Suggested Readings

A few recommendations by Figs in Winter for your reading pleasure

From “The garden in the library: Cicero and the stuff of life,” ABC News.

The garden in the library: Cicero and the stuff of life. We find the Roman statesman and scholar, Marcus Tullius Cicero, stylus in hand on a late May afternoon: ageing, a little bored, and achingly aware of his own weakness. Robbed of his legal and senatorial potency by Caesar (nicknamed 'the All-Powerful' by Cicero), he withdrew to his estates, and tried to keep busy. Like his earlier exile to Greece, the lawyer bent his wiry body to books: to philosophy, moral, political and metaphysical. He formed new friendships in this spirit, amongst them the illustrious, encyclopaedic Marcus Terentius Varro. 'Like the learned men of old,' he wrote to Varro, 'we must serve the state in our libraries, if we cannot in Senate House and Forums, and pursue our researches into custom and law.' Cicero was trying to meet with Varro in person, rather than on paper. Both had various estates around Italy, and both were wealthy enough to put on a good meal, bath and rub-down. But to no avail. The weeks went by and still no friendly conversation, no lunch, no walk by the orchards. Should Varro come to Cicero, or vice versa? It didn't matter, wrote the statesman. 'If you have a garden in your library,' wrote Cicero to his new friend, 'we will want for nothing.' … (ABC News)

The attack of Zombie Science. When we think about how science is distorted, we usually think about concepts that have ample currency in public discourse, such as pseudoscience and junk science. Practices like astrology and homeopathy come wrapped in scientific concepts and jargon that can’t meet the methodological requirements of actual sciences. During the COVID-19 pandemic, pseudoscience has had a field day. Bleach, anyone? Bear bile? Yet the pandemic has brought a newer, more subtle form of distortion to light. To the philosophy of science, we humbly submit a new concept: “zombie science.” We think of zombie science as mindless science. It goes through the motions of scientific research without a real research question to answer, it follows all the correct methodology, but it doesn’t aspire to contribute to advance knowledge in the field. Practically all the information about hydroxychloroquine during the pandemic falls into that category, including not just the living dead found in preprint repositories, but also papers published in journals that ought to have been caught by a more discerning eye. Journals, after all, invest their reputation in every piece they choose to publish. And every investment in useless science is a net loss. … (Nautilus)

Marcus Aurelius vs Diogenes, comparing the Stoics and the Cynics. At first glance, the philosophies of Stoicism and Cynicism appear to be two sides of the same coin. Both philosophies are eminently practical, designed as day-to-day practices more than grand ideals, focusing on achieving a state of ‘eudaimonia’ (literally, ‘good spirit’), a state of flourishing and freedom from worry, through self-discipline, sacrifice, and internal reflection. These similarities were also noted by contemporary figures, for example in Juvenal’s Satires (number 13) he jests that the only difference between the Stoics and the Cynics is that the former wear shirts! I suppose this isn’t surprising given that they share a common history, both stemming ultimately from the teachings of Socrates. In fact, one of the earliest and most prominent Cynic philosophers, Diogenes of Sinope, went on to mentor Crates of Thebes, who in turn mentored Zeno of Citium, widely considered the founder of Stoicism. … (Classical Wisdom)

The 10 Most Surprising Facts about Marcus Aurelius. I have spent a lot of time researching Marcus Aurelius. I first read his notes about applying Stoic philosophy to daily life, the Meditations, one of the most cherished philosophical and self-help classics of all time, over 25 years ago. Since then, I’ve written six books on Stoicism — three in a row have been about the life of Marcus Aurelius! The first was a self-help book, based on vignettes from his life, called How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, the most recent was a prose biography of him for Yale University Press, and between them came a graphic novel called Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, from which the illustrations in this article are borrowed. Here are some of the most interesting things I learned during my research. … (Stoicism by Don Robertson)

How philosophy changed the world. “The Father of Humanism,” Francesco Petrarca, was the key figure behind this cultural movement. Living in the century before the Florentine Renaissance, the Italian scholar Petrarch (1304–74), as he is now called, believed he was living in a time of cultural collapse. Unfortunately, Petrarch also experienced the “Black Death,” a pandemic that killed 60 percent of the population in Florence, including his son and many friends. The plague affected him deeply, as evidenced by his reflections in his letters. A classical scholar, Petrarch loved reading the Latin works of Cicero, Seneca, and Virgil. But his deep interest in the past led him to recognize the incredible cultural decline that had occurred over the thousand years separating ancient Rome from his own time. In response, Petrarch developed the concept of “the Dark Ages” to explain this decline. But he hoped that the light of ancient learning and culture would be rekindled in the future. … (Living Ideas Journal)