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Tota ante oculos sortis humanae condicio ponatur: exercice moral et maîtrise des représentations mentales chez Sénèque
2006-08-22T07:22:24Z
Abstract
According to a belief common to various ancient philosophies, Seneca believes that the teaching of morality is not sufficient to achieve wisdom, but there must be a training in meditatio, whose principles are set out at the beginning of his Epistle 16. This meditatio consists of daily exercises of various kinds, most often in the form of a speech addressed to oneself, either silently or aloud, or even in writing, but devoid of any intention of publishing it. One of the purposes of this discourse is to learn to give correct mental representations, conforming to the ethical doctrine; thus, when these representations are false and therefore become creators of passions, the speech exercise is aimed at correcting them by means of a series of rhetorical processes.