V.A.'s work is a revised version of his ‘habilitation’ dissertation completed in 2010 at the Philosophy Faculty of Cologne University. The first volume deals with a formal analysis of the Meditations, the second with the content. None the less, as V.A. specifies (p. 20), this does not mean that the content has to be studied separately from the form.
The introduction describes the method of analysis and the main lines of research, and underlines the novelty of V.A.'s approach compared with earlier studies. According to V.A., contemporary exegesis tends to cleave the study of the Meditations through the old distinction between the content and the form. On the contrary, V.A. wants to explain the content with the form and the other way round. He also aims to restore Marcus as an original Stoic thinker, rather than a pale imitation of Epictetus (pp. 18–19).
The first volume begins with a stylistic analysis: V.A. starts with some general observations on the choice of language, the title, the date and the structure of the Meditations (pp. 42–58). He continues with a detailed study of the first Book (pp. 59–87) and examines the different possible sources. Then V.A. compares Marcus' work with autobiography (pp. 87–114), but other literary forms can describe the Meditations: paraenesis (pp. 114–46), consolation (pp. 146–180) and diatribe (pp. 180–206). Here, he examines in detail Epictetus' Discourses and their dialogic aspects. Marcus borrows many elements of style from Epictetus, but where the slave gives a lesson to an audience, the Emperor prefers a form of speech which is first directed to himself.
That is why the heart of this first volume is devoted to the literary form of self-dialogue (Selbstdialog) (pp. 206–87). V.A. reconstitutes the development of this praxis in ancient tradition (Homer, Epictetus, Seneca) and then shows Marcus' original use of this form. As opposed to C. Gill's analysis (from Plato on, Greek ethics is an entirely interpersonal dialogue), V.A. thinks that Marcus is the real inventor of self-dialogue. Only for him, the self-dialogue aims at self-examination and control of representations. The master of representations has a repressive side which involves bringing up some representations and a kind of distanciation from the self, but a positive side too where imagination can create other representations which can, for example, fight fear of death.Footnote 1 V.A. sums up the functions of self-dialogue: preliminary exercises, warning for a future action or control of an actual behaviour, self-knowledge, self-constitution and exercise of imagination. Self-dialogue is both a method and a goal; a way of reaching autarky, turning in on oneself – the aim of Marcus' philosophy – and also the realisation of man's nature: ‘Die Autarkie und völlige Anspruchslosigkeit ist jedoch nicht nur Voraussetzung für die Erfolg, sondern markiert zugleich die Erreichung der gesetzten Ziele. Der Selbstdialog ist Mittel und Vollendungsform’ (p. 277). Two recent publications, not mentioned by V.A., present a contrary interpretation (self-dialogue would be a form shared by all ancient doctrines): C. Chiesa, ‘Le problème du langage intérieur chez les stoïciens’, RIPh 178, (1991/3), 301–32; C. Panaccio, Le discours intérieur. De Platon à Guillaume d'Occam (1999), pp. 55–63.
The first volume ends with a discussion on rhetorics and its means (pp. 287–316), and an examination of the writing of the Meditations (pp. 316–45). V.A. reminds us that the Emperor writes first for himself and not for an imaginary audience.
The second volume explores themes, concepts and philosophical arguments of the Meditations. After a methodological introduction which underlines the lack of clear structure of the Meditations, V.A. proposes different possible plans, and continues his study through the traditional Stoic division of philosophy (physics, logic and ethics), each of which corresponds to a chapter of this second part.
The study of Stoic physics begins with the theory of the Nature of the Whole and continues with principles, elements, the theory of causality, Providence and Fate, and discussions between Stoic Providence and Epicurean atomism (Med. 9.28). Religious consequences of Stoic physics end this first chapter. Human nature being a piece of universal Nature or Logos, V.A. puts anthropology within physics. Marcus having intensified the move to purity of the self from bodily and non-rational elements, V.A. enquires into a possible Platonic influence, carrying on the work of C. Gill, J.M. Rist and G. Reydams-Schils.Footnote 2 But, according to V.A., in saying that we are made with a body and a soul, Marcus does not refute the psychical monism of early Stoicism. The unity of the body and the soul is none the less presented through a dualistic language in the Meditations. The fields of the body and the soul are antagonistic, without being ontologically different (p. 492). However, instead of emphasising their unity, Marcus stresses their difference: thought has to win its independence from its rival, the body. The trichotomy introduced in some chapters (soma–sarx / pneumation–psukhe / nous–hegemonikon) shows the will to reduce the whole man to his hegemonikon. Man should identify with the freedom of his prohairesis (‘die Freiheit der Entscheidungen’, p. 494), which presupposes the liberation from the body and from non-rational elements. Then V.A. considers the rational nature as well as the political and the social nature of man and concludes this chapter with a short analysis of oikeiosis (pp. 550–3).
The chapter which deals with logic resumes classical themes of the theory of knowledge. The book ends with the traditional questions of Stoic ethics (pp. 610–97): the end (to be kata phusin), the theory of Good and Evil, the action, the impulsion, the emotions and the eupatheiai (positive affects), as well as the appropriate actions (kathekonta).
Throughout this second volume, V.A. tries to show that Marcus does not content himself with summarising the principal ideas of the Stoa. On the contrary, in physics, in logic and in ethics, he introduces his personal point of view. Two main results must be underlined: the independence of the Meditations from Epictetus' Discourses and the faithfulness of Marcus' stoicism to earlier Stoicism, whereas exegesis used to present him as the one who introduces Platonic or Epicurean ideas in the Stoa.
The method used by V.A. provides a global understanding of the Meditations and at the same time a clear and detailed study of their different aspects. However, V.A. could have established more connections between his formal and doctrinal studies especially since he notes it as one of the features of his work. The book ends with a conclusion which sums up the principal results, a rich bibliography,Footnote 3 a name index and a subject index, but no index locorum which would have been helpful.
Marcus Aurelius is the object of renewed interest, as demonstrated by the number of publications dealing with the Meditations. Among these works, V.A.'s book has an important place through the clear explanations he brings to the structural as well as doctrinal complexity of the Meditations.
