"Whenever you sink back from engagement with the divine to the human level, your sight will go dim, just like the eyes of those who return from bright sunlight to dense shadow".
- Seneca, Natural questions 3 Pref 11
The essence of Stoicism is the claim that the only path to happiness lies in living according to nature. To understand what that means for a human being is what Seneca calls “engagement with the divine” (divinorum conversatio) - since god is nature in Stoicism. Fully understanding what it means and acting accordingly is to be wise. A wise person will by definition never act contrary to his or her understanding of living according to nature. Foolishness - by definition - is to lose sight of what it means for a human being to live according to nature. For instance by overestimating one's understanding of what it means for a human being to live according to nature. That is to sink back from engagement with the divine to the human level.
The quote is from Harry Hines' wonderful translation of "Natural questions" published by Chicago University Press in 2010 as part of the series "The complete works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca" ed. by Elizabeth Asmis, Shadi Bartsch and Martha C. Nussbaum.
Perhaps Seneca is a bit too rough in his attitude towards "the human level" here. Any analysis of human happiness from a phenomenological - inside - perspective (such as, for example, Plato's "Republic") is an important and honorable contribution to the understanding of what it means to be a human being. A more speculative analysis from a "cosmic viewpoint" (such as, for example, Plato's "Timaios") is bound to be more controversial but it is also important and honorable - simply because it is not enough for human beings to stay within the inside, phenomenological perspective.
"if someone truly has his mind on things as they really are, he will not have time to look down at the preoccupations of mere mortals and fight with them, filling himself full of malice and ill-will. Instead, as he turns his eyes towards an ordered array of things that forever remain the same, and observes these maintaining their harmony and rationality in everything, and neither behaving unjustly nor being treated unjustly by each other, he will imitate these and model himself after them so far as he can. Or do you think anyone can avoid imitating a thing he spends his time with, and in awe of?’ ‘He can’t,’ said Adimantus. ‘So if the philosopher spends his time with the divine and ordered, he’ll achieve such order and divinity as is possible for man"
The quote is from Harry Hines' wonderful translation of "Natural questions" published by Chicago University Press in 2010 as part of the series "The complete works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca" ed. by Elizabeth Asmis, Shadi Bartsch and Martha C. Nussbaum.
Perhaps Seneca is a bit too rough in his attitude towards "the human level" here. Any analysis of human happiness from a phenomenological - inside - perspective (such as, for example, Plato's "Republic") is an important and honorable contribution to the understanding of what it means to be a human being. A more speculative analysis from a "cosmic viewpoint" (such as, for example, Plato's "Timaios") is bound to be more controversial but it is also important and honorable - simply because it is not enough for human beings to stay within the inside, phenomenological perspective.
"if someone truly has his mind on things as they really are, he will not have time to look down at the preoccupations of mere mortals and fight with them, filling himself full of malice and ill-will. Instead, as he turns his eyes towards an ordered array of things that forever remain the same, and observes these maintaining their harmony and rationality in everything, and neither behaving unjustly nor being treated unjustly by each other, he will imitate these and model himself after them so far as he can. Or do you think anyone can avoid imitating a thing he spends his time with, and in awe of?’ ‘He can’t,’ said Adimantus. ‘So if the philosopher spends his time with the divine and ordered, he’ll achieve such order and divinity as is possible for man"
- Socrates in Plato's Republic, 500b-d.