Philosophy is often expected to offer consolation inappropriately. It is supposed to soothe us, to make death irrelevant, to make wrongs transient, to transform sorrow into enlightenment, and to make failure profitable. If we seek consolation in such a way, we will be disappointed. The deepest form of consolation offered by philosophy is not soothing, but clarifying. Philosophy cannot assure us that the world is kind, but philosophy can, at most, guarantee to tell us exactly what is wrong, what part we play in wrongdoing, and what sort of person can act even when there is wrongdoing. As such, the comforts offered by philosophy are diagnostics, not adornments. They help us discern whether our suffering comes from misconception or from actual loss, thus keeping us from making our suffering unbearable through illusion.
This description seems rather stern, but it explains why philosophy recurs in times of crisis. The ethics of the Hellenistic period, according to Martha Nussbaum, portrays philosophy not as an abstract intellectual exercise but as a profession geared towards solving issues relating to fear, anger, lust, and weakness.¹ This is a very insightful comparison. While it may sound kinder to console the patient without diagnosing the disease he suffers from, the patient’s needs can only be effectively met after the illness is identified and analyzed.
A clear exposition of this first form of consolation can be found in the Stoics, particularly the restoration of autonomy via discernment. In his Enchiridion, for instance, Epictetus begins with an explanation of the difference between those things under our control and those things beyond our control. Status, wealth, sickness, and political success are all unreliable, whereas judgment, will, and assent belong to the realm of freedom.² This is not meant to suggest that loss is trivial because the statement goes further and claims that much of our suffering is caused by the way we treat unreliable things as if they are reliable, then feel betrayed once they act in accordance with their unreliable nature.
This is important because emotions often contain evaluative elements. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the passions of the Stoics included the act of assenting to the value-judgments: fear implies a bad thing about the future while distress implies a bad thing about the present situation.³ In case such a judgment turns out to be wrong, then the resulting pain will be partly eliminable. A rejected college applicant, an embarrassed politician, or a forsaken lover will suffer not only pain but also a feeling of total loss: "Now I am nothing." It is not necessary for philosophy to disavow the experience of pain to challenge the latter. Rather, philosophy may argue that something valuable has been lost but not everything constituting the self.
There is another comfort for Epicurus: Philosophy helps one to overcome his fear of death by analyzing whether the thing that is feared exists. As many are aware of, he once stated that death is nothing to us because existence of good or evil presupposes consciousness while death means unconsciousness.⁴ This reasoning might be called clever, but it actually deals with the fear people experience before the thing actually happens, since, according to Epicurus, people will never actually go through what they fear, because at the moment of their death, they cease being individuals who can think. When we dread death, we dread becoming part of it.
An argument for philosophical consolation, on the other hand, cannot go so far as to idealize Epicurus. The objection is one that holds considerable water since death might be considered bad without considering the experience itself. The reason why this is true is because it robs people of the things they could have had. Thomas Nagel explains this theory of deprivation quite convincingly. It does not necessarily require the presence of the person who suffers to be valid.⁵Philosophy needs to take note of this amendment to the doctrine. In this respect, Epicurus’ philosophy gives consolation only to a misconception regarding death, but not in every possible reasonable sorrow about it. If someone is young and dies, the problem is not that this person will meet with darkness, but that life will cease.
This limitation must be understood not as a flaw, but as the defense mechanism that ensures the validity of philosophical consolation. False consolation seeks to transform all misery into a teacher of universality. Philosophy, however, does not indulge in such simplistic optimism. While it may concede that some kinds of sadness are legitimate, since some kinds of goodness deserve sadness, surviving the loss of a friend without being disturbed is not an indicator of wisdom, but of deformity. The aim is not immortality, but the prevention of linking immobility to powerlessness. The Consolation of Philosophy written by Boethius may be regarded as the most straightforward case to apply the theory to. In prison, where he awaits execution, Boethius sees a visit from Lady Philosophy. However, her attitude toward him is not just consoling. According to John Marenbon, initially the task of Philosophy was to demonstrate to Boethius that even though he had suffered much, he still remained happy since his misfortunes did not rob him of his true joy.⁶ Fortune, which includes riches, position, and power, differs from those goods that one cannot possess. This statement is quite tough to accept since Boethius really lost his standing, his security, his life.
The passage shows that philosophy provides deep consolation by changing the syntax of ownership. It transforms the language of possession like ‘my condition, my destiny, my body, my honor, my achievements’ into a reflection on which of those have actually belonged to me without any strings attached. It is not cruel for Fortune to snatch away what was once mine since she never gave me anything to begin with; her cruelty is in persuading us to believe that we own things that have merely been lent to us. Boethius achieves his consolation, should there be any consolation, when he recognizes that the self made up of all of Fortune’s possessions has always been fragile even before Fortune reclaimed everything.
The idea is presented in an even more extreme manner in Plato's Phaedo. Threatened with death, Socrates makes philosophy into a preparation for death.⁷ The statement can seem at first rather macabre, but its ethical import comes into sight through careful consideration. When one philosophizes, one diminishes the influence that passion, fear, and public opinion have before it is made clear how precarious their influence was due to death. What Socrates finds peace about is not in the fact that he had proven every claim beyond all possible doubt, but rather because he had spent his life reducing the impact of those influences on the soul. Philosophy provides comfort in practicing dispossession while one still has a choice in the matter.
Nonetheless, a substantial challenge remains. During times of grief, shame, or terror, reasoning might seem out of place. The bereaved person might need sustenance, sleep, company, ceremony, or silence, instead of a discussion about consent or death. This challenge holds some truth. Philosophy cannot be an alternative to affection, healing, government, or righteousness. Furthermore, the comfort provided by philosophy can turn vicious if it assumes that only the person being addressed is responsible for their misery, or if it makes mourners believe that sensible people would experience less sorrow. The Stoic division of what we can and cannot control turns into a moral danger if it acts as an excuse for apathy towards avoidable agony.
It is only through diagnostic self-reflection that philosophy’s response to suffering can make sense. Not only should it pose the question, Which attitude exacerbates this suffering?; it should also ask, Which state of affairs calls for this suffering? In cases where an individual suffers because he or she was wrongly convicted of something, philosophy can help retain their dignity, but it should never reduce the problem of injustice to that of misattitude. Similarly, when a mother laments the loss of her child, philosophy can help her escape metaphysical despair, but it shouldn’t attempt to argue that love can somehow be made secure. Thus, the most helpful philosophical comfort will have to involve two elements.
Such a dual perspective explains why philosophy and religion or psychotherapy have different means of providing comfort. Religious people may have providence, reunification, or redemption; those in psychotherapy may achieve emotional balance and healing. But philosophy challenges us on whether certain things are worth believing. Philosophical practice is more rigorous, but, at the same time, it is harder to corrupt. The philosopher does not need to prove that all events have reasons behind them. Sometimes, the philosopher comforts you by disproving the idea. They can say: “it was not for the best,” or “there is no hidden justice in this event,” or “this pain does not mean that the world follows any plan.” But, at the same time, one can consider what comes next, what the lasting effects of an event may be, and what judgments might intensify your trauma.
A last bit of consolation often overlooked is that of friendship without duplicity. The philosopher Pierre Hadot once said that ancient philosophy was a way of life that depended upon attentiveness, meditation, and self-reflection rather than solely on theories.⁸ To reflect on Socrates, Epicurus, Epictetus, and Boethius during periods of difficulty is to gain solace not from the simple belief that all is known about them, because no one knows everything. Instead, what it means is that someone else before faced fear, rage, disgrace, and the inevitability of death without succumbing to either hysteria or artificial consolation.
Williams’s reflections on immortality provide us with a clearer insight into the assertion, whereby death endows human activities with purpose and necessity, and thus, the wish to live forever could actually misconstrue the preconditions necessary for having meaning in life.⁹ Yet, this should not be taken as a basis for stating that death is a good thing since early death is an unfortunate event. But philosophy may console us by showing that death is not simply an obstacle to living a meaningful life, but an essential component of such a life as well.
Philosophical consolations are, therefore, limited in their breadth of promise but weighty in their significance. They can neither guarantee happiness nor resurrect the dead, forgive the guiltless, or make transient objects eternal. The claim made is more demanding: to suffer without superstition, to fear without fancy, to mourn without deceit, and to labor without the world first being made safe. Philosophy does not offer consolation by removing suffering but by reducing the suffering that results from misunderstandings. It proves that clear thinking does not exclude comfort; indeed, sometimes clarity becomes the only kind of comfort there is.
