Ideas de Fuerza: About Stoicism

Stoicism is one of the most interesting European philosphies, having as prominent representatives Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca, but it is often poorly understood due to the fact that it has not, apparently, a specifically “technical” language concerning its doctrine. The consequence is that while the texts about Stoicism that we have today are quite easy to read and understand superficially even for the casual reader, a deep and authenic understanding of them is often ignored.

The essence of Stoicism consists in distinguish between what depends on us and what doesn’t depends on us:

Depend on us: -Desire or aversion (to something), -Impulse to action or to non-action, -Judgment (positive or negative) of our desires and aversions, impulses to action or to non-action. These things depends exclusively and totally on us, we have power over them, and they may correspond morally to good or evil wether they are compliant or non-compliant to Nature.

Doesn’t depend on us: things external to us, on which our will has no power or in need of fortune to be obtained: wealth, health, fame, work, family, poverty, disease, death, etc. All that doesn’t depends on us is neither a good nor an evil but something indifferent that must be accepted as it stands, in any way it will affect our lives: it should be seen as the work of Fate/Destiny. However, Stoicism doesn’t say that we should not care/give up about these things: we should only remember that they doesn’t depend on us and then act accordingly wathever happens in relation to them.

“Among the things that exist, some depend on us, the other doesn’t depend on us. Depend on us: value judgment, impusle to act, desire, aversion, and in one word, all that are properly our business. Doesn’t depend on us the body, our possessions, the opinions that others have of us, the public positions, and in one word all those that aren’t properly our business”.

-Epictetus

“Suppress therefore the aversion that you can feel for all the things that doesn’t depend on you and transfer it to the things that, among those who depend on us, are contrary to nature”.

-Epictetus

“Equability in the face of events that come from external causes, justice in the works generated by a cause that comes from you; impulse and action only in view of a common good: this is for man to act according to nature”.

-Marcus Aurelius

“I am a mixture of body and soul: for the body the sensible things are neither good nor bad, because matter has no power to grasp the difference; for the mind, instead, are indifferent the activities not falling within its sphere of action, while those that depend on it are all under its dominion. Even these, however, affect the mind only in relation to the present, because those relating to the future and to the past are, in that moment, indifferent for it”.

-Marcus Aurelius

According to Stoicism you have to dislike exclusively what depends on us but it isn’t compliant to Nature (it is not virtuous, moral, honorable…). To distinguish the things that depends on us from those that doesn’t depends on us we have to look at every thing or event for what it really is, removing the represenations of the mind, the instinctive judgments that these things projected upon us: “The stormy sea upsets my mind. It is the stormy sea that upsets me? No, it is my judgment on it. It is not something that depends on me, therefore it is neither a good nor an evil. The stormy sea is only the stormy sea”.

Judgments in relation to things that doesn’t depend on us are hard if not impossible to remove immediatly but yes, we can remove them after asking ourselves if what we are judging depends on us or not and if our judgment in relation to that particular thing is nothing else than a representation of the mind: at this point we can see that particular thing for what it really is. Therein lies Stoicism, in seeing things for what they really are, without representations of the mind.

“Therefore train yourself to immediately add to every painful representation: <<you are only a representation, you are not at all what you represent>>. Then examines this representation and put it to test with the help of the rules at your disposal, in first place and above all of this rule: we have to count it among the things that depend on us or among those that doesn’t depend on us? And if it is part of the things that doesn’t depend on us, keep in mind that it does not concern you”.

-Epictetus

“What disturbs men are not things, but the judges that they formulate on things. For example, death has nothing terrible, otherwise it would have seemed like that also to Socrates. But it’s the judgment we formulate about death, namely that it is terrible, to be fearsome in death. Therefore, when we encounter difficulties or are troubled or sad, we should not impute liability to another, but to ourselves, that is to our judgments: it is indicative of who has not yet been educated to impute to others the liability of his evils; it is indicative of who is at the beginning of his own education to impute liability to himself; it is indicative of who has completed his own education to not impute liability nor to others nor to himself”.

-Epictetus

“Look at things as they are, in themselves, distinguishing matter, cause and purpose”.

-Marcus Aurelius

“Therefore don’t go beyond what you see and don’t add anything personal to the immediate impressions you receive from things or facts, and nothing bad will come thee”.

-Marcus Aurelius

“Many are the superfluous and annoying things that you can eliminate, because they exist only in the opinion that you create about them”.

-Marcus Aurelius

“Throws away the opinion, and you will be safe! Who prevents you to get rid of it?”.

-Marcus Aurelius

Whereby, what disturbs men are not the things/events but the judges that they formulate on these things/events. The proof of this is the fact that not all men would express the same opinion about the things that doesn’t depend on us. Not all men would be disturbed by the stormy sea. Not all men would be disturbed by poverty. Not all men would be happy about their wealth. Not all men would be happy about their fame. Not all men would be disturbed by their disease. Not all men would be disturbed by the premature and accidental death of their son/daughter/wife. Not all men would be disturbed by their death (so the ancient European warrior has a stoic attitude towards death), etc.

It means that the things/events can’t be the real cause of our reactions, which must be found inside us: our response to them depends on the individual structure of our minds, although it may seem that it’s the thing/event itself to determine our positive or negative reaction towards it.

These examples and all the other countless things/events that doesn’t depend on us should be considered by the stoic man, as it was intended to be, neither a good nor an evil but indifferently, if these happen to him: what is not under our control should be seen as something that is not under our control.

On the other hand, concerning the things that depend on us, there is no man that would do something that depends on him but that is not compliant to nature (or better, I say, to the particular nature of its race…) without having the same awareness of having done something bad/wrong, whether he likes it or not. If you think about it, it’s indeed impossible for that to happen.

A man must judge the situation he faces and act accordingly using his skills, he must survive doing all that is in his power (this depends on him), but this doesn’t mean that he should blame something that doesn’t depend on him or project personal opinions on a certain thing in relation to his situation: e.g. he shouldn’t judge the stormy sea differently only because HE is on a ship in the middle of it, the stormy sea doesn’t change in relation to that…it doesn’t become good or bad in relation to it’s role in a man’s vicissitudes. The stormy sea doesn’t depend on us and it always and exclusively remains only a stormy sea, both for the pilot and the observer who doesn’t risk anything.

If you keep in mind these stoic’s precepts you’ll find new meanings, depth, rigidity and awareness of this in the texts of the philosophers cited above. Stoicism as it was intended to be was much more challenging, demanding and even extreme than it is commonly perceived, remaining in any case among the most important and suited classical philosophies for the European man, possibly in an “attenuated” form in relation to a certain type of events!