{"id":2446,"date":"2013-03-14T20:13:45","date_gmt":"2013-03-14T20:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/?p=2446"},"modified":"2019-08-25T04:07:24","modified_gmt":"2019-08-25T04:07:24","slug":"book-cicero-offices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2013\/03\/14\/book-cicero-offices\/","title":{"rendered":"Book: Cicero – Offices"},"content":{"rendered":"

A summary of intent of practicality in Bk.I[I]<\/sup><\/a>: (This approach is justified by the book’s opening passages; written to his son to guide him on his education, which is an achievement of life, and not merely its underlying theory).<\/p>\n

Duty, which defines what we must do with our lives, can be reduced into its essential elements: profit and honesty, and their interaction. Everything\u00a0that we do, we do because it is of benefit and because it is honest.\u00a0Honesty is difficult to define purely, and any attempt can only be as a direction. For instance, if we look at what characterizes us as human beings to ourselves, we include our rationality, our sense of beauty, and our sense of honesty, which is some desire for a beautiful regularity to be kept pure in ourselves and (if we could choose it) in all else too (IV).<\/p>\n

Although a definition of honesty is beyond capture, there are four “heads” by which, in an overlapping manner, honesty is manifested: (1) Prudence, which is the acquisition of truth; an inherently virtuous desire and activity, although it sometimes needs to be reminded that it is not an end unto itself, and taken to an extreme as a behavior it can lead to an\u00a0abstinence\u00a0from life. (2) Justice is our obligations to others…., by which one avoids harm to others, even if by passivity. This last is true since we do not exist only unto ourselves; a higher perspective sees that we are part of Nature. A useful rule of thumb is such that if there is doubt whether an action is honest or not, one should avoid it, since honesty generally shows itself, and doubt proves a preexisting suspicion (IX).<\/p>\n

{XXI-XXVI don’t want Noting; they relate too specifically to Statecraft and War}<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

[I]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0“De Officiis<\/strong> is a treatise by Marcus Tullius Cicero<\/strong> divided into three books, in which Cicero expounds his conception of the best way to live, behave, and observe moral obligations. The work discusses what is <\/em>honorable, what is to one’s advantage, and what to do when the <\/em>honorable and private gain apparently conflict.” For further details see\u00a0https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/De_Officiis<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A summary of intent of practicality in Bk.I[I]: (This approach is justified by the book’s opening passages; written to his son to guide him on his education, which is an achievement of life, and not merely its underlying theory). Duty, which defines what we must do with our lives, can be reduced into its essential […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[159,303,198,242,20],"tags":[],"metadata":[171],"class_list":["post-2446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-ancientgreek","category-book-review","category-evernote-entries","category-philosophy","metadata-editors-footnotes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1487,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2017\/05\/17\/vayechi\/","url_meta":{"origin":2446,"position":0},"title":"Vayechi","author":"Pala","date":"May 17, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"{Part 1 - 09\/01\/2017} How do we move ourselves forward in time? The Haftorah echoes David preparing for death (as does Yaakov in the parashah), instructing his son (and Yaakov does this in the blessing, and in the meaning of Vayechi Yaakov). There are many difficulties. We are drowned by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/kisspng-black-and-white-monochrome-grey-divider-5ab8b367372326.6136383115220539912259-300x15.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":179,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/10\/01\/thinking-about-unhappy-consciousness-and-gods-dogs\/","url_meta":{"origin":2446,"position":1},"title":"Thinking About Unhappy Consciousness (and God’s Dogs)","author":"Pala","date":"October 1, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"When I first read Hegel on \"the unhappy consciousness\", I struggled to make sense of it; a strange conversation gave it new meaning. The epiphany came about as we started talking about why dogs are so happy; why a dog's life can be said to be perfect, and enviable too!\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4019,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/09\/08\/reading-hegel-on-sense-certainty\/","url_meta":{"origin":2446,"position":2},"title":"Reading Hegel on “Sense-Certainty”","author":"Pala","date":"September 8, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: In September 2014, Shai publishes his fifth\u00a0blog\u00a0entitled \u201cM-III\u201d (short for Meantime-III) and subtitled \u201cThe Traveller is the Journey\u201d (not to be confused with a later blog entitled \u201cThe Traveller is the Journey\u201d, published in 2015). 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These sephirotic powers are merely implicit and potential in the highest realm of infinity that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/kisspng-black-and-white-monochrome-grey-divider-5ab8b367372326.6136383115220539912259-300x15.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":118,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/10\/06\/taylor-reading-hegel-on-master-and-slave\/","url_meta":{"origin":2446,"position":5},"title":"Taylor Reading Hegel on “Master and Slave”","author":"Pala","date":"October 6, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Having already written about Hegel's master\/slave dialectic, I read and describe Charles Taylor's interpretation of this section. 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