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La Consolation De La Philosophie (2008)

by Boethius(Favorite Author)

3.93 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

2253082473 (ISBN13: 9782253082477)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Livre de Poche

review 1: I have read that this was one of the most influential books of the Middle Ages. That certainly sheds some light on why the Middle Ages were the Dark Ages. Boethius knew the Greek classics. He refers to Homer, Euripides, Plato, Aristotle and others, and he uses Platonic ideas in his philosophical explication, but he sometimes gets them wrong and often applies them in ways that don't quite work. The biggest problem here is the overlay of Christianity on Greek philosophy. He tries to apply Platonic ideas to an analysis of Christian problems such as the existence of evil in a world ruled by a supremely good God, and the reconciliation of God's omniscience with man's free will. It just doesn't work. This kind of unproductive thinking left people spinning for hundreds of ... moreyears. It would not be right to blame Boethius for this, but he is certainly a man of his age, and this book shows how one of the smartest people of the age was going off in a direction that strikes me as being entirely misguided.I did like his discussion of the wheel of Fortune, and his attempt to reconcile free will and God's omniscience with a an explanation that sounds a lot like Schroedinger's cat, so the book is not entirely devoid of good ideas, but you need to open a lot of oysters to find a couple of small pearls.
review 2: 'And in this matter grief has not so blunted my powers that I should complain of wicked men making impious attacks upon virtue: but at this I do wonder, that they should hope to succeed. Evil desires are, it may be, due to our natural failings, but that the conceptions of any wicked mind should prevail against innocence while God watches over us, seems to me unnatural. Wherefore not without cause has one of your own followers asked, " If God is, whence come evil things? If He is not, whence come good?"--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Prose II  Philosophy shews how fortune may plead her justification'Now would I argue with you by these few words which Fortune herself might use: and do you consider whether her demands are fair "Why, O man," she might say, "do you daily accuse me with your complainings? What injustice have I wrought upon you? Of what good things have I robbed you? Choose your judge whom you will, and before him strive with me for the right to hold your wealth and honours. If you can prove that any one of these does truly belong to any mortal man, readily will I grant that these you seek to regain were yours. When nature brought you forth from your mother's womb, I received you in my arms naked and bare of all things; I cherished you with my gifts, and I brought you up all too kindly with my favouring care, wherefore now you cannot bear with me, and I surrounded you with glory and all the abundance that was mine to give. Now it pleases me to withdraw my hand: be thankful, as though you had lived upon my loans. You have no just cause of complaint, as though you had really lost what was once your own. Why do you rail against me? I have wrought no violence towards you. Wealth, honours, and all such are within my rights. They are my handmaids; they know their mistress; they come with me and go when I depart. Boldly will I say that if these, of whose loss you complain, were ever yours, you would never have lost them at all. Am I alone to be stayed from using my rightful power? The heavens may grant bright sunlit days, and hide the same beneath the shade of night. The year may deck the earth's countenance with flowers and fruits, and again wrap it with chilling clouds. The sea may charm with its smoothed surface, but no less justly it may soon bristle in storms with rough waves. Is the insatiate discontent of man to bind me to a constancy which belongs not to my ways? Herein lies my very strength; this is my unchanging sport. I turn my wheel that spins its circle fairly; I delight to make the lowest turn to the top, the highest to the bottom. Come you to the top if you will, but on this condition, that you think it no unfairness to sink when the rule of my game demands it. Do you not know my ways? Have you not heard how Croesus, king of Lydia, who filled even Cyrus with fear but a little earlier, was miserably put upon a pyre of burning faggots, but was saved by rain sent down from heaven? Have you forgotten how Paulus shed tears of respect for the miseries of his captive, King Perses?For what else is the crying and the weeping in tragedies but for the happiness of kings overturned by the random blow of fortune? Have you never learnt in your youth the ancient allegory that in the threshold of Jove's hall there stand two vessels, one full of evil, and one of good? What if you have received more richly of the good? What if I have not ever withheld myself from you? What if my changing nature is itself a reason that you should hope for better things? In any way, let not your spirit eat itself away: you are set in the sphere that is common to all, let your desire therefore be to live with your own lot of life, a subject of the kingdom of the world.WOW THANK YOU! less

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