23 September 2023
I suspect there are readers who find some of these blogs too philosophical. If that’s you, skip this one. This blog focuses on a subject I have wanted to clarify for at least a decade: Stoic values, particularly what the Stoics meant when discussing the “indifferents.” As always, the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP) has been magnificent.
As a key to where this blog is going, it is an explanation of why I am unable to fully embrace Stoicism, per my current understanding. We’ll start with a quote from the IEP regarding the goal or “end” (telos) of Stoicism, that is, what are the actions of Stoicism directed toward in a human life?
“The first sense of this definition [the purpose or goal of life] is living in accordance with nature as a whole; i.e., the entire cosmos… [which] the Stoics firmly believed, is a rationally organized and well-ordered system, and indeed coextensive with the will of Zeus, the impersonal god. Consequently, all events that occur within the universe fit within a coherent, well-structured scheme that is providential. Since there is no room for chance within this rationally ordered system, the Stoics’ metaphysical determinism further dictated that this cosmic Nature is identical to fate. Thus at this level, ‘living in agreement with nature’ means conforming one’s will with the sequence of events that are fated to occur in the rationally constituted universe, as providentially willed by Zeus” (Stephens, 2023, 1. Definition of the End).
We’ll break that down into individual premises and then examine each, one by one, over the next few weeks.
That’s one paragraph. As you can probably see, books could (and have been) written on each of the eight premises I’ve abstracted from that paragraph. Let’s try the first premise.
There are a few ways to read this statement. If you tried to live with nature as a whole, to a full extent, would you build fires and fire enclosures within insulated buildings? Is that architectural act in accordance with nature as a whole, or is it in opposition? That’s perhaps an argumentative way of seeing the first premise.
An alternate way of living in accordance with nature is to accept reality as it is. I am firmly in favour of such acceptance. But, that acceptance means acknowledging the precise nature of what has happened i.e., refusing to deny, avoid, hide from, intoxicate my mind out of or away from that reality, et cetera. If I lose my fortune or health, that does not mean, to me, that I roll over and die as I see this as part of Zeus’ providential plan. Quite contrarily, I hope I would fight like hell to rebuild my equity or my health to enjoy whatever time I have remaining.
As such, I am equating living with nature as a whole with accepting what unfolds as a real part of my life. I do not agree that a virtuous person simply bows to Zeus in permanent acceptance of all misfortunes, though I do accept that misfortunes (and opportunities) are real.
I’m a firm believer in what Freud came to call Thanatos and Eros, a death force and a life force within both people and nature. I do not understand the universe to be a rationally organized system. In fact, my barely (cosmically) educated sense is that this magnificent opportunity called life on Earth is a random event happening completely by chance.
To return to Freud, I have inferred that this belief goes back, in writing, as far as Heraclitus, a pre-Socratic philosopher. Everyday of my professional life is filled with attempts to understand the products of cruel misfortune and how these products have played out in a fellow human being’s life. While I may encourage that person to embrace the misfortune, as having made them wiser, stronger, and more individual, wishing such misfortunes to continue would be evil as it invites further entropic disorder.
While Freud is quoted above, there are other ways to see Thanatos and Eros such as through physics: entropy (chaotic disorder) exists as does order. Order is less permanent—and requires vigorous maintenance—while entropy is what happens when no one does the maintenance or imposes order. If entropy or disorder is the natural state of affairs, it is clear we cannot subscribe to a belief that the universe is a rationally organized and well-ordered system.
That said, I have tremendous respect for Heidegger’s question, Why is there something and not nothing? For to follow my reasoning (paragraphs immediately above) an entropic system might well be predicted to devolve to nothing—and yet it hasn’t—cosmically or even politically. (And here scale of time becomes an issue.)
I will also confess that my personal answer to Heidegger’s question privileges the life force (order, Eros) over the death force (entropy, Thanatos) putting me (uncharitably) into the zone of contradiction or (more charitably) into an aporia, a term used since the ancient philosophers wrote, signalling a roadblock i.e., you can’t get there from here!
With that unsettling thought, we will close this blog and resume next week with the third point (list above). The intention is to synthesize the meaning of all eight premises, collectively, in terms of living a eudaimonic (well-spirited) life. Wish me luck.
Dan Chalykoff is a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying). He works at CMHA-Hamilton and Healing Pathways Counselling, Oakville, where his focus is clients with addiction, trauma, burnout, and major life changes. He writes these blogs to increase (and share) his own evolving understanding of ideas. Since 2017, he has facilitated two voluntary weekly group meetings of SMART Recovery. Please email him (danchalykoff@hotmail.com) to be added to or removed from the Bcc’d emailing list.
References
Stephens, W. O. (2023, September 1). Stoic Ethics. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://iep.utm.edu/stoiceth/#:~:text=All%20other%20things%20were%20judged,be%20used%20well%20and%20badly.
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