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Lesson 3.1: Pax (Pt. I)
5 Plays7 minutes ago
From the ashes of the Hellenistic Age, philosophy embarks on a new journey—one that will shape Rome, and history itself.
Topics discussed:
- Philosophy at the end of the Hellenistic Age
- Rome’s conquest of the Hellenistic World
- Philosophy in the Roman Imperial Era
- A Ciceronian review of the schools of thought from Unit II
For more information, visit theluxuryofvirtue.com.
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Transcript
Transition to Roman Philosophy
00:00:02
Speaker
Today we move into the Roman Imperial Era and what I want to do to facilitate this transition is give you some brief comments about philosophy in the Hellenistic Age and then how it changes once we get into the Roman Imperial Era.
00:00:22
Speaker
so let's begin by talking about philosophy in the Hellenistic Age. Let's start right ah about the mid-2nd century, that is around 150 BCE, and then move forward.
00:00:37
Speaker
By this time period, we see that philosophers have actually grown in status in the Hellenistic world. Maybe the best example that I can give you of this is the fact that at one point in its history, Athens gets into trouble with Rome and they end up owing some money to the Roman people.
00:01:00
Speaker
And so they send some ambassadors to Rome to sort of plead for a cancellation of the debt. Well, who do they send? Who do these Athenians send to Rome to basically make their case for them?
00:01:16
Speaker
It's three philosophers and they are the heads of three philosophical schools. They send someone from the Stoa, the Stoic school, the Academy, Plato's school, and the Peripatetic school, that is Aristotle's Lyceum.
00:01:31
Speaker
So that goes to show you just how much the stature of philosophers has grown how Interesting to note that while these philosophers are in Rome, they apparently gave lectures to packed venues, right? They were sparking a Roman fascination with philosophy, especially Stoicism, as we will soon see.
Evolution of Philosophical Schools
00:01:56
Speaker
What else was happening in philosophy throughout the Hellenistic age? Well, I want to note here that the different schools were not static. They weren't stuck in a particular way of doing things.
00:02:10
Speaker
In fact, the different schools would change some of their maybe basic tenets or some of their ways of teaching or some of what they emphasized over time.
00:02:21
Speaker
And so I'll just give you one example of this again. The best example probably is Plato's Academy. As we learned in the lesson on Plato, Plato was sort of hard to figure out, right? And this is even the case for the people in his school.
00:02:39
Speaker
So after a couple of ah generations of things going in one way in Plato's Academy, the Scholar of the Academy decided that maybe Plato the whole time had been really advocating more of a skeptical view.
00:02:55
Speaker
And so his name is Ars Isolaus, and he actually turns the academy skeptical in 266 BCE. In other words, the academy was now a stronghold for skeptical argumentation, the kind of argumentation where you see both sides of an issue, all sides of an issue, and then essentially afterwards suspend judgment.
00:03:20
Speaker
So that is one major change in ah philosophical school. And other schools had probably less dramatic changes, but they also sort of underwent flux and little dynamic debate, right? Things were changing around a little bit.
00:03:34
Speaker
Now, even though philosophers were growing in status, it's not like everyone had necessarily a profound respect for them. They were a little bit maybe like some of your instructors in college now, where, yes, you recognize they're brilliant, but they're definitely a little weird and you acknowledge that. you you know That's sort of their persona.
00:04:04
Speaker
So that's what was going on with the philosophers in the Hellenistic age. We know, for example, that comic and satiric authors, right, playwrights and that kind of thing, they would have philosophers sometimes in their plays and in their sketches and all that.
00:04:20
Speaker
And the philosophers were usually bizarre, or maybe even dangerous people because they were just a little weird, right? So yes, their status grew, but they were still considered kind of strange.
00:04:37
Speaker
We even have some records of some jurists, right, who are trying a case in front of ah and in a courtroom. And they know that they don't have to worry about the philosophers because they, these jurists, they know that philosophers don't care about how much they get paid.
00:04:54
Speaker
And so they don't end up working too hard on that case because they know that philosophers will be happy with whatever you give them. So, you know, that is also a thing. Jurists know that, you know, these philosophers are weird. We don't really have to worry about this case too much.
00:05:09
Speaker
To this, we can also add the fact that each school was sort of weird in their own way, right? The Epicureans, they all lived in isolated communities and they practiced total equality between the genders.
00:05:23
Speaker
And that was very weird to the rest of Greek society. And that's why we hear these salacious people. rumors about what was going on at the garden.
00:05:35
Speaker
Given what we learned about Epicureanism, we know that none of these purported orgies were going on. And while I'm on the topic, let me just mention that the weirdness of philosophers would continue into the Roman period. and We're going to get that transition in today's lesson, but the weirdness isn't going away, right?
00:05:53
Speaker
We have some stories of some Roman Stoics sort of disinterestedly administering to you know the the province that had been assigned to them. So not power hungry, just trying to be Zen and you know cool about it, not too much attachment.
00:06:13
Speaker
We also know about one Platonist, I'm gonna try to say his name here, Rogatianus. In any case, this person, once he converted to philosophy, to Platonism in particular,
00:06:27
Speaker
Apparently he gave up his responsibilities as praetor, which if you don't know, it's a, it's a Roman magistrate that ranks just below consul, which is the top job. So pretty high ranking post.
00:06:40
Speaker
And he just gave it up and he abandoned all his possessions. He freed all his slaves. and apparently would eat only every other day. So the weirdness isn't going away, but at least philosophers are getting a little bit more respect than they used to.
00:06:58
Speaker
But things were about to change because now we have to bring in Rome into the picture.
Rome's Military and Political Expansion
00:07:06
Speaker
Let me just say a couple of things about Rome in isolation before we get to the whole matter of Rome versus Greece.
00:07:15
Speaker
So Rome was a society that valued military success to a greater degree than the average Greek city-state. We can see this by the way that the political elite sort of get their positions during the Republican era, right before an emperor took control of the empire, when positions were still, you know, you had to be elected to them.
00:07:40
Speaker
Basically, the ones who would get these elected positions are the ones that would win battles, right? If you are a victorious general, you're probably going to get rewarded with some high ranking position.
00:07:55
Speaker
Oh, and by the way, if you lost an important battle, you're probably going to lose whatever position you had, right? So predictably, this is going to lead to some bellicosity, right? You're going to see Rome get into a lot of wars because, well, virtually every aristocrat wanted to become consul, right? That's a top job.
00:08:19
Speaker
and military victory is a requirement for that so the roman elite are going to make opportunities for war every chance they get they have to make a name for themselves and this is the way to do it Well, as you can tell, this is a recipe for empire, right? Empire in the sense that Rome will simply keep growing and growing if you let it.
00:08:46
Speaker
It'll just conquer more and more territory and expand. This will make them eventually run into the Greeks. What were the Greeks doing while Rome was growing?
00:09:00
Speaker
In typical Greek fashion, the Hellenistic kingdoms were just basically going to war with each other periodically. On top of that, many of them had their own sort of internal power struggles throughout their history.
00:09:14
Speaker
So if you've ever watched the series Game of Thrones, it is not unlike that at all. There's a lot of war between the different kingdoms, but also a lot of internal turmoil within each of the kingdoms.
00:09:29
Speaker
So you have the Hellenistic kingdoms on one side fighting each other perpetually and on the other side, a perpetually growing Roman Empire. So how do they meet? How do they eventually do battle with each other? Let's start looking at that now.
00:09:44
Speaker
A good place to start looking at this is during something called the Punic Wars.
Conflicts with Carthage and Macedon
00:09:50
Speaker
The Punic Wars were a series of wars fought between the Roman Republic and the Carthaginian Empire.
00:09:59
Speaker
based of course in the city of Carthage in North Africa. This series of wars was fought for even longer than the Peloponnesian War. This kind of really shaped Roman history and Roman institutions.
00:10:14
Speaker
It was fought from 264 BCE e to BCE, literally generations of warfare. The first Punic War almost bankrupted both Rome and Carthage.
00:10:29
Speaker
Rome sort of came out on top on that one. But let's start this conversation off during the second Punic War. Now, you've actually probably heard of the Carthaginian general during the second Punic War. He is very, very famous.
00:10:46
Speaker
His name was Hannibal. And in fact, to this very day, people still in war colleges study his battles and his strategies.
00:10:59
Speaker
And that's because Hannibal brought Rome to its knees, right? He was really, really wearing them down, winning sort of what can only be described as catastrophic victories, stunning victories.
00:11:15
Speaker
It was at this time that Philip V of Macedon reaches out to Carthage and says, hey, you're against the Romans. Guess what?
00:11:27
Speaker
I'm against the Romans too. So let's form an alliance. Now, nothing ends up coming of that alliance, but the fact is that when Rome was down, one Hellenistic kingdom, at least, sought and to take advantage of it.
00:11:45
Speaker
Now, the funny thing is, by the way, is that some historians believe that had the Hellenistic kingdoms stopped warring with each other and just unified,
00:11:56
Speaker
they could have allied with Carthage and destroyed Rome. There would have been no Roman Empire. but no, at the same time that Hannibal was punishing the Romans in Italy, the Seleucid Empire was fighting the Ptolemaic Empire of Egypt.
00:12:16
Speaker
And so the the Greeks were just fighting amongst themselves, pretty standard. And Rome was fighting for its life against Carthage. Now, the Punic Wars eventually ended with a Roman victory. Somehow, Rome figured out how to defeat, or at least not be defeated by, Hannibal.
00:12:39
Speaker
I won't get into that story. And a generation after Hannibal, the Romans obliterate Carthage. In fact, genocide is not too strong of a word.
00:12:53
Speaker
Once the city of Carthage was captured, the Romans spent seven days destroying it and killing or enslaving its inhabitants.
00:13:05
Speaker
And this will be a recurring theme during Rome's history. Just in this little brief lesson, we will hear atrocious acts committed by the Romans.
00:13:19
Speaker
And we will see that there is a certain savagery about their civilization. So we'll get to that in a second. But now that Carthage was subdued and Roman elites are looking for yet another opportunity to make their name,
00:13:40
Speaker
who do you think they turn on next? This would be none other than Macedon. Now, given that Macedon had been plotting against Rome while Rome was on its knees, they really did have some justification in claiming that Macedon is the next most dangerous neighbor.
00:14:02
Speaker
That's why it's sometimes said that Rome conquered the world in self-defense. Maybe Macedon was a threat. The fact is, however, this probably would have happened eventually anyway.
00:14:14
Speaker
The way that Roman society was set up made it so that warfare was basically inevitable. And so the Roman conquest of the Greek world begins and it happens very incrementally. I mean, it takes over a century to to come to completion.
00:14:32
Speaker
And if you look at sort of a you know, a time lapse map of Roman conquests, in general, it just kind of looks like ink spilling on a map, right? Spreading.
00:14:45
Speaker
And we can imagine it's red ink, right? So maybe let's talk about this now. Why is it that the Romans were so unstoppable? Why did they beat in particular the Greeks?
00:15:01
Speaker
Well, there's actually lots of things I can mention here. ah Historians now are realizing that all sorts of things contributed to the rise of Rome, including climate and disease and other things.
00:15:16
Speaker
I'm going to talk about two things because they will be relevant to for us later on. The first one is Roman social structure. So unlike Greece,
00:15:27
Speaker
Rome was willing to give citizenship or at least some kind of favored status to defeated cities. So you might recall from the lesson on Aristotle that Greek cities sort of guarded their citizenship very strongly.
00:15:43
Speaker
It was hard to become a Greek citizen. For the Romans, they made it a little bit easier. and And what that essentially meant is that as they were conquering territories, not only were they absorbing resources, but they were also absorbing manpower.
00:16:00
Speaker
They were just restocking their military reserves. And this only increased their capacity for further imperial acquisitions, right? So social structure had a lot to do with it.
00:16:14
Speaker
Another part though was their military methods. You might recall that the Greeks fought in phalanxes. These are, as I described them, big rectangles of armored soldiers. Now there's different shapes of them sometimes, but basically big blocks of people.
00:16:32
Speaker
And what they would do is they would take these phalanxes and crash them into the enemy. And it was all based, it would only work essentially because of the courage and social bonds of the soldiers. There's even some talk that there was some homosexual bonds between the soldiers and maybe that's also why they...
00:16:53
Speaker
fought so well as a unit so Plato talks a little bit about that in a dialogue called the symposium which is where we get our idea of platonic love from and any case The main point is that the phalanxes were big blocks of people and they only worked as a big block of people.
00:17:16
Speaker
They couldn't, you know, break apart and and fight as individuals very well. um They couldn't maneuver very easily. Essentially, a phalanx could only move forward. And they had a real hard time on bad mountainous, rocky terrain because you have to break up your phalanx and then you have to get back together. And so that wasn't very easy to do.
00:17:38
Speaker
Roman legions were much more versatile. They were both good as a unit, but also as individual soldiers. They were trained in like melee fighting, close quarter combat.
00:17:52
Speaker
And they had these little swords that were, you know, they don't look as impressive as a big spear that the Greeks would have, but they were deadly with it. The Romans were. And so they were much more versatile. They could also much more easily maneuver difficult terrain. If they go into a mountainous area, that's fine.
00:18:10
Speaker
They'll just break up into smaller units, fight as these smaller units, and then they can get back together into a big unit again. And so they were just much more capable of adapting to the circumstances of a battle.
00:18:24
Speaker
It's not the case... that the Romans would always win, but in the long run, the Romans won obviously more than the Greeks.
End of Hellenistic Age and Roman Control
00:18:34
Speaker
And so we get to 146 BCE.
00:18:38
Speaker
This is the year that the Romans crush an alliance of several Greek city-states at the Battle of Corinth, and that marks the beginning of Roman control of mainland Greece.
00:18:54
Speaker
Let me mention one more important war between the Romans and the Greeks before i move on to philosophy in the Roman Empire. The Greek city-states, of course, were famously fierce defenders of their autonomy.
00:19:10
Speaker
And so, predictably, the they revolted against Roman rule. It's called the Mithridatic War. And Rome, of course, crushes the revolt, right? Rome...
00:19:23
Speaker
definitely does not take kindly to rebellion. And they tend to be extremely punitive when they you know put down revolts. To give you one example, the Romans also capture Jerusalem.
00:19:38
Speaker
And when the Jewish people revolt, the Romans, of course, crush it. And then they proceed to crucify a few thousand people as a reminder that you don't mess with the Romans.
00:19:54
Speaker
This is barbaric. It betrays a certain bloodthirstiness, perhaps, of the Roman elite. And it plays into our story, as you'll soon see. so Let me close up the Hellenistic age by discussing how it is that the last Hellenistic kingdom came to be conquered by Rome.
00:20:21
Speaker
The last Hellenistic kingdom to retain their autonomy was Egypt. And it was actually during a Roman civil war that the Romans conquer Egypt.
00:20:34
Speaker
Octavian, who would eventually be called Augustus when he becomes the emperor, annexed Egypt after the Battle of Actium. And at the Battle of Actium, it was Mark Anthony and Cleopatra, their joint forces, that were defeated by Octavian.
00:20:53
Speaker
And so that marks the end of the Hellenistic Age. All the Hellenistic kingdoms are now under Roman control.
00:21:22
Speaker
Let's talk now about philosophy in the Roman Empire. If I haven't made it clear yet, let me just lay it out for you. Being conquered by the Romans was a traumatizing experience.
00:21:38
Speaker
you have basically a case of society-wide PTSD because Roman culture, maybe in general, was seeped through with what we now would consider barbarities.
00:21:53
Speaker
Not only do they commit war atrocities, not only do they crucify as punishment for rebellion, not only do they enslave people and they forcibly relocate people, but even their pastimes, the Roman games, are extremely violent.
00:22:15
Speaker
If you don't know much about the Roman games, let me just lay out a day at the Colosseum. You might begin with some displays of hunting, maybe some skilled hunters which show you how they're so good with the bow and arrow or something like that.
00:22:32
Speaker
At lunchtime, you might actually see public executions where enemies of the state were tortured and then killed. It might have even been the case that if you're in the audience during the execution, you can sort of shout out to the executioner and say, hey, do this next, right? Take off their calf or whatever.
00:22:54
Speaker
And they might do it. Then we have, of course, gladiatorial combat. It wouldn't always be a fight to the death, but it sometimes was. And there was even sometimes something called a fatal charade. This is when a convicted criminal would act out some myth, right? Some famous story where the character dies And the death, of course, would be real, right? So they would act out this little play.
00:23:30
Speaker
And in the play, the character gets killed. And so they would get killed in accordance with the plot of the play. And that was Roman entertainment. So this is, from our perspective, probably unimaginable brutality, right? A degree of brutality that really we have even a hard time fathoming.
00:23:54
Speaker
Well, for the people that were conquered by Rome, they didn't have to imagine it. They lived through it. And so being traumatized as they were, many began to seek therapeutic solutions for their Roman woes.
00:24:11
Speaker
And there is actually lots of evidence of this. For starters, there was an increase in initiates to the mystery cults, right? So these mystery cults that we talked about on day one, they were of course still around in the Roman imperial era and they saw a surge of people attempting to join.
00:24:32
Speaker
Why? Well, part of it is because they would get a sense of community from these mystery of religions. And they also had the promise of a better afterlife. If they were a part of, you know, maybe the cult of Dionysus, maybe Dionysus would, you know, be merciful on them in the next life, right? They would get some benefits in the next life.
00:24:54
Speaker
And so these kinds of things attracted people to the mystery cults. they Maybe they realize that this life, it's gonna suck. There's a limit to how nice your life can be under Roman rule.
00:25:08
Speaker
And so maybe at least their life could be good after they die.
00:25:14
Speaker
Some more evidence that people were looking for therapy of some sort. The mystical wing of Judaism became more prominent, right? So the mystics are people who are trying to achieve some sort of communion or direct experience of God.
00:25:34
Speaker
And of course, that is associated with all sorts of benefits. More people wanted to do that. And so there is some more evidence that people had new needs. More people had more of these needs for some sort of therapy for the soul, right? You you have been crushed. You are disillusioned. You need something to make you feel better.
00:25:55
Speaker
Well, we also see the therapeutic element in philosophy be expanded in the Roman imperial era.
Philosophy's Textual Shift and Cicero's Influence
00:26:04
Speaker
There was simply now a greater emphasis on ethics than on, you know, abstract metaphysical theory.
00:26:12
Speaker
And the ethics came to resemble more and more, especially in the Stoics, a form of therapy. That is one way that philosophy changes in the Roman Empire.
00:26:28
Speaker
There's more. You'll recall the Mithridatic War, that is when some Greek city-states rebelled and Rome crushed the rebellion.
00:26:39
Speaker
This caused a philosophical diaspora, we might call it. This is because Athens suffered greatly during this particular rebellion.
00:26:51
Speaker
And the Roman general Sulla besieged the city and essentially crippled it for some time. And during this period, the academy, that is Plato's academy and the Lyceum, Aristotle's school, were plundered.
00:27:07
Speaker
So these philosophical institutions basically were closed down. Some of them would reopen, but at least for a time, there were no functioning schools at Athens. So what does this mean?
00:27:25
Speaker
Well, philosophy becomes more mobile. It used to be that if you want to be a philosopher, you pick a school and you go to the school and you talk with other people and try your best to live in the philosophical way.
00:27:41
Speaker
But now there's no school. So what is it that you're supposed to do if you want to live the philosophical lifestyle? Now the emphasis was on reading. The school is gone, but the texts still exist.
00:27:56
Speaker
So you copy the texts, you spread them, you write commentaries on these. For example, maybe you get some of Plato's dialogues, you make copies, you send them around, you write commentaries on these dialogues.
00:28:09
Speaker
And now slowly, the primary task of a philosopher switches from, you know, being sort of localized in a particular school to being more so about just being an interpreter of a school's thought, basically someone who carries the philosophical knowledge with them.
00:28:32
Speaker
And this knowledge is spread through texts. So let me try that again. Basically, the the primary intellectual exercise of a philosopher becomes explaining philosophical texts.
00:28:46
Speaker
That's what philosophy is starting to look like more and more. And of course, to this very day, that is what philosophy looks like, right? You don't have to go a specific location to be a philosopher.
00:28:58
Speaker
You can just read a lot of philosophy books. There's so many things that I want to add here, you know, kind of random sidebars, several threads that we need to pull on. Let me just give you a couple of things that are linked to this transition.
00:29:12
Speaker
so first of all, something similar is going to happen in Jerusalem. When the temple is destroyed, of course, by the Romans, Judaism changes rapidly.
00:29:26
Speaker
When there was still a temple, Judaism was you know about following the rituals associated with the temple, going to the sacrifices, all that. But once there's no temple, Judaism becomes more of something having to do with your soul, right? Something having to do with the way that you live.
00:29:44
Speaker
And so we're going to see what happened in philosophy becoming more mobile. We see the same thing in Judaism. and We'll really kind of flesh that out in a future lesson.
00:29:57
Speaker
Another thread that I want to pull on though is this. This is where we see several types of literary genres sort of proliferate in philosophy.
00:30:09
Speaker
So now we see, for example, more letters. What are these letters? This is kind of like fan fiction. So people would write their philos philosophical ideas, but to give them a little more, i don't know, gravitas, a little more heft, oomph,
00:30:25
Speaker
they would say this is actually a letter from Socrates to Plato. Now, that's not true. We don't have any letters from Socrates to Plato, but they would say it's true. And that's how they would sort of convey their philosophical ideas. There's also diatribes, also called discourses sometimes.
00:30:44
Speaker
This is when you argue maybe against a position or for a position, right? So this is more so a concentrated attack and defense of some particular view.
00:30:55
Speaker
There's also Socratic dialogues, right? Just like Plato would write. More of these were happening and all the different schools had their dialogues. Different schools, by the way, also wrote their own versions of Republic.
00:31:09
Speaker
Plato wrote Republic, right? Where they're thinking about the ideal city-state. Other schools did the same. yeah Apparently, even cynics would write what their ideal Republic looks like, which is almost a contradiction in terms, but whatever.
00:31:25
Speaker
And there's also something called meditations. Now we would do a fairly deep dive into that when we cover Stoic ethics. We do have a very famous set of writings that fall into the genre, the meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
00:31:44
Speaker
So we'll talk about that. But these are just different genres of philosophical writing that became more prominent. And we get a lot of copies of these at this time. So even if the scripts were already around, they would get copied more.
00:31:58
Speaker
And so philosophy was more so about reading these than you know necessarily engaging in dialogue with other people. You dialogue more so with the text now.
00:32:10
Speaker
And as you'll recall, this is one of the spiritual practices that we talked about way back when in unit two. So reading, of course, is an important philosophical practice. It always has been.
00:32:23
Speaker
and And this is a time period though, where it maybe it moves more towards the center of philosophical practice.
00:32:31
Speaker
Here's one last thread that I want to pull on relating to the destruction of the Athenian schools. They're going to come back, right? There will be new hubs of intellectual activity and the old hubs of intellectual activity like Athens will come back.
00:32:50
Speaker
Before you know it, Athens will be back doing its thing. Rome will also become an intellectual hub. Lots of philosophers there. And other places as well. Maybe you've heard of Alexandria, the library at Alexandria, lots of research going on there.
00:33:06
Speaker
So there will still be schools of philosophy, of course. But now we're we're adding this element where text becomes just as important as dialogue.
00:33:20
Speaker
I want to transition now to an important historical figure, both in the history of Rome, but also the history of philosophy. But in order to do that, I sort of have to tell you a little bit about what's going on in the Roman Empire at the time.
00:33:38
Speaker
So let me just say this.
00:33:42
Speaker
Initially, I wanted to give you ah real solid explanation as to what was going on here in the first century BCE in Rome.
00:33:54
Speaker
Then I realized this story is just too complex to tell. As I already mentioned, this is the time period of Mark Anthony and Cleopatra, Pompey the Great, Octavian, and of course, Julius Caesar.
00:34:10
Speaker
And you can literally dedicate an entire course just to studying what was going on here in the first century BCE. So I can't do it. I simply can't.
00:34:23
Speaker
What I can say and what is really important for you to know is this. There was sort of a perfect storm going on so that Rome's social institutions were shifting gradually from a republic ruled by the Senate to one man rule, right?
00:34:46
Speaker
The first full-blown emperor being Augustus. Augustus, by the way, was the adopted son of Julius Caesar. So Julius Caesar had a major role to play in this, but it wasn't him alone.
00:35:03
Speaker
There was sort of a trend of people who had been trying to amass power for themselves, centralized authority within themselves.
00:35:14
Speaker
And so really to tell the story, you might even have to go a generation or two, you know, before Julius Caesar, know, The fact is though that Rome eventually becomes an empire.
00:35:28
Speaker
it was always an empire in one sense, right? It was just regularly conquering its neighbors. But now it has an emperor, right? so this is like a second meaning of empire.
00:35:40
Speaker
And this first emperor, again, just in case I mentioned him without reminding you that he is the emperor, his name is Augustus. His name was first Octavian and then he switches his name to Augustus, so...
00:35:54
Speaker
So now the question is, why did it take so long for this transition to take place? And the fact is that many, many figures fought tooth and nail for republicanism, like for the republic.
00:36:12
Speaker
Lots of people, in other words, pushed back against the tide of tyranny. And one man, perhaps more than anyone else, really stood up to essentially anyone that wanted to centralize power in themselves, right? Julius Caesar, Mark Antony.
00:36:31
Speaker
Lucius, Sergius, Catiline. All these people were trying to get more and more control and the same person fought back against all of them.
00:36:45
Speaker
You've probably heard his name before, Marcus Tullius Cicero. He is probably the greatest politician of Rome's history.
00:36:57
Speaker
Oh, and by the way, in his spare time, he wrote philosophy. So let's talk a little bit here about Cicero.
00:37:09
Speaker
Let's begin with Cicero's dates. He was born in 106 BCE and he died in 43 BCE. How did he die? Well, one of these people who were trying to become a tyrant,
00:37:29
Speaker
Cicero, of course, stood up to them and, well, the tyrant, unfortunately, won. Mark Antony had Cicero assassinated in 43 BCE.
00:37:42
Speaker
Why is Cicero important? Well, I think that it's not an overstatement to say that Cicero is pivotal for understanding the history of Western thought his writings, and perhaps even his ideas.
00:38:02
Speaker
And I'll just give you two data points that might convince you of this. I think it goes without saying that Christianity is pivotal for the history of Western thought.
00:38:12
Speaker
And St. Augustine of Hippo, sometimes also just called Augustine of Hippo, is key in shaping early Christianity. Well, I bring all of this up because...
00:38:25
Speaker
Augustine was essentially turned on to philosophy by reading Cicero. So there are some elements of Christianity, in other words, that came to be because Augustine read Cicero.
00:38:44
Speaker
So that's that's already a massive deal. I mean, that's already enough of a reason to cover him. Let me just say let me say two other things actually. The second thing is that Cicero was a great translator of Greek works.
00:39:02
Speaker
And as he was translating from Greek to Latin, he was inventing new words in Latin and basically enabling the language of to to be able to express precise philosophical concepts. So he was enriching and improving upon the Latin language so that it was capable of doing philosophy.
00:39:27
Speaker
And so in so doing, he basically shaped the Western way of doing philosophy and enabled, you know, the rest of their own empire, not just those that spoke Greek, but basically everyone else who spoke Latin, to be able to engage with philosophical writings and philosophical works.
00:39:51
Speaker
Let me mention just one more thing here. And, you know, it won't be relevant for like 2000 years, right? But Cicero was massively influential to the American founding fathers. They would apparently read Cicero in the evening and they would write to each other and, you know, talk about what they learned from Cicero.
00:40:11
Speaker
And so insofar as you think that the United States is important in the history of Western thought, well, once more, Cicero is important then, right? So Cicero is kind of a big deal.
00:41:14
Speaker
Okay, so what is Cicero all about? What is Cicero's philosophy? Cicero was associated with the Skeptical Academy.
00:41:27
Speaker
In other words, Cicero was a Platonist and what it meant to be a Platonist at the time was a skeptic.
00:41:37
Speaker
Interestingly though, just as with Plato, it's actually very challenging to pin down Cicero's philosophical positions. Was he ah mitigated skeptic? In other words, was he willing to say that some beliefs are more likely than others?
00:41:56
Speaker
Or was he more of a radical skeptic? Would he, in other words, suspend judgment on all matters, like the Pyronians that we studied? Well, no one knows for sure.
00:42:07
Speaker
It was probably the latter. it was maybe that as a good academic skeptic, he was fairly radical. But opinions about this have shifted over time. And so if you go back a little bit further, people used to think he was more of a mitigated skeptic.
00:42:26
Speaker
Whatever the case might be, we do know some things about his method. What Cicero was trying to do in his writings is there's a fancy label for this. It's called protreptic.
00:42:42
Speaker
And this sort of method, the protreptic method, essentially is ah kind of writing and rhetoric that tries to persuade the reader to change their lives morally and intellectually and to guide them as to you know how to do that.
00:43:05
Speaker
So in other words, he wants you to turn towards philosophy and he wants to teach you a little bit about how to do philosophy. And how is it, by the way, that you should do philosophy? Obviously, it's the skeptical method of the academy.
00:43:18
Speaker
You have to examine all sides of an issue. So Cicero would write these little dialogues and maybe a Stoic would argue with an Epicurean or a skeptic would argue with an Aristotelian and a Stoic or whatever, right? Different situations.
00:43:39
Speaker
And sometimes Cicero himself would be a character in there. So, you know, you can't trust that what Cicero, the character says, is what Cicero, the person believes.
00:43:50
Speaker
But it's kind of interesting that he would insert himself into some debates and some discussions and dialogues and such. Another really interesting thing about Cicero is that he's trying to tell you, of course, to you know do things the way that a skeptic does them, sure.
00:44:07
Speaker
But he's also cautioning you about certain cognitive pitfalls, certain little mind traps that you might fall into.
00:44:18
Speaker
So, for example, when you're reading philosophy, watch out for what we would today call an informal fallacy. What is an informal fallacy? And there's different types, but basically sometimes there's a disconnect between the evidence that you're presenting and the conclusion you're defending.
00:44:38
Speaker
And that's something that you have to watch out for. So to give you an example, one thing that Cicero actually talks about is accepting conclusions by appeal to authority.
00:44:50
Speaker
It may be the case that a very intelligent person advocates some particular conclusion, but that's not the actual reason why the conclusion is true.
00:45:06
Speaker
Basically, what Cicero is asking you to do is to always look for the actual support of the conclusion itself. not an indicator that it's a good conclusion. Sure, maybe you maybe an authority figure says you should probably believe this, but then what's the actual argument for that view?
00:45:25
Speaker
That's what you should be looking for. Don't just take an authority figure's word for it. So that's one thing Cicero cautions us about. He also talks about what it seems to me is cognitive biases.
00:45:41
Speaker
In a dialogue called De Diviniatone, Cicero talks about our tendency to not produce counter arguments for views that resonate with us.
00:45:53
Speaker
In other words, it's real easy to come up with arguments against views that we don't like. But it's really hard to come up with counter arguments for our own views.
00:46:04
Speaker
This is none other than confirmation bias. And yes, it's absolutely true. We're all basically like this. When we agree with something and we're looking for evidence for that, we set a really low bar.
00:46:21
Speaker
Almost anything will count as evidence for a view that we already believe. But if it's something that we don't believe, we set a super high bar. We say, ma' where'd you get that information from?
00:46:33
Speaker
Now, maybe that's okay to set a high bar, but don't have double standards. If you're going to set a high bar, it better be both for views that you agree with as well as those you disagree with.
00:46:47
Speaker
So that's another thing that Cicero is talking about in his writings. Very interesting. Another interesting aspect of Cicero's philosophy It's more so the effect of philosophy on Cicero.
00:47:03
Speaker
From his letters, we learn that it was philosophy that motivated Cicero to stand up to, among others, Julius Caesar. Cicero had a very good friend, Atticus. We actually have a ton of their letters to each other. And Atticus was more so Epicurean by nature, right? And he was telling Cicero basically to disengage politically. Hey man, your time is up.
00:47:31
Speaker
You know, there's nothing really you can do here. You're just causing stress yourself. Just go ahead and lay back, right? Come come to Athens with me and let's just study some philosophy together.
00:47:42
Speaker
Maybe that's okay for an Epicurean, but Cicero was an academic. And don't forget Plato himself. said that only the wise should rule, right? So Plato was against those that were self-interested and power hungry, who just wanted, you know, more for themselves.
00:48:03
Speaker
He believed that the wise should rule for the benefit of all. So Cicero being a good Platonist basically followed Plato's precepts.
00:48:15
Speaker
And because Cicero saw Julius Caesar as basically a power-hungry war criminal, well, he stood up to him. He defended his Republican values against this would-be tyrant, Julius Caesar.
00:48:32
Speaker
One more thing that I'll mention about Cicero is that he has some wonderful things to say on friendship and on growing old. Let's start with the friendship bit. too Other schools of thought have discussed friendships. We, of course, had Aristotle who mentioned that good friends help you become virtuous.
00:48:54
Speaker
There's also the Epicureans who said that good friends are a way to keep yourself in a positive hedonic state. Well, Cicero adds to the conversation here because Cicero really values friends for their own sake, right? You shouldn't love your friends because they help you become virtuous or just because they help you become virtuous or just because they help you stay in ah in a state catastrophic pleasure, right?
00:49:26
Speaker
You should value your friends for the sake of your friends. you know They are people and they deserve happiness just as much as anyone else. right So that's why you should value your friends.
00:49:38
Speaker
And when you read Cicero on this, by the way, you kind of feel like calling up an old friend and just and say, you know hey, maybe it's been a while since you've talked and you wanted to say, hey, I appreciate you. I love you. I miss you. Let's hang out soon. right So has a a nice effect reading Cicero on friendship.
00:49:57
Speaker
Let's talk about growing old with Cicero. First of all, you have to accept aging. You will get older and, you know, don't fight it. Age gracefully.
00:50:09
Speaker
Don't pretend it's not happening. Don't try to push it away, right? Just accept aging. That's the first thing. Second, you're going to have to find purpose, probably, because the things that you used to be able to do and that would give meaning to your life, well, you might not be able to do all of them forever. And so...
00:50:30
Speaker
As you get older, you might need new avenues for bringing purpose to your life. You should, of course, embrace your old friends, right? Make time to nourish those relationships that you've had for a very long time.
00:50:47
Speaker
But also, given new ways of you know bringing joy to yourself, new activities you're taking on, maybe you can make new friends too. That's okay. Another thing that you can do as you grow older is you can really kind of redouble your efforts at cultivating good character.
00:51:07
Speaker
Right. So Cicero, like other people that we've covered, do counsel us to engage in what sometimes gets called virtue ethics, basically.
00:51:19
Speaker
focusing on good moral character, i those cardinal virtues of wisdom and moderation and justice and courage.
00:51:30
Speaker
That's usually what people are talking about when they say this. And Cicero agrees with them. He says, this is maybe your last opportunity as you're growing older, you're running out of opportunities for really developing good moral character. um Maybe it's time to really kind of focus in on this and and get it done, right? This is maybe your last chance. So that's Cicero on Growing old
00:51:59
Speaker
What I want to do for the rest of this lesson is do what Cicero did. What Cicero would do is he would just have different representatives of the different schools of thought argue with each other.
00:52:16
Speaker
And the hope was to... inspire in you a desire to change the way you're living currently, to live in a more philosophical way, and to dig deeper, right? To look for intellectual growth.
00:52:31
Speaker
Well, that was the aim of a Ciceronian dialogue. So if that's the case, let's engage in a Ciceronian review of the Schools of Philosophy.
Overview of Philosophical Schools
00:53:32
Speaker
We'll do some pros and some cons. Let's start with some pros and we'll just go in order. so let's start with Plato. Plato, of course, counsels us that if we want to be happy, we ought to live a life of the mind, right? A life of intellectual development.
00:53:50
Speaker
And if you do this after some time, after a long time, you will attain true moral wisdom and you would thus understand reality and be able to contribute to society so as to bring happiness to everyone, right? Maybe we should even make you ruler and if you have achieved this true moral wisdom.
00:54:11
Speaker
There's a real obvious plus to the way that Plato kind of organizes his his way of thinking. And that's this utopian strain of thinking he's so committed to, it seems like.
00:54:26
Speaker
Let me tell you what I mean here. I mean, it seems pretty obvious that one of the main things that Plato wants is happiness for everyone.
00:54:37
Speaker
And yes, that might require some real hard intellectual labor on the part of some. But once they do that, once they figure out how to improve society, well, then let's do it. Let's let's help everyone be happy.
00:54:54
Speaker
And in different dialogues, he says some of the same things, right? Education for all, not just men, women too. And so we find these sort of progressive ideas that almost you know seem out of place 2,000 years ago, right? But he seems to be advocating for this. And that's a real plus for Plato.
00:55:14
Speaker
What about the cynics? The cynics see us the way we're currently living our lives as living entirely contrary to nature. They even have a problem with our cities, our conventional culture, our status seeking, our greed, even our family life, our desire to you know sort of set up a family for ourselves.
00:55:37
Speaker
And instead they say you should seek to be self-sufficient. Everything that you need for happiness, you should be able to provide on your own. i think cynic philosophy is interesting for many different reasons.
00:55:50
Speaker
But one thing that I see as a real benefit of them, as a real sort of excellent point that they make, is that they're they're trying to remind us in their own special dog-like way What we should really be ashamed of, moral failure. Because some of us are ashamed of things that are not really under our control.
00:56:16
Speaker
Things like personal success, political status, how many friends you have, these are not entirely under our control. And so we shouldn't be ashamed by, let just say, our lack of social success.
00:56:35
Speaker
The only things the cynics say that are entirely up to you are your moral behaviors, right? So your vices, that's what you should really be ashamed of. And sometimes we're not.
00:56:49
Speaker
Sometimes we identify with our moral failures. And that's that's the part that the cynics say, this is what you're supposed to be working on. And I kind of like that about them. So that's good.
00:57:02
Speaker
Aristotle. This guy really puts you in the driver's seat, right? For him, it's all about every day taking the time to reason through your choices until you get really good at making decisions, basically. So good that naturally you begin to acquire social success and social competence, right? Making the right choices, doing it at the right time, interacting with the right people in the right way.
00:57:29
Speaker
What he calls practical wisdom. What is so good about this? Well, just as with Plato, Aristotle emphasizes the political life. In fact, he says maybe it's the second best life, a life of service to the community and always trying to improve our social organization.
00:57:53
Speaker
Also, just like Plato, he talks about educating future generations and instilling in them good moral character. So Aristotle also part of that you know utopian strain of thinking.
00:58:08
Speaker
why is this good? Well, what is really useful in Aristotle in his analysis of the political life as the good life is that he realizes that, me put it this way, sometimes it seems like people think that the only solution to society's problems are better laws, new laws, the right laws, right? Everything it has to do with laws.
00:58:39
Speaker
But Aristotle reminds us that Individual ethics also plays an important role, right? So there's basically multiple levels at which we can try to improve ourselves and society.
00:58:55
Speaker
So for starters, you have to work on your practical wisdom. That's the individual level. You can also move up a little bit to the level of your household. Maybe some of it has to do with improving the relations in the household, making sure that they're better. There's also, of course, the level of the laws. That's where the politician comes in.
00:59:15
Speaker
So basically, you can change yourself as an individual. You can change the culture that you're a part of. You can change this, you know, the political organization that you're a part of.
00:59:26
Speaker
And all of these are aimed towards producing a better society and a better you. And they're supposed to sort of mutually support each other, right?
00:59:37
Speaker
You can't be doing one thing as an individual and another thing relating to your society. So sometimes we do that. Sometimes we're inconsistent like that. And so Aristotle, by getting us to think about things in terms of different levels, sort of helps us to see that, hey, maybe I can attack the problems of society and multiple different ways at multiple different levels.
01:00:02
Speaker
The Pyronian skeptics, they saw argumentation as a form of emotional distancing. By looking at both sides of an argument, they would lessen the intensity of their passions and hopefully, if they can get rid of all their beliefs, would eventually acquire tranquility.
01:00:24
Speaker
Ataraxia, they called it. in the lesson on the skeptics, I mentioned that this is equivalent to enlightenment. There are some links with the Buddhist thought.
01:00:37
Speaker
And more than anything, this is clearly a form of cognitive therapy. It's an early form of cognitive therapy. They're recognizing that your beliefs affect your, you know, in some cases, emotional disturbances, they cause you to be disturbed.
01:00:57
Speaker
And so the way to stop the emotional disturbance, your out of control passions is by stopping the belief. And there's some obvious benefit in that.
01:01:10
Speaker
The Epicureans basically advise us to spend as much time as possible in a state of positive hedonic tone, what they call catastrophic pleasure.
01:01:21
Speaker
And this might require but planning your day accordingly, not engaging in actions that bring anxiety and distress. What's so good about this? but You know what?
01:01:32
Speaker
It's pretty obvious. A lot of the times our mental suffering, we do it to ourselves, right? We bring on emotional troubles upon ourselves.
01:01:44
Speaker
And the Epicureans say, don't do that anymore. That's exactly the opposite of what we're advising you to do. And they even said, you might have to change your whole life to change that, but that's okay. That's why they would go live in the garden and live according to their you know system of beliefs.
01:02:05
Speaker
Because sometimes we need to mix things up like that in order to really let go of those things that are causing us emotional trouble.
01:02:16
Speaker
Lastly, the Stoics. Stoics believe that everything that happens has to happen because the whole universe is God and everything that happens within it is according to the divine rationality of God.
01:02:31
Speaker
The only actual choice that you have is whether you accept or not accept your thoughts. That's actually the only thing you can do. It's entirely up to you.
01:02:45
Speaker
Interestingly, the Stoic ideal is to eliminate emotions. And for the Stoics, emotions are by definition assenting to erroneous judgments, basically accepting false thoughts.
01:02:59
Speaker
And the false thoughts that they really focused on, let's kind of speak sloppily here for a second. They basically wanted to get rid of bad emotions and only have good emotions.
01:03:13
Speaker
What's so good about the Stoics? Well, through their attempts to manage their emotions, they actually also developed a pretty sophisticated kind of cognitive therapy, just like the skeptics.
01:03:28
Speaker
The Stoics, however, have maybe a higher claim to fame here because what the Stoics basically came up with is an early form of cognitive behavioral therapy.
01:03:41
Speaker
We'll learn more about this form of therapy in a subsequent lesson, but that's a that's a pretty big plus for the Stoics. so
01:03:52
Speaker
Okay, well, if those are the pros, let's look at some cons. And let me begin with this. Maybe it might be helpful to lump the schools of philosophy we've covered so far into groups.
01:04:06
Speaker
So there seems to be two groups. There's the happiness comes from within people. That's Plato, the cynics, the skeptics, stoics.
01:04:19
Speaker
And the happiness comes from without and within people. That's Aristotle and the Epicureans. For the Platonists, the Cynics, the Skeptics, and the Stoics, happiness is ah frame of mind. Basically, you have to look at things a certain way to really be happy.
01:04:42
Speaker
The skeptic is pretty fairly obvious, you know, no beliefs, right? The Stoics, no emotions. The cynics, no possessions, just you're entirely self-sufficient. So happiness all comes from you.
01:04:55
Speaker
What it takes to be happy, you can pull off on your own. You don't need anyone else to do it. For the happiness comes from without, well, Aristotle is a great example of this.
01:05:09
Speaker
Pretty clearly, Aristotle says, social success is a good indicator that you're doing pretty good. And so this is another way of saying that external goods do play a role in making you happy. Things like wealth and status, not only are they a good sign that you're doing the right things, but they will bring you happiness, right? They're they're worth achieving and they would help you get that self-satisfaction that you're supposed to feel when you know you're thriving, you know you're reaching your potential.
01:05:47
Speaker
Same thing with the Epicureans. They believe that, of course, things outside of you are what's going to help you stay happy, right? Stay in that positive hedonic state.
01:06:00
Speaker
This includes friends, food, right? Nice experiences. In fact, nice experiences... can help you combat bad experiences when you're in the grip of some really negative thought, right?
01:06:14
Speaker
So if you're in pain, it might be a good idea to think about nice memories, nice things you've done in the past, and that will actually combat the pain you're feeling in the moment. And those nice memories, of course, might you know include some nice meal that you had with some friends. So external goods there, things outside of yourself can add to your happiness.
01:06:36
Speaker
Maybe that alone helps you figure out which school you're in and which ones you you know like and don't like. So that's one thing that you can think about and um kind of a engage with.
01:06:50
Speaker
But let's look more directly at some criticisms of each of these schools of thought. Plato, Plato's an easy one, right? Plato, we might say that he's too intellectual.
01:07:02
Speaker
Maybe a life of contemplation isn't for everyone, right? Another criticism that we might give of Plato is that Hierarchy seems to be an inherent part of Plato's doctrines.
01:07:18
Speaker
Basically, only the wise will come to know the forms, right? And everyone else basically has to take their word for it. Translation, if you are not the trusting kind, right? but Here's what that means to you.
01:07:31
Speaker
Someone is saying to you, I know what's best. and you don't know what's good for you, I'll tell you what's good for you. Well, that isn't sounding too nice, actually. So there's an issue with Plato.
01:07:46
Speaker
What about the cynics? They basically want to protect themselves, become invulnerable by making it so that everything that they need for happiness, they can provide for themselves.
01:07:59
Speaker
Here's an idea. That's way too radical. That's basically ah pretty severe overreaction. Yes, it's true.
01:08:11
Speaker
Other people can let you down sometimes, but other people sometimes also really add to your happiness. And so maybe we shouldn't be so, you know, guarded so that I will take care of everything I need on my own. Right. That, that seems pretty intense.
01:08:29
Speaker
Here's another possible criticism of the cynics. They seem to not really get nature right right. They say that coupling isn't natural. Maybe cities aren't natural.
01:08:43
Speaker
But it seems like coupling can be seen in nature. as Some animals do couple up, right penguins or whatever. And there are some animals that live in colonies, right? We might call those cities.
01:08:58
Speaker
So maybe they just have some false views on nature, right? They are naturalists, but they didn't quite investigate nature enough, all right? So they have some errors in their ideas.
01:09:11
Speaker
So that's the cynics. Aristotle has a similar shortcoming. Maybe what Aristotle thought was natural isn't actually natural now that we have more information.
01:09:26
Speaker
For example, Aristotle saw slavery as natural, right? And of course, if that's what you see in your society and that's all you've ever known, maybe things will seem natural to you. Maybe slavery will seem natural to you.
01:09:42
Speaker
The same thing with women, right? Aristotle thought that women ought to be subservient to men because that's the way his society was and all the ones that he knew about, basically. And so that just seemed natural to him.
01:09:56
Speaker
Now, we shouldn't be too critical here, or we should be, I guess, nuanced with our criticism, because basically everyone, for a very long time, including Christians and Jews, saw slavery as perfectly natural. Maybe not so much the misogyny, but the slavery, yes.
01:10:16
Speaker
So that's not the exact criticism that I'm giving here that, oh, Aristotle you know saw slavery as natural, so he must be all wrong. The point is slightly more subtle here.
01:10:29
Speaker
Sometimes this kind of naturalism what would eventually give rise to something called natural law theory, sometimes that way of arguing sneaks in some old-fashioned views.
01:10:46
Speaker
Things seem natural, in other words, if that's all you've ever known. But that doesn't mean it's actually natural. So what we have to do is really be guarded when we're looking at Aristotle to check that if what he claims is natural is actually natural.
01:11:06
Speaker
We have to make sure that some false views didn't slip by given you know the state of science that you know in Aristotle's day. So there's a criticism of Aristotle.
01:11:19
Speaker
What about the skeptics? I think the skeptics, kind of like the cynics, are also guilty of overreacting. Do beliefs lead to anxiety sometimes?
01:11:31
Speaker
Absolutely. Do all beliefs lead to anxiety? Maybe not. Some beliefs are kind of nice to have. Some beliefs give us strength.
01:11:44
Speaker
Some beliefs ease our anxiety. I'll give you one example. We know that religious people get a lot of comfort near the end of their life from their conviction in an afterlife.
01:12:00
Speaker
In other words, the belief that there is a heaven and that they're going to it makes them feel pretty darn good. funnily enough, the group with the second least amount of anxiety at the end of life, just behind these religious people, committed atheists.
01:12:23
Speaker
In other words, if you are an atheist and you're pretty confident that when you die, you just die and nothing happens, you actually have very little anxiety too.
01:12:34
Speaker
You know what's going to happen. It's over. Who has the most anxiety? It's actually believers with some doubts.
01:12:46
Speaker
So what does this mean? Beliefs actually reduce your anxiety near the end of life.
01:12:57
Speaker
If you know for sure you're going to heaven, low anxiety. If you know for sure you're dying and that's it, low anxiety, right? The religious people, the really religious and the atheist, the really atheist, I guess I should say.
01:13:12
Speaker
But if you have doubts, if you're not sure what's gonna happen after you die, That's when you get the anxiety. So against the skeptics, it's actually the doubt that makes you feel anxiety.
01:13:28
Speaker
That doesn't good, right? So there's a little something against the skeptics. Epicureans, the Epicureans were quietists.
01:13:39
Speaker
They basically counseled you to be, you know, not engaged politically, too much stress, right? Not conducive to catastrophic pleasure.
01:13:51
Speaker
Well, you might see that as civically irresponsible. In fact, one scholar, Isaiah Berlin, sees this movement, the Epicurean movement, as the beginning of individualism, but the bad kind of individualism.
01:14:09
Speaker
So individualism in general... is where you think your personal values and liberties are more important than the health of the collective.
01:14:19
Speaker
And you should protect them, in other words, from state control, right? So one form of this might be that you have a liberty to not wear a face mask, right? If you don't want to, and that liberty should be protected the public health, you know, the public health of the collective.
01:14:39
Speaker
So that's one example of this. That's a more conservative that I have in mind there. You can come up with one for liberals just as easily, but that's not the point here.
01:14:50
Speaker
The point here is that Epicureans seem to be just, you know, here's maybe a ah really oversimplified translation, but it's sort of the same spirit there.
01:15:01
Speaker
Epicureans are saying, forget the community. I just want personal peace. Yeah, something a little irresponsible about that maybe, right? So there's a ah problem with the Epicureans.
01:15:17
Speaker
And so this brings us to the Stoics. What might be an argument against them? Well, remember that for them, the only thing that's morally good is you accepting only true thoughts, right?
01:15:36
Speaker
Assenting to cataleptic impressions. Everything else is indifferent. That means that for the Stoic sage,
01:15:49
Speaker
Both saving a child and eating food are preferred indifference. In other words, there's nothing that makes saving a baby from drowning better than eating food.
01:16:05
Speaker
Neither one of these are morally good actions. The only morally good actions are accepting true beliefs is true and false beliefs is false, right? So that's kind of twisted, right? We kind of want people to save people because it's the right thing to do.
01:16:25
Speaker
Not to protect their, you know, state of tranquility, right? But that's what is most important to the Stoics, having accurate beliefs so that remember, everything that happens has to happen and it's all divinely ordained.
01:16:42
Speaker
Which means that if you're not cool with what's happening, you're being irrational. So they just want you to always be cool with what's happening. That's kind of weird because we want sometimes people to do good things for the sake of others, not for the sake of your tranquility.
01:16:59
Speaker
So there's maybe an accusation that stoicism is just sort of a ah scheme of enlightened self-interest. Not exactly what we think of when we think about a moral exemplar.
01:17:16
Speaker
In any case, that is what I want to leave
Greek Cultural Influence on Rome
01:17:20
Speaker
you with. Many, many, many options. Because that's what the Romans found themselves facing as they absorbed Greek culture.
01:17:31
Speaker
So even though the Greeks were conquered militarily by the Romans, culturally, the Greeks won, right? So Greek culture spreads throughout the Roman Empire.
01:17:44
Speaker
And by the way, everyone that was subjected to Roman rules, all the other people that got conquered by Rome, were also faced with all these many philosophical options.
01:17:58
Speaker
And that's where I want to leave you. Emperor Augustus is on the throne. One man rule has begun in Rome. You live in the Roman Empire and it's time.
01:18:14
Speaker
It's time for you to choose your school.