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blairmahoney's review against another edition
5.0
Another classic of Stoic philosophy. Seneca's writing is pretty timeless and still has lots of relevant advice for people today. He draws on lots of historical examples to illustrate his points which are fascinating in themselves. His prose is a bit more engaging than that of Epictetus.
generalheff's review against another edition
2.0
Seneca wrote in the opening years of the new millennium (around 30-40 AD) on a range of topics as was typical of philosophers of the time. This volume of essays (I won't say dialogues as only one of the nine claims to be a dialogue and is really a monologue anyway) ranges from discussions of anger to analysis of earthquakes.
Despite the breadth of topics, the style and purpose of all Seneca's writing here is consistent: to propound the Stoic approach to life and to advise the reader in the ways of virtue. Though stoicism is a familiar name, reading this book gives one a truer sense of the doctrine. Yes, the classic 'stoical' ideals are present and accounted for, in particular: that life is random and full of chance so why get worked up about it - we are told many times how death lurks around the corner so no need to fret about the small things. And people should think their way to a more balanced and calm life; understanding earthquakes leads to being less afraid and superstitious of them and so on.
Yet Seneca brings nuance to this picture of reasoned, emotionally stable existence. He particularly seems irked by what many would say about Stoicism today: that it is a philosophy aimed entirely at deadening the emotions and frowns upon all feeling whatsoever. In a couple of the more memorable passages, he extols on just letting go: "sometimes stimulus will be provided by ... convivial company and generous drinking. Occasionally we should reach the stage even of intoxication", though of course we should not allow it "to drown us, or to take over our senses" but rather let it "wash away our cares, and rouse the mind from its depths, acting as a cure for its melancholy as it does for certain maladies".
Another of the virtues of this virtue-obsessed book is its championing of science as a means to dispel fear and superstition. In discussing earthquakes, Seneca asks in lieu of such things "how much better would it be to examine the causes ... What, you ask, will justify this effort? The reward will be to know Nature". Not only does the author push a rational view of existence at a time when this would certainly not be the norm, but he makes some surprisingly astute psychological observations: "it is because we comprehend Nature, not with our reason, but with our eyes, giving thought, not to what she can do, but only to what she has done. [We are] frightened by things as new when in fact they are not new but simply unusual." This statement of our propensity to assume the future will resemble the past, and to base our assumptions around the examples that most readily come to mind (something that would today be called availability bias), would not be out of place in a modern discourse.
Indeed, the book is at its best in such moments, when the author puts down his interminable lists of examples and hectoring of the reader to reveal something important instead. In remarks on our irascible natures he notes that "the greatest cure for anger is to wait, so that the ... fog that shrouds the mind may subside"; on our assuming that if things are going well for us, they will continue to do so, Seneca comments that "you are made arrogant by a beautiful house, as though it cannot catch fire or collapse, you are reduced to astonishment by your riches, as though they have escaped all danger and have reached such proportions that Fortune has lost all power to destroy them"; in a chapter on the tranquility of mind Seneca observes of most people: "without a plan they rove, searching for work to occupy them, and what they end up doing is not what they have intended to do but whatever they have bumped into". In one of Seneca's best turns of phrase he styles this existence "restless idleness" - something highly relevant today in our twitchy, always-on culture. There is a similarly apposite comment on the "many times ... I see men seeking the time of others and those being asked most compliant; both parties are concentrating on why the request for time was made, neither on the time itself: it is as if nothing is being sought, nothing given." - a sentence that could easily describe the majority of meetings the white collar worker is pulled into today.
The problem, by and large, is that far too little of this book comprises this pithy, incisive commentary - which offers a fascinating view of the constancy of human nature and seems, in places, as relevant today as I imagine it did then. No, most of this book consists of hugely tedious exposition. It is not enough for Seneca to draw attention to (say) the pitfalls of anger and to perhaps illustrate with a handful of examples. He must, instead, batter the reader with instance after instance in which this or that issue has redounded to the person being discussed. This clearly is so much rhetorical style: without copious, illustrious examples, Seneca seems to feel, the work would be incomplete (poorly referenced in today's academic language).
Unfortunately for the modern reader, not only are most of the examples totally lost to time (you will be doing well if you know your Cato from your Cataline but who knows their Metrodorus from their Metullus?), but much of the discussion centres on totally alien examples. Readers now are unlikely to find much of use in discussions of the appropriate way to discipline your slaves, or of the horrors of being exiled from your homeland.
Our modern sensibility is also likely appalled by the crass indifference to emotions Seneca pays to Marcia - who he consoles on the death of her son with a range of arguments, from effectively 'he had a good run' to 'more illustrious people than you dealt with worse situations so you should move on too'. Perhaps most challenging of all is the very notion that reason can trump emotion even in such personally devastating times. ("any grief that has yielded to reason is laid to rest for ever").
Seneca even applies this cruel balm to his own mother - who he 'consoles' for his own exile. This chapter is honestly quite funny: not only does he contrast his mother's experience of his exile with other mothers' experiences of their sons' deaths, but he exhorts Helvia to "have done with lamentations and cries of sorrow and other means by which women generally express their noisy grief". The sexism of the time, however understandable, strains the reader and renders whole sections null and void. To round off the comedic effects of this chapter, it is only in the closing pages - after amazing passages implying his mother's crushing, agonising pain at her beloved Seneca's loss - that he comments that she still has "my brothers ... [who] in each of them, for all the difference of their merits, you have cause for delight". Having read pages of pretentious self-aggrandisement and tedious lists of the great and good who have survived worse led me to laugh out loud when I got to the last two pages of the chapter to see Seneca rattle off a series of other "consolations" that includes his mother's other two sons.
This book does contain some pearls of wisdom; and its emphasis on the value of reason and reflection over succumbing to blind superstition and emotion can be a useful regulative ideal. But it cannot offer a complete philosophy of life as Seneca views it and nor should it. While I often agreed with the book I couldn't help thinking as I went: this approach to life is not everything. The ideal man Seneca envisages is dull, lacks passion. I doubt some of our greatest art, or our greatest moments in life, would exist were everyone a stoic reason-being.
The book therefore fails in its central aim to convert the reader to a certain way of life. I also think it fails even as a more straightforward book of moralising. Such books generally do not develop whole philosophical systems, but make use of anecdotes, evidence and argument to think over issues that arise in life and this is definitely the way to approach this volume. But the lists of examples and the irrelevance of the subject matter, combined with the often near-humorous clinging to stoic ideals against all human feeling, combine to make this work a failure even when read in this manner. Far better to go read some Montaigne for a scattergun array of moralising essays on different topics, than this much more boring and hectoring collection.
Despite the breadth of topics, the style and purpose of all Seneca's writing here is consistent: to propound the Stoic approach to life and to advise the reader in the ways of virtue. Though stoicism is a familiar name, reading this book gives one a truer sense of the doctrine. Yes, the classic 'stoical' ideals are present and accounted for, in particular: that life is random and full of chance so why get worked up about it - we are told many times how death lurks around the corner so no need to fret about the small things. And people should think their way to a more balanced and calm life; understanding earthquakes leads to being less afraid and superstitious of them and so on.
Yet Seneca brings nuance to this picture of reasoned, emotionally stable existence. He particularly seems irked by what many would say about Stoicism today: that it is a philosophy aimed entirely at deadening the emotions and frowns upon all feeling whatsoever. In a couple of the more memorable passages, he extols on just letting go: "sometimes stimulus will be provided by ... convivial company and generous drinking. Occasionally we should reach the stage even of intoxication", though of course we should not allow it "to drown us, or to take over our senses" but rather let it "wash away our cares, and rouse the mind from its depths, acting as a cure for its melancholy as it does for certain maladies".
Another of the virtues of this virtue-obsessed book is its championing of science as a means to dispel fear and superstition. In discussing earthquakes, Seneca asks in lieu of such things "how much better would it be to examine the causes ... What, you ask, will justify this effort? The reward will be to know Nature". Not only does the author push a rational view of existence at a time when this would certainly not be the norm, but he makes some surprisingly astute psychological observations: "it is because we comprehend Nature, not with our reason, but with our eyes, giving thought, not to what she can do, but only to what she has done. [We are] frightened by things as new when in fact they are not new but simply unusual." This statement of our propensity to assume the future will resemble the past, and to base our assumptions around the examples that most readily come to mind (something that would today be called availability bias), would not be out of place in a modern discourse.
Indeed, the book is at its best in such moments, when the author puts down his interminable lists of examples and hectoring of the reader to reveal something important instead. In remarks on our irascible natures he notes that "the greatest cure for anger is to wait, so that the ... fog that shrouds the mind may subside"; on our assuming that if things are going well for us, they will continue to do so, Seneca comments that "you are made arrogant by a beautiful house, as though it cannot catch fire or collapse, you are reduced to astonishment by your riches, as though they have escaped all danger and have reached such proportions that Fortune has lost all power to destroy them"; in a chapter on the tranquility of mind Seneca observes of most people: "without a plan they rove, searching for work to occupy them, and what they end up doing is not what they have intended to do but whatever they have bumped into". In one of Seneca's best turns of phrase he styles this existence "restless idleness" - something highly relevant today in our twitchy, always-on culture. There is a similarly apposite comment on the "many times ... I see men seeking the time of others and those being asked most compliant; both parties are concentrating on why the request for time was made, neither on the time itself: it is as if nothing is being sought, nothing given." - a sentence that could easily describe the majority of meetings the white collar worker is pulled into today.
The problem, by and large, is that far too little of this book comprises this pithy, incisive commentary - which offers a fascinating view of the constancy of human nature and seems, in places, as relevant today as I imagine it did then. No, most of this book consists of hugely tedious exposition. It is not enough for Seneca to draw attention to (say) the pitfalls of anger and to perhaps illustrate with a handful of examples. He must, instead, batter the reader with instance after instance in which this or that issue has redounded to the person being discussed. This clearly is so much rhetorical style: without copious, illustrious examples, Seneca seems to feel, the work would be incomplete (poorly referenced in today's academic language).
Unfortunately for the modern reader, not only are most of the examples totally lost to time (you will be doing well if you know your Cato from your Cataline but who knows their Metrodorus from their Metullus?), but much of the discussion centres on totally alien examples. Readers now are unlikely to find much of use in discussions of the appropriate way to discipline your slaves, or of the horrors of being exiled from your homeland.
Our modern sensibility is also likely appalled by the crass indifference to emotions Seneca pays to Marcia - who he consoles on the death of her son with a range of arguments, from effectively 'he had a good run' to 'more illustrious people than you dealt with worse situations so you should move on too'. Perhaps most challenging of all is the very notion that reason can trump emotion even in such personally devastating times. ("any grief that has yielded to reason is laid to rest for ever").
Seneca even applies this cruel balm to his own mother - who he 'consoles' for his own exile. This chapter is honestly quite funny: not only does he contrast his mother's experience of his exile with other mothers' experiences of their sons' deaths, but he exhorts Helvia to "have done with lamentations and cries of sorrow and other means by which women generally express their noisy grief". The sexism of the time, however understandable, strains the reader and renders whole sections null and void. To round off the comedic effects of this chapter, it is only in the closing pages - after amazing passages implying his mother's crushing, agonising pain at her beloved Seneca's loss - that he comments that she still has "my brothers ... [who] in each of them, for all the difference of their merits, you have cause for delight". Having read pages of pretentious self-aggrandisement and tedious lists of the great and good who have survived worse led me to laugh out loud when I got to the last two pages of the chapter to see Seneca rattle off a series of other "consolations" that includes his mother's other two sons.
This book does contain some pearls of wisdom; and its emphasis on the value of reason and reflection over succumbing to blind superstition and emotion can be a useful regulative ideal. But it cannot offer a complete philosophy of life as Seneca views it and nor should it. While I often agreed with the book I couldn't help thinking as I went: this approach to life is not everything. The ideal man Seneca envisages is dull, lacks passion. I doubt some of our greatest art, or our greatest moments in life, would exist were everyone a stoic reason-being.
The book therefore fails in its central aim to convert the reader to a certain way of life. I also think it fails even as a more straightforward book of moralising. Such books generally do not develop whole philosophical systems, but make use of anecdotes, evidence and argument to think over issues that arise in life and this is definitely the way to approach this volume. But the lists of examples and the irrelevance of the subject matter, combined with the often near-humorous clinging to stoic ideals against all human feeling, combine to make this work a failure even when read in this manner. Far better to go read some Montaigne for a scattergun array of moralising essays on different topics, than this much more boring and hectoring collection.
ophiocordyceps's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
extragravy's review against another edition
5.0
Essential reading for stoic philosophy. I've read this many times and am certain I'll read it many more. The clarity, insight and general wisdom available here is worth your time if you are interested in late stoic thinking. It is blended a bit with epicureanism (like Cicero IMO) and I've found that I really prefer a blend of stoic and epicurean thought.
jquin75's review against another edition
5.0
I really enjoyed this book and collection of essays. On anger, the shortness of life, and on the tranquility of the mind were my top three. However, every essay Seneca wrote will give you a lesson of life that is still relevant to this day.
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