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Chapter 8 - The Fourfold Self

from Part II - The Philosophy of Voluntas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2022

Lex Paulson
Affiliation:
Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique, Morocco
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Summary

This chapter is dedicated to the theory of selfhood Cicero presents in the De officiis: each person being a player of four personae. The allegory of four dramatic roles or masks (from the Greek prosopon) is borrowed from the Stoic Panaetius, whose ethical theory adapts the stringent demands of the sage to a morally imperfect and multifarious public. He who wishes to progress, Cicero explains, must play the roles of reason, of nature, of fortune, and, finally, the role “we ourselves may choose sets forth from our will” (quam personam velimus, a nostra voluntate proficiscitur). In this final treatise, the will comes most clearly into view as a mental capacity and rational force. I argue that when read in conjunction with related uses of voluntas and persona in other texts, Cicero’s will serves a recursive purpose within each of the other personae. Whether in actualizing reason, refining our inborn qualities, or navigating the forces of necessity and civic duty, voluntas creates a dialectic of actor and mask from which emerges a conscious moral self. Though the will develops richly as a moral faculty and principium individuationis in the hands of later thinkers, its terrestrial purposes disappear as divine ones take hold.

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Chapter
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Cicero and the People’s Will
Philosophy and Power at the End of the Roman Republic
, pp. 186 - 217
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • The Fourfold Self
  • Lex Paulson, Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique, Morocco
  • Book: Cicero and the People’s Will
  • Online publication: 24 November 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009082587.011
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  • The Fourfold Self
  • Lex Paulson, Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique, Morocco
  • Book: Cicero and the People’s Will
  • Online publication: 24 November 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009082587.011
Available formats
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Fourfold Self
  • Lex Paulson, Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique, Morocco
  • Book: Cicero and the People’s Will
  • Online publication: 24 November 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009082587.011
Available formats
×