Misunderstandings about Seneca’s ideas

It is not a coincidence that historians and philosophers have spread large misunderstandings of #stoicism , especially of the ideas presented by Seneca in his writings. They did so, not to destroy Seneca’s reputation, but to push their own doctrines to the forefront. They believed that, by undermining the appeal of Stoicism, people would be driven to accept opposite doctrines. Fortunately, those historians and philosophers did an awful job at undermining Seneca. I would argue that their distortions have achieved the opposite effect. Instead of driving Stoicism into oblivion, they had magnified its influence and endurance. The attempts to misrepresent Stoicism come in all flavours, but share a common element: They present #seneca as a liar or hypocrite; they point to his literary praise of simplicity while he accumulated an immense fortune; they compare his words with his actions, and decry the inconsistencies. Indeed, those discrepancies exist, but I do not know of any philosopher who perfectly embodied his own ideals. I consider the demand for perfect #consistency unrealistic because it takes decades for a thinker to give shape to his body of thought. By the time his intellectual edifice is completed, the author cannot go back in time and change his own past. He cannot be expected to reincarnate overnight into a perfect human being, one who would think and act with omniscience. The demand for perfect consistency between words and actions does not invalidate a body of philosophical ideas. It can drive us to examine those ideals more thoroughly and question the philosopher’s motivation, but the truth is the truth. It would not make any sense to shoot the messenger. Seneca was conscious of the impossibility of achieving total consistency. Everybody makes mistakes, but we just tend to be stricter with philosophers’ errors. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/misunderstandings-about-senecas-ideas/