JOHN VESPASIAN is the author of eighteen books, including “When everything fails, try this” (2009), “Rationality is the way to happiness” (2009), “The philosophy of builders” (2010), “The 10 principles of rational living” (2012), “Rational living, rational working” (2013), “Consistency: The key to permanent stress relief” (2014), “On becoming unbreakable” (2015), “Thriving in difficult times” (2016), “Causality: Aristotle’s life and ideas” (2024), “Foresight: Schopenhauer’s life and ideas” (2024), and "Constancy: Michel de Montaigne's life and ideas" (2025).
John Vespasian
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375 episodes
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Podcast Overview
JOHN VESPASIAN is the author of eighteen books, including “When everything fails, try this” (2009), “Rationality is the way to happiness” (2009), “The philosophy of builders” (2010), “The 10 principles of rational living” (2012), “Rational living, rational working” (2013), “Consistency: The key to permanent stress relief” (2014), “On becoming unbreakable” (2015), “Thriving in difficult times” (2016), “Causality: Aristotle’s life and ideas” (2024), “Foresight: Schopenhauer’s life and ideas” (2024), and "Constancy: Michel de Montaigne's life and ideas" (2025).
Language
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Publishing Since
2/20/2025
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57
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BetaFairBased on show quality, social media presence, reviews, charts, and more
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YouTube66
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Recent Episodes
June 12, 2026
Seneca on living in accordance with nature
<p>When taken out of context, philosophical statements can prove misleading; when poorly defined, they become dangerous; and the more frequently they are repeated, the more dangerous they become.</p><p><br></p><p>Seneca (4 BC-65 AD) did his fair share of repeating poorly defined statements. The fact that he eschewed debates spared him uncomfortable questions.</p><p><br></p><p>For instance, readers might have asked Seneca to clarify what he meant by “living in accordance with nature.” He loved to exhort everyone to “live in accordance with nature,” but his writings define “nature” rather fuzzily.</p><p><br></p><p>What did Seneca mean exactly? Was he talking about nature in the sense of trees, sheep, and mosquitoes? Or did he actually mean “human nature” as defined by Aristotle (384-322 BC)?</p><p><br></p><p>Seneca added to the mystification by using cryptic words. I am afraid that he only created confusion by advising people to “live in harmony with the logos.”</p><p><br></p><p>The word “logos” is employed by Seneca interchangeably with “cosmic order” and “universal reason.” Those don’t match exactly the Aristotelian tradition, which had only used the term “logos” to mean “intellect, reason or logic.”</p><p><br></p><p>The fact that Seneca had not built on Aristotle’s works should raise the alarm in the philosophically minded. To make it worse, Seneca performed his word transmutation implicitly, without ever stating his rationale for not following Aristotle.</p><p><br></p><p>In the Letters to Lucilius, Seneca provides us an indirect definition of “logos.” He recommends respecting the “rational order.” It reminds me of Cleanthes’ advice to align our actions with “cosmic reason.”</p><p><br></p><p>Cleanthes and Seneca dug up a deep trench between their concept of logos and the one used by Aristotle. The trench is as deep as an oceanic abyss and as wide as the Himalayas. If we fall into this trench, I fear that we might never see the sunshine again.</p><p><br></p><p>Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/senecas-on-living-in-accordance-with-nature/</p>
June 12, 2026
Feasibility of Seneca's advice to live in accordance with nature
<p>Like most ancient philosophers, Seneca used grandiloquent terms to spice up his writings. For instance, he employed the words “cosmos” and “natural order” to designate rather mundane events. Similarly, he used the word “logos” to mean “destiny.”</p><p><br></p><p>Respect for the natural order is Seneca’s favourite theme. He regarded nature as all-encompassing, not just as wilderness or greenery. When he spoke about nature, he was also referring to human actions. I mean professional, family, political and sports activities, just to name a few.</p><p><br></p><p>In his treatise “On the Happy Life,” Seneca outlines his recipe for happiness. As it was customary in ancient times, the treatise was addressed to a third person.</p><p><br></p><p>“On the Happy Life” is not written as a dialogue, the genre preferred by Plato (427-347 BC) for philosophical writing. The advantage of dialogues as a genre is that they make it easy to present and compare contrasting views.</p><p><br></p><p>I must, however, clarify that Plato’s works do not constitute “dialogues” as we define them today. When we watch movies or television shows, we expect their speech to sound vivid and spontaneous. If this is not the case, viewers will lose interest and categorise the movie or show as boring.</p><p><br></p><p>Plato did not bother to render his “dialogues” spontaneous and vivid. It never crossed his mind that readers might rate his characters as artificial and their speech as construed.</p><p><br></p><p>In fact, Plato had regarded artificiality and craftiness in literature as laudable. The objective of his “dialogues” was to get philosophical ideas across. He did not consider it relevant to create compelling characters and make their speech realistic.</p><p><br></p><p>Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/feasibility-of-senecas-advice-to-live-in-accordance-with-nature/</p>
June 12, 2026
Realism and Seneca's advice to live in accordance with nature
<p>It’s hypocritical to recommend poverty when one is wealthy, or to recommend passivity when one has displayed remarkable industriousness for decades. I am afraid that Seneca is to blame on both counts.</p><p><br></p><p>Nonetheless, he did not mean to deceive his readers. He was sincere in his feelings, convinced that he was dispensing good advice. Indeed, Seneca had good intentions, but got it terribly wrong.</p><p><br></p><p>I can only conclude that there is a fault in Seneca’s logic, even if he tried to teach a major lesson. Seneca made an error because, when confronted with an undesirable effect, he made a wild guess about its cause instead of investigating further.</p><p><br></p><p>After having jumped to conclusions too quickly, Seneca closed his eyes to the fact that his ideas were unworkable. I can only regret that these have been relayed uncritically by people who trusted Seneca’s prestige more than their own perceptions.</p><p><br></p><p>Seneca was elaborating on his central theme, that is, that we should live in accordance with nature. He rightly inferred that, by living in accordance with nature, we can attain better results and increase our happiness.</p><p><br></p><p>The problem is that, when Seneca tried to define “living in accordance with nature,” he got close to the Platonic dualism that splits human beings into body and soul.</p><p><br></p><p>Plato (427-347 BC) had built his metaphysics on the alleged preexistence of the soul, which joins the body at birth; and his epistemology on the alleged access of the soul to an intangible, eternal world of abstract ideas.</p><p><br></p><p>In general, Stoics do not subscribe to Platonic dualism, but when Seneca wrote that “we shouldn’t be slaves to our own body,” is he not accepting Platonic dualism? Is he not viewing the soul as the human essence, and the body as an auxiliary?</p><p><br></p><p>Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/realism-of-senecas-advice-to-live-in-accordance-with-nature/</p>
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