Stoicism (Greek Στοά) was a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early 3rd century BC. The Stoics considered destructive emotions to be the result of errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not suffer such emotions.[1]
Stoics were concerned with the active relationship between cosmic determinism and human freedom, and the belief that it is virtuous to maintain a will (called prohairesis) that is in accord with nature. Because of this, the Stoics presented their philosophy as a way of life, and they thought that the best indication of an individual's philosophy was not what a person said but how he behaved.[2]
Basic tenets
| “ | Philosophy does not promise to secure anything external for man, otherwise it would be admitting something that lies beyond its proper subject-matter. For as the material of the carpenter is wood, and that of statuary bronze, so the subject-matter of the art of living is each person's own life. | ” |
—Epictetus[5] | ||
The Stoics provided a unified account of the world, consisting of formal logic, non-dualistic physics and naturalistic ethics. Of these, they emphasized ethics as the main focus of human knowledge, though their logical theories were to be of more interest for many later philosophers.
Stoicism teaches the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions; the philosophy holds that becoming a clear and unbiased thinker allows one to understand the universal reason (logos). A primary aspect of Stoicism involves improving the individual’s ethical and moral well-being: "Virtuewill which is in agreement with Nature."[6] This principle also applies to the realm of interpersonal relationships; "to be free from anger, envy, and jealousy,"[7] and to accept even slaves as "equals of other men, because all alike are sons of God."[8]
The Stoic ethic espouses a deterministic perspective; in regards to those who lack Stoic virtue, Cleanthes once opined that the wicked man is "like a dog tied to a cart, and compelled to go wherever it goes."[6] A Stoic of virtue, by contrast, would amend his will to suit the world and remain, in the words of Epictetus, "sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy,"[7] thus positing a "completely autonomous" individual will, and at the same time a universe that is "a rigidly deterministic single whole."
Stoicism became the foremost popular philosophy among the educated elite in the Hellenistic world and the Roman Empire,[9] to the point where, in the words of Gilbert Murray "nearly all the successors of Alexander[10] [...] professed themselves Stoics."
The Categories
The Stoics held that all being (ὄντα) -- though not all things (τινά) -- are corporeal. They accepted the distinction between concrete bodies and abstract ones, but rejected Aristotle's teaching that purely incorporeal being exists. Thus, they accepted Anaxagoras' idea (as did Aristotle) that if an object is hot, it is because some part of a universal heat body had entered the object. But, unlike Aristotle, they extended the idea to cover all accidents. Thus if an object is red, it would be because some part of a universal red body had entered the object.
They held that there were four Categories.
- substance (ὑποκείμενον)
- The primary matter, formless substance, (ousia) which makes up things.
- quality (ποιόν)
- The way in which matter is organized to form an individual object. In Stoic physics, a physical ingredient (pneuma: air or breath) which informs the matter.
- somehow disposed (πως ἔχον)
- Particular characteristics, not present within the object, such as size, shape, action, and posture.
- somehow disposed in relation to something (πρός τί πως ἔχον)
- Characteristics which are related to other phenomena, such as the position of an object within time and space relative to other objects.
Epistemology
The Stoics believed in the certainty that knowledge can be attained through the use of reason. Truth can be distinguished from fallacy; even if, in practice, only an approximation can be made. According to the Stoics, the senses are constantly receiving sensations: pulsations which pass from objects through the senses to the mind, where they leave behind an impression in the imagination (phantasia). (An impression arising from the mind was called a phantasma.)[15]
The mind has the ability to judge (sunkatathesis)—approve or reject—an impression, enabling it to distinguish a true representation of reality from one which is false. Some impressions can be assented to immediately, but others can only achieve varying degrees of hesitant approval which can be labeled belief or opinion (doxa). It is only through the use of reason that we can achieve clear comprehension and conviction (katalepsis). Certain and true knowledge (episteme), achievable by the Stoic sage, can be attained only by verifying the conviction with the expertise of one's peers and the collective judgment of humankind.
Make for yourself a definition or description of the thing which is presented to you, so as to see distinctly what kind of a thing it is in its substance, in its nudity, in its complete entirety, and tell yourself its proper name, and the names of the things of which it has been compounded, and into which it will be resolved. For nothing is so productive of elevation of mind as to be able to examine methodically and truly every object which is presented to you in life, and always to look at things so as to see at the same time what kind of universe this is, and what kind of use everything performs in it, and what value everything has with reference to the whole.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, iii. 11.
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