General tenets of Stoicism
Stoicism – founded around 301 BC by the Greek Zeno, living in Athens.
‘The Roman period [was] characterised by an increased interest in ethics’ - Wilson.
‘Philosophy had once been seen as a foreign, Greek import, which had the potential to
threaten good old Roman values’ – Wilson
Philosophy ‘takes as her aim the state of happiness’ – Letter 90
Virtus, Apatheia, Ataraxia
The Stoic goal of apatheia, or ‘being without passion’
Ataraxia – ‘untroubled-ness’ – the individual’s capacity to maintain a calm disposition, no
matter what.
‘The Stoics, like the Cynics, believed that nothing was truly valuable except virtue; that virtue
was both necessary and sufficient for human happiness; and that such happiness involves
living a life in accordance with Nature.’ – Wilson
‘The Stoic notion that only virtue is essential for happiness’ – Wilson
Only Virtue is lofty and sublime; nothing is great that is not also calm’ – On Anger 1.20.4
‘being joyful is the distinctive and natural characteristic of virtue’ – On anger 2.6.2
‘the power and greatness of virtue cannot rise to greater heights, because what is already
the greatest can’t get bigger’ – Letters to Lucilius 66.8
Seneca ‘insists that the Epicureans are wrong to equate pleasure with virtue…Virtue does
not bring pleasure, but is chosen for itself, not for any pleasure it may bring.’ – Wilson
‘an ideal Stoic wise person ought to be free, tranquil and happy at all times’ – Wilson
‘the Stoic ideal of perfect constancy and calm’ – Wilson
‘the Stoic mode of expelling negative emotions and becoming a sage’ – Wilson
Indifferent things
,There is ‘a category in between the things that are absolutely good and bad: the ‘indifferent
things.’’ – Wilson
‘Seneca withholds words like ‘good’ from the indifferent things: they are valuable, but not
good, and the distinction is important. Valuable items are worth choosing over others, if all
things are equal; but they are not, in themselves, sufficient for human happiness, and hence,
not truly good. Only the life of virtue is truly good.’ – Wilson
‘preferred indifferents’ – Long and Shelley Includes marriage, children, wealth.
Marriage ‘is an indifferent thing, not valuable in the same way that virtue is valuable; but it is
a preferable indifferent, such that a good wife is definitely better than no wife at all.’ – Wilson
‘This is what we mean when we say the wise man is self-content; he is so in the sense that
he is able to do without friends, not that he desires to do without them.’ – letter 9
The philosopher ‘does not love riches, but he would rather have them’ – On the Happy Life
21.4
‘virtue alone is sufficient for happiness: everything else, including pleasure, pain, health,
wealth and freedom, is ‘indifferent’’. – Wilson
Seneca is indifferent to the ‘baldness of my head, the weakness of my eyes, the thinness of
my legs, and my height. Where’s the insult, in hearing what is obvious?’ – On Constancy
16.4
The Stoic sage
The sapiens – the Stoic ideal of the Wise Man who is able to realise the truth that nothing
except virtue really matters.
The sage is always acting with ‘wisdom, courage, temperance, justice.’ – Wilson
‘The Stoics themselves acknowledged that the true Sage is very rare, possibly non-existent’
– Wilson
‘In Seneca’s imagery, the wise person, who conforms his desires to those of God, becomes
the follower of God; the foolish person, who fails to conform to what must be, is merely His
slave.’ – Wilson, summarising On Providence 5. 6-7.
Reason and emotion
‘It is a failure of reason that makes us liable to unhappiness and wrongdoing’
,Crucial difference between ‘performing a ‘correct function’, kathekon, and performing ‘fully
correct action’, kathorma.
For stoics, ‘human beings are a complete whole, not a collection of diverse parts, and that
whole is entirely rational’ – Wilson. Different from Socrates’ soul/charioteer idea?
A distinction is made between impulses – preconscious responses – and passions, which
imply a set of beliefs.
Seneca makes a ‘careful distinction between involuntary impulses and actual emotions.’ –
Wilson
‘The Stoics…placed enormous value on human reason’ – Wilson
‘Man is a rational animal’ – Letter 41
‘The Stoics categorised the bad kinds of emotion into four general types: pleasure, pain,
desire and fear.’ – Wilson
‘Passions…are emotions based on false ideas about reality and are characterised by their
capacity to overwhelm right thinking’ – Wilson
‘this is the most essential duty and proof of wisdom: that one’s actions should match one’s
words, and that a person should always, everywhere, be the same, and himself’ 20.2
‘He is not only a teacher of truth, but a witness to the truth’ – 20.10
‘The unexamined life is not worth living by a human being’ – Socrates, in Plato’s Apology
‘Seneca is willing to use arguments that are not Stoic, or are even anti-Stoic…are simply
common sense or folk wisdom.’ – Wilson
‘My studies were my salvation. I ascribe it to philosophy that I recovered and got stronger. It
is to her that I owe my life, and that is the least of what I owe her.’ – Epistle 78.3
Stoicism has real world application
Stoics have ‘a strong tradition of political engagement’ – Wilson (in contrast to the
Epicureans – ‘Hide away while you live your life’; Epicurus).
The Stoics ‘placed a high value on action in the world, including political engagement.’ –
Wilson
‘Seneca clearly saw Stoicism not as an abstract intellectual interest but as a practical guide
to the big decisions and small daily habits of his life’ – Wilson
, Seneca is ‘focused on practical, as opposed to theoretical, advantages of the Stoic way of
life’ – Wilson
‘ ’ – On Providence, 3.4.4
‘Just because Philosophy can’t cure everything, doesn’t mean it can’t cure anything’ – 94.24
‘His rhetoric aims to achieve a change in the reader’s individual psyche, not in the
institutions of government’ – Wilson
Stoicism’s view of the universe
‘The stoics believed that the whole world is governed by universal Reason or Fate or God or
Providence, also identified as Jupiter or Zeus, and associated with primordial Fire, which
guides all nature’ – Wilson ‘Any name for him is suitable. You can’t go wrong’ - Seneca
(Natural Questions)e
‘The cosmos has a cyclical pattern: at regular intervals everything is destroyed by fire
(ekpyrosis) and then remade again (palingenesis)’. – Wilson
‘one can be guaranteed a life of pure joy, if only one can attain the correct attitude toward
the universe’ – Wilson
‘Feelings that line up perfectly with reality, defined in stoic terms, are a positive good. For
example, the truly wise person will feel ‘joy’ (Graver) at her awareness of her own goodness’
- Wilson
Moderating desire
‘Physical moderation became absolutely central to his understanding of himself’ – Wilson
Physical pleasures are ‘like the auxiliaries and the light-armed troops in the camp: let them
be slaves, not masters’ – On the Happy Life 8.2
It is ‘easier to exclude dangerous things altogether, than to moderate them’ – , in On Anger
1.7.2
Physical and spiritual health both require ‘self-restraint, careful attention and time
management, and daily practice’ – Wilson. Like your essays!
Stoicism and autonomy
‘Both philosophical and rhetorical training allowed men who felt disempowered to hang on to
a sense of control and self-worth’ - Wilson
