More on Education

As one spends time on a holiday it often revolves around re-reading books on the shelves which are good friends, ones worth coming back to again and again. For me it is Copleston and his History of Philosophy. In describing the Later Stoics Copleston states: 

In the early Roman Empire the chief characteristic of the Stoa is its insistence on the practical and moral principles of the School, which take on a religious coloring, being bound up with the doctrine of man's kinship with God and his duty of love towards his fellow-men. The noble morality of the Stoa is strikingly displayed in the teaching of the great Stoics of the period, Seneca, Epictetus and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

At the same time a certain tendency to eclecticism is visible in the Stoa as in other Schools. Nor was the contemporary scientific interest absent from the Stoa: we may think, for example, of the geographer Strabo. We are fortunate in possessing an extensive Stoic litera­ture from this period, which enables us to form a clear idea of the teaching of the School and the characteristics of its great personalities. Thus we are well provided in regard to Seneca's writings and we have four of the eight books in which Flavius Arrianus reported the lectures of Epictetus, while the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius show us the Stoic philosopher on the Roman throne.

L. Annaeus Seneca of Cordoba was tutor and minister to the Emperor Nero, and it was in obedience to the latter's command that the philosopher opened his veins in a.d. 65.

As we would expect of a Roman, Seneca emphasizes the practical side of philosophy, ethics, and—within the sphere of ethics—is more concerned with the practice of virtue than with theoretical investigations into its nature. He does not seek intel­lectual knowledge for its own sake, but pursues philosophy as a means to the acquirement of virtue. Philosophy is necessary, but it is to be pursued with a practical end in view. Non delecter.: verba nostra, sed prosint—non quaerit aeger medicum eloquentem .'

His words on this topic not infrequently recall those of Thomas a Kempis, e.g. plus scire quam sit satis, intemperanliae genus est. To spend one's time in the so-called liberal studies without having a practical end in view is waste of time—unum studium ver; liberate est quod liberum facit…

I believe that this makes my point about education and perhaps the intellectually stranded Harvard undergraduates may find some wisdom in places perhaps they have avoided, the past.