I
Now that
the coronavirus rules the world, I wonder what philosophy can mean for us. Can
it help answer new questions that we come across? Can it help answer life
questions? Can philosophy give us consolation now that our life have been turned
upside down and we have lost our hold on what we are doing and on the world around
us? A world in which we see so many people die, including people who are so dear
to us? In order to find an answer how philosophy could console me I bought a
book that I always wanted to buy but never did, one of the most read books in
philosophy, namely The consolation of philosophy by Anicus Manlius Severinus Boethius.
Boethius (c. 477-524) was a Roman
philosopher and politician, who lived in the latter years of the Roman Empire. He
had an outstanding political career but he was falsely accused of high treason
and executed. During his time in prison Boethius wrote his Consolation. It
would become one of the most famous and most-discussed philosophy books of the
Middle Ages and it is still widely read. With right. It’s a deep book that make
you think. It contains a cosmology and treats questions that are important for
everybody who wants to think about life and destination, free will and fortune,
good and bad, and much more. It treats questions that are especially relevant
for Christians without being a theological book or a Christian book. Boethius
combines pagan Roman and Greek philosophy with Christian philosophy. The structure
of the book is also special. It contains a conversation between Philosophy and
Boethius in prison, where Philosophy has come to console him. But did Philosophy
succeed to console Boethius? I am doubtful about it. My conclusion is that fate
is as it is, and that’s it. Is this consolation, is it comfort? Nevertheless,
Boethius’s Consolation has us much to say that is relevant to the
present fate of the world: the coronacrisis. It asks relevant questions and it
gives relevant observations, especially in Books (= chapters) I and II. In the next
section of this blog I give a compilation of quotes from these books, which I
present without comment.
II
Philosophy:
“Do you remember that you are a man?” Boethius: “Of
course, I do” Ph.: “Do
you not know that you were ever any other thing?” B.: “No,” Ph.: “Now I know,
the cause of your malady: you have ceased to know who and what you are. You are
confounded with forgetting of yourself; for you cry that you are exiled from
your own possessions. And since you do not know what the end of things is, you
believe that criminal and wicked men are strong and healthy. And because you
have forgotten by what law the world is governed, you think that these
mutations of fortune fly about without governor. These are great causes not
only of illness, but of death. But I thank the Maker and Author of health that nature
has not totally abandoned you. I have a great treatment for your health, and
that comes from your true understanding of the governance of the world.
Therefore, have no fear; for from this little spark, the light of life shall
shine.”
Then Philosophy began to speak in this way,
“If I have understood and utterly grasped the causes and habit of your
sickness, you are still desiring and longing for your former fortune. Fortune
has apparently altered herself toward you. This has perverted the clearness and
stability of your heart. However, if you clearly remember the type, the manner,
and the works of Fortune, you shall well know that in her, you never had, nor
ever lost any fair thing. No sudden mutation can occur without a kind of
shifting of the heart. And so, it has befallen that you are a little removed
from the peace of your mind.”
“What is it that has cast you into mourning and weeping? You have
seen some new and unknown thing. You assume that Fortune has changed herself to
oppose you; but if you believe that, you are wrong. Those have always been her
ways. She has instead shown toward you her own stability in the changing of
herself. Just such was she when she flattered you and deceived you to become unlawfully
attracted to false goods. You have now known and seen the changing or double
face of the blind goddess Fortune. She has shown you her true self. If you
approve of her and think her good, then follow her ways and stop complaining;
but if you are aggrieved by her false treachery, despise her, and cast away she
who plays so hurtfully. For she, who is now the cause of such sorrow to you
ought to be the source of peace and joy. She has truly forsaken you. Do you now
consider Fortune precious, since she is unfaithful, and when she departs, she
leaves a man in sorrow? At the end, it behooves you to suffer with calm spirit,
in patience, all that is done within the domain of worldly Fortune.”
“Fortune says to you: ‘When nature brought
you forth from your mother’s womb, I received you naked and needy of all
things. I nourished you with my riches and was ready and attentive to sustain
you with my favor and that causes you now to be impatient with me. I surrounded
you with all the abundance and glitter of the goods that are rightfully mine.
Now it pleases me to withdraw my hand. You have been graced with alien goods.
You have no right to complain as though you had lost all your own things. Why
do you complain? I have done you no wrong. Riches, honors, and other such
things are rightfully mine.’ ”
B.: “Certainly, that’s true but the misery
brings a deeper feeling of harm.”
Ph. “Just so, but since you will not cease
to consider yourself wretched, have you forgotten the amount and ways of your
happiness? If any fruit of mortal things may have any weight or value of
happiness, can you ever forget, despite any shock of harm that has befallen, the
happiness of the past? If you consider yourself unhappy because the things you
deem joyful have passed, there is no reason that you should judge yourself
wretched since the things that seem sorrowful will also pass.”
B.: “That’s true, but in all adversities of
fortune, the unhappiest kind of contrary fortune is to have had happiness.”
Ph.: “I will not put up with your delicacy
that complains so, weeping and anguishing because some things are lacking for
your happiness. What man is so satisfied or enjoys such true happiness that he
does not strive for, or complain on some account against the quality of his
existence? That is why man’s condition is so miserable; for either he doesn’t
get enough, or else it doesn’t last forever. No man is reconciled to the
condition of his fortune; for always to every man there is missing some unknown
thing, or else he dreads losing what he has attained. And add this also: that
every well-off man has a delicate constitution; so that, unless everything goes
according to his will, he is impatient, for he is not used to adversity. Right
away, he is thrown by every little thing; and those are the ones that rob the
most fortunate man of perfect happiness. Nothing is wretched but when you
believe it so by coddling your feelings. All fortune is blissful to a man who
bears it agreeably or with equanimity. Why do you seek happiness outside of
yourself, when it has been put inside you? Is there anything more precious to
you than yourself? If it is true that the tranquility of your soul makes you
mighty over yourself, then you have something in your power that you can never
lose, and that Fortune cannot snatch from you. Why are you swept away by idle
joys? Why do you embrace alien goods as if they were yours? Fortune can never
grant you things that are naturally alien to your nature. It’s true, without
doubt, that the fruits of the earth are made to be food for beasts; but if you
will fill yourself beyond natures requirements, that is the indulgence of Fortune.
For with only a few things, and with a little amount, nature is satisfied. But
if you will choke yourself with excess, certainly these things that you will
thrust by force into your body will be unpleasing or harmful to you.”
---
Compiled and
adapted from Boethius, The consolation of philosophy, on https://parabola.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Boethius-rendered-into-modern-English-by-Thomas-Powers.pdf
III
This is the human condition that we now have to think
about.
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