The Practicing Stoic. Ward Farnsworth
enough to the core principles of the philosophy.My view is that the late Stoicism of the Romans deserves its own attention and credit. It was not as theoretically subtle and original as what the Greeks developed, no doubt, but it has other strengths. The late Stoics were more than popularizers of what the earlier ones said; they were innovators in adapting it to ordinary life. Granted, we don’t have much of what the Greeks wrote (or all that the Romans did). But what we do know suggests that the late edition of the philosophy was a more pragmatic enterprise than the early one, as Roman undertakings are apt to seem when set next to Greek examples of the same. The late Stoic writings thus hold up as a separate body of work with its own advantages and choices of emphasis, and can be read with profit and without apology for however it might differ from the Greek variety.The most important example of this point should be stated directly: I include some positions of Seneca’s, and call them Stoic, that some would say are departures from Stoicism. Seneca’s views on certain subjects (especially involving emotion) are, in my judgment, more helpful and convincing than those of other Stoics. Readers who like what he had to say should not have to be described as “Senecaists” or some comparable deformity. Seneca was the most prolific Stoic writer whose work has survived. I think it makes best sense to treat his teachings, even where they occasionally departed from those of the Greeks, as a version of Stoicism rather than a mix of fidelity and lapses from it. If the result must be named distinctly, let it be called Reform Stoicism or some such thing.
7 Stoicism covered many topics, so a comment is in order about which ones are discussed here and which are left out. This book is, first, about ethics. In casual current usage, “ethics” usually means rules about what behavior is right and wrong, particularly in how we treat other people. For philosophical purposes, though, the term also refers to larger questions about how to act and the meaning of the good life. Much of what follows belongs under that heading, though some of what the Stoics thought about ethics, including much of their theoretical apparatus, is not included.The subject of the book can also be described as psychology, a topic we regard as separate from philosophy but that the Stoics did not distinguish from it. Most chapters take as their topic some aspect of human irrationality and how it might be tamed. These inquiries of the Stoics will appeal to some readers for the same reasons they find modern cognitive psychology appealing. Understanding our own minds helps us become conscious of our misjudgments – a little more perceptive, a little more self-aware, a little less stupid. In some respects cognitive psychologists, too, can be counted as successors of the Stoic philosophers, and the Stoics anticipated a number of their findings, as we shall see. But the Stoics, while less rigorous in their methods, are more ambitious in the questions that they try to answer. They propose a way of life.The Stoicism of this book, then, amounts to a blend of philosophy and psychology, and is weighted toward the latter. It is so weighted because the Stoics, from where we now sit, are at times more enduring psychologists than philosophers. Some of the philosophical claims they regarded as most important – about what it means to live according to nature, for example, and why it matters – have not aged well. Their observations of how our thinking betrays us have more often stood the test of time. There admittedly can be a loss as well as a gain from this choice of emphasis. Some Stoic teachings might appear incomplete or unsatisfying unless they are joined to first principles of ethics or metaphysics of a kind largely avoided here. But I expect that readers will bring along their own first principles regardless, and will find the counsels of the Stoics compatible with a wide range of them.Stoicism originally included much besides ethics and psychology. The ancients would have identified logic and physics as additional headings; within physics they would put theories that we might assign to cosmology and theology, including some that, as just noted, have few subscribers left. The Stoics believed that reason infuses the universe. They saw nature as intelligent, and events as expressing the will of a benevolent Providence. This book does not present any of those doctrines or show how the ideas discussed here relate to them. They would require a volume much longer than this, and meanwhile most readers today don’t believe in Stoic theology and don’t need it to learn from what else the Stoics said. Such is the argument of this book: that the writings of the Stoics have retained vitality not because their beliefs about the cosmos still have resonance but because their insights about human nature do.I do not mean to suggest that the Stoics have nothing worthwhile to say about the largest problems of life. On the contrary, Stoicism is rewarding in part because it addresses some of the same questions about how to live that many religions do, and sometimes reaches similar conclusions, but it gets there by observation and reason alone. Or rather it can. The Stoics did have a theology, as I’ve said, but you may remove that pillar and the temple still stands; their analysis and advice hold up well enough without it. To put the point differently, the Stoics, when speaking in the manner shown here, will sometimes be found to arrive at the same summit as the followers of other philosophical or spiritual traditions, but they go up the mountain by a different face. Their way will be congenial to many modern readers. It is the path of logic, reflection, and knowledge of humanity.
8 The title of this book is open to more than one reading. The discussion just offered will suggest the intent behind it. I regard a practicing Stoic as someone who tries to remember the wisdom of the Stoics when dealing with life and thinking about thinking – one attracted to Stoicism not as a creed or theology but as valuable counsel and as a form of psychological hygiene. This book, in other words, is for those more interested in the practice of Stoicism than the theory of it. (Of course I do not begrudge any others their love of the high theory of Stoicism, and they are entitled to books, too – but they already have them.)The title also means to suggest humility. A practicing Stoic can be considered one who is trying to learn what the Stoics had to teach and not doing it well enough to yet claim success. The book is not The Proficient Stoic or The Complete Stoic, but merely The Practicing Stoic, which is no doubt the most that anyone should say. (“Are you a Stoic?” “No, no – just practicing.”)
9 Stoicism has been subject to many criticisms over the years, and a reader of this book should know something about them. My interest here is not so much in the technical critiques of Stoicism made by academics or rival philosophers, many of which I would concede or leave to the specialists. I’m more interested in knocks the Stoics have taken in literary conversation, because those assessments strike closer to the teachings that are the subject of this book. Chapter 13 shows three of the most standard of those criticisms and makes comments on them. It is healthy for those getting to know the Stoics to see what people who don’t like them have said, and to consider what might be said back.I will offer here my general view that many critics of Stoicism treat it uncharitably. They seize on the most extreme things the Stoics said but don’t account for ways in which those points were offset or qualified elsewhere. Or they judge the whole philosophy by its least appealing adherents or features or moments. That’s too bad, not because it is unfair to the Stoics (they don’t care), but because it distracts from all that they said that was better. But the criticisms still stick. Many of those who have a view about Stoicism base it on what they have heard, and what they have heard is calumny. Or they associate Stoicism with some single idea that seemed memorable when they heard it, probably because it was jarring. If you study the subject and talk about it with others who haven’t, you quickly will see for yourself. Opinions about Stoicism outrun knowledge of it by a hundred to one.The critic might reply that I make an opposite sort of mistake, displaying the more attractive parts of Stoicism and giving short shrift to the rest. That may be true. I have tried to fairly introduce, in a modest space, the applied ethics and psychology of the late Stoics. But if there are more and less reasonable versions of a teaching available, the book goes with the more reasonable one. I’ve sought to take the Stoics at their best and to present them that way – not for the sake of persuading anyone to think well of Stoicism, but for the sake of producing a useful book.
10 The concessions in the last few comments invite a specialist’s criticism that I wish, finally, to anticipate: that this book isn’t about Stoic philosophy after all – that what it contains isn’t Stoicism or philosophy. It isn’t Stoicism because it leaves out too much that the Stoics thought necessary. It isn’t philosophy because it leaves out too much that is foundational. Maybe it’s good advice, but then it’s just advice.Distinctions of this kind may be boring to lay readers, but they mean something to academic scholars, and as an academic I sympathize. In view of this