Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Lecture at the conference "Constructive Emotions: Cultivating Kindness", Dec. 6, 2025
In Plato’s Republic, Socrates proposes that personal and
collective well-being flows from an orientation of kindness
or goodwill (eunoia) toward one’s entire community. Later
Stoic philosophers agreed, and added that goodwill must
include all persons equally, regardless of gender, location, or
status: a ‘community of the world’ (kosmopolis). In a
memorable spiritual exercise, one Stoic recommends
transferring all human beings inward in concentric circles
of care and respect, maximizing kindness to all (Hierocles
4.672,18–673,1). And during the twilight of the Roman
Empire, Plato’s last interpreters added that non-human
animals and perhaps even plants shared sentience
(Porphyry, De Abst.), and on this basis enjoined a vegetarian
lifestyle of non-harm.
These threads in Ancient Greek philosophy can be brought
into a fruitful dialogue with Buddhist traditions of loving kindness
as a practice and social orientation. In this talk, I
want to suggest that the Platonic tradition contributes a
particularly useful and actionable metaphor to that
dialogue: the image of an ecosystem, society, or individual
soul as a complex musical instrument, with kindness
flowing from the attunement (harmonia) between diverse
parts, making a whole that embraces difference and
similarity as equally fundamental. For late Platonists, this
metaphor suggested particular exercises for cultivating
kindness.
Lecture at the conference "Constructive Emotions: Cultivating Kindness", Dec. 6, 2025
In Plato’s Republic, Socrates proposes that personal and
collective well-being flows from an orientation of kindness
or goodwill (eunoia) toward one’s entire community. Later
Stoic philosophers agreed, and added that goodwill must
include all persons equally, regardless of gender, location, or
status: a ‘community of the world’ (kosmopolis). In a
memorable spiritual exercise, one Stoic recommends
transferring all human beings inward in concentric circles
of care and respect, maximizing kindness to all (Hierocles
4.672,18–673,1). And during the twilight of the Roman
Empire, Plato’s last interpreters added that non-human
animals and perhaps even plants shared sentience
(Porphyry, De Abst.), and on this basis enjoined a vegetarian
lifestyle of non-harm.
These threads in Ancient Greek philosophy can be brought
into a fruitful dialogue with Buddhist traditions of loving kindness
as a practice and social orientation. In this talk, I
want to suggest that the Platonic tradition contributes a
particularly useful and actionable metaphor to that
dialogue: the image of an ecosystem, society, or individual
soul as a complex musical instrument, with kindness
flowing from the attunement (harmonia) between diverse
parts, making a whole that embraces difference and
similarity as equally fundamental. For late Platonists, this
metaphor suggested particular exercises for cultivating
kindness.
