Marcus Aurelius vs Ludwig Wittgenstein on Presence
Marcus Aurelius and Ludwig Wittgenstein on presence, side by side — 5 passages against 5, and what the disagreement is actually about.
Marcus Aurelius and Ludwig Wittgenstein both have a great deal to say about presence — 5 passages and 5 respectively in thinkr's library — and they do not say the same thing. Setting them side by side is more useful than reading either alone, because the disagreement shows you what each position is actually giving up.
Marcus Aurelius on presence
Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher. His Meditations — private notes in Greek, never meant for publication — are the most beloved Stoic text in the modern world.
“Confine yourself to the present.”
“Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life.”
“Waste not the remnant of thy life in those imaginations touching other folk, whereby thou contributest not to the common weal.”
“Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. (Hays translation)”
“Many the lumps of frankincense on the same altar; one falls there early and another late, but it makes no difference.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein on presence
Austrian-born philosopher who twice changed the course of analytic philosophy — first with the Tractatus, then with the Philosophical Investigations.
“If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.”
“One of the most difficult of the philosopher's tasks is to find out where the shoe pinches.”
“Though a state of affairs that would contravene the laws of physics can be represented by us spatially, one that would contravene the laws of geometry cannot. (3.0321)”
“The difficulty in philosophy is to say no more than we know.”
“The aim of philosophy is to erect a wall at the point where language stops anyway.”
Where they part
Rome, 121–180 CE and Austria/UK, 1889–1951 are not the same world, and the difference is not only historical. Marcus Aurelius treats presence as something to be confine yourself to the present… — a matter of practice. Ludwig Wittgenstein approaches it from another side entirely. Neither is refuting the other; they are answering slightly different questions, and noticing which question you are actually asking is most of the work.