Seneca: Grief & Pleasure
One argument Seneca makes in Letter 99 involves an analogy with medical remedies and different injuries; some medical remedies don’t apply to certain injuries, and, he claims, pleasure is not a proper remedy for grief: “But which is the more incredible or inhuman – to feel no grief at the loss of one's friend, or to go a-hawking after pleasure in the midst of grief?”
My criticism of Seneca’s argument is that his remedy analogy is a rather weak one on its own, and other than that, Seneca does not really support his assertion that pleasure is not a good remedy for grief. Personally, at the next death in my family, I don’t plan to go on a drug-fueled bender or blow all my money on a round trip to the tropics, but his argument seems poorly supported, even if I agree with his ultimate stance.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the use of analogies in philosophy, and in fact, they can be extremely useful for illustrating a concept by relating it to another concept of which the audience already has a better understanding. Perry’s ‘river’ analogy when discussing the possibility of an unbroken flow of transient souls in each body is an excellent metaphor, for example.
Remedies for physical ills, however, are very different from remedies for psychological ills. They have, since Seneca’s time, been shown to have a reciprocal relationship due to stress and cortisol levels and other hormonal fluctuations which vary with emotional state. However, though a stomachache ache may stress you or, vice versa, though stress may make your gut churn, the connection does not extend to remedies.
It is likely that there is empirical data supporting pleasure alleviating the effects of grief. Furthermore, because of this reciprocal relationship, even physical pleasure can alleviate stress such as that caused by grief. Thus, whether you see it as disrespectful or not, there is certainly something to be said, after all, for going “a-hawking after pleasure in the midst of grief.”
My criticism of Seneca’s argument is that his remedy analogy is a rather weak one on its own, and other than that, Seneca does not really support his assertion that pleasure is not a good remedy for grief. Personally, at the next death in my family, I don’t plan to go on a drug-fueled bender or blow all my money on a round trip to the tropics, but his argument seems poorly supported, even if I agree with his ultimate stance.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the use of analogies in philosophy, and in fact, they can be extremely useful for illustrating a concept by relating it to another concept of which the audience already has a better understanding. Perry’s ‘river’ analogy when discussing the possibility of an unbroken flow of transient souls in each body is an excellent metaphor, for example.
Remedies for physical ills, however, are very different from remedies for psychological ills. They have, since Seneca’s time, been shown to have a reciprocal relationship due to stress and cortisol levels and other hormonal fluctuations which vary with emotional state. However, though a stomachache ache may stress you or, vice versa, though stress may make your gut churn, the connection does not extend to remedies.
It is likely that there is empirical data supporting pleasure alleviating the effects of grief. Furthermore, because of this reciprocal relationship, even physical pleasure can alleviate stress such as that caused by grief. Thus, whether you see it as disrespectful or not, there is certainly something to be said, after all, for going “a-hawking after pleasure in the midst of grief.”
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