Getting Inside the Mind of Marcus Aurelius: A Conversation with Translator Robin Waterfield
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- čas přidán 22. 07. 2024
- In this conversation, Robin Waterfield discusses his new translation of Marcus Aurelius, with David Fideler of Stoic Insights: MEDITATIONS: THE ANNOTATED EDITION.
Robin also discusses what he discovered when he got inside the mind of Marcus Aurelius.
MEDITATIONS: THE ANNOTATED EDITION, translated by Robin Waterfiedl
www.amazon.com/Meditations-An...
ROBIN WATERFIELD
robinwaterfield.com/
DAVID FIDELER
www.davidfideler.com/
BREAKFAST WITH SENECA: A STOIC GUIDE TO THE ART OF LIVING by David Fideler
www.stoicinsights.com/breakfa...
Free Mini-Course: 8 CORE IDEAS OF STOICISM
www.stoicinsights.com/8-core-...
STOIC INSIGHTS website
www.stoicinsights.com/
stoicism is not about changing the world but seeing the intelligence and perfection in it and accepting everything that comes about by that intelligence
really enjoyed breakfast with seneca! i now am going back to read senecas letters! hope we get more content on here! also i have robins book on meditations and look forward to that as well!
Nice interview but I think the interviewer should ask more questions seeing people may be tuning in specifically just for waterfield
To hear Marcus Aurelius loved mankind as a collective like myself but had issues liking all individual humans makes me feel better. Its also my view 😅 Ive always enjoyed my own company for that reason, i am never lonely, but am socialable within reason lol. I need alone time though, am like a cat and Staffordshire bull terrier in spirit. Solitary but like running with the pack. I think us humans are walking contradictions 😅😁👍
Similar to the owl, Robin swooped down and captured my imagination. A very good interview, David; the questions were evenly placed, allowing for a gentle flow that synonymously joined Waterfield with a very large cistern of wisdom. In fact, I obtained a copy of his Meditations before the end of the video with the goal of consuming its finger licking delicious footnotes. Now on that note, in particular as to what sprung into vibration at 25:09, we clearly see Robin singing a very lucid song:
"I don't think Marcus believed entirely in perfect equality... as emperor he believed in what the ancient Greeks used to call a GEOMETRICAL EQUALITY."
This is food for thought! But he doesn't really expound on it. Yes, he goes on to say what it's not, then nudges on the notion of it somehow giving everybody their due, and finishes up with a traditional gobble eater; namely, the chain of life, but he doesn't really give us the worm of geometrical equality.
In his footnotes on the Meditation the word 'meritocratic' is placed at the end of the paragraph as an explanation, and then he renders its operation as 'that everything gets what it is perceived to deserve or need', which simply rephrases the definition of Justice stated in the beginning of the paragraph.
It's as though he swirled us around without even pausing to perch on the branch. Perhaps you could encourage him to elucidate on this concept. It's obviously not a frivolous one. In the meantime would you care to explain why this equitable state of mind is so paramount to Marcus's paradigm of the ideal world? Could you also compare and contrast 'Geometrical Equality' with similar yet different concepts that are in common use in the 21st century?
The idea of geometrical equality was really first defined by Plato in the REPUBLIC where he uses the tuning of a musical scale as the model for justice in the soul and in society where "each part receives its due" and all the parts are brought into harmony with one another.
The thing that is interesting about musical harmony is that it exists in nature: it isn't something imposed but something that is discovered.
Robin seems to be implying that Marcus's views were meritocratic, which relates to modern debates about "equality" versus "equity" and to "equality of opportunity" versus "equality of outcome." It would be interesting to discuss this further with him. - David Fideler
Why doesn't Marcus Aurelius ever mention Aristotle?