Notes for Seneca Letter 90 Philosophy and Progress

(link to Latin version 960527.WPD)

Function of philosophy to discover human and divine truths, disagree with Posidonius that arts of daily life invented by philosophy; looks back to mythic age before marble and gold.

(226-227) Its sole function is to discover truth concerning things divine and human. . . . It is safe to allow a man to do what he likes if he is convinced that he must do only what he should.
(228) So far I agree with Posidonius, but I will not admit that the arts employed in daily life were invented by philosophy, nor will I claim for philosophy the reputation of a handicraftsman. . . . believe me, the age before architects and builders was the happy one. . . . Thatch protected free men; under marble and gold dwells slavery. . . . It was practical shrewdness, not philosophy, that contrived these things.

Difference between practical ingenuity that produced technological innovations and the philosophical mind; service of goods equals dominion of beings.

(229) Each was the invention of an alert and sharp, but not of a great or lofty, mind, and so were other appliances which are worked at with body stooped and mind directed earthward. . . . Which do you consider a sage, the man who thought up the saw, or the man who took his cup from his wallet and smashed it as soon as he saw a boy drinking water out of the hollow of his hand? . . . the cook is as superfluous as the soldier. The men whose physical needs were simple were sages or very like sages. Necessities require little care; it is luxury that costs labor. Follow Nature and you will not wish for artificers.
(230) At first luxury began to crave superfluities, and then abnormalities, and in the end enslaved soul to body and compelled its abject obedience to the body's lusts. All the occupations which keep the city at work, or keep it in an uproar, carry on the business of the body; once the body was supplied with its requirements, like a slave, but now everything is acquired for it, like a master.

Criticizes Posidonius for an eloquent description of weaving that today would likely be mined for new significance by texts and technology theorists.

(231) It is incredible, my dear Lucilius, how even great men are seduced from truth by the charm of eloquence. Look at Posidonius, in my judgment one of the most considerable contributors to philosophy, when he sets about a description of weaving.

Mention of stenographic symbols should enter texts and technology studies. A lexia referenced many times.

Seneca ignores role of technology in production wisdom despite the fact that his own philosophical production itself depends on it, calling them inventions of slaves.

On the other hand, he offers the sage use of inventions and by extension learning to use technological systems: that is what is at stake and can be leveraged today to create PHI (the tapoc system), formerly referenced by other gnomic sayings.

(232-233) It was reason indeed that devised these handicrafts, but not right reason. . . ."It was the sage that invented these things," says Posidonius, "but they were not important enough for him to handle personally and so he have them to his more mechanical assistants." No; these inventions were thought up by the same people who are concerned with them today. We know that certain inventions have been made within our own memory, as for example the use of windows which admit clear light through transparent panes, or vaulted baths with conduits let into the walls for diffusing heat which warms the upper and lower space alike. . . . And what of the stenographic symbols which can take down a speech however rapidly delivered and enable the hand to keep pace with the agility of the tongue? But these are inventions of low-grade slaves.
(233) Wisdom's seat is higher; she does not train hands but is mistress of souls. . . . She is not, say I, the artisan of the appliances of our daily use; why attribute such trifles to her? In her you see the artificer of life. Other arts, to be sure, she holds under he sway, for where life is mastered so are life's prerequisites also; but it is toward happiness that philosophy aims, to it she leads us, and its approaches she paves for us. . . . Such is the doctrine of Wisdom's initiates; it unbars no local shrine but the temple of all the gods, the universe itself, whose true likeness and visage philosophy offers our mind's eye. For so vast a spectacle our corporal vision is too dull.
(234) Then Wisdom begins to inquire into the soul -- its source, its location, its survival, its divisions.

The famous ponenda non sumeret, he would not have taken up what whould have to be laid aside, creates dilemma at heart of philosophy of computing and programming since always dealing with impermanent technologies.

Rejection of practical invention as function of wisdom, hinting at closure of ontological questioning under sway of Nietzschean Overman completely given over to calculative thinking.

(234) No, the sage did not withdraw from the mechanic arts, as Posidonius thinks, but never touched them at all. The sage would never have esteemed an invention worth making if it was not likely to merit permanent use; he would not have taken up what would have to be laid aside. . . . My own position is that Anacharsis was not the author, and if he was, then it was indeed a sage who invented the [potter's] wheel, but not in his capacity as sage, just as philosophers do many things not qua philosophers but qua men. . . . These things were invented after we ceased to discover wisdom.
(235) What did the sage track down, you ask; what did he bring to light? First, truth and nature, which he followed, not as other creatures do, with eyes too dull for the divine. Then, the law of life, which he directed to universals, teaching men not merely to know the gods but to follow them and to receive chance happenings exactly as if they were commands. He has forbidden us to yield to baseless opinions and has weighed the value and character of each thing at its true estimate. He has condemned pleasures which involve regret and has praised goods whose satisfaction will be unalloyed. He has demonstrated that the man who has no need of happiness is the happiest, and the man who has power over himself most powerful.
(237) This was a house in accordance with nature, and in it living was a pleasure, with fear neither of the house nor for it. Today our houses are a large portion of our dread.
(237) virtue is not Nature's gift; to become good is an art. But those men did not root for gold and silver and translucent stones in earth's lowest dregs, and they were still merciful even to dumb animals -- so far from man killing man, not in anger or fear, but to provide a spectacle!
(238) There is a great difference between not willing to sin and not knowing how. They knew nothing of justice, of prudence, of temperance and courage. Their uncultivated life did possess qualities analogous to these virtues, but virtue can occur only in a soul trained and taught and raised to its height by assiduous exercise. For this, but not with it, were we born, and in even the best of men you will find, before they are educated, the raw material of virtue, not virtue itself.

Seneca. Letter #90, 'Philosophy and Progress'.