Plato vs Seneca on Action
Plato and Seneca on action, side by side — 4 passages against 4, and what the disagreement is actually about.
Plato and Seneca both have a great deal to say about action — 4 passages and 4 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.
Plato on action
Student of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle, founder of the Academy. His dialogues — the Republic, Symposium, Phaedo — set the terms of Western metaphysics.
“Necessity is the mother of invention.”
“The orators — and the despots — have the least power in their cities … since they do nothing that they wish to do, practically speaking, though they do whatever they think to be best.”
“Socrates: But suppose the words used are ‘just’ and ‘good’. Don’t we then go each his own way, and find ourselves in disagreement with ourselves as well as with each other? / Phaedrus: Undoubtedly.”
“There is no one who ever acts honestly in the administration of states, nor any helper who will save any one who maintains the cause of the just.”
Seneca on action
Roman statesman, dramatist, and Stoic philosopher. His Letters to Lucilius are a manual of practical ethics, written from a life lived close to power.
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
“While we are postponing, life speeds by.”
“I do not know whether I shall make progress; but I should prefer to lack success rather than to lack faith.”
“I forbid you to be cast down or depressed. It is not enough if you do not shrink from work; ask for it.”
Where they part
Athens, c. 428–348 BCE and Rome, c. 4 BCE–65 CE are not the same world, and the difference is not only historical. Plato treats action as something to be necessity is the mother of invention… — a matter of practice. Seneca 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.