Meditations

The translator alternately uses “imagination” and “sense impressions” for the Greek word phantasia, which can refer to how things appear to the conscious mind, whether accurate or illusory. Marcus seems especially concerned with the illusory, in particular with the way judgements can shape sense impressions—hence the appropriateness of the word “imagination” as a translation. His “stripping” process is designed to interrogate the relationship between judgement and impression, in order to strip away the artifice and reveal the true essence of a thing.

The translator uses the word “motives” for the Greek word dogmata, whose literal meaning is “opinion or decree.” Like imagination, motives can be tied up with judgements. One is motivated to pursue something that is deemed valuable. Motives can disguise immoral acts in fancy dress, making things appear noble, or justified, while the “stripping” process may reveal that they are anything but.

Translated literally, the word philosophy in Greek, philosophia, means “love of wisdom.” In Meditations, the word is not used to refer to the field of philosophy. Rather, it is the practice through which humans develop their reason and character more broadly. Marcus’s entries are examples of this practice: They are exercises through which he interrogates his reactions and strives to align them with his values.

The Greek word that has been translated as “Providence” in Meditations is pronoia, which most literally means “foresight” or “thinking ahead.” Marcus attributes Providence, or foresight, to the gods, whose works shape the Cosmos. In addition, he describes Providence—capitalized in the text to suggest when Marcus refers to it not only as the works of the gods but as divine in itself—as overseeing the order of the Cosmos.

Logos, which is translated as “reason,” has many potential meanings in Greek, from “word” and “discourse” to “reason” and “law.” In the philosophy of Heraclitus—who was one of Marcus’s acknowledged influences—logos is a concept of “truth in oneness.” For Marcus, reason is the unique gift the gods have bestowed on humans and a fragment of divinity that dwells within humans (what Marcus calls “the god within me”). In the text, logos appears as both “reason” and “Reason” to capture both meanings.