Encheiridion

Philosophy 1

Spring, 2002

G. J. Mattey

The Stoics

• Stoicism (literally, “porch-ism”) was founded by Zeno of Citium

• The stoa was the porch of the house where the philosophers met

• Other notable Stoic philosophers:– Zeno’s pupil Cleanthes– Cleanthes’s pupil Chrysippus

• Stoicism became popular in the Roman empire– Emperor Marcus Aurelius adopted Stoicism and wrote

a book about the conduct of life

Contributions of the Stoics

• The first to articulate principles of propositional logic

• Tried to produce a criterion for separating truth from falsehood

• Produced an elaborate account of nature as governed by reason

• Tried to reconcile the necessity of natural events with human autonomy

• Produced an influential ethical theory, enjoining people to “live according to nature”

Epictetus

• Born 55• Appeared several

hundred years after the founding of Stoicism

• Originally a slave• Influenced Marcus

Aurelius• Died about 135

Autonomy

• We must become clear about what is up to us and what is not up to us

• We are autonomous in our opinions, impulses, desires, aversions

• Nothing else is in our control• Misery results from confusing what is in our

control from what is not• We can live smoothly by treating what is not in

our control as being nothing to us

Desire and Aversion

• Desire proposes gaining something– Frustration of desire is unfortunate

• Aversion proposes not falling into something– Occurrence of what one is averse to is misfortune

• One will meet misfortune if and only if one is averse to what must happen by nature

• One should be averse only to what is against nature and up to us, and one should eliminate desire for anything not according to nature

Distress and Joy

• Distress occurs when we make a false judgment

• E.g., that death is dreadful– We act as if death is something that is up to us

• We have only ourselves to blame for our distress

• We should be joyful only about our own superiority, not that of what we have

Progress

• The Stoic view was that individual humans can make progress toward an ideal state, exemplified by Socrates

• One must train one’s self to disregard bad states of affairs out of one’s control

• One must avoid interest in external goods and honors

• One must master one’s desires, so that they concern nothing out of one’s power

• For the most part, we are in the power of nature

Nature

• The natural universe is divine• It is arranged in the best way• So, nothing that happens is truly bad• If one believes there is bad in the world,

one must blame the gods• To have the proper relation to the gods, one

must confine value-judgments to what is up to one’s self

Appropriate Behavior

• We should act appropriately at all times• Our activities should be commensurate with our

powers• They should stem from a unified purpose and not

take place haphazardly like the activities of children

• They should not call attention to themselves• They should be directed only toward the

improvement of the faculty of judgment

Judging Others

• Someone who is making progress will not judge others’ actions as good or bad

• If someone acts badly toward you, you should recognize that the person thinks it appropriate– So the badness lies in the other person’s

judgment– The other person is harmed by the error

Live as a Philosopher

• Understanding how to live is not enough– One must put one’s understanding into action– This must be done right away

• Socrates is the model: he paid attention only to reason in every affair

• The most important philosophical injunction is “not to hold to falsehood”

• But philosophers emphasize too much technical issues such as the nature of demonstration and of falsehood itself