A widespread caricature of the Stoic idea of wisdom look something like: "Don't waste time on reading, thinking and discussing. Just go out and do the right thing". That's very far from Seneca's conception of wisdom - according to which wisdom requires extensive studies of the laws of life.
"Wisdom is a great and extensive thing; it needs space; one must learn about matters divine and human, about the past and future, about transient and eternal matters, about time"
- Seneca, Letters 88.33
"the condition of the mind will not be in its best state unless it has understood the laws of life in its entirety"
- Seneca, Letters 95.57
Sadly, what I describe as a caricature here is exactly the position of Marcus Aurelius in Meditations 10.16:
ReplyDelete"No more of all this talk about what a good man should be, but simply be one!"