“The great cure for anger is delay. Ask it, at the outset not to forgive but to deliberate: its first assaults do the damage, but if it waits it will back off. Don’t try to up root it all at once: it will be overcome entirely while you pluck away at it bit by bit.”

Delay leads to deliberation — is this process “reason”? At 4.2 reason = deliberation, so what is delay in this passage?

It doesn’t matter. Reason is more of a technique than something to be defined. Seneca’s concerns are ultimately “care of self and others”. The underlying definition of reason will necessarily be fuzzy (like Aristotle’s) because the focus is on practicality, not the definitive answer. This is not a treatise but an exhortation to philosophical practice written to and on behalf of his brother, Novatus.

Philosophia activates “reason” in the service of knowing how to live — conduct oneself ethically in any given (unpredictable) situation. (Hume does the same but the alignment of reason and emotion is different, obviously.)

Reason aligns actions with a belief in what is right.

Reason must be trained. The techniques of training are Philosophia. Delay in the face of anger-inducing impulses is a technique that must be practiced repeatedly.

Reason strives toward certainty but is always subject to revision. Socrates always seems to “start over” when the aporia in the conversation is reached.

Reason is a way to align actions with values. The enemy is bad habituation.