Category Archives: Philosophy

Arts, Literature, Philosophy, Poetry

The Stoic: ‘Steady’ or ‘Unsteady’

CLARITY

THIS article incorporates a poem dedicated by my friend Jan Smith from Liverpool. You will find the poem, entitled “Be Kind”, roughly at the mid-point of this entry. I thank Jan for allowing me to use and share her work on my site. She can be found on Twitter: @JanSmithNL

IF YOU WANT TO BE STEADY

“The essence of good is a certain kind of reasoned choice; just as the essence of evil is another kind. What about externals, then? They are only the raw material for our reasoned choice, which finds its own good or evil in working with them. How will it find the good? Not by marveling at the material! For if judgments about the material that are straight makes our choices good, but if those judgments are twisted, our choices turn bad.” – Epictetus, Discourses, 1.29.1–3

THE Stoics seek steadiness, stability, and tranquility – traits most of us aspire to but seem to experience only fleetingly. How do they accomplish this elusive goal? How does one embody eustatheia (the word Arrian once used to describe this teaching of Epictetus)?

Well, it’s not luck. It’s not by eliminating outside influences or running away to quiet and solitude. Instead, it’s about filtering the outside world through the straightener of our judgment. That’s what our reason can do – it can take the crooked, confusing, and overwhelming nature of external events and make them orderly.

However, if our judgments are crooked because we don’t apply reason, then everything that follows will be crooked, and we will lose our ability to steady ourselves in the chaos and rush of life. If you want to be steady, if you want clarity, proper judgment is the best way.

IF YOU WANT TO BE UNSTEADY

“For if a person shifts their caution to their own reasoned choices and the acts of those choices, they will at the same time gain the will to avoid, but if they shift their caution away from their own reasoned choices to things not under their control, seeking to avoid what is controlled by others, they will then be agitated, fearful, and unstable.” – Epictetus, Discourses, 2.1.12

THE image of the Zen philosopher is the monk up in the green, quiet hills, or in a beautiful temple on some rocky cliff. The Stoics are the antithesis of this idea. Instead, they are the man in the marketplace, the senator in the Forum, the brave wife waiting for her soldier to return from battle, the sculptor busy in her studio. Still, the Stoic is equally at peace.

Epictetus is reminding you that serenity and stability are results of your choices and judgment, not your environment. If you seek to avoid all disruptions to tranquility – other people, external events, stress – you will never be successful. Your problems will follow you wherever you run and hide. But if you seek to avoid the harmful and disruptive judgments that cause those problems, then you will be stable and steady whatever and wherever you happen to be.

Creative Writing

See also:

. The Stoic: The Power of a Mantra

. The Stoic: Be Ruthless To The Things That Don’t Matter

. The Stoic: Control & Choice

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Arts, Literature, Philosophy

The Stoic: The Power of a Mantra

CLARITY

“Erase the false impressions from your mind by constantly saying to yourself, I have it in my soul to keep out any evil, desire or any kind of disturbance – instead, seeing the true nature of things, I will give them their only due. Always remember this power that nature gave you.” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.29

ANYONE who has taken a yoga class or been exposed to Hindu or Buddhist thought has probably heard of the concept of a mantra. In Sanskrit, it means ‘sacred utterance’ – essentially a word, a phrase, a thought, even a sound – intended to provide clarity or spiritual guidance. A mantra can be especially helpful in the meditative process because it allows us to block out everything else while we focus.

It’s fitting, then, that Marcus Aurelius would suggest this Stoic mantra – a reminder or watch phrase to use when we feel false impressions, distractions, or the crush of everyday life upon us. It says, essentially, ‘I have the power within me to keep that out. I can see the truth.’

Change the wording as you like. That part is up to you. But have a mantra and use it to find the clarity you crave.

See also:

. The Stoic: Be Ruthless To The Things That Don’t Matter

. The Stoic: Control & Choice

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History, Philosophy

Philosophy: Rene Descartes

DESCARTES’ DISCOURSE

IN 1637 RENE Descartes published his discourse (Discours de la Methode). In this he established the principle that metaphysical demonstrations should be based on mathematical certainty, not on scholastic subtleties. Descartes argued that the proper way to reason is to doubt everything systematically until only the clear and simple ideas that are beyond doubt are left. Then you have arrived at the truth. This method of thinking became known as the ‘Cartesian’ method.

Descartes wanted to be able to doubt everything, but he vehemently affirmed his certainty in his own existence: I think, therefore I am. Whatever else the sceptic may doubt, he should not doubt his own existence. The saying entails believing that mind is more real than matter. This idea was not entirely new: St Augustine said something similar but did not give it the emphasis that Descartes did. He also adopted as a general rule that all things that we conceive very clearly and very distinctly are true.

Descartes’ view of the world was rigidly deterministic. Dead matter and living matter are equally governed by the laws of physics, so there is no need to follow Aristotle in thinking in terms of a soul, or some equivalent to a soul, to explain the growth of organisms. This got Descartes, a devout Christian, into some difficulties. If all organisms, people included, were simply following predetermined laws of physics, how could free will exist? The Bible taught him that people did have free will, and that making the wrong choice resulted in the exclusion from Eden. In the end, Descartes was unable to resolve a fundamental problem in his philosophical system, because he had one foot in the scholasticism of the middle ages and one foot in contemporary science. If he had been able to leave his religion behind, he could have achieved philosophical consistency, and planted both feet in the modern world. Descartes’ philosophy is all the more interesting because it stands on the division between two mindsets. It stands at a particular moment in human history, a particular threshold.

Descartes is generally regarded as the founder of modern philosophy. He was the first man of high philosophical capacity to be affected by the new physics and the new astronomy. He was bold in not accepting foundations that had been laid down by earlier philosophers; he tried to set out a complete philosophic edifice from scratch, something which had not really been attempted by anyone since Aristotle. He developed a simple, direct and clear literary style, one that could be understood by intelligent men of the world; he did not try for an obscure or jargon-ridden style that would impress without really communicating.

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