The fertile garden of philosophy

Or is it an egg? Or perhaps an animal? Or maybe a city?

How do we study and practice philosophy as a way of life? Consider the following extended quote:

“They say that philosophical doctrine has three parts: the physical, the ethical, and the logical. Zeno of Citium was the first to divide it this way in his work On Reason. … These parts Apollodorus calls ‘topics.’ … [He and others] compare philosophy … to an animal, likening logic to the bones and sinews, ethics to the fleshier parts, and physics to the soul. Or again, they liken it to an egg: the outer parts are logic, the next parts are ethics, and the inmost parts are physics; or to a fertile field, of which logic is the surrounding fence, ethics the fruit, and physics the land or the trees. Or to a city that is well fortified and governed according to reason.” (Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, VII.39–40)

There is a lot going on there, and much of it very useful. So let’s unpack it carefully. The first thing to note is that Diogenes Laertius attributes the famous tripartition of philosophy into physical, ethical, and logical to Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism. This may or may not be the case, as Diogenes isn’t always reliable with the historical details. But it is true that many schools, not just Stoicism, adopted…