very few philosophers dared to live by their theories. the famous failures of aristotle (in the case of alexander) and plato in syracuse (where he saw firsthand that the philosopher-king is at best a book character) are good examples. seneca didn’t live stoically: he was avaricious and didn’t bother to incite civil war over unpaid debt, if ancient sources are to be believed. he failed horribly with nero, who later instructed him to commit suicide for treasonous crimes. again, if ancient sources are to be believed, he fumbled his suicide out of raw fear.
the cynics, though, made a good life but that’s not because they had a better philosophy. it’s because cynicism is base/primitive logic available to the brute as well as the civilized man.
I actually have on my desk, right now, Mary Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman."
To summarize one of her points from memory, she basically lays into Rousseau about having a lot of opinions on domestic life for someone who clearly doesn't even know how to set foot in a kitchen.
the cynics, though, made a good life but that’s not because they had a better philosophy. it’s because cynicism is base/primitive logic available to the brute as well as the civilized man.