Can you be a thinker and a millionaire? For Seneca, it’s sure! | EUROtoday

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PTo philosophize, you want an immaculate however modest toga, sandals nicely worn from strolling the streets of Athens, an extended, rigorously uncared for beard and, in your pockets, simply sufficient to purchase a handful of figs and olives. Because it’s well-known, “it is not from riches that virtue comes, but it is from virtue that riches come,” as Plato mentioned. However, one of many best-known thinkers of historical philosophy, Seneca, grasp of Stoicism, went out into the road with a carefully trimmed beard (not less than that’s what his portraits counsel) and was extraordinarily rich – virtually billionaire if we convert his fortune into present euros.

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Born in Cordoba, in what’s now Andalusia, at the start of our period, Seneca had two hobbies: philosophy, by which he excelled, and, much less well-known, enterprise. He has the reward of surrounding himself nicely. Close to Nero, whose tutor he was, he reaped the fruits of this strategic friendship. Seneca is especially good at one factor: granting loans at pharaonic charges to get wealthy. Thus, the thinker has gold he does not know what to do with, villas virtually in every single place, drinks high-quality wines and has too many slaves to recollect everybody’s identify.

The fortune of the thinker senator is the speak of the city

Seneca’s fortune is estimated at 300 million sesterces. The Roman legionaries, to present an thought, with out being the worst off in Rome, acquired at most just a few hundred sesterces per 12 months. Insolent in his wealth, Seneca, senator and advisor to the emperor, would have been the equal of a twenty first century billionairee century, draped not in an Armani swimsuit, however in an impeccable toga.

ALSO READ Seneca, trainer of life? Obviously, in Rome, the fortune of the thinker senator is the speak of the city. “Those who criticize him talk about this tension between claiming to be a philosopher and being rich. Since Socrates – who was not that poor, by the way – poverty has been a way of asserting one’s status as a philosopher. The idea of ​​despising wealth and being able to live on what is necessary is a characteristic feature of the idea we have of the philosopher,” explains Sandrine Alexandre, physician of philosophy and specialist in historical philosophy. “What we criticize him for is not being rich, it’s being excessively rich,” specifies the creator of Philosophy of archery: essay on the Stoic conception of worth (ENS Éditions, 2022).

Philosopher or wealthy, ought to we select?

What sort of thinker is the millionaire? The Stoics, Seneca’s faculty of thought, are obsessive about one factor: advantage, that’s, residing and performing in a way according to nature. The central thought is that the whole lot that occurs occurs naturally, and the sensible Stoic should subsequently try to control his needs to this pure order. Concretely: cash, stunning robes and even well being are usually not issues to be desired while you would not have them, nor to be connected to when you’ve them. For the Stoics, we must always solely connect ourselves to our internal citadel (what we may name the soul). Stoic advantage subsequently appears to ask radical detachment.

And Seneca, then? Would he be the sort to evangelise “do as I say, not as I do”? Nay! His faculty of thought gives him with the sources of coherence: the idea of “preferable indifferents”. “For the Stoics, material goods are indifferent – ​​in themselves, they do not count for happiness or virtue. But, if it is possible to have them, you might as well prefer them. And if we don’t have them, that doesn’t change anything about happiness,” popularizes Sandrine Alexandre. For him, wealth is just a preferable benefit. In quick, if he had been poor, he desires to imagine that he would have gotten by with out issue. But since he is wealthy, he may as nicely reap the benefits of it!

Poverty, a masks or an ordeal

Seneca makes a shocking reversal: poverty, in keeping with him, will be the masks of a false philosophy, in any case a easy trappings to look sensible. The thinker goes even additional, and dares to say that it’s tougher to be a wealthy thinker than a poor one. Sandrine Alexandre explains: “Seneca believes that poverty is just not a enough situation for being a thinker and that wealth is even a tougher situation. Because it exposes us to criticism from the envious, to the jealousy of the highly effective and nobody is protected from a reversal of fortune. When you might be poor, you already are, and you haven’t any alternative however to place up with it. But the wealthy should be taught to despise wealth whereas possessing it, whereas the poor despise it as a result of he has no actual alternative: he’s already destitute. »


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And in any case, Seneca doesn’t declare to be a sensible man. “Demand of me, therefore, not that I be the equal of the best, but only better than the wicked,” he replies to the critic who asks him: “Why do people drink wine older than you in your house? » Or again: “Why does your wife wear the income of an opulent house in her ears? » Seneca’s question is how to remain serene, without disturbances (ataraxia), in the midst of riches. In other words, how to make good use of wealth, as of any condition.

During his time there lived another philosopher for whom Seneca had real admiration: Demetrius. He lives an existence devoid of any material wealth. “Seneca admires him beyond measure. » This fascination with poverty leads the billionaire philosopher to undertake courses in fictitious poverty. Yes, you read that correctly. From time to time he practices being poor. The goal? “Train yourself to say to yourself: ‘If ever there is a setback, I will be able to handle it.’ To despise wealth is to be able to say to oneself: ‘If I were poor, then it wouldn’t be a big deal,’” notes Sandrine Alexandre. Rest assured, as soon as these “experiments” had been over, Seneca returned to his luxurious villas and his nice wines.


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