The view from above and Stoic metaphysics
Donald Robertson
May 8, 2018 DOI: 10.4324/9780429482748-13 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that meditating on an expansive, cosmic vision of the world was a common contemplative exercise in ancient philosophy, especially among the Pythagoreans and Stoics, and that this practice may stem from a philosophical theology of a timeless, omniscient, everywhere-present God. Suggests that contemplating this cosmic perspective highlights the causal network of determinism. |
Abstract
Many of the central metaphysical principles of ancient philosophy seem to converge within a single contemplative exercise, which modern psychotherapists might describe as constituting a specific “visualization technique”. The practice of meditating upon an expansive vision of the world appears in Stoicism but was certainly common to many different schools of ancient philosophy. The cosmic perspective perhaps comes from a more sophisticated and philosophical theology, in which God is everywhere and sees everything in one grand unified vision, often conceived as encompassing past, present, and future in a single timeless and omniscient perception. The ancient Pythagoreans appear to have been the sect of philosophers who most explicitly treated cosmology as a form of meditation, though the Stoics probably saw themselves as having assimilated this, and other, aspects of their contemplative practice. One implication of contemplating the cosmic perspective is that it highlights the causal network of determinism.