Aiming for the Moon
Aiming for the Moon
130. The Consolation of Philosophy - Boethius on Suffering and Hope: Dr. Thomas M. Ward (Prof. of Philosophy @ University of Texas at Austin | Author of "After Stoicism: Last Words of the Last Roman Philosopher")
What happens when your world crumbles? When all the things you hold dear are snatched away from you? Most of us would give up and despair. And, yet, though he awaited an unjust execution, Roman senator and philosopher Boethius penned these hopeful words:
“The world in constant change maintains a harmony. And elements keep peace whose nature is to war.”
Faced with his coming death, Boethius reflected upon his life of contemplation and philosophy, writing one of the greatest works of the medieval age on facing suffering: The Consolation of Philosophy.
In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Thomas Ward to discuss Boethius’ magnum opus and Dr. Ward’s latest book, After Stoicism: Last Words of the Last Roman Philosopher. Dr. Ward and I examine what Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy can tell us about how to approach life in the midst of suffering.
Topics:
- Who Was Boethius and Why He Matters
- Why The Consolation of Philosophy Endured
- Lady Fortune, The Wheel, and Approachability
- Boethius’ Illness and Philosophy’s Diagnosis
- Forgetting Who We Are
- Modern Stoicism’s Appeal and Limits
- After Stoicism: Hope, God, and Joy
- Love as the Order of the Cosmos
- Eros and Caritas: What Love Means
- Daily Practices for Recollection
- How to Live Like Boethius: Suffering, Virtue, and a Transcendent Order
- "What books have had an impact on you?"
- "What advice do you have for teenagers?"
Bio:
Thomas M. Ward is Associate Professor of Philosophy at The University of Texas at Austin, in the School of Civic Leadership. He is the author of After Stoicism: Last Words of the Last Roman Philosopher (Word on Fire, 2024), which won the Catholic Media Association Book Award for History (First Place). He studied philosophy at Biola University (BA 2004) and UCLA (PhD, 2011) and theology at Oxford University (M.Phil 2006).
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What happens when your world crumbles? When all the things you hold dear are snatched away from you. Most of us would give up in despair. And yet, though he awaited an unjust execution, Roman senator and philosopher Boethius pinned these hopeful words. The world in constant change maintains a harmony, and elements keep peace whose nature is to war. Faced with his coming death, Boethius reflected upon his life of contemplation and philosophy, writing one of the greatest works of the medieval age on facing suffering, The Constellation of Philosophy. This is the Aiming for the Moon Podcast. And I'm your host, Taylor Bledsoe. On this podcast, I interview interesting people from a teenage perspective. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Thomas Ward to discuss Boethius' Magnum opus and Dr. Ward's latest book on constellation of philosophy. After Stoicism, Last Words of the Last Roman Philosopher. Dr. Ward and I examine what Boethius' work can tell us about how to approach life in the midst of suffering. Thomas M. Ward is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin and the School of Civic Leadership. He's the author of After Stoicism: Last Words of the Last Roman Philosopher, which won the Catholic Media Association Book Award for History. He studied philosophy at Biola University and UCLA and theology at Oxford University. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate the podcast and subscribe. You can follow us at AimingTheNumber 4 Moon on all the socials to stay up to date on podcast news and episodes. Check out the episode notes for the links to our website, AimingForthemoon.com, and our podcast substack of lessons from interesting people. All right, with that, sit back, relax, and listen in. Thanks again to Paxton Page for this incredible music. Thank you to the University of Tulsa Studio 151 for providing a space to record. And thank you as well to Victor Watts' translation of the Constellation of Philosophy for providing the quote at the beginning of the intro. All right, enjoy.
SPEAKER_01:All right, well, welcome, Dr. Ward, to the interview. Thank you so much for coming on.
SPEAKER_02:Thanks for having me, Taylor.
SPEAKER_01:So I am very excited to dive into your book, After Stoicism: The Last Words of the Last Roman Philosopher, mainly because I've been trying to figure out a reason to talk about Boethius on the podcast for a number of years now. And when your book was recommended to me, I was like, this is it. This is the moment that we can dive into Boethius. So before we begin talking about your book and the fascinating argument you make about basically his turn from stoicism to going beyond stoicism, who is Boethius and why should we in the modern audience care?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, thanks. It's uh we we both have a deep admiration for that old Roman senator. It's too bad he's not around to come on the show to talk about his book, but um, he was a late Roman senator. He died in uh the 500s and uh five 524, maybe 525. Um, so we've just sort of wrapped up 1500-year uh anniversary of his death. The reason why he's famous today, um even though he was he was prominent in his own day, but the reason why he's really well known today, um, and not just one of many hundreds of Roman senators from big wealthy families back then, is that uh he was um unjustly uh accused of uh being a traitor, of treason, and the Gothic uh king, Theodoric, sentenced him to death. And while while Boethius was on uh the sort of equivalent of death row, you know, a sort of house arrest situation where he was just waiting to die, he wrote this uh amazing book of philosophy and poetry called The Consolation of Philosophy. And and that book uh became literally a bestseller for hundreds of years. Um a uh 20th-century uh critic named C.S. Lewis, uh V C. S. Lewis, once said that for about a thousand years after the writing of uh The Consolation of Philosophy, it would have been virtually impossible to find an educated person in Europe who did not only, who not only had read the consolation, but had been deeply influenced by it. So it's this massive book that that sort of secured Boethius, Senator Boethius's legacy uh through through the centuries.
SPEAKER_01:And that's kind of very interesting because if you look at the book or you look at it on Amazon or anything, it's not a very long book at all. It's actually when you think of long uh or very influential philosophical texts, you think of The Republic, you think of a lot of Aristotle's works, which are, you know, longer works. They look like big influential books. The constellation of philosophy is gosh, my Victor Watts translation might be 175 pages, maybe 200. Um it's not that long at all.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I think that's part of the staying power, is that not only is it um not that long, but it's also approachable. You know, a lot of philosophy can be intimidating. Um, you know, one of my favorite books in terms of ideas is the Nicomuchean Ethics by Aristotle, but the writing itself is very dry, pretty dense. Um, whereas Boethius, you open it up and there's this kind of urgency to it, there's this emotional power, you're immediately drawn in with this poem about um a man in in this desperate circumstance feeling wretched and and and full of despair. So it just draws you in. And then even in the more philosophical parts that that get into like actual arguments, and there's still this kind of approachability to it. And sometimes that can be deceptive. I mean, I think um with some of the arguments that are in the book, they go really deep and and really repay that sort of really slow reading. But you know, any any uh you know, average um literate uh adolescent, you know, high school, college student can pick it up and give it a full read-through and understand probably 80% of it, which is saying a lot for a book of philosophy, you know.
SPEAKER_01:A hundred percent. Uh particularly books one and two. So if you're not familiar with like classical works of philosophy, books one and two are kind of the chapters um is probably the most modern equivalent to them. So chapters one and two or books one and two, I think are especially readable because they're full of poetry. They're the kind of the, oh, what does she call them? The entry-level, the lighter anecdote uh antidotes that she begins applying to Boethius are in those sections plus book three. Um and that especially is very engaging, very easy for, I would think, beginners who haven't read any philosophy to kind of dive into.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, that's right. And and we get this um uh beautiful image of the uh lady fortune and her wheel, and it's just meant to illustrate the way that so many of the things that we uh hold on to as being so valuable or so important to us are really outside of our control. You know, so it's this you know, sometimes life is like you're you're on this wheel, or like think about like a Ferris wheel, and sometimes you're at the top, and then you think you have everything figured out, and then all of a sudden it turns, and now you're at the bottom. And so it's this poignant image, and um, and you know, the the character of lady philosophy herself is this uh really engaging uh character. You know, she has a personality, she's not just a kind of spokeswoman for arguments. Um, you know, she's kind of sometimes a little feisty with Boethius, you know, like when she recognizes that he's being too self-indulgent or or, you know, throwing a pity party. Um, she'll kind of let him have it a little bit, but at the same time, she really cares about him. And and and so that really comes through in the writing, uh, which makes it all the more engaging.
SPEAKER_01:It it really does. She's quite the character when you're reading, because you're not expecting her to kind of burst through the, I guess the window. I don't know exactly, because he's in a tower. He she bursts in and drives out all the muses, and it's this really dramatic scene that you're like, wow, this is not how I thought a work of philosophy would start off. Um But okay, let's dive into this book a little bit more. So it starts off Boethius is quite literally crying in his tower, bemoaning his life. His entire life has fallen apart. He was very successful. Um he was a very successful politician, plus scholar and and I guess technically not theologian, but you know, philosopher-theologian mix, um, definitely. And then his his family was successful. He came from a wealthy, prominent family. Everything was going his way. He was one of the main people in Rome. And then it all collapses, and he finds himself in prison awaiting basically his terrible death sentence. He does end up dying, and it's not a fun way to go at all. And so, of course, as most people would, he he's in his tower, bemoaning his life. And like, what went wrong? He's writing his poetry, he's he's very upset about this. Um, and he's very, very, you know, we feel for him. Like, I get why Boethius isn't upset. It's not like, oh man, kind of toughen up, buddy. Uh no, he's in a bad circumstance. So why does lady philosophy burst in and go, Boethius, man, you're really sick. Like you have an illness. What is she talking about? Boethius has the most understandable plight, probably known to man in this in this case.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, this is this is so much of the philosophical and therapeutic power of the book, is is Boethius, the author, and Lady Philosophy, the character, really do think that despite Boethius's horrible circumstances, that there are uh philosophical resources that if he could just remember the truth about philosophy, that he need not be miserable and full of fear and despair in this horrible situation. It's not gonna change the fact that he's going to be executed. Um see his family or or uh read books in his library or all of the things he liked to do. It's not gonna change any of that. But there will be this internal change where he will uh be able to face his pending execution with uh fortitude uh and with a kind of serenity. So the um uh contrast between the muses on the one hand and Lady Philosophy on the other, it's not meant to be a statement that uh poetry is bad. And after all, Lady Philosophy herself sings songs of poetry. The idea is that in Boethius's frame of mind, when the the drama of the dialogue first starts, he is totally um self-pitying, and it's a kind of big churning emotions of of despair that aren't doing him any good. Um, you know, there is a kind of exquisiteness to to sadness that can sometimes make us relish it. It's not exactly that we are happy to be sad, but in in the intensity of the emotion itself, there's this kind of uh you could you can sort of savor it. And when you're in that condition, it might like the intensity of the emotion might give you this sort of illusion of meaning. But what Lady Philosophy does when she sort of barges in is like this way that you're feeling, it might be really intense in all of that, but it's not doing you any good. Let's turn your attention away from that toward trying to remember some of the truths that you once uh learned and once did you good, and now you've forgotten them and so you're miserable. And so she's she's she's trying to turn his attention back to um a frame of mind in which which is not going to rescue him, but in which he will be able to face his circumstances um bravely.
SPEAKER_01:So let's get into this a little bit more. Um when it comes to our modern age, you made a very uh fascinating point that I hadn't necessarily connected yet to the constellation of philosophy and why it's very relevant to today. You write about kind of the existentialist crisis we find ourselves in, existentialist uh, which leads to an uh existential crisis. And we're always defining ourselves by s by science, like we're oh, we're just atoms, we're just our chemical makeup. We're also um just whatever we want ourselves to be. You kind of UBU is a is a great um slogan of our time. Whether we actually say it, it's it's cliche, but we definitely feel that. Um I will be what I want myself to be, and the variety of the different forms that that comes in. But you make a case for reading Boethius that's Boethius is not in this same tension, but in a similar tension, because Lady Philosophy says to him, you have forgotten who you are. That is the diagnosis she gives, plus a few other things, but that's one of the main charges. So, how does that plight relate to where we find ourselves culturally as a society today?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's a big, big question and a great question. Um, I would say as a kind of start, that it's helpful to think of the sort of broad um intellectual background to some of Boethius's reflections here. So start really broad and then we can sort of zoom in a little bit more. But the from the really broad perspective, we need to think of Boethius as a kind of heir of an intellectual tradition that includes both the Stoics and also Plato and Aristotle. Different as these philosophers are from each other, they do have this sort of shared uh assumption that when it comes to the question of what is the good life or how to live a good life, or how ought I to live, that the sort of starting point for reflection on that question is what kind of thing we are. And they all agreed that what we are is a very special kind of animal. And um, you know, we're we're like all the animals, and that we have a body and we have these needs, and uh, but then we have we have rationality, and that is our distinctive feature. So they all agree that um the good life for a human being is living in accordance with our nature. So we we sort of try to reflect on what is good uh for human beings as rational animals, and then try to extrapolate from that what sorts of actions, what sorts of relationships, what sorts of um uh habits or virtues uh make the life of that kind of animal go well. And and so Boethius shares that basic assumption. And when Lady Philosophy asks him, you know, as you as you mentioned, when she asks him, Do you remember what you are? Or can you tell me what you are? And he says, Of course, I'm a I'm a rational, mortal animal. And that was the classical definition of a human being. And in one sense, Boethius gives the right answer, but Lady Philosophy says, uh, can you tell me anything more? Are you anything more than that? And he says, I don't know what you mean. Um, or I can't say anything more. She says, Oh, that's your problem. And so she's going to try to help him see that although he is a rational mortal animal, in in line with the the common agreement of all the philosophers, there's something more to us uh and and to him than being merely a rational animal. And that is that is something like this this sort of longing for transcendence, this religious impulse that um is basically universal across cultures. You know, people disagree about religion, and you know, and I have my own views about that, but um but whether we want to be very specific, the sort of Christian Catholic context that Boethius himself uh had, or you know, just a more general kind of religious impulse, this longing for something transcendent, something more, that it that sort of buoys this hope uh for something beyond this life. And that's what she she's going to try to take him from being able to give the right kind of philosophy answer of what we are, rational animal, and then move him uh beyond that to this longing for uh for transcendence and a hope that we can somehow participate in that some way.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, this is a big point of um the after-stoicism side. So when you first read Boethius, and um I read this with some of my classmates in for one of our classes, and one of their one of my my friend's critiques was it's just the Stoics kind of set over again. And he kind of tags a few things onto that. And I I think he I think my friend respectfully is just completely wrong about this. And we've had great debates all about um Boethius and everything else. Um and one of the things that I find really interesting is you mentioned this in your book as well, but we've had Ryan Holiday on the podcast, a bunch of these other kind of modern stoic um, well, I guess, philosophers slash authors today who basically say a lot of what the Stoics said and just make it more digestible and in more modern terms, combine it with um well, not antidotes, but anecdotes, um, and make it more uh palatable to our kind of modern audience. And I think that's a really interesting shift. So you have the existentialist side, which is you define who you are, then you have this stoic resurgence that's happening, which is very unique because when you ask these people about, okay, so a big part of is personal responsibility. Um and when you ask them, so why should you be personally responsible? A lot of their answers are pragmatic answers. It's well, it helps you in your job, it helps you with your family. In the end, it'll work out well. But when you press them and say, well, what if it doesn't? What if you find yourself like Boethius and you did everything right? You know, you're held by your virtues, you told the truth, and then you find yourself in prison and you die? Like what what then? Like what's the point of being responsible and kind of following the virtues? You hit you hit this existential crisis again. So uh uh two questions for you here. Why do you think we have this modern resurgence of stoicism? And two, what does Boethius offer us that goes beyond Stoicism or after Stoicism as your title implies?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, good. I I think the the stoic, the the contemporary stoic thing, you know, it's it it's It lands it's attractive to kind of overlapping circles, at least as far as I've been able to observe so far. You know, the what we might think of as the modern stoic revival really starts, like call it like 15 years ago. And it's almost simultaneous with the rise of the iPhone, the iPhone becoming ubiquitous. There's this kind of um correlation in time between the rise of like social media and and uh personal internet devices that uh changed the way that uh you know people who were already adults at that moment in time totally changed the way that we relate to our technology. You know, I was in my 20s when I got my iPhone, you know, so I'd had a lot of life up to then. And then, you know, over a few years I started seeing how it benefited me in some ways and how things were so different in other ways. One of the one of these differences is that life interfaced with screens, the way that it has become for almost all of us, has this kind of compulsive quality. And I think that the uh that sort of the way in which the internet and social media foster compulsion, compulsive behavior, you know, doom scrolling or just constantly clicking on this, this, and that, the clickbait and whatever. It gives you a sense of not being in control of your life. And I think that stoic habits are of some measure of ascetical practice, you know, disciplining yourself. Um it really does remind us that we have control over some things. We don't have to be a slave to the clickpait. Um, and then the same goes for other areas of our life that we might um where we might struggle with compulsive behaviors. It's sort of like we don't have to live like slaves, even though the technology uh has um sort of taken over so much of our lives. We don't have to be totally slavish. Then there's this other sort of aspect of the stoic revival, and and it's it's similar, but it has to do, I think, with a widespread perception of modern life being too easy and too comfortable. And this is the sort of attraction that stoicism has uh primarily for men, but not exclusively for men, the so-called manosphere stoicism or broicism, as uh one of my buddies, uh younger, younger guys uh who I've talked to about this puts it, the broicism, where this kind of like, let's get, let's go to the gym and get shredded or ripped or whatever the term is now. Um, not primarily or not only because we want to be healthy or look good, but because we want to do hard things to remind ourselves that while modern life, at least for so many of us in the United States, while modern life is so easy and so comfortable in so many ways, uh there's still something inside of us that wants challenge, that wants to do something hard and have that sense of accomplishment. And so that's the stoic idea of fortitude, being willing to undergo suffering uh in order to achieve something good. That I think appeals to a lot of people too. So you have on the one hand, you have this sort of tech culture uh trying to find a way to deal with uh technology, and then on the other hand, you have this sort of gym culture. And these do, these can overlap and often do, but I think that's um sort of two um aspects. I'm sure there are more. Like there was during COVID, there was uh a lot of think pieces about how stoic virtue can help us deal with isolation and quarantine. Um you know, and that side, I think um, you know, this this might sound a little bit pessimistic, but I think one of the dark sides to the stoic revival, and there are there, I think there's lots of really good stuff about this, but I think one of the dark sides is that it can help us um, even as it can offer a way to for us to resist compulsion, it also fosters a kind of resignation to the isolation and loneliness of modern technology. Um, you know, so many younger people are graduating from college and setting up households of one with without necessarily any plan to start a family or having have a lifelong partner. Um so we we have you know jobs that keep us plugged into our screens. We have uh you know young single people living on their own or renting out a room with someone they may or may not know very well, and just sort of living basically alone, conducting so much of their social life, not physically in proximity to other people. And you think, well, that sounds like a horrible thing. But then if you have a kind of stoic mindset, you could say, well, that's just how life is. I'm not in control of these broader market technological forces that that are structuring our social lives in this way. But I could still find a life that's maybe not full of joy, but at least a life that is free from suffering if I just sort of accept my fate uh as a as a person who is fated to be living on his own behind a screen all the time. And that's the that's I think the dark side that we shouldn't actually be resigned to that form of life. I don't think that's a good form of life for a human being. Um, but the combination of the sort of techie side of the stoic attraction uh with this uh stoic resignation to unpleasant fate, I think does produce this sort of uncomfortable um consequence of the stoic revival. Now, how how do we get beyond Solicism? Well, partly it's that it's that like not resigning ourselves to unpleasant fate. Like, yeah, sometimes if you're in a situation like Boethius, there's no hope for escape. So the best you could do is to try to make peace with the fact that you're going to die and to um not let your bad circumstances destroy your character so that you have the sort of satisfaction of maintaining your nobility in difficult circumstances. But what if in ordinary life there actually is more to hope for than merely the avoidance of suffering? After all, that is the stoic ideal to train your mind in such a way that nothing ever torments you. So if you reach a point of never being miserable, that is the highest good for the stoic master. But that's just the absence of suffering, that's not necessarily the presence of happiness or joy. And that's the beyond. Um Boethius really does think, and this is a kind of you could call it the Christian uh spiritual aspect of the consolation, you might also call it the neoplatonic mystical aspect of the consolation, or both at once. But he thinks that uh he he gives some arguments that there exists uh a God, a per a personal God with whom we can have some sort of relationship, in whom is our highest good, and that the more that we uh pursue God through virtue, um, and perhaps through other practices that he discusses in other books, um we can move beyond merely the absence of suffering toward a positive joy, happiness. And that so that's the beyond part.
SPEAKER_01:All right. And let me remember, we were just talking about um beyond the. I talked too long.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:All right. And we're back live. Okay. So one of the things that really stood out to me, um, especially upon my first reading of Boethius' consolation of philosophy, is the end of book two has one of my favorite poems, probably ever. Now, I haven't read a lot of poetry yet, so this may change, but it I just find it a beautiful poem. It starts off the world in constant change maintains a harmony, and it goes through kind of this whole idea of lady fortune isn't in control of the world. The seasons change, but they have an order. Um, one ruler or one ruler holds in hand. And he says something very unstoic in this section. He says, if love relaxed the reins, all elements that now keep peace would wreck the great machine, which unity maintains with motions beautiful. This is the Victor Watts translation. Um but one of the things that stood out to me there is stoics famously have, well, the word being stoic. They're very kind of absence of suffering. You don't want to kind of jump on the emotional roller coaster at all. Um, you just kind of hold back your emotions at arm's length, as you mentioned. Um, you don't want to, you know, jump too far into love because you know you can lose the people that you love. So let's just kind of keep everyone at arm's length. And what you were mentioning with kind of this social isolation we find ourselves uh we have found ourselves in is kind of a physical and technological representation of the stoic philosophy in a lot of sense. We are ourselves our own little island with people outside, and that's kind of how it goes. So Boethius is kind of making this very Christian assertion, although not labeling it as such, that love of all things holds the reins of the universe. What does Boethius mean by this? And how is this radical? If it is radical, what is the philosophical connotation and of this?
SPEAKER_02:It's it's yeah, it's beautiful. Uh it's a beautiful image. Uh it it's obviously deeply resonates with a Christian reader, and um uh as a Christian himself, Boethius surely had that uh meaning in mind, but I don't think it's probably um the only thing he had in mind. I I wonder here if uh he's going back all the way back to Democritus, an ancient Greek philosopher lived before Aristotle, who was um perhaps the first atomists, to you know, the first uh cosmologist or physicist to uh think of bodies as composed of very minute particles that are stuck together in various ways. And he posited that in addition to the these four elements um um that you know combine and recombine and all of that, there are these two fundamental forces, love and strife. And that these sort of pervade the universe. And so when we think about um attraction, whether that's at a kind of chemical level or even at the sort of psychological, emotional level, that those that sort of force of attraction is credited to love writ large, and then and then repulsion of whatever kind is attributed to strife. And so it's a sort of quasi-scientific, quasi-poetic way of trying to make sense of the cosmos as a whole, to take these all these various phenomena at the sort of physical level, the spiritual level, you know, and kind of give a unifying sort of explanation. Now, as you know, um Christian authors conceptualize God as love. Uh God is love, according to um uh John in one of his epistles. And this kind of combination of sort of call it like love cosmology and love theology gets um taken up by Christian authors in really beautiful ways. I think Boethius is doing that here. Um Dante does it in the The Divine Comedy. I see the uh portrait of uh Dante on your wall there. Um uh, you know, the when Dante wins through to the end of paradise and has the vision of God, he says, My will and my desires were turned by love, the love that moves the sun and the other stars. Um how Christian is it? How pagan is it? Uh, how syncretistic is being Boethius being here? It's probably hard to say, but I think there there are at least two themes going on that are in this sort of um, you know, either a tension or a tension, uh tension of harmony, um, which I think is one way to describe what's going on in the constellation of philosophy as a whole, this kind of drawing together a synthesis of themes from um his own uh religious tradition as well as themes from um pagan uh philosophy and and and learning.
SPEAKER_01:I think we need to real briefly take a step back and define what we mean by love. Because I think in modern love, when people say love controls the universe, it's we think of it as kind of this fleeting thing because like for instance, most high school students. I mean, how many of our friends have been in and out of high school relationships where they deeply love someone and then next week they've broken up? And so we have this understanding of love as kind of like tender swipes or as on as in like, oh, you love them, and like divorce rates are high. So love in the modern sense is really kind of this waxes and wanes, you know, man. Like you go, you love one thing and then you love we love chicken, we all we love people, and it's it has this weird uh it does not have the same connotation that the classical authors and especially the medieval Christian authors have. So when Boethius says love controls the universe, it's it's much more than just kind of, you know, God feels good about the world, or Boethius feels good about the world. And he, you know, kind of likes it. Like what does he mean? It's it's much richer than that. And of course, all the classical authors do.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's great. This is um, you know, there, as you know, there were a few different concepts of love, actually. You know, what the words that we would translate with with simply with the word love that are actually quite different concepts. And I think two that are helpful for us to sort of bring to the table right now are the um the the love of eros and the love of agape, or the in Latin, the love of uh cupiditas and the love of caritas. The basic difference here is that eros or cupidity is a kind of love of desire. And it's it's you you don't necessarily love the say another person for their own good. You love them or feel attracted to them because you think that being in a relationship with them will make will be make you better off. And then um karitas or agape is a love that is not self-focused, self-interested. It's the love that wills the good of another person for that other person's sake. Now, both kinds of love are good. I mean, it's it's it's good to have this um erotic desire. Um, you know, don't when you hear that, don't think of like in a modern sense, erotica. Like that's not really what's what we're talking about here, but that feeling of falling in love, or that feeling of, you know, like in the Bambi movie being Twitter paid.
SPEAKER_01:Um Christmas thing. Oh, yeah, exactly. Something like that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. But but of course, so that's not bad in this this classical tradition. Um but karitas, especially for Christian thinkers, is the higher way. And God in this picture, because God is perfect and God depends on nothing, God has no aros. The sort of love that God has and is is agape or karitas. So when we say that God loves the world, or that um the world is moved or controlled by love, what we mean is that God has this uh sort of providential plan for the world, control over the world. And that even if sometimes it seems to us like we can't really make sense of how what's going on uh is good or how good could result from the bad things that go on in the world, the the assertion that um the world is controlled by love is expresses this hope that whatever is going on in the world ultimately is being um led to some net good result. Um, because the God who is love himself, that is karitas, is willing the good for the universe and by extension things in the universe. So, yeah, so that I think that sort of um cupidity, uh karitas, uh desire, charity, um, contrast, I think is probably really helpful for a modern audience to keep in mind. Like love is not um like love is said in many ways.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. So we unfortunately have to begin wrapping up our conversation of Boethius, sadly. But um I wanted to kind of take this. We've talked a lot of a lot of different abstract philosophy. We've talked about the love, uh, the world being ordered by love and things like this. But let's see if we can take this down to uh the the practical level or the level of kind of where a lot of the audience where we find ourselves kind of living our life. Um when we think of you know living, it's hard. It's hard. Good things happen, bad things happen, um, dreams are crushed, dreams are fulfilled, all these wonderful and terrible things happen throughout your entire life. And we are confronted, especially now, with like an existentialist way to live, like, oh, uh I'm being affected by everything. I'm also affecting my world because it's my world is what I feel and when I make it. Um we have the stoics who are saying, well, I'm just gonna kind of self-isolate, pull myself in, and anything I can directly control is the anything that's kind of meaningful, and the only thing I can really control is myself to certain extent. Um and then we have Boethius. And it's not stoicism, it's not existentialism. It wouldn't even be right to say it's a combination of both. So when it comes to a practical way of living, what does taking Boethius' philosophy and living it out on a day-to-day basis throughout your life look like? Like if Ryan Holliday and some of these other authors who I I again think have wonderful things to say and things we can pull from, are about You know, daily habits and um you know not getting flustered by when things go wrong. And they they have these very regimented lives, which again have their complete benefits. What does Boethius tell us to do on the day-to-day? Where does Boethius tell us to turn our eyes in times of trouble? And how do we live like Boethius?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, good. I mean, the the full the full answer here is that I don't think that Boethius's kind of program of soul transformation um um can uh I I think the the the full picture for him is uh participation in the in the Christian church. So he writes another uh short book of theology, um it's called On the Christian Faith, where he talks about um his religious convictions and his understanding of the church and its sacraments and how these have this healing effect on us. So, I mean, there's that side of it, but um on the on the philosophical, kind of practical philosophical side, I think we we could say this on his behalf, which is that you know, you you let's say you read a book of philosophy like the consolation and you recognize the insights. Oh, there's a lot of wisdom here. And then um, having read that and sort of having it in mind, you you put the book down and you go on through your life and you come into these uh situations where you you might have a kind of default way of reacting that is not conducive to your happ happiness. Um, and so being mindful of what you've just read, you can sort of see yourself reacting in the bad way and then sort of take mental notes to do better next time. Now, that that can be genuinely helpful, that kind of um just staying mindful of the lessons that you want to implement. And then when you see yourself mess up, uh, you know, and even in the moment, you can feel that reaction. Let's say you're getting agitated or angry when you really shouldn't be. Um, you can feel that and then you know remember your Boethius. But the um the trick here is that if you just read constellation of philosophy once and then move on and try to live out the rest of your life implementing whatever wisdom you gleaned, well, you're gonna forget about the book. And it'll be, you know, gradually uh it'll just slip your mind and you'll fall back into your old ways. So there needs to be this sort of constant um recollection, is a term from Christian spirituality that I think is really helpful here, where you either at the beginning or the end of a day, preferably both, you have this moment where you sort of take stock of where you're at mentally, emotionally. In the morning, you make resolutions about the way in which you want to live out your day. In the evening, you reflect on how you lived. Uh, you express perhaps gratitude or um a sense of satisfaction for things that went well. Uh, you you regret things that didn't go well and resolve to do better next time. And it's that kind of those sort of punctuated moments of recollection that allow you to take that pause from the flow of life that really kind of prepare you to act well in the midst of actually living. Um, so apart from practices like those, I don't think it's enough just to sort of say, now I'm gonna be good and happy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly. That tends not to work very well, just kind of stating, so my New Year's resolutions don't work out very well. It's like I'm gonna be fit this year. It's like, really? Hell so? And then it goes on from there. Um let's see if I can squeeze one more question here, which is when it comes to suffering and uh suffering well, especially kind of the way Boethius lays it out. What does Boethius say about confronting struggling times? So the Stoics say kind of grit through it and control yourself and continue on and pain in the Jim Bro kind of sense, um, no pain, no gain kind of way. But Boethius, as we've mentioned, is more than the absence of suffering. Um Boethius believes in a world ordered by love. So when it comes to how Boethius confronts suffering, and then how we as kind of Boethius followers confront suffering, what's the the mental difference there? What do you focus on as a Boethius follower versus a stoic philosopher?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you know, there there's this controversy we won't get into about how religious Boethius is and how religious the consolation of philosophy is. Now, toward the end of the book, the fifth book or fifth chapter, Lady Philosophy is sort of waxing eloquent about the various philosophical conundrums that they think they've they've solved. And she admonishes Boethius to practice virtue, to keep praying to God for help, um, because uh we we really can have communion with God, and God sits as a judge. Uh so there's this, it's not meant to terrify Boethius, but it's meant to be this reminder that there is this um, there's more than just our own kind of autonomous self-legislating that is um implicated in the moral life. There is this transcendent moral order that we are uh invited to, but also obligated to obey, to participate in. And it's that kind of orienting of one's uh moral life to this transcendent order that I think is um really uh an important aspect of Boethius's sort of extension of stoicism. It's there isn't it's not enough for Boethius simply to look inside, to recognize the um one's own self-interest in living virtuously, uh, and then try to re-reprogram your reactions in accordance with that self-interest. There's this bigger transcendent order that our moral lives are caught up in. And by the end of the constellation of philosophy, Boethius is really strongly reminding us of that and pointing us in that direction.
SPEAKER_01:Well, Dr. Ward, um, we've gone over time, but here are the last two questions that we ask all of our guests, starting with what books have had an impact on you?
SPEAKER_02:All right. So The Lord of the Rings by J. R. O. Tolkien shaped my imagination. And then um nonfiction books by C.S. Lewis shaped my intellect. And I would highlight here, in particular, the problem of pain and mere Christianity. So the reading these two authors in high school is what really set up my intellectual trajectory. I would also like to highlight here, obviously the constellation of philosophy, but Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics has probably been the single work of philosophy that has influenced me more than any others. So if you're interested in virtue and the sort of connection between virtue and our human nature, Aristotle, I think, is excellent. Um, I could say more, but for brevity's sake, I'll stop.
SPEAKER_01:And then our last question what advice do you have for teenagers?
SPEAKER_02:Learn how to read books. You're all literate, but more and more and more you won't have to read books. And maybe you already don't even have to. But the key to um a robust intellectual life is the ability to focus your attention long enough to read whole books.
SPEAKER_01:Well, Dr. Ward, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I've really enjoyed our conversation spanning everything that we've talked about from classical philosophy to medieval to Boethius and everything else in between. Thanks again.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you, Taylor. I enjoyed it.
