Stoicism
Stoicism was one of the new philosophical movements
of the Hellenistic period. The name derives from the porch (stoa poikilê)
in the Agora at Athens decorated with mural paintings, where the members of the
school congregated, and their lectures were held. Unlike ‘epicurean,’ the sense
of the English adjective ‘stoical’ is not utterly misleading with regard to its
philosophical origins. The Stoics did, in fact, hold that emotions like fear or
envy (or impassioned sexual attachments, or passionate love of anything
whatsoever) either were, or arose from, false judgements and that the sage—a
person who had attained moral and intellectual perfection—would not undergo
them. The later Stoics of Roman Imperial times, Seneca and Epictetus, emphasise
the doctrines (already central to the early Stoics' teachings) that the sage is
utterly immune to misfortune and that virtue is sufficient for happiness.
Our
phrase ‘stoic calm’ perhaps encapsulates the general drift of these claims. It
does not, however, hint at the even more radical ethical views which the Stoics
defended, e.g. that only the sage is free while all others are slaves, or that
all those who are morally vicious are equally so. Though it seems clear that
some Stoics took a kind of perverse joy in advocating views which seem so at
odds with common sense, they did not do so simply to shock. Stoic ethics
achieves a certain plausibility within the context of their physical theory and
psychology, and within the framework of Greek ethical theory as that was handed
down to them from Plato and Aristotle. It seems that they were well aware of
the mutually interdependent nature of their philosophical views, likening
philosophy itself to a living animal in which logic is bones and sinews; ethics
and physics, the flesh and the soul respectively (another version reverses this
assignment, making ethics the soul). Their views in logic and physics are no
less distinctive and interesting than those in ethics itself.
- 1. Sources of our information on the Stoics
- 2. Philosophy and life
- 3. Physical Theory
- 4. Logic
- 5. Ethics
- 6. Influence
- Bibliography
- Other Internet Resources
- Related Entries
Since the Stoics stress the systematic nature of
their philosophy, the ideal way to evaluate the Stoics' distinctive ethical
views would be to study them within the context of a full exposition of their
philosophy. Here, however, we meet with the problem about the sources of our
knowledge about Stoicism. We do not possess a single complete work by any of
the first three heads of the Stoic school: the ‘founder,’ Zeno of Citium in
Cyprus (344–262 B.C.E.), Cleanthes (d. 232 B.C.E.) or Chrysippus (d. ca. 206
B.C.E.). Chrysippus was particularly prolific, composing over 165 works, but we
have only fragments of his works. The only complete works by Stoic philosophers
that we possess are those by writers of Imperial times, Seneca (4 B.C.E.–65
C.E.), Epictetus (c. 55–135) and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121–180) and
these works are principally focused on ethics. They tend to be long on moral
exhortation but give only clues to the theoretical bases of the moral system.
For detailed information about the Old Stoa (i.e. the first three heads of the
school and their pupils and associates) we have to depend on either
doxographies, like pseudo-Plutarch Philosophers' Opinions on Nature,
Diogenes Laertius' Lives of Eminent Philosophers (3rd c. C.E.), and
Stobaeus' Excerpts (5th c. C.E.)—and their sources Aetius (ca. 1st c.
C.E.) and Arius Didymus (1st c. B.C.E.-C.E.)—or other philosophers (or
Christian apologists) who discuss the Stoics for their own purposes. Nearly all
of the latter group are hostile witnesses. Among them are the Aristotelian
commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias (late 2nd c. C.E.) who criticises the
Stoics in On Mixture and On Fate, among other works; the
Platonist Plutarch of Chaeronea (1st-2nd c. C.E.) who authored works such as On
Stoic Self-Contradictions and Against the Stoics on Common Conceptions;
the medical writer Galen (2nd c. C.E.), whose outlook is roughly Platonist; the
Pyrrhonian skeptic, Sextus Empiricus (2nd c. C.E.); Plotinus (3rd c. C.E.); the
Christian bishops Eusebius (3rd–4th c. C.E.) and Nemesius (ca. 400 C.E.); and
the sixth-century neoplatonist commentator on Aristotle, Simplicius. Another
important source is Cicero (1st c. B.C.E.). Though his own philosophical
position derives from that of his teacher Philo of Larissa and the New Academy,
he is not without sympathy for what he sees as the high moral tone of Stoicism.
In works like his Academic Books, On the Nature of the Gods, and On
Ends he provides summaries in Latin, with critical discussion, of the views
of the major Hellenistic schools of thought.
From these sources, scholars have attempted to
piece together a picture of the content, and in some cases, the development of
Stoic doctrine. In some areas, there is a fair bit of consensus about what the
Stoics thought and we can even attach names to some particular innovations.
However, in other areas the proper interpretation of our meagre evidence is
hotly contested. Until recently, non-specialists have been largely excluded
from the debate because many important sources were not translated into modern
languages. Fragments of Stoic works and testimonia in their original Greek and
Latin were collected into a three-volume set in 1903–5 by H. von Arnim, Stoicorum
Veterum Fragmenta. In writings on the ‘old’ Stoics, fragments and
testimonia are often referred to by von Arnim's volume numbers and text
numeration; e.g. SVF I.345=Diogenes Laertius, Lives 4.40. In 1987, A. A.
Long and David Sedley brought out The Hellenistic Philosophers (LS)
which contains in its first volume English translations and commentary of many
important texts on Stoics, Epicureans and Skeptics. Unless otherwise
specifically noted, I refer in what follows to texts by or about Stoics using
the author's name followed by Long and Sedley's notation for the text, e.g.
47G=section 47 of their work, text G (unless otherwise noted, I use their
translation, sometimes slightly altered).
When considering the doctrines of the Stoics, it is
important to remember that they think of philosophy not as an interesting
pastime or even a particular body of knowledge, but as a way of life. They
define philosophy as a kind of practice or exercise (askêsis) in the
expertise concerning what is beneficial (Aetius, 26A). Once we come to know
what we and the world around us are really like, and especially the nature of
value, we will be utterly transformed. This soteriological element is common to
their main competitors, the Epicureans, and perhaps helps to explain why both
were eventually eclipsed by Christianity. The Meditations of Marcus
Aurelius provide a fascinating picture of a would-be Stoic sage at work on
himself. The book, also called To Himself, is the emperor's diary. In
it, he not only reminds himself of the content of important Stoic teaching but
also reproaches himself when he realises that he has failed to incorporate this
teaching into his life in some particular instance. For the influence of Stoic
philosophy on a life in our times, see Admiral James Stockdale's account of his
use of the philosophy of Epictetus as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
An examination of Stoic ontology might profitably
begin with a passage from Plato's Sophist. There (247d-e), Plato asks
for a mark or indication of what is real or what has being. One answer which is
mooted is that the capacity to act or be acted upon is the distinctive mark of
real existence or ‘that which is.’ The Stoics accept this criterion and add the
rider that only bodies can act or be acted upon. Thus, only bodies exist.
However, they allow that there are other ways of being part of nature than by
virtue of existing. Incorporeal things like time, place or sayables (lekta,
see below) are ‘subsistent’ (huphestos, Galen 27G)—as are imaginary
things like centaurs. Moreover, all existent things are particular. The Stoics
call universals ‘figments of the mind’ and seem to offer a conceptualist
treatment akin to Locke's, treating an apparent predication like “man is a
rational, mortal animal” as the disguised conditional, “if something is a man,
then it is a rational mortal animal” (Sextus Empiricus, 30I).
In accord with this ontology, the Stoics, like the
Epicureans, make God material. But while the Epicureans think the gods are too
busy being blessed and happy to be bothered with the governance of the universe
(Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 123–4), the Stoic God is immanent throughout the
whole of creation and directs its development down to the smallest detail. God
is identical with one of the two ungenerated and indestructible first
principles (archai) of the universe. One principle is matter which they
regard as utterly unqualified and inert. It is that which is acted upon. God is
identified with an eternal reason (logos, Diog. Laert. 44B ) or
intelligent designing fire (Aetius, 46A) which structures matter in accordance
with Its plan. This plan is enacted time and time again, beginning from a state
in which all is fire, through the generation of the elements, to the creation
of the world we are familiar with, and eventually back to fire in a cycle of
endless recurrence. The designing fire of the conflagration is likened to a
sperm which contains the principles or stories of all the things which will
subsequently develop (Aristocles in Eusebius, 46G). Under this guise, God is
also called ‘fate.’ It is important to realise that the Stoic God does not
craft its world in accordance with its plan from the outside, as the demiurge
in Plato's Timaeus is described as doing. Rather, the history of the
universe is determined by God's activity internal to it, shaping it with its
differentiated characteristics. The biological conception of God as a kind of
living heat or seed from which things grow seems to be fully intended. The
further identification of God with pneuma or breath may have its origins in
medical theories of the Hellenistic period. See Baltzly (2003).
The first thing to develop from the conflagration
are the elements. Of the four elements, the Stoics identify two as active (fire
and air) and two as passive (water and earth). The active elements, or at least
the principles of hot and cold, combine to form breath or pneuma. Pneuma, in
turn, is the ‘sustaining cause’ (causa continens, synektikon aition)
of all existing bodies and guides the growth and development of animate bodies.
What is a sustaining cause? The Stoics think that the universe is a plenum. Like
Aristotle, they reject the existence of empty space or void (except that the
universe as a whole is surrounded by it). Thus, one might reasonably ask, ‘What
marks any one object off from others surrounding it?’ or, ‘What keeps an object
from constantly falling apart as it rubs elbows with other things in the
crowd?’ The answer is: pneuma. Pneuma, by its nature, has a simultaneous
movement inward and outward which constitutes its inherent ‘tensility.’
(Perhaps this was suggested by the expansion and contraction associated with
heat and cold.) Pneuma passes through all (other) bodies; in its outward motion
it gives them the qualities that they have, and in its inward motion makes them
unified objects (Nemesius, 47J). In this respect, pneuma plays something of the
role of substantial form in Aristotle for this too makes the thing of which it
is the form both ‘some this,’ i.e. an individual, and ‘what it is’ (Metaph.
VII, 17). Because pneuma acts, it must be a body and it appears that the Stoics
stressed the fact that its blending with matter is ‘through and through’ (Galen
47H, Alex. Aph. 48C). Perhaps as a result of this, they developed a theory of
mixture which allowed for two bodies to be in the same place at the same time.
It should be noted, however, that some scholars (e.g. Sorabji, 1988) think that
the claim that pneuma is blended through the totality of matter is a conclusion
that the Stoics' critics adversely drew about what some of their statements
committed them to. Perhaps instead they proposed merely that pneuma is the
matter of a body at a different level of description.
Pneuma comes in gradations and endows the bodies
which it pervades with different qualities as a result. The pneuma which
sustains an inanimate object is called (LS) a ‘tenor’ (hexis,
lit. a holding). Pneuma in plants is, in addition, (LS) physique (phusis,
lit. ‘nature’). In animals, pneuma gets called also soul (psychê) and in
rational animals pneuma is, besides, the commanding faculty (hêgemonikon)
(Diog. Laert. 47O, Philo 47P)—that responsible for thinking, planning,
deciding. The Stoics assign to ‘physique’ or ‘nature’ all the purely
physiological life functions of a human animal (such as digestion, breathing,
growth etc.)—self-movement from place to place is due to soul. Their account of
the human soul (mind) is strongly monistic. Though they speak of the soul's
faculties, these are parts of the commanding faculty associated with the
physical sense organs (Aetius, 53H). Unlike the Platonic tri-partite soul, all
impulses or desires are direct functions of the rational, commanding faculty.
This strongly monistic conception of the human soul has serious implications
for Stoic epistemology and ethics. In the first case, our impressions of sense
are affections of the commanding faculty. In mature rational animals, these
impressions are thoughts, or representations with propositional content. Though
a person may have no choice about whether she has a particular rational
impression, there is another power of the commanding faculty which the Stoics
call ‘assent’ and whether one assents to a rational impression is a matter of
volition. To assent to an impression is to take its content as true. To
withhold assent is to suspend judgement about whether it is true. Because both
impression and assent are part of one and the same commanding faculty, there
can be no conflict between separate and distinct rational and nonrational
elements within oneself—a fight which reason might lose. Compare this situation
with Plato's description of the conflict between the inferior soul within us
which is taken in by sensory illusions and the calculating part which is not (Rep.
X, 602e). There is no reason to think that the calculating part can always win
the epistemological civil war which Plato imagines to take place within us. But
because the impression and assent are both aspects of one and the same
commanding faculty according to the Stoics, they think that we can always avoid
falling into error if only our reason is sufficiently disciplined. In a similar
fashion, impulses or desires are movements of the soul toward something. In a
rational creature, these are exercises of the rational faculty which do not
arise without assent. Thus, a movement of the soul toward X is not
automatically consequent upon the impression that X is desirable. This is what
the Stoics' opponents, the Academic Skeptics, argue against them is possible
(Plutarch, 69A.) The Stoics, however, claim that there will be no impulse
toward X—much less an action—unless one assents to the impression (Plutarch,
53S). The upshot of this is that all desires are not only (at least
potentially) under the control of reason, they are acts of
reason. Thus there could be no gap between forming the decisive judgement that
one ought to do X and an effective impulse to do X.
Since pneuma is a body, there is a sense in which
the Stoics have a materialist theory of mind. The pneuma which is a person's
soul is subject to generation and destruction (Plutarch 53 C, Eusebius 53W).
Unlike for the Epicureans, however, it does not follow from this that my soul
will be destroyed at the time at which my body dies. Chrysippus alleged that
the souls of the wise would not perish until the next conflagration (Diog.
Laert. 7.157=SVF 2.811, not in LS). Is this simply a failure of nerve on
the part of an otherwise thorough-going materialist? Recall that the
distinctive movement of pneuma is its simultaneous inward and outward motion.
It is this which makes it tensile and capable of preserving, organising and, in
some cases, animating the bodies which it interpenetrates. The Stoics equate
virtue with wisdom and both with a kind of firmness or tensile strength within
the commanding faculty of the soul (Arius Didymus 41H, Plutarch 61B, Galen
65T). Perhaps the thought was that the souls of the wise had a sufficient
tensile strength that they could subsist as a distinct body on their own. Later
Stoics like Panaetius (2nd c. B.C.E.) and Posidonius (first half 1st c. B.C.E.)
may have abandoned this view of Chrysippus'.
For the Stoics, the scope of what they called
‘logic’ (logikê, i.e. knowledge of the functions of logos or
reason) is very wide, including not only the analysis of argument forms, but
also rhetoric, grammar, the theories of concepts, propositions, perception, and
thought, and what we would call epistemology and philosophy of language.
Formally, it was standardly divided into just two parts: rhetoric and dialectic
(Diog. Laert., 31A). Much has been written about the Stoics' advances in logic
(in our narrow sense of the word). In general, one may say that theirs is a
logic of propositions rather than a logic of terms, like the Aristotelian
syllogistic. One of the accounts they offer of validity is that an argument is
valid if, through the use of certain ground rules (themata), it is
possible to reduce it to one of the five indemonstrable forms (Diog. Laert.,
36A). These five indemonstrables are the familiar forms:
- if p then q; p; therefore
q (modus ponens);
- if p then q; not q;
therefore not-p (modus tollens);
- it is not the case that both p and q;
p; therefore not-q;
- either p or q; p;
therefore not-q;
- either p or q; not p;
therefore q
Though these and other developments in logic are
interesting in their own right, the Stoic treatment of certain problems about
modality and bivalence are more significant for the shape of Stoicism as a
whole. Chrysippus in particular was convinced that bivalence and the law of
excluded middle apply even to contingent statements about particular future
events or states of affairs. (The law of excluded middle says that for a
proposition, p, and its contradictory, not-p, ‘(p or not-p)’
is necessarily true, while bivalence insists that the truth table that defines
a connective like ‘or’ contains only two values, true and false.) Aristotle's
discussion in chapter 9 of On Interpretation of a hypothetical sea
battle which either will or will not happen tomorrow has traditionally been
taken to deny this. (The proper interpretation of Aristotle's position is
disputed.) He presents the argument that if it is either true or false now that
there will be a sea battle tomorrow (and let us suppose for the sake of
argument that it is false), then our present deliberation about whether we
should go out and fight tomorrow is pointless for it is already true now,
whatever we decide, that we won't fight. Perhaps there are causal factors at
work which will determine this, e.g. we may decide to fight but today's high
temperatures will cause the wind to be against us tomorrow. On one reading,
Aristotle's response to this is to deny the principle of bivalence for future
contingent statements: it is now neither true nor false that there will be a
sea battle tomorrow. Chrysippus apparently could not agree to making such an
exception and he may have taken the price of consistency to be a strict causal
determinism: all things happen through antecedent causes (Cicero, 38G). Above I
noted that the Stoics thought that God or designing fire contained within
itself the plan of all that is to happen between conflagrations and that it
brings this plan to fruition in its action upon matter. Viewed in isolation
from Stoic logic, this might have seemed arbitrary but clearly it was not.
The Stoics express their commitment to causal
determinism in a potentially misleading way. They treat the claim that “all
things happen through antecedent causes” as an alternative formulation of the
claim that “all things happen through fate” (kath heimarmenên). But, in
fact, the Stoics do not accept the doctrine that modern philosophers call
fatalism. The matter is doubly confused, because the modern arguments for
fatalism often emerge from the very considerations about bivalence that
Aristotle discusses in On Interpretation. The classic example is Richard
Taylor's argument. One way to see the difference between Taylor's fatalism and
Chrysippus' causal determinism, is to ask, “What makes it the case that we
won't have a sea battle tomorrow?” The Chrysippean causal determinist can say,
“the lack of wind” or perhaps even “our decision not to go out and fight” and
these things could all have been different, if only things had been different
at some earlier time. So, though the present state of affairs determines that
the future will only be one way, nonetheless there is a sense in which other
things are possible (Alex. Aph., 38H). The fatalist responds that what makes it
the case that we will not fight tomorrow is the fact that the proposition S,
“There will not be a sea battle on such and such a date,” has always been true.
Much turns on what one says about the modal status of this truth. Is the
proposition “It is true that S” itself necessary? Diodorus Cronus, against
whom Chrysippus argued, claimed that (1) truths about the past are necessary:
it is not merely that they aren't other than they are—they can't be other than
they are, for nothing has the power to change the past (Epictetus, 38A). He
also claimed that (2) nothing impossible follows from what is possible. In the
so-called Master Argument, he attempted to show that these two theses were
incompatible with the claim that (3) there is something which is possible, but
yet does not happen. The details of the Master Argument are a matter of much
dispute. We know that it was alleged to show that these three propositions
formed an inconsistent triad, but exactly how it did this remains uncertain. We
also know that Diodorus' manner of resolving this inconsistency was to reject
(3) and to define the possible as that which is or will be the case. Now
consider our sea battle which will not take place tomorrow. If “there is a sea
battle on such and such a date” is now false and will not be true, then by
Diodorus' lights, it is impossible (Boethius, 38C)! Chrysippus felt the need to
preserve the thesis that there are things which are possible but which do not
happen. To this end, he rejected the proposition (2) that what is impossible
does not follow from what is possible, using the following example: consider
the conditional “if Dion is dead, then this one is dead” when ostensive
reference is being made to Dion. The antecedent is possible, since Dion will
one day be dead. Hence, let us suppose it true. Then, by modus ponens, it follows
that “this one is dead.” However, the proposition that “this one is dead” is
impossible (necessarily false), since one cannot make the requisite ostensive
reference to a dead man so as to make it true that “this one [i.e. the (living)
thing I'm pointing to] is dead,” for a dead person isn't the same thing as what
was there previously (Alex. Aph., 38F). This may appear utterly ad hoc,
and it is possibly wrong, given the Stoics' views about ‘sayables’ (lekta);
but it is exactly the response that Chrysippus should make. It once again
illustrates the systematic character of Stoic philosophy.
The Stoic view on modality is supposed to make the
world safe for counter-factual possibilities. This means that when we speak of
a person's actions, in most cases he could have done otherwise, given the
Stoics' analysis of ‘could’ and other modal concepts. Is this enough? Do the
Stoics confront the perceived conflict between universal causation and human
freedom? Some Stoic texts suggest a position we moderns would characterize as
‘soft determinism’. Chrysippus used the illustration of a cylinder rolling down
a hill as an analogy for actions that are within our control (Cicero and
Gellius, 62C-D). It is true that the force that starts its motion is external
to it. This is analogous to the impressions we have of the world. But it rolls
because of its shape. This is analogous to our moral character. When our
actions are mediated by our characters, then they are ‘up to us'. Thus, if I
see an unattended sandwich and, because I am a dishonest person, steal it, then
this is up to me and I am responsible. All things come about by fate but this
is brought about by fate through me (Alex. Aphr. 62G). When, however, I
trip and fall, knocking your sandwich to the floor, this is not up to me. The
chain of causes and effects does not flow through my beliefs and desires.
The foregoing presents a Stoic view on modality and
freedom as if there were just one and as if it constitutes a response to our
modern issue of free will and determinism. Recent scholarship suggests that
there may have been evolution and change within the school. Bobzien (1997) and
(1999)argues that the our modern version of the problem of free will and
determinism arises only in the latter stages of the Stoic movement. For an
argument that stresses the similarity between the Stoic view and modern
compatibilists like Frankfurt, see Salles (2001). The Stoics also discuss a
notion of freedom that is rather more moral than metaphysical. This sense of
freedom involves ‘the power to live as you will’ (Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes
5, 34). It turns out, for reasons that will be discussed below in the section
on ethics, that only the Stoic wise man is truly free. All others are slaves.
This notion of freedom and its relation to Kantian autonomy is discussed in
Cooper (2004).
With respect to language, the Stoics distinguish
between the signification, the signifier and the name-bearer. Two of these are
bodies: the signifier which is the utterance and the name-bearer which gets
signified. The signification, however, is an incorporeal thing called a lekton,
or ‘sayable,’ and it, and neither of the other two, is what is true or false
(Sextus Empiricus, 33B). They define a sayable as “that which subsists in
accordance with a rational impression.” Rational impressions are those
alterations of the commanding faculty whose content can be exhibited in
language. Presumably ‘graphei Sôkratês’ and ‘Socrates writes’ exhibit
the contents of one and the same rational impression in different languages. At
first glance, this looks very like a modern theory of propositions. But
propositions (axiômata) are only one subspecies of sayables. Sayables
also include questions and commands on the one hand, and, in a category of
sayables called ‘incomplete,’ the Stoics include predicates and incomplete
expressions like ‘graphei’ (he or she writes) (Diog. Laert., 33F). An
incomplete sayable like ‘writes’ gets transformed into a proposition by being
attached to a nominative case (ptôsis, Diog. Laert., 33G). Here a ‘nominative
case’ seems to mean the signification of the inflected word, Sôkratês’
or ‘ho anthrôpos’—the latter being the nominative case (as we
would say) of the Greek word ‘man’—not that inflected word itself. The
Stoic doctrine of case is one of those areas where there is as yet little
consensus. Stoic propositions are unlike propositions in contemporary theories
in another way too: Stoic sayables are not timelessly true or false. If it is
now daytime, the lekton corresponding to an utterance of ‘it is day’ is
true. Tonight, however, it will be false (cf. Alex. Aph. in Simplicius, 37K).
Finally, the Stoic theory gives a certain kind of priority to propositions
involving demonstratives. ‘This one is writing’ is definite, while ‘someone is
writing’ is indefinite. Strikingly, ‘Socrates is writing’ is said to be
intermediate between these two. When there is a failure of reference, the
Stoics say that the lekton is destroyed and this is supposed to provide
the reason why ‘this one is dead’ (spoken in relation to poor deceased Dion) is
impossible (necessarily false).
Perhaps the most famous topic considered under the
Stoic heading of logic is that of the criterion of truth and the Stoics'
disputes with the skeptical New Academy about it. According to Chrysippus, the criterion
of truth is the ‘cognitive impression’ (phantasia katalêptikê, lit. an
impression that firmly grasps its object) (Diog. Laert., 40A). A criterion or
canon of truth is an instrument for definitely determining that something is
true, and the Hellenistic schools all provide some view on how it is that we
are to measure or evaluate whether something is true or not. The Stoics'
cognitive impression is an impression which (according to Zeno's definition,
cf. Cicero, SVF I.59) “arises from that which is; is stamped and impressed in
accordance with that very thing; and of such a kind as could not arise from
what is not” (Sextus Empiricus, 40E). Recall that among the powers of the
commanding faculty is the capacity to assent or withhold assent to impressions.
The fact that it is always within our power to withhold assent means that if we
are sufficiently disciplined, we are capable of avoiding error. In itself, it
does not mean that we are capable of attaining knowledge, for there might not
be any impressions that one can be confident in assenting to. The cognitive
impression was supposed to fill that role: when you experience one of these,
provided that you recognize it as such, you can, on its basis, assert
definitely that the matter in question is true. It was initially supposed that
such an impression commanded one's assent by its very nature: it “all but
seizes us by the hair” and drags us to assent. But this optimistic assessment
seems to have been qualified in the face of criticism by members of the Skeptical
Academy—perhaps, even if there are such impressions, it is not so easy to be
sure when one is experiencing one.
However, the Stoics do not maintain that the mere
having of a cognitive impression constitutes knowledge (epistêmê).
Indeed, not even assent to such an impression amounts to knowledge: this is
only cognition or grasp (katalêpsis) of some individual fact. Real
knowledge (epistêmê) requires cognition which is secure, firm and
unchangeable by reason (Sextus Empiricus, 41C)—and, furthermore, worked into a
systematic whole with other such cognitions (Arius Didymus, 41H). Weak and
changeable assent to a cognitive impression is only an act of ignorance. It is
not entirely clear where opinion or belief in general (doxa) stands in
this categorization. Most Stoic sources define it as ‘assent to the
incognitive’ (i.e. to an impression that does not firmly grasp its object) (see
Sextus Empiricus, 41E) but some suggest that changeable assent to a cognitive
impression might still count as opinion. There is a potential for serious
confusion when we try to assimilate the Stoic view to contemporary
epistemology. Modern definitions of knowledge make the agent's belief that P a
necessary but not sufficient condition for knowing that P. For the Stoics, doxa
(involving ‘weak’ assent) and knowledge are incompatible. In any event, there
is an absolute distinction between the wise and the ignorant. Only the Stoic
sage's assent to cognitive impressions clearly counts as knowledge for only a
sage has the proper discipline always to avoid withdrawing assent, or assenting
to things that one shouldn't. The Stoics call this epistemic virtue
‘non-precipitancy’ (aproptôsia) and it underlies their claim that the
Stoic sage never makes mistakes (41D).
The Skeptics responded by denying the existence of
cognitive impressions. According to Arcesilaus, “no impression arising from
something true is such that an impression arising from something false could
not also be just like it” (Cicero, 40D). So Arcesilaus denies that the third
conjunct of the Stoic definition of the cognitive impression is ever satisfied.
We can distinguish two specific tactics for denying this. First, the Skeptics
point to cases of insanity. In his madness, Heracles had the impression that
his children were, in fact, the children of his enemy Eurystheus and killed
them. Since the impression must have been utterly convincing to him at the time
at which he had it (judging by his subsequent action), it is clear from this
that there can be false impressions which are indistinguishable from ones that
are allegedly “stamped and impressed in accordance with that very thing”
(Sextus Empiricus, 41H). Their second line of attack was to draw attention to
objects which are so similar as to be indistinguishable (so that a completely
accurate impression from one would be indistinguishable from one from the
other). The story is related (Diog. Laert., 40F) that the Stoic philosopher
Sphaerus (a student of Zeno's) was tricked into thinking that wax pomegranates
were real. This was again supposed to show thay there could be impressions
arising from what is not [sc. a pomegranate] which are indistinguishable from a
cognitive impression.
The Stoics met these arguments by first pointing
out that Heracles' inability to distinguish cognitive from incognitive
impressions in his madness says nothing about the capacities of normal human
beings. It is no part of their thesis that just anyone can distinguish
between cognitive and incognitive impressions. Their response to the second
line of attack was two-fold. The first is a metaphysically motivated answer: if
any two objects really were indistinguishable, they would be identical. This
doctrine has come to be known as the identity of indiscernibles. They also replied
that the Stoic sage would withhold assent in cases where things are too similar
to be confident that one had it right (Cicero, 40I)—Sphaerus' response to his
predicament was to say that he only assented to the proposition that it was
‘reasonable’ that what he was presented with were pomegranates (and that was
true!).
In some ways, the Stoics have an easier time with
Skeptical objections than contemporary non-skeptics do. At bottom what the
Stoics are committed to is the two-fold view that it is within our power to
avoid falling into error and that there is a kind of impression which reveals
to us the world as it really is and which is different from those impressions
which might not so reveal the world. They are manifestly not committed
to defending our ordinary intuitions about the range of knowledge: that most
people in fact know most of the things that they and everyone else thinks that
they know. The only person we can be sure has any knowledge is the Stoic sage
and sages are as rare as the phoenix (Alex. Aph., 61N). Everyone else is
equally ignorant. This absolute distinction between the wise and the ignorant
is a consequence of the Stoic definition of knowledge as the “cognition which
is secure and unchangeable by reason” (Arius Didymus, 41H). Either one's
cognition is like this or it is not. By making opinion a kind of ignorance
(contrast Plato, Rep V. 474a ff), they do not allow room for an
intermediate state between the wise man and all the rest of us.
But if we leave aside the question of whether we in
fact know anything, there are some serious puzzles about the cognitive
impression. The Stoics insist that the cognitive impression not only “arises
from what is and is stamped and impressed in accordance” with the thing from
which it arises, but also that it is “such as could not arise from that which
is not.” But it seems that we can imagine all kinds of situations in which we
might be in a position where the sense impressions that we have are
indistinguishable from ones that misrepresent the world. Thus, consider
Descartes' evil demon hypothesis or its modern counterpart, the brain in a vat
scenario. In the latter example it is stipulated that electrical stimulation of
your brain by incredibly clever but unscrupulous scientists produces sense
impressions that are indistinguishable from the ones that you are presently
having. Surely here we have a demonstration that there could not be a true
impression which is such that it could not arise from what is not. No
sane person thinks that these skeptical hypotheses are actually true. The point
is rather that if one of them were true, our sense experience would be
indistinguishable from what (we take to be) our true and accurate sense
impressions of real tables, chairs and fireplaces. Doesn't this show that there
is no such thing as a cognitive impression?
One thing to note in passing is that skeptical
scenarios like the evil demon or the brain in the vat did not seem to figure in
the debate between the Stoics and Skeptics. The Skeptics press the point that at
the time the dream may be completely convincing to the dreamer, even if she
does not believe that the events actually transpired when she awakes (Cicero, Lucullus
or Academica II, 88). They do not consider thought experiments in which all
our sense experience is systematically misleading. But if we set this aside,
there will still be one important difference between a clear and distinct
impression that arises from a real fireplace and one that arises from the
manipulation of my neurons by unscrupulous brain scientists. The first is caused
by a fireplace, while the second is caused by some other means. When the
Stoics say that a cognitive impression is “of such a sort as could not arise
from what is not,” they can be interpreted to mean that the true clear and
distinct impression will be different from a false one. Nothing said
thus far by the skeptics rules out the possibility that we have a mechanism
that has potential to become sensitive to these differences. They might deny
that the difference between the two is always something that can be discerned
from the subject's point of view. We do not have a firmer means of knowing by
virtue of which we check candidate impressions to see if they are really
cognitive or not. Rather, we have the potential to increase our sensitivity to
cognitive impressions when they are present.
If this is so, then the Stoics' position would be
somewhat akin to externalist theories of knowledge or justification.
Externalists insist that an agent might know a proposition or be justified in
believing a proposition even when, nonetheless, the evidence for that belief is
not subjectively available to the person. So, on one early externalist theory
of knowledge, it was suggested that an agent might know a certain sort of
proposition (e.g. that there is a fireplace here) if their belief that there is
a fireplace here was caused by a reliable causal process (e.g. a normal visual
system)—and not, e.g., by the interventions of wicked scientists.
So where does this leave the matter? If this
is the right way to understand the definition of the Stoic cognitive
impression, then it would seem that they win their argument with the Skeptics.
Examples of false impressions that are subjectively indiscernible from clear
and distinct, true, ones do not show that there are no cognitive impressions.
However, the admission that a cognitive impression might be subjectively
indistinguishable from a false impression does alter the sense in which the
cognitive impression can serve as a criterion of truth. Assent to a cognitive
impression will guarantee that what you assent to is true. But, because
cognitive impressions can be indistinguishable from the subject's point of view
from false ones, the Stoics can no longer say that even the sage can be confident
that what seems to be a cognitive impression actually is one. Thus instead of
automatically commanding assent, the cognitive impression (according to later
Stoics) commands assent “if there is no impediment” (Sextus Empiricus, 40K),
and if it has been successfully “tested” and is “irreversible” (cf. Sextus
Empiricus, 69E). This means that I should only assent to what seems to me to be
a cognitive impression if I have reason to believe that I'm not in a context
where deceptive but convincing impressions are possible. But the Stoic sage
never errs. So when will I have absolutely compelling reasons to believe that
I'm not presented with a convincing but deceptive impression? For these
reasons, the Pyrrhonian skeptic Sextus Empiricus argues that the Stoic sage
will never assent to any impression. In practice, he will suspend judgement,
just like the Skeptic does (41C). Another suggestion is that the Stoic sage
hedges his bets by assenting only to the impression that it is reasonable
that there is fireplace here (as Sphaerus did about the pomegranates, 40F). In
this case it will also be hard to see how he differs from a skeptic who takes
‘the reasonable’ as his criterion (Sextus Empiricus, 69B).
In many ways, Aristotle's ethics provides the form
for the adumbration of the ethical teaching of the Hellenistic schools. One
must first provide a specification of the goal or end (telos) of living.
This may have been thought to provide something like the dust jacket blurb or
course description for the competing philosophical systems—which differed
radically over how to give the required specification.
A bit of reflection tells us that the goal that we
all have is happiness or flourishing (eudaimonia). But what is
happiness? The Epicureans' answer was deceptively straightforward: the happy
life is the one which is most pleasant. (But their account of what the highest
pleasure consists in was not at all straightforward.) Zeno's answer was “a good
flow of life” (Arius Didymus, 63A) or “living in agreement,” and Cleanthes
clarified that with the formulation that the end was “living in agreement with
nature” (Arius Didymus, 63B). Chrysippus amplified this to (among other
formulations) “living in accordance with experience of what happens by nature;”
later Stoics inadvisably, in response to Academic attacks, substituted such
formulations as “the rational selection of the primary things according to
nature.” The Stoics' specification of what happiness consists in cannot be
adequately understood apart from their views about value and human psychology.
The best way into the thicket of Stoic ethics is
through the question of what is good, for all parties agree that possession of
what is genuinely good secures a person's happiness. The Stoics claim that
whatever is good must benefit its possessor under all circumstances. But there
are situations in which it is not to my benefit to be healthy or wealthy. (We
may imagine that if I had money I would spend it on heroin which would not
benefit me.) Thus, things like money are simply not good, in spite of how
nearly everyone speaks, and the Stoics call them ‘indifferents’ (Diog. Laert.,
58A)—i.e., neither good nor bad. The only things that are good are the
characteristic excellences or virtues of human beings (or of human minds): prudence
or wisdom, justice, courage and moderation, and other related qualities. These
are the first two of the ‘Stoic paradoxes’ discussed by Cicero in his short
work of that title: that only what is noble or fine or morally good (kalon)
is good at all, and that the possession (and exercise) of the virtues is both
necessary and sufficient for happiness. But the Stoics are not such lovers of
paradox that they are willing to say that my preference for wealth over poverty
in most circumstances is utterly groundless. They draw a distinction between
what is good and things which have value (axia). Some indifferent
things, like health or wealth, have value and therefore are to be preferred,
even if they are not good, because they are typically appropriate,
fitting or suitable (oikeion) for us.
Impulse, as noted above, is a movement of the soul
toward an object. Though these movements are subject to the capacity for assent
in fully rational creatures, impulse is present in all animate (self-moving)
things from the moment of birth. The Stoics argue that the original impulse of
ensouled creatures is toward what is appropriate for them, or aids in their
self-preservation, and not toward what is pleasurable, as the Epicureans
contend. Because the whole of the world is identical with the fully rational
creature which is God, each part of it is naturally constituted so that it
seeks what is appropriate or suitable to it, just as our own body parts are so
constituted as to preserve both themselves and the whole of which they are
parts. The Stoic doctrine of the natural attachment to what is appropriate (oikeiôsis)
thus provides a foundation in nature for an objective ordering of preferences,
at least on a prima facie basis. Other things being equal, it is objectively
preferable to have health rather than sickness. The Stoics call things whose
preferability is overridden only in very rare circumstances “things according
to nature.” As we mature, we discover new things which are according to our
natures. As infants perhaps we only recognised that food and warmth are
appropriate to us, but since humans are rational, more than these basic
necessities are appropriate to us. The Greek term ‘oikeion’ can mean not
only what is suitable, but also what is akin to oneself, standing in a natural
relation of affection. Thus, my blood relatives are—or least ought to be—oikeioi.
It is partly in this sense that we eventually come to the recognition—or at
least ought to—that other people, insofar as they are rational, are appropriate
to us. Cicero's quotation of Terence's line ‘nothing human is alien to me’ in
the context of On Duties I.30 echoes this thought. It is not only other
rational creatures that are appropriate to us, but also the perfection of our
own rational natures. Because the Stoics identify the moral virtues with
knowledge, and thus the perfection of our rational natures, that which is
genuinely good is also most appropriate to us. So, if our moral and
intellectual development goes as it should, we will progress from valuing food
and warmth, to valuing social relations, to valuing moral virtue. Ideally,
we'll have the recognition that the value that moral virtue has is of a
different order to those things that we were naturally attracted to earlier.
Is that all there is to Stoic ethics? Some writers,
such as Annas (1993), suppose that Stoic moral philosophy largely floats free
of Stoic metaphysics, and especially from Stoic theology. Other writers, such
as Cooper (1996), suppose that Stoic moral philosophy is intimately intertwined
with Stoic metaphysics. The latter reading draws our attention to the fact that
the unfolding of God's providential plan is rational (and therefore beneficial)
through and through, so that in some sense what will in fact happen to me in
accordance with that plan must be appropriate to me, just like food, warmth,
and those with whom I have intimate social relations.
When we take the rationality of the world order
into consideration, we can begin to understand the Stoic formulations of the
goal or end. “Living in agreement with nature” is meant to work at a variety of
levels. Since my nature is such that health and wealth are appropriate
to me (according to my nature), other things being equal, I ought to choose
them. Hence the formulations of the end by later Stoics stress the idea that
happiness consists in the rational selection of the things according to nature.
But, we must bear in mind an important caveat here. Health and wealth are not
the only things which are appropriate to me. So are other rational beings and
it would be irrational to choose one thing which is appropriate to me without
due consideration of the effect of that choice on other things which are also
appropriate to me. This is why the later formulations stress that happiness
consists in the rational selection of the things according to nature.
But if I am faced with a choice between increasing my wealth (something which
is prima facie appropriate to my nature) and preserving someone else's health
(which is something appropriate to something which is appropriate to me, i.e.
another rational being), which course of action is the rational one? The Stoic
response is that it is the one which is ultimately both natural and rational:
that is, the one that, so far as I can tell from my experience with what
happens in the course of nature (see Chrysippus' formula for the end cited
above, 63B), is most in agreement with the unfolding of nature's rational and
providential plan. Living in agreement with nature in this sense can even
demand that I select things which are not typically appropriate to my nature at
all—when that nature is considered in isolation from these particular
circumstances. Here Chrysippus' remark about what his foot would will if it
were conscious is apposite.
As long as the future is uncertain to me I always
hold to those things which are better adapted to obtaining the things in
accordance with nature; for God himself has made me disposed to select these.
But if I actually knew that I was fated now to be ill, I would even have an
impulse to be ill. For my foot too, if it had intelligence, would have an
impulse to get muddy. (Epictetus, 58J)
We too, as rational parts of rational nature, ought
to choose in accordance with what will in fact happen (provided we can
know what that will be, which we rarely can—we are not gods; outcomes are
uncertain to us) since this is wholly good and rational: when we cannot know
the outcome, we ought to choose in accordance with what is typically or usually
nature's purpose, as we can see from experience of what usually does happen in
the course of nature. In extreme circumstances, however, a choice, for example,
to end our lives by suicide can be in agreement with nature.
So far the emphasis has been on just one component
of the Stoic formulation of the goal or end of life: it is the “rational
selection of the things according to nature.” The other thing that needs to be
stressed is that it is rational selection—not the attainment of—these
things which constitutes happiness. (The Stoics mark the distinction between
the way we ought to opt for health as opposed to virtue by saying that I select
(eklegomai) the preferred indifferent but I choose (hairoûmai)
the virtuous action.) Even though the things according to nature have a kind of
value (axia) which grounds the rationality of preferring them (other
things being equal), this kind of value is still not goodness. From the point
of view of happiness, the things according to nature are still indifferent.
What matters for our happiness is whether we select them rationally and, as it
turns out, this means selecting them in accordance with the virtuous way of
regarding them (and virtuous action itself). Surely one motive for this is the
rejection of even the limited role that external goods and fortune play in Aristotelian
ethics. According to the Peripatetics, the happy life is one in which one
exercises one's moral and theoretical virtues. But one can't exercise a moral
virtue like liberality (Nic. Eth. IV.1) without having some, even
considerable, money. The Stoics, by contrast, claim that so long as I order
(and express) my preferences in accordance with my nature and universal nature,
I will be virtuous and happy, even if I do not actually get the things I
prefer. Though these things are typically appropriate to me, rational choice is
even more appropriate or akin to me, and so long as I have that, then I have
perfected my nature. The perfection of one's rational nature is the condition
of being virtuous and it is exercising this, and this alone, which is good. Since
possession of that which is good is sufficient for happiness, virtuous agents
are happy even if they do not attain the preferred indifferents they select.
One is tempted to think that this is simply a
misuse of the word ‘happiness’ (or would be, if the Stoics had been speaking
English). We are inclined to think (and a Greek talking about eudaimonia
would arguably be similarly inclined) that happiness has something to do with
getting what you want and not merely ordering one's wants rationally regardless
of whether they are satisfied. People are also frequently tempted to assimilate
the Stoics' position to one (increasingly contested) interpretation of Kant's
moral philosophy. On this reading, acting with the right motive is the only
thing that is good—but being good in this sense has nothing whatsoever to do
with happiness.
With respect to the first point, the Stoic sage
typically selects the preferred indifferents and selects them in light of her
knowledge of how the world works. There will be times when the circumstances
make it rational for her to select something that is (generally speaking) contrary
to her nature (e.g., cutting off one's own hand in order to thwart a tyrant).
But these circumstances will be rare and the sage will not be oppressed by the
additional false beliefs that this act of self-mutilation is a genuinely bad
thing: only vice is genuinely bad. For the most part, her knowledge of nature
and other people will mean that she attains the things that she selects. Her
conditional positive attitude toward them will mean that when circumstances do
conspire to bring it about that the object of her selection is not secured, she
doesn't care. She only preferred to be wealthy if it was fated for her to be
wealthy. These reflections illustrate the way in which the virtuous person is
self-sufficient (autarkês) and this seems to be an important component
of our intuitive idea of happiness. The person who is genuinely happy lacks
nothing and enjoys a kind of independence from the vagaries of fortune. To this
extent at least, the Stoics are not just using the word ‘happiness’ for a
condition that has nothing at all to do with what we typically mean by
it. With respect to the second point, the Stoic sage will never find herself in
a situation where she acts contrary to what Kant calls inclination or desire.
The only thing she unconditionally wants is to live virtuously. Anything that
she conditionally prefers is always subordinate to her conception of the
genuine good. Thus, there is no room for a conflict between duty and happiness
where the latter is thought of solely in terms of the satisfaction of our
desires. Cicero provides an engaging, if not altogether rigorous, discussion of
the question of whether virtue is sufficient for happiness in Tusculan
Disputations, book V.
How do these general considerations about the goal
of living translate into an evaluation of actions? When I perform an action
that accords with my nature and for which a good reason can be given, then I
perform what the Stoics call (LS) a ‘proper function’ (kathêkon, Arius
Didymus, 59B)—something that it “falls to me” to do. It is important to note
that non-rational animals and plants perform proper functions as well (Diog.
Laert., 59C). This shows how much importance is placed upon the idea of what
accords with one's nature or, in another formulation, “activity which is
consequential upon a thing's nature.” It also shows the gap between proper
functions and morally right actions, for the Stoics, like most contemporary
philosophers, think that animals cannot act morally or immorally—let alone
plants.
Most proper functions are directed toward securing
things which are appropriate to nature. Thus, if I take good care of my body,
then this is a proper function. The Stoics divide proper functions into those
which do not depend upon circumstances and those that do. Taking care of one's
health is among the former, while mutilating oneself is among the latter (Diog.
Laert., 59E). It appears that this is an attempt to work out a set of prima
facie duties based upon our natures. Other things being equal, looking after
one's health is a course of action which accords with one's nature and thus is
one for which a good reason can be given. However, there are circumstances in
which a better reason can be given for mutilating oneself—for instance, if this
is the only way you can prevent Fagin from compelling you to steal for him.
Since both ordinary people and Stoic wise men look
after their health except in very extraordinary circumstances, both the sage
and the ordinary person perform proper functions. A proper function becomes a
fully correct action (katorthôma) only when it is perfected as an action
of the specific kind to which it belongs, and so is done virtuously. In the
tradition of Socratic moral theory, the Stoics regard virtues like courage and
justice, and so on, as knowledge or science within the soul about how to live.
Thus a specific virtue like moderation is defined as “the science (epistêmê)
of what is to be chosen and what is to be avoided and what is neither of these”
(Arius Didymus, 61H). More broadly, virtue is “an expertise (technê)
concerned with the whole of life” (Arius Didymus, 61G). Like other forms of
knowledge, virtues are characters of the soul's commanding faculty which are
firm and unchangeable. The other similarity with Socratic ethics is that the
Stoics think that the virtues are really just one state of soul (Plutarch ,
61B, C; Arius Didymus, 61D). No one can be moderate without also being just,
courageous and prudent as well—moreover, “anyone who does any action in
accordance with one does so in accordance with them all” (Plutarch, 61F). When
someone who has any virtue, and therefore all the virtues, performs any proper
function, he performs it in accordance with virtue or virtuously (i.e. with all
the virtues) and this transforms it into a right action or a perfect function.
The connection here between a perfect function and a virtuous one is almost
analytic in Greek ethical theorizing. Virtues just are those features which
make a thing a good thing of its kind or allow it to perform its function well.
So, actions done in accordance with virtue are actions which are done well. The
Stoics draw the conclusion from this that the wise (and therefore virtuous)
person does everything within the scope of moral action well (Arius Didymus,
61G). This makes it seem far less strange than it might at first appear to say
that virtue is sufficient for happiness. Furthermore, because virtue is a kind
of knowledge and there is no cognitive state between knowledge and ignorance,
those who are not wise do everything equally badly. Strictly speaking, there is
no such thing as moral progress for the Stoics (if that means progress within
morality), and they give the charming illustration of drowning to make their
point: a person an arm's length from the surface is drowning every bit as
surely as one who is five hundred fathoms down (Plutarch, 61T). Of course, as
the analogy also suggests, it is possible to be closer or farther from
finally being able to perform proper functions in this perfected way. In that
sense, progress is possible.
We are finally in a position to understand and
evaluate the Stoic view on emotions, since it is a consequence of their views
on the soul and the good. It is perhaps more accurate to call it the Stoic view
of the passions, though this is a somewhat dated term. The passions or pathê
are literally ‘things which one undergoes’ and are to be contrasted with
actions or things that one does. Thus, the view that one should be ‘apathetic,’
in its original Hellenistic sense, is not the view that you shouldn't care
about anything, but rather the view that you should not be psychologically
subject to anything—manipulated and moved by it, rather than yourself
being actively and positively in command of your reactions and responses to
things as they occur or are in prospect. It connotes a kind of complete
self-sufficiency. The Stoics distinguish two primary passions: appetite and
fear. These arise in relation to what appears to us to be good or bad. They are
associated with two other passions: pleasure and distress. These result when we
get or fail to avoid the objects of the first two passions. What distinguishes
these states of soul from normal impulses is that they are “excessive impulses
which are disobedient to reason” (Arius Didymus, 65A). Part of what this means
is that one's fear of dogs may not go away with the rational recognition that
this blind, 16 year old, 3 legged Yorkshire terrier poses no threat to you. But
this is not all. The Stoics call a passion like distress a fresh opinion
that something bad is present (Andronicus, 65B): you may have been excitedly
delighted when you first saw you'd won the race, but after a while, when the
impression of the victory is no longer fresh, you may calm down. Recall that
opinion is assent to a false impression. Given the Stoics' view about good and
bad, as against merely indifferent things, the only time that one should assent
to the impression that something bad is present is when there is something
which might threaten one's virtue, for this and this alone is good. Thus all
passions involve an element of false value-judgement. But these are false
judgements which are inseparable from physiological changes in the pneuma which
constitutes one's commanding faculty. The Stoics describe these changes as
shrinkings (like fear) or swellings (like delight), and part of the reason that
they locate the commanding faculty in the heart (rather than the head, as Plato
in the Timaeus and many medical writers did) is that this seems to be
where the physical sensations which accompany passions like fear are
manifested. Taking note of this point of physiology is surely necessary to give
their theory any plausibility. From the inside a value-judgement—even one like
“this impending dog bite will be bad”—might often just not feel like such an
emotional state as fear. But when the judgement is vivid and so the commanding
faculty is undergoing such a change, one can readily enough see that the
characteristic sensations might inexorably accompany the judgement.
Another obvious objection to the Stoic theory is
that someone who fears, say pigeons, may not think that they are
dangerous. We say that she knows rationally that pigeons are harmless but that
she has an irrational fear. It might be thought that in such a case, the
judgement which the Stoics think is essential to the passion is missing. Here
they resort to the idea that a passion is a fluttering of the commanding
faculty. At one instant my commanding faculty judges (rightly) that this pigeon
is not dangerous, but an instant later assents to the impression that it is and
from this assent flows the excessive impulse away from the pigeon which is my
fear. This switch of assent occurs repeatedly and rapidly so that it appears
that one has the fear without the requisite judgement but in fact you are
making it and taking it back during the time you undergo the passion (Plutarch,
65G).
It is important to bear in mind that the Stoics do
not think that all impulses are to be done away with. What distinguishes normal
impulses or desires from passions is the idea that the latter are excessive and
irrational. Galen provides a nice illustration of the difference (65J). Suppose
I want to run, or, in Stoic terminology, I have an impulse to run. If I go
running down a sharp incline I may be unable to stop or change direction in
response to a new impulse. My running is excessive in relation to my initial
impulse. Passions are distinguished from normal impulses in much the same way:
they have a kind of momentum which carries one beyond the dictates of reason.
If, for instance, you are consumed with lust (a passion falling under
appetite), you might not do what under other circumstances you yourself would
judge to be the sensible thing.
Even in antiquity the Stoics were ridiculed for
their views on the passions. Some critics called them the men of stone. But
this is not entirely fair, for the Stoics allow that the sage will experience
what they call the good feelings (eupatheiai, Diog. Laert. 65F). These
include joy, watchfulness and wishing and are distinguished from their negative
counterparts (pleasure, fear and appetite) in being well-reasoned and not
excessive. Naturally there is no positive counterpart to distress. The species
under wishing include kindness, generosity and warmth. A good feeling like
kindness is a moderate and reasonable stretching or expansion of the soul
presumably prompted by the correct judgement that other rational beings are
appropriate to oneself.
Criticisms of the Stoic theory of the passions in
antiquity focused on two issues. The first was whether the passions were, in
fact, activities of the rational soul. The medical writer and philosopher Galen
defended the Platonic account of emotions as a product of an irrational part of
the soul. Posidonius, a 1st c. B.C.E. Stoic, also criticised Chrysippus on the
psychology of emotions, and developed a position that recognized the influence
in the mind of something like Plato's irrational soul-parts. The other
opposition to the Stoic doctrine came from philosophers in the Aristotelian
tradition. They, like the Stoics, made judgement a component in emotions. But
they argued that the happy life required the moderation of the passions,
not their complete extinction. Cicero's Tusculan Disputations, books III
and IV take up the question of whether it is possible and desirable to rid
oneself of the emotions.
The influence of Stoicism on Greek and Roman
culture was enormous. Zeno, the first head of the school, had a statue raised
to him in Athens at public expense. The inscription read, in part:
Whereas Zeno of Citium, son of Mnaseas, has for
many years been devoted to philosophy in the city and has continued to be a man
of worth in all other respects, exhorting to virtue and temperance those of the
youth who came to him to be taught, directing them to what is best, affording
to all in his own conduct a pattern for imitation in perfect consistency with
his teaching … (Diog. Laert. 7.10–11, tr. Hicks)
Of course the citizens of Athens couldn't have
honoured Zeno for a life lived in consistency with his philosophical principles
unless the content of those principles was known to the general public. Since
the Stoics gathered, discussed and taught philosophy in a public place, the
general import of their philosophy was widely known. Stoicism became a “popular
philosophy” in a way that neither Platonism nor Aristotelianism ever did. In
part this is because Stoicism, like its rival Epicureanism, addressed the
questions that most people are concerned with in very direct and practical
ways. It tells you how you should regard death, suffering, great wealth,
poverty, power over others and slavery. In the political and social context of
the Hellenistic period (where a person could move between these extremes in
very short order) Stoicism provided a psychological fortress which was secure
from bad fortune. Historians of philosophy earlier in this century regarded
this as a mark against Hellenistic philosophy generally. The notion was that
philosophy peaked with Plato and Aristotle and then degenerated into the
popular “feel good” philosophy of the Hellenistic period and did not approach
its earlier glory again until Plotinus. It may be true that the lack of
political autonomy in the Greek city states made the ideal of the self-sufficient
Stoic sage appear more relevant and desirable. But even if the philosophy
suited the times, the Stoics and Epicureans provided arguments for their view
which still have interest for us who live in a social and political context
that is quite different. (Or perhaps not so different. I suppose it depends on
how pessimistic you are about the possibilities for self-determination for
individuals and small communities in the age of globalization.)
At the political level, the Antigonid dynasty (which
ruled Greece and Macedon from shortly after the death of Alexander to 168
B.C.E.) had connections with the Stoic philosophers. Antigonus Gonatas was
alleged to have been a pupil of Zeno of Citium. He requested that Zeno serve as
the tutor to his son, Demetrius, but Zeno excused himself on the ground that he
was too old for the job. The man he sent instead, Persaeus, was deeply involved
in affairs at court and, according to some sources, died in battle at Corinth
in the service of Antigonus. Another Hellenistic strong-man, Cleomenes of
Sparta, had the Stoic philosopher Sphaerus as one of his advisors. The reforms
instituted in Sparta (including the extension of citizenship to foreigners and
the redistribution of land) were seen by some as a Stoic social reform, though
it is less clear that it was anything other than an instrument of power for
Cleomenes. (See Plutarch's Life of Cleomenes.) Peter Green takes a
rather more cynical view of the matter (p. 248 ff), but Green is perhaps unduly
hard on Stoicism generally.
In 155 B.C.E. Athens sent a delegation of three
philosophers (Stoic, Academic skeptic, and Peripatetic) on an embassy to
Rome—no Epicurean was included, perhaps because Epicureans refused on principle
to participate in public affairs. Their teachings caused a sensation among the
educated. The Skeptic Carneades addressed a crowd of thousands on one day and
argued that justice was a genuine good in its own right. The next day he argued
against the proposition that it was in an agent's interest to be just in terms
every bit as convincing. This dazzling display of dialectical skill, together
with the deep seated suspicion of philosophical culture, generated a
conservative backlash against all Greek philosophers led by Marcus Porcius Cato
(the Censor). By 86, however, Rome was ready to receive Greek philosophy with
open arms. It was natural that an ambitious and well off Roman like Cicero
should go and study at the philosophical schools in Athens and return to
popularise Greek philosophy for his less cosmopolitan countrymen. Epicureanism
tended to be favored in the ranks in Rome's military, while Stoicism appealed
more to members of the Senate and other political movers and shakers. Many
Roman politicians at least adopted the high moral tone of Stoicism according to
which only virtue is a genuine good, while money, health and even life itself
are simply preferred indifferents. Roman political figures associated with
Stoicism include Cato the Younger and Scipio Aemilianus (though some of the
claims made in earlier scholarship about Greek philosophy and culture and the
Scipionic Circle are now regarded with some suspicion). Marcus Brutus (the
friend of Cicero who took part in the murder of Julius Caesar) professed
Stoicism but was not above engaging in loan-sharking (hence the joke that he
was a man of high principles and even higher interest). Pompey thought it
sufficiently important to look in on the Stoic philosopher Panaetius of Rhodes
in his comings and goings. Octavian (who became Augustus) had a Stoic tutor.
Among the Roman emperors, the Stoic philosopher Seneca was the advisor of Nero.
Helvidius Priscus advertised himself as a Stoic. When he rather unwisely
criticised the Emperor Vespasian in the Senate, he was executed and all the
philosophers were excluded from Rome as trouble makers. Under Domitian, they
were banished from all of Italy. Clearly the worst of the Roman emperors had no
use for people who did not regard death as the greatest of evils! The hostility
of the Empire did not last long. Hadrian (117–138) was a friend of Greek
philosophy and saw to it that his relative and his successor Antoninus' heir,
Marcus Aurelius, had an education which included it. The latter's Meditations
are still a good read, even if you know nothing about Stoicism but especially
if you do. Marcus atoned in effect for Rome's sins against philosophy by
establishing ‘professorships’ in the four schools of philosophy in Athens and
other cities in 176. In spite of this, Stoicism as a philosophical movement in
its own right nearly disappears after the second century.
The influence of Stoicism on the subsequent history
of philosophical and religious thought is hard to evaluate directly. The
tradition of theories of natural law in ethics seems to stem directly from
Stoicism. (Compare Cicero, de Legibus I, 18 with later writers like
Aquinas in Summa Theologica II, 2, q. 94.) Christian theologians were
certainly receptive to some of the elements of Stoicism. There exists an
inauthentic correspondence between St Paul and Seneca included in the
Apocrypha. This forgery is a very ancient one, since it was referred to in both
Jerome (de Viris Illustribus 12) and Augustine (Epistle 153.4).
Augustine, alas, chose to follow the Stoics rather than the Platonists (his
usual allies among the philosophers) on the question of animals' membership in
the moral community (City of God 1.20). Medieval and Renaissance
philosophers were acquainted with Stoicism chiefly through the writings of
Seneca and Cicero. The influence of Stoicism on Medieval thought has been
considered by Verbeke (1983) and Colish (1985). Its renaissance in the
sixteenth century is discussed by Zanta (1914) and Cooper (2004). There are
several new studies of the influence of Stoic philosophy including Osler
(1991)and Strange and Zubek (2004).
Collections
of primary texts
- A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, 1987, The
Hellenistic Philosophers 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
[Vol. 2 contains an extensive bibliography of scholarly books and
articles.]
- B. Inwood and L. Gerson, 1997, Hellenistic
Philosophy 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing 1997. [This volume
is cheaper than Long and Sedley, but it lacks the valuable commentary that
LS provide. On the other hand, Inwood and Gerson give you more texts on
Pyrrhonism.]
- Hans von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta
(Leipzig, 1903–5; vol. 4 indexes, 1924)
- Alan Bowen and Robert Todd, 2004, Cleomedes'
Lectures on Astronomy Berkeley: University of California Press. [A
translation of the Stoic Cleomedes' work on astronomy, together with
introduction and commentary.]
- B. Inwood, 2007, Seneca: Selected
Philosophical Letters translated with introduction and commentary.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. [The Roman Stoics are now rightly a topic
of study on their own.]
- A. Pomeroy, 1999, Arius Didymus: Epitome of
Stoic Ethics, Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. [Translation
and commentary on one of our fullest sources on Stoic ethical theory.].
Introductions
to Stoicism
- Brennan, T., 2005, The Stoic Life,
Oxford: Oxford University Press. [A clear and thought-provoking
discussion.]
- Inwood, B., 2003, The Cambridge Companion
to the Stoics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Long, A. A., 2002, Epictetus: a Stoic and
Socratic guide to life, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Long, A. A., 1986, Hellenistic Philosophy:
Stoics, Epicureans, Skeptics, 2nd edition, London: Duckworth.
- Nussbaum, M., 1994, The Therapy of Desire,
Princeton: Princeton University Press. [Not really an introduction, but a
splendid book accessible to a wide readership. Considers the important
therapeutic element in Hellenistic philosophy.]
- Rist, J. M., 1969, Stoic Philosophy,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Includes a discussion of the Stoic
views on suicide.]
- Sambursky, S., 1959, The Physics of the Stoics,
London: Routledge. [An interesting book insofar as it attempts to connect
aspects of the Stoics physical theory to many contemporary scientific
notions. It might be best to read it alongside the review by Wasserstein
in Journal of Hellenic Studies, 83 (1963) before you make up your
mind.]
- Sandbach, F. H., 1994, The Stoics, 2nd
edition, London: Duckworth.
- Sharples, R. W., 1996, Stoics, Epicureans
and Skeptics, London: Routledge. [A thematic treatment of the
competing Hellenistic schools.]
A few collections,
monographs, and some individual articles referred to above
- Algra, K., and J. Barnes, J. Mansfeld and M.
Schofield (eds.), 1999, The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [A monumental work of scholarship.]
- Annas, J., 1993, The Morality of Happiness,
New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. [A very influential book.
See the review by B. Inwood in Ancient Philosophy, 15 (1995):
647–665, and Cooper 1996.]
- Baltzly, D., 2003, ‘Stoic Pantheism’, Sophia,
34: 3–33.
- Bobzien, S., 2001, Determinism and Freedom
in Stoic Philosophy, Oxford: Clarendon.
- Betegh, G., 2003, ‘Cosmological Ethics in the
Timaeus and Early Stoicism’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy,
24: 273–302.
- Brunschwig, J., 1994, Papers in Hellenistic
Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Collected papers
of one of the foremost scholars in the field.]
- Cooper, J. M., 1996, ‘Eudaimonism, the Appeal
to Nature, and “Moral Duty” in Stoicism’, in Engstrom and Whiting 1996,
pp. 261–84. Reprinted in J. Cooper, Reason and Emotion, Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1997.
- Cooper, J. M., 2004, ‘Stoic Autonomy’, in J.
Cooper (ed.), Knowledge, Nature and the Good: Essays on Ancient
Philosophy, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- Frede, M., 1987, Essays in Ancient
Philosophy, Minneapolis: University of Minnnesta Press. [Contains
Frede's influential paper on the cognitive impression.]
- Hankinson, R. J., 1998, Cause and
Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought, Oxford: Clarendon. [Includes an
extensive treatment of the Stoics on causation.]
- Inwood, Brad, 2005, Reading Seneca: Stoic
Philosophy at Rome, Oxford: Oxford University Press. [A collection of
Inwood's essays on Seneca as Stoic philosopher]
- Long, A. A., 1996, Stoic Studies,
Berkeley: University of California Press. [Collected papers of one of the
foremost scholars on Stocism. see especially ‘The logical basis of Stoic
ethics’ and ‘Stoic eudaimonism’.]
- Reydams-Schils, Gretchen, The Roman Stoics,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Rist, J. M., 1978, The Stoics,
Berkeley: University of California Press. [Now somewhat dated, but an
enjoyable read.]
- Salles, R., 2005, The Stoics on Determinism
and Compatibilism, Burlington VT: Ashgate.
- Schofield, M., and M. Burnyeat and J. Barnes
(eds.), 1980, Doubt and Dogmatism: Studies in Hellenistic Epistemology,
Oxford: Clarendon.
- Schofield, M. and G. Striker (eds.), 1986, The
Norms of Nature, Cambridge: Cambridge Univeristy Press.
- Striker, G., 1996, Essays on Hellenistic
Epistemology and Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [The
collected papers of one of the most influential scholars in the field.]
- Sorabji, R., 1988, Matter, Space and
Motion: theories in antiquity and their sequel, London: Duckworth.
[Examines the view that the Stoics located bodies in the same place
everywhere.]
- Sorabji, R., 2000, Emotion and Peace of
Mind: from Stoic agitation to Christian temptation, Oxford: Oxford
Univeristy Press. [A clear and accessible book on the Stoic theory of the
passions and its influence on Christian thought.]
- Taylor, R., 1974, Metaphysics, 2nd
edition, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
- Stockdale, James, 1984, In Love and War,
New York: Harper and Row.
Historical
context and subsequent influence of Stoicism
- Colish, M., 1985, The Stoic Tradition from
Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, 2 volumes, Leiden: E.J. Brill.
- Cooper, J. M., 2004, ‘Justus Lipsius and the
Revival of Stoicism in Late-Sixteenth-Century Europe’, in N. Brender and
L. Krasnoff (eds.), New Essays on the History of Autonomy,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 7–29.
- Engberg-Pedersen, T., 2000, Paul and the
Stoics, Westminster: John Knox Press. [Specifically on the alleged
correspondence between Paul and Seneca, see J. B. Lightfoot, The
Letters of Paul and Seneca, London: Macmillan, 1890, and Aldo Moda,
‘Seneca e il Cristianesimo’, Henoch, 5 (1983):93–109.
- Engstrom S., and J. Whiting (eds.), 1996, Aristotle,
Kant and the Stoics, Cambridge: Cambridge Univeristy Press.
- Green, P., 1990, Alexander to Actium,
Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Osler, M. J., 1991, Atoms, pneuma and
tranquillity: Epicurean and Stoic themes in European thought,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Shifflett, A., 2004, Stoicism, Politics and
Literature in the Age of Milton, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
- Strange, S. and J. Zupko (eds.), 2004, Stoicism:
traditions and transformations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Verbeke, G., 1983, The Presence of Stoicism
in Medieval Thought, Washington: Catholic University of America Press.
- Zanta, L., 1914, La renaissance du
Stoicisme au XVIe siecle, Paris: Champion.
- The works two of the later Roman Stoics are
available as e-texts:
- The Meditations
of Marcus Aurelius
- Epictetus, Discourses and Enchiridion
- Ataktos: a dialogue on
Stoic ethics by
Dirk Baltzly. [This is a dialogue on the relative merits of the Stoic,
Aristotelian and Epicurean conceptions of happiness. It was written for
first year students of the subject on morality and objectivity.]
- Monash University
Philosophy
offers a 3rd year (i.e. junior/senior level) subject in distance education
mode on Stoicism and
Epicureanism.
- Cynthia Freeland has a beautiful site for her Seminar in Ancient
Stoicism at the University of Houston. See, in particular, the bibliography and links.
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