Thanksgiving with Marcus Aurelius

            In the United States, we celebrate Thanksgiving each year in November.  This is often wrapped up in a mythology of our country’s founding according to which friendly settlers shared food with the natives and invited them to a big party. 

            Spoiler alert: It didn’t happen that way. 

            Nonetheless, it is good to take time to give thanks.  It leads us to acknowledge good things about life, rather than taking them for granted.  It is also good for mental health, since being grateful can shift one’s state of mind in a very positive direction.  An attitude of appreciation brings all kinds of good feelings and makes one ready to spread them around.

            My students are reading from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations this week.  I chose this text because it is a major source of our knowledge of Stoicism, as well as providing an amazing example of a powerful individual practicing humility and reminding himself to live the values he has accepted.  I also chose for us to read it now because Book I is an exercise in giving thanks.  It is a gratitude-list divided into 17 sections according to whom Marcus is giving thanks.  He begins with his parents and grandparents, then includes teachers, friends, and finally gives thanks to the gods.

            The Meditations were likely written as a private diary on a military campaign.  Its author seems not to have intended to publish it.  It had no title.  It consists of private notes and reminders to himself.  In fact, it was given the title ‘Notes to Himself’ for a while.  The text was preserved by an unknown, fortuitous chain of events.

            As we read, we can witness Marcus trying to improve himself, and we are implicitly challenged to examine our own lives.  Marcus continuously exhorts himself to live his philosophy of life, which was profoundly influenced by Stoicism and in particular by the teachings of the former slave turned Stoic teacher, Epictetus.  Marcus thanks his teacher for introducing him to these ideas:

From Rusticus I received the impression that my character required improvement and discipline...and I am indebted to him for being acquainted with the discourses of Epictetus, which he communicated to me out of his own collection.[1]

            In the rest of the Meditations, Marcus reminds himself of what he believes, who he wishes to be, what he chooses to do, and how he can improve.  He reflects on the nature of the self.  He considers his own mortality, and the death of his loved ones and the men he most admired, as part of the Stoic exercise memento mori to prepare for the inevitable.  He reminds himself continually to be indifferent towards the worthless things we usually seek such as fame, wealth, lavish living, longer life, and pleasure.  And he reminds himself to focus inwardly on his rational abilities and to “despise the body.”^[2]

            Among the many things I am grateful for this Thanksgiving in 2018, is that the following hymn to Nature survived the ravages of history:

Everything harmonizes with me, which is harmonious to thee, O Universe.  Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for thee.  Everything is fruit to me which thy seasons bring, O Nature: from thee are all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return. ...^[3]

            Nearly all of Stoic philosophy was lost as papyrus burned or decayed, and as Christianity became a dominant ideological force in the Roman Empire.  Marcus lived an austere philosophy of life while commanding remarkable power.  He was well-respected despite his Stoic values, which were not very popular at the time. 

            But we should remember that history’s heroes have warts.  History is the result of selectively remembering what happened.  We remember Marcus Aurelius through his humble diary, but we also know about the devastation wreaked by the military campaigns he ordered and oversaw. 

           No matter what the historical person, Marcus Aurelius, may have done, the author of his Meditations sets an admirable example that challenges us to be mindful of how we can improve our own lives and those around us.

            We can improve our own state of mind, and become better persons, by eschewing the tendency to be a mindless creature of habit.  We can be more aware, in this very moment, of what is happening inside us and around us.  We can better appreciate our ability to maintain peace of mind.  And we can remember to be grateful.

---

[1] Meditations I.7

[2] Meditations II.2. 

[3] Meditations IV.23

Ancient Greek Philosophies of Life

(Image: Goya's portrait of Athena appearing to Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos)


What is a philosophy of life?
  This phrase ‘philosophy of life’ is used in the popular vernacular, but rather loosely and without a precise meaning.  In more scholarly or academic contexts, its meaning is clarified or sharpened, but still remains a somewhat elusive concept.
  A philosophy of life is different from moral philosophy and ethics.  It is somehow more comprehensive.  Each of them is inherently practical, insofar as it tells us what to do, how to be, what to admire and respect and aspire to, etc.  Ethical theories are characterized by how they define or determine what is good and what is right, what we owe to others, and what we ought to do.  But it is not clear if ethical theories are meant to tell us what to do at every waking instant, or how often we are to act in a deliberate manner.  A philosophy of life, on the other hand, aims to guide everything one does at all times.  It thus typically involves a small set of principles that can guide one’s every decision, like a handbook or map that can be pulled out anytime for instruction.
  Living is an activity, and it can be a deliberate activity with increased awareness of what one is doing and why.  One lives a philosophy of life.  This is more than just an intellectual grasping of the truth, but the intellectual part is quite important, too.  Living according to a philosophy somehow synthesizes intellectual and practical affairs, so that one’s actions proceed from tenets that have been rationally tested, and it is precisely the understanding and accepting of these tenets that commences and sustains one’s activity of living deliberately.
  Living according to a philosophy of life thus becomes lived wisdom.  People lived the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Epicurus, and other Ancient Greek philosophers in the six centuries surrounding the start of the Christian Era, whereas nowadays they are studied as a mostly intellectual enterprise.

Philosophy, Religion, and Spiritual Practices
  These pagan philosophies of life functioned in ways that we now associate with religion.  Today’s Catholics, Episcopalians, and Muslims parallel the ancient Stoics and Epicureans, to choose only a few examples, in being cultures explicitly unified by an ideology and ethos.
  Still, a philosophical way of living should be distinguished from religious ways of living, even if they can be similar, or tied to one another, in practice, and even if some ancient philosophical communities, such as the Epicureans, came to look somewhat cult-ish.  As John Cooper’s Pursuits of Wisdom distinguishes things, religious living characteristically allows that sacred texts, tradition, prayer, divine revelation, feelings of conviction or of a personal relationship with the divine can play a fundamental role in organizing one’s life (p. 17).
  Living according to a philosophy of life, on the other hand, will not grant a fundamental role or authority to such things.  Only a reasoned understanding will do.  There will indeed be important texts, but these are accepted because they exemplify “reasoned ideas about the world and one’s own place within it”, and have been “argued through, rationally worked out, rationally grasped, and rationally defended” (Cooper, 17).  Religious and philosophical ways of living are not mutually exclusive, though.  Early Christianity was framed as a philosophy, and it incorporated parts of Stoicism and Platonism.  The Epicurean philosophical community developed cultural traditions that are hard to distinguish from religion.  And Judaism is arguably a good example of both a religion and a philosophy that has unified a culture over many centuries.
  Despite the need to distinguish philosophical from religious ways of living, one can speak of a philosophy of life as “spiritual”, if we keep in mind that ‘spirit’ can serve as a translation for Greek psuche or Latin animus, which also translate as ‘soul’ and ‘mind’.
  Pierre Hadot expounds on the “spiritual exercises” of Greek philosophies of life, which we might understand more easily if we think of them as mental exercises akin to meditation and concentration.  He claimed that ancient philosophy in Ancient Greece and Rome was “a method of spiritual progress which demanded a radical conversion and transformation of the individual’s way of being” (Hadot "Philosophy as a Way of Life", 265).  Philosophizing was an activity that became indistinguishable from living, so that one’s actively practicing a philosophy of life became one’s life itself.
  According to Hadot, “In Stoicism, as in Epicureanism, philosophizing was a continuous act, permanent and identical with life itself, which had to be renewed at each instant.  For both schools, this act could be defined as an orientation of the attention” (268).  In Stoicism, attention was oriented toward the purity of one’s intentions.  In Epicureanism, by contrast, attention was oriented toward pleasure.
  And you thought that mindfulness was a new, modern fad?  No, of course, we all have known that meditation and the deliberate increasing of awareness of inner life are ancient practices.  But you might have been thinking of Eastern religions or philosophies, and you might be surprised to hear that Ancient Western civilizations included rational-monks aiming at enlightenment through controlling their attention, inner life, and mental activity.

Stoic and Epicurean Philosophies of Life
  Both the Stoics and the Epicureans advised us to live in the present, and to avoid the troubles involved with holding onto the past or dwelling on bad memories, as well as not to worry about uncertain future events.  They emphasized that there is infinite value in each instant, so that lived wisdom was complete, in each moment, no matter when it is cut short by death.  A philosophy of life must be practiced continuously at each instant.  There is no reason to delay; this very moment is the time to begin.
  Wisdom brings peace of mind (ataraxia), inner freedom (autarkeia), and the “cosmic perspective” of being aware of one’s place in the universe or cosmos, as a part of that cosmos.
  Epicurus reduced it all to the pleasure of having eliminated all bodily pain and mental distress.  This is the sole fundamental value and the goal of life, which can be achieved by rationally and prudently pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain and distress.  The Epicureans were thus hedonists, though not at all the stereotypical hedonists that this name now evokes.
  The Stoics claimed that excellence or virtue (arete) is the goal, while allowing for more complex instructions on how to live.  They thought the universe is divinely ordered and inspired, with each part playing a unique and ineliminable role in the whole: “At each instant the ancient sage was conscious of living in the cosmos, and he placed himself in harmony with the cosmos” (Hadot, 265).  The sage will perceive everything as happening in the universal context, and will never cease to have the whole in mind, while being aware of his or her particular place and part in it.
  That’s not to say that the sage knows what will happen next, but instead that whatever happens next is placed into the context as fitting just so.  It is greeted with open arms as a divine gift.
  These ancient philosophies of life advise us to live in a way that could not be troubled no matter what happens.  We can control our inner peace, and thus our happiness and well-being, no matter what uncontrollable forces come our way.

   Cooper, John 2012 Pursuits of Wisdom: Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy Princeton University Press

   Hadot, Pierre 1995 "Philosophy as a Way of Life" translated by Chase, Michael in Davidson, Arnold (ed) Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault Blackwell Publishers

Philosophy of Education

I teach philosophy courses at the college level.  One of my goals in class is to disabuse students of a popular model of education in which students learn passively, absorbing information and knowledge from hearing a lecture.  In this simplistic model, the teacher is the fount of information, or even an expert, transferring knowledge by initiating a process not unlike osmosis.
This model is popular at least in part because there is something right about it.  In a lecture setting, it is possible to transfer information through a simple process of speaking and listening.  So, it is not completely wrong.  Yet even what this model gets right is easily misunderstood, as listening is an activity and not merely a passive reception of information.  Listening takes effort, and attention, and when done well it involves critical thinking and even something like a dialogue in the mind of the listener.

Active Learning
I advocate an alternative model of education that emphasizes the active role of a student.  Learning, too, is an activity.  It is something that students do.  Teachers cannot themselves “learn” students, as in: bring it about that students learn.  (The ungrammatical feel here seems telling – ‘learn’ is an active verb, but it is not comfortably used with a person as its object.)   The old adage You can bring a horse to water but you cannot make it drink often seems appropriate in educational contexts.
Students must learn for themselves.  We learn by engaging with what we read, hear, and observe.  A disengaged student cannot learn, and this disproves the osmosis-model of education.
There are levels to educational engagement.  To be fully engaged, first, one must pay attention, which seems increasingly more difficult as technology like cell phones distracts us and prevents us from focusing for extended periods.  Second, one must articulate and consider which questions are being addressed by the information one is observing: What is the issue?  This too is an activity, noticing an issue at hand, although it is usually done automatically or unconsciously.  Third, one must consider how those questions could be addressed differently, or whether other questions ought to be put forward as an issue at hand.  (I do not pretend this is an exhaustive list.)
I believe that learning depends, in part, on natural and acquired abilities (to read, to listen, to think critically and intelligently, etc.).  However, it also importantly depends on the effort that students make to learn and to actively engage.  A student’s engagement is the key factor under their control in the classroom, in the library, and outside the traditional contexts of learning.  Indeed, it is outside such contexts where acquired information becomes solidified into something like learning or knowledge, as one continues (automatically or deliberately) to think about and engage with the issues that one actively noticed were raised.
In sum, engaged learning requires an active, inner dialogue.  Recognizing this may help us all, teachers and students alike, improve as thinkers and learners.

Humble Teaching

My alternative model of education also acknowledges the ignorance of teachers.  While teachers can be expert in some things, like math, the notion of expertise is problematic in the courses I teach such as ‘Social and Political Philosophy’, ‘Ethical Theory’, and ‘Critical Thinking about Moral Problems.’  A teacher’s perspective can be more informed, or more reflective, than a student’s, but there is no in-principle privilege to any person’s perspective on the fundamental questions of justice, freedom, equality, morality, and values.  Also, we should not pretend that teachers are fully informed and fully reflective.
If a teacher can honestly confess to lacking knowledge, as the prelude to demonstrating a sincere search for it, it helps put the teacher on a closer level with students as they engage together in the process of learning.  I claim that humility is a virtue in a teacher, and that recognizing one’s own ignorance can set a good example for students.  (Some students may be prone to see humility as a weakness, but honesty and forthrightness are clear strengths.  Also, remember that students may need to be disabused of their stereotypes of education.)  I take this insight from Plato’s Socrates, while leaving behind any idea that philosophers are naturally privileged with better access to important truths.
To clarify, I do not deny that some perspectives are objectively better than others at accessing the truth.  The implication is instead that we all are fallible when it comes to understanding, appreciating, and then acting according to reasons for accepting or rejecting claims about values, morals, justice and injustice.
     We teachers ought to take up the role of learners in our own classrooms, and be forthright about that.