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Ο Στωικός σοφός: Το αληθινό νόημα του στωικισμού
"As the ancients themselves knew, Stoicism was not a uniform doctrine. Throughout the centuries there existed factions; the Stoics treasured their independence of judgment and quarreled among themselves." Yet, "despite their individual differences, the Stoic dissenters remained Stoics. That which they had in common, that which made them Stoics, is what I understand as the meaning of Stoicism." Thus delimiting his framework, Ludwig Edelstein attempts to define Stoicism by grasping the elusive common element that bound together the various factions within the ethical system. He begins this exemplary essay with a description of the Stoic sage—the ideal aimed at by Zeno and his followers—which establishes the basic characteristics of the philosophy. Mr. Edelstein then proceeds to a more detailed examination, discussing the Stoic concepts of nature and living in accord with nature; the internal criticism of the second and first centuries B.C., which indicates the limitations and possibilities inherent in the doctrine; the Stoic's way of life and his attitude toward practical affairs, revealing the values cherished by the adherents of the Stoa; and, finally, the place of Stoicism in the history of philosophy.
- GenresPhilosophy
135 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1966
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September 1, 2022
This book contains an extremely erudite series of lectures on the classical philosophical Stoic school delivered by Professor Edelstein in 1956 - much of what he said I have to admit went over my head, but in general, he was trying to make stoicism relevant or accessible to his mid-20th C Oberlin audience, as well as no doubt impress his academic peers with his knowledge of the subject and interesting linkages he discerned among various schools of stoicism. The average reader may associate Stoicism with Marcus Aurelius and the idea of how a good, upstanding life should be led. There were however, other tendencies in Stoicism, and the lectures discuss these variations as well as the origins of Stoicism.
According to the Preface, ¨That Greek philosophy, historically considered, is as great an achievement as Greek tragedy or lyric or history or architecture I take it you will not deny.¨ In Professor Edelstein´s first lecture, called ¨The Stoic Sage,¨ he says: ¨For the Stoic... ....goodness or happiness consists in a inner attitude, in the good will, as Kant would express it. It does not mater what happens to man. What counts is that he wants the right, that he does the right, that he makes the right use of the things that befall him. But if the Stoic aims at self-mastery, the same could be said of Socrates, or Plato, and of Aristotle. What is the specifically Stoic concept of such a rule over oneself?¨ The Stoics would say that ¨...if one´s passions are allowed to have their way, they may provoke the bad as well as the good.¨ ¨Moreover, sympathy is needed; without it, one cannot help others...¨ Seneca explained that those who do good must sympathize with others: ¨...¨this is not strength if one bears what one does not feel.¨ Thus, ¨In the technical language of the Stoa it is not apatheia but eupatheia that is sought.¨ But is Stoicism simply ¨...a matter of intention, of an inner attitude, and this inner attitude in the last analysis is an attitude of complete indifference...¨? Would the Stoic say that ¨...all things that have value are relative in comparison with the morally good, which is the absolutely good...¨? Do ¨The Stoics compare life to a game, a game of counters, in which victory is of no importance and it is your playing that matters, not the score you happen to make...¨? What Professor Edelstein says is ¨...the question whether or not man can become a sage was not the decisive question for the Stoic philosopher.¨ In fact, ¨...moral idealism and optimism is the contribution of the Stoa...¨ But ¨Where does it come from? Almost all interpreters agree that the novel aspect of Stoicism is determined by the particular political and historical situation prevailing at the end of the fourth century B.C. It was a time of moral and political dissolution. The values of the city-state and the old religious ideals had broken down; and a new foundation of life had to be established. The fears of men had to be allayed; their desires had to be restrained.¨ ¨And what about Alexander, the great king from whom the Stoics are by many supposed to have inherited the dream of a world state and of the unity of mankind? In him the covetousness of man had found its highest expression.¨ In Professor Edelstein´s second lecture, called ¨The Stoic Concept of Nature,¨ he continues as follows: ¨The decisive event in the development of fourth century philosophy was the rise of idealism. Plato believed that by his theory of ideas he had solved the metaphysical problem which the Presocratics had discovered.¨ According to the Stoics ¨The organizing energy or force, the leading principle, is the true essence of things; and one may well understand each phenomenon as the unfolding of the energy which produces it. Expressed differently, the leading principle is the divine element in things, the same divine element that actuates the world as a whole, which is a living being too.¨ Furthermore, ¨The Stoic concept of what happens in the interrelation of things is really very similar to the modern concept of events, the concept of empiricists like Hume or Mill. An event expresses neither being nor one of its properties, but is something that is asserted of being or said and stated of that which is.¨ ¨As Plotinus once put it, according to the Stoa things that are later are enslaved to things that are before. For him as for the Platonists and Aristotelians such a theory is destructive of science, for there are no ultimate eternal facts. The Stoics see in the theory the highest expression of their view of the universe as constantly changing, as a dynamic process in which man too is but a part of necessary events.¨ Similar to today ¨Individualism is characteristic of the Hellenistic period, and the restlessness of that age comes to the fore in the dynamism of life which the Stoa acknowledges....¨ Of course ¨The scientific fact that the world about men is a world of order, of law, and of rules had been established by the research of the fifth and fourth centuries. Mathematics, astronomy, and biology had been established. Like Plato and Aristotle the Stoics respected these sciences.¨ But ¨Where Nietzsche speaks of a game of dice, of mechanical or mechanistic forces, the Stoics speak of the monotony of a biological process. And at this point it must have become abundantly clear that for the Stoic there is no real aim of this rational process, no real end.¨ So that ¨There is nothing behind things; nothing for which they are. The world is a brute fact, mere factuality. This is the awesome, terrifying truth of nature...¨ As for religion, ¨The Deity in which [the Stoic] ... truly believes is the cosmos, which he calls mysterion; the sun is its torch bearer. Over and over again Greek philosophy uses religious language to express physical ideas without adopting the original connotation inherent in the words; and if the Stoic speaks of God´s providence, one must not forget that that this providence is identical with nature and necessity.¨ The Stoics observed that ¨Animals and men cannot live without acting, without doing something; they could not endure without eating or drinking, processes which go on as it were automatically in plants but require decisions in man.¨ In general, for the Stoics ¨...the only true good is virtue, that is, reason, planning, conceptual knowledge.¨ ¨For...the Stoics...passions are concerned only with the moment, ¨merely with the present¨ in Bacon´s words, whereas ¨reason beholdeth the future and sum of time.¨ ¨Or to express it in the theological language of the Early and the Late Stoa, we are all children of God. He who follows reason will become aware of this truth.¨ Thus, ¨...physical destruction is nothing, for in the last analysis man is not body but soul.¨ The next lecture is called ¨Stoic Self-Criticism:¨ There were various ancient Greek philosophical schools competing for attention at the time of the Old Stoa, and ¨A kind of scholasticism developed; the defense of the Stoic dogma against that of other schools was uppermost in the minds of the members of the Old Stoa.¨ Then ¨With the Middle Stoa, that is, Stoicism as it was taught between 150 B.C. and 50 B.C...a great change set in.¨ ¨....Stoicism, is is said was recast after the model of Platonism and Aristotelianism.¨ So that ¨...the Stoa of the Greco-Roman world is much different from that of the early Hellenistic period.¨ But ¨The hold of the Middle Stoa did not last long. In the first century A.D., with the beginning of the Late Stoa, one notices a return to the doctrine of Zeno and Chrysippus. Moreover, the emphasis now more even than in the beginning is on moral problems. Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius are not concerned with logic and physics, let alone science; they are concerned with shaping the life of the individual.¨ And ¨As for the influence of the Romans, the new dominant political power, on the development of Greek philosophy, it would, of course, be rash to deny that in a new period of history new philosophical problems arise and that the way in which the world is managed has something to do with our theoretical understanding of the world.¨ Such that ¨...the changes that came about in all philosophies at the turn from the second to the first century are especially striking. Skepticism and Epicureanism were practically made over, and Pythagoreanism was revived.¨ Then ¨The turn from the third to the second century B.C. marks the greatest progress in ancient scientific research. This is true of astronomy, geography, and natural studies in general. The development that began in Zeno´s time reached its highest point in the second century B.C. It was then that that science was created to which modern science at the beginning of the Renaissance harked back; and what was important was not just that certain particular results were achieved but that the sciences reached a stage of systematic perfection. The younger Stoics imbibed this new spirit of ... science... And [the Stoic philosophers of this era] Panaetius and Posidonius ...were themselves scientists.¨ ¨...for Panaetius the only good thing is the morally good... All passions have to be subdued. Man must follow .... his rational nature.¨ Yet ¨The dualism of Plato puts desires and passions over against reason; and while reason is the true self of man, there seems to be no power lying beyond the divided life of passions and reason. They interact, as it were, without any point of reference. The individual belongs either to one world or the other. Even Aristotle, for whom choice is a combination of desire and deliberation, does not find a principle of unity beyond or above their difference. The individual still realizes itself in action and not in its being, for action is the only way in which individual being exists.¨ Moreover, ¨The soul, a body in Stoic terminology, still is thought to perish with the physical body.¨ Yet ¨...one may well wonder why, if man has a propensity only toward the good, he can turn toward badness. Where does moral evil come from? Why is it so difficult to learn to lead a life that is in accordance with our nature? Ancient and modern critics have put these questions to the orthodox Stoic. The reply given is very much in the spirit of Rousseau. Evil comes from without, the Stoa maintains. Wrong opinions and civilization subvert the human being ¨by nature shaped right.¨ It is the spell cast over us by things that turns us into sinners.¨ But, according to Posidonius, ¨Passions and reason drag men in different directions...¨ ¨...for Posidonius... ....virtue alone is good and the passions must be eradicated to make room for the life of the intellect, or else we do not live a life in accordance with our true nature.¨ ¨...Posidonius maintains [that] ... Neither passion nor reason directly issues in action; but they fight for control of the will, which in itself neutral, mediates action. The question is which of the two contestants is to direct the will, for they are like two riders trying to mount the same horse; whichever manages to get into the saddle makes the horse go in the direction he has chosen.¨ ¨In the training of man, in his attempt to make progress toward the ideal... ...philosophical education, moral training in the abstract, must go together with sensual means or be based upon them. Music is of primary importance in such a sensual training. It is indispensable for shaping the souls of the young especially. The choice of right melodies means the choice of right morals.¨ Because ¨Passions are part of human nature, ...man must fight unceasingly against them.¨ But ¨..Posidonius´ argument would not have been convincing to Chrysippus or to any member of the Old Stoa, for to them reason is creativity, artistic creativity...¨ ¨...Posidonius...a mathematical realist. The problem as to the existence of mathematics has been discussed since the time of the Presocratic philosophers. Pythagoras and Plato believed in the reality of numbers and mathematical figures. To Aristotle mathematical constructions were a figment of the human mind. While the Stoa generally sided with Aristotle, Posidonius voted for Pythagoras and Plato; and therewith the whole Stoic concept of reality was reversed.¨ Moreover, ¨...Posidonius maintained that matter always exists in a certain shape and quality, and God is but the administrator of the cosmos.¨ With respect to ethics, ¨...[Posidonius] ...insisted that it is not circumstances that determine the decisions of individuals and communities... In the opinion of Posidonius physical and geographical factors determine history to a certain extent--and there is besides an ever increasing moral decay, inevitable through the progress of civilization; but at every moment the individual is free to break through the magic circle of events and things if he only wills to do so, for it is his own character that is his true god.¨ The truth is ¨The scientist...must remain within the framework laid down by the philosopher. All sciences are based on presuppositions which science itself cannot prove. This is true of mathematics and astronomy as well as of geography, geology, and history. Thus the philosopher has again become the lawgiver of science...¨ ¨ ... Chrysippus gave full recognition to the importance of scientific studies even for the philosopher, [and] ... justified their usefulness by the argument that they are conducive to virtue. That is why he held them to be advantageous ... like health and money to belong to the goods preferred.¨ ¨...the idea of living in agreement with one´s nature -- the only virtue that Posidonius or Panaetius or any of the other younger Stoics acknowledged -- ...broadened.¨ ¨...Posidonius: ¨One day in the life of the educated lasts longer than the longest lifetime of the uneducated.¨ ¨...it is clear that the Stoics of the first century A.D. and even of the second cannot be said simply to have returned to the Old Stoa.¨ ¨...Pythagoras ...first taught a ¨way of life.¨ The Stoics usually speak of an ¨art of life,¨ ... not in the sense of any inspirational action but in the sense of a settled disposition, which makes man act with the certainty of an accomplished craftsman, which teaches him how to do things in an unvarying order.¨ ¨...the Stoic, for whom man is a social being and can perfect himself only within the community of man and not just the community of citizens either. The highest ideal of the Stoic way of life...was to live with others. While it was the dream of the Epicurean sage to live hidden from the world, it was the duty of the Stoic sage to understand that he could never consider himself a private individual. Social obligations take precedence over individual tasks, and individual ethics is ipso facto social ethics. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Stoicism exercised such a profound influence on Christianity.¨ ¨...it is...the Stoa that first recognized the full equality of husband and wife.¨ ¨...Stoic ethics...imbued man´s actions with a new respect for human dignity.¨ ¨...by the end of the classical era [manual labor] ...had become something contemptible in democratic and oligarchical societies. Socrates´ defense of the workmen on the ground that work brings neither disgrace nor dishonor is quite revolutionary, and so is the Pythagorean theory of work and workmanship. What is much more characteristic of the common attitude is Aristotle´s remark that the artisan is subject to limited servitude while the slave is subject to unlimited servitude. Between the two, then, there is only a difference of degree.¨ ¨[Stoicism] ... a reversal of the attitude of the wealthy to the poor and infused the ideal of humaneness with the virtue of generosity.¨ ¨The Stoa...opposed socialism and communism as they were preached in Hellenistic utopias, but it did not condone a theory of the laissez faire, to which Aristotle had already objected. Unlike him, however, the Stoics did not advocate statism as a remedy, nor did they wait for the invisible hand of God to set things right, as Adam Smith was willing to do. Instead they asked the individual to learn that it s necessary for him to live for others and that he is born for human society at large, of which he must always feel himself to be a member rather than a fragment separated off." ¨[According to the Stoics] ...One worships the gods...not because the gods are in need of worship but because man is in need of it, [in order to] ....remind himself of the existence of the divinity. ...prayer...has no influence over the gods, but it directs man´s attention to the divine within. The statue of the god is not god, for god has no human shape; and the stories that mythology tells about the deities are wrong if taken literally. These stories must be reinterpreted ...metaphorically; ...then they yield insight into the nature of the cosmos.¨ ¨...mythology expresses in terms of imagination the truth of philosophy.¨ ¨...it seems safe to say that these ceremonies mattered little to the Stoic philosopher... They were devised for the many rather than for the few; and, practiced in the right way, that is, practiced with the right attitude of mind, they might not be harmful. It is more important...to shape one´s whole life in such a way that it may turn into service to God.¨ ¨With the possible exception of Panaetius all Stoic philosophers defended the belief in the science of omens that reveal to man the divine interest in his fate.¨ ¨That all actions are predetermined in some manner and that necessity holds sway over human and divine affairs all Stoics asserted. Theoretically, then the future could be known at least by a mind able to follow all lines of causation...¨ ¨From Plato and Aristotle the Stoa inherited the conviction that any law enacted by the people or the magistrates deals with the universal aspects of a case and does not take account of particular circumstances, so that equity is needed in interpreting the law, which must be understood according to the spirit rather than according to the letter. Human motives and situations, since they are characteristic of individual actions, must be considered also.¨
According to the Preface, ¨That Greek philosophy, historically considered, is as great an achievement as Greek tragedy or lyric or history or architecture I take it you will not deny.¨ In Professor Edelstein´s first lecture, called ¨The Stoic Sage,¨ he says: ¨For the Stoic... ....goodness or happiness consists in a inner attitude, in the good will, as Kant would express it. It does not mater what happens to man. What counts is that he wants the right, that he does the right, that he makes the right use of the things that befall him. But if the Stoic aims at self-mastery, the same could be said of Socrates, or Plato, and of Aristotle. What is the specifically Stoic concept of such a rule over oneself?¨ The Stoics would say that ¨...if one´s passions are allowed to have their way, they may provoke the bad as well as the good.¨ ¨Moreover, sympathy is needed; without it, one cannot help others...¨ Seneca explained that those who do good must sympathize with others: ¨...¨this is not strength if one bears what one does not feel.¨ Thus, ¨In the technical language of the Stoa it is not apatheia but eupatheia that is sought.¨ But is Stoicism simply ¨...a matter of intention, of an inner attitude, and this inner attitude in the last analysis is an attitude of complete indifference...¨? Would the Stoic say that ¨...all things that have value are relative in comparison with the morally good, which is the absolutely good...¨? Do ¨The Stoics compare life to a game, a game of counters, in which victory is of no importance and it is your playing that matters, not the score you happen to make...¨? What Professor Edelstein says is ¨...the question whether or not man can become a sage was not the decisive question for the Stoic philosopher.¨ In fact, ¨...moral idealism and optimism is the contribution of the Stoa...¨ But ¨Where does it come from? Almost all interpreters agree that the novel aspect of Stoicism is determined by the particular political and historical situation prevailing at the end of the fourth century B.C. It was a time of moral and political dissolution. The values of the city-state and the old religious ideals had broken down; and a new foundation of life had to be established. The fears of men had to be allayed; their desires had to be restrained.¨ ¨And what about Alexander, the great king from whom the Stoics are by many supposed to have inherited the dream of a world state and of the unity of mankind? In him the covetousness of man had found its highest expression.¨ In Professor Edelstein´s second lecture, called ¨The Stoic Concept of Nature,¨ he continues as follows: ¨The decisive event in the development of fourth century philosophy was the rise of idealism. Plato believed that by his theory of ideas he had solved the metaphysical problem which the Presocratics had discovered.¨ According to the Stoics ¨The organizing energy or force, the leading principle, is the true essence of things; and one may well understand each phenomenon as the unfolding of the energy which produces it. Expressed differently, the leading principle is the divine element in things, the same divine element that actuates the world as a whole, which is a living being too.¨ Furthermore, ¨The Stoic concept of what happens in the interrelation of things is really very similar to the modern concept of events, the concept of empiricists like Hume or Mill. An event expresses neither being nor one of its properties, but is something that is asserted of being or said and stated of that which is.¨ ¨As Plotinus once put it, according to the Stoa things that are later are enslaved to things that are before. For him as for the Platonists and Aristotelians such a theory is destructive of science, for there are no ultimate eternal facts. The Stoics see in the theory the highest expression of their view of the universe as constantly changing, as a dynamic process in which man too is but a part of necessary events.¨ Similar to today ¨Individualism is characteristic of the Hellenistic period, and the restlessness of that age comes to the fore in the dynamism of life which the Stoa acknowledges....¨ Of course ¨The scientific fact that the world about men is a world of order, of law, and of rules had been established by the research of the fifth and fourth centuries. Mathematics, astronomy, and biology had been established. Like Plato and Aristotle the Stoics respected these sciences.¨ But ¨Where Nietzsche speaks of a game of dice, of mechanical or mechanistic forces, the Stoics speak of the monotony of a biological process. And at this point it must have become abundantly clear that for the Stoic there is no real aim of this rational process, no real end.¨ So that ¨There is nothing behind things; nothing for which they are. The world is a brute fact, mere factuality. This is the awesome, terrifying truth of nature...¨ As for religion, ¨The Deity in which [the Stoic] ... truly believes is the cosmos, which he calls mysterion; the sun is its torch bearer. Over and over again Greek philosophy uses religious language to express physical ideas without adopting the original connotation inherent in the words; and if the Stoic speaks of God´s providence, one must not forget that that this providence is identical with nature and necessity.¨ The Stoics observed that ¨Animals and men cannot live without acting, without doing something; they could not endure without eating or drinking, processes which go on as it were automatically in plants but require decisions in man.¨ In general, for the Stoics ¨...the only true good is virtue, that is, reason, planning, conceptual knowledge.¨ ¨For...the Stoics...passions are concerned only with the moment, ¨merely with the present¨ in Bacon´s words, whereas ¨reason beholdeth the future and sum of time.¨ ¨Or to express it in the theological language of the Early and the Late Stoa, we are all children of God. He who follows reason will become aware of this truth.¨ Thus, ¨...physical destruction is nothing, for in the last analysis man is not body but soul.¨ The next lecture is called ¨Stoic Self-Criticism:¨ There were various ancient Greek philosophical schools competing for attention at the time of the Old Stoa, and ¨A kind of scholasticism developed; the defense of the Stoic dogma against that of other schools was uppermost in the minds of the members of the Old Stoa.¨ Then ¨With the Middle Stoa, that is, Stoicism as it was taught between 150 B.C. and 50 B.C...a great change set in.¨ ¨....Stoicism, is is said was recast after the model of Platonism and Aristotelianism.¨ So that ¨...the Stoa of the Greco-Roman world is much different from that of the early Hellenistic period.¨ But ¨The hold of the Middle Stoa did not last long. In the first century A.D., with the beginning of the Late Stoa, one notices a return to the doctrine of Zeno and Chrysippus. Moreover, the emphasis now more even than in the beginning is on moral problems. Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius are not concerned with logic and physics, let alone science; they are concerned with shaping the life of the individual.¨ And ¨As for the influence of the Romans, the new dominant political power, on the development of Greek philosophy, it would, of course, be rash to deny that in a new period of history new philosophical problems arise and that the way in which the world is managed has something to do with our theoretical understanding of the world.¨ Such that ¨...the changes that came about in all philosophies at the turn from the second to the first century are especially striking. Skepticism and Epicureanism were practically made over, and Pythagoreanism was revived.¨ Then ¨The turn from the third to the second century B.C. marks the greatest progress in ancient scientific research. This is true of astronomy, geography, and natural studies in general. The development that began in Zeno´s time reached its highest point in the second century B.C. It was then that that science was created to which modern science at the beginning of the Renaissance harked back; and what was important was not just that certain particular results were achieved but that the sciences reached a stage of systematic perfection. The younger Stoics imbibed this new spirit of ... science... And [the Stoic philosophers of this era] Panaetius and Posidonius ...were themselves scientists.¨ ¨...for Panaetius the only good thing is the morally good... All passions have to be subdued. Man must follow .... his rational nature.¨ Yet ¨The dualism of Plato puts desires and passions over against reason; and while reason is the true self of man, there seems to be no power lying beyond the divided life of passions and reason. They interact, as it were, without any point of reference. The individual belongs either to one world or the other. Even Aristotle, for whom choice is a combination of desire and deliberation, does not find a principle of unity beyond or above their difference. The individual still realizes itself in action and not in its being, for action is the only way in which individual being exists.¨ Moreover, ¨The soul, a body in Stoic terminology, still is thought to perish with the physical body.¨ Yet ¨...one may well wonder why, if man has a propensity only toward the good, he can turn toward badness. Where does moral evil come from? Why is it so difficult to learn to lead a life that is in accordance with our nature? Ancient and modern critics have put these questions to the orthodox Stoic. The reply given is very much in the spirit of Rousseau. Evil comes from without, the Stoa maintains. Wrong opinions and civilization subvert the human being ¨by nature shaped right.¨ It is the spell cast over us by things that turns us into sinners.¨ But, according to Posidonius, ¨Passions and reason drag men in different directions...¨ ¨...for Posidonius... ....virtue alone is good and the passions must be eradicated to make room for the life of the intellect, or else we do not live a life in accordance with our true nature.¨ ¨...Posidonius maintains [that] ... Neither passion nor reason directly issues in action; but they fight for control of the will, which in itself neutral, mediates action. The question is which of the two contestants is to direct the will, for they are like two riders trying to mount the same horse; whichever manages to get into the saddle makes the horse go in the direction he has chosen.¨ ¨In the training of man, in his attempt to make progress toward the ideal... ...philosophical education, moral training in the abstract, must go together with sensual means or be based upon them. Music is of primary importance in such a sensual training. It is indispensable for shaping the souls of the young especially. The choice of right melodies means the choice of right morals.¨ Because ¨Passions are part of human nature, ...man must fight unceasingly against them.¨ But ¨..Posidonius´ argument would not have been convincing to Chrysippus or to any member of the Old Stoa, for to them reason is creativity, artistic creativity...¨ ¨...Posidonius...a mathematical realist. The problem as to the existence of mathematics has been discussed since the time of the Presocratic philosophers. Pythagoras and Plato believed in the reality of numbers and mathematical figures. To Aristotle mathematical constructions were a figment of the human mind. While the Stoa generally sided with Aristotle, Posidonius voted for Pythagoras and Plato; and therewith the whole Stoic concept of reality was reversed.¨ Moreover, ¨...Posidonius maintained that matter always exists in a certain shape and quality, and God is but the administrator of the cosmos.¨ With respect to ethics, ¨...[Posidonius] ...insisted that it is not circumstances that determine the decisions of individuals and communities... In the opinion of Posidonius physical and geographical factors determine history to a certain extent--and there is besides an ever increasing moral decay, inevitable through the progress of civilization; but at every moment the individual is free to break through the magic circle of events and things if he only wills to do so, for it is his own character that is his true god.¨ The truth is ¨The scientist...must remain within the framework laid down by the philosopher. All sciences are based on presuppositions which science itself cannot prove. This is true of mathematics and astronomy as well as of geography, geology, and history. Thus the philosopher has again become the lawgiver of science...¨ ¨ ... Chrysippus gave full recognition to the importance of scientific studies even for the philosopher, [and] ... justified their usefulness by the argument that they are conducive to virtue. That is why he held them to be advantageous ... like health and money to belong to the goods preferred.¨ ¨...the idea of living in agreement with one´s nature -- the only virtue that Posidonius or Panaetius or any of the other younger Stoics acknowledged -- ...broadened.¨ ¨...Posidonius: ¨One day in the life of the educated lasts longer than the longest lifetime of the uneducated.¨ ¨...it is clear that the Stoics of the first century A.D. and even of the second cannot be said simply to have returned to the Old Stoa.¨ ¨...Pythagoras ...first taught a ¨way of life.¨ The Stoics usually speak of an ¨art of life,¨ ... not in the sense of any inspirational action but in the sense of a settled disposition, which makes man act with the certainty of an accomplished craftsman, which teaches him how to do things in an unvarying order.¨ ¨...the Stoic, for whom man is a social being and can perfect himself only within the community of man and not just the community of citizens either. The highest ideal of the Stoic way of life...was to live with others. While it was the dream of the Epicurean sage to live hidden from the world, it was the duty of the Stoic sage to understand that he could never consider himself a private individual. Social obligations take precedence over individual tasks, and individual ethics is ipso facto social ethics. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Stoicism exercised such a profound influence on Christianity.¨ ¨...it is...the Stoa that first recognized the full equality of husband and wife.¨ ¨...Stoic ethics...imbued man´s actions with a new respect for human dignity.¨ ¨...by the end of the classical era [manual labor] ...had become something contemptible in democratic and oligarchical societies. Socrates´ defense of the workmen on the ground that work brings neither disgrace nor dishonor is quite revolutionary, and so is the Pythagorean theory of work and workmanship. What is much more characteristic of the common attitude is Aristotle´s remark that the artisan is subject to limited servitude while the slave is subject to unlimited servitude. Between the two, then, there is only a difference of degree.¨ ¨[Stoicism] ... a reversal of the attitude of the wealthy to the poor and infused the ideal of humaneness with the virtue of generosity.¨ ¨The Stoa...opposed socialism and communism as they were preached in Hellenistic utopias, but it did not condone a theory of the laissez faire, to which Aristotle had already objected. Unlike him, however, the Stoics did not advocate statism as a remedy, nor did they wait for the invisible hand of God to set things right, as Adam Smith was willing to do. Instead they asked the individual to learn that it s necessary for him to live for others and that he is born for human society at large, of which he must always feel himself to be a member rather than a fragment separated off." ¨[According to the Stoics] ...One worships the gods...not because the gods are in need of worship but because man is in need of it, [in order to] ....remind himself of the existence of the divinity. ...prayer...has no influence over the gods, but it directs man´s attention to the divine within. The statue of the god is not god, for god has no human shape; and the stories that mythology tells about the deities are wrong if taken literally. These stories must be reinterpreted ...metaphorically; ...then they yield insight into the nature of the cosmos.¨ ¨...mythology expresses in terms of imagination the truth of philosophy.¨ ¨...it seems safe to say that these ceremonies mattered little to the Stoic philosopher... They were devised for the many rather than for the few; and, practiced in the right way, that is, practiced with the right attitude of mind, they might not be harmful. It is more important...to shape one´s whole life in such a way that it may turn into service to God.¨ ¨With the possible exception of Panaetius all Stoic philosophers defended the belief in the science of omens that reveal to man the divine interest in his fate.¨ ¨That all actions are predetermined in some manner and that necessity holds sway over human and divine affairs all Stoics asserted. Theoretically, then the future could be known at least by a mind able to follow all lines of causation...¨ ¨From Plato and Aristotle the Stoa inherited the conviction that any law enacted by the people or the magistrates deals with the universal aspects of a case and does not take account of particular circumstances, so that equity is needed in interpreting the law, which must be understood according to the spirit rather than according to the letter. Human motives and situations, since they are characteristic of individual actions, must be considered also.¨
August 27, 2020
These series of four lectures are a handy run through stoicism. They are useful enough for the beginner to acquaint himself with the basic tenets of Zeno's school and the early, middle and late schools of Stoa. They are crafted for a specific audience thus they resemble more Cumontian "Public lectures", than a strictly academic one yet contain a wealth of information and interesting details. I've read it mainly to compare some pin-pointed arguments with neo-platonic schools which were often at odds with stoicism, yet reached for it also as a bow towards "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius that saved my mind from terrible suffering years ago. I will eye reading fragments of Posidonius edited by the same author, as it invited further, more detailed study. Highly commendable, short read.
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