Time in philosphy

By Iavorschi Gabriela

Coordinator: Inășel Laura

Introduction, �or who is Seneca?

• Seneca, or mentioned by his full name, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, was a Roman philosopher, well known for his stoic ideology.
• He was born in 4 BCE and died in 65 AD, time in that he wrote some of the most important tragedies (Medea, Oedipus, Agamemnon, and others) and a series of letters to his good friend Lucilius, entitled ”Moral letters to Lucilius”.

Stoics and Stoicism

• STOICISM:

-is an ideology that appeared around 300 BCE.

-it is based on the idea that humans should get used to the misery of life, so when confronted with it, they are no longer surprised and can handle it more easier and calmer.

-they concluded with the fact that only stupid people can get angry with certain situations because they are not expecting them, or do not know the solution to them.

The greatest stoics

Marcus Aurelius

(121 AD- 180 AD)

-Roman Emperor

Zeno from Kition

(334 BCE-263 BCE)

-The founder of stoicism

Epictetus

(50 AD-135 AD)

The correspondece between Seneca and Lucilius

• In 2013, the Seneca publishing house from Bucharest, pulished ”Seneca. Letters to Lucilius”.
• In 2018, they made a 5 year anniversary special edition, and selected letters from their first publishing and sorted them into 5 categories: about Liberty, Death, Time, Teaching and Friendship.
• All the following texts are quoted from ”Seneca about Time”.

TIME

as a human perception

”How many steps for how short a climb!”

Letter 49

The 3 temporal ”stairs”

The past

 ”Believe me, a great part of those we have loved, though chance has removed their persons, still abides with us. The past is ours, and there is nothing more secure for us than that which has been.”

Letter 99

With a paragraph above, Seneca outlines the idea that if a good friend of yours dies, do you bury along your friend, the body of your friendship too?

In a summary, we should be grateful for all the good and the bad things that remain with us until this moment. Therefore insted of mourning them, to try to celebrate and embrace the loss.

The present

”People set a narrow limit to�their enjoyments if they take pleasure only in the present; both the�future and the past serve for our delight—the one with anticipation, and the other with memories but the one is contingent and may not come to pass, while the other must have been.”

Letter 99

In the excerpt presented, Seneca correlates all the 3 temporal strairs, and our recklessness about the present- although the present shapes our beloved past and our future memories. However, if we forget about the evolution that awaits us in the present day, the future will become something we didn’t dreamt of.

The future

”If there be no reaching forward in our life, if it is withdrawn into itself. For he only is anxious about the future, to whom the present is unprofitable.”  

Letter 101

Seneca is pointing out in this piece that many people are day-dreaming excessively to the bright and charming future to the end. that the present is unsatisfactory.

Earlier in the letter he says that people often think about how much time are they left with, and how sad is to always fear the inevitable.

Infinite time and limited lifetime

”Place before your mind’s eye the vast spread of time’s abyss, and consider the universe; and then contrast our so-called human life with infinity: you will then see how scant is that for which we pray, and which we seek to lengthen.”

Letter 99

With this paragraph, Seneca is bringing Lucilius to light that the life of an individual it is like a drop in the ocean compared to the eternity.

Later in the letter, the author questions why people choose to waste their time suffering on events that stand in a natural order of life, afterwards just to pray after more lifetime.

Time, life and death

 ”Death is on my trail, and life is fleeting away; teach me something with which to face these troubles. Bring it to pass that I shall cease trying to escape from death, and that life may cease to escape from me.”

Letter 49

Earlier in the letter, Seneca is admitting that he is under seige, and instead of trying to escape, or help the citizens, he is writing these texts.

Given the situation, the author realizes that he is closer to death than ussual. He enters this desperate state and seeks help to his good friend. But in the end, as we all know, we are closer to death day by day.

The use of TIME

” How long I am to exist is not mine to decide, but how�long I shall go on existing in my present way is in my own control.”

Letter 93

Time as resource

”Therefore, dear Lucius, begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.” 

”Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time.”

Letter 101

Letter 1

In these two sections, Seneca is highlighting the same idea, that we should live our life to the fullest, especially that we have every day the choice to do so.

Time and the value of life

”Pray, let us see to it, my dear Lucilius, that our lives, like jewels of great price, be noteworthy not because of their width but because of their weight. Let us measure them by their performance, not by their duration.”

Letter 93

In this passage Seneca makes a parralel from our life to the value of cristals like dimonds, small but precious.

Further in the letter, he explains that even if someone has less time than others, doesn’t mean his life is shallower. Therefore, it’s irrelevant to think that someone didn’t live as much as he could, because he lived to him maximum potential.