political virtue was tested. Amid the chaos of an insane struggle for the survival of Rome, he found in stoicism a precious source of inspiration. Marcus Aurelius was not dazzled by the cult of the emperor's personality; he acted for the natural right to freedom and guided his political actions for the common good. His stoic perseverance reveals itself in a harmonious conduct with the city, the rational and cosmic organism from which the emperor is a simple part.
The Deception of Time: Life and Death in Seneca's Stoicism
The purpose of this essay is to examine the use of language by Lucius Annaeus Seneca concerning the beguiling nature of time, life, and death in his prose writing. By examining essays such as De Otio and De Brevitate Vitae, we can see how through the use of metaphor, example, and occasionally even reprimand, Seneca attempts to show that humanity is fooling itself with regards to time, and how well it is being spent. Stoic philosophers would tell us that our time is important to us because it is limited. It is precious to us precisely because it comes with no promise of constancy. Our only guarantee as mortal beings is that our time will indeed end, and so it is therefore important that we make the best possible use of what time we have available to us. We must not squander this time on trivial matters or uncontrollable external factors. Lucius Annaeus Seneca, a Roman Stoic philosopher has written much on this topic within his vast body of essays and published letters. It is within the contexts above that I believe Seneca is making the case that time (our lifetime) beguiles us into fallacious notions. We tend to believe that life is simply too short for such endeavors as the contemplation of virtue. We also tend to believe that a long life necessarily equates to a full life, that somehow the measure of how well one has lived is correlated to how long one has lived. Seneca, through careful use of language, attempts to argue that this is a fallacy.
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
1991
Inroduction Biographical note Further reading A note on the text The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Appendix: A selection from the correspondence of Marcus Cornelius Fronto and Marcus Aurelius Explanatory notes Comparative style of references for Fronto's letters Index