Boethius The Consolation of Philosophy

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius

(c. 480–524 AD)

Bio• Roman Senator, consul and philosopher• Served Ostrogothic* King Theodoric the Great…

• …until said king had Boethius imprisoned and executed on charges of conspiracy.

• Marries his foster-father's daughter, Rusticiana; • Their sons became consuls• Composed The Consolation of Philosophy whilst in prison• Schooled in the Classics and translated much of Aristotle

into Latin. • Influenced by Plato, Aristotle and Augustine

• Wrote on Maths and Music

The Consolation of Philosophy: Overview• Five books, comprised of prose and poetry segments. • Mostly a dialogue between Lady Philosophy and Boethius.

• Much like in Plato’s dialogues, Boethius tends to just agree a lot!

• Themes:• Fortune• Power• Goodness• Happiness• Justice• Free will • Providence vs Fate• God’s foreknowledge

Lady Philosophy:• A woman’s form • Eyes shine with light surpassing men’s• Full of years, yet strength intact.• Both “varying stature” – seems to be of

ordinary height, yet also reach the heavens• Clothes bear the symbols Π and Θ

• “The hands of rough men had torn this garment and snatched such morsels as they could”

Book 1 – Boethius’ Lament• Lady Philosophy appears – drives away Muses of Poetry• Promises to help – and to give him “medicine.”• Problem of evil mentioned• Boethius continues to feel sorry for himself.• Lady Philosophy tells him off• Asks, “do you think that this world is subject to random chance, or do you

believe that it is governed by some rational principle?”

Book 2- The Nature of Fortune• Lady Philosophy demonstrates that Fortune is subject to change• Really, Boethius has been very fortunate in the past (so cheer up!)

• “One thing is certain, fixed by eternal law: nothing that is born can last.”• “No one is so completely happy that he does not have to endure some loss. Anxiety is the

necessary condition of human happiness since happiness is never completely achieved and never permanently kept.”

• Happiness is within.

• An analysis of all the things people strive for, and why they’re worthless • You own nothing.• Possessing money makes you miserable – since you are worried about losing it. Spending it

makes you happy but then you don’t have it

• “When Fortune seems kind, and seems to promise happiness, she lies. On the other hand, when she shows herself unstable and changeable, she is truthful. Good fortune deceives, adverse fortune teaches.”

Book 3 – True happiness• “The good is defined as that which, once it is attained, relieves man of all further desires.”

• cf Plato in The Republic, where the Form of the Good is “the end of all endeavour- the object on which every heart is set.”

• The rich man still needs to eat – so possessions don’t change our nature. • “If riches cannot eliminate need, but on the contrary create new demands, what makes you suppose

that they can provide satisfaction?”

• “Without a standard of perfection we cannot judge anything to be imperfect” – thus there is a highest, original good.

• “The good is the cause and sum of all that is sought for”.• God is One and the goal to which all things tend. • God is happiness, unity and being. • He rules the universe by His goodness.

Book 4 – Doubts and the problem of evil. Fate and Providence• Evil people seem to get away with it• They won’t forever! – God brings all to order

• Evil doers are actually unhappy• “To give oneself to evil is to lose one’s human nature” – since evil is not a

thing, but a lack, we lose our existence when we are evil• Providence = government according to the Divine Mind – God’s entire plan.

It is simple. • Fate = “sets particular things in motion”• “Providence is the unfolding of temporal events as this is present to the vision of the

divine mind; but this same unfolding of events as it is worked out in time is called Fate.”

Book 5 – Free Will and God’s foreknowledge

• Chance = coincidence. Lady Philosophy uses the example of a farmer wishing to cultivate land, who finds buried treasure• “There seems to be a hopeless conflict between divine foreknowledge

of all things and freedom of the human will.”• However, this is not the case:• “Even though the events are foreseen because they will happen, they do not

happen because they are foreseen.” In other words, God’s foreknowledge is not the efficient cause of a thing happening.

Book 5 cont. - Necessity• Necessity does not always rely upon a thing but in conditions. • For example, if a person, P is sitting on a chair, C, and I say, “P is on C” then my

statement is necessarily true if P is on C. Similarly, if my statement “P is on C” is true, it is necessary that P is on C.

• Again, “This font is blue” is necessarily true if it is blue, and if the statement is true, it follows, necessarily, that the font is blue, not some other colour.• Lady Philosophy draws a distinction between • simple necessity – i.e. things which are simply/logically necessary (such as

tautologies) – “The Second World War was preceded by the First”• “conditional necessity” – things which become necessary on certain

conditions. “The First World War preceded the Second”

Book 5 cont. – God’s perception of time• “God lives in the eternal present, His knowledge transcends all movement of

time and abides in the simplicity of its immediate present.”• This is a point CS also makes, some centuries later. It is, simply, that, as God is eternal

and atemporal, all times are present to Him. We do not think that, because we see a chap walking down the street that our observation compels him to do so. In the same way, God seeing our activities from the perspective of eternity does not affect our free will. “No necessity forces the man who is voluntarily walking to move forward; but as long as he is walking, he is necessarily moving forward.”

• “God sees as present those future things which result from free will. Theregfore from the standpoint of divine knowledge these things are necessary because of the condition of their being known by God, but, considered only in themselves, they lose nothing of the absolute freedom of their own natures.”

• The conclusion, then, is that, “all things will happen which God knows will happen; but some of them happen as a result of free will.”

Book 5 – Boethius consoled.• Although there isn’t any epilogue, the last paragraph of Book 5 essentially

concludes by saying that, from this concept of human freedom, it follows that, “laws are just since they provide rewards and punishments to human wills which are not controlled by necessity. God looks down from above, knowing all thins, and the eternal present of his vision concurs with the future character of our actions, distributing rewards to the good and punishments to the evil.”• “Our hopes and prayers are not directed to God in vain” then, as God will right all

wrongs and all our “actions are done in the sight of a Judge who sees all things.” (the final sentence) – which is presumably meant to comfort Boethius and contrast to the human judge who has falsely accused him and imprisoned him. • The final message, then, is as it was in the beginning – chill out, God’s got it

sorted. Or, as some put it…

(…whether that comforted him as he was being executed, I don’t know)