Key Arguments

• He notes that liberal studies themselves do not even aim at moral improvement: 'The question has sometimes been posed whether these liberal studies make a man a better person. But in fact they do not aspire to any knowledge of how to do this, let alone claim to do it.'
• He lists the concerns of literary scholarship—language, history, poetry—and asks which of these actually leads to virtue: 'Literary scholarship concerns itself with research into language, or history if a rather broader field is preferred, or, extending its range to the very limit, poetry. Which of these paves the way to virtue?'
• He ridicules grammatical minutiae and mythological erudition as morally inert: 'Attentiveness to words, analysis of syllables, accounts of myths, laying down the principles of prosody? What is there in all this that dispels fear, roots out desire or reins in passion?'
• He extends the critique to music and geometry: 'Or let us take a look at music, at geometry; you will not find anything in them which tells us not to be afraid of this or desire that – and if anyone lacks this kind of knowledge all his other knowledge is valueless to him.'
• He insists that unless a teacher is actually teaching virtue, he cannot even impart it incidentally: 'The question is whether or not that sort of scholar is teaching virtue. For if he is not, he will not even be imparting it incidentally. If he is teaching it he is a philosopher.'
• He argues that the very diversity and lack of unity in liberal disciplines shows they are not a single moral teaching: 'If you really want to know how far these persons are from the position of being moral teachers, observe the absence of connexion between all the things they study; if they were teaching one and the same thing a connexion would be evident.'

Source Quotes

All right to have studied that sort of thing once, but not to be studying them now. The question has sometimes been posed whether these liberal studies make a man a better person. But in fact they do not aspire to any knowledge of how to do this, let alone claim to do it. Literary scholarship concerns itself with research into language, or history if a rather broader field is preferred, or, extending its range to the very limit, poetry.

But in fact they do not aspire to any knowledge of how to do this, let alone claim to do it. Literary scholarship concerns itself with research into language, or history if a rather broader field is preferred, or, extending its range to the very limit, poetry. Which of these paves the way to virtue?

Attentiveness to words, analysis of syllables, accounts of myths, laying down the principles of prosody? What is there in all this that dispels fear, roots out desire or reins in passion? Or let us take a look at music, at geometry; you will not find anything in them which tells us not to be afraid of this or desire that – and if anyone lacks this kind of knowledge all his other knowledge is valueless to him.

What is there in all this that dispels fear, roots out desire or reins in passion? Or let us take a look at music, at geometry; you will not find anything in them which tells us not to be afraid of this or desire that – and if anyone lacks this kind of knowledge all his other knowledge is valueless to him. The question is whether or not that sort of scholar is teaching virtue.

For if he is not, he will not even be imparting it incidentally. If he is teaching it he is a philosopher. If you really want to know how far these persons are from the position of being moral teachers, observe the absence of connexion between all the things they study; if they were teaching one and the same thing a connexion would be evident.

If he is teaching it he is a philosopher. If you really want to know how far these persons are from the position of being moral teachers, observe the absence of connexion between all the things they study; if they were teaching one and the same thing a connexion would be evident. Unless perhaps they manage to persuade you that Homer was actually a philosopher – though they refute their case by means of the very passages which lead them to infer it.

Key Concepts

• these liberal studies make a man a better person. But in fact they do not aspire to any knowledge of how to do this, let alone claim to do it.
• Literary scholarship concerns itself with research into language, or history if a rather broader field is preferred, or, extending its range to the very limit, poetry.
• What is there in all this that dispels fear, roots out desire or reins in passion?
• you will not find anything in them which tells us not to be afraid of this or desire that – and if anyone lacks this kind of knowledge all his other knowledge is valueless to him.
• If he is teaching it he is a philosopher.
• observe the absence of connexion between all the things they study; if they were teaching one and the same thing a connexion would be evident.

Context

Early in Letter LXXXVIII, Seneca answers the specific question whether liberal studies improve character, systematically denying that these disciplines either aim at or achieve moral reform.