Sundays with Seneca
Welcome to Sundays with Seneca on the Perennial Meditations podcast. Join the search for ancient lessons on the art of living from the writings and Stoic philosophy of Lucius Annaeus Seneca.
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The Parts of Philosophy
In a letter known today as On the Parts of Philosophy, Seneca wrote,
It is a useful fact that you wish to know, one which is essential to him who hastens after wisdom—namely, the parts of philosophy and the division of its huge bulk into separate members. For by studying the parts, we can be brought more easily to understand the whole. I only wish that philosophy might come before our eyes in all her unity, just as the whole expanse of the firmament is spread out for us to gaze upon! It would be a sight closely resembling that of the firmament. For then surely philosophy would ravish all mortals with love for her; we should abandon all those things which, in our ignorance of what is great, we believe to be great. Inasmuch, however, as this cannot fall to our lot, we must view philosophy just as men gaze upon the secrets of the firmament.
The wise man’s mind, to be sure, embraces the whole framework of philosophy, surveying it with no less rapid glance than our mortal eyes survey the heavens; we, however, who must break through the gloom, we whose vision fails even for that which is near at hand, can be shown with greater ease each separate object even though we cannot yet comprehend the universe. I shall therefore comply with your demand and shall divide philosophy into parts, but not into scraps. For it is useful that philosophy should be divided but not chopped into bits. Just as it is hard to take in what is indefinitely large, so it is hard to take in what is indefinitely small.
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