HKB
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Often appears with: the nature and attributes of God · reason and the intellect · justice as a virtue · unity of reason · supreme reason · stoic physics · providence and divine governance · nature and destiny · matter, motion, and cause · logic, method, and demonstration · light metaphor · interpersonal duty
Usually: argument (2) · reverence (2) · reflection (1) · verse (1) · curiosity (1) · detachment (1) · exhortation (1) · wonder (1)
“The beginning of philosophy, at least with those who lay hold of it as they ought and enter by the door,[1] is the consciousness of their own feebleness and incapacity in respect of necessary things.” Epictetus (trans. T. W. Rolleston), The Teaching of Epictetus · precept
“Matter is eternal. It is God who gives form to matter, but he is not said to have created matter.” Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius · insight
A philosophical exposition explains Stoic physics as knowledge of universal nature and providence: reason governs eternal matter, the cosmos is ordered, and all change maintains the whole.
a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of all the elements [himself]? for it is according to nature; and nothing is evil that is according to nature.” The Physic of Antoninus is the knowledge of the Nature of the Universe, of its government, and of the relation of man’s nature to both. He names the universe (VI. 1), “the universal substance,” and he adds that “reason” governs the universe. He a…
Marcus Aurelius portrays nature’s distribution as orderly, says nothing in the universe can happen “against nature,” compares universal understanding to light, and teaches humans to teach or bear with one another.
if this cannot be done.--Take thy departure then from life contentedly, just as he dies who is in full activity, and well pleased too with the things which are obstacles. 48. Remember that the ruling faculty is invincible, when self-collected it is satisfied with itself, if it does nothing which it does not choose to do, even if it resist from mere obstinacy. What then will it be when it forms a judgment about anyth…
It continues that contradictory propositions cannot be held once recognized, that necessary truths of reason should apply to all rational beings, and that therefore unity of reason supports reconciling religion with reason.
when we have reflected, and discovered the inconsistency, we cannot retain both. We cannot believe two contradictory propositions knowing them to be such. It would be irrational to do so. Again, we cannot conceive it possible, that what by the same power of intuition we see to be universally and necessarily true should appear otherwise to any other rational being. We cannot, for example, but consider the proposition…
Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus praises Zeus as the lawful ruler of nature, claims the universe obeys divine reason, and contrasts human wrongdoing with divine ordering of all things.
THE BEGINNING OF PHILOSOPHY. 1. Wouldst thou be good, then first believe that thou art evil. 2. The beginning of philosophy, at least with those who lay hold of it as they ought and enter by the door,[1] is the consciousness of their own feebleness and incapacity in respect of necessary things. 3. For we come into the world having by nature no idea of a right-angled triangle, or a quarter-tone, or a semi-tone, but…