Notes on ‘Lessons in Stoicism’

Table of Contents

Prologue

• Seneca was the tutor to the Emperor Nero.
• Epictetus was a slave who gained his freedom and set up his own philosophical school.
• Marcus Aurelius was the Emperor of Rome.

1. The philosopher as doctor

• One of the most famous Cynics, Diogenes of Sinope, pursued a virtuous character at the expense of everything else. He distanced himself from wealth and material possessions, going so far as to supposedly throw away his drinking cup when he witnessed a child drinking using only its hands.
• Zeno, the first of the stoics, was for a time drawn to this view of the Cynics, but later changed his mind. If wealth was an ‘Indifferent’, and could be used for good and for bad, then we should not feel bad about using money and our possessions to survive, live more comfortably and secure our survival.
• Zeno wanted to reserve the word good for having an excellent, virtuous character. So he called all those other things preferred indifferents. Because having a virtuous character was the only thing that was actually good, we should never compromise our own integrity in the pursuit of money or fame.
• Stoics also followed Socrates in believing nobody chooses to be vicious and unpleasant. They believed everyone acts in a way they think is good and will benefit them, even if their world view of what’s good and beneficial is hopelessly distorted.
• The role of philosophers is to act as a “doctor of the soul”. To help us assess our world view and live a more virtuous, just life when we go off-track.

2. What do you control?

• Epictetus believed the only thing we truly have control over is our judgments, and the things which derive from our judgments.
• We don’t have control over external factors (nor can we control certain internal factors), so we shouldn’t make our happiness depend on them. Instead we should focus all of our attention on our judgments, which will improve our character, and ultimately live a better and happier life.

• If we tie our happiness to achieving the outcome, we run the risk of being frequently disappointed, but if we make our goal simply doing the best we can, then nothing can get in our way. (Page 18)

3. The problems with emotions

• Stoics believe emotion is the result of a judgment we make in our mind.
• That initial moment of fear, anger or irritation is what Seneca called a ‘first movement’ but not a proper emotion. These only become emotions when we judge something is significant enough to act upon.
• Because our judgments are one of the few things we have control over, we are in control of our emotions and responsible for them.
• Stoics do not believe people should be unfeeling. It is natural and healthy to experience pleasure, have joy and feel love. It’s also normal to experience brief moments of fear or embarrassment. But we should avoid developing negative emotions.

4. Dealing with adversity

• Adversity is a fact of life. Seneca argues we should reframe negative events as challenges to be overcome, that can teach us and make us stronger. “There is no worse luck, Seneca says, than unending luxury and wealth, which will serve only to make us lazy, complacent, ungrateful and greedy for more. This is real misfortune!”
• Epictetus takes a different outlook, emphasizing that we should pay minimal attention to such events and keep our focus on our judgments.
• Seneca, as well as earlier stoics such as Chrysippus, advocate something called the premeditation of future evils. He argues that events will affect us more severely when we live our lives not preparing for them. Death is inevitable. Events like a loved one dying, getting let go from one’s job, etc. are all quite possible. “I didn’t think it could happen to me” when you know it could is simply illogical, Seneca says. We should reflect on the possibility of unfortunate events happening to us so that we may be better prepared to cope with it.

5. Our place in nature

This chapter discusses the stoic view on Nature: They believe it is a system that is determined by rationality, a chain of causes and effects.

The Stoics didn’t think that Nature is an indifferent mass of matter in motion. As we saw in the last chapter, Seneca presents Nature as being under the control of a paternalistic deity. The official Stoic view is that there is a rational principle within Nature, responsible for its order and animation. They call this ‘God’ (Zeus), but it is not a person, and nothing supernatural - it simply is Nature. Nature isn’t blind and chaotic; it is ordered and beautiful, with its own rhythms and patterns. It is not composed of dead matter; it is a single living organism, of which we are all parts.

(Page 41)

We cannot control Nature, everything that happens is the culmination of previous decisions and events. It is meant to happen and simply cannot have any other outcome.

For the Stoics, thinking about fate is a central element in the remedy for adversity, because part of coming to terms with unpleasant events is accepting that they had to happen. Once we grasp that something was inevitable, we shall see that bemoaning it is pointless, will only generate further distress and simply displays a failure to grasp the way the world works.

(Page 44)

That being said, even though we are carried along on a stream of events we cannot control, we do have the ability to influence matters to a greater or lesser degree.

This might start to sound a bit fatalistic: how can we tiny specks of matter do anything in the face of the overpowering forces that shape the world? That would be a false impression, though, for the Stoics certainly didn’t advocate that kind of passivity. Our actions can and do make a difference. They can themselves be causes at play that contribute to the outcome of events. As one ancient source put it, fate works through us. We are ourselves contributors to fate and parts of the larger natural world governed by it.

(Page 43)

In short, we should accept that we cannot control or dictate what happens, and wishing things work out differently than they do is pointless. But we shouldn’t let this paralyze this into passivity: Instead, we should focus on being our best selves in the present moment.

6. Life and death

Seneca argued many people fail to live fulfilling lives because they fail to live for themselves. In his essay ‘On the Shortness of Life’, he says says that, for many of us, by the time we are really ready to start living, our lives are almost over because we’ve already wasted so much time.

We spend all our life pursuing wealth and fame, with no guarantee that we’ll make it to retirement or be healthy enough to enjoy it. Or we drift through life aimlessly, never pursuing our goals, or going after things of little or no value. Yet others know what they wish to achieve, but fail to go for it out of fear for failure, always putting off their dreams for later.

We don’t need to live our lives as if today will be our last, but it is good to be aware that it could be, and live our life accordingly. Don’t put off pursuing your dreams, and don’t put too much stock in the opinions of others.

Seneca was also not a fan of typical leisure activities:

With this renewed sense of the value of time and determined effort to prioritize our own leisure, what does Seneca think we ought to do? He quickly dismisses the playing of games and sports, as well as the popular holiday activity of what he calls ‘cooking one’s body in the sun’. Indeed, he attacks many of the things that are often referred to today as ’leisure activities’. Instead, he recommends philosophy as the finest and most worthy activity, by which he means thinking, learning, reading history and literature, reflecting on the past and the present. This is the opposite of rushing around in the pursuit of worldly success, which, he says, is ‘won at the cost of life’.

(Page 52)

Epictetus repeatedly describes life as a gift. One which has been given to us, but which may also be taken away at a moment’s notice by ‘Nature’:

Under no circumstances ever say I have lost something’, only ‘I returned it’. Did a child of yours die? No, it was returned. Your wife died? No, she was returned.

(Page 53)

Epictetus also talks about life and death in the context of our judgments and suggests we can choose to think about it differently:

The belief that death is something terrible is merely the product of our judgement about it. We can choose to think about it differently. Indeed, Epictetus insists that we ought to think about it differently, because the judgement that it is something terrible rests on a mistake. The brute fact of being alive is an indifferent, and, in any case, one of the things not within our control.

(Page 54)

7. How we live together

While Stoics spend a lot of time focus inwards, working on improving their own character, this all aimed at becoming a better human and more fair, productive member of society. Stoics believe that we are all a part of Nature, made up of both our local communities but ultimately also humanity as a whole:

We have a duty of care to all other human beings, and they suggest that as we develop our rationality we shall come to see ourselves as members of a single, global community of all humankind. A slightly less well-known Stoic of the imperial period called Hierocles (about whose life we know almost nothing) outlined in his treatise on Stoic ethics the idea that we are each at the centre of a series of expanding circles of concern, starting with ourselves, then containing our immediate family, then our local community and eventually ending with the largest circle that embraces all humankind. The modern idea of cosmopolitanism, then, has its origins with the Stoics.

(Page 57)

Various stoics placed a strong emphasis on equality and fairness, as well as for standing up for your beliefs. One such example comes from Helvidius Priscus, remembered in particular for standing up to the Emperor Vespasian, as recounted by Epictetus. When Helvidius saw Vespasian abusing the authority of the Senate, he refused to back down. Warned to stay away, Helvidius insisted on standing up to the Emperor to defend his rights and indeed those of all members of the Senate. He was executed for his troubles.

Stoics were prepared to face up to tyrants rather than compromise their principles. In so doing they embodied the virtues of courage and justice. Far from counselling political passivity, Stoicism encourages us to live up to the very highest standards of political action.

(Page 63)

Another example comes from Musonius Rufus, who advocated for at least some level of equality between men and women in a time where women’s rights were nowhere near those of men:

We have reports of a number of his lectures, which, as in the case of Epictetus, were written down by an admiring student. In one of those lectures Musonius is asked if women should be allowed to study philosophy. He responds by saying that women have just the same powers of reasoning as men, and indeed the same natural inclination towards virtue. He suggests that women -just as men- can benefit from studying the sorts of topics we have already considered in the previous chapters.

(Page 61)

That being said, Epictetus did caution to be careful about whom we surround ourselves with, especially when trying to make changes to one’s life or habits. We tend to mimic the people around us, making it difficult to try to break free from old habits or destructive patterns of behavior if we are surrounded by other people still living that way. As Epictetus put it, if you brush up against someone covered in soot, you’re going to get covered in soot yourself.

Epictetus was addressing his students in Nicopolis who, like many university students today, were away from home and about to head back for the vacation. Should they catch up with their old schoolfriends if they are trying to break free from some aspects of their previous way of life? The risk is that they will fall back into past habits, returning to their old patterns of behaviour in order to fit in. Epictetus advises them to be extremely cautious, recommending that they avoid the company of others as much as possible until the new habits they want to develop have become properly embedded.

(Page 62)

Epilogue

The epilogue contains useful references to further reading material.