Letter 5

In Seneca’s passage on Moderation in Letter 5, he addressed the importance of a philosopher living a life of moderation. I found this philosophical reasoning for moderation to be impressively shallow. Seneca explains the necessity of moderation not as a mean to soul making but purely for its utility in maintaining a commendable appearance in the “common man’s” eyes. Through living a life of moderation, the philosopher rejects any extremism, denying themselves both luxury and affliction. The common man thus can look to the philosopher and feel that their life is reasonable and attainable. “Our endeavor must be to make our way of life better than the crowd’s, not contrary to it; else we shall turn from us and repel the people we wish to improve.” (P. 170) I felt that this passage ultimately was Seneca explaining how a philosopher can maintain successful relations with the public. When Seneca says, “Anyone who enters our home will admire us rather than our furniture” he is revealing the ultimate superficiality of his argument; his primary concern is what the public thinks when they interact with him, notably, on a very shallow level (P. 171). The bulk of the letter is concerned with how he, and other philosophers, are viewed in other peoples eyes. At no point does Seneca explain how a life of moderation is vital to humans as individuals, beyond its use in maintaining public relations. A possible explanation for this shallowness is that Seneca is attempting to protect himself and other philosophers from persecution of the state and to avoid a similar fate as Socrates. By living his proposed life of moderation, and avoiding extremes, the public as well as the state will not feel threatened by philosophers. However, isn’t the basis of Seneca’s Stoic philosophy to not fear dying a noble death? (Hannah Porter)