Praecepta and Decreta on Seneca's 94th Letter

• Grant number: 11/15952-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: March 01, 2012
• End date: July 27, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Classical Literatures
• Principal Investigator: Isabella Tardin Cardoso
• Grantee: Fabiana Lopes da Silveira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 13/01745-0 - Philosophy and didactic in the 94th Epistle of Seneca: a relation between content and form, BE.EP.MS

Abstract

The "Letters to Lucilius", though considered by many scholars one of the most important of Seneca's works, are sometimes criticized, as it is said, for being nothing but a gathering of moral exhortations (precepts), without considerable doctrinal basis, or, as it is generally supposed, for not presenting any systematics. However, a more attentive regard to the 94th letter and the one that follows it, the 95th, makes it possible to notice that Seneca himself treats the subject of the role of the precepts, that is, the value of that part of philosophy called praeceptiua (which is practical, ruled by praecepta) in opposition to the dogmatic part (which is theoretical, ruled by decreta). In this way, on these letters, the philosopher adopts a considerably organized argumentation, and also makes regular use of certain images to refer both to decreta and praecepta. Taking that into account, and having studied these subjects on 95th letter, we hope to defend in our investigation of 94th letter the hypothesis that the philosopher presents some kind of systematics, at least on his argumentation about the methods of philosophical teaching we have just mentioned. By these means, we hope to investigate the manner with which Seneca predicts the complementarity of both. As an integrating part of our study, we will entirely translate the 94th letter and make notes to it.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

SILVEIRA, Fabiana Lopes da. Praecepta and decreta in Seneca's Letter 94. 2014. Master's Dissertation - Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem Campinas, SP.