The Consolations of Philosophy summary

While Socrates dealt with the nature of truth, later Greek philosophers would be captivated by other areas of philosophical inquiry. One of these pressing topics was the nature of desire. Do we really want what we think we want? Why do we want these things in the first place? And do these things really make us happy?

Before answering these questions, let’s take a moment to imagine a parallel universe – one where you live in a huge townhouse in a glistening city. Its tall windows allow copious amounts of light into your luxurious lodgings – and a private helicopter awaits your every whim on a neighbouring rooftop. Sounds like quite a happy life, right? 

As with Socrates, the story of our next philosopher also begins with someone condemned to take their own life. The way in which he went about it helped to define the very philosophy by which he lived his life. This man was of course Seneca, and the philosophy he followed was that of Stoicism.

The year was 65 CE when Seneca found himself in this tragic situation. Accused of treason by the tyrannical Roman emperor Nero, he was offered an alternative to execution – forced suicide. So, he gathered his family and friends – and faced his fate with the dignity that he would be remembered for.

As you learn to endure life's unexpected challenges, you’ll undoubtedly find yourself confronting something that hits ever closer to home. This is coming to terms with how messy life can be – and that no amount of philosophy can change that. Michel de Montaigne, a French philosopher of the Renaissance, spent countless hours contemplating this very issue in his library, a sanctuary filled with ancient texts and personal reflections. 

What Montaigne recognized was that while you can fill your mind with the works of Socrates and Seneca, this will do precious little to dispel the daily embarrassments and contradictions of your life. This is because wisdom doesn’t come from learning alone, but from the entirety of your lived experiences in this world. Once you accept this, you’ll see that you’re not the flawless, rational being that some philosophers would have you believe – all of us are in fact a beautiful blend of intellect and instinct.

Among all the mysteries of life, there is one that always seems to stand out as particularly difficult to grasp. And that is, of course, love. The secrets contained within love have baffled intellectuals for centuries – and countless have tried to explain its complexities and to understand its outsized influence on the human condition. Out of all these thinkers emerges one in particular: Arthur Schopenhauer, the hugely influential 19th-century German philosopher.

Schopenhauer was one of history’s great pessimists. This stemmed from his early life, which was marked by despair and loss. Having discovered his own father dead in a canal and subsequently brought up by parents who paid him no attention, it’s no surprise that his views on love reflected his rather negative life experiences. For him, love was a double-edged sword that gave and took away with equal measure.