The Consolations of Philosophy Page 4

  It is hard not to start crying oneself. Perhaps because Socrates is said to have had a bulbous head and peculiar widely-spaced eyes, the scene of his death made me think of an afternoon on which I had wept while watching a tape of The Elephant Man.

  (Ill. 5.2)

  It seemed that both men had suffered one of the saddest of fates – to be good and yet judged evil.

  We might never have been jeered at for a physical deformity, nor condemned to death for our life’s work, but there is something universal in the scenario of being misunderstood of which these stories are tragic, consummate examples. Social life is beset with disparities between others’ perceptions of us and our reality. We are accused of stupidity when we are being cautious. Our shyness is taken for arrogance and our desire to please for sycophancy. We struggle to clear up a misunderstanding, but our throat goes dry and the words found are not the ones meant. Bitter enemies are appointed to positions of power over us, and denounce us to others. In the hatred unfairly directed towards an innocent philosopher we recognize an echo of the hurt we ourselves encounter at the hands of those who are either unable or unwilling to do us justice.

  But there is redemption in the story, too. Soon after the philosopher’s death the mood began to change. Isocrates reported that the audience watching Euripides’ Palamedes burst into tears when Socrates’ name was mentioned; Diodorus said that his accusers were eventually lynched by the people of Athens. Plutarch tells us that the Athenians developed such hatred for the accusers that they refused to bathe with them and ostracized them socially until, in despair, they hanged themselves. Diogenes Laertius recounts that only a short while after Socrates’ death the city condemned Meletus to death, banished Anytus and Lycon and erected a costly bronze statue of Socrates crafted by the great Lysippus.

  The philosopher had predicted that Athens would eventually see things his way, and it did. Such redemption can be hard to believe in. We forget that time may be needed for prejudices to fall away and envy to recede. The story encourages us to interpret our own unpopularity other than through the mocking eyes of local juries. Socrates was judged by 500 men of limited intelligence who harboured irrational suspicions because Athens had lost the Peloponnesian War and the defendant looked strange. And yet he maintained faith in the judgement of wider courts. Though we inhabit one place at one time, through this example, we may imaginatively project ourselves into other lands and eras which promise to judge us with greater objectivity. We may not convince local juries in time to help ourselves, but we can be consoled by the prospect of posterity’s verdict.

  Yet there is a danger that Socrates’ death will seduce us for the wrong reasons. It may foster a sentimental belief in a secure connection between being hated by the majority and being right. It can seem the destiny of geniuses and saints to suffer early misunderstanding, then to be accorded bronze statues by Lysippus. We may be neither geniuses nor saints. We may simply be privileging the stance of defiance over good reasons for it, childishly trusting that we are never so right as when others tell us we are wrong.

  This was not Socrates’ intention. It would be as naïve to hold that unpopularity is synonymous with truth as to believe that it is synonymous with error. The validity of an idea or action is determined not by whether it is widely believed or widely reviled but by whether it obeys the rules of logic. It is not because an argument is denounced by a majority that it is wrong nor, for those drawn to heroic defiance, that it is right.

  The philosopher offered us a way out of two powerful delusions: that we should always or never listen to the dictates of public opinion.

  To follow his example, we will best be rewarded if we strive instead to listen always to the dictates of reason.

  (Ill. 5.3)

  II

  Consolation for Not Having Enough Money

  1

  Happiness, an acquisition list

  1. A neoclassical Georgian house in the centre of London. Chelsea (Paradise Walk, Markham Square), Kensington (the southern part of Campden Hill Road, Hornton Street), Holland Park (Aubrey Road). In appearance, similar to the front elevation of the Royal Society of Arts designed by the Adam brothers (1772–4). To catch the pale light of late London afternoons, large Venetian windows offset by Ionic columns (and an arched tympanum with anthemions).

  (

  Ill. 6.1

  )

  In the first-floor drawing room, a ceiling and a chimney-piece like Robert Adam’s design for the library at Kenwood House.

  2. A jet stationed at Farnborough or Biggin Hill (a Dassault Falcon 900c or Gulfstream IV) with avionics for the nervous flyer, ground-proximity warning system, turbulence-detecting radar and CAT II autopilot. On the tail-fin, to replace the standard stripes, a detail from a still life, a fish by Velázquez or three lemons by Sánchez Cotán from the

  Fruit and Vegetables

  in the Prado.

  (Ill. 6.2)

  (Ill. 6.3)

  3. The Villa Orsetti in Marlia near Lucca. From the bedroom, views over water, and the sound of fountains. At the back of the house, a magnolia Delavayi growing along the wall, a terrace for winter, a great tree for summer and a lawn for games. Sheltered gardens indulgent to fig and nectarine. Squares of cypresses, rows of lavender, orange trees and an olive orchard.

  (Ill. 6.4)

  4. A library with a large desk, a fireplace and a view on to a garden. Early editions with the comforting smell of old books, pages yellowed and rough to the touch. On top of shelves, busts of great thinkers and astrological globes. Like the design of the library for a house for William

  III

  of Holland.

  (Ill. 6.5)

  5. A dining room like that at Belton House in Lincolnshire. A long oak table seating twelve. Frequent dinners with the same friends. The conversation intelligent but playful. Always affectionate. A thoughtful chef and considerate staff to remove any administrative difficulties (the chef adept at zucchini pancakes, tagliatelle with white truffles, fish soup, risotto, quail, John Dory and roast chicken). A small drawing room to retire to for tea and chocolates.

  6. A bed built into a niche in the wall (like one by Jean-François Blondel in Paris). Starched linen changed every day, cold to the cheek. The bed huge; toes do not touch the end of the bed; one

  wallows

  . Recessed cabinets for water and biscuits, and another for a television.

  (Ill. 6.6)

  7. An immense bathroom with a tub in the middle on a raised platform, made of marble with cobalt-blue seashell designs. Taps that can be operated with the sole of the foot and release water in a broad, gentle stream. A skylight visible from the bath. Heated limestone floors. On the walls, reproductions of the frescos on the precinct of the Temple of Isis in Pompeii.

  (Ill. 6.7)

  8. Money sufficient to allow one to live on the interest of the interest.

  9. For weekends, a penthouse apartment at the tip of the Ile de la Cité decorated with pieces from the noblest period of French furniture (and the weakest of government), the reign of Louis

  XVI

  . A half-moon commode by Grevenich, a console by Saunier, a bonheur-du-jour by Vandercruse-La Croix. Lazy mornings reading

  Pariscope

  in bed, eating

  pain au chocolat

  on Sèvres china and chatting about existence with, and occasionally teasing, a reincarnation of Giovanni Bellini’s

  Madonna

  (from the Galleria dell’Accademia in Venice), whose melancholy

  expression would belie a dry sense of humour and spontaneity – and who would dress in Agnès B and Max Mara for walks around the Marais.

  (Ill. 6.8)

  (Ill. 6.9)

  2

  An anomaly among an often pleasure-hating and austere fraternity, there was one philosopher who seemed to understand and want to help. ‘I don’t know how I shall conceive of the good,’ he wrote, ‘if I take away the pleasures of taste, if I take away sexual pleasure, if I take awa
y the pleasure of hearing, and if I take away the sweet emotions that are caused by the sight of beautiful forms.’

  Epicurus was born in 341 BC on the verdant island of Samos, a few miles off the coast of Western Asia Minor. He took early to philosophy, travelling from the age of fourteen to hear lessons from the Platonist Pamphilus and the atomic philosopher Nausiphanes. But he found he could not agree with much of what they taught and by his late twenties had decided to arrange his thoughts into his own philosophy of life. He was said to have written 300 books on almost everything, including On Love, On Music, On Just Dealing, On Human Life (in four books) and On Nature (in thirty-seven books), though by a catastrophic series of mishaps, almost all were lost over the centuries, leaving his philosophy to be reconstructed from a few surviving fragments and the testimony of later Epicureans.

  What immediately distinguished his philosophy was an emphasis on the importance of sensual pleasure: ‘Pleasure is the beginning and the goal of a happy life,’ asserted Epicurus, confirming what many had long thought but philosophy had rarely accepted. The philosopher confessed his love of excellent food: ‘The beginning and root of every good is the pleasure of the stomach. Even wisdom and culture must be referred to this.’ Philosophy properly performed was to be nothing less than a guide to pleasure:

  The man who alleges that he is not yet ready for philosophy or that the time for it has passed him by, is like the man who says that he is either too young or too old for happiness.

  Few philosophers had ever made such frank admissions of their interest in a pleasurable lifestyle. It shocked many, especially when they heard that Epicurus had attracted the support of some wealthy people, first in Lampsacus in the Dardanelles, and then in Athens, and had used their money to set up a philosophical establishment to promote happiness. The school admitted both men and women, and encouraged them to live and study pleasure together. The idea of what was going on inside the school appeared at once titillating and morally reprehensible.

  (Ill. 7.1)

  There were frequent leaks from disgruntled Epicureans detailing activities between lectures. Timocrates, the brother of Epicurus’s associate Metrodorus, spread a rumour that Epicurus had to vomit twice a day because he ate so much. And Diotimus the Stoic took the unkind step of publishing fifty lewd letters which he said had been written by Epicurus when he’d been drunk and sexually frenzied.

  Despite these criticisms, Epicurus’s teachings continued to attract support. They spread across the Mediterranean world; schools for pleasure were founded in Syria, Judaea, Egypt, Italy and Gaul; and the philosophy remained influential for the next 500 years, only gradually to be extinguished by the hostility of forbidding barbarians and Christians during the decline of the Roman Empire in the West. Even then, Epicurus’s name entered many languages in adjectival form as a tribute to his interests (Oxford English Dictionary: ‘Epicurean: devoted to the pursuit of pleasure; hence, luxurious, sensual, gluttonous’).

  Browsing in a newsagent in London 2,340 years after the philosopher’s birth, I came upon copies of Epicurean Life, a quarterly magazine with articles on hotels, yachts and restaurants, printed on paper with the sheen of a well-polished apple.

  (Ill. 7.2)

  The tenor of Epicurus’s interests was further suggested by The Epicurean, a restaurant in a small Worcestershire town, which offered its clientele, seated on high-backed chairs in a hushed dining room, dinners of seared sea scallops and cep risotto with truffles.

  (Ill. 7.3)

  3

  The consistency of the associations provoked by Epicurus’s philosophy throughout the ages, from Diotimus the Stoic to the editors of Epicurean Life, testifies to the way in which, once the word ‘pleasure’ has been mentioned, it seems obvious what is entailed. ‘What do I need for a happy life?’ is far from a challenging question when money is no object.

  Yet ‘What do I need for a healthy life?’ can be more difficult to answer when, for example, we are afflicted by bizarre recurring headaches or an acute throb in the stomach area after evening meals. We know there is a problem; it can be hard to know the solution.

  In pain, the mind is prone to consider some strange cures: leeches, bleeding, nettle stews, trepanning. An atrocious pain pulses in the temples and at the base of the head, as though the whole cranium had been placed in a clamp and tightened. The head feels as if it may soon explode. What seems intuitively most necessary is to let some air into the skull. The sufferer requests that a friend place his head on a table and drill a small hole in the side. He dies hours later of a brain haemorrhage.

  (Ill. 8.1)

  If consulting a good doctor is generally thought advisable despite the sombre atmosphere of many surgery waiting rooms, it is because someone who has thought rationally and deeply about how the body works is likely to arrive at better ideas about how to be healthy than someone who has followed a hunch. Medicine presupposes a hierarchy between the confusion the lay person will be in about what is wrong with them, and the more accurate knowledge available to doctors reasoning logically. Doctors are required to compensate for their patients’ lack, at times fatal, of bodily self-knowledge.

  At the heart of Epicureanism is the thought that we are as bad at intuitively answering ‘What will make me happy?’ as ‘What will make me healthy?’ The answer which most rapidly comes to mind is liable to be as faulty. Our souls do not spell out their troubles more clearly than our bodies, and our intuitive diagnoses are rarely any more accurate. Trepanning might serve as a symbol of the difficulties of understanding our psychological as much as our physiological selves.

  A man feels dissatisfied. He has trouble rising in the morning and is surly and distracted with his family. Intuitively, he places the blame on his choice of occupation and begins searching for an alternative, despite the high costs of doing so. It was the last time I would turn to See Inside an Ancient Greek Town.

  a blacksmith; a shoemaker; a fishmonger (Ill. 8.2)

  Deciding rapidly that he would be happy in the fish business, the man acquires a net and an expensive stall in the market-place. And yet his melancholy does not abate.

  We are often, in the words of the Epicurean poet Lucretius, like ‘a sick man ignorant of the cause of his malady’.

  It is because they understand bodily maladies better than we can that we seek doctors. We should turn to philosophers for the same reason when our soul is unwell – and judge them according to a similar criterion:

  Just as medicine confers no benefit if it does not drive away physical illness, so philosophy is useless if it does not drive away the suffering of the mind.

  The task of philosophy was, for Epicurus, to help us interpret our indistinct pulses of distress and desire and thereby save us from mistaken schemes for happiness. We were to cease acting on first impulses, and instead investigate the rationality of our desires according to a method of questioning close to that used by Socrates in evaluating ethical definitions over a hundred years earlier. And by providing what might at times feel like counter-intuitive diagnoses of our ailments, philosophy would – Epicurus promised – guide us to superior cures and true happiness.

  Epicurus 341 BC–270 BC (Ill. 8.3)

  4

  Those who had heard the rumours must have been surprised to discover the real tastes of the philosopher of pleasure. There was no grand house. The food was simple, Epicurus drank water rather than wine, and was happy with a dinner of bread, vegetables and a palmful of olives. ‘Send me a pot of cheese, so that I may have a feast whenever I like,’ he asked a friend. Such were the tastes of a man who had described pleasure as the purpose of life.

  He had not meant to deceive. His devotion to pleasure was far greater than even the orgy accusers could have imagined. It was just that after rational analysis, he had come to some striking conclusions about what actually made life pleasurable – and fortunately for those lacking a large income, it seemed that the essential ingredients of pleasure, however elusive, were not very expensive.

>   Happiness, an Epicurean acquisition list

  1. Friendship

  On returning to Athens in 306 BC at the age of thirty-five, Epicurus settled on an unusual domestic arrangement. He located a large house a few miles from the centre of Athens, in the Melite district between the market-place and the harbour at Piraeus, and moved in with a group of friends. He was joined by Metrodorus and his sister, the mathematician Polyaenus, Hermarchus, Leonteus and his wife Themista, and a merchant called Idomeneus (who soon married Metrodorus’s sister). There was enough space in the house for the friends to have their own quarters, and there were common rooms for meals and conversations.

  Epicurus observed that:

  Of all the things that wisdom provides to help one live one’s entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship.

  Such was his attachment to congenial company, Epicurus recommended that one try never to eat alone:

  Before you eat or drink anything, consider carefully who you eat or drink with rather than what you eat or drink: for feeding without a friend is the life of a lion or a wolf.